Nazuna Hiwatashi

Nazuna Hiwatashi (日渡 なずな) is one of the main characters in the BNA: Brand New Animal series. She was formerly a high school student and is the best friend of Michiru Kagemori. As the former second Ginrou, she was once the guru Déesse Louve (デェス・ルゥブ) of the Silver Wolf Order.

Appearance
Originally, Nazuna was a human girl with fair skin, red eyes, and long, orange hair with a red bang down her forehead. She wore a school uniform consisting of a knee-length navy skirt, white collared shirt with a light blue bow tie, white socks, and black loafers.

Following her accident, Nazuna transforms into a Kitsune Beastman. Her hair turns pink, she grows long pink fox-like ears that are the same colour as her hair, and her red bang becomes dark pink. Above her nose, her fur turns pink, and below it, it turns white.

While acting as Déesse Louve, Nazuna uses her shapeshifting powers to appear as a Silver Wolf Beastman. In this form, her hair is white with pink accents, her fur is pale teal, and her snout is longer compared to her kitsune form. Her cult outfit consists of a white-and-teal cloak patterned with four-pointed stars, elbow-length white gloves, and tall white boots. Her tail is pink and concealed by the cloak.

Nazuna's human form has changed post-transformation. Her hair is now white and her bang is now pink. She wears a light bluish-gray hoodie, a pair of slim black sweatpants, and pink leg warmers when not acting as Déesse Louve.

Personality
Before her transformation, Nazuna was dedicated to Michiru and passionate about her dream of becoming an idol. Not much dialogue was shown onscreen during flashbacks, but it can be inferred that she is a kind and positive character. Yet in comparison to Michiru, she appears to be coyer, slightly more girly and passive than Michiru, and therefore might be envious of Michuru's brimming friendliness.

When Nazuna meets Michiru again for the first time after her transformation, acts distant and impersonal in order to create her 'godly' persona. At first, Nazuna pretends not to know her as part of hiding her human origins from the regular members of the Silver Wolf Order. But after finding an excuse to get Michiru alone, Nazuna reveals her true old self. She is glad to reunite with her old friend, even taking Michiru and running away from the order without telling anyone where she's going. When Michiru expresses embarrassment about being just a tanuki and not even something as exotic as a racoon while Nazuna is the Silver Wolf, Nazuna tries to reassure her friend by revealing she's not really the Silver Wolf or even a wolf, but just a fox.

Nonetheless, after Michiru mentions finding a cure for their condition, and keeps insisting that Nazuna leave the Silver Wolf Order, Nazuna becomes more closed-off and hostile. It seemed that becoming a singing celebrity or a religious figurehead made her arrogant and power-hungry. However, when Michiru claimed to have no friend by the name of Déesse Louve, threw away the cult's medallion, and ran away, Nazuna remained standing still where Michiru left her even after she was gone. The camera conspicuously does not show Nazuna's face, thus hiding the extent of how Michiru's rejection impacted her.

Though Nazuna remained willing to stay on friendly terms with Michiru, their friendship was no longer her first priority, and Nazuna had little regard for Michiru's feelings. She very clinically accused Michiru of pitying others to stoke her own ego, and of getting unfairly upset when others refused to have Michiru's values imposed upon them. Furthermore, Nazuna didn't seem to have a moral problem with impersonating a god. She completely rationalized the cult's mentality and believed that providing Anima City with false hope was the right thing to do. She wanted to provide hope and solace to the cultists and citizens who all felt restless about the world.

Nazuna's attitude towards Michiru changes radically after Alan finally reveals the secret of Nyrvasyl Syndrome to her, as well as how he's actually been cooperating with Boris and Nazuna behind the scenes from the beginning as part of a plan to save Anima City from self-destruction.

Since this plan always involved Nazuna revealing her true human origins to the city and accepting the cure for her beastman condition, it reveals that Nazuna's motivation for becoming an idol by pretending to be the Silver Wolf was always for the purpose of helping others, with her own gratification being a perk rather than the point.

At first, she appears to still be unwilling to compromise her position as the cult's founder, but ultimately breaks herself free from Boris' control, finally regaining her own free will to make her own decisions. She even cheerfully tells Michiru that now she has no more secrets from her, and the two of them become close again.

Background
Nazuna and Michiru often hung out at the park and share Bluetooth earbuds to listen to music together. One of their favorite tunes is Night Running.

Around a year before the events of the series, Nazuna and Michiru were both injured in a bicycle accident. They were operated on in the same hospital and made a full recovery from a little blood transfusion. However, one day at school, as Michiru was congratulating Nazuna for getting the audition, Nazuna transformed into a beastman.

Sometime after that, Nazuna was forced into a truck by men in black and taken to a research facility.

Nazuna feared for her life, but was eventually rescued by Boris Cliff and taken to see Alan Sylvasta. Alan and Boris claimed the culprits were rogue elements of one of Alan's companies, and Alan promised Nazuna a cure for her beastman condition. He also told her about Nyrvasyl Syndrome and asked for her help in his plan to save the beastmen of Anima-City, by becoming an idol for the Silver Wolf Order and then revealing herself to be a human. But she needed to keep Nyrsavyl Syndrome a secret to avoid a panic.

Alan did not tell her about his plan to force the "curse" on all beastmen, but his influence and Nazuna's isolation from regular beastmen and their everyday lives led her to believe that beastmen would have no real problem becoming normal humans.

Boris helped Nazuna hone her shapeshifting abilities and inducted her into the Silver Wolf Order. Boris instated Nazuna as a guru and helped her create the persona of Déesse Louve, the Silver Wolf Maiden.

Episode 6/Fox Waltz
Nazuna and Michiru finally meet. Michiru takes Nazuna back to Gem's home, where Nazuna retells what happened following the abduction a year ago. Michiru then shares her story as Nazuna flips through her photo album. She asks Nazuna to leave the cult so they can be back together and search for a cure. Shirou comes back and forbids Nazuna from staying at the home, wary of her due to her connection with Silver Wolf Order which he finds suspicious from the start. She later reasons with Barbara Rose to give permission to the cult entering the city. Michiru later feels manipulated by Nazuna, who enjoys having beastmen to extol and worship her and ridicules Michiru of performing all the humanitarian acts to stroke her ego. Their friendship suffers a severe blow as a result.

Episode 7/Easy Albatross
Nazuna is seen in a television broadcast on negotiating with Mayor Barbara Rose to let the Silver Wolf Order stay in the city. She is then seen with Boris who tells her that everything is according to plan. She transforms herself into her wolf form that manages to deceive the citizens. When Meteor catches Alan, she summons her wings and saves Alan.

Episode 9/Human Scapegoat
Michiru visits Nazuna and begs her to quit pretending Ginrou, as the real Ginrou is out there. But Nazuna refuses to abandon her persona since she witnesses how the expanding cult has found solace within her.

Episode 10/Rabid Wolf
After the events involving Shirou and Alan, Nazuna is found, sitting in Michiru's room. After speaking for a while, Nazuna informs Michiru about the concert going on in order to lessen the beastmen's stress while the drug to turn beastmen into humans is being developed. After being caught by Melissa, Nazuna quickly turns into her wolf form, posing as the Silver Wolf.

Episode 11/A Beastly Feast
Nazuna shows up to where Michiru is, soon inviting her to her room to talk about the concert she is going to be participating in, soon singing the song "NIGHT RUNNING" with Michiru. Later on, Nazuna is preparing for the show and worries why Michiru is late to meet her before the show. Nazuna soon proceeds to the stage with Boris and talks about how she is glad to be there after revealing herself from her wings, wearing a white dress. She sings and flies around everyone in her wolf form, soon being told by Boris to change her direction to avoid Michiru. She then goes to the stage to talk about how she is really a human to trigger the Nirvasyl-effect, but soon interrupted by Michiru being in the Ginrou robot who tells her not to reveal her past identity as a human. Michiru agrees and says how she is proud of the robot the people made. Boris however isn't happy with this and decides to do it himself, making Nazuna upset at him for making the Nirvasyl-effect occur. Nazuna soon falls off the stage but is caught by Michiru. Soon she is left to watch Shirou bite down on Michiru, much to her horror.

Episode 12/Anima-City
Nazuna rushes to Michiru who gets bitten by Shirou and is despondent until realizing that Michiru has survived from the attack as she'd tearfully hugged her best friend, she and Michiru also figure out that their blood can be turned into a serum that can reverse Nirvasyl Syndrome. Then later on proceeds to help out by rounding up some kids that were left alone after everyone was Nirvasyl-effected. After Pinga comes by to help her out by taking the kids, Boris goes to her and grabs her arm, but Nazuna uses her gorilla punch ability to knock him away. Later on, she is soon chased by him after he changes into his snakelike form. She is soon grabbed by him, but soon Marie comes by to save her, along with the bears (including Jackie) that still think she is a god for her feeding them. They are then surrounded by the monstrous beastmen, until Michiru comes by and slides a phone into the middle of them, playing an audio clip of Shirou howling soon making everyone but her and Michiru howling. Nazuna then proceeds to help Michiru with a drone, then soon talks about how the howling could be useful in helping the beastmen. Nazuna and Michiru soon come up with a plan to help everyone by playing the audio of Shirou howling at the stage, but Alan is there to stop them. Shortly after the fight between Shirou and Alan, they play the sound which then saves the city. After this incident, Nazuna is being looked up as an idol among both humans and beastmen and even has her own merchandise and makes it into a news article. Nazuna and Michiru soon fly into the sky to find a spot to have tea together.

Barbara Rose
N/A

Michiru Kagemori
Nazuna's best friend from when they first met at the high school before the accident. But after spending time at the cult, she began to get detached from Michiru. They then had a dispute over their ideologies as Nazuna wanted to respect and power over her friendship with Michiru at that time, and she even harshly commented how Michiru tended to place perceptions onto others including her, which subsequently caused them to distance from each other.

During the course of their detachment, both girls remembered how they used to praise each other, and they tried to talk with each other when they were looking at the view of the city but were unable to give the courage to do so. But it seemed that Nazuna had taken in Michiru's advice and realized how much of a creep Boris had been.

Deep down, Nazuna did feel envious, believing that Michiru was able to perform better than her in certain aspects, such as being amiable and able to befriend lots of new people. This was evident when she heard Jackie mentioned how Michiru was able to make friends and appreciated Michiru's energetic nature.

After the disaster at the concert, she was upset when she thought that Michiru was killed by a monstrous Shirou, but she was very happy that her friend has survived the attack. Their friendship has rekindled since then.

Shirou Ogami
Nazuna and Shirou aka. 1st Ginrou never interacted until the events of Episode 12, let alone having any literal relationship. Although, she impersonated her predecessor to help Silver Wolf Order gain more followers while working for the cult, unaware of it all being part of Alan's conspiracy, and is also oblivious to Shirou being distrustful towards her (although she was present when he said she couldn't live with Michuru, so likely had some inkling of his distrust). Nevertheless, she, Shirou, and Michiru worked together to undo the damage Alan Sylvasta has done to Anima City, and is incredibly enamoured by his powerful Ginrou form.

Boris Cliff
Before her time in Anima City, she seems to view Boris as a helpful mentor of sorts. However, after spending more time with Michiru, she begins to see him as a creep and keeps calling him gross. When she finally denounces her relationship with him upon realizing that he is a lackey of Alan Sylvasta, she is horrified to realize he is a snake monster.

Abilities
Human-Turned Beastmen Physiology: As the result of receiving her Beast Factor through artificial means (blood transfusion with a Beast Factor-laced blood), Nazuna became an unusual beastman on the same vein with Michiru. Through Boris Cliff's tutelage, she honed her shapeshifting ability further that not only she can shapeshift into other animals, but also becoming the second Ginrou.
 * Shapeshifting: As stated previously, Nazuna can shapeshift between her human form and beastmen form. Unlike Michiru, she has two beastmen form; basic fox beastman and wolf beastman
 * Flight: She can grow a pair of bird-like wings on her back that allows her to fly in the air.
 * Gorilla Punch: Just like Michiru, Nazuna can enlarge her arms to a massive size due to an increase in muscle mass, easily allowing her to overpower opponents or create bursts of wind with thrown objects.
 * Special Abilities:
 * Ginrou Form: As with Shirou, Nazuna can assume Ginrou form to impersonate the wolf god for Silver Wolf Cult's cause. Unlike Shirou's, she lacked the latter's shoulder protrusions, retaining her human self's hairstyle, and sports golden eyes and three red markings on the forehead in addition of pink aura.
 * Aura Generation: In her Ginrou form, Nazuna's body constantly generates aura that can induce psychological effects on everyone around her.
 * Pseudo-Photokinesis: A unique ability shared with Michiru. Nazuna can generate bright light out of excess energy produced by her beast factor, though she seemed to have better control in as shown when saving Alan from falling while shifting from her Ginrou Form to her wolf beastman form.

Quotes

 * (To Michiru) "When something happens right before your eyes, you jump into it without a second thought. That part of you hasn't changed at all. Jumping in based on assumptions...deciding to pity someone all by yourself...and thinking about saving someone just like that...isn't that to just stroke your ego?"
 * (To Michiru) "I decided to do anything to achieve my dreams. I'm not Nazuna right now. I'm the Silver Wolf Maiden, Déesse Louve!"

Trivia

 * Nazuna's single red highlight in her human form is most likely a reference to studio Triggers previous work, Kill la Kill, in which, series protagonist Ryūko Matoi also had a singular red highlight.
 * Nazuna's VA (Maria Naganawa) has also done Kanna Kamui from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Komekko from KonoSuba, Lathna from Dragalia Lost, and Mito Aino from Magia Record.
 * Despite Maria Naganawa not being a singer, she ends up singing in the show making Nazuna the fourth character to sing (first being Michiru, second being Shirou, and third being Pinga).
 * Nazuna has yellow eyes and a pink aura during her time as Ginrou.

Etymology

 * Nazuna (なずな) is a springtime white flower/herb consumed to ward away evil birds (that carry disease) and sickness.
 * The herb is among the seven herbs of springtime, which are consumed in the Seven-Herb Porridge.
 * The etymology implies it derives from natsu (summer) + na (to go away) because the flower dies in the summer.
 * "Déesse Louve" is French for "Wolf Goddess".
 * Her name can also be translated to "Nazuna Hiwatari."￼

Japanese Folklore

 * Kitsune are mischievous, shapeshifting tricksters.
 * The tanuki is closely related to kitsune and share many similarities, but the two animals are bitter rivals.
 * The common enemy between tanuki and kitsune is the dog.
 * Fights between tanuki and kitsune devolve into showmanship of transformation skills. Kitsune are superior in magical strength but tanuki win through cleverness and trickery.