Beastars, Volume 10

BEASTARS, Vol. 10 by Paru Itagaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The tenth volume of mangaka Paru Itagaki’s Beastars series opens with Louis the red deer and Haru the dwarf rabbit in a romantic situation, with Haru teasing how her lover would taste. The cervine’s reverie a member of the lion-populated criminal organization Shishi-gumi interrupts, with four months having passed since he became head of the group. Carnivore flesh now becomes a trend at the black market, with a crocodile willing to sacrifice part of his body for money, the carnivore/herbivore dynamic somewhat altered in the manga’s fictitious world. One of the Shishi-gumi, the lion Ibuki, is a friend to Louis, and fears he might be suicidal.

At Cherryton Academy, the anteater Kibi’s arm, torn off accidentally by Tao the panther, allows the feline to visit him, wanking to make amends. Riz the brown bear wants to visit as well, with the wolf Legoshi wishing to learn how to combat him with his fists. While in training with Gohin the giant panda, he orders the lupine to consume bugs alive, noting that his own species don’t consume live protein, most carnivores unaware of the taste of living meat growing up. Legoshi obeys to get a “taste of life,” and has a mental conversation with the moth incarnation of the brown larva he consumed, vowing never to eat live protein again.

After a fitful night’s sleep, Legoshi finds that his thickened fur has grown back quickly, attributing it to the larva he consumed. Still having earthly desires, he talks with Haru, with both mutually hugging, the wolf vowing to keep all animals safe and bring Louis back to Cherryton. Battle erupts between Riz and Legoshi, the latter recalling a Komodo dragon from his past that often intervened in interspecies conflicts. Back at his clinic, Gohin tells Legoshi about a vixen Tibetan sand fox whom he had treated for devourment and even dated for a while, afterwards letting her go and not turning her in to the police for her crime.

During school, Pina the ram chats with a fellow female ovine, noting his significant role in the forthcoming play and mistakenly calling her by the name of one of his previous girlfriends. Ibuki and Louis talk in a bar, with Legoshi visiting in disguise, telling him about Riz, with whom he will battle again on New Year’s Eve. After the main story is a biography of Ibuki, a brief scene of Louis’s adoptive father, the mangaka’s visual process in creating a volume of her magnum opus, and notes on each chapter. This volume of Beastars is much on par with its precursors, very much a good thing, although it has the same issues as its predecessors, namely the absence of any kind of omnivorism in the manga’s universe.

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