Beastars was a solid anime, and I appreciate them trying to have some depth to the characters and themes, but I think people are giving it a lot more clout than it deserves. Just my opinion.

I'm not saying it's bad, I don't think it is. It's good. It's just that the way it was talked up, I was expecting it to be even better. Maybe that's on me.

As to the original question, I know there's a whole generation slightly younger than me that has weird feelings about anthropomorphic people thanks to Space Jam and Lola Bunny giving them funny tingles in their pants.

I can't think of a character like that for me. I think noticing an attractive cartoon character for me probably started with like April O'Neil from TMNT. Maybe something earlier like Lady Jay or Scarlett from GI Joe, but I was probably a little young.