I feel like a better solution to still have the "beastmen roided out" would be to explain "Oh, some of the ancestors to the beastmen were taken to scientists and had their genetic code altered. They tried to turn them into humans, but instead it just f-ed up their genes and now they and their offspring has a rage mode." That would be far more effective in telling an anti-eugenics message. Also, given that Promare also had subtext of a pressing world issue (with the metaphor also fumbled but not to the extent here) I feel like Trigger wants to take their work in a more leftist/political direction... One they don't have a clue about... I think they either need better writers or their current ones to learn more about the subjects they preach, cause while I have no problem with putting messages in your work, their clumsiness in doing so is starting to get distracting.
In the show they talk about how it's because of over-crowding and it's more of like, a feral form, so it makes sense that in a small city on an island filled with beastmen, it would make sense that overcrowding would trigger that fight or flight part of their brain to cause them to act the way the did
At first i though the snake guy injected some weird shit on the people so they become monsters, but no, it's in their genes to become giant murderer monsters when they get to stressed, which can happen in anytine for any reason. And can only be cured with the blood of a human that got injected with beastmen blood and not died in the process. Seriously, what kind of bizarre allegory is this? "Let's get along with creatures that are like us except they become in literal monsters that will kill everyone when stressed, which is kinda of a valid reason to separate them from us".
I always felt that Studio Trigger as a whole has been style over substance when it comes to their shows. I love them, but usually when they do storytelling or a message around it, it tends to fall apart.
Yeah. I was hoping that considering Promare, while not perfect, did alright, that this one would handle it better than it did but...bleh. Trigger's better are emotion than hard logic which makes it a problem when they delve into much more sensitive and nuanced matters.
I mean, this is a problem as least as old as the X-men, innit? "metaphor for the civil rights movement, and later, the gay rights movement, except neither of those groups have the capability to be living weapons of mass destruction you'd actually want to keep tabs on. *whoops*"
Hey, I don't think you'll see this, but a genuine thanks for making this video. It's a bit late for this kind of comment, but this video helped me figure out why I didn't like BNA and some of BEASTARS (really love beastars though, despite its issues) which really helped me out. I was never able to finish BNA, because something felt off about the characters. I always said that I didn't like the characters when justifying my reasoning for disliking BNA's last half, but this video helped me pinpoint the exact reasons. I usually watch an anime without thinking about race or really the science behind it, but the ending and 'justification' for the roid animals even put me off. I really would have liked the show if the ending was more thought out. So, yeah thanks for making this video.
The way I saw it, the whole point of the "berserker gene" metaphor was that people will get super stressed and feel claustrophobic when they're forced to live in a small location. I mean Anima City was just a small island, and it was supposed to house every beastman on the planet which would have made it super crowded and compact. If I remember correctly, they even mention in the show the reason that the beastmen went berserk in the past was because their population size became too big and they went crazy. I think the ending was trying to say that the world would be a better place if we weren't trying to segregate different groups and instead tried integrating them and learning each others differences. Wasn't that the majority of Michiru's character arc anyways? Coming to terms with her new self and learning what it actually means to be a beastmen? Plus, it was Michiru's dna that cured the berserk gene, which could arguably symbolize that humans & beastmen are better together.
@@staggbones If it were more the intention to lean in that direction, I think that would at least be better? But the concept of a berserker gene in general for your minority group in a racial allegory seems rather clumsy on its face to me. I'd have to check again, but I'm almost certain Alan attributed it in part to different types of animal species being put together, though, with the implication that they shouldn't be.
@@NezumiVA He might have, however Mayor stated it was because of overpopulation, and when you look at it as they're based off of animals, and even people, nobody does well in claustrophobic spots. Obviously they could have handled it better, but I don't think it was done with malice.
@@NezumiVA also it makes no sense why a species that has existed for likely as long as humanity, would now be surprised that they turn into monsters by getting pissed off. You'd think they'd know about their own biology a lot sooner
I mean, a story with great stylistic execution and dynamic characters but a botched message that tries to say something progressive… classic studio Trigger tbh. Honestly though, I don’t think any fictional metaphors for racism are ever going to be able to accurately portray the intricate and complicated history of racism without basically addressing it directly. As soon as you try to add more consequence to being a different race in a fictional setting (a la slow sloths in Zootopia) thé crucially important fact that irl race barely affects biology is immediately thrown out of the window, and from there it’s nigh impossible to accurately execute a message of equality without having concerning implications when people start to think hard about it.
Huh... I always felt like Beastars wasn't about Racism. The metaphor about the hunger for meat felt so divorced from the idea of race in too many ways.
I know this is a hot take video off the cuff, but one thing you fail to understand is how a great deal of allegory in this show is aimed at a Japanese audience specifically. One source of inspiration from Director Yoh Yoshinari came from a book called Lupo Kawasaki by Ryo Isobe. The setting of Anima city being partially based on a district in southern Kawasaki that is a slum due to the unfair treatment and discrimination against immigrants/foreigners. Which is a major jab at current / modern rise in conservative politics that promote bigotry through nationalism. Famous conservative writer Ayako Sono even penned an article promoting the idea of… none other than segregating cities…Even going as far as framing Apartheid in Africa as a positive thing they could adopt. As you note, Trigger does take the stance of ‘it’s okay to live together, we’ll keep trying’ towards the end, is actually an optimistic reflection and attitude against the growing conservative political parties in Japan. I’d say it’s fair to give them some of the benefit of the doubt in the sense that a great deal of this subtext is lost for viewers outside of Japan unaware of some of the nuance of the show. ALSO, Trigger always values fun / lighthearted wackiness over hard story telling which is why most their shows are more ‘enjoyable’ but not always ‘good’ per say. Also, it will likely not get a season 2 given it’s relative unpopularity outside of Japan. *Although I do agree with your plot fix of everyone unknowingly eating some substance that triggers the rage thing.
Fair points, I can definitely see why some of this gets lost in the weeds out of cultural context. I think there's still something to be said about how people outside of that context may still take it in a Less Than Pleasing Way to validate their bigoted views, but I suppose that can be said of a lot of other things with good intentions as well.
@@NezumiVA I personally choose to believe things like BNA just have missteps and are at least made in good faith. I may be too optimistic. But it can’t be helped when others try to push the missteps for their weird agendas :/. Overall I’m glad I found your channel. I really liked your video on Lain!
I definitely agree with you! Quite a shame some things are pretty iffy especially because I adore the show,but it’d be wrong of me to ignore all its flaws. I do hope it gets a season two tho tbh
It definitely needed more time, not more production time but within the actual show the story needed more time to roll out and build up to each major plot point. Instead, it navigates through major plot points at breakneck speed while ignoring all the small details that make those plot points powerful.
Not in all aspects, true. Although there are still plenty of prevalent elements of social commentary _in_ Beastars, even if many things aren't exactly 1:1 comparisons.
I mean it's basically the same exact plot as promare... like even some of the choreography in the final fight from promare is in this show. it makes me feel like they wanted to make a show for promare but had to make it different enough that it wasn't noticeable.
From watching this show it made me realize this disturbing trend I have seen in other series that deal with themes of minority oppression and discrimination like RWBY, Beastars, Arknights, 'name a Gundam series'. Where we see scenarios and characters that show how damaging and cyclical these issues are for all sides without intervention, yet the narrative seems rigged to villainize those who fight against the oppression and lenient on institutions or individuals with power to be accountable for their part in it. I am just basing this on how sluggish and messy reconciliation has been in Canada between the different levels of government and the Native tribes of Canada. What with the Residential school System, Cultural Genocide and the unmarked graveyards scattered throughout the country. I mean could you imagine if an Anime concluded with the ruling Government implementing and equivalent to the truth and reconciliation commission, it's the right step forward without being naïve about it.
This show is A LOT LIke Xmen only while carefully stepping around the main issue of its moral message, X-men was similar with a small minority of people being oppressed out of hatred and fear only they explored that fear, it showed the side of mutants that humans feared and through that shows us how the gap can be healed. In BNA the relationship between humans and beastmen is simple, just blind hatred for no apparent reason where X-men explores it, it’s not just hatred it’s Jealousy it’s fear. If you want me to get my conspiracy hat on for a second I think part of the reason is that the studio would be shouted down for displaying beastmen as aggressors because they are supposed to represent oppressed minorities. What if there was an episode outside of the city where in response to all the chaos military units were deployed outside city limits, naturally Ogami assuming the worst charges in only to be stopped by best girl who talks him down, we get a close up seeing the absolute unadulterated terror the mere existence of beastmen instills in humans and Ogami realised that in order to create peace he must not be what the humans ( to be fair totally reasonable) concerns tell them they are, and so at the end we can have anima city open up, becoming the first place for humans and beastmen to live together safely Or if you wanna go darker from the perspective of a human showing the radicalisation into a beastman Hunter, perhaps by a freak attack in which he sees the truth of his existance before his eyes as a weaker being. We could totally explore the philosophy of our society through this too, what if the fear in humans caused by beastmen is because it directly refutes te axiom Most civilised nations hold on to “All men are created equal” beastmen are a direct refutation of this, if not their basic traits the fact they can somehow become immortal shows them to be in some ways a superior species. Then we get to jealousy, we can show some guy desperately trying to become a beastman after news gets out that it’s possible to change for no other reason but to feel like he has power over his bullies or people that hate him! There is so much to explore here! This constant treating beastmen like they are totally Innocent all the time 24/7 since they crawled out of the primordial pit beside their ape cousins is so restrictive! To fix a broken thing you need all the bits, all I’m saying If you want me to be honest I don’t think a race metaphor can be done well in settings like this because it always comes back to the fact that the normal people actually have a legitimate reason to be afraid and avoid the group in question.
I have watch the serie and personally altrough it is an epic serie and i loved it i thougth that the ending was a little bit rushed or screwd up but about the nirvacil syndrome yes we can tell that it's created by the mixing of population but when we see the final fight and the awekening of the nirvacil syndrom of the bbeg (that i forgot the name because i'm stupid) that only a huge amount of stress or psychological distress creates it (also my mother language is french so it's normal if the way that i tell my argument sucks)
The plot kind of got messed up and muddled after the cult and alan was introduced. It felt like they were trying to spin too many messages and plots and they all kind of got tangled. The way it should have worked was that each season was a different kind of message. They could have easily made the cult the second season and the whole thing with alan the 3rd season or something. Personally, I don't hate that their genes have the whole roided up thing, consider the fact that at the end of the day, they are partially animal. It would make sense for them to have certain animalistic tenancies and one of those is hostility towards over-crowding. It wasn't necessarily towards being mixed in with other species, it was towards over-crowding, which is a good message because you know. Maybe don't segregate the people that are different and put them into a town where it divides people more.
I can see what you mean here, and at least partially agree with it? I just also think giving a berserker gene to a stand-in minority group in a racial allegory is...very messy territory on its face (brings to mind racists throughout American history labeling POC as violent savages, and such). The interpretation you describe here is much better, given, but I also feel like you inherently run the risk of seeming kind of scare-mongery when you even go near that sort of thing. Again, I think there were just a lot easier ways to do this particular plot thread without rubbing up against the possibility of having people read your story as unintentionally (or intentionally) ideologically harmful.
@@NezumiVA I agree! If two different people watching it can have two completely different experiences with the story, there's a fault in the way that it's written and should be looked at better. While I agree that it's terrible for the minority stand in to have the berserk gene, the story kind of lost it's racial allegory the more the show went on. It became out-shadowed by a lot of the stuff happening in it. I think that contributes to the fact that they wanted to do too much with the story and again, it clogged up the writing a lot. It really all just boils down to the fact that it's clear the writers didn't know what they were doing.
I mean, we can have people freak out without putting a spacific weird magical gene in it, could be a teachable moment to show that all of us have the potential to be monsters, humans and beastmen alike, humanise em
7:00 when you get to the Zootopia part I never really understood that particular criticism people have for it. Both prey and predators are evolve to a point where they don't rely on animal instincts. This was pointed out in the beginning of the movie. Appearances and stereotypes play a major factor in Zootopia. Nick Wilde was ridicule not because he was predator but because he was a fox. Both Judy and Bellweather were ridicule because bother species were seen as weak. You don't really seen discrimination between predator and prey in the police force because the focus wasn't about what you eat, but the size that matters which Judy did not fit the category. The reason why the whole predator and prey was focus was because Bellweather thought it was important in order for Zootopia to live in fear. Because there is so many species to attack individually so it be better to broaden to scopes. Since there are already a bad history between predators and prey she uses that to her advantage while using Judy's exclamations of DNA. Which was proven later it has nothing to to do with that. It was Night Howlers that caused them to go savage (a term that isn't recently use since Cheif Bogo reaction to that is "this isn't the stone age Hopps. Animals don't go savage"). A plant that can cause any animal to go savage. Animals that are categorize as prey do not have any reason to fear being eaten before the Night Howlers came. Though a majority of animals are more focus on appearances and stereotypes. Foxes were categorize as tricksters and therefor cannot be trusted. Like how policemen would immediately assume a black man did something wrong.
I get what you're saying, but regardless of the in-canon explanation it's still just sloppy on its face imo. Even leaving room for that association to be made is, in my opinion, the problem moreso than specifically how they explain it.
yeah but those prejudices and preconceptions are based on some biological truth with animals. racism with human beings doesnt work like that, there is no biologically/gentric "truth" to the racist statements made against groups of people. hell the hard racists will try to outright say there is something so genetically unique to POC that they are "inferior".
The problem with accusing Allegories of "falling apart" is that everyone to make them really precise one to one allegories. Both writers and critics need to take Tolkien's approach to allegory more often. In Beastars it's NOT an allegory for Racism, you should watch Jack Saints videos on it. In the case of BNA there were clearly multiple real world situations behind it. And "Racism" in the sense of what that means to Westerners is almost never what any Anime is mainly about now matter how much we westerners jump to the conclusion that it is. One anituber felt really strong that in BNA the Beastman represent The Jews and Israel. I do not think that was the intent at all, but if it was then the show is clearly NOT as AntiZionist as the person who made that video painted it. The ending of the show still supports the Beastmen having their own state, and there is no one to represent the Palestinians in that reading. The villain's theory about the violence gene is debunked before the end, you should have paid closer attention. The "berserker gene" is just Stress, the Racist villain just came up with a Race realist pseudo explanation for stress.
I think we should just stop using animals/furries as allegories and other topics, with Beastars being the worst offender with it's seemingly pro-eugenics themes. Also Promare sucks as well with its Anti-Semitism, this just shows Trigger is idiotic at their themes.
Now I don't want to start a fight but the third arc of the beastars manga is addressing the eugenics of that society. I haven't seen promare so I'll take your word for it.
aside from BNA tho, but why do always these stories with animal people discrimination set in a fictional universes get so compared almost 1 to 1 to real life discrimination like racism, classism, etc, isnt that a recipe for failure trying to compare one with the other so closely to the point we get these weird allegorical messes? always thought they were meant to be perceived as an allegory for general discrimination that could be applied loosely to different issues of our real life but definitely not 1 to 1.
I think it's mostly just a case of these things trying to have their cake and eat it too. General allegories are all fine and good but writers sometimes have this urge to really hone in on something specific and relevant. And a lot of times they have their hearts in the right place, but they just don't quite have the chops to consider exactly what makes a good 1:1 comparison _for_ issues like this, so they give it a shot and inevitably fumble it in some way. Mostly because animals or furry people is a good default pick and not a lot of people tend to grasp that it's _extremely_ difficult to do that well without muddling the metaphor somehow. And I get the temptation to use allegories because it can seem like a safer way to explore a really difficult topic? But ultimately unless your writer is _extremely_ smart, it can be a lot more trouble than it's worth to try graphing that kind of logic onto a fantasy conflict rather than just...depicting the regular conflict itself.
@@NezumiVA yeah, i think its usually really hard unless u depict it as the thing itself and i do think bna/zootopia are not great allegories of real life discrimination in our world too. But, and it may be a personal thing, i just never saw bna or even zootopia as specific allegories of anything, like, maybe im dumb or the creators said something different or there is something im not getting but thats genuinely what i ended up experiencing on those stories. I did end up liking the message of Zootopia from this perspective because even if their discrimination problems were not an allegory from ours and maybe their fundamental differences are way bigger (carnivores and herbivores n stuff), they are still trying to make things better, which i find very uplifting, it just brings me a little more hope and it can be applied to so many things too. Which is why it makes me a little sad so many people end up seeing it as a very specific allegory and it crumbles. I just wonder why. Its probably only me, after all media is very subjective and different people can project different things into it because we are all unique, i dont mean to invalidate people who had a different read on it. I guess... it just feels a little sad seeing these types of stories being bashed so much on the internet (specially zootpia) because, of course they are not good setting ideas for 1 to 1 allegories, but well, media is subjective after all. I guess even if you dislike it or like it, at the end, whats important is that you get something out of it, right?
For me, I think it's made more explicit by the little nuances they try to throw into each that makes it specifically more pointed and hard to deny the race relations angle is what they're specifically going for. The carnivore stereotypes thing is already a pretty obvious one in Zootopia, if a bit vague, but what really hits it in and makes it obvious in that example in particular to me is the whole thing about calling bunnies cute and how only they feel comfortable calling each other that, which I suppose is supposed to be a stand-in for a...particular racial slur (which is just _way_ too on the nose to be about anything else imo).
@@NezumiVA ngl i completely forgot about the bunny part, had to google it, i can see how you interpreted it. For me, i just didnt saw it as anything paralleling irl, after all there are a lot of slurs that have that similar effect but i can see your point. (also im surprised you experienced it as the herbivores being said group since usually ive seen people reading it as carnivores). I just personally think that objectively, i dont see disney having the balls to do a specific allegory of an irl issue and it plainly seems a bad idea to directly paralel it with animal people, also usually big companies like to not get too into thise topics directly and do general allegories in my experience (for better or worse). Maybe it also because im not from the us and watched it when i was little (i think i even watched it dubbed in Spanish lmao), maybe your reading was more evident for an US audience since these irl issues always change a little between countries. Its interesting how depending on the person the movie can have very different readings and thus one might enjoy it and one might not. And its just like that, our brains see it one way or not and its very hard to change so i can see how even with what im saying that your experience is already tainted with the movie, it def has happened to me with other media. I guess its one effect of having a general allegory or a setting that its not real. (also thanks for responding, ive been enjoying ur videos a lot, specially the danganronpa ones, eagerly waiting for the V3 one since its my fav one)
I agree that the ending allows for a really grim implication but what it did in the rest of the series was so well done that I can easily forgive that. All of the ways that it showed how have oppressed groups have coped and flourished within and despite that state of oppression was largely spot on. From the portrayal of Nrms to double consciousness, and tokenism to concepts layed out by writers in the negritude movement it was incredibly well researched. I took the ending as them saying that the city isn't paradise and it was continuing what we see in the first episode which is that there are malevolent and violent beastmen and that they're not angels. But the way that they go berserker is the unsavoury aspect of it again
I kinda got that pervasive vibe towards the end past the rest of the muddled messaging. First watch I took it as the way people have their identities taken away and how they cope within oppression. The presence of humans was so minimal that the conflict did feel more aligned with oppressed peoples’ subconscious. With How the city was pointed out to be a project for assimilation, how applying human laws on an inherently different culture ends up fucking them up, i saw the separation between species more as an allegory of culture.. (not explicitly race) I liked how the main char acknowledged at the end she’ll never truly understand how the beastmen feel and their identities belong only to them. But that’s just what I took away from the show 🤷♀️ not saying some stuff did come off as uninspired and shoe-horned
I feel like a better solution to still have the "beastmen roided out" would be to explain "Oh, some of the ancestors to the beastmen were taken to scientists and had their genetic code altered. They tried to turn them into humans, but instead it just f-ed up their genes and now they and their offspring has a rage mode." That would be far more effective in telling an anti-eugenics message.
Also, given that Promare also had subtext of a pressing world issue (with the metaphor also fumbled but not to the extent here) I feel like Trigger wants to take their work in a more leftist/political direction... One they don't have a clue about... I think they either need better writers or their current ones to learn more about the subjects they preach, cause while I have no problem with putting messages in your work, their clumsiness in doing so is starting to get distracting.
In the show they talk about how it's because of over-crowding and it's more of like, a feral form, so it makes sense that in a small city on an island filled with beastmen, it would make sense that overcrowding would trigger that fight or flight part of their brain to cause them to act the way the did
I mean, you can’t have a satisfying story about being accepted when you justify the genocide
At first i though the snake guy injected some weird shit on the people so they become monsters, but no, it's in their genes to become giant murderer monsters when they get to stressed, which can happen in anytine for any reason. And can only be cured with the blood of a human that got injected with beastmen blood and not died in the process.
Seriously, what kind of bizarre allegory is this?
"Let's get along with creatures that are like us except they become in literal monsters that will kill everyone when stressed, which is kinda of a valid reason to separate them from us".
I always felt that Studio Trigger as a whole has been style over substance when it comes to their shows. I love them, but usually when they do storytelling or a message around it, it tends to fall apart.
Yeah. I was hoping that considering Promare, while not perfect, did alright, that this one would handle it better than it did but...bleh. Trigger's better are emotion than hard logic which makes it a problem when they delve into much more sensitive and nuanced matters.
@@NezumiVA Did you not watch kiznaiver or KLK? They are more than style over substance and even so you say it like it is a bad thing!
I mean, this is a problem as least as old as the X-men, innit? "metaphor for the civil rights movement, and later, the gay rights movement, except neither of those groups have the capability to be living weapons of mass destruction you'd actually want to keep tabs on. *whoops*"
oh that’s a good point, X-Men has that problem too
X-man has it alot less cause at least it isn't inherent in them to be violent and mass murder monsters
Yeah that was a big oops
"This is going to be a really short video." *video is 30 minutes long* 😂
I TRIED BUT I ALWAYS FAIL...
At least it's not 5 hours.
pretty short in comparison to the rest of her stuff.
I was quite flustered with how Mirichu saw becoming a beastman as a disease like major red flags there
Hey, I don't think you'll see this, but a genuine thanks for making this video. It's a bit late for this kind of comment, but this video helped me figure out why I didn't like BNA and some of BEASTARS (really love beastars though, despite its issues) which really helped me out.
I was never able to finish BNA, because something felt off about the characters. I always said that I didn't like the characters when justifying my reasoning for disliking BNA's last half, but this video helped me pinpoint the exact reasons. I usually watch an anime without thinking about race or really the science behind it, but the ending and 'justification' for the roid animals even put me off. I really would have liked the show if the ending was more thought out.
So, yeah thanks for making this video.
The way I saw it, the whole point of the "berserker gene" metaphor was that people will get super stressed and feel claustrophobic when they're forced to live in a small location. I mean Anima City was just a small island, and it was supposed to house every beastman on the planet which would have made it super crowded and compact. If I remember correctly, they even mention in the show the reason that the beastmen went berserk in the past was because their population size became too big and they went crazy. I think the ending was trying to say that the world would be a better place if we weren't trying to segregate different groups and instead tried integrating them and learning each others differences. Wasn't that the majority of Michiru's character arc anyways? Coming to terms with her new self and learning what it actually means to be a beastmen? Plus, it was Michiru's dna that cured the berserk gene, which could arguably symbolize that humans & beastmen are better together.
I think that was the point, since the mayor literally said 'beastmen are getting out of control because the population density is too high.'
@@staggbones If it were more the intention to lean in that direction, I think that would at least be better? But the concept of a berserker gene in general for your minority group in a racial allegory seems rather clumsy on its face to me. I'd have to check again, but I'm almost certain Alan attributed it in part to different types of animal species being put together, though, with the implication that they shouldn't be.
@@NezumiVA He might have, however Mayor stated it was because of overpopulation, and when you look at it as they're based off of animals, and even people, nobody does well in claustrophobic spots. Obviously they could have handled it better, but I don't think it was done with malice.
@@NezumiVA also it makes no sense why a species that has existed for likely as long as humanity, would now be surprised that they turn into monsters by getting pissed off. You'd think they'd know about their own biology a lot sooner
I mean, a story with great stylistic execution and dynamic characters but a botched message that tries to say something progressive… classic studio Trigger tbh.
Honestly though, I don’t think any fictional metaphors for racism are ever going to be able to accurately portray the intricate and complicated history of racism without basically addressing it directly. As soon as you try to add more consequence to being a different race in a fictional setting (a la slow sloths in Zootopia) thé crucially important fact that irl race barely affects biology is immediately thrown out of the window, and from there it’s nigh impossible to accurately execute a message of equality without having concerning implications when people start to think hard about it.
Huh... I always felt like Beastars wasn't about Racism. The metaphor about the hunger for meat felt so divorced from the idea of race in too many ways.
I know this is a hot take video off the cuff, but one thing you fail to understand is how a great deal of allegory in this show is aimed at a Japanese audience specifically. One source of inspiration from Director Yoh Yoshinari came from a book called Lupo Kawasaki by Ryo Isobe. The setting of Anima city being partially based on a district in southern Kawasaki that is a slum due to the unfair treatment and discrimination against immigrants/foreigners. Which is a major jab at current / modern rise in conservative politics that promote bigotry through nationalism. Famous conservative writer Ayako Sono even penned an article promoting the idea of… none other than segregating cities…Even going as far as framing Apartheid in Africa as a positive thing they could adopt. As you note, Trigger does take the stance of ‘it’s okay to live together, we’ll keep trying’ towards the end, is actually an optimistic reflection and attitude against the growing conservative political parties in Japan. I’d say it’s fair to give them some of the benefit of the doubt in the sense that a great deal of this subtext is lost for viewers outside of Japan unaware of some of the nuance of the show. ALSO, Trigger always values fun / lighthearted wackiness over hard story telling which is why most their shows are more ‘enjoyable’ but not always ‘good’ per say. Also, it will likely not get a season 2 given it’s relative unpopularity outside of Japan. *Although I do agree with your plot fix of everyone unknowingly eating some substance that triggers the rage thing.
Fair points, I can definitely see why some of this gets lost in the weeds out of cultural context. I think there's still something to be said about how people outside of that context may still take it in a Less Than Pleasing Way to validate their bigoted views, but I suppose that can be said of a lot of other things with good intentions as well.
@@NezumiVA I personally choose to believe things like BNA just have missteps and are at least made in good faith. I may be too optimistic. But it can’t be helped when others try to push the missteps for their weird agendas :/. Overall I’m glad I found your channel. I really liked your video on Lain!
I definitely agree with you! Quite a shame some things are pretty iffy especially because I adore the show,but it’d be wrong of me to ignore all its flaws. I do hope it gets a season two tho tbh
It definitely needed more time, not more production time but within the actual show the story needed more time to roll out and build up to each major plot point. Instead, it navigates through major plot points at breakneck speed while ignoring all the small details that make those plot points powerful.
I think the Predator Prey relationships in beastars are too specific to that world to be an allegory for anything
Not in all aspects, true. Although there are still plenty of prevalent elements of social commentary _in_ Beastars, even if many things aren't exactly 1:1 comparisons.
@@NezumiVA there’s nothing wrong with your take ,but I still believe mine
I mean it's basically the same exact plot as promare... like even some of the choreography in the final fight from promare is in this show. it makes me feel like they wanted to make a show for promare but had to make it different enough that it wasn't noticeable.
From watching this show it made me realize this disturbing trend I have seen in other series that deal with themes of minority oppression and discrimination like RWBY, Beastars, Arknights, 'name a Gundam series'. Where we see scenarios and characters that show how damaging and cyclical these issues are for all sides without intervention, yet the narrative seems rigged to villainize those who fight against the oppression and lenient on institutions or individuals with power to be accountable for their part in it.
I am just basing this on how sluggish and messy reconciliation has been in Canada between the different levels of government and the Native tribes of Canada. What with the Residential school System, Cultural Genocide and the unmarked graveyards scattered throughout the country.
I mean could you imagine if an Anime concluded with the ruling Government implementing and equivalent to the truth and reconciliation commission, it's the right step forward without being naïve about it.
This show is A LOT LIke Xmen only while carefully stepping around the main issue of its moral message, X-men was similar with a small minority of people being oppressed out of hatred and fear only they explored that fear, it showed the side of mutants that humans feared and through that shows us how the gap can be healed.
In BNA the relationship between humans and beastmen is simple, just blind hatred for no apparent reason where X-men explores it, it’s not just hatred it’s Jealousy it’s fear.
If you want me to get my conspiracy hat on for a second I think part of the reason is that the studio would be shouted down for displaying beastmen as aggressors because they are supposed to represent oppressed minorities.
What if there was an episode outside of the city where in response to all the chaos military units were deployed outside city limits, naturally Ogami assuming the worst charges in only to be stopped by best girl who talks him down, we get a close up seeing the absolute unadulterated terror the mere existence of beastmen instills in humans and Ogami realised that in order to create peace he must not be what the humans ( to be fair totally reasonable) concerns tell them they are, and so at the end we can have anima city open up, becoming the first place for humans and beastmen to live together safely
Or if you wanna go darker from the perspective of a human showing the radicalisation into a beastman Hunter, perhaps by a freak attack in which he sees the truth of his existance before his eyes as a weaker being.
We could totally explore the philosophy of our society through this too, what if the fear in humans caused by beastmen is because it directly refutes te axiom
Most civilised nations hold on to “All men are created equal” beastmen are a direct refutation of this, if not their basic traits the fact they can somehow become immortal shows them to be in some ways a superior species.
Then we get to jealousy, we can show some guy desperately trying to become a beastman after news gets out that it’s possible to change for no other reason but to feel like he has power over his bullies or people that hate him!
There is so much to explore here!
This constant treating beastmen like they are totally Innocent all the time 24/7 since they crawled out of the primordial pit beside their ape cousins is so restrictive!
To fix a broken thing you need all the bits, all I’m saying
If you want me to be honest I don’t think a race metaphor can be done well in settings like this because it always comes back to the fact that the normal people actually have a legitimate reason to be afraid and avoid the group in question.
It feels like a mix of one peice X-Men and Zootopia to be honest
Yeaaaah that’s a yikes. x_x I do want to check it out, but it’s good know this going into it and tempering expectations.
Damn I just started this series and I was wondering about the same things you were talking about
I have watch the serie and personally altrough it is an epic serie and i loved it i thougth that the ending was a little bit rushed or screwd up but about the nirvacil syndrome yes we can tell that it's created by the mixing of population but when we see the final fight and the awekening of the nirvacil syndrom of the bbeg (that i forgot the name because i'm stupid) that only a huge amount of stress or psychological distress creates it (also my mother language is french so it's normal if the way that i tell my argument sucks)
The plot kind of got messed up and muddled after the cult and alan was introduced. It felt like they were trying to spin too many messages and plots and they all kind of got tangled. The way it should have worked was that each season was a different kind of message. They could have easily made the cult the second season and the whole thing with alan the 3rd season or something.
Personally, I don't hate that their genes have the whole roided up thing, consider the fact that at the end of the day, they are partially animal. It would make sense for them to have certain animalistic tenancies and one of those is hostility towards over-crowding. It wasn't necessarily towards being mixed in with other species, it was towards over-crowding, which is a good message because you know. Maybe don't segregate the people that are different and put them into a town where it divides people more.
I can see what you mean here, and at least partially agree with it? I just also think giving a berserker gene to a stand-in minority group in a racial allegory is...very messy territory on its face (brings to mind racists throughout American history labeling POC as violent savages, and such). The interpretation you describe here is much better, given, but I also feel like you inherently run the risk of seeming kind of scare-mongery when you even go near that sort of thing. Again, I think there were just a lot easier ways to do this particular plot thread without rubbing up against the possibility of having people read your story as unintentionally (or intentionally) ideologically harmful.
@@NezumiVA I agree! If two different people watching it can have two completely different experiences with the story, there's a fault in the way that it's written and should be looked at better. While I agree that it's terrible for the minority stand in to have the berserk gene, the story kind of lost it's racial allegory the more the show went on. It became out-shadowed by a lot of the stuff happening in it.
I think that contributes to the fact that they wanted to do too much with the story and again, it clogged up the writing a lot. It really all just boils down to the fact that it's clear the writers didn't know what they were doing.
I mean, we can have people freak out without putting a spacific weird magical gene in it, could be a teachable moment to show that all of us have the potential to be monsters, humans and beastmen alike, humanise em
Brand new animal? Never heard of it but this will be a fun video.
7:00 when you get to the Zootopia part I never really understood that particular criticism people have for it. Both prey and predators are evolve to a point where they don't rely on animal instincts. This was pointed out in the beginning of the movie. Appearances and stereotypes play a major factor in Zootopia. Nick Wilde was ridicule not because he was predator but because he was a fox. Both Judy and Bellweather were ridicule because bother species were seen as weak. You don't really seen discrimination between predator and prey in the police force because the focus wasn't about what you eat, but the size that matters which Judy did not fit the category.
The reason why the whole predator and prey was focus was because Bellweather thought it was important in order for Zootopia to live in fear. Because there is so many species to attack individually so it be better to broaden to scopes. Since there are already a bad history between predators and prey she uses that to her advantage while using Judy's exclamations of DNA. Which was proven later it has nothing to to do with that. It was Night Howlers that caused them to go savage (a term that isn't recently use since Cheif Bogo reaction to that is "this isn't the stone age Hopps. Animals don't go savage"). A plant that can cause any animal to go savage.
Animals that are categorize as prey do not have any reason to fear being eaten before the Night Howlers came. Though a majority of animals are more focus on appearances and stereotypes. Foxes were categorize as tricksters and therefor cannot be trusted. Like how policemen would immediately assume a black man did something wrong.
I get what you're saying, but regardless of the in-canon explanation it's still just sloppy on its face imo. Even leaving room for that association to be made is, in my opinion, the problem moreso than specifically how they explain it.
yeah but those prejudices and preconceptions are based on some biological truth with animals. racism with human beings doesnt work like that, there is no biologically/gentric "truth" to the racist statements made against groups of people. hell the hard racists will try to outright say there is something so genetically unique to POC that they are "inferior".
The problem with accusing Allegories of "falling apart" is that everyone to make them really precise one to one allegories. Both writers and critics need to take Tolkien's approach to allegory more often. In Beastars it's NOT an allegory for Racism, you should watch Jack Saints videos on it. In the case of BNA there were clearly multiple real world situations behind it. And "Racism" in the sense of what that means to Westerners is almost never what any Anime is mainly about now matter how much we westerners jump to the conclusion that it is.
One anituber felt really strong that in BNA the Beastman represent The Jews and Israel. I do not think that was the intent at all, but if it was then the show is clearly NOT as AntiZionist as the person who made that video painted it. The ending of the show still supports the Beastmen having their own state, and there is no one to represent the Palestinians in that reading.
The villain's theory about the violence gene is debunked before the end, you should have paid closer attention. The "berserker gene" is just Stress, the Racist villain just came up with a Race realist pseudo explanation for stress.
I think we should just stop using animals/furries as allegories and other topics, with Beastars being the worst offender with it's seemingly pro-eugenics themes. Also Promare sucks as well with its Anti-Semitism, this just shows Trigger is idiotic at their themes.
Now I don't want to start a fight but the third arc of the beastars manga is addressing the eugenics of that society. I haven't seen promare so I'll take your word for it.
How do you feel about jack saints interpretation on beastars.
aside from BNA tho, but why do always these stories with animal people discrimination set in a fictional universes get so compared almost 1 to 1 to real life discrimination like racism, classism, etc, isnt that a recipe for failure trying to compare one with the other so closely to the point we get these weird allegorical messes? always thought they were meant to be perceived as an allegory for general discrimination that could be applied loosely to different issues of our real life but definitely not 1 to 1.
I think it's mostly just a case of these things trying to have their cake and eat it too. General allegories are all fine and good but writers sometimes have this urge to really hone in on something specific and relevant. And a lot of times they have their hearts in the right place, but they just don't quite have the chops to consider exactly what makes a good 1:1 comparison _for_ issues like this, so they give it a shot and inevitably fumble it in some way. Mostly because animals or furry people is a good default pick and not a lot of people tend to grasp that it's _extremely_ difficult to do that well without muddling the metaphor somehow. And I get the temptation to use allegories because it can seem like a safer way to explore a really difficult topic? But ultimately unless your writer is _extremely_ smart, it can be a lot more trouble than it's worth to try graphing that kind of logic onto a fantasy conflict rather than just...depicting the regular conflict itself.
@@NezumiVA yeah, i think its usually really hard unless u depict it as the thing itself and i do think bna/zootopia are not great allegories of real life discrimination in our world too.
But, and it may be a personal thing, i just never saw bna or even zootopia as specific allegories of anything, like, maybe im dumb or the creators said something different or there is something im not getting but thats genuinely what i ended up experiencing on those stories. I did end up liking the message of Zootopia from this perspective because even if their discrimination problems were not an allegory from ours and maybe their fundamental differences are way bigger (carnivores and herbivores n stuff), they are still trying to make things better, which i find very uplifting, it just brings me a little more hope and it can be applied to so many things too. Which is why it makes me a little sad so many people end up seeing it as a very specific allegory and it crumbles. I just wonder why.
Its probably only me, after all media is very subjective and different people can project different things into it because we are all unique, i dont mean to invalidate people who had a different read on it. I guess... it just feels a little sad seeing these types of stories being bashed so much on the internet (specially zootpia) because, of course they are not good setting ideas for 1 to 1 allegories, but well, media is subjective after all. I guess even if you dislike it or like it, at the end, whats important is that you get something out of it, right?
For me, I think it's made more explicit by the little nuances they try to throw into each that makes it specifically more pointed and hard to deny the race relations angle is what they're specifically going for. The carnivore stereotypes thing is already a pretty obvious one in Zootopia, if a bit vague, but what really hits it in and makes it obvious in that example in particular to me is the whole thing about calling bunnies cute and how only they feel comfortable calling each other that, which I suppose is supposed to be a stand-in for a...particular racial slur (which is just _way_ too on the nose to be about anything else imo).
@@NezumiVA ngl i completely forgot about the bunny part, had to google it, i can see how you interpreted it. For me, i just didnt saw it as anything paralleling irl, after all there are a lot of slurs that have that similar effect but i can see your point. (also im surprised you experienced it as the herbivores being said group since usually ive seen people reading it as carnivores). I just personally think that objectively, i dont see disney having the balls to do a specific allegory of an irl issue and it plainly seems a bad idea to directly paralel it with animal people, also usually big companies like to not get too into thise topics directly and do general allegories in my experience (for better or worse). Maybe it also because im not from the us and watched it when i was little (i think i even watched it dubbed in Spanish lmao), maybe your reading was more evident for an US audience since these irl issues always change a little between countries.
Its interesting how depending on the person the movie can have very different readings and thus one might enjoy it and one might not. And its just like that, our brains see it one way or not and its very hard to change so i can see how even with what im saying that your experience is already tainted with the movie, it def has happened to me with other media. I guess its one effect of having a general allegory or a setting that its not real.
(also thanks for responding, ive been enjoying ur videos a lot, specially the danganronpa ones, eagerly waiting for the V3 one since its my fav one)
I agree that the ending allows for a really grim implication but what it did in the rest of the series was so well done that I can easily forgive that. All of the ways that it showed how have oppressed groups have coped and flourished within and despite that state of oppression was largely spot on. From the portrayal of Nrms to double consciousness, and tokenism to concepts layed out by writers in the negritude movement it was incredibly well researched.
I took the ending as them saying that the city isn't paradise and it was continuing what we see in the first episode which is that there are malevolent and violent beastmen and that they're not angels. But the way that they go berserker is the unsavoury aspect of it again
I kinda got that pervasive vibe towards the end past the rest of the muddled messaging. First watch I took it as the way people have their identities taken away and how they cope within oppression. The presence of humans was so minimal that the conflict did feel more aligned with oppressed peoples’ subconscious. With How the city was pointed out to be a project for assimilation, how applying human laws on an inherently different culture ends up fucking them up, i saw the separation between species more as an allegory of culture.. (not explicitly race) I liked how the main char acknowledged at the end she’ll never truly understand how the beastmen feel and their identities belong only to them. But that’s just what I took away from the show
🤷♀️ not saying some stuff did come off as uninspired and shoe-horned
your worst vid.