Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Sabikui Bisco
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4104 |
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I am not having fun. What's the opposite of fun, tedium? I found the whole crab thing to be tedious. And Tirol was there so that Milo could suck out her stomach parasite which she didn't know about. Well, that wasn't even a question...
I hate this show. Can I say that now? So she was hanging around with them because of the parasite she forced to eat which she didn't know about, she was after them because of the previous events, she journeyed with them because she was trying to sell goods and she left them when they were asleep because she killed them, no, attacked them, no, robbed them, no, traded with them in their sleep. What, why, how... Huh, I'll settle on "huh?" This would only make sense if it involved a completely different character than the one who lost her snail plane to these guys. Is it just just me or does this show penalize the audience for thinking of anything that isn't happening Now? |
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SaneSavantElla
 Posts: 232 |
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I can't get over the fact that the crab's name sounds like that of the Father of the Japanese short story, Akutagawa. is this only a coincidence or is it a reference to something I'm clearly not getting? Any source-readers who can spoiler tag it for me?
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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There's a Japanese folktale about a monkey and a crab, and Akutagawa wrote a satire based on it. I haven't read the source LN for this show, so maybe there's going to be some relevance for the naming down the line, but for now I assume that if you want to feature a crab in your story and want to name it something, "Akutagawa" is an easy (and kind of pointless) choice. |
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Spider3PO
 Posts: 19 |
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What if he's named after Akira Actagawa? The showrunner just loved the artist's trading card art so much (Duel Masters, etc)? Or after the composer Yasushi Akutagawa? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xOMDIOyfNo |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11431 |
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I don't get why they're localizing his name as "Actagawa" when it's apparently written "アクタガワ" in the manga (I haven't seen the manga, but Japanese websites write it that way), and that most directly reads as "Akutagawa." It's like they're trying to hide any association with the writer. Or maybe they're just transcribing how it's pronounced for less cognitive dissonance. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I do see some resonance in this story with Akutagawa's version of the folktale, wherein the crab's offspring are arrested for the capital crime of taking vengeance on the monkey. Given the monkey's unethical and selfish behavior, they're not entirely in the wrong (according to the morals of the day). In Bisco, he's unjustly being persecuted for trying to right the environmental wrongs his persecutors have wrought. So there are at least some echoes of Akutagawa's story to be found here. 
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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That's the official spelling. It's not a rare choice, just a stylistic thing like "George" for "Jouji" (as in Nakata Jouji) etc. |
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Dayraven
Posts: 176 |
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Since Ryuunosuke Akutagawa’s surname wouldn’t usually be written in katakana, ‘Actagawa’ also seems like it preserves the same-but-not-quite quality of writing it that way.[/quote] |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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It's just a stylistic thing. It's not rare that Japanese people romanize their names in unconventional forms for whatever reason - as a penname, looks cooler or cuter that way, etc. "Actagawa" for Akutagawa is one such form, there's probably nothing more to it. If your main characters are named Bisco and Milo, and a main side character is Tirol then Actagawa just fits better, visually and stylistically, than "Akutagawa". (Also, the name is written with katakana because I mean, he's a crab.  )
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SaneSavantElla
Posts: 232 |
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Thank you all for the insightful responses. Having read the short story, I'm still not sure if it actually has some significance in the narrative (though I like the allegory offered by Gina), but thinking more about it now, it's probably a fitting name in a world where characters are named after what I assume are nostalgic remnants of their lost civilization (i.e. Japan) such as Milo (as in the drink), Bisco (a brand of cookie) and Tirol (a brand of chocolate).
Whoever named him "Actagawa" in-world might have casually recalled Akutagawa's version of the story about the crab - perhaps heard it in a school lesson a long time ago, or read it in a random book somewhere in this post-apocalyptic world, and thought "Why not?" Agree that the romanization is a stylistic choice and as Spider3PO said, if the author is a fan of someone named Actagawa, then that might have been factored in the decision to spell it that way. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11431 |
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Speaking of Jabi, I really love his character design. So much so that I do not want any ending that has him dying for the jerking of tears and/or milking of pathos. Jabi must live! (I think he will, just sayin'.) Actually, I adore the whole look of this thing.
The only character design I'm having a problem with is Milo. I think it's because I don't know why he's got his panda eye. Is it a birthmark (can't remember if they showed him with it as a child)? A tattoo that holds some meaning? An eye-makeup fashion statement? A symptom of one of this world's weird diseases? Has the rubber on his microscope eyepiece rubbed off to the point that it's embedded in his skin now? It bugs me that I don't know. If they've told us and I missed/forgot it, please let me know (if it's in the manga but not yet in the anime, don't want to know, even in spoiler tags I won't read). |
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Meongantuk
 Posts: 354 |
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Not really a spoiler since this was mentioned within his introduction paragraph in the novel, spoiler[it's just a large birthmark.] [Edit: added spoiler tags. It is a spoiler if it's from the source material. Errinundra.] |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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I haven't read the LN, but I kind of assumed it had some significance of sorts that would be revealed later. What I wonder about is why nobody seems to wonder about it... everyone just goes "oh, panda!" and that's it, even kids and guys like Bisco who you wouldn't expect to be too courteous and sensitive to ask "what's going on with your eye?" (I mean they are calling him "Panda", so.)
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11431 |
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And the legs!! Omg, I had to rewind to have a closer look at that brilliantly creepy monstrosity. 
What I want to know is how the hell they got Actagawa down through that narrow staircase into the underground. Even if he turned sideways like Lupin pulling a two-wheeler, he'd then be too high to fit. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4104 |
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The show hates me as much as I hate it. So many, many plotting mistakes. "In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king." So... Tirol... why not trade your very valuable engineering skills considering the amount of tech laying around? How old is she?! She was a wage slave... oh [bleep] me, she's going to have whatever skill the plot's going to need, isn't she?
I didn't question why ocean creatures are both airborn and... air... born... but I draw the line at taking a crab into a snowy wasteland. Or fitting him into a subway entrance. Or onto a subway. Or going fast on a disused subway line. Pawoo HOW?! |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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I loved the design on this creature! I've been kind of "okay, but not extremely fun" on the creature designs so far, but this one was great.
I assume it's the trick known as "er, don't think about it too much" ;; Same with Tirol's age, or Milo's age vs his accomplishments as a doctor, for that matter...
I like this show more and more with each passing episode, which is kind of strange for me because I don't remember the last time I was positively surprised by a LN adaptation (me not being a huge fan of such LNs to start with). But this is finally one that neither feels like the wishfulfilment fantasy of someone who has starkly different wishes than I do, nor does it try to be profound and fail miserably because it's a juvenile and simplistic treatment of something incredibly complex. It's just a big, fun action-adventure thing, and the characters are well-equipped to carry it. So far, anyway. I'm curious to read the LNs themselves, although I just took a look and it's still ongoing and is at 8 volumes right now...? which makes me worried because even with LN standards I kind of wonder how there is enough story in here to stretch it out to 8 volumes and counting... I hope this is not a case of a writer just not knowing when to stop. |
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