Shirokuma Café is a popular place for animals and humans to sit back and relax after a long day. Shirokuma, the owner, loves serving his customers and engaging in conversation on just about anything. With Penguin and Panda, Shirokuma gets into various adventures with other friends who also work at the café! It doesn’t matter what day, there’s always something interesting at Shirokuma Café!

Much like BEASTARS! Shirokuma Café features a cast of main characters who are anthropomorphized animals. This doesn’t take away from the characters themselves, whose personalities reflect their biology in some way, shape or form. A major difference between BEASTARS! and Shirokuma Café; however, is the fact that BEASTARS! is an anime that has the story taking place at school, while Shirokuma Café is a slice of life in the everyday world.

What happens when you take the king of the jungle, a toucan and a lizard away from their normal environment in the African savannah, put them suits and send them off to work a 9-5? You get Africa no Salaryman, a comedy about a lion, a toucan and a lizard dealing with being businessmen in Japan, a world completely different from their traditional place in the animal kingdom!

Much like BEASTARS!, Africa no Salaryman features animals that exhibit human characteristics – hence being anthropomorphized. The difference is the context; however, both shows deal with the implications of having certain animals in a situation where they are forced to coexist and live beyond the urges brought on by their animalistic instincts. Like BEASTARS!, Africa no Salaryman gives its characters their personalities by basing them on their species and general place in the animal kingdom.

This is a story of a boy and beast. Two stubborn, strong-willed characters dealing with their own issues. Nine-year-old Ren is in a pit after his mother’s death and to make things worse, his father is absent. His extended family wants nothing to do with him, so he ends up living on the streets of Shibuya. Shibuten is the realm of beasts, where Kumatetsu is a feared but not particularly revered warrior currently in line to become the next Lord when the current retires. However, his antisocial personality means that he’d lack the charisma that a leader is thought to require, so he decides to prove himself by seeking out a disciple. When Ren stumbles upon Shibuten, he meets Kumatetsu and soon their lives become intertwined. However, Ren finds himself torn between his own world and the one he has been brought into, but are the two really all that different?

Bakemono no Ko shows parallels between the world as we know it and one where beasts are the rulers. From that perspective, the world of Shibuten is probably a closer fit to the anime BEASTARS! than the human world to which Ren belongs; however, the presentation of anthropomorphized animals in Bakemono no Ko makes it a considerable recommendation if BEASTARS! is the anime in question.

Hana is a hard-working college student who falls in love with a mysterious classmate. It turns out the enigmatic man isn’t actually a student there, and what’s even more interesting is that he isn’t even human either. He reveals to her on a full moon night that he is the last remaining werewolf. Despite this, they remain head-over-heels and eventually start a family. Hana gives birth to two children – Ame and Yuki, both possessing the ability to turn into wolves. However, soon after Ame’s birth, Hana’s husband dies suddenly, shocking Hana to the core. Despite the grief, Hana decides to raise her wolf children on her own, shouldering an intense challenge while trying to keep her children’s genealogy a secret. She moves her family to the countryside and starts a new life, hoping that Ame and Yuki can live free lives away from society’s watchful eye.

Wolf Children and BEASTARS! are quite different when you compare their plotlines and overall universes. On one hand, you have the human realm with the existence of mythological beasts and the juxtaposition of their true nature with human life. On the other, you have full on animals living much like humans, all while dealing with the consequences of being the animals that they are. Both shows also have wolves as the main characters.

Himeno is a shy centaur girl living in a world where everyone is some kind of supernatural entity. All of her classmates exhibit some kind of supernatural physical trait, be it horns, tails or even wings! In this supernatural world, Himeno and her friends Nozomi and Kyouko spend their days having fun and living normal, fulfilling school lives.

Centaur no Nayami might be the closest to BESTARS! as far as the general concept goes. Much like BEASTARS!, Centaur no Nayami follows beasts of some kind as they navigate their high school tenures in a time considered to be the springtime of their youth. The main difference between the two shows lies in their intensity – BEASTARS! grapples with various elements surrounding the coexistence of the clearly oppositional herbivores and carnivores, while the school environment in Centaur no Nayami is one that is rather relaxed and lighthearted.

This film follows the lives of two animal protagonists: a goat and a wolf who become friends when they meet in a barn on a stormy night. The two decide to keep meeting up with each other and they work together to overcome various obstacles and grow in their unlikely friendship as time goes on. Arashi no Yoru ni is based on a series of children’s books.

BEASTARS! follows the relationship between carnivores and herbivores in an anthropomorphized animal high school. In this setting, herbivores and carnivores establish friendships that are highly unlikely, but due to some extenuating circumstances, the various herbivore-carnivore relationships blossom despite hardship. The aforementioned unlikely friendship/relationship trope is the general idea that links Arashi no Yoru ni and BEASTARS! to each other.