The cherry blossoms aren’t the only thing opening early these days, but we can’t pin the early start to a new anime season on climate change.  Life in the age of Netflix means new series sometimes pop up early, and such is the case with BNA: Brand New Animal.  Official English streams won’t show up until next month possibly the summer,  but the first week of a new season is always hectic so if I have a chance to beat the First Impressions crush, I’m going to take it.

Superficially BNA is about as uniformly post-Gainax as any Trigger series can be.  All of the key staff are Gainax survivors, including director Yoshinari You (LWA most recently) and the art and animation directors.  The writer is Nakashima Kazuki, who was a standout in anime’s greatest year ever (2007) with TTGL and Oh! Edo Rocket but has done nothing to impress me since.  The genetic code from TTGL through Panty and Stocking to Kill la Kill and SSSS.Gridman is unbroken and unmistakable in the look and tone of BNA.

As a die-hard Gainax fanboy there’s always a little rush of nostalgia in the premiere of one of Trigger’s real throwback shows, before they almost invariably lose me with their insipid writing and blatant pandering.  But not always – Gridman closed the deal for me at least – and this premiere is interesting enough.  It’s all setup of course and doesn’t stray too far from the Trigger template, but so far at least the marketing department doesn’t seem to have totally taken over as they usually do with Trigger, so I’ll continue to hold out hope.

In the usual Trigger/Gainax mold this is an original series, so there’s no roadmap for what’s to come.  In this world there exist both humans and beastmen (and apparently those who cross over from the first to the second), and the beastmen are heavily discriminated against.  So much so that ten years earlier a beastman-only “Anima City” was founded – theoretically as a safe haven for its citizens but also, clearly, so humans wouldn’t have to be around them.  The founder and mayor is Barbaray Rose (Takashima Gara), who has an uneasy relationship with the human prime minister Shiramizu (Ohtsuka Houchu).

The heroine is a racoon – or maybe a tanuki – named Michiru (Morohoshi Sumire), who we meet as she’s fleeing human vigilantes and trying to reach Anima City.  Michiru apparently used to be human and seems to have some magical powers (tanuki, then), and since the humans call her an “outlier” I’m assuming she’s not unique.  She eventually does reach the city with the help of a coyote (who’s actually a mink), but soon after she arrives what money the mink didn’t take is stolen by a monkey pickpocket.  She also meets an impossibly overpowered (and idealistic) wolf played by Yoshimasa Hosoya and gets mixed up in a human-instigated terrorist bombing plot.

Where do we go from here?  Who knows.  Nakashima is certainly capable of writing interesting political satire, although the level of his recent work doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.  Nothing in the premiere really reached out and grabbed me but nothing put me off either, which leaves me ahead of the game by Trigger standards.  And I kind of liked the overall look and vibe (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band turning up was a nice touch), though Trigger’s usual cost-cutting is never difficult to spot.  I have no expectations for BNA per se, but at least I haven’t seen anything yet to quash my hopes.