Humans have been fascinated by other animals since the dawn of time. It’s resulted in a variety of beasts being tamed and bred for one purpose or another, be it for food, products, protection, or companionship. People have documented how different animals have lived, died, survived, and thrived for centuries, and some have tried to communicate with them at their level.
We haven’t quite learned how to walk, talk, sing, squeak, and squawk with every animal. But the idea of becoming a beastmaster has popped up often in fiction. It's turned up in books, films, and anime. Here are the most famous creature controllers in Japanese cartoons.
7 Arachne Gorgon, Soul Eater
The clue here is pretty much in her name. Her fellow Gorgon sisters, Medusa and Shaula, have the ability to manipulate snakes and scorpions to their will. However, their big sister Arachne was the most formidable of the three. As a former consort of Death, she sets up her own organization, Arachnophobia, to overthrow his Death Weapon Meister Academy.
Aside from having a variety of magic attacks, like attacking a person from within their mind, she can control a legion of spiders she keeps inside her body. She often sends them out across the globe, so she can see things through their eyes and get information. So, no matter what people do, they’re a part of Arachne’s World Wide Web.
6 Shido, GetBackers
This list wouldn’t be complete without THE anime beastmaster. Shido ‘Beastmaster’ Fuyuki started off as a member of VOLTS, becoming one of their ‘Four Kings’. After that group disbanded, he took inspiration from old friend Ginji and his ‘GetBackers’ and formed his own retrieval service.
Like them, he’d retrieve any lost item for a client, usually with the help of his friend Emishi, and a host of animals. On the face of it, he’s able to make them do his bidding. Yet it’s more like he’s able to communicate with them on their level, and thus able to ask them for favors. He considers them his friends, so it’s more of a mutual agreement than control.
5 Squala, Hunter X Hunter
Squala was a member of the Mafia, working as a bodyguard for Neon Nostrade. Though if he had things his way, he’d have left the underworld and lived a peaceful life with Eliza, one of Neon’s attendants. He wasn’t a licensed Hunter, but he could use Nen to help him out of tight situations.
Nen has a variety of forms. In Squala’s case, he used it to talk to dogs. They’d do a lot for him too: sniffing food for poison, opening doors, running errands, spying on people, and as normal guard dogs. In exchange, he’d take care of them as his pets. That’s quite a lot, especially as his conversations with his canines would come in a sort of bark-based Morse code.
4 Koji Koda, My Hero Academia
As giant and craggy as he is, Koji is actually quite gentle and introverted. He’s so shy he prefers to use sign language than speak directly to his classmates at U.A High School. Some even assumed he was mute until he took the chance to speak up to them. However, he’s much more comfortable around animals, speaking much more openly to them.
His Quirk, Anivoice, allows him to talk to all kinds of animals and make them do his bidding, so long as they’re within earshot. His ability even works on bugs, despite him being deathly afraid of them. Nonetheless, his biggest moments in My Hero Academia involved using insects as reconnaissance and overcoming his fear by ordering a mass of bugs to swarm his opponents.
3 Shino, Naruto
There are quite a few characters from Naruto who could count for this list. Naruto has his Fox Spirit form (and was originally a fox in a human form in the original one-shot). Jiraiya could summon toads to help him out. Tsunade could link mentally with a magic slug. However, the Naruto character that comes up the most when people search for anime beastmasters is Shino Aburame.
He and his clan were imbued from birth with insects called Kikaichū. They carry out the host’s commands in exchange for feeding off their chakra. Shino can use them to form duplicates of himself, shield himself by forming a dome out of them, or trap his opponents in them and feed off their chakra in turn. He can even track targets by planting a male bug on them, then having a female bug trace their scent. Or keep others from tracking him by having them mess with his chakra patterns. Points for creativity.
2 Princess Shirahoshi, One Piece
Look at this girl. Isn’t she neat? Wouldn’t some think she’s…kind of familiar? She’s the youngest daughter of Neptune, the ruler of the Ryugu Kingdom. She wants to see the wider world beyond the ocean, and she can talk to fish and other sea creatures. Still, that’s about as far as the Ariel comparisons go as there’s nothing little about this mermaid.
She’s so big she could carry Luffy and friends in the palm of her hand. She’s got the strength to back up her size, and she’s one of the fastest swimmers in the sea. While she can talk to regular fish like her Disney counterpart, she can also summon huge, carnivorous ocean monsters called Sea Kings to do her bidding. This power, inherited from her family's connection to Poseidon, makes her one of the strongest characters in One Piece.
1 Ash Ketchum, Pokemon
Does this one really need explaining? The only way to avoid Pokemon is to either go back in time past 1996, or way into the future when all that's left are cockroaches, tardigrades, and Keith Richards. Still, if anyone somehow missed out on Pokemon, or can’t tell Ash Ketchum from Ash Crimson, here’s a little explanation. When kids turn 10 years old, they can legally become official Pokemon Trainers: people who capture the titular animals through Pokeballs, then use them to challenge other trainers to combat.
They don’t use any special powers, Quirks, Nen, or anything like that. It’s all in the training and how the trainer bonds with their Pokemon. Ash started off with just one, Pikachu, and had a tough time with the little electric rat. But across multiple series, movies, and specials, he’s befriended a lot of Pokemon, and won plenty of tournaments with them. He wanted to be the very best, and over time, he managed that.