Tag: BNA

Thursday Media Review: BNA: Brand New Animal

Review written by TheChoujinVirus
Note: The following review contains spoilers to to the anime. If you don’t want to be spoiled, do not read the review.

Happy Thursday, everyone, it’s ya boy Choujin here.

Netflix has been a good day for new shows to take a peek. I recalled during the start of this pandemic I watched and reviewed Cells at Work!, the anime that was infotainment. However, I heard of two animes that perked my interest that got me watching: Beastars and BNA. Beastars is a fun anime, as seen as an adult version of Zootopia. Still, we got something that everyone’s been talking about and is pretty recent. Created by Studio Trigger and released on Netflix Japan on March 21st of 2020, then worldwide two months later, BNA: Brand New Animal is a pretty exciting anime that became a talk of the town. Does this series have a good point? Let’s find out with my review of BNA.

Story

BNA takes place in a world where humans live alongside a group of humanoid animals called beastmen. Such hostilities between the two eventually led to the founding of a sanctuary city for the beastmen called Anima-City. Our main focus and protagonist, Michiru Kagemori, flees to Anima-City after she transforms into a tanuki beastmen. Once she makes it to Anima-City, she meets  Shirou Ogami, a wolf beastkin and private investigator that works directly for the mayor of Anima-City, Barnaby Rose. She reveals that she was human and not beastkin, which confused Shirou and Mayor Rose as they wonder how a human can become a beastkin. Our tanuki girl has the unique power to alter parts of her body, Such as longer arms, using her tail as a protective cushion, and turning her arms into birdwings for flight. All while she sees the problems and plight going on in Anima-City. They are showing her that the Garden of Eden is not as glorious as its put due to hatred. Things start to change by the sixth episode when we are introduced to Michiru’s friend, Nazuna Hiwatashi. She was a close friend and schoolmate of Michiru, who transformed into a beastkin as well (a fox beastkin). Now under the name Déesse Louve, a guru of the Church of the Silver Wolf. Michiru is glad about seeing her old friend after all these years but is shocked to see her manipulating the beastmen (and Michiru herself.) While this is going on, a medical company is known as Sylvasta Pharmaceutics. Their president, Alan Sylvasta, shows interest in the two girls for their unique traits of transforming their bodies.

During one incident where Michiru and Shirou stop a rampaging beastkin, Shirou is revealed to be the real silver wolf, leading Baraby Rose to explain the story to Michiru. She reveals that Shirou’s real name is Ginrou and that he was the survivor of the mass genocide of 1,000 years ago in the village of Nirvasyl. His powers were given to him when he absorbed the blood of 2,000 wolfkin corpses slaughtered. Also, while attempting to rescue her friend Nazuna but learning she wasn’t in danger, Michiru learns directly from Alan that the condition that affected the two girls resulted from them getting beastkin blood during their recovery from an accident years ago. He also reveals more about the incident leading to Shirou’s village and what happened. It wasn’t wonton slaughter, but the result of beastmen in-fighting and slaughtering each other brought on when beastkin of different species are pushed together into one area. This disorder is called Nirvasyl Syndrome. What’s worse is that Alan is covertly using the research data from Michiru and Nazuna to create a solution to the Beastkin problem. However, it’s revealed by Shirou that his plan involves turning beastmen into humans through genetic alterations and that Alan is using the Church of the White Wolf and Nazuna. Michiru learns that Nazuna will reveal that she is human. She reassures Michiru that it’ll help calm the beastmen; however, it’s learned that it will end up enraging the beastmen further. Michiru was able to convince Nazuna (though a subtle concert that would claim to “Help the beastkin”) not reveal the truth about her. This works (but is thwarted when another beastkin ousts her).

The whole town goes into a frenzied spree, and even Shirou succumbs to the syndrome. Though when he bites into Michiru, he suddenly is calmed down. They discover that Michiru and Nazuna, being human turned Beastkin, have an antibody in their blood that can cure Nirvasyl Syndrome. Shirou, now cured, heads out to stop the rampaging beastkin. At the same time, Michiru and Nazuna try to stop Alan’s plan of using his machines to use the anti-beastmen formula. During the fight,  Alan is revealed to be a beastman (a pureblood one) and declares that he was purging the “halfbreed beastmen.” To make things worse, he’s got the same regenerative powers that Shirou has as well. Two immortal beastmen fight while Michiru and her friends fight to stop and save the beastkin from extermination. Michiru finds where Alan and Shirou are fighting, and during the fight, Alan starts to show symptoms of Nirvasyl Syndrome. Shirou mocks him for saying that purebloods were immune to the disease. Though in a twist, instead of killing Alan, Shirou lets Alan bite him. Shirou explains that because he bit Michiru, he’s produced antibodies that allowed him to cure Nirvasyl Syndrome. Alan feels confused at why Shirou spared him after all he did to him and his kin. Before the fight, Michiru discovered that Shirou’s howl could calm down the beastkin and, with Shirou’s help, calmed the rampaging beastkin and thus prevented the beastmen extermination.

In the aftermath, the city was now remending. Rampaging beastmen are being treated of Nirvasyl Syndrome, the Church of the Silver Wolf is dismantled, Alain has gone into hiding after resigning the CEO position of Sylvasta Pharmaceuticals. Best of all, Michiru and Nazuna have returned their friendship and now enjoying their new lives in Anma-City, all friendships mended and everything fixed.

Howling Good: What made the anime great

BNA has some wonderful art style for its animation, which reminds me of FLCL or Gurren Lagan. This is no surprise as Trigger made Gurren Lagaan and Kill la Kill, which makes it a pretty good series and stylish. Another that makes the series great is the characters themselves. The supporting cast and the stars are likable in their ways. The protagonist Michiru is a likable character and isn’t falling into any open clichés that plague anime in general. Not only that, but her relation to Shirou is less romance and more of a mentor idea (something that again, doesn’t feel cliché’d) and keeps the focus on the world without plaguing the many problems some go through. The episodes are entertaining as they do have a mix of action and suspense that does their best to explain the world of BNA. Finally, the music, oh how that soundtrack is great! Going To and Night Running are songs one would say, “yup, that’s BNA.” The music does fit the setting of the whole series and doesn’t feel out of place.


Raging Beasts: What the series lacks.

Though the series is good and does its best to tell a story, some of the plotlines and story do feel a bit off. The first part, up until Episode 6, felt like random stories loosely collected. This makes the story feel lost until the arrival of the Church of the Silver Wolf. The sad part is the entire season only consists of 12 episodes, which makes the series pretty short and finishes up with already one villain. Sure, the story mentions crime within the Beastkin world (such as the Family). Still, it feels that it is pushed aside or the “anti-beastmen coalitions” mentioned in the story. Sadly, they’re all ignored and pushed aside. However, knowing the season, the whole thing maybe glanced in a future season if it is done. Lastly, though there are characters that are the main focus, such as Michiru or Shirou, there are some characters that feel a bit glanced or not much action.  Some characters are only given one episode, and that’s it with maybe a few cameos sprinkled in. One character I’ve seen more was Marie the Mink (NOT A  Weasel) and how she’s got more screen appearance than let’s say the don of the Family (a Beluga Whale Beastmen). Heck, I would also like to see more of the side characters and know more about them. For starters, we get a lot of backstory about Barbary Rose and how she and Shirou once traveled the world together, but we don’t know any of the backstories of Gem and Melissa Horner, the married couples who helped Michiru and Shirou with a home of their own? We don’t get to know their backstory? It can become a bit frustrating, but otherwise, it has its charm.

Conclusion

Though the series has its pratfalls; it has its great moments in the series. The story and world building the series has to offer something that makes it stand on its own. Studio Trigger knows how to make more anime. For those interested, BNA: Brand New Animal is on Netflix, so I suggest you take a look and see how you like this anime.

References