what’s up goobers,
BEASTARS SEASON 3 SPOILER WARNING (but y’all will probably know most of this info by now, it’s only Part 1 spoilers)
I have a revelation about the word of Beastars, specifically Melon once again. As we know Scott Whyte has been Melon’s primary voice actor despite him being his second voice actor, his original voice actor role going to Darren Criss who has had to handle with a different project during the middle of recording Season 3 Part 1. I am currently rewatching the whole of Season 3 and I couldn’t help notice that Melon’s voice and his speaking dynamics sound different, and it wasn’t until I listened to a clip of the same scene on YouTube from around the time of Part 1’s release that I realised his character sounded completely different.
Essentially, Netflix made the executive decision to redub Melon’s character with Scott Whyte over Darren Criss’ voice acting, which understandably whilst he was temporary, he provided a great inspiration for what Whyte had to take on as portraying Melon in later episodes, and I think it’s kinda disappointing they sort of threw out that continuity issue even though I personally thought it was a nice mistake they left in. Netflix of course had to release Part 1 on time for its intended deadline, and so they had to put up with that harsh transition between Eps 9 and 10 (I’ll provide links of his two prominent scenes in those episodes, the balcony scene at the part in Ep 9 and the Shishigumi meeting scene in Ep 10, as well as a clip of the redub officially posted by Netflix for comparison of Criss and Whyte).
However this isn’t a diss on Scott Whyte or Netflix, I understand for continuity sake (and if Criss did basically jump ship in the middle of recording) that they would have to go back and fix it later for the production’s overall integrity, even though Beastars fans did find the transition between Criss and Whyte a bit difficult at first. At least we do have archived clips of Darren Criss’s original dub of Melon (prototype Melon?) and Scott Whyte does honestly bring his character home in Part 2 (as a performance!!! I know we are all still mad about his character, I get it). I’d like to think that Criss’ character Melon is the gazelle portrait we see on the wall in the psychiatric clinic of ‘LeMeron’ in Ep 6, a very underappreciated concept design for Melon (I’ll throw in a link for that clip too for context).
Anyway, peace to all you Melon heads 🍈
