Beastars vol 4 by Paru Itagaki

The whole high school, including the Drama Club and the Gardening Club, is still preparing for Meteor Festival. Legoshi is still working out his feelings for Haru, but he has generally come to the conclusion that he has a crush on her, and not that it is a carnivorous urge to devour her.  However, Haru had some major feelings for another member of the Drama Club, not Legoshi. She’s sweet on Louis, who regards her as a high school fling. He knows once he graduates that he will find another red deer to be his mate. To complicate matters, Juno, another grey wolf, has started coming on strong to Legoshi, and she has the same mentality that Louis has - Legoshi is the only grey wolf, so they will naturally become a mated pair in the end.

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In this volume, we get another example of how Itagaki uses the animal kingdom to shine a spotlight on some of the ridiculousness of the human world.  We learn how Haru and Louis meet - he shed his antlers and hid in the Garden Club shed, embarrassed for others to see him without his horns. Itagaki uses this natural process of deer shedding horns to show how ridiculous it is that we make fun of each other or put each other down for natural processes.  How often do boys get teased for their voice cracking as it lowers? How often do we point out something on someone's body that is completely natural, yet becomes a source of ridicule? It's these moments that keep me coming back and thinking about how silly humanity is sometimes.

In previous volumes, we got hints of sex scenes, or portions where Haru starts to take off her clothes but still has her underthings on.  In this, we get a full bodied scene between Louis and Haru.  There is no full nudity, but the animals are illustrated closer to humans than animals in this scene, with one panel in particular where Louis is grabbing Haru's very human-looking breast.  

Sara's Rating: 8/10
Suitability Level: Grades 11-12

Reviews of previous volumes in this series: vol 1, vol 2, vol 3
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Publisher: VIZ Media
Publication Date: January 21st 2020
ISBN: 9781974708017 (Paperback)

​Tags: Rating: 8/10, Suitability: High School, Manga, School Life, Mystery, ​VIZ Media