Beastars is Tokyo Ghoul done right

The stop-motion opening song is great. Even if you can’t yet watch the whole series on Netflix, at least go watch that on Youtube.

Once-upon-a-time, I watched the anime Tokyo Ghoul on the recommendation of a gaggle of nerdy middle schoolers. I didn’t really like it. But, for my students, maybe I could enjoy their enjoyment of the show even if I regret lying to them that I did like it to win some “cool teacher points.” It was, at least, something to talk about.

Now though, with the conclusion of the fall 2019 anime Beastars, about a high school for anthropomorphized animals struggling through a conflict between herbivores and carnivores that results in the murder of an alpaca, I finally have something good to suggest to my students in Tokyo Ghoul‘s place — because Beastars does everything that Tokyo Ghoul tried to do, just better, from themes about discrimination and growing up to its general production quality (even despite Beastar’s sometimes awkward 3D animation).

First then, I suppose I should briefly re-explain my distaste for Tokyo Ghoul before moving on to my recommendation for Beastars itself:

~ because it’s not like anybody’ll click that over-sized link above!