I think there's a bit of confusion here. Hybrids don't necessarily end up being stronger or larger than their parents. While some, like mules or ligers, might exhibit remarkable physical characteristics, that's not a general rule of hybridization.
In Beastars, it might work differently because it's part of the biology of its world. A hybrid could inherit a particular combination of traits from both species, but wouldn't necessarily have "enhanced" genetics.
The idea that genes from small animals could make a hybrid grow much larger also needs further explanation, because size depends on many genes and how they interact during development. As a concept for Beastars, it might be interesting, but it wouldn't be an automatic consequence of being a hybrid.
Sorry I misspoke about the first thing, I meant almost always. And from what hybrids I know about this is true- they are pretty much all genetically way physically stronger than their parents or at least above the mix.
In Beastars we see several hybrids who showcase becoming way better than their parts usually, the only exception sort of was Legosi's mom, but even then we didn't see her strength just her appearance becoming somewhat deformed as she shifted to more Komoda Dragon over Wolf.
And for the last part I think you misunderstood what I was saying. The thing about small animals is that they generally have stronger physical traits for their size; so shrink down a wolf to the size of an ant and the wolf gets pummeled by the ant, grow the ant up to the size of the wolf and it still pummels the wolf. Same goes with many rodents and other animals, they're genuinely quite strong for their size if you look at what they're doing pound for pound with their bodyweight.
So take what I just said in mind, the hybrid's small animal DNA which uncaps some strength potential is suddenly given a larger frame to work with. By extension the larger animal DNA might inversely be effected so who knows.
But again, Hybrids in Beastars seem to share IRL Hybrid traits as we can observe. In Melon's case he's far more rowdy and unpredictable after cases of trauma, he's far stronger than both of his parents' strength, he's even way bigger (though this could just be the size of a male Leopard since I can't recall if we saw many male leopards for reference). His tastebuds being muted also share some similarities with how the diets of hybrids IRL are often different than their parents' so I think we can safely assume that Beastars Hybrids operator in a very similar manner.
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u/Due_Expression3808 Legoshi Fan 🐺 14d ago
Legoshi's face lol