I'm currently working at a very small junior high school, I'll be here for a month. I was here for a month last year at around the same time so I'm reconnecting with a bunch of students, some of whom barely remember me. One of the tiniest first year students who had seemed especially attached to me last year, though, is now a tiny second year student who definitely remembers me. She was a little sulky this year because she thought I'd forgotten her name but when I called her by name she immediately perked up and wanted to open a salvo of all her small store of English. I asked her to recommend an anime series to me. First she said, "Kimetsu no Yaiba."
"Everyone knows Kimetsu no Yaiba," I said. "What is something only you like?"
Her friends were gathered round as she thought and thought and they giggled when she finally said, "Jujutsu Kaisen."
"Everyone knows Jujutsu Kaisen!" I said.
Finally, she recommended Beastars, which I'd never heard of. I was happy to find the whole thing on Netflix when I went home.
I've seen the first two episodes now and it's not bad, pretty interesting, even. I'm not a fan of the furry aesthetic but this show doesn't have the super-ironic, anti-sexual, cloying furry humour. It imagines an alternate reality populated by strange animal/human hybrids. There's a social divide between herbivores and carnivores and eating meat is a big taboo. The show is set on a college campus where, at lunch time, the carnivores are forced to enjoy soy burgers.
The interesting thing is how assumptions of predatory instincts underlie all social interaction. The concept is a little similar to Zootopia but with a darker, distinctly Japanese edge.
The main characters are a wolf named Legoshi and a rabbit named Hal. Legoshi is in the drama club where a self-possessed, widely admired stag is at the top of the social food chain, regardless of where evolution may have placed him on the actual food chain. Legoshi is mostly pretty laid back, though he conceals anxieties about his own predatory instincts. When he starts to earn the stag's respect, he finds this respect makes him naturally want to work harder for the stag. This adds to anxiety over his suspicion that he may be a murderer, having found a desire to consume flesh occasionally overrides his conscious mind.
Hal, meanwhile, is ostracised because she's a slut. This is revealed in episode two and I laughed because, I thought, of course. She's a rabbit. But it makes for an interesting juxtaposition when Legoshi is shocked out of his anxiety over wanting to eat her to find she wants to eat him. So to speak.
It's very surprising in a Japanese series. Virginity is considered a virtue here for boys and girls. Girls proudly carry cherry charms on their school bags and boys brag about how they haven't had sex. Any time a character is portrayed as promiscuous in an anime, it's usually an older, often villainous, character, or the anime is out of the ordinary. So this one seems to be.
The animation is an interesting mix of cgi and 2d animation that hasn't gotten old yet but I suppose it might. The opening theme is some nice stop motion animation. The only thing that bugs me so far is that Legoshi wears suspenders and a belt--and his suspenders don't cross or connect in the back.
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Twitter Sonnet #1484
The yellow grass was hair from golden vaults.
The healthy drink produced a kind of bread.
We gathered late to drink a set of malts.
We cluster early honours fit for lead.
The slower light was waiting back behind.
For reasons lost the circuits took the chick.
You crank the pad to make the tape rewind.
Reversing streams creates a haunted brick.
At table five, the napkin carries weight.
A something schmutz defaced the bent lapel.
A mouth exceeds the mask it quickly ate.
Behold the bill and eyes of M. De Spell.
The lawless meat reflects a hungry moon.
A rabid dream permits a tasty boon.
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