Chapter 142 (Beastars)

100 Years of Life for an Animal?! (獣生１００年時代⁉) is Chapter 142 of the manga Beastars written and illustrated by Paru Itagaki, published in the Weekly Shōnen Champion of the Akita Shoten publishing house.

Synopsis
In Gosha's apartment complex, one of the residents of the place, Tororo, knocks on Gosha's door to give him a hand towel that he had dropped. Gosha opens the door and immediately asks him to close his eyes and mouth, and proceeds to empty a whole bucket of antiseptic solution on his neighbor. After this, Gosha apologizes to his neighbor for having done this to him and explains that it was for his safety, warning him that he should not have touched his towel since the slightest contact with the Komodo dragon venom can be lethal. However, Tororo only laughs and replies that Gosha is being dramatic, showing not to be concerned about being affected by Gosha's venom.

Gosha is an elderly Komodo dragon who spends his days living in a peace and tranquility that is not expected for animals that carry venom. He wakes up each morning and offers rice and water to his late wife and daughter and prays for his grandson, Legoshi, to be in good health. He spends most of his days working on a construction site and comes home at 8pm and eats dinner while watching the news. Gosha goes to bed at 10pm and has started to sleep much better ever since he bought an air conditioner made specially for cold-blooded animals. Gosha recently hasn't been sleeping well because he was worried about Legoshi, because every time he looks at him, it reminds him of himself when he was young and filled with belligerence, because sadly Legoshi inherited his face. He survived his last near-death experience, but he can't stand that he keeps putting his life in danger. Gosha remains firm in his belief that strong animals should adhere to peace and pacifism, and when he sees that tomorrow is Saturday, he comments that he needs to cheer up. Saturday is the day he uses to relax, heading to an obscure area near the Black Market that he goes to every week, this being the Kindergarten for Hybrids. Gosha happily enters the place where he is warmly greeted by the children. This is a daycare center for mixed children which Gosha volunteers to take care every Saturday. These children are easily identifiable as hybrids and the animals tend to dismiss them as troublemakers and "hard to deal with", which is why this daycare center takes in mixed kids when the other more sizable daycare centers refuse to accept them. Gosha begins to read a story to the children at their request, and the caregiver asks the children to behave in the presence of the bat janitor, who Gosha looks at with disdain. The caregiver explains to Gosha that she asked him to clean the ceiling as dust isn't good for the children, so Gosha happily accepts. He proceeds to read the story to the children, but they point out that he is holding the book upside down. Gosha explains that bats are a species that are used to hanging and seeing the world the other way around, but if they turn their heads up to see normally, it means that they are nervous, as is the case with the janitor. Having discovered the intentions of the janitor, Gosha confronts him and openly states that the bat came to the daycare center expecting a fragile impala and fragile children inside, so it shocks him to see a large Komodo dragon in here. Gosha asks the teacher to take the children outside for a moment and she obeys him. Gosha uses his tongue to detect a large group of enemies hidden in the enclosure, so when the bat saw that they chose the wrong time to attack the place, Gosha affirms that he is not surprised that some sketchy gang comes to this special daycare center, so that is the reason why he is there. Seeing himself surrounded by a whole army of bats, Gosha deduces that they came to collect blood from the mixed children, so he proposes to give them a large dose of Komodo dragon venom instead.

At the same time, the Shishigumi tell Legoshi about a pureblood supremacy group, and although they don't know how big the group is, they are the kind of group that does not like to be out in the open. They are extremists who glorify purebloods and aim to thoroughly eliminate all mixed-blood animals. Legoshi is disappointed to discover that this group is Melon's supposed weakness and remains skeptical of leaving the job to other animals, but Dolph clarifies that his intention is to make the group tell him about Melon's weakness because he is a hybrid. The group has an abnormal fixation with "purity" and is made up of bats under the command of a civet who rewards them with the highest quality coffee beans for the missions he gives them. Legoshi asks if the civet is that rare species known as the "ghost cat". Dolph confirms it and explains that this is a species that is in someway tougher than lions and tigers, and the bats the civet commands are also hard to deal with, but they have to get information from this group.

In the hybrid daycare center, Gosha has difficulty fighting the bats due to their large number, so he uses his venom to defeat them, claiming that he cannot be a pacifist if he cannot protect the children, so he sprinkles a lot of venom against the bat group. Back with the Shishigumi, Free reveals that the name of this organization is Kopi Luwak, which comes from the name of the high-quality coffee that the civet produces, so they cannot imagine how fearsome that individual is. The civet is in his lair, and he turns out to be an extremely childish-looking creature who brews coffee for his subordinates.

Characters

 * Gosha
 * Toki (photo cameo)
 * Leano (photo cameo)
 * Legoshi
 * Shishigumi
 * Deshico (debut)

Important Events

 * It is revealed that Gosha works as a volunteer and protector of a hybrid daycare.
 * The hybrid daycare is attacked by a horde of bats, which are repelled by Gosha.
 * The existence of a supremacist organization of pure-blood animals, called Kopi Luwak, is revealed.
 * Deshico is introduced (his name is not disclosed in the chapter).

Trivia

 * Gosha is revealed to work as a construction worker.
 * Gosha's "Jukyu Hands" shopping bag is a reference to "Tokyu Hands", a Japanese department store chain dedicated to selling raw materials for crafts, projects, and hobbies.
 * The story that Gosha reads to the hybrid children, "Nashitarō", is a parody of the Japanese story "Momotarō" changing the "Momo" (peach in Japanese) for "Nashi" (pear).