Bestiale: the show after Wakfu.
On June 14th, 2023, Animation Digital Network (ADN) released a teaser trailer for the upcoming series, Bestiale, following Wakfu.
Unlike Wakfu, the production of Bestiale has been entrusted to the Japanese team "Studio No Border" instead of the French team.
Here is the synopsis of Bestiale:
Yrehn, a brave and impulsive young Osamodas, protects a sanctuary for animals on Coqueline's island. One fateful day, the Elante, a mythical creature under her care, is abducted by the ruthless Gang of Viandards, a band of dangerous criminals. With the assistance of her new companion Tim, the young woman will confront formidable enemies determined to stop at nothing to accomplish their goals.
Based on the summary alone, we can quickly infer the content of the scenes revealed in the teaser.
In the first scene, Yrehn is shown eavesdropping on a pirate captain as he negotiates with a sram who may be the Gang of Viandards' head chef. The pirate captain appears to be striking a deal with the sram: if he and his crew can capture the Elante, he will receive a good bag of gold as a reward.
In the second scene, we see Yrehn meeting a new character who is supposedly the soon-to-be friend named Tim. He seems to have met her in a restaurant or tavern at best in this shot.
In the third scene, Yrehn is seen tending to the Elante on Coqueline’s island. This Elante, which was previously featured in Season 4, has now reached full maturity.
The Elante has been left unattended without Yrehn (and Coqueline) for some unknown reason and has been pursued by the gang's sram chef.
Luckily, Yrehn arrives on time and immediately starts fighting with the sram.
In the aftermath of a violent confrontation, Yrehn manages to rescue Elante and delivers the amputated hand of the sram chef to the pirate captain who had previously attempted to negotiate with the chef.
(We can tell Yrehn killed the sram chef because we can see that he wears the same skull ring and bracelet on the same right hand)
Here we see Yrehn walking around in town with her familiar, either looking for the whereabouts of the Gang of Viandards or if she’s looking for the Elante.
(This shot doesn’t indicate at what time in Bestiale this takes place or if that’s when she already beat the sram)
And that’s all we’ve got since then.
In addition to the synopsis and the teaser trailer, we got some character sheets of Yrehn made by Xam on twitter as well as an animation exercice.
Here is the Bestiale cover!
Based on the cover alone, there are characters we can already easily identify.
At the top of the cover, right above Yrehn, we can see the pirate captain and the sram chef, followed by a malicious iop who looks like he might also be after the Elante.
At the bottom of the cover, we see some animals and beasts and….ADAMAÏ?!??
Right behind Yrehn, we can see Adamaï in his full dragon form, with no clear explanation for his presence. It is possible that Adamaï may have encountered Yrehn during her quest to find the Elante, as suggested by the Bestiale synopsis. Alternatively, he may appear after Yrehn reclaims the Elante, indicating that Bestiale's plot extends beyond Yrehn’s initial mission. It's important to note that a synopsis usually gives a general overview of the plot and may not contain or present all the elements of the story.
The appearance of Adamaï in Bestiale offers some intriguing insights. Despite the catastrophic event of the big wave, Adamaï is still alive. He appears to be alone, as he is the only easily identifiable character on the cover, and there is no sign of Yugo. Additionally, Adamaï seems older, placing him in a different era. This is indicated by his full dragon form and the sort of hairy bush on his draconic chin, which is the first form we see of him on the cover.
In addition to Adamaï's complete dragon form and Ankama's confirmation of Bestiale being set in the new era, it is obvious enough to know that the series takes place in the Waven era due to the younger and smaller appearance of the last Elante we saw in Wakfu's season 4.
While in Waven, it now looks like a majestic beast in its prime.
The wide difference in the beast’s height, horns, and colors seemed to indicate that a lot of years had passed after the great wave that had marked the beginning of Waven which would suggest that Bestiale happens not at the beginning of Waven, but rather in a time when the twelvians have accustomed to the huge change that happened to their world.
Besides everything that we’ve discussed about Bestiale however, I would like to mention something important about the main character: Yrehn.
All we know about her so far is that she’s a female osamodas with seemingly no family members and has been tasked with being the guardian of a shelter for animals on Coqueline’s island.
We don’t know where she came from, why she had been chosen to be the guardian of the island we had a glimpse of in Wakfu’s season 4, and we have no idea what kind of relationship she has with Coqueline that has resulted in her becoming the guardian instead of simply having the demigod osamodas fill that role herself.
There’s also a very good chance that Yrehn could have been a child at the beginning of the Waven era because of the Waven game cover.
When we look at one of the covers for the game, we can see a little osamodas child with other adventurers and warriors, along with Yugo.
But strangely enough, that little osamodas girl does not appear on the official Waven cover when you enter the game.
Whether the other cover where she was in was an older version of the one we have now leaves us to speculate.
In addition to that, there is also another little osamodas girl who might be Yrehn. And that other osamodas girl is… also another guardian of Coqueline’s island.
Seriously why are there so many osamodas guardians-
This unnamed osamodas girl appears in the 10th chapter of the Lance Dur webtoon.
Lance Dur and his crew (in their prime) were looking for the Elante to kill it so they could take its horns and skin in exchange for a good sum of kamas.
Cadence: “I’m so excited to see this beast! She must be so beautiful!”
Lance: “We’re not here to give her some hugs, we got told to to take its horns and skin.”
And surely enough, they found it when it was much younger (which would mean this event occurred earlier in the Wakfu era).
That’s when they meet the young osamodas girl who has been staying in Coqueline’s island. Granted, the little girl never introduced herself as the official guardian of the island but it is still rather odd that she is staying here on her own without any supervision.
Unnamed osamodas girl: “I present to you all her majesty the Elante!”
Unnamed osamodas girl: “Last of her kind!”
Some people have already made the correlation that this little girl is Yrehn before the Waven era but I would have to disagree for multiple reasons.
When we compare the little girl’s and Yrehn’s designs side by side, we see a lot of differences.
1- The little girl has yellow eyes while Yrehn has blue eyes.
2- The little girl only has one horn situated at the back of her head while Yrehn has two horns in front of her head.
3- The little girl has bangs covering her forehead while Yrehn has a clear head (although this third point can easily be proven inaccurate since hairstyles change over time).
(They both, however, have the same round blue cheeks and eyelashes, I’ll give them that.)
I also don’t believe that this could be the same osamodas because this little girl has been alive since prime Lance dur which must’ve been at a time when the Brotherhood of the Tofu members hadn’t even met yet.
I’d personally prefer to think that the little osamodas girl we’ve seen on the Waven cover is Yrehn for the reasons below.
1- They both have horns situated in front of their heads. The only visual difference here is the younger osamodas girl’s horns being much smaller since she’s far younger.
2- They both have blue eyes.
3- They both have identical strands between their face and don’t have any bangs covering their foreheads.
4- They both prefer to tie their hair high up.
5- They both hold staffs and use them as their main weapons.
All those similar designs lead me to believe that they are the same girl but the waven crew must’ve taken the little osamodas girl out of the waven cover to preserve her for Bestiale only. And unlike the other osamodas girl from the Lance Dur webtoon, this osamodas being a child at the beginning of the Waven era matches perfectly well with how the timeline is supposed to be in Bestiale. Since Yrehn looks to be in her late teens in an era where people have gotten used to the wave’s collateral damages, it would make sense that she’d be a kid when it all began.
However, there is also another possibility to consider: the design of the osamodas girl in the Waven cover must’ve simply been Yrehn’s concept art and the crew decided to use that osamodas to make her.
So in short, here are three possibilities as to which osamodas guardian used to be Yrehn as a child.
1- Yrehn is the osamodas girl from the Lance Dur webtoon.
2- Yrehn is the osamodas girl from the Waven game cover.
3- None of the above. The osamodas girl from the Waven game cover has been removed because her design had been used for Yrehn’s.
Either way, finding out if she was indeed one of those little girls isn’t important, I just wanted to point out the similarities they all shared as well as how many girls Coqueline had given the guardian job to.
Looking back on what we've got for Bestiale so far, it all seems promising.
We do not have a release date for the series so far but we do know that it’s in production at the moment. The news of Bestiale has been known since 2023 so there's a good chance we won’t be seeing it anytime soon.
It just looks like we’ll have to wait and see what kind of new information we’ll be getting in the next ADN upload.