Sabikui Bisco

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.