Every new anime season will be different, and you never know what surprises you’ll find when you start one. This season we’ve got not one but two “anthropomorphic animal” anime series to enjoy. But which show is the better pick for you? I’ll compare both series in today’s Anime Animal Battle! BEASTARS vs African Salaryman post!
African Salaryman
First is Africa no Salaryman (aka African Office Worker), a fun series that parodies office workers who happen to be animals. It follows a toucan and a lizard who work in an office, overseen by their boss, a lion. There’s not much of a plot: it’s basically a Nichijou-esque string of office-related jokes and other commentary on modern Japan, but expressed through the ridiculous medium of African animals wearing business suits. Quite a few of the jokes had me in stitches, like the daughter of Lion who rushes off to school with a zebra leg in her mouth, a nice parody of the running-with-toast-in-the-mouth anime gag.
Is it for you? The answer is…maybe. While I was able to appreciate some of the material based on contemporary topics, such as when Lizard referenced an ongoing discussion on about society’s need to preserve freedom of expression while also preventing hate speech, or the nervousness Japanese men have about being falsely accused of groping females on trains, I wasn’t sure anime fans around the world would get the references. But it’s a fun show if you like a lot of ironic office jokes in your anime.
Wow, just started Beastars. This is amazing! Dramatic story and innovative animation. It’s like Zootopia but with tons of drama and a murder mystery.
And I’m not bothered by the CGI animation at all, because it’s so not trying to ape the normal “moe” style. pic.twitter.com/MMMhRmYw1y
— J-LIST 🎃 (@jlist) October 29, 2019
BEASTARS
I started BEASTARS last night, and instantly fell in love with it. It’s very similar to Zootopia, about a society inhabited by intelligent animals who have social stress over the divide between carnivores and herbivores, with each group feeling mistrustful about the other. When a member of the school’s drama club is murdered by a carnivore, tensions at Cherryton Academy get even worse.
The two main characters are Legoshi, a large gray wolf, who’s a quiet and introverted member of the drama club, and Haru, a female dwarf rabbit who’s been ostracized by the other animals in the school, in part because of her sexual promiscuity. (Well, you know what rabbits do all the time, right?) Legoshi becomes fascinated by Haru, torn between the desire to eat her, and to eat her, in both meanings of the word.
There’s lots to like about this great show. I like the way the various animal’s personalities match their true nature, like the goat who needed to memorize his lines for a play but ate the script instead, because goats do that. I loved the background details of the world, how the eating of meat had been strictly outlawed, so all the carnivores had to make do with tofu burgers and other meat replacements. The murder mystery at the beginning is dramatic and grabs the viewer immediately. And being me, I’m impressed with the sexual elements of the story. It’s like Zootopia that comes with its own Rule 34, neatly packaged inside. There’s never been anything like this before.
CGI Anime I Actually Don’t Hate
Both BEASTARS and African Salaryman employ CGI animation, and I’m happy to say I didn’t dislike it at all, perhaps because they weren’t trying to replicate moe anime girls but were showing something completely different, animals wearing clothes and displaying human emotions. I’m decidedly not a fan of the “cel-look CGI animation” that companies use to save money at the expense of creating characters that fans can connect with emotionally, and I can report that both these new series are very enjoyable to watch, CGI and all. Like the CGI Lion King, I found it quite enjoyable, and my “uncanny valley detector” didn’t go off even once!
I have to give special attention to Studio Orange and their excellent work with BEASTARS. They’ve managed to introduce so many innovative camera angles and effects, like characters reflected off metal surfaces and animal-on-animal action scenes that would have been difficult to do with traditional hand-drawn animation. Studio Orange is the company that made the outstanding Land of the Lustrous, the closest thing to 1940’s Fantasia I’ve ever encountered. Also: props for the show’s opening. Imagine the balls it takes to do actual stop motion in 2019?
Is BEASTARS a “Furry” Anime?
For some reason, I often encounter a lot of negativity towards “furry” fandom, something I try to avoid doing, since judging the things others love in a bad light just means someone will be judging you in the same way. I think everyone should give
BEASTARS vs African Salaryment? Which one will you be watching? Let us know on Twitter!
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