The characters in this manga are quite interesting, or rather, the world itself is. All the animals getting along with one another and all the hardships and difficulties when you live in a world where ALL animals(not bugs though) are actually fully sapient yet still slaves to their animal instincts. There are no humans here(at least not yet as of chapter 125) and there are no cattle. Yet carnivores are still carnivores and have big issues without meat in their diet, but it's also illegal to eat other animals, this leads to how it's very easy for them to fall to their own desires and prey on herbivores. There are also various other issues(by the way, although eating meat is seen as taboo it's still done and police is doing nothing about getting carnivores to stop eating meat as long as they don't kill people for it, there's a black market that provides meat from stuff like hospitals and funeral homes, it's pretty much needed to keep their instincts in check as they otherwise suffer from something that looks like severe abstinence issues if they have ever tasted meat before and it's easier to lose control if you hold yourself back too much) present due to differences in physiques and instincts.
It all makes for a pretty fascinating story and I like it most of the time, it's a decent read and feels refreshing. But make no mistake, this is truly only a shounen story even if you'd expect it'd be seinen with all the drama and deaths. It's a story about the gray wolf mc's struggles in life and growing up, all the issues and how he gradually falls in love with a rabbit. However, he's hardly anything but a mere shounen protagonist in the end and it's very obvious when you see his naive outlook on life, his comments and what everyone around him is doing. This could be explained that it's due to youth, but the author makes the world work in a shounen-ish way, which is infuriating at times.
It's generally not a big issue and I found myself enjoying the story a lot, but it's incredibly cringeworthy when it happens. The worst parts are the stuff about training and battles. The author loves logic-defying bullshit powerups and weird reasons for powering up, just like the stuff you'd find in a typical shounen manga. We're talking about love and friendship and unbelievable circumstances. They literally gain powers from emotions, by using the emotions inside them they bring out great power. What I mean by this is that they utilize the feeling of, say, hatred or wanting to protect something and for some reason they can suddenly fight way better... Pfft.
Well, that's not the worst of it(despite how I despise that the mc gets stronger because of this crap). The worst parts are actually the matter of strength and power-ups from external sources. Like, he trained to become strong without the need for eating meat, but then he ate a bug and somehow he goes into an hallucination and later on used the "power" of the bug in a kind of weird way, not that he fired a beam or anything but it was clearly a supernatural thing going on. Then it was mentioned how the calcium from ONE moth larvae, that he ate to prove something to himself, somehow made all the bones in his body much harder than they should've been. Then he ate meat for the first time and suddenly he powered up and seemed to even increase in muscle mass. Despite having many bones in his body broken, it seems as if they all healed or something because they, and the other injuries, didn't affect him at all anymore... Seriously? Come on. That's just stupid. There's also this bear who stopped taking some muscle-mass reducing pills and in a single day or a few weeks, he increased substantially in size and power. Sorry to say this, but muscle mass isn't something that'll just increase like that no matter what animal you are. There was also the retarded event where he meditated to not be affected by being near meat and being able to handle his feral side and then, for some reason, he lost ALL the bite strength he had, not even being able to bite through an apple despite having over 300kg of bite strength before. However, it magically powered up his arms, as if the muscles had moved there or something. Made me truly feel how stupid this manga is when it comes to power and fighting. Seriously.
Another huge flaw is that it's very difficult to get immersed or feel anything for the characters. They are just way too hard to relate to and none of them are particularly likable. Fascinating and interesting, perhaps, but not likable. I haven't been able to feel a single emotion for the characters which really ruins the manga a lot. I don't care about if they die or whatever happens to them. I'm not rooting for anyone. I couldn't give less of a fuck if the mc gets mauled and almost killed. I also don't care about their motivations. They just don't feel real to me. It feels like they exist only to play out their little role, as if it's a drama at the theater. You don't get attached to them while following their little adventure/life story. It doesn't really matter in the end. While being interesting and unusual, it truly fails at being an engaging manga.
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