Content Warning: fictional sexual assault of a minor; generally NSFW topics
This episode was extremely uncomfortable at several points, and made me question if I want to continue watching the anime. I probably will decide to continue because I still like the characters and the world in which this is happening. Nevertheless, I’m disappointed that the series turned out so sexual, even being labeled with “shoujo erotica” tags, apparently. When I started watching, I was honestly hoping for a more traditional shoujo dynamic and less sexuality. This isn’t the end of the world though, and I’m tired of complaining, so let me just recap the episode.
Please Note: When I say I’m uncomfortable, it’s not because of the furry element, but 1) because the characters are so young and immature and 2) there was sexual assault. I don’t like watching child characters getting sexual – especially when it’s not consensual. It doesn’t bother me that Tsunagu is beastlike – in fact, I enjoy some spicy furry content when the characters depicted are not in highschool and not being assaulted. Just wanted to clear that up.
Episode 2
Episode Rating: 5/10
To start things off, let me correct a mistake in my previous episode review. I totally misunderstood the situation happening in the storage shed. I thought it was a Beastars-like scenario where Tsunagu was tempted to devour a small human. But in fact, his hunger was purely sexual and not literal. Apparently the sweet smell of Mari triggered him – as if that’s a good excuse for sexual assault. Even in the canon, Tsunagu doesn’t experience “rut” like most beastfolk, so he doesn’t even have the excuse of a beastly handicap on his senses. He literally just assaulted a girl. Yikes.
In order to hold himself back, Tsunagu bit his own arm, and then Yukihiro arrived and let him out of the shed. At first, Mari tried to pretend like nothing happened. But Yukihiro could tell something had transpired, so he asked about it. Since this is an anime and not reality, the grimness of the sexual assault was skipped over and even glorified to an extent – because Mari liked it. This is a problem in some anime – mostly old shoujo romance and BL. Sexual harrassment and/or assault often form the beginning of a romance. It’s gross when you stop to think about the implications.
Anyway, Mari told Yukihiro that Tsunagu “stole her heart.” This set up the beginning of a love polygon, since Yukihiro also seems to like Mari. Despite this, his desire to be friends with both Tsunagu and Mari seems stronger than his desire to be with Mari romantically, at least at the current time. While Yukihiro and Mari were talking, they happened to see the school bullies getting ready to throw Tsunagu’s textbooks over the wall. Mari and Yukihiro sprung into action and tried to save the books.
When one flying book almost hit Mari in the head, Tsunagu came out of nowhere and protected her. He then intimidated the bully a bit and pointed out that he was frustrated by his own weakness. The bully gave up and left with his cronies. I like that Yukihiro and Mari are both so friendly to Tsunagu – even when he doesn’t deserve it. To an extent, I still like Tsunagu, recognizing that the writers gave him this toxic character trope to advance the story and try to make it “sexy” for certain audiences. Hopefully he will grow to be better. In the meantime, I think it was good for the humans to stand up for him.
Yukihiro said he wanted to have a fun school life with Tsunagu, which made the beastboy quite happy. But when Yukihiro said the three of them should work toward making the class understand Tsunagu better, Tsunagu said he didn’t want Mari involved. Eventually, Yukihiro got to the bottom of why. He finally demanded to know the truth when facing Mari and Tsunagu in his bedroom. This is when Tsunagu explained that normal beastfolk experience rut (mating season) for a few months every spring. But since Tsunagu is actually a hybrid child – born of a beastfolk and human pair – he doesn’t have to deal with beastly rut.
Tsunagu then admitted to assaulting Mari and said it was a rut-like response triggered by the smell of a potentially compatible mate. In case this happens again, Tsunagu didn’t want to be close to Mari. However, when Yukihiro and Mari both insisted, the beastboy agreed to spend some time alone with the human girl. They proceeded to experiment, touching each other in simple ways starting with a handshake. The idea is to see how far they can go without Tsunagu losing his senses. This scene was all sorts of awkward and uncomfortable! It also ended in more nonconsensual sexual advances.
After Mari hugged Tsunagu and thought about how much she liked him, Tsunagu once again reacted to her “sweet scent.” Yukihiro heard Tsunagu growl and tried to open the door, but was temporarily held up by his two younger brothers. In the meantime, Mari decided to stand up for herself. She pushed Tsunagu off her and told him he should be able to control himself. Yukihiro then entered the room and Tsunagu was able to regain control without injuring himself this time.
When Yukihiro asked if the three of them could continue working together, Tsunagu said that he was still scared of hurting Mari. However, he decided that he wasn’t going to run away from spending time with both of his new friends. It seems like whenever Mari starts to enjoy being close with Tsunagu, that’s when her scent becomes too sweet to easily resist. The episode ends shortly after this point, leaving me feeling disappointed and mildly disgusted at some of the content. I think I already complained enough and explained my frustrations in the beginning, so that’s all for episode two.
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
Anime Rants 
I’m not actually following this anime, simply because… well, outside all other considerations, the way the first episode ended was deeply uncomfortable. So, I can’t really speak with authority here. Please forgive me if I get anything wrong. Also, I’m more saying this because writing things out helps me wrap my brain around very convoluted and disturbing things all the time.
However, from what you say, it sounds like 1) the girl is actually consenting to this and 2) he backs off when she says no. I mean, a girl who has been sexually assaulted does not simply hang out with their assaulter like normal, stand up and defend their assaulter, and also go, “Let’s test the boundaries here with various levels of physical touch.” Even if the guy is being very… to an unsettling degree… sexually aggressive, is it really assault when she keeps saying yes *and* he, the much larger and stronger male, lets her push him off and away?
They’re two peers, equal status, same age, etc. so it’s not like there’s an unequal power dynamic here beyond the plainly physical. And I’m not saying it’s either realistic in this depiction of their intimacy, or praiseworthy for having dog-boy do what he does. The anime seems to be farming the furry corner of things, so it’s advancing the sexual side of the coupling very rapidly and aggressively. That leaves the guy doing uncomfortable things, yes, but it also leaves both characters pigeon-holed into their roles: the girl always consenting even when she’s afraid (if I understand correctly?) and the dog-boy always being far too forceful. What they’re doing is at a cost to the quality of both characters, and I cannot emphasize strongly enough how damaging such depictions can be.
Nonetheless, it looks to me like they are clearly jumping through a number of hoops to push things as far as they can without it being irreversibly “too far.” It’s kind of like when they push the incest kink but pull the “they’re not really related” move. It’s still very creepy and wrong and, yes, it is what it is, but… strictly speaking… is it?
See, this is the sort of thing that confuses people on what qualifies as what sort of offense.
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