So, there are just a few minor developments to discuss in this volume of Paru Itagaki’s Beastars. Let’s see, one of the drama club members gets their arm ripped off, we learn a huge secret about Legoshi’s heritage and the identity of Tem’s murderer is revealed!!!
Be aware that this review will contain some spoilers for both this and previous volumes in the series.
Synopsis:
When one of the carnivore drama-club members get’s careless while rough-housing with a herbivore and accidently rips his arm off, the faculty at Cherryton Academy decide that it’s time to take decisive action to protect the herbivore students. Starting next year, herbivore and carnivore students will no longer attend classes together and, effective immediately, all clubs with mixed membership are to be shut-down, including the drama club! Both the carnivore and herbivore drama club members are against ending their time together and they rally the other clubs in danger of being shut-down to speak out against the school’s decision. Legoshi barely has any time to worry about this new development, however, as he’s managed to discover the identity of the drama club member who murdered Tem, and it’s someone he probably can’t take in a fight!
Review:
I was a little disappointed with the reveal of Tem’s murderer. This was partially because it happened so soon and with hardly any sleuthing on Legoshi’s part and partially because the guilty party turned out to be a background character who’s barely had any lines up until now and whose name I’m not even sure had come up prior to this point. It wasn’t much of a shocking twist; more of a “Oh, I guess it was that guy, huh?” type of moment.
I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Despite opening on Tem’s murder, Beastars isn’t really a murder-mystery story and has been focused on action and character drama up until now, so it makes sense that Itagaki wouldn’t draw out the investigation and would move straight to the confrontation.
An interesting twist was thrown into the mix when Legoshi reveals what he knows to the murderer, however. Pina overhears Legoshi confronting Tem’s killer and, despite having behaved like an annoying snot up until now, he risks his own safety by stepping in to deescalate the situation and avoid a fight that Legoshi would likely have lost, badly. But that fight has merely been postponed and now the murderer is aware that both Legoshi and Pina know their secret. Legoshi will need to protect Pina and keep himself from getting killed at the same time, so the situation has gotten much more dicey for our favourite wolf.
Even more unfortunately, it looks like Legoshi has reached the pinnacle of the strength that he can achieve through physical training, and it still won’t be enough if he faces the killer in a head-on fight. So what is Legoshi supposed to do now?
I mean, the obvious thing would be to go to the police, but for some reason, that doesn’t seem to be an option that’s on the table. Instead, his mentor, Gohin, might just have a solution: Legoshi needs to start gathering allies to help him.
Hmm, I wonder who would make a good ally?
Right on time, Legoshi runs into Louis in the Black Market and this was probably my favourite scene in the book. Possibly the whole series, up until now! Despite being threatened by members of the Shishigumi, Legoshi is so happy to see Louis again that his tail starts wagging uncontrollably. He’s such a good boy! Hilariously, Louis’ minions just assume that Legoshi has some freaky kinks!
This meeting allows some of Louis’ misunderstandings about what Legoshi has been up to in the Black Market to be cleared up and Legoshi makes an impassioned speech about how Cherryton Academy still needs him. But, will it be enough to convince Louis to come back to school? We’ll have to wait and see.
Despite the solution to the mystery of Tem’s demise being a bit lacking in impact, this proved to be an exciting and eventful volume of the series. The reunion between Louis and Legoshi was priceless and there was a pretty big revelation about Legoshi’s family that I can’t wait to learn more about in the next volume. Perhaps the biggest surprise, however, was learning that reattaching limbs is apparently a thing that doctors can just do in this world and that incidents like the one with the student who lost their arm just happen ever few years. I’m starting to see why the herbivore students are always so on edge.
Despite this, all of the students of Cherryton Academy come together to try and avoid their school becoming segregated and it was truly heartwarming to see them all put aside their differences and band together. Even some of the jerky characters, like Bill, get worked up over the thought of loosing their club and being put in separate classes from their herbivore classmates. It’s really sweet, though it is yet to be seen if it will be enough and there are some characters who are harbouring doubts over whether or not separating the carnivores and herbivores would really be such a bad thing. I sense there will be even more drama around this conflict in the next volume and I’m very much looking forward to it.
Final Score: 8.5 out of 10.
What did you think of this volume? Were you hoping for a more in-depth lead up to the solution to the mystery? Or are you glad that the identity of the murderer is out in the open so we can get straight to the big show-down? Let me know in the comments.
You can find more information on this series at Viz Media’s website.
Be sure to check out my reviews of the other volumes in the Beastars manga 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
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