It is truly a sad day. We won't get anymore amazing intro and end sequences with Beastars. I am not biased when I say that the intros and outros to this anime were the best anime have seen. As far as I can tell, the animation budget was mostly used on those and the spare change was then used for the rest of the anime.
Nothing will ever top the stop motion doll into to the first intro that got half the internet and all of the furries hooked on this fandom... But the outro is a very decent second place.
Before I get into my extremely obsessive analysis, can I just say that "Tiny Light" by the band SEVENTEEN is just so fun and pretty? It has an upbeat and hopeful tone that is suiting for the finale of this series that is mostly about Legoshi keep getting bat break after bad break and finally gets a tiny break.
Anyway...
We start off with Legoshi being sent towards Haru's direction by his mother who then disappears. It is fitting as she is his mother. If his life is a journey then she is the one who started it for him... but unfortunately she did not much but that as her tragic suicide as well as self isolation because of her mutation meant that she was a very little part of his life, which is why she disappears right after Legoshi took two steps away from her.
She also hold a bunch of dandelions, but we will get to that later.
Haru and Legoshi are seen walking down stairs to reach each other, but the stairs are revealed to be escalators that starts moving the lovebirds up and away from each other. In the background, we see a construction side that becomes very relevant in what we see next.
Legoshi and Haru are balancing on steel beams that aren't even actually connected as we see the city(society) below. It symbolizes how the society they live in has been constructed so that it is not only NOT in favor of their romance, it makes it as difficult as possible, they have to balance and be careful not to trip as they try to reach each other.
And Legoshi did trip.
He is falling(in love :P Sorry, had to), falling and still falling, father and father away from Haru...
... And he lands in everyday adult life, no longer wearing his school uniform. The choices he made in school resulted in him dropping out and having to get a cheap apartment and a job.
We then get even MORE symbolism, served with meal methaphores.
We see Haru serving herself to him. That plate might as well have been made of silver! Fitting as Haru has done that since the first day they met, both as a casual sex partner, a lover and finally as a girlfriend. And Legoshi looks startled by her forwardness that is in contrast to her careful and overthinking nature that is a big factor in their relationship, often is a big factor in the LACK of their relationship.
We then see Legoshi trying to give Louis a bowl with fresh delicious-looking vegetables that the deer is refusing despite the wolf practically begging him to take it. Legoshi has often in the series tried to reach Louis as a friend and comrade as he holds him in high regard, much to Louis' annoyance.
Also, the lion who sits being Louis? Pretty sure he is wearing glasses, you know? :)
We then see Legoshi eating tomatoes with Rizz, the red fruit symbolizing blood. Rizz is ready to viciously devour the fruit(tomatoes are fruits, look it up) but Legoshi makes him calm down. Behind the two predators sits the herbivores they ate. Tem who Rizz ate because he was naïve enough to think his instincts were not that big a deal, which made him go down a destructive spiral. And Louis who Legoshi was given permission to eat, creating a bond between the wolf and deer. Tem is a burden that will always be on Rizz's back while Legoshi will carry both guilt but also spirit of Louis no matter where he is.
Legoshi with his first two adult friends in the "real" world. There is no food on the table as they expect nothing from him, they just enjoy his company and Legoshi feels relaxed in their company. And we see Sebun drinking a beer, showing how relaxed she is compared to how tense she is compared to when she is with other animals who belittles her.
We then see Yafya pushing his plate with a melon to Legoshi, making his problem into Legoshi's problem. And we see a very angry Legoshi shouting at the old horse and removing himself from him as he has no wish of being a part of the Sublime Beastar's world of violence and control. He walks away from Yafya and his plate with melon on it...
... Only to be lead into danger by Melon who, like he did in the manga and anime, plays the wolf into going towards obvious danger, like when he tricked him into the ambush that nearly turned the young wolf into shark food.
We see a bunch of fingers pointing towards directions for Legoshi to go towards. Right next to the wolf hand with stylish nails(his mom) is a big lizard one. Yes, his mom is there at the start line, but it is Gosha's hand that Legoshi leaps from because he is the most important (arguably only) parental figure in his life. He gave the wolf so much love that became the foundation of his life.
Legoshi runs after being given directions by Gosha, like when his mother gave him directions. But unlike his mom, Gosha is still there, waving and looking happy as he watch his grandson walks towards a light that represents a bright future. A ship is behind Gosha as he came from a faraway country. And like his daughter, Gosha is also holding a bouquet of dandelions.
Let's talk about the flowers.
... But at this point of the blog, I'm taking a break because I haven't written this much in months and need a break because HOLY SHIT.
...
Okay, I'm good. Just ate an apple.
So, dandelions.
Part of the song "Tiny Light" goes like:
"Your smile’s a gentle shower
Heart blooms into a flower"
So the dandelions we see represents hearts.
And dandelions are famous for spreading everywhere, like the love we share with others, including friends, family, lovers, even acquaintances.
Leano, Legoshi's mom, holds all of her dandelions. It could represents how she withdrew out of fear and too scared to share her love, even sharing it with her son. She killed herself at a relatively young age and her dandelions faded away with her.
Gosha also have a lot of dandelions. Maybe because most of the ones he shared his love with are gone, including his wife, daughter and who knows how many friends and family in his old country.
We see Legoshi running past a lot of people in his life, all of them holding a flower, maybe because Legoshi shared his heart with them in one way or another.
Tem is holding Rizz's hand. They are both holding dandelions because despite the violent... incident, they were friends. And Tem will always be a part of Rizz's life, for better or worse.
Legoshi finally takes a break from running as he reaches Louis, his most trusted friend and ally, who gives him one more direction to run towards, even smiling at him.
And finally, FINALLY(!!!), Legoshi reaches Haru who holds her dandelion, her heart, that she wants to share with the wolf.
In the background is a bright bathed in bright light, representing the tow of them being connected despite a (metaphorical) ocean between them.
Also, I love the felt-like animation, did I mention that?
DAMN, so much love and detail goes into the making of these intros and outros. Sure, the intro for this final part of season 3 is nice too, but this outro is a god damn masterpiece!!!
... And now I'm going to bed XD This blog got to be much longer than expected. I don't even think I covered everything.
I just think people are a little too dismissive of how important Tem is to the story of beastars but more importantly than that I think people are too dismissive of how important Tem's friendship probably was to Legoshi.
Because like yeah, Tem kinda suffered from what Junpei Yoshino had going on in the manga, where he basically only existed for plot, and thus we didn't get enough scenes of his interacting with the protagonist for people to really care about him. But if you examine Tem for about 12 seconds, you kinda start to realize that Tem is the logical core of the relationship between Carnivores and Herbivores in a way that Louis and Haru just aren't, both because of Louis's history with carnivores, and because Haru's relationship with Legoshi is a romantic, love at first sight type, which tends to cause some problems. Riz and Tem are a tragedy waiting to happen but Legoshi and Tem's friendship, on the other hand, was nearly perfect, and I'd probably argue that of the two, Tem was closer friends with Legoshi, mostly because he's not scared of Legoshi at all. Startled by him at times, but for the most part, every scene we see of them, they're just friends being dudes.
And yeah Legoshi doesn't acknowledge Tem much in canon but he fought a bear, hunted down a murderer, and betrayed his principles on eating meat to avenge Tem. Yeah Legoshi never breaks down crying over Tem but he also let Legoshi touch his wool. Sure Legoshi has Haru and Louis and Jack but I think Tem is so much more important than people think about because he was Legoshi's Herbivore Friend before Louis or Haru or San or Kyuu or any of them.
Do I have too much stock in this relationship? Yes absolutely. Do I think more people should have as much stock as me in this relationship? Yes absolutely.
A Love Letter To The Very First Panel In The Series
I mean, just look at it. It may be my bias for adoring art that expresses the emotional impact of a scene rather than the cut and clear of exactly what happened, but these four panels convey SO much feeling damnit.
The first three panels are such an expressive progression, we get zero dialog, and yet the anxious experience is fully conveyed to us.
Obviously, when seeing this for the first time, we have no context. We don't know who Tem is or who he's with, or what kind of conversation they're having. But we can feel his reluctance.
Coming back to the first manga after finishing the series, or at least finishing Tem and Riz's story arc, we have significantly more context to this scene.
Personally, I imagine Tem was nervous when Riz invited him to meet at night, that he was afraid of what Riz might've meant when he told him he wanted to show his true self. But he trusted Riz as a friend much more than he feared him as a carnivore. So he met him anyway.
I feel in these three panels, we see it shift, as Riz's unmedicated strength and strange behavior changes Tem's view of him. Suddenly he isn't with a trusted friend, but a predator, whose presence makes him uncomfortable. He attempts to reject and excuse himself from the situation, and immediately his fears are validated.
The fourth panel is incredible.
On the first read, it rings as an ominous display of violence against herbivores, it sets the tone of the series literally on the very first page.
The silhouette also looks much more canine-like than bear-like, which suits how the reader is initially given the impression that Legoshi was the attacker before his scene with Ells proves otherwise. It gives us a chance to fear and assume, putting us in the herbivore's shoes, before Legoshi takes over as our carnivore protagonist.
With later context, I feel the canine-like silhouette represents how, to herbivores and in general, violence looks the same no matter who the person is that's committing it.
We of course don't see Riz in the first three panels either, but in the fourth he isn't just off screen, he has devolved into a lunging grey mass of maw and claw. Tem vanishes, too, the two of them blending together. No longer personified, they are nothing but their instinct.
I’m also not infantilizing him. i see that often when people do like him, i love him because of his character.
If he had the choice, he would’ve never devoured tem yall.
he had one person to feel even slightly himself around. one person. tem. during his fight with legoshi it’s implied he was literally in love with tem 🙁
THE DELUSION IS KILLING MEE ☹️☹️☹️ what do yiu MEAAN you were hugging him and holding him and being one with him and suddenly you open your eyes and the one person you felt loved you was dead and the blood was on YOUR hands.
THE SCARS FROM HIS SELF HARM??? TEARS. TEARS EVERYWHERE.
killing tem was an accident based off of instinct and i’m so sad for them both. like tem had his whole life ahead of him and riz wanted to spend his life seemingly with tem, but he ended both of those possibilities.
riz defending himself initially after he was found out WAS evil and mean of him but he was so entirely sure that legoshi felt the same way - he was likely sure that legoshi and pina were wrong about him.
when louis lets legoshi eat his leg riz realizes that HE’S the one in the wrong. that there is genuine connection and love, that if he could’ve fought his instincts he could’ve kept tem close to him without hurting him.
i need a 100k word essay on riz’s character analysis because i’m like 65% sure im projecting somehow but i really love his character !!
once riz realizes that he actually needs to atone for what he’s done he completely gives up. this. is kiling me. how is he one of the biggest antagonists (the whole show basically starts over him eating tem) and he isn’t even that evil.,
riz i heart u dont let the haters get u down ..
* also note i never read the manga past where the show ended rn ! i think riz comes back? or is mentioned again i think - anyway love him
Since the year is over, I decided to post some artwork that I finished and liked! Only four pieces, because it's been a few years since I felt so comfortable drawing this much, especially because of my phone... I might post more drawings here this year, but it won't be very often. (Before anyone attacks me, the drawing of Kevin was made before the controversy involving his creator, btw.)
