Beastars

Luminous and enchanting, this series takes anime world-building to new, noirish heights -- and it's definitely not for kids, revolving as it does around barely leashed lusts both sexual and sensory. When we meet him, Legoshi is just about at the end of his rope, control-wise: "Hated and feared, that's the story of my life," he says. As we learn in a voice-over, he's spent his whole life trying to deny his appetites, keeping his head down and going along to get along. Even in Cherryton's drama club, he sticks to backstage work and spends his energy supporting Louis (Griffin Puatu), the red deer rich-kid who gets all the best roles and the admiration of the girls at school. But when he has a fateful encounter with Haru, his long-quashed hunger for blood and flesh comes roaring to the surface in a beautiful sequence that visualizes his carnivorous impulses as a spark that lights up his neural pathways like a wick of a stick of dynamite.

Even scarier for Haru and Cherryton's other herbivorous students, Legoshi's craving for meat is echoed in their world's society. Eating meat is a serious affront to morality -- and yet a Black Market exists outside the school, where carnivores can surreptitiously buy meat sourced from hospitals and funeral parlors. Meanwhile, Haru is drawn to this dangerous boy, whose interest sparks her own, though she interprets his fascination with her as sexual, like most of the other male classmates who notice her. It's a dark, creepy, and yet compelling direction, but the heavy vibe is lightened up with glowing visuals in the sophisticated color palette of a Wes Anderson movie, and cliffhanger endings in each episode that practically beg for a binge. Just don't watch with young or sensitive viewers who see talking animals and think they're in for something sweet and light, because Beastars' complicated messages about sex and violence require a decidedly mature sensibility.