If You Thought Beastars Was Bad, You’re Gonna Hate This New Series

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Paru Itagaki is a highly creative manga artist known for her unique stories and intricate characters, often set in bizarre and imaginative worlds. Her critically praised work, Beastars, stood out as something truly original within the anime and manga landscape. Despite featuring animal characters, the story expertly explores universal human struggles and themes without feeling overly moralistic or lecturing.

The series sparked strong reactions from many viewers, leaving them feeling uncomfortable and shocked – which seems to have been the creators’ goal. Following the success of Beastars, Paru Itagaki’s latest work, Sanda, is also gaining attention. Like Beastars, it’s unique within its genre, effectively combining thoughtful social observations with exciting action. However, Itagaki’s newest project, Taika’s Reason, might be her most daring yet, and its controversial themes could draw criticism.

Taika’s Reason Copies Beastars& Turns Up the Volume

This place is a unique ecosystem where animals from all levels of the food chain live together, separate from human influence. It envisions a world where plant-eaters and meat-eaters share the same space, despite their natural differences. The predators understand they could harm the plant-eaters, so they actively control their instincts. Meanwhile, the plant-eaters remain cautious and distrustful of the predators, who pose a threat to their safety.

With tensions running high, Beastars focuses on the developing relationship between Haru, a small rabbit, and Legoshi. Their romance is complicated from the start, as they come from species naturally divided as predator and prey. This creates tension not only in their connection, but also in the relationships around them. Legoshi and Haru constantly struggle with a connection that feels both passionate and dangerous, blurring the lines between love and instinct.

The anime Beastars focuses on internal conflicts within an animal world, allowing viewers to remain somewhat detached from the characters’ problems since they aren’t human. However, Taika’s Reason blurs that line. The story imagines a world where pets can become fully humanized – able to talk, think, and act just like people – making the story’s themes much more relatable and potentially unsettling.

In the story Taika’s Reason, Ao has a deeply loving relationship with her pet, Taika. The narrative explores the lengths someone will go to protect a beloved animal. However, the situation becomes complicated when Ao starts covering up crimes to shield Taika, even when she knows his actions have caused immense pain and loss for her family. Ultimately, she accepts that her life wouldn’t be the same without him, despite the consequences.

Adding to the awkwardness, Taika’s Reason hints at a pet developing romantic feelings for their owner – a boundary that feels even more taboo than what was explored in Beastars. While a relationship might not actually happen, just the idea of it is surprisingly bold.

Sanda is Strategically Warming Up Fans for Taika’s Reason

While sharing similarities with Beastars, Taika’s Reason also draws inspiration from Sanda. The author cleverly combined familiar elements from her previous works and reimagined them in this new story. Though it’s less eccentric than Beastars, Taika’s Reason is set in a bleak, dystopian future where a declining population leads to heavy government surveillance.

In this society, children are overly protected and encouraged to remain childlike for as long as possible. The population is so carefully managed that even natural development, like sleep and romantic relationships, is delayed until after schooling to suppress puberty. Furthermore, individuals have no control over who they fall in love with; the government predetermines romantic pairings for everyone.

The story of Taika’s Reason shares similarities with Sanda in its depiction of a government facing a population crisis and responding with morally dubious choices. In this world, the government has legalized a strange solution: transforming pets into partially human beings. However, this decision hasn’t been without problems. Many of these newly created Dogmen and Catmen have become violent, even killing humans – a crime considered the most serious offense possible.

These genetically modified pets, much like Frankenstein’s monster, show humanity overstepping its bounds without fully considering the consequences. By giving dogs and cats intelligence, people have created a new species that is neither fully animal nor fully human – a confusing and unsettling combination. This is what makes Taika’s Reason so captivating and disturbing. In a sense, the series’ unique premise prepares open-minded viewers for the even bolder and more challenging ideas explored in Paru Itagaki’s future work.

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2025-11-16 00:41