The progression both in characters and its world continues to floor me every chapter and every volume. Paru Inagaki manages to strike a healthy balance in the disparate lives of Legoshi and Louis - the former investigating the murderer of one of his fellow classmates and the latter adapting to his new life beyond high school. This volume explores the underbelly of carnivores - all in its uniquely empathetic and crude facets from a touching reconciliation scene in a hospital room to an underground out-of-scene mutilation for one's debt. By the end of the volume, I seek more of this series's development!

Beastars is a genre-mashing manga series from Paru Itagaki that topped best of anime lists in 2020. Published by VIZ Media‘s Signature imprint, Beastars Volume 10 was given to us for review without the internal credits page for translation and lettering credits. Now in its tenth English volume, the series has taken its worldbuilding elements another step further, complicating the dynamics between predator and prey and finally answering a big question: what about interspecies, though? In the last volume, we saw Legoshi continue his training to take down Tem’s killer, watched a puma accidentally rip off his friend’s arm, and saw more of the Black Market’s intricacies. Now in Beastars Volume 10, Itagaki takes the time to add nuance to the Black Market and the relationship between predator and prey that has everything to do with class and less to do with fang.

Beastars’ central characters are the red deer Louis and grey wolf Legoshi. Louis is an herbivore striving to be in control, and as the leader of the Shishi-gumi gang, he has achieved his goal, lording over lions and controlling the Black Market. On the other hand, Legoshi is a carnivore in love with a dwarf rabbit who dedicates his life to protecting all creatures and is currently looking to exact justice against his friend’s killer.

Itagaki has shown us Louis’s background and mapped out why this once normal over achieving schoolboy has now dedicated himself to becoming a predator. In previous chapters, we learned that Louis was once held captive to be sold to the highest bidder as live food. Still carrying the tattoo of his confinement, this has served as a way to understand his drive and ultimately his trauma pushing him towards leading a pack of lions.

In Beastars Volume 10, Itagaki brings readers to the Black Market where a carnivore is chained and on-sale, while a dying herbivore asks to cut pieces off him to restore his own virility. Carnivores, it would appear, are also on the menu. This leads directly to explaining why Ibuki, Louis’s righthand lion, has supported and understood Louis since day one. Ibuki also wears a tattoo, signifying which part of his body is good to eat and why.

Beastars remains a title that does more than just posit a world of carnivores and herbivores. Itagaki creates a complex world where the answers aren’t as simple as nature and are complicated by money and power. Not only that, but while we get to see Legoshi confront Riz about Tem’s murder—including a bloody bathroom fight—we also get to see what Legoshi’s childhood was like. While volume 11 will have more information about Legoshi’s familial history, Beastars Volume 10 adds even more complexities to the world of Beastars.

While it’s simple to see the world of Beastars as one divided by predator and prey, it’s also one divided by species within those. Reptiles, for example, fall into their own category. While we don’t know the specifics, the reveal of Legoshi’s grandfather being a komodo dragon offers up two things: a future for Legoshi and Haru and opens the door for more discussions on species relationship and discrimination. This is the first time that we’ve gotten a chance to peak into Legoshi’s history and the first time that, as a reader, I understood the complexity of his position beyond just romance.

Between the reveal of Legoshi’s grandfather and a confrontation with Riz the brown bear, Tem’s murderer, scheduled to happen in a matter of days, Beastars Volume 10 acts like a calm set-up to what will assuredly be a bombastic conclusion to the arc. With volume 11 of the series set up to pull off a lot, Beastars continues to be a series with nearly perfect pace, revealing aspects of its world in perfect timing with readers’ expectations.

While the friendship between Legoshi and newly minted Shishigumi boss Louis has always been the main appeal here, this volume explores the parental figures both animals have. We get chapters regarding Legoshi’s current mentor Gohin as he rehabilitates those in the Black Market as well as Gosha, Legoshi’s grandfather who makes a surprising debut in a flashback. In addition, Louis gets some more development as second-in-command lion Ibuki tries to be a mentor to the young dee as he navigates the cruel world of crime.

The way this volume transitions between three different plotlines separately while also spotlighting some important minor characters is seamless, and I can’t recommend this more. If you haven’t checked out this manga yet, you definitely need to check it out before season 2 of the anime comes out later this year.

Wow! The direction of this series continues to just make me so happy. The conflict between Legoshi and Tem's Murderer continues to hear up within this volume, and we get a special moment with Haru as well. Can't wait for the next one!

Thank you to NetGalley, VIZ Media, and Paru Itagaki for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

BEASTARS Volume 10 once again blows me away. The art is fantastic and the story is dramatic. In this volume, Louis struggles with the life of being a mob king while Legoshi has a spat with a certain carnivore (the one revealed to be Tem's killer in the previous volume). Carnivores let their teeth and claws show in this one! Legoshi might not be able to tell anyone who did it, but the "seeds of hatred" are established between the two, and an intense conflict has presented itself between the two carnivores.

What about Haru, you ask? She's there! She gets a bit of spotlight. While earlier volumes seemed to focus on the relationship between Haru and Legoshi, as the volumes continue, it's more about Legoshi's own growth as an individual. The reader also gets a nice snippet of his past that is quite interesting.

A great volume. I can't wait for the next one!