BNA – 09

「Human Scapegoat」

In Michiru’s continued pursuit to regain her friendship with Nazuna, she ends up finding out the parts of the truth that Alan wants to tell her about the circumstances behind their transformation into beastmen. But with this knowledge in mind, questions as to how much of his word can be considered reliable, and how much will eventually factor into what Alan has in mind for the human government are left unanswered as food-for-thought.

One interesting aspect about this episode is how selective Michiru’s critical thinking skills are. She spends much of the anime playing Devil’s advocate for clearly flawed ideas and plans, but this outright changes when Alan tries to take control of the narrative behind his suspicious behavior. One absolute truth in what Alan said is how Michiru and Nazuna had a blood transfusion that gave them beastmen capabilities, explaining why their powers go beyond just having the basic instincts/abilities of their animal.

From there, you start to see how much of Alan’s words are given window-dressing to downplay his alliance with the Cult. In particular, his connection with Nazuna is framed as merely a product of their mutual desires to put on a good show. It’s easy to see that he’s trying to pacify beastmen and dangle the carrot that is a cure for Nazuna’s beastman powers over her head as an easy way to integrate himself into the pharmaceutical company, the mafia, and the human government all at once.

Even though Michiru instinctually disagrees with Shirou’s advice, she’s understandably wary of Alan because of how enmeshed he is with the seedy underbelly of Anima City. But her disagreeing with Shirou’s stick-in-the-mud mindset is predominantly influenced by her former bond with Nazuna. It’s Michiru’s Achilles heel considering how many chances she’s given Nazuna to try to respark their friendship only for Nazuna to spit in her face and mock her for jumping into dangerous situations for her sake on impulse. Without any info on how Nazuna really feels, it could be anything from acting abrasive to protect Michiru from what she’s facing to her genuinely despising her friend for projecting her emotions into what their friendship meant. It’ll be hard to gauge what Alan’s end game is and how Nazuna factors into all of this, but it should be interesting to see the end result of it all as the human government starts to get involved with all of this.