Throughout history, humanity has always been at odds with the beastmen – a race that can change their shape into beasts. The beastmen have all but gone into hiding after extreme discrimination, but Anima City was built to be a self-governing safe haven where they can live without fear.
During the towns’ 10th anniversary, Michiru, a human that has recently turned into a tanuki, visits the city in an attempt to find a cure for her sudden transformation. Unfortunately, there is a explosion in the square, and she gets caught up in the event.
Together with the white wolf Shirou, the pair look into the explosion and find that there is indeed more to Michiru’s beastification.
You can never expect exactly the same plot from Trigger, but they always bring energy and creativity, both of which BNA has in spades. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like BNA – Brand New Animal, head on down below.
Anime Like BNA: Brand New Animal
For Fans of Beastmen
Beastars
This is a world of anthropomorphic animals where carnivores and herbivores live side by side with each other.
At Cherryton Academy, young wolf Legoshi is a member of the drama club. While he is often called menacing due to his appearance, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
However, when one herbivore classmate is killed and devoured, Legoshi finds himself as the primary suspect.
Both BNA and Beastars are built around worlds or societies where anthropomorphic beast people are prevalent. However, instead of just being easy furry-bait, both stories impress you with the depth and darkness that they present in the well-crafted plot.
While both series embrace the animal nature of the characters, Beastars tends to get a little more specific to the animals whereas BNA treats “animal nature” as more of something all beast people have to deal with no matter what sort of animal they are.
Killing Bites
After unwittingly participating in a kidnapping, college student Yuuya finds his friends murdered by the girl they kidnapped.
Forced to drive her somewhere, he now finds himself the prize in a match between two Therianthropes, animal-human hybrids.
Being saved by the girl, Yuuya is suddenly in the middle of a proxy war between four companies engaged in a blood-sport known as Killing Bites.
Both BNA and Killing Bites feature worlds where beast people exist and they face a bit of discrimination. However, while both stories try to dive into dark plots, Killing Bites is a blood-sport anime where beast people fight proxy battles, so it focuses most on that action and lacks a bit of depth compared to the mystery of BNA.
While BNA has some moments of levity in between the action and intrigue, Killing Bites maintains a distinct dark tone, often leaning more towards being violent and sexy.
Odd Taxi
Blunt walrus Hiroshi Odokawa drives a taxi for a living which has caused him to get to know his various eccentric customers.
One day, his simple life is turned upside down when a missing person case is tracked by the police back to him.
Now a person of interest to both cops and yakuza, he becomes increasingly entangled in this complicated web of intrigue.
BNA and Odd Taxi tell very similar stories of main characters who end up embroiled in a growing crime case in their city. This city just happens to be full of anthropomorphic animal characters as well, though for different reasons.
The biggest difference between Odd Taxi and BNA is more the tone. BNA is classic Studio Trigger with its high-energy action and high-energy main character. Odd Taxi carries itself more like a slow burning, slowly unraveling noir mystery. Both are amazing stories, but Odd Taxi is more for those that enjoyed BNA’s story rather than its high-energy action.
For Fans of Energetic, Creative Action
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan
Simon and Kamina were living boring lives in their deep underground village when, on an excavation dig, they find a mysterious object that turns out to be the ignition key to an ancient war machine.
With their new weapon, the pair are able to fend off an attack from above, but upon catching a glimpse of the sky, they set off on an adventure that will take them out of this universe.
While Gurren Lagaan has a mecha plot, a good chunk of the enemies they fight in the beginning are beast people. Essentially the world is inverted from BNA. The beastmen rule the world and the humans have been pushed underground.
However, what these series have most in common is not beast people. They both share a love for big, energetic action that is overflowing with passion and animated in a similarly fluid way.
Furthermore, although it is in different ways, both BNA and Gurren Lagaan feature main characters that are sort of trying to find their place in the world.
Kill La Kill
Ryuuko Matoi is on the hunt for her father’s killer, and her only lead is the missing half of his invention, the Scissor Blade.
On her quest, she arrives at the prestigious Honnouji Academy, a school that is ruled over by the super powerful Satsuki Kiryuuin and her Elite Four. Believing Satsuki knows who killed her father, Ryuuko challenges one of the elite, but gets beaten due to their special uniforms.
After receiving a special uniform of her own, Ryuuko sets plans into motion to dominate the school and find out what happened to her father.
Studio Trigger anime, of which both Kill la Kill and BNA both are, can have wildly different plots and yet always feel so similar because they always have this addicting way of creating big action with maximum energy as well as being just the right amount of weird.
However, Kill la Kill is a bit more energetic than BNA in the way it explores the plot. In fact, it often feels like non-stop action and extra-weird because it doesn’t take as many breaks from it. It throws plot at you with the same fury as FLCL whereas BNA tones down the energy when it is time for intrigue.
Little Witch Academia
Although Atsuko is an ordinary girl, she became enamored by witches and magic by a magic show she saw as a kid hosted by a witch named Shiny Chariot.
Now, she has aspires to be a witch, taking the first step by joining a renowned academy for witches called Luna Nova Academy.
Although she faces hardship as a first generation witch and fan of Shiny Chariot, whom many consider a fraud, she and her two friends do their best each new day.
Again, as BNA and Little Witch Academia are both Studio Trigger anime, they have the innate passion for energy in common. This time, BNA and Little Witch Academia also share a similar sort of main character where they are a little naive, a little bit of a dork, but they have unstoppable passion for the things they love.
While Little Witch Academia can easily be described as “anime Harry Potter,” both BNA and Little Witch Academia have plots surrounding the main characters slowly unraveling a mystery that has been going on behind the scenes. It is just that Little Witch Academia, because it is the longer series, takes longer to unravel it in full.
Space Patrol Luluco
Living in the rather abnormal Ogikubo, the only Space Immigration Zone on Earth and a melting pot of aliens and humans, bubbly Luluco just wants to be normal.
However, when her father accidentally eats a powerful sleep capsule that freezes him solid and she also accidentally breaks him, she rushes over the Space Patrol to take his place in the office.
There, the chief Over Justice hires her as an undercover agent to sniff out crime at her school.
One more Studio Trigger anime for the road, shall we? What BNA is to anthropomorphic animals, Space Patrol Luluco is to aliens. Both stories use those fictional/sci-fi/fantasy beings to give it a greater license to be extra creative with the action and characters.
Furthermore, both Space Patrol Luluco and BNA follow younger, passionate main characters that end up assisting in keeping the peace in their city while also unraveling a personal mystery.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Scraping by a living in the rough technologically augmented society of Night City, David’s mother managed to send him to a prestigious school in hopes he could become a Corpo and climb the ladder of the business world.
However, after his mother dies suddenly in a car accident and due to lack of appropriate care, David embraces a cybernetic implant for power and that decision intersects him with a crew of Edgerunners, a group of mercenaries filled with cybernetic implants that do any job and every job to make a living.
Both BNA and Cyberpunk Edgerunners take place in futuristic cities that are inhabited by a number of unique individuals. While BNA fills its city with beast people, Cyberpunk Edgerunners emphasizes cybernetic augmentation that allows people to transcend human appearance and capabilities.
While BNA takes breaks for fun moments like playing baseball, it can dive into some grittier elements of the city. Cyberpunk Edgerunners, while it can add some sci-fi levity, is a darker and vastly more violent series. Regardless, both series show off unique futuristic cites and the various stories going on within while having a passion for creative and interesting action as well as characters.
For Fans of Gruff Veterans and Energetic Rookies
Cop Craft
15 years ago, a gate opened over the Pacific to a fantasy world. In the present day, San Teresa City hosts two million immigrants from the other world and those from our world live side by side.
As with any city, crime has started to run rampant, but justice is handed out by a police force combined of cops from our world and knights from the other. This is the tale of one such team.
While BNA doesn’t feature a mixed city, the racism presented against beast people in BNA is present in Cop Craft as well, even if the characters are very human looking people from a fantasy land.
Both series feature newcomers to the city teaming up with an older, more experienced male peacekeeper as they get drawn into a growing criminal intrigue. Of course, you watch these characters bond and get to better understand each other.
While BNA and Cop Craft differ in the details, both series play out a bit like a buddy cop scenario.
Deca-Dence
Driven to the point of extinction by creatures known as the Gadoll, humanity now lives out of a large mobile fortress known as Deca-Dence.
Inside, the residents are separated into Gears, warriors that fight the Gadoll, and Tankers who maintain the fortress. Natsume, a Tanker, has dreams of becoming a Gear, but is forced into armor repair where she meets a surly senpai named Kaburagi that has more skills than he lets on.
Both BNA and Deca-Dence are sci-fi anime about the going-ons in primarily one city. Inside the city, you meet an idealistic, energetic, and naive girl who happens to endear herself to a gruff and mysterious older man.
While Deca-Dence has a unique twist that it shows you early on, both series follow these duos as they essentially save their whole world with their teamwork.
Dimension W
In the future, humans have discovered the fourth dimension, or Dimension W, which is supposedly a source of infinite energy. Harnessing this energy in coils, the New Telsa Energy corporation has now set up a monopoly on its sale.
Ex-soldier Kyouma Mabuchi is skeptical of this energy and still drives a gas-powered car for his job to hunt down illegal coils.
BNA has a city that is presented as futuristic, but is made most unique by its beast people residents. Dimension W presents a more traditionally futuristic city and follows a gruff male main character that is a bit resistant to the newer technology.
Both series follow the same sort of main character duos who both also get pulled into a larger intrigue that is happening in their city.
For Fans of City Politics
Blood Blockade Battlefront
Vampires, fishmen, supersonic monkeys – They are all normal residents living alongside humans in Hellsalem’s Lot, formerly known as New York City.
When a gate between Earth and the Beyond popped up there three years ago, old NYC became dominated by monsters, and now Libra, a secret organization, is tasked with keeping it in order.
After hobbyist photographer Leonardo Watch obtains the All-Seeing Eyes of the Gods, he finds himself recruited into Libra.
While BNA is about them investigating a singular event that leads to something bigger, Blood Blockade Battlefront is small events that generally lead to a bigger event surrounding the main character.
While many of the characters in Blood Blockade Battlefront look human, all of them come with some special ability that makes them not so unlike the beast people in BNA.
If you enjoyed the number of side stories in BNA, Blood Blockade Battlefront follows the same sort of formula.
The Eccentric Family
In modern Kyoto, tanuki and tengu have lived secretly among humans for years.
Yasburou Shimogamo, the third son of a prominent tanuki family, spends his days dipping his toes into human culture through shape shifting and caring for an old Tengu.
However, something plagues this family, the mysterious and grisly death of their father. One day, the threads start to unravel.
Both BNA and The Eccentric Family follow tanuki. However, in The Eccentric Family, these beings live more in that shadows.
Regardless, both BNA and The Eccentric Family follow main characters that start investigating something and it leads them to a greater mystery.
Both series also do well to balance darker mysteries with nice moments of levity.
Yozakura Quartet
In this town, humans and demons coexist, but not always peacefully.
As the normal police can’t handle demons, the Hizumi Life Counseling Office and its four unique teenagers with superpowers are in charge of keeping the peace in this integrated world.
While BNA doesn’t feature the same mixed society that Yozakura Quartet displays, both series are about younger characters who use their powers to solve problems in the city. As both series go on, you watch as the problems all build up to a larger intrigue that needs dealing with.
While Yozakura Quartet isn’t as creative or energetic as BNA, it is still a pretty unique series that works with a similar premise.
Do you have any more anime recommendations like BNA – Brand New Animal? Let fans know in the comments section below.
