I was already pretty well sold on Beastars, but there was a bit of news this week that certainly added to the cool factor.  Mangaka Itagaki Paru, it turns out, is the daughter of Baki the Grappler mangaka Itagaki Keisuke (they appear in the same magazine).  Turns out the daughter kept this a secret because you wanted to avoid the perception that she was succeeding because of her father’s influence, which I can certainly respect.  But based on the innate quality of her work, that’s not a charge that was likely to stick.

As for Studio Orange’s adaptation, based on the first episode I would have to say it struck me as close to brilliant in an agreeably odd way.  CGI is CGI – it can never truly capture the look of traditional animation, which is why animators and studios that are smart about it don’t try.  They play to the strengths of the technology and try to turn the weaknesses into stylistic flourishes.  Hi Score Girl has been about the most successful series I can remember at pulling this off – ironic given JC Staff isn’t a studio known for 3D animation – but Beastars is obviously on another level technically.

The result here is interesting visually – the motion is that classic “too smooth” effect of good CGI, the close-up character stuff creepy-surrealistic.  I still see no reason why this series couldn’t have been done traditionally, but it’s not a bad marriage.  When you have a series where the characters are supposed to behave in recognizably human fashion except that they’re all beasts of the field and forest, that underlying sense of wrongness is rather fitting.  It’s a feeling that stays with you.

While I know a fair bit about the ideas behind this series, bear in mind I haven’t actually read more than a few chapters of the manga so for all practical purposes I’m a new viewer.  I don’t want to make too much of the metaphorical aspects of Itagashi’s premise, but they do rather smack you in the face.  High school is a brutal environment, and kids do tend to fall into groups of carnivores and herbivores in all but the literal sense.  In the big picture I get the idea that Beastars wants most to explore the idea of whether we as individuals can transcend the limitations of our birth – are we who are, or who we choose to be?

The main test of that is Legosi (Kobayashi Chikihiro) – it’s actually Romanized as “Begoshi” but I think that loses the intent – a grey wolf and general nice guy.  He’s a member of the drama club, a seeming oasis of harmony between herbivores and carnivores.  But one of its members, an alpaca, is brutally devoured on night, and suspicions fly and nerves are frayed.  The other central character is Haru (Senbongi Sayaka), a rabbit who’s a potential love interest for Legosi and a target of bullying.  But the abuse isn’t from carnivores.  It’s from Haru’s fellow herbivores and it fact, fellow rabbits – “exotics” who deride her for her commonness and for being “easy” (she seems to use sex as a means of trying to connect with others).

The bottom line for me with Beastars is this: there’s no substitute for smart writing, and the writing here is unmistakably smart.  Even in the first episode it’s obvious, and it adds a thrilling undertone to the social commentary that’s the beating heart of this series.  I want to see where Itagaki goes with this extremely clever conceit, and I get the sense that she has the skill to take it to some really interesting places.  As for the adaptation, while I admit I was a little worried director Matsumi Shinichi seems to be taking a pretty minimalist approach, letting the material itself take the lead.  His decisions so far feel correct, and that’s a good sign going forward.  I always felt Beastars had the chance to be one of fall’s best series, and everything I saw this week seems to validate that belief.