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.
