but yeah, the thing where you basically have to give up your life savings just to get to the beastman city and then you STILL might not be able to claw your way out of poverty has some roots in classism and immigration policy, i think?
yeah, that was definitely more of the angle i was reading from, the issue of immigration/refugees trying to carve out their own space in an overwhelmingly hostile environment and how stressful that can be when you have no community or support systems to help you
i probably should give it another rewatch because, again, i was distracted by all the flashy action sequences and wasn't doing a very deep reading of the themes
i do think one of the reasons people might be stuck on the racial allegory is because of the whole eugenics thing with the beastman cure, since that's... something that's overwhelmingly perpetrated against indigenous cultures and POC, historically speaking
It HAS been- and I'm not sure BNA touched on sterilization tho ig you could think about it that way- but those are all issues that aren't solely race-based in the way Americans tend to think about them either Esp when you consider Japan vs China & Korea, like Americans think of them as the same/similar races but there is a history of genocide there
I feel like if this was an American narrative it absolutely would have fallen into the Full racial Allegory Hole but with its contexts (+ the fact it's Trigger and none of their messages seem to be as nuanced as progressiveness wants them to be) i feel like it gets dicey to be like "this is 100% a racial allegory"
and that's been done in a number of ways, like how Spain is trying to eliminate the Basque language, which would essentially erase that culture from those people
right, right, i do try to look at any Japanese media through a lens that "this is made with Japanese historical and cultural contexts in mind, first and foremost"
so, if you were gonna draw that kinda allegory, it could definitely be taken as more of social commentary on Korean immigration processes in Japan (among others, though i think i tend to read about Koreans being the biggest population of immigrants in Japan at the moment?)
like, you are absolutely right that a lot of Americans think "oh, all Asians are cool with one another" and no, they absolutely are not, for the reasons you already stated
I think a lot of people dont understand that when it comes to racial progressiveness japan is still behind in terms of changing attitudes so fuck if THEY need more attitude-challenging media, Americans are all that matters & Japan needs to tailor their content to us
oh yeah, that is absolutely still a very big issue, especially when comics in the earlier aughts were still using black face caricatures in their character designs
but yeah, even with my equivalent of text skimming, i have to agree with you that racial allegory isn't the primary theme i would point to for this series -- but cultural genocide via assimilation definitely feels like the primary theme
Like honestly even tho Beastars can be a racial allegory it's also about the social caste in Japan which is something American viewers have a similar reference to w classism but it isn't the same
"We've progressed past the need for racial allegories with furries" except that apparently Japan hasn't, these are not even American they aren't racial allegories in the way Americans think of them & my god why is everyone's god damn commentary on anime always so west-centric
(i used to be the resident "cultural otaku" on my anime club's forum so people could ask me all the questions of "what does x thing mean?" or "why does y thing keep showing up in anime?")
i've gotten pretty good at spotting mythological references and folklore and such because that was my main Special Interest and what drew me to looking at the source material in the first place
It's nothing difficult or radical with the concepts and it's a great dad-and-his-new-daughter narrative
Perhaps the original Goodest Boy
FINGERS CROSSED
steeples fingers
And then realizing that your lashing out can hurt, but can be chilled out with forgiveness and acceptance
Which is more than just a racial thing tbh
There's a lot of refugee things going on too
I need to rewatch again bc it was just so fun
Esp when you consider Japan vs China & Korea, like Americans think of them as the same/similar races but there is a history of genocide there