BNA is back, and a little earlier than anticipated. Netflix Japan has released the final six episodes, wild fansubs are starting to appear (nature is healing) and I’m once more faced with the decision of whether to cover it now or wait. Interestingly the virtual shutdown of the schedule makes both options more tempting, but I think I’ll go ahead and blog these eps as they appear. There isn’t that much to watch anime-wise, this is something to watch, and I may as well watch it.
As for the show itself, Brand New Animal remains on the level of something that’s probably be a bubble series in a normal season, but it’s pretty entertaining and at this point, I’m two-thirds into it so there’s not much point in bailing. There’s a new wrinkle introduced this week in the person of Pinga (noot, noot!), an albatross beastman played by Namikawa Daisuke (it just occurred to me – this is the second Nakashima show to use that term, and I’m covering them both right now). He ties into the political aspects of the story that Nakashima is teasing but not fully embracing, since flying beastmen have a priority list somewhat different from grounded ones.
In TTGL, beastmen and humans started out in opposition but wound up more or less on the same side, so it’s tempting to wonder whether the author will go in that direction again. This is a pretty primary colors premise, but it has a certain amount of complexity to it. The mayor decided to allow Nazuna’s cult to stay for the moment, but Alan Sylvasta shows up unannounced and basically tells her that she needs to kick them out of Anima City or lose his funding. Clearly Nazuna and Michiru represent something Sylvasta wants to keep covered up – but what’s their endgame? Why did they fund a haven for refugee beastmen while experimenting on humans to turn them into beastmen themselves?
As for Pinga, he represents the idea that beastmen rights haven’t been a boon for every beastman. Albatross used to be able to come and go freely, but since they’re recognized as a distinct group and Anima City as a sovereign state, they have to contend with borders and government restrictions. This has driven some to terrorism, though Pinga is basically a nonviolent dissident. His compatriot Meteor is no such thing, and he arrives in Anima City to kidnap – and try to kill – Alan (presumably to undermine Anime City’s funding and cause its collapse). Nazuna intervenes and reveals she can fly – which she has in common with Michiru has already discovered when she had to do it to save herself and Shirou.
Then Episode 8 hits, and things get sort of blown apart and reassembled, farther down the plot road. Brand New Animal seems to do one of these “reset” eps every second or third time out, and while it certainly progresses the story (and they’re usually the best episodes) it’s a somewhat uneven narrative style. I’ve had the inkling from the beginning that BNA should probably have been a two-cour series, and watching it concurrently with Gurren Lagann only strengthens that impression. You can see many instances where Nakashima would clearly like to go deeper – and did in TTGL – but can’t or won’t.
It’s a big-time Shirou infodump, that much is certain. Of course he’s Ginrou – it was never really in doubt, even if I hoped that might be a feint. The thousand-year (so far) lifetime reveal was a twist though, as was the existence of a Beastman city called Nilvazir in medieval Europe. The mayor unspools all this for Michiru, taking her right through the Nazi concentration camp which Ginrou liberated, where beastmen were being experimented on as potential biological weapons. That was the last time Shirou revealed his Ginrou form – after massacring all the humans in the camp, he sealed himself away in horror over what he was capable of.
Last, that is, until he must do so again (by removing his symbolic and literal collar) in order to save Michiru from the former director of the medical facility. Sylvasta has chosen him as the next stage of the experiment they began (or at least executed) with Michiru and Nazuna, and he goes on a rampage that threatens to destroy Anima City. Michiru reveals still more depths to her ability – apparently her adaptive powers aren’t merely limited to things light flight, but general power-ups too. She seems to be related to Ginrou in some sense herself, though just exactly how still isn’t clear.
To me, what Sylvasta appears to be doing seems very similar to what the Nazis were doing in that camp. That makes it all the more troubling that the mayor appears to be in league with them. At the very least she’s aware of what they’re doing – and as we know, she’s a scientist herself. “Beast factor” is the key, one way or the other, and it’s certainly not beyond possibility that Anime City itself exists as an experimental environment to cultivate beastmen as potential weapons in human hands. That makes the mayor’s involvement even more puzzling, and makes her the possible lynchpin of everything that’s happening in BNA.
