BNA

 HEAVY SPOILER WARNING

Brand new animal is an original anime about beastmen who live in a human society and are hunted by humans who are discriminatory towards them. The anime is following the trend of furry anime like Beasters but this one stood out to me as it was being made by Trigger which is a relatively new studio and focuses on quality over quantity as they have only made 31 anime but still an outstanding presence in modern anime which shows. The show does a great job at worldbuilding with every episode introduces another area to the city and actually feels like a real place that you could live in

The show set off a realist yet advanced world of humans hating beast but also some beasts are against themselves also which they have to get to the bottom of the criminal organisation that is plotting against the haven for beastmen kind. Even though it took a month for them to air all the episodes the quality in animation never seems to dip in quality as it is always vivid and vibrant which the anime sets the tone right from the start, it also uses bright colour and shadows are colours like red or purple which really makes BNA stand out from any anime this season.

Influences

The show has a few influences from western media which a lot of shows are now doing; appealing to western audiences because they now finally get they have a huge audience in English western places, two of these influences that trigger took is Teen Titans. The main character Michiru is definitely based on beast boy from Teen Titans as she can transform into any animal and have abilities like beast boy with stretchy arms, fly like a bird and super strong arms like SpongeBob from that beach episode, which is really interesting they borrowed from them.

It can interest non-anime watchers to like this show as it could be familiar with them. This show reminds me of an homage to cartoons and old school Ghibli as this show is so great it transcends anime stigmas and becomes its own thing. The abilities Michiru has can be seen as very convenient at times but I think it makes BNA better because of it as you get to see how the new ability gets implemented and adds to the lore of her hybrid beast-human form which is later revealed to be connected to the bad guy organisation. (I’m not going to compare to Zootopia if you expected that because it was a low hanging fruit lol)

Characters

Now what I haven’t seen anyone talk about is the Mink character, she seems to be the catalyst for every bad thing that happens because she is always there when bad stuff happens and involved but she is never punished, now Marie which is apparently her name, is involved with anything shady when Michiru requests help she requests something in return then never gets caught even though they should obviously know but don’t do anything about it, this part takes some of the realism away from the show but I think that’s the only thing I can think that I didn’t like. Oh yeah there is, Alan Sylvasta was one of them character that you just want to punch in the face, he is the crooked rich guy in the show even before he was the bad guy he just came across an annoying character which works for the show as he eventually becomes the main boss villain for the show which gives you so much joy in seeing him being beat and justice being served to the corruption.

What I want to talk about now is the relationship between Michiru and Nazuma, Michiru was best buddies with Nazuma back when they were human but were separated when they Nazuma got turned into beastkin, later in the show they both reunite after Nazuma is the false idol for the beastkind. I didn’t like Nazuma and probably still don’t because she is annoying like Alan but she also to me seemed like a weak realistic side character. I think this as she is supposedly besties but acts fake in front of Michiru and hides stuff from her then further on she completely changes and acts cool with her even though there wasn’t a whole lot of progression or development to that point so it just got on my nerves a little. You may say she was being controlled by Boris the snake beastkin but even if she was it was known or clear until later and Nazuma should shown she was or hinted at least to that fact; it felt like a later decision in the process of making the show which I can’t really fault because it was a bit rushed in the making.

Society

The way this anime portrays society would make the Joker be infatuated with, BNA does an amazing job at realism of society better than Zootopia will ever do. At first it starts with just the surface level of what everyone sees, nothing really corrupt happens on the surface but when they get more into the show the more corruption starts to appear. The first corrupt our main character faces is petty bandits, child trafficking in the world, to mob bosses, then social media, then to eventually a freaking cult brainwashing the masses, to cult concert, to zombie uprising, to furry gods and false gods and the beast bible backstory of olden times of Ookami but that’s not all this is to go even further beyond.

Then ends with Alan who we all thought was human just so happens to be another beast god who actually made Michiru and Nazuma which blew my mind because of how out of nowhere it was. Then the two gods fight, Ookami and Alan have an le epic battle. To say this show is amazing is an understatement, the fact that the plot just keeps on getting thicker and keeps you always interested/on your toes for whatever happens next is a rare thing for me in anime and it has to be something as good as this to do so. The start to end of the show is one of those triangle charts which shows the levels of corruption in society then when it gets to the cult it just breaks the chart and goes beyond society (I will make a this is beyond science meme but with society). This is definitely the show to watch and binge this May, if you’re not watching this then what are you doing :0.

Thanks for Reading!!