BEASTARS, Vol. 1

Great manga. I'm pretty new to this, and each time I open one i'm amazed by all the imagination required to write such stories. You get easily caught up in the plot, you want to know what happens. It's really interesting. Great read!

I love the idea of slice of life with animals! This is SUCH an enjoyable series. I’m going to pause on reading the series though because I’m going to watch the tv show and I’m excited!

Beastars is a hidden gem and I'm so glad it's receiving more attention! It's a murder mystery wrapped up in a slice of life romance and the art is absolutely gorgeous.

The focus of the story is on Legoshi, a gray wolf student, and his day-to-day life. At the beginning of volume 1, an alpaca student is murdered by a carnivore which throws suspicious onto Legoshi. However, our hero is anything but a viscious pack animal. He is a gentle giant, awkward and trying hard to stay out of the limelight. 

Volume 1 doesn't get much into Legoshi's love story, but he does make the acquaintance of rabbit named Haru that he eventually develops feelings for. His connection with her starts to force him out of his shell some. Volume 1 introduces all of the main characters and sets the story up, but things don't really ramp up until Volume 2 :)

Overall, this is a fantastic read and great start to an imaginative series. Itagaki's art is beautiful, detailed and expressive, bringing out the little details of this world.

This is a very interesting concept, a world where carnivores and herbivores co exist in a world populated by anthropomorphic animals.  The main character Legoshi does little to negate the assumption that wolves are dangerous, he's a big lanky guy with little to no social skills.  However over the course of the manga he shows himself to simply be a more awkward than average teenage boy.  

As this is only the first volume, we really only get a sense of the world and some details about the main character.  However the story seems to be going in a murder mystery vein, with an emphasis on the main character's psychology and internal turmoil brought about by his base hunter instincts.  

I've started watching the anime on Netflix, so have a much better idea where the manga will go in further volumes.  But I'm still interested in how the story will be told in comic form.  The art style is not your average manga style, it looks more like it's been drawn with watercolour or ink washes and the character designs are clean and expressive.  I'm looking forward to further volume of this!