YMMV / BNA: Brand New Animal

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: While "racism is bad" is the most obvious, when focusing on Michiru's character arc of adjusting to life as a beastman, one could interpret it as an allegory for, in broad terms, not conforming to gender stereotypes. This could range from being transgender, genderfluid, or queer. This is mainly supported by the lyrics of the opening "Ready to" and the speech Michiru gives in the final episode to the Big Bad. There is also how Michiru herself is something of a tomboy.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Grandma Gran taking in orphaned beastchildren and selling them to gang lords like Flip. Did she genuinely care about the orphans by offering them shelter and education and only sold them out of desperation? Or does she only care about how much money they can make her and frequently practices beastchild trafficking? It's also worth mentioning that she hoped out loud that the ones who knew how to read and write could be sold for a higher price.
  • In the end Michiru decides to stay a beastman in Anima city claiming it's because as one of the only two who know what it's like to be both human and beastman she's going to help bridge the gap between them. Is that the only reason? Or judging by the look on her face as she flies over the city under her own power has she come to realize she likes her abilities too much to give them up?
• Angst? What Angst?: In Episode 4, Michiru spends some time missing her parents. After that, she never thinks about them again.
• Anvilicious: Racism is bad. The show practically hammers you over the head with it from episode 1, which shows Michiru almost getting killed by racist beastmen-hunters. It only doubles down as it progresses, even throwing in a villain who is clearly an allegory to the Nazis.
• Ass Pull: Alan gets one in his direction. He turns out to not only be a beastman, but also an immortal cerberus monster. This was not foreshadowed at all, and even requires a minor plot point established previously to be Hand Waved.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: A majority of the fanbase considers the ending to be a rushed, overloaded mess. It throws plot-twist after plot-twist at the viewer, with some of them being barely or not at all foreshadowed, crams in a last-second boss-fight against an overpowered Big Bad whose powers come out of nowhere and jumbles pretty much all of its messages and themes in an effort to wrap everything up at once
• Awesome Music:
  • The soundtrack unanimously agreed to be the best thing of the anime next to it's art style, notably "NIGHT RUNNING", which also serves as a Leitmotif for Michiru and Nazuna.
  • And that's not to say the opening song "Ready to" doesn't slap either, starting with a peppy cheerlead chant and transitioning into a driving, head-banging rock beat.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In episode 12, Boris' true form is revealed to be a creepy mish-mash of snake and human parts. There was nothing in the anime that foreshadowed this, apart from a brief scene in episode 6 in which his eye is shown to be reptilian. And even with that it's still a huge jump from "probably a snake-beastman" to "Eldritch Abomination of uncertain origin". None of the characters remark on it after he's chased off and it's never explained why he looks like that.
• Complete Monster: Alan Sylvasta is a pure-blood beastman seeking to eliminate all of the half-blood beastmen within Anima City. Posing as a benevolent human supporter of beastmen, Alan convinced Nazuna Hiwatashi, a human teenager who recently turned into a beastman, to become the leader of the Silver Wolf Order in order to pacify the beastmen in Anima City. To test the effects of the Nyrvasil Syndrome, he had one of his lackeys subjected to the illness, causing him to destroy a police station with rage and subsequently wound or kill various prisoners and police officers. Alan later tries to convince Nazuna to tell her followers during a concert that she's really human so thousands would unknowingly give in to the Nyrvasil Syndrome. When she backs out of the plan, Alan reveals the information himself, resulting in hundreds of beastmen succumbing to the illness and rioting in the streets. While claiming he wants to save the beastmen, Alan intended on using anti-beastmen robots to turn them all into humans he would rule over, not caring if thousands were killed in the riots and Anima City was destroyed in the process.
• Crosses the Line Twice: A baseball game resulting in the death of a player is one thing, but said player being the last living dodo beastman is another altogether.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Nina Flip, the dolphin-beastgirl and daughter of Giuliano Flip. She only really plays a bigger role in episode 4, but her adorable Genki Girl-personality along with the fact that she's a Spoiled Sweet Mafia Princess quickly won over the heart of many a fan.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Yes, the Nirvasil Syndrome is cured, the Big Bad has been defeated, Anima City has been opened to let humans and beastmen live wherever they please, and Shirou and Michiru have resolved to live as themselves rather than just their species. But you have to wonder how any of this is going to solve the humans' racism problem, as they've just watched thousands of beastmen go berserk and destroy a city, and been shown that the man behind that incident was another beastman all along. About the only thing that would likely end up doing is making the racist humans' beliefs that beastmen are violent, dangerous, and a threat to their safety more justified—and even without the Nirvasil syndrome to worry about, beastmen are still far stronger than the average human and run on a different moral compass. The last thing humans will want to do is move somewhere that they feel they'll be in more danger, so Anima City will likely remain a largely segregated place to live, even if the doors are open for anyone to come and go, and now it's largely in ruins on top of everything.
• Evil Is Cool: Alan Sylvasta, a stylish chessmaster who has striking good looks and a massive kaiju-style final form.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: Alan being not a human, but an immortal beastman who is part of an Ancient Conspiracy of "pure-bloods". This is widely criticized as an extremely weak twist, not just because it comes out of basically nowhere, but because it adds little to the story beyond a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist. Also, it distorts the motivations of the Big Bad. Turning him from a critique of corrupt governments and racial policy to a Generic Doomsday Villain in the eyes of many dilutes the Fantastic Racism themes of the story.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Accusing the show of Sexy Dimorphism by comparing Michiru and Nazuma’s beastmen designs to the male beastmen designs will get you people pointing out how all of the other female beastmen designs in the show are actually as animal-like as the male ones, and that the only reason Michiru and Nazuma’s designs are more human-like is because they were originally humans that were then turned into beastmen.
• Fanfic Fuel: With the anime's open ended finale (and the general belief that the series won't get a second season due to Studio Trigger's tendencies of always leaving their animes as one season), there's much left for what's to come: Anima City being opened to the public for Beastmen and Humans to coexist, Alan still being out there despite being ousted as a Beastman too, and of course, Michiru and Nazuna deciding to continue being beastmen in order for a new era of beast creatures and humans.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Nazuna/Michiru is immensely popular, no thanks in part to the abundant Les Yay in their interactions, their shared backstory and their heartwarming reconciliation at the end of the anime.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Given that both shows are made by Yoh Yoshinari and share a few things in common (including both shows starring an highly energetic female protagionist), it's no surprise that fans of Brand New Animal are on good terms with fans of Little Witch Academia and vice versa.
  • Most audiences recognize the show as one of the big three Netflix furry anime alongside Aggretsuko and Beastars. It's not uncommon to see fan art of characters from all three shows interacting with one another or see people recommending BNA to fans of the two and vice versa.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Shirou crying at the anniversary festival when he sees how happy the celebrating Beastmen are was already an Adorkable moment, but it gets much more heartwarming after the reveal that Shirou is Ginrou. After one thousand years of protecting his people from harm he finally gets to see his efforts pay off.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Before the show aired, a few fans pointed out that Alan Sylvasta looks like the child of Andrew Hanbridge and Diana Cavendish from Yoshinari's own Little Witch Academia due to having the former's physique and shape but the latter's color scheme. Then it turns out Andrew himself has an appearance as a human arresting a Beastman, although he's wearing shades to obscure his face, while the main protagonist Akko is seen from behind in her rabbit form from the Fountain of Polaris episode, while Shrinking Violet Lotte appears as a Beastman too.
  • Becomes even more hilarious by the show's end because unlike Andrew he's not a pure human while like Diana he's descended from a powerful fantastical family and is quite skilled in managing his powers. And while this can also fall into the realm of Harsher in Hindsight, he's a villain unlike Andrew and Diana.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A lot of fans expressed disappointment about the anime only being 12 episodes long, with many claiming that the ending felt rushed and that the series should have been 24 episodes long at least or should get a second season to flesh out the characters more.
• Les Yay: Michiru and Nazuna seemed rather close as humans. Both of them encourages the other to follow their dream, with Michiru being especially enthusiastic about Nazuna pursuing her idol-career. When Michiru talks about Nazuna in the present, she always compliments her and even after finding out that Nazuna is conning all of Anima City by posing as Ginrou, she still chooses to believe in her and give her the benefit of the doubt. Nazuna in turn has a notable soft-spot where Michiru is concerned, to the point she calls out Boris with Michiru's exact words when he keeps being a creep towards her. Michiru's tendency to go Leeroy Jenkins and punch everything in sight the second she thinks that Nazuna might be in danger also has some overtones of Violently Protective Girlfriend. She's also prone to charging to the rescue of other characters, too, but she tends to be much faster and angrier when she thinks Nazuna is in danger.
• Magnificent Bastard: Marie Itami is a mink beastman known hustler in the underworld of Anima City who will help anyone for the right price. Saving Michiru Kagemori from a group of bigoted humans with her henchmen, Marie demands all of Michiru's money in return, taking her to Anima City and sending one of her lackeys to pickpocket her when Michiru tries to keep some of her cash. Committing casual scams on whims, Marie later infiltrates the Silver Wolf Order building and eavesdrops on Nazuna Hiwatashi telling Michiru she will reveal herself a human at her concert to remove stigma towards the Nirvasyl Syndrome cure, and after passing the information to Shirou Ogami and Guiliano Flip, she is send to ferry as many people from the concert as she possibly can. When Nazuna's admission triggers the dangerous Syndrome in the beastmen, Marie saves Nazuna's life and aids the heroes by hacking a media truck to broadcast Shirou's howl and sooth the raging beastmen.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Just from the announcement alone, this show was branded as an anime version of Zootopia, especially since later announcements also stated the show would deal with prejudice.
  • Once again, "Trigger saved anime" but also the furry fandom this time.
  • "You are FURRY now."^note said to fans of the show, especially if they also liked Beastars
• One True Threesome: If Nazuna/Michiru shippers get friendly with Shirou/Michiru shippers, this is the result.
• Popular with Furries: Naturally, given its Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My! setting, where shapeshifting Beast Men live segregated from human society, which hates and fears them. Like Beastars and Zootopia, it uses anthropomorphic animals as an allegory for issues of racial prejudice and discrimination. Michiru, Shirou, and Nazuna are by far the most popular characters in the show with furries, being major characters and all (the fact that Shirou and Nazuna are a wolf and fox respectively, both of which are popular with furries already, helps a great deal). Other characters like Marie, Nina, Jackie, and the Pink Flamingos have their fans as well, though.
• So Okay, It's Average: This sums up the general consensus. It has plenty of interesting concepts and has enough of TRIGGER's signature style to make it a fun and entertaining watch, however, it's short length prevents it from exploring those concepts in greater depth, and suffers from various pacing and characterization issues, as well as a rushed climax that ends up fumbling its intended message.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Beastmen have existed alongside humans in secret for centuries, recently became known to the world, have become targets of hostility from humans, can transform into a human form, there may be an evil corporation performing experiments on them, with a chameleon beastman involved, eventually had to form their own city to escape the persecution, and there's a lead character who's a wolf with the surname "Ogami." Change every instance of the word "beastman" to "zoanthrope" and you've just described plot details specific to Bloody Roar.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Kuro is decades old, clearly more intelligent than most regular animals, and has gone under genetic modification in the past. But his backstory is merely a footnote and he barely does anything as the series goes on.
  • Boris is regularly called out as as suspicious and creepy, he's high-ranking in the Silver Wolf Cult, and his beast form is extremely unique and powerful. He only really does things in the last two episodes, culminating in him being a quick miniboss fight at best.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The Reveal in the episode Anima City that "pure-blooded" beastmen have been manipulating humanity to get rid of what they deem as "impure" beastmen could have set up a potentially interesting Story Arc rather than merely a twist for the final episode.
    • Additionally, who wouldn't have loved to see Michiru team up with Shirou to fight Alan in his One-Winged Angel form while showcasing her Superpower Lottery?
  • Nazuna and Shirou never really get to interact with each other after their initial meeting in episode 6. It would have been interesting to see how Nazuna would handle talking to the very god she was posing as to get famous. However, this doesn't happen.
  • One of the series' themes seems to be that organized religion, secret cults and celebrity worship (especially with the character of Deesse Louve) are basically interchangeable, given that in general Japan is big on idol culture, but in the end not much is done about it and the theme takes a backseat to the more generic "racism is bad".
  • In episode 2, Grand Grandma says that women and children have it harder than men in Anima City due to the Social Darwinism. This is also never brought up again.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: A lot of fans were split as to whether Jackie was a boy or girl, due to her design not being particularly masculine or feminine. It doesn't help that she’s rarely addressed with her actual pronouns in the series.
• Viewer Species Confusion: Barbara's beastman form is supposed to be a naked mole rat but the general artstyle combined with her lack of the species distinctive giant incisors make her look more like some kind of hairless cat instead.
• The Woobie:
  • Dante's a former pro-baseball player who's been driven out of his dream career by the prevalent Fantastic Racism towards his kind and forced to rig his team's games by the mafia. He gets beaten to a pulp in his debut episode several times and it's clear he's lost all hope at this point. When Shirou catches him trying to make a run for it with the mafia's money in his pocket he doesn't even put up a fight or start hurling insults like every criminal in the show so far, he just begs Shirou to let him go.
  • Michiru, obviously. Considering the amount of hell the poor girl goes through and the revelation of her beastmen condition was caused by a literal lab mix up, it's hard not to see why.

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