Beastars Vol 6 Review

After the last, action-packed volume, Beastars shifts the focus back to the character’s interpersonal relationships and the romantic drama between Legoshi, Haru and Juno. As with my previous reviews of the Beastars manga, this review will contain spoilers for previous volumes in the series.

Synopsis:

 After rescuing Haru, Legoshi finally confesses to her that he was the one who had attacked her all those weeks ago and Haru admits that she’d suspected as much all along, but that she’d enjoyed hanging out with him and decided to be his friend anyway. Things start to heat up between them, but complications arise before they can take their relationship to the next level and it becomes clear that there are still barriers that could prevent them from being together. After Haru and Legoshi return to the school, Juno immediately becomes suspicious of their relationship and decides that it’s high time she made her a move on Legoshi, and, since Louis has gone missing, she takes advantage of his absence to use the drama club’s performance to do it!

Review:

After the thrill ride that was volume five, it was nice to slow down for a bit and focus on some juicy romantic turmoil. Overall this volume did a good job of establishing where all the characters are at, following the bombshell events of volume five, and what the new focus will be going forward. The kidnapping has caused a big shake up to the previous status quo and it looks like none of our main characters will be the same.

Juno makes some bold moves in this volume, and not just in regards to Legoshi. We see her step into a leadership role in the drama club and use her moment in the spotlight to deliver an uplifting message about how carnivores can use their strength for good that helps foster goodwill for her fellow wolves amongst the herbivore students. Even though her plans didn’t end up going exactly the way she’d hoped, Juno demonstrated that she can be crafty and that she’s a serious contender for the position of Beastar. I’m liking her character more and more with each volume and am very excited to see that the competition over who will be the next Beastar is kicking off in earnest.

Haru and Legoshi still aren’t officially dating and the nature of their relationship remains nebulous, but some progress has been made and Legoshi is committed to improving himself and his control so that they can, hopefully, one day be together. Though the one whose instincts I found the most concerning in this volume was Haru. When things started to get hot and steamy between her and Legoshi, she felt an uncontrollable urge to climb into his mouth and be eaten by him! This was explained as her body instinctively trying to abide by their natural roles of hunter and prey, but this idea was confusing to me. Wouldn’t her natural prey instinct be to run? That’s certainly been the case in the previous volumes and seems like it would have been a more understandable impediment to their relationship. On the plus side, at least Haru doesn’t appear to be pinning after Louis anymore.

Speaking of whom, Louis is absent during much of this volume, but his situation is the one that’s changed the most drastically. He still wants to change the world, but seems to have abandoned his previous approach and has embraced a much darker path to achieving his goals. Despite this, Louis remains a contender for the title of Beastar and it will be interesting to see how far he’s willing to go down this road.

While not as exciting as the previous volume, Beastars volume six wraps up the loose ends of the kidnapping storyline in a satisfactory way and sets us up for the next arc. The Beastar competition is about to heat up and I can’t wait to read more!

Final Score: 8 out of 10.

For more information on this series, visit Viz Media’s website.

What did you think of this volume? Who do you think is going to win the title of Beastar? Let me know in the comments. Also, be sure to check out my reviews of the other volumes in the series:

• Beastars Vol 1 Review
• Beastars Vol 2 Review
• Beastars Vol 3 Review
• Beastars Vol 4 Review
• Beastars Vol 5 Review
• Beastars Vol 6 Review
• Beastars Vol 7 Review
• Beastars Vol 8 Review
• Beastars Vol 9 Review
• Beastars Vol 10 Review
• Beastars Vol 11 Review
• Beastars Vol 12 Review
• Beastars Vol 13 Review
• Beastars Vol 14 Review
• Beastars Vol 15 Review
• Beastars Vol 16 Review
• Beastars Vol 17 Review