The lights in the theater breathe back to life and the mobs of slobbering children begin to surge out of their seats, spilling into the exit lanes with reckless abandon. Still sitting betwixt the undulating streams of moviegoers, you stare vacantly at Zootopia's credits as they crawl up the screen, paralyzed in a state of sheer misery. With Kesha's abominable music roaring through the now-empty theater, you slump down into your seat, crushed under the weight of your own dejection. Alone amid the maelstrom of scattered popcorn and nondescript viscera, you wonder if you should just end it all right here and now. In truth, the only thing keeping you going is the confidence that you'll never have to experience a dog-shit 'animal society' story like this ever again.

Or so you thought...

Enter Beastars, the decrepit anime version of Zootopia that only the most depraved of weeaboos and furries asked for. Mathematically sharing the exact same amount of spunky bunnies, corrupt Lion Mayors, and lazy social metaphors, Beastars is quite possibly the feeblest and most derivative narrative of 2019, relying almost completely on a veneer of animal allegory to tell what would otherwise be a repugnant and unwatchable story. So thorough is my discontentment for this show that it took me months to find words adequate for summarizing its long list of affronts. I've been a writer since, arguably, before I was born, and yet my affinity did nothing to protect me from the proverbial writer's block constricting all who describe the incorrigible.

It was only at the nadir of my journey, where selling my Tesla stock and diving headfirst into a wood-chipper seemed preferable to thinking about Beastars for one more second, that I had my epiphany. Hastily, I gathered my notebook and limited edition Gryffindor quill, intent on doing the unthinkable: I rented Zootopia and watched it again, knowing that the only way to indict Beastars was to indict its inspiration. I began taking notes in earnest, and like the rising dread one feels before vomiting, my thoughts on Beastars slowly bubbled to the surface during Zootopia's 1hr 50m run-time, ascribable at last. What follows could have easily been my final testament.

When constructing an alternate reality as a direct analog to the real world, a writer must project an acute understanding of their setting's chronology, and respectfully articulate where and how it diverges from real-world history. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're writing a story set in a modern time where humans never domesticated animals, and the combustion engine was never invented. It only stands to reason that nearly everything about your setting will be starkly different. History plays out in a completely alien manner; markets and economies, should they even exist anymore (god let's hope they do), will function in an entirely different paradigm. If you're willing to put the thought and effort in, this hypothetical premise might produce an interesting and dynamic universe. Done lazily, and it might come to resemble a grotesque facsimile of the Flintstones, where the world miraculously looks and functions the same as usual except vehicles are driven solely by using your two legs. “What about airplanes”, you ask? Go fuck yourself.

This necessary component of world-building is what's missing in the hollow core of Zootopia and its lesser cousin Beastars. In both cases we're presented with a world that is virtually indistinguishable from the one we live in, despite being shared by thousands of sapient species for all of history – each with their own instincts, physiology, and dietary needs. Indeed, Beastars rejects its diegetic responsibility to build its own history and setting, instead opting to supplant human beings with anthropomorphic animals and have them prattle about in a near 1-1 replica of the real world. The instant you have the gall to ponder how and why everything looks the same, you begin asking very uncomfortable questions, such as how WWII played out in the Beastars universe, or how the economy doesn't buckle trying to provide for the litany of different species operating in it, or if there's also generic high schools full of dolphins, sharks, and jellyfish doing equally uninteresting things under the sea.

Delve too deep into the flimflam and your questions become even more existential. For example, you might start to wonder why a wolf is shacked up with a dumbass Labrador Retriever character, despite there being no humans to domesticate wolves into dogs. The rabbit hole goes on for an eternity from here, and regrettably, I can not bring you back from the dull void you must now embark on. Beastars doesn't expect you to ponder these questions, and it doesn't leave a smidgen of satisfaction for those who do. Whereas Zootopia did the bare minimum by depicting the wildly creative architecture required to house a variety of differently-sized animals in one city, Beastars offers up little more than the occasional sight of a mouse-sized door or chair. It's for this reason that we can consider Beastars the apogee of shitty world-building. Instead of capitalizing on its infinite potential and telling a story in a rich alternate reality, it plants us in the same high school we've seen in millions of different (and usually better) anime series.

Beastars doesn't take risks and foreshadow an aquatic invasion spurred by encroaching sea levels, or depict a world reeling from the grip of Marsupial Fascism. Instead, it drags us through a deranged story about a troubled loner struggling with his simultaneous desires to eat and fuck his bunny friend, which I don't find particularly relatable or compelling. And that brings me to the denouement of my theory - the very heart of why I hate Beastars with every fiber of my being: The characters are only animals because the relationship between the two leads would be beyond disturbing otherwise, and Beastars likely wouldn't have been published, let alone adapted, if they were humans. And maybe that would be for the best, because Beastars is truly the lowest on the food-chain of stories.

I can't say that I was invested in a single plot point the show offers up during its school drama spiel, and when the Lion Mafia is suddenly introduced into the story to add tension, I was somehow even less interested. If this show accomplishes anything from a narrative standpoint, then I wasn't able to see it because I was too distracted by its nonsensical setting. I sincerely believe that this show is only liked by people who want to have intercourse with the wolf or the tiny rabbit character; or at least I certainly hope that's the reason, because I can't comprehend enjoying Beastars on any other merit.

I've been burned by awful animal stories too many times, and quite frankly, I'm at my limit. I went through it with Zootopia, I went through it with Beastars, I went through it with the original Dr. Dolittle. And now, just in case I wasn't already sufficiently miserable, Satan himself has risen from the depths to shit out even more garbage in the form of Brand New Animal, which I'm urged to watch every day via the emails you relentless goblins spew at me. In the deepest shuttering of my conscious, I picture the boardroom where yet another no-talent hack is currently negotiating an anime adaptation of The Office where all the characters are talking animals. Oh wait, it already exists and it's called Aggretsuko.

I'm tired. My friends see it on my face every day. Beastars has taken from me, and I expect I'll resent its infectious memory until the day death comes to relieve me. I'm done.
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