BEASTARS Season 2

-This review will contain spoilers.

I was very excited about this show, and about the thousands of possibilities that existed outside the Cherryton school in the world of Beastars, yet at the end of the show all I felt was disappointment. Most of the conflicts that happen during this season focus on the mystery that was left up in the air about who murdered Tem.

This is fine and all, but the show spent a lot of time on things that didn't even seem to matter in the end, whereas it probably should have focused on other things that actually needed to be seen, like Legosi and Haru interacting, Ibuki and Louis bonding, and not speedrunning the entire final episode, which made the strongest episode of the season turn into the most underwhelming conclusion since the promised montage from TPN.

Most of the episodes felt like filler and were pretty boring to watch. It is not because there is no action. For me, Beastars has always shone the brightest when it just has characters talking to each other, or having an internal monologue. This probably had to do with the fact that the visuals back then were a huge part of why the scenes had emotion, and there were many cuts that were stunning to look at. All of that is missing in the majority of this season.

If I am being honest, the visuals for the opening and ending theme are probably what I expected this show to look like because you know, that is how the first season looked like. The stylish cuts and saturated colors of the opening, the fluid animation in the ending theme, all of that is what I think of when I hear Beastars, and it is a shame that this season looks like the budget version.

The CGI models and everything else doesn't look bad by any means, but the show is just not on the same level. I would have to go back to watching the first season to see if this happens as much there too, but the overuse of the split-screen when characters are talking or interacting any other way, is plenty annoying and it ends up feeling like they just do not want to go the extra mile to show a different angle.

Besides the comedy of the show being downright terrible (except for episode 11. Legosi in a dress will forever have a place in my brain), it introduces new characters only to then kill them off, or just erase them completely of the plot, and makes some of our previous prominent cast lose their relevance.

The snake that appeared back in episode 2 just disappears after like two appearances and is never mentioned afterward, Pina was more like a damsel in distress and didn't do much for the plot, the Leo group is less scary than my cat in heat, Ibuki dies a stupid death with zero emotion, Haru didn't really do much, we don't even see Legosi saying goodbye to his friends, or how they reacted to the news, etc.

Probably the biggest problem is Haru and Legosi's relationship. Even in season one, these two lacked chemistry, but this time it is just ridiculous to even see them as a couple, and it is not because they fought a few times.

I can't see what Legosi feels for Haru as love. It all still feels like he just wants to protect her cuz she is small, and he feels it is his duty as a carnivore to care for herbivores. Either that, or he just wants to bone her I guess. When the MC of a show has way more chemistry with his friend, you know the main couple is just bad.

Haru takes a backseat in this season and it is a shame because her character desperately needs more attention. Season one was not enough. The show does a lot of telling about how she is this noble rabbit and charming but never shows how, so I just rolled my eyes when Juno praised her back in episode 8. I like Juno as a character better than Haru, but even she was left in the backburner besides a few appearances here and there.

Ibuki and Louis's relationship felt useless, which probably was not the show's intention but it is what it is. These two never interacted too much and when they did it just felt like a boss and his secretary and/or bodyguard. None of the dialogue they ever have, nor the situations they get into, is enough for Ibuki's "sacrifice" to matter to me. If I had seen these two actually bond over time, maybe I would have cared, but it never really happened (I've heard the source material, aka the manga, does this better but hey this is a review for the anime).

As if it wasn't enough for Ibuki's death to feel pretty much meaningless, the one who ended up killing him was not even Louis, but a random lion from the group, who Ibuki had told some episodes ago to please kill him if he attempted to eat Louis. All of this was just incredibly convenient and well, when you have a whole ending theme dedicated to Ibuki and Louis, I expect this man to die a different way if at all.

If there is one thing that this season does better than its predecessor, is that we have a good antagonist this time. The lions back in season one were just antagonists because they ate meat and had kidnapped Haru, but this time we have Riz, who is the bear that ate Tem.

Riz is a good villain. He is a psychopath. He was able to ease his bloodlust after having beaten the shit out of Legosi, can go back and forth between his normal self and the facade of the friendly Yogi bear, showed almost no remorse from having devoured his so claimed best friend (he has self-inflicted wounds which would make me think he does regret it but his "regret" is just conveniently talked about in the final so I beg to differ), and it is very interesting how he hallucinated Tem accepting to be eaten, despite the reality being anything but. Clearly, he has issues and is just crazy. For all of these reasons, the conclusion of the fight between Legosi and Riz feels incredibly stupid.

Legosi caving in and eating Louis's leg, all of that was handled well and it definitely made an impact, but everything else just made me think, "I'm sorry but what in the hell is this?".

Everything was building up for Legosi and Riz to have a duel where one of them would end up dead, even if Legosi had said he really didn't want to punish him. What we got instead, was something similar to a talk jutsu.

All the great fighting choreography, the adrenaline from having eaten Louis's leg to gain strength, all for it to just end with Riz accepting that maybe he just wanted what Louis and Legosi had? well shit, that was underwhelming. It is even worse how after Legosi beats Riz, we don't even hear anything else out of his mouth. He just appears in one of the slideshow shots at the end and we can see he was jailed.

Plenty of other events that you would think matter, given what had previously happened, also just end and we change scenes as if nothing. Louis and Legosi talked a bit after the whole Riz fiasco was over, but then he just never appears after. Did Legosi go visit him at the hospital? beats me. The series ends with Legosi and Haru still having a "relationship" argument into the sunset, and many questions are left unanswered.

The ending felt rushed and incredibly hollow when you compare it to the ending of the first season. There are no expectations of where this can go, and I'm left wondering about stuff that probably won't ever be talked about. Did the rest of the Leo group try to follow Louis? who called the police? will the school go back to normal now that the devourer has been found? who knows.

TLDR; Beastars season 2 is not terrible but it is lackluster when compared to the predecessor. The beautiful visuals are nonexistent, the OST is still nice, the romance theme of the show takes a huge dip in the pacific ocean, and while it does have a few good moments here and there, they are in no way better than what we saw in season 1.

It all felt very much like a mediocre stage play at least until episode 6, and this is incredibly ironic when you remember that there was a whole episode centered around a school play back in season one, that was a masterpiece. I love Beastars, but this is not the Beastars I had fallen in love with.