錆喰いビスコ

SABIKUI BISCO

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
March 29, 2022
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

Japan’s post-apocalyptic wasteland replete with dust can only be saved by one thing—fungus. Bisco Akaboshi, a wanted criminal and skilled archer, searches for a legendary mushroom, known as Sabikui, said to devour any and all rust. Joining him on this epic saga to save the country is a giant crab and a young doctor. Can this unlikely trio find the fabled fungi and save the land?

(Source: Funimation)

CAST

Bisco Akaboshi
Ryouta Suzuki
Milo Nekoyanagi
Natsuki Hanae
Pawoo Nekoyanagi
Reina Kondou
Tirol Oochagama
Miyu Tomita
Jabi
Shirou Saitou
Kurokawa
Kenjirou Tsuda
Nuts
Natsumi Fujiwara
Plum
Miharu Hanai
Oota
Minori Suzuki
Kousuke
Hitomi Ueda
Inoshige
Tetsu Inada
Kewpie
Asuna Tomari
Madame
Miyuki Hara
Manjuu Urite
Takashi Akaishi

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO SABIKUI BISCO

NOVEL ActionSabikui Bisco

MANGA ActionSabikui Bisco

MANGA ActionSabikui Bisco 2

ANIME ActionSabikui Bisco 2nd Season

REVIEWS

Mcsuper
50/100
They Had Me in the First Half
Sabikui Bisco is a prime example of “You had me in the first half”. What started out as a unique and gritty looking story in the first few episodes, became an extremely convoluted one full of plot holes and errors that made it a drag to watch. The build up to the climax of this show was great, but the climax itself was one of the most disappointing things I have seen in a while, and that’s truly a shame.

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

STORY: 8.5/25

At the outset, this seemed like an interesting concept. In a dystopian society called Imihama that was ravaged by rust, we see Milo, our character, live his life by investigating this “rust disease” and treating patients at a clinic. We see the seemingly scheming governor of this society, Kurokawa, who seemed like a very intriguing villain. I was thoroughly intrigued at this point.

After that, Bisco appears, with a bow and arrow in which the arrows make mushrooms grow on whatever they hit, which was an interesting concept. Following a reveal about the true nature of the rusting and its effect on humans, Bisco and Milo embark on a journey.

The rest of the build up you can watch yourself, but the underlying problems are the lack of a general direction of the plot.

*SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH

The climax of the story is where it all fell apart. Kurokawa is the corrupt governor that has a hand in this entire rust issue, and Bisco and Milo confront him, but he proves tough to outsmart. My gripe with this entire sequence of events is that when there’s a clear opportunity to defeat him, Bisco spares him, and it led to more disasters down the road, including the demise of someone, which was another poorly executed “emotional” scene. Anything after that scene was just not good anymore, with the huge monster Tetsujin and all. It became generic and uninteresting.

ART: 7.7/10

The overall art style is good, but it looks very grimy, if you know what I mean.

MUSIC: 8.6/10

The soundtrack is pretty good, and both the opening and ending are one my favourites of the season.

CHARACTERS: 5.5/20

Much like the story, the characters felt very interesting to start, but either didn’t play enough of a role (characters like Tirol, and anyone from the children’s fortress come to mind), or didn’t get good development down the road. In the action scenes, they made questionable decisions, and much of the character quality dropped with the story quality, which was a shame. Wish we could also know more about Bisco’s backstory and some more details about mushroom keepers and more about rusting in general. For Milo, the developments he got felt out of place, as characters shouldn’t be turning their personality into something that seems like the polar opposite for their personality, it was just a bit much. As for the villain, Kurokawa, he was way too basic, and his demise was very anticlimactic.

ENJOYMENT: 7.8/15

Enjoyment declined with the overall narrative, but I enjoyed the first part.

THEMATIC EXECUTION: 12/20

This show tries their hand at many themes, and I do think they build the atmosphere nicely, with that dark tone around Imihama, and overall in the story. The adventure element was alright, but the action themes weren’t all that great, especially the last part against the Tetsujin, because of the plot issues there. The emotional side to the story did not pan out due to the tragic situations being clearly avoidable.

OVERALL: 50.1/100

It’s really a shame that the climax wasn’t executed very well, and made the story fall off afterwards, but for what it’s worth, the world had a nice vibe to it, and it was definitely an attempt at an unique concept, but it wasn’t flushed out very well. Last bit seemed rushed, but pacing seemed to be an issue throughout. 8/10 for the first eight episodes, 2/10 for the last four episodes. For Studio Oz’s first anime, it was average, and we hope to see some better things from them in the future.
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SpiritChaser
65/100
I wanted to like this. Interestingly bizarre with a great soundtrack, but held down by questionable writing.
Tragically, Sabikui Bisco falls under that pile of anime that I wanted to like because of how interesting and weird it started out. I was won over by the soundtrack and how easily it elevated any fight scene it got used in. Bisco is a hot headed protagonist which is better than the usually morally obsessed crybaby main character that is often seen instead, and yet there wasn't really much to any of the characters. The antagonist was annoying, and only appealed to me because he was graced by the voice talent of Kenjirou Tsuda. Honestly, they should have just gotten rid of him early on and introduced a better threat. It sort of pains me to dig into this series this way, but I can only take so many obnoxious fake out deaths that felt they dragged on the story, and character models getting rocked back and forth rather than being adequately animated. By the end, the finale didn't do anything for me anymore. Though I really do like the soundtrack to this and the way it's used, I can't let it gloss over the fact this adaptation has a lot of problems.

The writing in this is laughable, sadly so. The main antagonist could have at any point towards the end easily kill the entire cast if he really wanted to, but conveniently did not go for a show of power when it came to attacking them nearly every time. The amount of damage some of these characters can take and still be able to go on is comical.

Besides the great soundtrack, I appreciate how this series tried to be interestingly bizarre. From organic planes to weaponized animals, to giant worms with human limbs and giant floating man eating pufferfish, I did enjoy how out of there they went with this. Milo and Bisco's friendship was fine though often borderline felt like a boys love relationship done on purpose. The romance in this felt laughably unnatural. I liked how the world building started out because this is an interesting post apocalyptical type setting. Despite that it didn't feel satisfying how it was explored. They rushed through places and monsters, and the viewers were left with lots of questions.

Milo's character itself isn't anything much besides some typical nice guy who happens to be a doctor. That's what makes him trying to look tough later look forced and not work. More than that it just gave me second hand embarrassment.

At first I enjoyed the arrows and their mushroom spawning abilities. Towards the end it felt like a broken skill as nothing really felt like a threat anymore despite Bisco and Milo going up against literally world ending monsters.

This adaptation felt too questionable. A shame because it had potential in the beginning.
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R2R
64/100
A Blast that wasn't explosive enough
https://anilist.co/anime/130591/Sabikui-Bisco/

(Spoilers mentioned whenever needed)
There's something fun seeing crazy stuff happening in front of our very eyes. We know it's stupid, dumb and sometimes even dangerous yet we maniacally embrace the madness and go on with it. Some of us have probably gave this Anime a watch after seeing the number of talented staff behind the production, some might've watched Anitubers reacting to the trailer but most of us might've watched it after seeing that one scene in the trailer (like me). This Anime is one crazy ride but problem is, it ~~could've~~ should've been more than it came out to be.

"Sabikui Bisco" is an Anime that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where "Rust" causes life threatening infections & can only be saved by fungus (mostly mushrooms). A mushroom protector/criminal with a bow & arrow named "Bisco" is searching for an almighty fungus named "Sabikui (aka Rust Eater)" to cure his mentor's overly grown rust with his gaint crab. With him joins a kind doctor named Milo, who also have a sister/Captain of Imihama, "Pawoo" who also suffers with overly grown rust. Together, Milo & Bisco goes on a crazy journey in order to find the lengdary "Rust Eater".

Craziness has no limits in this Anime. It introduced all these weird elements to keep the craziness it promised, that it never felt dull or boring while watching the show because of the adrenaline inducing chaos happening on the screen which was greatly enhanced by the absolute bop of a soundtrack. The soundtrack is definitely the strongest point for this show, especially in the big moments. It punched through my ears and just BLASTED my brains off. The art style is another thing worth praising. The landscapes have this crisp & rough layout, while the character designs have this polished texture to them. The characters are pretty one note, no one really have a well written development arc except for Milo, who showed some growth. And the occasional references to other Anime was something that made me smile. My favorite character is Tirol, she's cute. Other stuff I liked;

Tirol & Milo's kiss : I mean, that's the sole reason why I came to watch this show and it payed off very well.
The romantic tension between Bisco & Pawoo : It's cute in it's own way.
Milo saying "I love you" to Bisco : When he said that I was like; Uhmm... No homo, right? xD

The most disappointing factor for this show is that, while it is crazy it sometimes bends it's own logic to bring that madness, which mostly felt very unsatisfying. It could've done better. And the writing for the show goes down hill as the series progresses. The non-linear storytelling in the first couple of episodes was OK but can be a little off at times, and the last couple of episodes just felt like the writer said "Piss off" to the writing and went completely mad which was somewhat good but I had to turn my brain off to completely enjoy it, which wasn't even that rewarding. It had all the crazy fuel spilled all over but the spark it had wasn't enough to generate the crazy explosion it felt like it can. Simply put, it raised the bar too high that it became a little disappointing.

Summary

This reminded me of Mad Max : Fury Road, and thought this might it would be in Anime form if it didn't unsatisfied me with it's dumb writing. I still recommend this tho. It's on the same level of craziness as Dorohedoro which I enjoyed equally as much, but that had some better writing and characters than this one.
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