PinaRiz

PinaRiz is the slash ship between Pina and Riz from the Beastars fandom.

Canon
Both characters are fundamental to each other's character developments since Pina starts as rather bigoted towards carnivores, and through his relationship to Riz, he grows and lears. The same goes for Riz, who starts very violent and hostile towards Pina, but also learns and grows alongside him. The first time they meet, Pina is a new student at school and a new member of the Drama Club, and he witnesses an accident where one of the carnivore students ripped another herbivore's student arm. He is sent to deliver one of the two students' bag to the infirmary, and there, he catches Riz and Legosi mid-fight. He also overhears Riz is the one who ate Tem, so this deeply worries both Legosi and Riz. The three of them have a conversation about this where Pina says that there are now two students that know what Riz did, to which Riz replies that he must now kill him. Pina calmly replies that if he were to do that, that would just bring more suspicion to him from the authorities.

Eventually, Pina gets the role of Adler's romantic interest in the play the Drama Club is organizing. And he starts questioning if there really is much for his existence outside of the benefits his looks give him. Even though he finds flirting funny, he starts feeling a lack of fulfillment from it, and mixed with his position as a herbivore in society, he starts undermining his self-worth. In that exact moment, this all changes when Riz threatens his life in the restroom. At this point in his character arc, Riz is seeking to do harm, and since he sees Pina as a threat to his secret, he takes the opportunity to intimidate him, telling Pina he will devour him after Legosi, and sticking his entire index finger in his mouth. However, this has the opposite effect on Pina who, from here on out, realizes he cares about staying alive a lot more than he thought. And in rehearsals, he delivers his character's words about not cowering away from Adler, as if they were his own, shocking Riz, and leaving the Drama Club completely flabbergasted. He walks past Riz and grazing his back he asks him if he saw his performance at the stage.

Later, during New Year's Eve, Riz does act on his threat about fighting Legosi. He lies to Legosi telling him that he ate Pina, who he describes as a "pretty boy". However, Legosi doesn't believe him since he could smell Pina was actually alive, and restrained by Riz, some miles away. Pina manages to break free from the rope that was holding his arms together, by using his horns, that up until that point, he believed were only useful to make him attractive. He then calls the police, just when Louis arrives at the scene to help Legosi in his fight with Riz. Seeing Louis, a fellow herbivore, apologize to Riz while he's being arrested makes Pina develop some curiosity about Riz as a person.

After that situation, Pina swears that he will never associate with carnivores ever again, although he later goes on to develop a really close and meaningful relationship with Aoba and Bill, his carnivore friends from the Drama Club. Many months pass, and a lot happens at school and in general, and one day Pina doesn't come to school. Els' immediate assumption as to Pina's location is that he must be on a date. Then, the page of the manga is turned, and an entire page shows Pina leaning comfortably against Riz, close to him, in his jail cell, as they watch Louis' speech from Pina's cell phone. Riz asks Pina if anyone else knows about his visits to him, which are twice a month, and that Pina is the only one to visit Riz. Instead of explaining to Riz why he keeps his visits to him a secret, Pina changes the subject by making a joke about Riz eating him as soon as he gets out of juvie. He then asks Riz if he needs a furcut, to which Riz replies that he thinks long hair suits him, so Pina replies "then I'll keep it long." Riz then asks him about the girl he talked about on their last visit, but Pina tells him they dated for a week and then broke up. Immediately after, out of nowhere, Pina begs for him to get out of jail already, so he can stop wearing the muzzle he was wearing at jail. Since Pina tells him that he doesn't want his first boyfriend to wear a muzzle like that all the time. Riz blushes at Pina's comment and smiles at him, to which Pina gives him his first genuine smile to someone as well. Finally, Riz thanks Pina, which is very significant since in the past, he wondered if things would've been different had he thank Tem.

Fanon
PinaRiz is not such a popular ship in the Beastars fandom in comparison to the most popular one, Lougosi. However, it is a very popular one for Pina and Riz. Some fans of the couple started shipping them with the infamous finger-licking incident, although not many. However, tons of fans started shipping them and appreciating this ship after Pina's declaration during his visit to Riz in juvie, when he called officially called him his "男友達".

Fans of the ship often joke about how Riz and Pina just suddenly and out of nowhere became boyfriends. But according to Riz, Pina has been visiting him twice a month for a while. So although the manga never states when his visits started, it states that this has been going on for a while now. So some fans noted that this has a connection to the fact Pina was bitter about Riz being in juvie in chapter 155 of the manga, while he is also aware Bill has been eating meat but isn’t caught for it, because Bill gets to get away with this stuff and Riz doesn’t. Although what Bill did is not comparable to Riz, this also shows how far Riz and Pina’s relationship has gone. And some fans think that at this point, Pina is also probably sure that Riz took the blame for Louis' leg and may also be aware that Louis and Legosi had relations with carnivores who had committed predation, but still get off the hook. Which is why he seems so bitter about it,  because Riz doesn’t get away with stuff other carnivores do get away with.

At this point, also, he is visiting Riz in secret and has probably gotten to know him more. And that’s around March/April, which many fans have noticed that in one year they saw each other a lot more times than Legosi and Haru did, or Juno and Louis, which is also very loyal for someone like Pina, who didn't consider him as such, and wasn't viewed this way by others. Fans have also noticed that their couple shares what seems to be Paru Itagaki's favorite way of making couples, which is by the carnivore wanting to eat or "attack" the herbivore in their first encounter, to them being incredibly close by the conclusion of their relationship development. Which fans call the "you almost ate me but now I love you" team. And which shares a lot in common with the main romantic relationship of the story, Haru and Legosi.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

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