BNA: Brand New Animal Part 1 Episodes 1-4

Welcome to a world where Humans and Animalized Human Beings known as Beastmen, walk the streets.  However, persecution against Beastmen is at an all time high.  Anima City stands as a safe haven for Beastmen looking to live in peace, free from Human interference and violence.  It is here that Michuru Kagemori has come to.  But this cute Tanuki isn’t looking just for safe harbor.  Michuru claims to be a Human who just one day changed into a Beastman herself.  The search for answers only gets more complicated when Michuru discovers that there are those who want to tear down Anima City for their own purposes.  Her only hope for survival lies with a wolf named Shirou.  Together, they can solve the mystery of Michuru.  Together, they can save the city.

Last Summer, the Summer of TRIGGER event took over the Gundam Anime Corner.  During this time, I looked at Studio TRIGGERs three major Anime TV Series (at the time): Kill La Kill, Little Witch Academia: The Series and Darling in the Franxx, as well as their first big feature film, Promare.  BNA: Brand New Animal, their latest TV offering, came in a little late in the game for me and even though I couldn’t fit it in with the rest of its TRIGGER brethren, I always wanted to check it out and give it its due here on the blog.  After all, Studio TRIGGER is a big name and any project they churn out merits attention, whether the show be a masterpiece or…look you know I hate Darling in the Franxx, let’s not go back there.  BNA looks lively and vibrant and bearing everything that makes a TRIGGER production a TRIGGER production.  So, how about we don’t waste anymore time.  Welcome to Anime Zootopia, er BNA: Brand New Animal.
 
Each Studio TRIGGER offering comes with its own distinct tone and style.  Sure, they all maintain some semblance of crazy, over the top spectacle, particularly when it comes to action.  But every series has been distinct in its own way: Kill La Kill’s unapogetically sexy action; Little Witch Academia being far more family friends; and Darling in the Franxx trying to be meditative but failing miserably.  How does BNA continue this evolving trend of standing out from the rest of the crowd?  The answer is: Maturity.  BNA is tackling some heavy handed issues that are more relevant today in the real world than ever before-the subject of race relations and human prejudice.  Beastmen are the minority in this instance, Animalized Human Beings who, in a perfect world, wouldn’t be seen any differently seeing as how they look and behave like humans save for all the fur and some Animal nature attributes.  Yet much of Humanity fears and hates Beastmen to the point of hunting them for no reason other than pure spite.  It’s both tough to watch and a firm reminder that Anime can sell real world issues just as well as any news report when it wants to.  In this regard, BNA is off to a solid start, even if some of TRIGGERs penchant for levity and comedy is jettisoned for it.
 
As I joked above, it’s hard not to glimpse Anima City and not think about Disney’s Zootopia, only instead of an all Animal world, we have Beastmen looking for a safe place away from the prejudice of humanity.  Looking past the walking, talking Animals, theres still a very normal everyday looking society in Anima City with people working jobs, hanging out with friends, even committing various felonies to show that this isn’t a perfect little utopia.  BNA dives head first into the darker side of this dream world with episodes dealing with topics of terrorism, child slave labor and even crimes on a biological warfare like scale.  This might look like a well animated TRIGGER outing (and it is) but BNA can be pretty dark with its subject matter.  Granted Zootopia got pretty serious when it needed to but Crime Bosses selling kids to cover debts, it never went that far.  If the point hasn’t been hammered home enough: Anima City is just as human a society as the Humans who despise the Beastmen.  Yet because Beastmen are who they are, theyre feared and loathed by normal humans (insert your own Charles Xavier quote from X-Men here).
 
Navigating this zany real world alagory is Michiru, a fine addition to TRIGGERs impressive line of strong female leads.  The mystery of her Beastman transformation and capabilities will be a driving plot point but on her own, Michiru is great.  I really like her Tanuki design, it’s honestly very cute.  Plus, while Michiru is in the middle of some pretty intense scenes, she never loses that TRIGGER spunk that’s the determination of Ryuko Matoi and the optimism of Akko Kagari.  The girl has true strength along with her own special abilities (like extending limbs, super strength and a tail that can be a protective shell around her).  Guiding Michiru is the incredibly bad ass Shirou.  Shirou acts as a secret support to the police and higher ups of Anima City, kind of acting like a secret superhero, kind of like Batman.  Shirou also takes his vow to protect Anima City very, VERY seriously.  As much as he wants to protect all Beastmen, if a Beastman threatens the safety of the people and the harmony of the city, he will kick your ass.  And kick ass he does.  Shirou going full Beast Mode, heck any Beastman going full Beast Mode gives us a brand new helping of TRIGGER action scenes that are both brutal and amazingly executed.  You can feel how raw all of these brawls are, its pretty cool.  As a leading pair, Michiru’s upbeat manner plays off the super serious Shirou rather well and what little humor came from the opening episodes resulted from their clashing personalities.
 
I will say that while I applaud TRIGGER for taking a more mature and very understanding path with BNA’s subject material and the action is still as thrilling as any other TRIGGER show, I do think that the show could use a little more humor.  That’s not to say there aren’t any funny moments as Michiru gets to know the city or Shirou gets stumped by some of Michiru’s logic.  But it’s hard to take a show wanting to talk about race relations with any bit of levity.  It’s a topic that needs to be discussed no matter how dark and ugly it might get when you do, it has to happen.  It sucks out some of the fun that could be had from a setting like Anima City.  However, unlike Darling in the Franxx, I think BNA knows what it wants to be from the get go, what kind of story it wants to tell and what kind of message it wants to convey.  Not to mention BNA is handling drama far, FAR better than Darling in the Franxx, which ended up being a comedy that the writers wanted us to take seriously.  So if BNA can stick the landing with a solid message at the end of 12 episodes, lack of too much humor wont be much of an issue for me.
 
Studio TRIGGER tries a more mature thing with BNA and its working, bouncing back big time from the disaster that was Darling in the Franxx. Tackling a touchy subject like two races not getting along is something that should be handled with care and TRIGGER isn’t shying away from the ugliness of the tense standpoint between Humans and Beastmen or the ugly underbelly of Anima City itself.  And yet, BNA still has TRIGGERs signature eye popping animation and action and a pair of great leads with their own stories that will blend well together and with the overarching themes of the main plot.  I’m looking forward to seeing more of what this title has to offer and seeing just how far it will go with.  And since this is a Katsucon Week Special and we’re reviewing this whole thing over the next couple of days,  the journey continues tomorrow, right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.