(Firstly, thank you, Szordorl, for convincing me to give the manga a shot. Love you, buddy)
(Secondly, spoilers for season 1 of the anime.)
It’s…difficult to talk about addiction. About feeling like you’re not just one person, but two. You can try. I know I have and I’ll try again here. I mean where else, right? This is my itty-bitty corner of the internet, right? So…yeah. I’m an addict. I’ve got a voice in my head that comes and goes, who’s loudest whenever I’m alone. It’s not always whispers though. Think of it as if someone grabbed a radio playing your biggest fears, insecurities, regrets, broken hopes, and deepest desires. And they keep fucking with the knob. Dialing it back and forth randomly. One second the radio’s voice is a tiny hum. Tolerable. Ignorable. And you think today’s going to be okay-And then BOOM! The hum transforms into a typhoon of noise that just WON’T STOP until you get your fix and fly away, fly to a place where you can pretend for just a millisecond that it’s okay to be you/me.
But what does this have to do with Beastars?
A show about talking animals. A show where a wolf falls in love with a rabbit.
Well, I’m talking about this because Beastars is a manga/show about realizing you’re an addict.
The characters of Beastars are talking animals separated into two classifications: herbivores and carnivores. In this world, consuming any kind of meat is illegal, with the carnivores sustaining themselves off of unfertilized eggs and bean-based products. So in this world meat is treated as a stand in for drugs and carnivore/herbivore romance is tabooed because more often than not it can escalate to murder if the carnivore slips and eats their partner. Every single carnivore is a ticking time bomb. They just need that first spark to get their wick lit.
And oooooooh does Legosi get his wick lit.
Legosi is a teenage grey wolf attending high school. He’s part of the school’s prestigious drama club (just a stage hand, though, because he doesn’t have the confidence to be an actor). Despite his big, scary looks, he’s actually a shy, airheaded dork. The kind of guy who takes punches for the little guy and then loses a fight on purpose even though he knows he’ll probably win. He’s aware of how frightening he looks, especially to the herbivore students, so he just keeps his distance as best he can.
Up until one night when the scent of a young rabbit causes his latent predatory instincts to go on overdrive. He chases after her. Catches her. And comes a hair’s breadth away from devouring her.
Thanks to a well-timed distraction, the rabbit, Haru, manages to get away, leaving Legosi guilty, confused, and traumatized by his inability to stop himself from attacking another person. He tries to get his life back to normal, but (because this is an anime) life is determined to smash him and Haru together. She seemingly doesn’t recognize him as the predator who attacked her, even making a pass at him the first time they’re alone together. Turns out she has a reputation for being promiscuous that’s left her ostracized from the rest of the student body. Girls hate her, guys wanna take advantage. When Legosi turns her down, this surprises her and makes her desire for him to be her first true, male friend.
This sends Legosi spiraling. He wants to reciprocate and get to know Haru, but is it coming from a genuine desire for her friendship? Her love? Or is it because she’s the prey that got away?
Despite the outlandish premise (I mean, the common man isn’t going to be struggling with cannibalism…I hope), the story goes out of the way to keep it from getting black and white. Stressing that an altruistic motivation is likely walking hand in hand with an unhealthy one. This comes to a head when Legosi stops himself from eating a hobo’s finger (makes sense in context) and runs into a panda named Gouhin, who rehabilitates predators. This is where the comparisons between predators who have gotten a taste for meat and drug addicts are impossible to ignore.
The predators who can’t get their fix or are overwhelmed by self-hate resort to autocannibalism or self-mutilation. Real-world addicts struggle with self-hatred. The voice calls us pathetic for tethering your happiness to drugs, alcohol, porn, or meaningless sex and all we do is say, “I know” and do it anyway. And we’re trapped in a room with that voice because we’re too ashamed to talk to anyone.
Harsh truth: to beat your addiction you’ve gotta get you a panda.
No, but seriously, get help. And yeah, yeah, I know, trust me, easier said than done, right? Life isn’t an anime. We’re not gonna run into an aggressively helpful panda-doctor in our time of need. But talk to SOMEBODY. Get somebody else in the room (preferably a professional, but also a trusted friend or family) besides you and the voice. Maybe have them dress up as a panda. Who knows? It might help!
Meanwhile, in Beastars, Gouhin starts Legosi down the first steps to discern whether his feelings for Haru are truly romantic or predatory. If it’s the former, is it because she’s the first female to show interest in him? Can he be romantically attracted to a member of his own species, or does he have a thing for herbivores, specifically rabbits? Gouhin honestly thinks Legosi’s a weirdo but he’s trying to isolate the main problem before Legosi hurts himself and someone else. Now most addicts aren’t ever going to struggle with eating someone (I HOPE), but it’s very easy to hurt those who love us. The voice convinces us that we’re already at the bottom of the barrel, that we’re undeserving of love, and convinces us to self-destruct. That the work to maintain healthy relationships aren’t worth it and that all we need is our fix and the voice.
In Beastars, Legosi’s voice/predatory instincts are represented by a savage wolf. It threatens to take him over numerous times. How does Legosi beat it? He doesn’t. He uses it to save Haru from the local lion mafia. Looooong story. Afterwards, he and Haru talk and come to terms with the fact that, yeah, he’s a predator. He’s always going to be a predator. But that doesn’t have to define Legosi and, as long as both he and Haru establish boundaries and psychological procedures to keep Legosi from spiraling, the wolf and the rabbit can enjoy a genuine relationship.
You don’t beat addiction. It’s a lot like losing a loved one. You’ll always grieve their passing. Over time the grief will fade into the background of your mind, but it’s always there. You’ll always miss them. You don’t escape grief and you can’t escape addiction. You manage it, like Legosi learns to. And that’s what Beastars is about. It’s about realizing you’re an addict but that your life isn’t over. Admit that you have a problem, talk to someone (panda costume recommended), work out a battle plan to fall back on in the face of temptation, and tell that voice to fuck off ‘because it’s your turn to be in control of your own goddamn life.
By watching Beastars.
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