BNA (manga)

BNA (BNA ビー・エヌ・エー) is an official manga set in the world of Anima City during the events of BNA: Brand New Animal. It was serialized in Tonari no Young Jump and the mangaka is Asano.

The manga has been compiled in a volume which was released in September 16, 2022, but translation for other countries has yet to be confirmed.

Chapter 0
Michiru Kagemori is on the balcony of the Beastman Co-op building writing in her diary on her phone. Shirou Ogami notices her and gets mad that her diary entries about beastmen will jeopardize the safety beastmen. He says he will delete the diary when she becomes human again. She berates him and leaves.

Michiru is walking through Anima City and reminisces how she arrived here, her transformation, and the differences between humans and beastmen. She notices a fight break out between beastmen. They transform and notice something Michiru says out of context. They charge and attack Michiru. Shirou saves her and the two escape. However, while they were fleeing, Michiru drops the phone.

Later, she is on the rooftop holding her cracked phone, typing her diary again. Shirou comes to acknowledge that she's both human and beastman and he should respect her desires. He apologizes and offers to take her phone to a repair shop. Michiru asks if Shirou will pay for the repair, who says the phone is on his tab either way. Michiru ponders that she wants to stay in the city a little longer as a raccoon beastman. Shirou, seemingly reading her mind, corrects and says she's a tanuki beastman.

Chapter 1
Michiru is going to sleep thinking about how glad she was to come here to live peacefully. A loud howl rings through the air and Michiru transforms her mouth into a bird beak, shouting for the howling stranger to shut up. The stranger yells back, starting a ruckus that echos throughout the town. Michiru apologizes.

Later, she wakes up groggy, says good morning, and collapses on Shirou. Michiru, Shirou, and the Horners talk about the situation last night. Shirou tells Michiru to not stereotype beastmen, and Melissa says they got a lot of complaints regarding it. She then offers a job form and urges Michiru to look for a job.

Michiru and Shirou arrive at the job recruitment center. The attendant says that because Michiru's a tanuki, they can offer light manual work. She shows up to work and apparently it's at a construction site. The workers there are rough careless, and a worker ends up at the hospital. Michiru, valuing her own safety over money, quits the job and goes home upset. She sulks in bed, and stresses over her expenses. She finds the source of the howl and chases down the canine with her cheetah powers. The canine confesses he's howling because he's heartbroken, and Michiru tells him to confess his feelings to the girl.

The canine guy confesses to the girl who rejects him. She later tries to comfort him, telling him he needs to get a job to let loose some steam. At home, Melissa praises Michiru for quelling all the complaints, which were caused by the canine guy. Melissa suggests Michiru to just help around the co-op, and gives her a job as a "beastfolk advisor".

Chapter 2
Michiru is guiding an old man through the streets of Anima City to the stadium. She saves a potted cactus that fell. She runs into two fighting beastmen, and decides to fly away holding the old man by her feet.

Back at the co-op, Melissa and Gem praise her. Shirou however criticizes that she's more a handyman than an advisor. Shirou gets mad at her again for using her powers in public. They fight.

Michiru is at an ATM and runs into Marie. Marie offers her a job for a joint party. They discuss at a coffee shop. There's a group called the "Cat Association" of many influential people from celebrities to company execs. The requirements for the party are feline beasts only, and Marie shows a video of Michiru with her gorilla powers and asks if Michiru can transform into a cat too. Marie will delete the video as a reward if she's successful. Michiru agrees to the assignment.

The Horners and Shirou notice that Michiru is late home. Meanwhile, Michiru dons an evening gown and enters a limo to the party full of cat beastmen. She meets a cat beastman girl named Anna. Anna is actually from the slums and took on the job to buy food for her younger brothers. They're both the same age but Michelle emphasizes they're still rivals, and she's aiming for the richest guys at the party.

Chapter 3
Michiru arrives at the party in the commercial building while thinking to herself that it’s a bad idea. She uses the moniker of Michelle in the party. Three cat beastmen introduce themselves all at once and Michiru gets away.

Her target is the leader of the Cat Association and the one who organised the party, President Shindou. She is speaking with him but Anna interrupts and Shindou gets distracted with her. Michiru was shoved aside by Shindou soon after.

Another partygoer sees this and says that Shindou is not interested in kids like her, and gives Michiru a drink that intoxicates her. The three cat beastmen from earlier saw her drinking and strike up a conversation, competing to take her home. Michiru arm wrestles in order to decide who is the strongest, and using her powers to transform her arm she beats all of them. She drunkenly states that that is just how she is and asks out loud if Shirou is listening. She is cheered on by the other partygoers after winning many matches against strong beastmen.

Michiru notices that on the other side of the room, Anna is being pinned down by Shindou on a couch who attempts to satiate his desire for hunting, as he states that spending time in the city makes him too busy. Michiru intervenes while Anna tries to stop her, saying she has no choice and is fine with it. But Michiru says she doesn’t care and cannot live with herself if she overlooks a friend in trouble. She transforms her arm and hits the ground, and the side of the building explodes.

A fire breaks out and no casualties are reported, and Minx is holding an unconscious Michiru just outside of the building. Shirou is also there after being called by the mayor and sniffs the cocktail, which has pure catnip. The stock prices of the Cat Association falls, but Michiru failed the request and so there is no reward. Marie remarks that without her Michiru would have been arrested, and Shirou lets her off for now but says that next time she takes advantage of Michiru’s powers there will be repercussions.

Michiru is at the balcony of the Beastmen Co-op building and Shirou is reading a newspaper at a table nearby. Michiru says she failed and apologises to Shirou, saying that she shouldn’t have unnecessarily used her powers since they don’t help. Shirou responds that she can use her powers as it doesn’t make sense not to use them if you can help someone when it matters. Anna appears and Shirou leaves, and Michiru and Anna have a talk about how Anna was scared but was glad that Michiru helped. Shirou is seen smiling as he leaves. President Shindou, in a jail cell, says he’s sure that “Michelle” is great and will be his for sure.

Chapter 4
Shirou is given a collar as a present by Michiru, and Shirou is confused about its use. An injured Jackie is seen at the side, and a monologue starts a flashback. Earlier that day, Michiru was about to leave to go shopping but suddenly President Shindou arrives, looking for “Michelle”. He paid bail to get out, and doesn’t realise Michiru is Michelle. Shirou appears and drives out Shindou.

Michiru tells the storeowner, Aya, about what’s happened that’s kept her busy. Jackie arrives and its shown that Jackie’s products are being sold at the store. Michiru buys a present for everyone at the Beastman Co-op.

As she leaves the store, she bumps into a person on the sidewalk and both the packages they’re holding falls off. The man leaves after picking up a package, and Michiru picks up the other one but hears a rustling sound. She opens the package and sees that there are multiple pistols inside. The man gets into a car and the car speeds off while Michiru tries to chase after it. She catches up by transforming her legs and says to give back her package. They ignore her, and so she lifts up the car into the air by turning her arms into wings. They try to shoot her, and she drops the car while telling them to stop. They stop and Jackie bumps into the car.

The person who ordered the guns says they are party favours for his daughter, and is sorry for the trouble caused by the people who were delivering it. He thanks her for the help with the Cat Association, as they were connected to humans, and also thanks her for what she’s done for his daughter.

Back to the present, Shirou asks where the collar was in the story, and Michiru says that it’s the one the clerk snuck in. The real gift was a glove, and the rest of the money Michiru owes for her smartphone. Shirou asks if she destroyed the city and Michiru frantically apologises for rampaging and promises she won’t let it happen again. Shirou tells her not to be reckless and to take care of the aftermath. Jackie starts bleeding from her injury, and it is shown that Melissa got hair ornaments while Gem got a necktie as presents.

Chapter 5
Shirou and Barbara are discussing the glove Michiru gave as a gift, and later on start to talk about the continuous disappearances of beastmen in the city. Beastmen trafficking is becoming more rampant, and the kidnappings are no longer discriminating on age and gender, in an effort to cause chaos in the city. The two say that it is caused by "imposters".

Michiru gets plenty of requests to help find missing beastmen, and is also mistaken as a "romance expert" by many of the clients ever since her stunt in the joint party. She laments about her situation to Aya, and she insinuates about her relationship with Shirou.

Michiru starts looking for the boyfriend of one of the clients who is being accused of neglect, and ends up finding him in his apartment being strangled by his girlfriend in her snake form. She turns out to be very clingy and dependent, and exaggerates it by calling it violent and neglecting. One request finished, and she asks the boyfriend for information about an elephant who went missing. It seems that the police aren't doing anything to help, despite it being out of character for the elephant beastman to leave his responsibilities. Michiru's requests increased because of the missing beastmen, and she thinks of this as being suspicious.

Trivia

 * Although one of last few panels of the manga showed Michiru and Shirou holding hands and their dynamic seemingly much closer than in anime proper, it must be noted that the two are intended to be close friends and partners-in-crime as opposed of lovers. Which makes sense considering their jarring age difference.
 * To elaborate, the director Yoh Yoshinari already stated in Japanese that "吉成: 主人公とバディとの関係性ですよね. 例えて言うならば「シティハンター」みたいな. でも、主人公は冴羽獠ではなく香. ", which when translated, means "It's a relationship between the main character and (buddy). For example, it's like City Hunter. However, the protagonist is Makimura (Kaori) rather than Saeba (Ryo).
 * Additionally, according to BNA staff, "Yoshinari was very careful to make Michiru and Shiro equals in the story. He doesn't want Michiru to be Shiro’s side-kick. It's not Batman and Robin, they’re partners."
 * Thanks to this quote, the current relationship between the two has been made clear. No familial bonds (a popular headcanon with no basis), and no power imbalances. Shirou and Michiru are close friends, both in and out of work.