Accidental Aesop: The Reveal behind Tem's death that kicks off the story can also be read like this: skipping out on your medication only because you feel like you don't need it anymore is not a good reason. (Though the killer's species is mandated by their society to take their prescribed meds, patients in real life have the right to arrange a plan with their doctor to wean off theirs. Even then if you're a minor, a parent is usually involved in this process.)
In-Universe, Gouhin chalks up Legoshi's crush on Haru as being a twisted hunting instinct, as Legoshi had tried to eat her before.
Toki. Was her final act to kiss Gosha without cleaning her mouth a sign of romance, or was it an entirely selfish act that caused him enormous grief and stress for the rest of his life?
And You Thought It Would Fail: When the series first came out, general thoughts about it (particularly in some western countries, like the U.S., due to the negative stereotypes that exist about the genre) were that it was going to crash and burn due to it being a furry manga. Two or three chapters were all it took to change people’s minds. The rest is history.
Similar to Zootopia, people made various interpretations around predator-prey relations in the manga series along with its anime adaptation.
Youtuber Jack Saint has a multi-part series analyzing the manga and actually calls out this trope by pointing out that Beastars' message takes bits and pieces of real-world conflicts, but still applying its own internal logic at all times, making it so that it can be read in multiple ways, but never specifically pointing towards one particular conflict. This actually contrasts with Zootopia, which he argues is much more blatant about the type of prejudice and issues it's talking about. In the videos, he analyzes Legoshi's arc by talking about biotruths, Louis's arc through a Marxist lens, and Haru's through a feminist lens. He also makes a case that Beastars might ultimately be a story about how arbitrary are the things that society considers "normal" and "deviant", and how it's important to bring certain issues to light so they can be properly talked through and analyzed, rather than pushing them away.
The "Revenge of the Love Failure" Arc, which encompasses Legoshi, Yafya, the Shishigumi, and Louis wondering how to get rid of Melon as he wreaks havoc in the black market, leads a tusk trade business, and worsens carni-herbi relationships in society. The search for a way to take down Melon is long, drawn-out, and often feels like it goes on multiple tangents, infamously, an entire volume's worth of chapters dedicated to Legoshi learning a fighting technique from Kyuu, that ends up not even being used in the final fight. The multiple times in which Melon is within the grasp of the characters that want him gone only for someone (usually Legoshi) to mess up and let him flee, is particularly annoying.
The Legoshi/Haru Will They or Won't They?. While both are attracted to each other, Legoshi refuses to start a relationship with her until he can offer her a proper future, socially and economically, which means he probably won't start a relationship with her, and for that matter can't even bring himself to kiss or be intimate with her, for a while. It's notable that even In-Universe, Haru herself is growing frustrated with their relationship that never seems to progress nor end. The arc is only solved in the very final chapter, where they officially start dating, and even then, Haru admits to herself she doesn't think the relationship has much of a future, which many found to be an underwhelming and anti-climatic way of resolving the longest-running arc of the whole manga.
Audience-Alienating Ending: Following the Revenge of the Love Failure Arc, the manga's ending was swiftly announced to be within the following month, in 4 chapters. The general feeling of many of those chapters is that the story was incredibly rushed, with unsatisfying conclusions to the Myth Arc's plot points, with one of the biggest sources of ire being Louis ditching Juno to marry Azuki, and little focus on smaller plots and side-characters like the Drama Club, cutting off right when some very interesting developments were happening, such as Louis considering becoming co-Beastars with Legoshi, the end of the Back-Alley Market, and Gosha being a part of the Dokugumi. This has even led some fans to wonder whether the manga isn't being secretly canceled, or if Paru Itagaki has just become tired of writing this manga. The rushed ending was infamous enough that some people dropped the manga before being done, or avoided picking it up altogether.
Awesome Art: The stop-motion-animated opening, as well as Haru's fantasy sequence in episode 7, animated entirely in watercolor painting by Yoko Kuno.
The series' first opening song, "Wild Side", is an unfathomably catchy jazz song, to say nothing of the visuals associated with it.
The second opening, "Kaibutsu", is pretty great too.
"A Tale of Moon", despite being less than a minute long, is a somber yet sweet love song that normally plays whenever Legoshi thinks about his love for Haru. It's even more impactful when you listen to the lyrics, which talks about how love can cut through the darkness.
While technically a fan song, the song "Predator and Prey", performed by Legoshi and Louis's English VA's Jonah Scott and Griffin Puatu (also written and produced by Puatu), is a beautifully melancholic summary of their characters.
An extreme personality like Louis' was bound to divide readers. His acting prowess, sweeping ambition, and occasionally looking out for Legoshi endear him to some, but his frequent mood swings and irrational actions drive others away.
Also readers seem to love or hate Haru. Is she an uninteresting hussy who isn't good enough for Legoshi or a bright, mature girl who tries her hardest to survive as a rabbit?
Bill is often seen as vulgar, rude, and a monster for actively eating meat by fans who've only watched the anime. However, manga readers tend to see him in a more positive light, mostly due to coming to terms with how eating meat doesn't turn people into Complete Monsters, as well as Adaptation Distillation cutting out scenes like the second half of Chapter 16, and the anime simply not adapting his Days In The Limelight yet; both of which portray Bill more as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
Kyuu. To her fans, she is an interesting character with a unique story and personality and a badass Action Girl that challenges Legoshi's perception of herbivores and females. To her detractors, she takes too much space in the story, almost as a single character Plot Tumor, whose personality is too sue-ish due to the impossible feats she does, and her role in changing Legoshi's perspective on herbivores should already have been filled by most of the main cast of herbivores like Louis, Haru, Yafya and even Pina, and dislike the bizarre "Chimera" powers she adds to the story. While some of her detractors feared her addition would add a thorn in the Legoshi/Haru romance, this was alleviated as this seems to not be the case.
Go on r/Beastars and start a discussion about whether Leano's reasons for killing herself should be viewed as remotely sympathetic. You're almost guaranteed to start a flame war.
The shadow demon in chapter 5, which is a personification of Legoshi's predatory instinct, is never mentioned or shown again in that form. While Legoshi still struggles with them, they are shown through more his own point of view than as a personification.
A chapter starts off following a hen student that lays eggs and takes a great deal of pride in it, especially since she sits next to Legoshi and he eats egg salad sandwiches every Wednesday, only to become despondent when one Wednesday rolls around and he brings something different for lunch because the egg taste has changed, only to find out they moved the day that they use her eggs to Friday. It's entirely irrelevant and never comes up in the actual story, but takes up a significant chunk of the episode before the intro.
During Legoshi's fight with Tem's killer, the former suddenly disassembles into a swarm of moths to break free from the other's hold, without any explanation given whatsoever as to how this happened. The scene does reference the time Legoshi ate a moth larvae and talked with its spirit, but the result shown still doesn't make sense. It could be a hallucination, but that doesn't explain how he did break free, and the killer's stupefied reaction to it.
Captain Obvious Reveal: The reveal that the animal who killed Tem is Riz the bear. Shortly after Legoshi decides to investigate who the killer is, a batch of carnivores are named, and among them, Riz is the only one of them who suddenly has a lot of speaking lines and appearances when before he was only relegated to the background. In addition, a big deal is made very early on of the killer's immense strength, and it's shown shortly after that Bill and Tao have very weak limbs that Riz trumps easily. It was also established early that it was somebody from the drama club. Most importantly of all, there weren't really any other options besides a random never been seen unnamed character. The anime makes it even worse by not even introducing any extra carnivores at all, leaving the list of possible suspects even smaller than it already was from the manga. To the story's credit, Legoshi himself admits somewhat subtly that he had it sussed out almost immediately and his investigation was really to confirm that fact.
Complete Monster: The unnamed chief lion of the Shishigumi from the "Meteor Festival" arc, favoring the taste of white-furred herbivores, has ordered the abduction of countless victims to serve as his meals over the years, resulting in Haru being captured by his men. The chief lion believes that feelings of shame promote blood flow, improving the flavor of the meat, so he would psychologically torment his prey by forcing them to strip and bathe in front of him before looking over every inch of their body in order to humiliate them. During this process, the chief lion seems to have a polite demeanor, even stopping his men from brutalizing Haru, but this is proven to be nothing more than a façade which quickly crumbles when she starts showing signs of defiance, as he threatens to violate her and attempts to tear her apart while she's still alive. After being defeated and spared by Legoshi, the chief lion proves how utterly dishonorable he is by attempting to shoot him In the Back.
Die for Our Ship: Ironically, Haru is rarely the target of this in Legoshi/Louis fanfic, often being portrayed as a supportive friend and Shipper on Deck. However, Juno is prone to receive this if the story is set during the earlier arcs, where she was much more antagonistic to Louis and outright states she's willing to fight him for Legoshi and is usually painted as an antagonist to the pair.
Draco in Leather Pants: Louis is a complex character to be sure, but it would not be an understatement to say that fans like to gloss over his violent time spent as a mafia boss. Similarly, the Shisigumi are seen as slightly nicer than the murderous mafia members they are thanks to their paternal nature towards Louis.
Dry Docked Ship: Gosha/Yafya. Quite a few fans like to think of them as an Old Flame of each other, whose relationship fell through when Gosha chose to start a family without him. Granted, some fics focus on them rebuilding their friendship and maybe something more.
Several characters without much screentime or developed personality are well-liked by the fans, particularly Els, Tem, Shiera, and Dom from the Drama club.
Kai does roughly two things of any significance throughout the entire canonnote Attempting to punch Louis, and expositing about the drama club secrets.. Despite this, he has a massive fanbase for his Hidden Depths, apparently being raised by hyenas, befriending Legoshi, becoming nicer, their Non-Standard Character Design and distinct personality.
Sebun is one of those characters that everyone seems to like seeing, however briefly.
For a non-character, the shadow-wolf Legoshi wrestles with overeating Haru (a representation of his instincts, it would seem) is extremely (and unironically) popular, particularly in fanart, for something that moonlights as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.
Durham and Miguno, of the 701 canines, are surprisingly popular in fanfics, due to pairing them together being very popular both as the main pairing and as Ship Mates to other couples.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Legoshi/Louis have a decent fanbase, possibly more so than the canon Legoshi/Haru. Even those who don’t ship them tend to agree that Louis and Legoshi have a lot of chemistry and the manga’s tendency to focus on their relationship rather than their canon love interests makes for a story where a romance between them would’ve been way better set up and feel quite natural. Interestingly, there seems to be very little Ship-to-Ship Combat with the canon ships. A lot of slash shippers actually like the canon pairings and are happy to polyship the main four.
Due to, in no small part, a very popular fanfic with that premise, there are a few fanfics that run with the premise of "What If? Legoshi had attacked Louis in the fountain instead of Haru?". These fanfics tend to be Canon Divergent retellings of the manga's events with the central couple now being Legoshi/Louis.
Some fans also enjoy the What If? scenario of Gouhin adopting and raising a young Melon after he was orphaned. While some fanfics focus on that, others just like to have that as a reason to have Melon as a non-villainous role, usually as a doctor.
Due to the fact that mafia groups are already part of the canon plot, Mafia Alternate Universe Fics have a commonplace in the fandom, often set in the Back-Alley Market. The specifics of it vary, but some common plot threads include Gosha and/or Legoshi being part of the Dokugumi, Louis being a part of the Shishigumi either as the current leader or heir, multiple established characters running businesses on the Back-Alley Market, etc.
The manga ends with no character taking the role of Sublime Beastar, despite the implications that Louis and Legosi would unknowingly follow Yafya and Gosha's plan to become Beastars together. Therefore, the plot of an older Louis and Legosi taking up the role and leading society (often while in a relationship with each other) is also popular.
Fanfic Fuel: Kai mentions that everyone scouted for the Drama Club has a Dark Secret, but Louis and Legoshi are the only characters of relevance to have theirs revealed, this leaves fanfic writers pretty free to create plenty of surprising and dark backstories for the characters that they want to write about. For example, Protector portrays Bill, Els, and Pina as having very dark backstories.
Pina being Bisexual, despite no evidence, thanks to what can easily be described as his flirtatious nature. This got a bit more popularity due to the ambiguous wording used to talk about his newly found friendship with Riz.
Jack is assumed to be one of Cherryton's best students, and one of the few characters known to be on the same intellectual level as Louis. While this assumption has some merit, most people miss that he was placed in one of the top classes solely for being an artificially bred dog.
People like to assume most carnivores wrestle with a shadow-beast as Legoshi does in chapter 5/episode 2 when predatory instincts come up.note Given this never shows up again, it's more likely Legoshi was having a mental breakdown
Some fanfic seems to run with the assumption that touching someone's tail is an intrusive and extremely rude act, and something that is only done between people who are extremely close, usually couples. In the series proper, there's little evidence of that, considering both Haru and Louis pretty much grab Legoshi's tail without a care, and he doesn't complain about it (and in Haru's case he feels embarrassed by being touched by her at all, tail notwithstanding); and Legoshi himself offers to Juno to touch his tail whenever she likes as a sign of kinship among wolves. Often, this is also the case for horns and antlers, and Louis, in particular, is shown to be very upset and offended when someone touches his antlers that are not his close friends.
A lot of fanfic is written with the idea that Louis has a private room in Cherryton, as opposed to having roommates. This is usually justified by either Oguma buying a separate room for his son with donations to the school or with the idea that high achieving students like him can request a private room by filling certain academic criteria.
San has a minimal role in the manga, therefore we don't see much of his personality, but fan works often portray him as being somewhat ignorant of the outside world costumes, though The Social Expert nonetheless; resentful of carnivores, though less so than Kyuu; and to be quite eccentric.
Foe Yay Shipping: The most popular pairing with Melon seems to be with Agata, a member of the Shishigumi that makes no secret of his hatred for him. The ship seems to have taken off after chapters 131 and 132 because Melon threatened to kill and feed Agata to his friends, and stabbed his hand with a fork, and got more popular later when Agata planned to assassinate Melon.
Unsurprisingly, fans of this show get along great with fans of Zootopia, another work which depicts Fantastic Racism between anthropomorphic carnivore and herbivore animals (to the point that it's jokingly referred to as "Zootopiawith murders" in the west). In fact, a big part of its appeal in America is how it's willing to go significantly darker with the subjects of the Disney movie than Disney would have ever been willing and, therefore, has more to say about it beyond the basic-but-important message of "prejudice is bad."
Similarly, there's also an overlap between fans of this and of the Soviet/Russian cartoon Nu, Pogodi!, which stars a predatory wolf and his hare prey who bear a passing resemblance to Legoshi and Haru, respectively. Fans of the Russian show often refer to Beastars as a Nu Pogodi!High School AU. Many fan videos on YouTube mimic the opening of Beastars with scenes from Nu Pogodi.
Most audiences recognize the anime as one of the big three Netflixfurry anime alongside Aggretsuko and BNA: Brand New Animal. It's not uncommon to see fan art of characters from all three shows interacting with one another or see people recommending Beastars to fans of the two and vice versa.
Ever since Legoshi got some "power-ups" as mentioned below, people joked about "Legoshi Blanco" (a meme coming from Dragon Ball Super based on fan-made power levels using Latin labels) where Legoshi gets a power-up where he gets white aura. Come Chapter 149, Legoshi's fur turns white after thinking Haru was killed only for her to be alive, but the moment shook him and strengthened his resolve.
Early in the Manga, Juno declares herself to be Louis' rival and attempts to woo Legoshi away from Haru. In chapters 136-137, Juno is revealed to have a crush on, and be dating Louis. She proceeds to ask Legoshi for relationship advice.
Incest Yay Shipping: There are people who ship Legoshi with his grandfather Gosha.
In one chapter, Legoshi and Haru sleep on the same bed, and when he wakes up, he sees a bundle of covers stained in red, and believes that he killed Haru in his sleep. Obviously that didn't happen. Haru spilled tomato juice and the covers while he was sleeping and went out to get cleaning products for it.
Chapter 173 ends with Legoshi that has been fasting (and by consequence going crazy with hunger) for days saying that he had received the visit and support of Louis. Cut to his apartment and the walls are bloodied while there's a huge bag of blood in the middle of the room. The following chapter reveals that there is indeed deer blood in his room, and Louis has been missing for over a day. However, Louis comes back unscratched, and it's shown that, he and Legoshi had drained each other's blood into that bag, in order to make a torch for the turf war that could stand as a symbol for carnivore/herbivore friendships. The blood on the walls was because Louis spilled the first batch of blood they drained and he has been missing for a day to recover from the anemia and blood loss.
Magnificent Bastard ("Meteor Festival Arc" & "Murder Solution Arc"): Ibuki joined the Shishigumi at the age of 18 after taking care of himself in the back-alley market for six years. Much more restrained than his chief, Ibuki treats the lions as a family and ensures their loyalty to the gang. When Louis kills the chief, Ibuki suggests making him the new boss to improve the gang reputation and acts like a father figure to the young deer while subtly consolidating the latter's power. When Louis resolves to leave the Shishigumi, which would result in his death, Ibuki has himself shot by another lion so that Louis can escape. As charming as he is ruthless, Ibuki proves essential in leading both Louis and his own gang towards a path of redemption.
Don't touch me. Don't make a sound. Explanation Due to Bill pushing his Berserk Buttons, Louis suddenly pulls out a gun on him. The sheer "Holy Shit!" Quotient of the scene is both awesome and hilarious. And this goes for pretty much every single time he pulls out a gun. Louis and guns just fit so well together, to the point that people were bummed when the scene was cut from the anime
Legoshi's increasing circle of a harem is brought up quite often, due to how much of a Launcher of a Thousand Ships he is.
O MY KOMODO GENES Explanation (Spoilers) An offshoot of the Western Hunter × Hunter meme "O, MY RUBBER NEN", regarding characters making comebacks in absurd asspull-ish ways. After the reveal of Legoshi's heritage of being 1/4 of a komodo dragon, fans like to joke about his inner instincts coming out as a superpower. "Komodo Genes" is usually replaced with MOTH NEN (he eats a moth larva and seemingly gains the ability to shapeshift into a swarm of moths) or SUPER BEAST MODE (he eats Louis' foot to recover his carnivore instincts and then the narrator, in the original magazine publication, calls his newfound power that).
Legoshi Blanco Explanation (Spoilers) Taken from Dragon Ball Super memes where Goku gains a super form with a white aura. In Chapter 149, Legoshi's fur actually turned white out of shock from thinking he accidentally killed Haru and, after realizing he hadn't, he goes off to face Melon looking like that.
When you ask Jack what he's eating and he starts to chew fasterExplanation (Spoilers) Referencing the meme about trying to pry whatever your dog is eating that it shouldn't be out of its mouth, with it proceeding to try to eat it faster. At one point after Legoshi returns to Cherryton to hide out from the law, we see Jack alone contemplating a bag of onions that are labeled to be toxic for canines, with readers suspecting he was contemplating suicide by eating the onions. It became even more fitting during the next chapter where even though that wasn't what he was using them for, he does eat half an onion to spite Legoshi out of anger, causing Legoshi to try prying his mouth open while he attempts to swallow it.
It's Zootopia but Dark.Explanation A meme that became widespread when a western fanbase started to build up steam. Since it's easy to compare the two properties as it is, people would use this vague tagline if they don't want to spoil much about the actual manga...which in retrospect is too vague as "dark" could mean a plethora of things.
LEGOshiExplanation Due to the pronunciation of Legoshi's name, there have been several memes referencing the popular LEGO franchise including several pieces of art of Legoshi as a mini-figure. Doubles a joke about how Legoshi's name is often mispronounced as sounding like Bela Lugosi's name rather than its proper pronunciation.
"hmm rabbet"Explanation Memes of Legoshi's odd preference for Haru over Juno, despite the latter's devotion to him and the lack of stigma that would carry with him dating her. Often supplanted with Juno exclaiming "Legoshi hug/kiss/breed/etc. me" to him, "hmm rabbet" is in response to.
"It's just an event for Normies" Explanation A phrase spoken by Kai that exploded in use during the COVID-19 Pandemic
"What is "tiddie"?? Explanation When the character of Kyuu was introduced, people were quick to take notice of her rather... generous assets. When people began talking about the "tiddie rabbit", Paru Itagaki actually tweeted out "what is "tiddie"??" with an image of Kyuu, much to the amusement (and occasional horror) of the fandom.
Wait, this isn't Beastars!Explanation Due to the central premise, other cartoons with the premise of carnivores fighting their instincts to eat herbivores, or even just cartoons with a Wolf and a Rabbit/Deer in them elicit this reaction, usually jokingly.
Ladder Explanation (NSFW) There's a NSFW animation floating around called "Backdoor Labrador" by Taga, involving Legosi engaging in, err, “relations” with Jack on a ladder (with the goddamn common courtesy of a reach around). Said animation's reached high levels of notoriety within the Beastars fanbase, especially on the r/Beastars subreddit where many people are joking about it to the point where the mere mention of the word "ladder" is enough to elicit a reaction from anyone, there. It reached a head when the moderators decided to ban the word "ladder" and it's now become a meta-joke that anything involving a ladder in an innocuous situation is grounds for banning.
In-Universe, any carnivore who partakes in the act of eating meat is seen as crossing this line by society (especially from any herbivore character's perspective) as a whole, with anyone caught eating another animal becoming a registered predator for life and having many job opportunities and other social events closed off for them as a consequence (such as being turned away from many types of jobs and being banned from marrying any herbivore).
Riz, a brown bear in the school drama club, crossed this when he killed and ate his friend Tem, sparking the first story arcs conflict. While he did show some form of remorse over the action (albeit in the form of an altered take on what happened the night of the killing), the fact that Riz then tried to kill Legoshi (who was investigating Tem's killing) and put him in a situation where he was forced to eat Louis's leg (creating more conflict for Legoshi in the later story arcs), cemented his status as one of the mangas most dangerous antagonists.
Melon crosses this onscreen in his introduction chapter when it's revealed that he killed multiple elephants and used their tusks and meat for his own benefit, before fatally stabbing one he was "counseling" when Yafya bursts in to arrest him. To say his behavior afterward becomes even more violent, aggressive and worse down the storyline is an understatement.
Legoshi's tendency to do long internal monologues can often make specific situations extremely awkward for the audience. Case in point, when he invites Haru over for a stay in the Hidden Condo, she asks to see his penis to see if they're "compatible" in that way. When he pulls down his pants, we get a wistful internal monologue about his relationship with her, all while Haru stares deadpan straight at his crotch.
The episode descriptions in the US Netflix site refer to Louis and Haru as "Rouis" and "Hal", making it a bit awkward for die-hard fans of the series.
What's worse for Louis is that while season one's English subtitles in the Japanese dub at least get Haru's name right, he is still called "Rouis" in the text, giving many viewers an awkward chuckle here and there whenever his name is spoken (especially in any dark or serious scenes). However, in season two the subtitles also start calling Haru "Hal", meaning Louis isn't the only misnamed character anymore.
Some of Kyuu's physical feats are pretty hard to buy, especially her first where she manages to completely incapacitate Legoshi with... a rope. By tossing it around him at an angle that makes the rope somehow boomerang back to her around Legoshi. Really. Not that she's the first to perform such feats, but most performers were Carnivores explicitly stated to be stronger than average, with a lifetime of training under their belt. note Though it should be noted that a lot of people feel that Kyuu isn’t really a standout element in a manga that is already chock full of animals with impossible biology (like lizards with acid venom) and continually shows characters doing things that “should” be physically impossible (like mice fighting large animals as a coordinated hivemind).
Speaking of Kyuu, her Ms. Fanservice tendencies have a tendency to get ridiculous, especially her erm... breasts.
Narm Charm: The series is pretty over the top at times with things happening that would be completely unrealistic in the real world. But the fact that they do establish that the characters aren't just humans with animal heads helps. And for some, that over-the-topness is a large part of why the series is endearing. An example would be the scene where at the drama club where the panther accidentally rips the anteater's arm clean off while helping him stretch. It came completely out of nowhere, and the unlikeliness of it put some people off, but a lot of people enjoyed the scene for how over the top it was.
No Yay: A few fans expressed discomfort with the possibility of Bill and Els becoming an item, citing Bill's known habit of doping on herbivore-blood and his eagerness to buy meat from the Black Market.
Older Than They Think: The concept of predator-prey relationship of this book seemed to have been taken from Zootopia, but in actuality, it is older - at least its sister series Beast Complex (confirmed to share the same setting) was published earlier than the Disney film, and even Itagaki took notice of the similarity. Principle Gon is actually a character from the aforementioned manga. And all of the above is actually predated by the webcomic Kevin & Kell, which started exploring predator-prey relations in 1995.
The series gives us Legosi/Haru/Louis. Legosi is the main character and Haru is his Love Interest. As for Louis, he has canonically slept with Haru and it was implied that he might have had deeper feelings for her, and his interactions with Legosi are positively dripping with Ho Yay.
Some fans take this even further into a Foursome by adding Juno into the mix, as she has been attracted both to Legosi and Louis, and has canonically had sexual relations with the latter.
Popular with Furries: Naturally, given that Beastars is an alternate take on Zootopia. If furries don't enjoy Beastars for the well-developed animal characters and setting then they can at least enjoy the copious amounts of fetish material.
Rainbow Lens: The arc Legosi goes through feels to many fans as a queer teenager coming out and learning to deal with his sexuality. It technically is, in fact, it just doesn't have to do with the gender of his partner, but rather their species. He finds out that his sexual and romantic preferences are taboo in the world, but chooses to be truthful to them and pursue the person he loves, he worries about the future he can provide to a partner in these conditions, etc. While some people read the herbivore/carnivore relationships as similar to interracial relations, there are similarities to same-sex relationships as well, such as a boom in these occurring recently as a background event, the legality of such marriages being a rather recent thing and still having caveats, the similarities between carnivore/herbivore relationships and same-sex relationships is even given a parallel when in a night club, a carnivore woman narrates that they won't follow the rules of heterosexuality there while making out with a female that is implied to be a herbivore. There is also the fact that some fans see Legosi as pansexual/bisexual due to his comments about Louis being beautiful making some believe that he is attracted to species rather than gender.
Oguma. Fanfiction really likes to portray him as an overly controlling jerk, refusing to let Louis find love with any carnivore, all because he had a deer fiancé prepared for Louis and bought him from the black market. Several of Louis's anti-carnivore tendencies will generally be the result of his parenting, in several stories that involve Louis's relationship with any grey wolf.
Juno somehow gets this even more than Oguma, frequently seen in a negative manner as either a Yandere obsessed with Legoshi or Louis, or even an outright villain.
Louis is no saint in canon, but many people see him as an outright murderous psychopath with extremely bigoted tendencies (usually against Carnivores), which he most definitely is not, even at the beginning of the series.
Interesting, Tem's killer often gets this, as they're often portrayed as a single-minded monster eager to kill and devour, even though they're actually given some depth as a character in their focus arc. In canon, Riz does feel regret for his action, his feelings for Tem were genuine, and he had been going crazy for a while due to the meds, none of these traits usually appear in fanfiction. Later in the manga, he was even able to form a friendship with his former victim Pina, showing that he is not a complete monster. However, this does seem to stem from the necessity of having a villain in the story.
The canon pairings of Legoshi/Haru and Louis/Juno are often paired together by shippers.
In counterpart, the fanon slash pairings Legoshi/Louis and Juno/Haru are also put together. A lot of secondary slash pairings can accompany those, including Bill/Pina, Dom/Kai, Gosha/Yafya, Ibuki/Oguma, and Durham/Miguno.
As side characters in the drama club, Tao/Kibi and Bill/Pina are two ships that are often seen together.
The Ship's Motor: In order to skip a lot of details about whether characters are attracted to the same sex, there is a fanon, or at least a fanfic-writing convention, that attraction to species supersedes attraction to a gender, therefore someone attracted to herbivores is likely to be attracted to herbivores regardless of gender. This partly stems from an interpretation of the scene where Louis visits Legosi at the hospital, and Legosi confesses to being attracted to herbivores in general, rather than just Haru, after noticing how beautiful Louis is, which puts Louis as a Closet Key for him. This is used for a number of ships, most prominently, Legosi/Louis, but also Juno/Haru, Bill/Pina, Riz/Pina, etc.
Jack/Louis is weirdly popular despite the utter lack of interaction between them.
Dom/Kai is growing popular thanks to a cute interaction they have in the anime, the fact that Kai has an interesting personality rarely explored in canon, and the Word of Gay applied to Dom. A certain fanfic only added fuel to the fire.
Ibuki/Oguma, due to both characters being paternal figures to Louis and despite them never meeting. Some fanart even portrays them as raising a baby Louis together.
Signature Series Arc: The Murder Incident Resolution Arc was set among fans as the best arc of the manga, in which its characters and themes shine the brightest. Particularly praise is given to the climactic New Year's Eve fight and the extremely emotional scene between Legoshi and Louis (whose relationship make the core of the arc and the series from then on) at that fight which results in a Signature Scene of the manga: Louis offering his leg for Legoshi to eat and him accepting it.
Legoshi catching Haru outside the school theatre. Outside the context of the scene, Legoshi holding a scared Haru has been used to promote the anime in both posters and in the official announcement trailer.
To a lesser degree, Louis pushing Legoshi against the wall and shoving his hand against his fangs.
Legoshi eating Louis's leg
Signature Song: "Kaibutsu", which opens each episode in the second season of the series.
Squick: The series doesn't pull any punches with its details of the anthropomorphic world it's set in, like a black market for carnivores to consume meat. That said, knowing that eggs are still provided by hens, and a hen student taking great pride in how well her eggs sell is... gross at best.
Also, since Beast Complex is set in the same world as Beastars, we learn that "Taxidermy" is legal. We see a Pig as the one running it and has his work displayed, even as one Zebra man asking to stuff his dead wife.
Haru. While she is billed as a main character, she is pretty much written out of the story by the time of the Murder Incident Solution Arc, aside from the occasional reminder Legoshi is doing things with the intention of getting with her. She had been up until that point praised as an interesting, well-rounded character, especially for a Love Interest in a shounen series, and many fans were upset that she lost her place in the story, rather than getting involved with the central plot like Louis did.
Kyuu. She's presented as an extremely skilled fighter who regularly challenges if Legoshi will stay with Haru, especially due to having a much more sensual design, and is responsible for teaching him the Imaginary Chimera fighting technique. However, by the time that she appears, every single question she could have posed with her interactions with Legoshi were already answered with Juno, and her decision to tell Melon about Chimera fighting, something that Legoshi doesn't even use anyways, turns her entire arc into Filler during an already rough spot in the series. Which is especially sad since, if she took Juno's role and was introduced when Juno was, she presents the question of if Legoshi loves Haru or just has a herbivore fetish much more impactfully by being objectively better than Haru in every way except personality.
San, as well. The only time he's ever given a spotlight in the manga is the same chapter Kyuu is introduced in, and seemingly disappears from reality after his relationship with Louis and Kyuu is set up.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Early in the manga, it's revealed that every single member of the drama club is scouted partly due to having an unusual background, as Kai explains, and even mentions that he is mongoose raised by hyenas, for example. However, aside from Legoshi, Louis, and the three very secondary characters that Kai mentions, no other characters of the club get their mysterious background explored or even explained. This is particularly glaring since characters that do get some focus like Bill and Pina and don't get their secrets revealed.
Trapped by Mountain Lions: In order to defeat Melon, Legoshi learns how to draw power from visualizing himself as a rabbit-like "chimera", and an entire segment of the arc is dedicated to him learning how to use it and to train under Kyuu. However, after the training is complete, it never comes up for the whole brawl at the Back-Alley Market or the fight against Melon, meaning the whole arc just served as a way to focus on Kyuu. And Kyuu herself doesn't play a big role in the resolution of the arc or the story as a whole, either.
A mild example with the characters' humanoid bodies (including human-like, fur-covered hands and feet) combined with animal heads.
When Legoshi tries to use a "Chimera", it's shown as a big wolf/rabbit hybrid, more or less of what he would be if he were a rabbit. It's a bit jarring to see.
Viewer Species Confusion: The subtitles of the anime identify Els as an alpaca, but she has horns like a goat. Both the Manga and Word of God say she's an Angora Goat incidentally.
The first season's stop-motion opening credits sequence. Not only does it feature some really cool-looking and surprisingly expressive felt puppets, but the little swing dance between Legoshi and Haru in the middle has expertly natural timing which really makes those puppets feel alive.
The series itself has been named another feather in production studio Orange's cap following their success with Land of the Lustrous, being able to successfully adapt Itagaki's loose and expressive style into 3D with sophisticated traditional and digital techniques.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The series is Shōnen (as in tween to teen boys), but Itagaki pushes the age range to its limits. The blood and violence get rather graphic (e.g. lapsed carnivores, consensual cannibalism being a good thing in an arc), and it is full of sexual content that wouldn't be out of place in an older teen drama.
Jack is generally agreed to be this after he gets hit with serious Break the Cutie in chapter 152.
The universe just refuses to give Legoshi a break...
Louis, once you realize just how... bad his mental state is, particularly with regards to Carnivores. In addition to assuming he's doomed to be eaten alive by a Carnivore someday, and having flashbacks to the back alley market, he realizes he's sexually attracted to Carnivores. This on top of one father figure committing suicide after seemingly trying to kill him and another dying in a random accident, being forced to let his girlfriend die (she doesn't), almost losing his friend the same night as the former, and forcing his friend to mutilate him to survive, all can't have been good for his sanity.
Chapter 189 reveals Gosha’s fortitude is not as absolute as most think it is. He lost his wife to his komodo venom in an accident caused by her, raised his daughter by himself, said daughter takes her own life thanks to her hybrid heritage, raises his grandson by himself (and tries to teach him to be mild-mannered, educated and reserved), Legoshi enters a sorta rebellious phase and nearly loses him, and now some deadbeat asshole has triggered this trauma, turning him into a really angry grandpa who is this close to committing murder. Can we just hug the poor man?
has a multi-part series analyzing the manga and actually calls out this trope by pointing out that Beastars' message takes bits and pieces of real-world conflicts, but still applying its own internal logic at all times, making it so that it can be read in multiple ways, but never specifically pointing towards one particular conflict. This actually contrasts with Zootopia, which he argues is much more blatant about the type of prejudice and issues it's talking about. In the videos, he analyzes Legoshi's arc by talking about biotruths, Louis's arc through a Marxist lens, and Haru's through a feminist lens. He also makes a case that Beastars might ultimately be a story about how arbitrary are the things that society considers "normal" and "deviant", and how it's important to bring certain issues to light so they can be properly talked through and analyzed, rather than pushing them away.