Taika's Reason, Vol. 1

In a world where pet dogs and cats are humanized, who really owns whom?

Due to a declining birth rate, pets are being transformed into humanized members of society. But are they truly human? Or are humans truly animals?

When misanthrope Ao discovers her pit bull Taika standing over the mauled body of her father, she must decide whether to forgive or forget. Ao isn’t ready to lose both her beloved father and her devoted pet, so when her mother has Taika humanized, Ao embraces the new dogperson and even brings him to school with her. There, Taika meets German shepherd Tsunayoshi, an elite police officer, who begins teaching him how to unlearn his canine behaviors and replace them with human customs. Now, to protect himself and Ao, Taika must compete with Tsunayoshi to be the first to track down the source of the mysterious traces of blood in Ao’s locker…

Paru Itagaki began her professional career as a manga author in 2016 with the first volume of the short story collection Beast Complex. It became the precursor to BEASTARS, her first serialization. BEASTARS has won multiple awards in Japan, including the prestigious 2018 Manga Taisho Award.