Netflix Review: BNA: BRAND NEW ANIMAL Is the Same Leopard With New, Flashy Spots
Do you like animals? Do you like animal people? Do you like lots of colors and over the top animation? Well, BNA: Brand New Animal will be perfect for you. This anime brings story elements to life with fantastic animation and cool characters. The story itself may not be the most original or interesting, but the good pacing and wonderful visuals make the show fun enough to watch.
BNA is mostly for older children. There is some violence and more mature themes, but it falls under the same level of maturity needed to watch Teen Titans or maybe Full Metal Alchemist. The show can be watched by older anime fans, but it does cater more towards viewers who enjoy sensational visuals, cool animals, and completely unexplained fantasy elements. As much as the show was fun, it is focused on a young girl, her perspective, and way of dealing with things, like any magical girl anime would do.
The animation is really beautiful. The color palette in every scene normally only uses a few colors to give a strong mood and contrast throughout. From scenes comprising blues and pink, red and oranges or cyans and purples along with many other combinations, this anime is a sight to behold. But it isn’t just the colors that look good, the buttery smooth animation and transformations of characters are fun to watch from beginning to end.
The story is easily the weakest part. It feels very reminiscent of things like Beastars or Zootopia but without any major commentary other than “racism/species-ism is bad.” That is obviously a great statement to be made and a compelling topic to discuss and explore, but it isn’t all that explored in this show or well resolved. BNA mainly focuses on the fantasy side of changing humans into beastman and a religious super-powered creature, but even then, its story doesn’t really stand out or become that interesting through the twelve episodes. Between a number of cliches, repeated ideas from many other shows, and predictable plot lines, the show's story keeps things going, but that is about it.
BNA: Brand New Animal is a fun anime that will keep people entertained with some passable characters and gorgeous animation, just don’t worry too much about the story or plausibility/consistency of the major plot lines.
