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Beastars #18

BEASTARS, Vol. 18

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At a high school where the students are literally divided into predators and prey, friendships maintain the fragile peace. Who among them will become a Beastar—a hero destined to lead in a society naturally rife with mistrust?

Labrador Jack delves into the history of the evolution of herbivores and carnivores, the bioengineering that created domesticated dogs like him, and the war that led to the society he and his friends live in today. Then, as the black market descends into chaos, red deer Louis encounters old comrades from his miserable childhood and Legoshi begs one to train him in combat. Plus, Bengal tiger Bill gets a big surprise when he cracks open an egg!

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 8, 2020

38 people are currently reading
678 people want to read

About the author

Paru Itagaki

97 books635 followers
Paru Itagaki ( 板垣巴留, Itagaki Paru) is a multi-award-winning Japanese manga artist, known mainly for her work Beastars. She is the daughter of Keisuke Itagaki.

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5 stars
855 (47%)
4 stars
684 (37%)
3 stars
224 (12%)
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38 (2%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
Profile Image for Rod Brown.
7,347 reviews281 followers
March 25, 2024
It's nostalgia day in BEASTARS as Legoshi and Louis both hang out with some old friends. Legoshi visits Cherryton Academy again to lay low after with his old roommates after the events of last volume and also catches up with the members of the drama club. Louis ventures into the black market for meat and finds a couple creatures he thought were long gone.

Of course, none of this helps bring down the Big Bad of the current arc, but hey, the author has been noodling around and flying by the seat of her pants since the start, so I don't expect things to get focused now.

Only four volumes of this goofiness left.
Profile Image for Brooke (Books are my Favorite!!).
798 reviews25 followers
June 10, 2025
The overall story arc, character growth, and lively illustrations are the shining light of this series. It felt like this episode was tripping a little in the big story and this was my least favorite volume so far, but there will be no turning back from this investment 3.5
Profile Image for Anna  Quilter.
1,677 reviews50 followers
June 19, 2022
Continued Excellence...
In this one..learn all about trauma eggs (omg!)
And meet sexy but dangerous fop eared rabbit Kyu and her dangerous blades...
Profile Image for Mangrii.
1,138 reviews482 followers
July 24, 2021
3,75 / 5

Aún no me creo que solo queden 4 tomos más para terminar aquello que empezó en 2018 como un “drama adolescente de instituto”. La premisa de Beastars esta ampliamente superada desde hace bastantes tomos. Ahora mismo estamos en medio de una guerra territorial de grupos mafiosos a la vez que descubrimos más y más datos sobre como fue la guerra herbívoro-carnívoro 100 años atrás y exploramos el pasado de Rouis.

Un tomo que surca los mismos senderos que sus últimos precedentes, hincando más la rodilla hacia los datos que hacia los giros argumentales tan característicos de la primera parte del manga. Sin embargo, esas adicciones siguen siendo muy curiosas, por que añaden una capa mas realista al mundo antropomorfo de los Beastars. Quedan cuatro tomos y aún no esta todo el pescado vendido, dado que nuevos interlocutores han aparecido en escena…
Profile Image for Lindsay.
3,024 reviews95 followers
June 18, 2022
This is always such a good series. I really like the growing up the characters do in every volume.
Profile Image for Met.
440 reviews33 followers
February 28, 2021
Coinvolgente come sempre, nient’altro da dire!
Profile Image for Tib.
769 reviews73 followers
June 8, 2022
Welp. Things are getting kinda weird with the whale thing, but it's definitely ramping up to a climax and I'm so sad there's only a few more volumes left!
Profile Image for Jay Wright.
Author 7 books38 followers
December 3, 2024
And just like that I'm back to waiting an unknown amount of time for the last volumes
Profile Image for Ali.
193 reviews13 followers
October 6, 2023
drama club os amo chicos de la habitación 701 os amo
Profile Image for elif sinem.
841 reviews83 followers
June 14, 2024
Starting to feel blueballed by all this pent up gay energy but Louis and Legosi are together so it's not another 2.
Profile Image for edy.
588 reviews
November 10, 2024
it's nice to see legoshi spend some time with the canines of room 701 and the drama club even if the current situation is not ideal cause of all that's going on. also, this volume has the best and cutest cover
Profile Image for Javiera Jara Baracatt.
56 reviews3 followers
June 13, 2021
me encantan todos los giros argumentales que tiene este manga y como se va desarrollando la historia, real que amo a paru itagaki <3
Profile Image for Nins.
80 reviews1 follower
March 24, 2024
mes vies jles aime trop
Profile Image for Cassie.
421 reviews
March 6, 2020
Spoilers for ch 166+

Apparently there are four black market gangs, dokugumi (Komodo dragons), inarigumi (ezo red foxes), adaragumi (leopards) and shishigumi (which we know are the lions). They seem to have an ongoing turf war, but Melon easily snuffs it out by slicing Dolph’s neck, letting him bleed for the crowd, gaining their support. We think he’s dead...but we later learn that he’s alive!

Louis and Legosi go through more stuff together. I really loved this. Again, it seems to me they have way more chemistry than anyone else.

Ch 159-161
We meet Louis’ old black market cell mates, kyuu (branded #9, a rabbit) and San (#3, couldn’t recognize his species) I don’t like this. I don’t like how they’re living down there, how Kyuu also just so happened to be trained by Gouhin and calls legosi “degosi”, how Kyuu is weirdly sexualized, or how Legosi imagines what his rabbit-wolf son would look like and basically makes it a Jojo Stand. EW! What is with this! Can I forget about those chapters please? Please fix this!

Ch 162+
We learn that Melon killed his mother when he was just a kid. Truly crazy backstory, Melon is scary. Dolph shows up, his neck thick enough to have survived the turf wars somehow, and says he’s strong enough to fight with melon.

Legosi wants Louis to help him fight Melon.

Ch 166
So apparently Haru’s confusion about her relationship with Legosi and how it makes her feel led her to making a promise with Melon, that he could eat her in a month!?!!!!!!!!

Manga ongoing
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
23 reviews
May 24, 2022
I've been reading each volume of BEASTARS as they have come out ever since reading (I believe) the first five volumes.

From my understanding, the prior volumes gradually evolved into a Shonen and action based story. This volume felt like a departure from that formula, which doesn't bother me at all since I enjoy the series more for the characters' backstories and their personalities, and their relationships to each other.

I haven't got any complaints about the series. I love the main story itself and the small bonuses at the back of the book. It's an enjoyable experience to get a new volume of BEASTARS and to read over it and anticipate the next one. Highly recommend the series as a whole.
Profile Image for Liz.
1,970 reviews7 followers
July 30, 2020
3.5-ish stars again. The subplot with Jack and the carnivore/herbivore ancestry lessons was interesting and heartbreaking but the rest of the volume felt pretty padded. Interested to hear more about Kyuu and Louis's other childhood cellmates but it wasn't explored much here.
Profile Image for Grace Arango.
1,350 reviews675 followers
June 5, 2022
So much carnivore tension in this one. Took a turn at the end I didn't anticipate.
Profile Image for Joseph.
544 reviews11 followers
December 23, 2022
The chapter with the egg shenanigans was great. Love that we get to see some of what Pina and Bill are up to.

Profile Image for Remy G.
699 reviews4 followers
August 12, 2023
Unsurprisingly, the eighteenth entry of the Beastars manga opens with a synopsis of prior events and visual depictions of dramatis personae. The comic begins with a flashback of Gosha telling his grandson Legoshi to enroll at Cherryton Academy, with his best friend Jack taking him and introducing him to his canid roommates. Back to the present, Legoshi is aware his status as a registered meat offender prevents him from going out openly in public. However, his former roommates invite him to stay with them. Cherryton has, since a recent devouring, segregated carnivorous and herbivorous students, with the drama club remaining one of the few integrated school clubs.

When Legoshi visits his former dormmates at Cherryton, Jack is in a depressed mood and is contemplating suicide by eating an onion, poisonous to canids, with the wolf seeking to stop him. Despite the school’s segregation, the dining hall remains integrated since carnivorous and herbivorous students ate with their brethren anyway. Jack is in a small elite class at Cherryton where they learn about the history, dating back to the Carnivore-Herbivore War a century before the manga’s events, carnivores then termed “life eaters” and herbivores “nature eaters,” with the former protective of the latter upon first encounter. The appearance of a whale ended the conflict, although that which did so refuses to share his wisdom with the world again.

In the meantime, Bill the tiger becomes head of the drama club, and, when dining with his friends, cracks open an egg to find it contains a chick in development, a “trauma egg,” which they aim to rescue and ultimately take to a local police station. At the black market, the Shishi-gumi mourn their fallen comrade given the posthumous name Lion Glasses and observe how the district has changed, with turf wars imminent and the head of the leonine Shishi-gumi, the half-leopard, half-gazelle Melon wanting to claim the area of the city for his gang. Red deer Louis, saved from the black market by his adoptive father, talks with his foster son, who quickly visits the area with a visible price on him.

Louis and Legoshi proceed to the abandoned tower of the organization that had initially held the latter captive for devouring, where they discover his old cellmates, the doe rabbit Kyu and the llama San. Kyu agrees to take Legoshi as her disciple in eventually taking on Melon. However, the wolf’s reluctance to punch females is one of his weaknesses, with the rabbit entertaining the idea of creating an “imaginary chimera” to aid combat. Thus ends the manga proper, after which is a humorous scene of Legoshi and his friends eating monja at a restaurant, a comical take on an older chapter, an anecdote about Itagaki purchasing the wrong drawing paper, and an indicator of canid muzzle length being concurrent to age.

Overall, Volume 18 is another enjoyable addition to the Beastars manga, with plenty of action and character development, not to mention backstory well before the Carnivore-Herbivore War that occurred a century before the manga’s present day. The reunion of Louis with his herbivorous cellmates from earlier in the manga is also a nice callback. However, the need for Legoshi to undergo another round of training somewhat recalls what he had under Gohin. The absence of a gray area between herbivores and carnivores known as omnivores is further unmentioned. Regardless, those into mature animal-themed stories will enjoy this manga.
Profile Image for Paracosm.
667 reviews3 followers
March 30, 2024
27-03-24 / 29-03-24

The pacing of this volume is really something.

I fucking hate the "dogs are genetically modified mutants" subplot. It makes no fucking sense even for the series.

They tell us that dogs ancestors were genetically altered and the Beastars version of WWII. But it happened 100 years ago so those "ancestors" are actually someone's grandparents. And also it makes no sense for dogs to be such a common species if they were created so recently.

They talk about these super special history lessons. But they are just overcomplicated Power Points. Also, they are supposed to be super secret, but whyyyy? Shouldn't the records exist and be accessible?

Also, the whale thing is just so dumb. How on earth did it stop the war? On land??? Why does nobody remember the whale? People definitely would talk about it if it showed up. And also why the fuck does Jack believe he's been trained to lead a dog distopia? It doesn't make sense!!

The explanation about how society came to be not just doesn't explain anything, but it also makes things weirder. It if was never brought up I would have never questioned why or how. Like in Bojack Horseman, Diane gets pregnant with puppies and nobody says anything. Beastars explanation just makes everything confusing.

I don't like that the chick is born so small, it's feels weird.

Just as I was thinking that thinking this volume wasn't so great Louis shows up and does something insane. The dinner with his dad is so funny. The dad is convinced Louis is gay but seems fine with it as long as it doesn't interfere with business.

The characters say the black market is weird since Melon showed up but it seems the same to me.

Louis pretends to be sold like produce and goes back to the jailhouse he was raised as a kid, which was pretty intense. Cool scene.

A couple of the other kids Louis used to know showed up and all that is happening so fast. They fall through the roof, find the kids, a bunny stabs Legoshi, Legoshi pulls downs her pants. Then he wants the bunny to train him and then the bunny wants to have sex with him. It all happened it two chapters and it's just too much.
Profile Image for Courtney Rose.
513 reviews10 followers
June 13, 2022
Oh man, this volume really dives into the realism of Beastars and how society has shaped students' futures. In order to hide out for a bit, Legoshi heads back to Cherryton Academy and stays with his best friend Jack the Labrador. When he gets to the Academy he realizes so much has changed since he was kicked out. Herbivores and Carnivores now attend classes separately and the carnivore students feel free to talk about going to the Black Market and eating the same species as their Herbivore friends. Jack is an elite student, one of only five, and all are dogs. He talks to Legoshi about how dogs are the only animal bred for intelligence and how bioengineering of domesticated dogs, like him, has caused them to be bred for their uses rather than letting them be who they want. It gets pretty heavy as Jack seems to be one of the few people who knows the real history of their world because he's elite, and he is clearly bogged down and depressed by learning about the real world.

This volume is bonkers. We get a lot of Legoshi and Louis (my king!) which is wonderful but gosh, this series just gets darker and darker. We meet some characters who were locked up with Louis back in the day, 3 and 9, and how they have taken to being fighters in order to survive. I don't know what is going on with Legoshi but he clearly has a thing for rabbits judging by his dealings with Kyu, the fighter female rabbit, through the end of this volume. It's badass and I am terrified of her but also in awe of her skill.

There's another shorter section regarding the Black Market and the civil war of sorts that breaks out monthly among the different gangs. Everything is business as usual until Melon jumps in and takes control and he is absolutely terrifying and bonkers. Some people are going to die violent, violent deaths soon.
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Profile Image for Brandon.
2,809 reviews40 followers
December 28, 2021
Legoshi returns to Cherryton Academy and finds it much different than before, and we get a new look at some of the things that turned me on to Beastars in the first place. Bill, being head of the drama club, and struggling with his carnivore instincts- not being holier-than-thou like Legoshi, and deep down not being the rough and tough monster he sometimes acts like he is. Jack, the 'designed' canine dog, dealing with a whole different set of expectations than the rest of the animals (whether they're purebred or hybrids). A whole different history to this world and how a complex society like this is born. And, of course, Louis' past with the Black Market and how that's still very much a part of him that he cannot leave behind.

And by the end we get Legoshi trying to find some new way to fight Melon, the increasingly powerful and insane hybrid the likes of which no one has seen before. There are so many things in this volume that act as payoff to earlier character moments, and new developments that I'm not entirely sold on but provide a new dimension into Legoshi's self-image and how he is supposed to find his own footing as an adult in the world instead of some young and naive kid.
Profile Image for Balerion.
319 reviews2 followers
April 20, 2023
So many things happened this volume ! I was really happy to visit characters like Jack, Pina, and Bill again. The trauma egg chapter was totally random lol, but I enjoyed it a lot.

I was devastated when Melon killed one of the Shishigumi, it seems he completely reverted all the progress that the Black Market has had in a single moment.

Also Legoshi said the title!! Beastars! I like the idea of Legoshi and Louis being the duo Beastars that Yahya always wanted to be with Gosha. At this point it seems like the world needs two Beastars, one carnivore and one herbivore to show that they can coexist. Especially since right now the relationship between carnivores and herbivores is at an all time low.

I was surprised for us to dive back into Louis’ past again and finding out that the beasts he was with in that cell are still alive!

Also is the chimera thing a Jojo reference? Lol

It seems fitting for Legoshi to be trained by a rabbit, someone who can teach Legoshi how to fight a herbivore since he is so reluctant to do it. But I’m unsure about Kyu. Seems a little random for her to propose that they have sex, but oh well lol.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Book Tea &#x1fad6; with Jai .
647 reviews22 followers
May 19, 2025
Title: Beastars 18
Author Paru Itagaki
Stars 5 out of 5
Genre: shōnen , romance, drama, and mystery
Pages: 218


In the latest volume of "Beastars," there are exciting developments and growth for some of the characters. Bill, who has taken over running the drama club, seems to have matured since his first introduction. However, not everything at Cherryton Academy is lighthearted. as tensions between herbivore and carnivore students are high due to segregation in classes.
After failing to capture the elusive Melon and getting pulled into a chaotic situation that made him seem to be attacking an innocent herbivore in the bustling city, Legoshi knows it's time to take a break. Seeking refuge, he naturally decides to return to Cherryton Academy and stay in Room 701 with his old pals Jack and the rest of the canine crew. They welcome him back with open arms, but Legoshi can't help but notice that Jack's behavior seems unusual.
Due to his impressive academic achievements, Jack has been elevated to an exclusive advanced class where he is immersed in the complete history of beast society. However, the pressure and weight of this new knowledge have taken a toll on Jack. As a dog, he was bred to suppress intense negative emotions, but now he's faced with learning about the gruesome war between herbivores and carnivores. He struggles internally, unable to confide in his friends, and becomes withdrawn and melancholy.
As Legoshi delves deeper, Jack ultimately confides in him, laying bare the harsh reality of the enduring conflict between herbivores and carnivores. His tone is weighty and steeped in sorrow as he expresses his long-suppressed feelings. The real history unfolds as a grim and distressing narrative concealed from society, and Jack's solitary burden of this knowledge has profoundly affected him.
The tranquil nature of marine animals has been well-recognized, leading one to assume they have a distinct viewpoint on war. Yet, it’s still astonishing to envision a massive whale surfacing from the ocean's depths to share insights with a swarm of ferocious beings engaged in their savage battle.

Reports indicate that this wise figure expressed thoughts so profound they facilitated a breakthrough in the negotiations between the warring sides, leading to a peaceful resolution. resolution. The specifics of this historic statement are still unknown. Perhaps we can only wait with eager anticipation for its eventual unveiling.
Reconnecting with Legoshi's old classmates at the academy was truly enjoyable. Jack, in particular, is a memorable friend to Legoshi, known for his kindness and loyalty, even though he often finds himself in trouble. We also had the chance to reconnect with Pina, a character I had completely forgotten about.

This prompts Legoshi to contemplate the forthcoming Beastar competition, leading him to propose a bold plan to Louis. While the manga’s progression isn't surprising, the developments in this volume feel both logical and rewarding. On the other hand, Louis is forced to confront his unsettling past as he returns to the black market. The flashbacks of his painful childhood are heartfelt, and I hope he can achieve closure and understand how his trauma has affected him. Thus far, Louis's introspections have led to an important insight that may help both him and Legoshi prepare for their upcoming encounter with Melon.

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