Waezi2′s thoughts on “Beast Complex” chapter 9.
This chapter of Beast Complex is a bit different. It’s not the story about two very different animals.
Its about two very different aspects of the SAME animals, hence the title “The Shiba Inu and the Shiba Inu”.
Mugi is the model for calendars that sells like hot cakes.
Oh, and BTW... Mugi is a guy. And he is forty.
He is not transgender or anything. He just so happens to be a shiba inu dog, one of the cutest creatures on planet Earth. In fact, shiba inus are considered to have the cutest faces alongside the polar bears and otters. But this bread of dogs are also hot tempered... but the cute dogs do their best to hide that since it is not socially acceptable for these cuties to be angry.
And Mugi makes it his job to be cute, even if he sort of resents himself for being a gravure idol.
In case you don’t know: a gravure idol is a female model who primarily models for men's magazines and such. These “idols” do poses or activities intended to be provocative or suggestive but with an air of playfulness and innocence rather than aggressive sexuality. Because some people are into that.
While Mugi goes shopping, he encounter a fellow Shiba Inu who gives him an over the top cute smile as she hands him his groceries. Mugi thinks about how most of his kind do their best to be what society expect of them and how he is being a fraud. Not so much because he pretends to be female for a living, but because he doesn’t FEEL cute. He is a grown male, he drinks too much and smokes and he is pretty moody.
He started as a model when he was 27 and he feels faker and faker for each year that passes where he as a model basically says that shiba inus SHOULD be cute, that it is their defining quality.
He finally reaches a bridge he doesn’t wanna cross when his manager who is a cat tells him to consider getting plastic surgery to “fix” his face. That and that Mugi needs to get rid of his beer belly. Mugi jokingly says that it is hypocritical of his manager to tell him to lose weight when he is downright fat.
Being confronted with the fact that the world doesn’t give a shit about Mugi not feeling like being cute kinda breaks the dog as he decides to be cute in his free time as well, once and for all dealing with it being his fate to be everyone’s cute stuff toy.
But as Mugi walks around while being in cute mode because he has given up on just being himself, he gets recognized by two tigers who buys the calendars he models for.
And these two ass hats are in his face about it, complaining about Mugi being an “old fart” and a “fraud”. As if Mugi owes them something and not respecting the dog’s privacy at all.
That’s right, Mugi punches a tiger, an animal that is several times bigger than him. Like a true shiba inu, he is a little dog with a hot temper who is not afraid of picking a fight with someone bigger than himself.
The tiger is not hurt, just confused. And so are all the other animals who watched what happened and can recognize the famous model. And they stare completely stunned while Mugi looks anything but cute and yells:
Mugi is right. He has never asked anyone to love him. Who he is and what he does in his free time is no one’s business. Or it shouldn’t be in a fair world.
But the world of “Beast Complex” is NOT a fair world. And Mugi's incident is known the next day in a ton of magazines. Mugi has been framed as a drunk bozo, his cute public face is ruined and it looks like his career as a model is over.
... But his manager sees an opportunity. A way to turn the shitload of lemons he just got into lemonade. Since the cat(or in this case the shiba inu) is out of the bag, why not make it Mugi’s new identity? The cute dog who is not afraid of being rash and hot tempered?
Mugi is asked to consider it. He at first thinks it is a dumb idea since no one is interested in a cute dog acting uncute.
... But then he meets the retail cashier from the other day. the one who made him bitter about shiba inus being a bunch of fakes. But she is not smiling, she just looks at him normally. She is not trying to be extra cute. But she does smile when she recognizes Mugi since she read the article about him being a drunk loser. She smiles genuinely because a shiba inu punched a tiger and was a badass, the sort of dog she wanna be instead of a cutie pie.
Mugi then gets an enlarged version of the “embarrassing” photo of him yelling in public and hangs it over the calendar with him pretending to be a teen girl. the symbolism needs not to be explained here:)
I said it before and I will say it again: The world of Beastars/Beast Complex is not our world. It is an animal world with animal issues. You could compare Mugi’s situation with a human one in some sense, but his issue is basically that he is born “cute”. It could be seen as a perk since it got him a well paid job as a model, but it is also a crutch since he has to compromise to get the perks of being cute, like pretending to be a girl and even being told that he should consider getting plastic surgeries. And even if other shiba inus are not in the exact same situation as him, they still live in a world where they are cute little dogs who feels like they HAVE to be cute.
But someone has to step up. Someone has to break the cycle. And that someone was a 40 year old drunk bozo who finally said stop to the rest of the world’s BS :)
