The story of TV Anime BEM is getting better and the episode this week has taken us to a thrilling ride with spotlight shedding on the issue of genetically modified animals.
It all starts when Bela spots a genetically modified pet dog, known as Hybrid, at a shopping mall in the Upperside. According to Bela’s friend, the technology is prevailing among rich people as they can can create a designed pet at their convenience. The pet dog may look cute with its mutilated fox tail, but this technology saws the seed for the tragic incident later.
On the other hand, Belo continuous to keep distance to his friend from the game center. The incident of Daryl seems to hurt him pretty bad. As Daryl refuses to believe him because he was a YOUKAI-NINGEN, he was afraid that his friends would do the same after knowing his true identity. The behavior of Daryl has crushed Belo’s wishes of becoming a human and makes Belo shut himself from the ones who care about him.
It is nice to see that the young kids from the game centre try so hard to connect of Belo, who is intentionally distant and unapproachable. They attempt to take care of a stray dog with Belo in order to make friends with him again. I just hope that they would not walk away after finding the truth.
One of the kids from the group, Dave, goes missing after feeding the stray dog and a Hybrid dog suddenly shows gives a really bad hunch to Belo. It also convinced me that Dave really falls into the hands of this week villain, a man who kidnap kids and illegally make them into “hybrid pet”.
The chimera idea of merging humans and animals really creeps me out. It also reminds a lot of Nina and Alexander in their chimera form in the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (even the design is similar). However, instead of illustrating how wrong and immoral it is, like the epic scene of Edward confronting Tucker at Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the tragic incident is interrupted by Daryl, who shows up suddenly to seek revenge on Belo.
This is a really bad timing. Especially when Daryl stills holds a grudge on Belo even though Belo saves him from the chimera, what is the point he appears in this scene? Having humans and creatures be mutilated to be hybrid is just wrong, but the anime fails to elaborate it.
Belo is so angry that he turns into the beast form and attempts to kill the villain. It is lucky that Bem arrives in time to stop him, reminding Belo that he would lose humanity after killing humans. But the scene just feels flat, when Bem calmly suggests Belo to stay sane and he doesn’t even frown though his arm is beaten by the Beast Belo. I get that BEM is a YOUKAI-NINGEN with super healing ability or what, but I just need to see he shows emotion like an actual human. Unlike BEM, Belo looks way more like a human.
It is true to say that the plot of BEM is getting better, but emotional scene is still missing. It is really difficult to find resonate to the shows if the portrayal of characters continues to be this shallow. Especially when humanity is the main focus of the show, an emotion-stirring episode is highly expected.
