Sabikui Bisco

Episode 4

Surprising nobody, Bisco and Milo's first excursion together outside the city walls finds our heroes inundated with oversized crustaceans. It's a fun episode that mixes solid character building into Sabikui Bisco's gross slurry of post-apocalyptic action psychedelia. And to that point, I'm certainly not going to stop anybody from turning their brain off and simply enjoying the climactic chase scene between an elephant-sized crab and a temple-sized mantis shrimp. That's top-notch stuff! With their destination a ways away, Sabikui Bisco seems to have a clear path towards an anthological structure, where each episode may introduce a new kind of wasteland weirdness for Milo and Bisco to deal with. However, I'm very happy this installment achieves more than that by giving its characters plenty of space to breathe—when they're not choking on giant bug larvae, that is. 

Milo is the star of this journey's first leg, and that makes sense. He may be familiar with the mean streets of Imihama, but he's still a city slicker taking his first steps into the gaps between civilized society, so he has a lot more catching up to do than Bisco does. This, naturally, creates a lot of tension between Bisco's savviness and Milo's naiveté. However, rather than push them apart, this conflict sows the seeds of camaraderie, with the gruff yet ultimately soft Bisco begrudgingly teaching the wide-eyed (and panda-eyed) Milo the basics of survival. As a result, they develop a really likable rapport together, with a nice balance of saltiness and sweetness. Opposites do indeed attract. A very cursory search informs me that plenty of people are already out there shipping the two of them, and they are correct to do so. 

Bisco's “brother” Actagawa facilitates their relationship-building by being his large and ornery crab self. Your appreciation of this episode is definitely going to hinge on how intrinsically amused you are by the thought of a cranky pack crustacean, but luckily for Sabikui Bisco, I am extremely amused by it. It's just a very fun way of injecting some healthy absurdity into a training arc, and it's also buoyed by the show's great sense of timing and physical comedy. Actagawa throws Milo around like a ragdoll while Bisco just laughs or goes about his business. I love it. What's more, I like that Milo comes into his own not only through Bisco's instructions, but also his own strengths. While he might not have natural riding chops, his no-nonsense medical mannerisms pierce Actagawa's thick carapace and open a channel of man-to-crab communication. Thanks to their differing strengths and personalities, Milo and Bisco can fill in each other's gaps, and that's what makes them such great partners. 

Tirol also injects a lot of color into this episode, and not just due to her pink hair and firecracker demeanor. She scuttles onto the scene as the show's Faye Valentine, ready to work with or steal from the boys as best suits her situation. Although she may be in cahoots with Kurokawa, the two clearly have no affection for each other, and any loyalty she might have felt towards him was likely extracted alongside that giant balloonworm. That is, incidentally, the gnarliest and best scene in the whole episode. It's tailor-made for out-of-context screencaps, where viewers expecting a deep romantic kiss between Tirol and Milo instead receive pure Cronenbergian horror. And not five minutes later, Tirol is openly flirting with the guy who just used his incisors to extract a cat-sized parasitic worm out of her gullet. How can you not love her? I don't know if she'll ever officially join up with them, but as long as she keeps bumbling her way into their path and leaving them with a big mess to clean up, I'll be happy. 

This week's big mess makes for a big dumb fun climax, but honestly, the dialogue and smaller character interactions are what really endeared me to this episode. Bisco, for instance, shows unbridled joy and pride when Milo finally starts bonding with Actagawa. Both in context and in a vacuum, the line, “You've got a talent for crabs!” is utterly delightful. I also guffawed at Bisco's quick aside acknowledging that they really should have just let Tirol die and made off with her merchandise. It's black humor—very fitting for the bleakness of wastelands—yet its snappy delivery keeps it from weighing down the tone of the scene. Meanwhile, Milo's sunny façade cracks at multiple points, but it's cute every time. Look at that little pout he gives Bisco and tell me you don't want to pinch his cheeks. Little unexpected moments like this help flesh out both their characters. On the other hand, Tirol almost exclusively provides comic relief this episode, but none of her quips overstay their welcome, and even she shows signs of the humanity hiding beneath her roguish skin. I like all of these people, and I want to spend more time following their adventures. That's the most important thing this episode could have accomplished. 

While I suspect this won't be the last time Bisco and Milo accidentally detonate their destination, it doesn't rile them up too badly. Bisco even takes a moment to wax poetic about letting the huge shrimp live—as mushroom food, of course, but it's consistent with an attitude that respects and trusts nature to sort things out. Fungi are pretty incredible, after all. Somewhere between plants and animals, they transmute dead material into life matter. And what is rust but a signifier of a dying civilization? From the glimpses we've seen, the endemic plaguing the world of Sabikui Bisco is spiritual and societal as much as it is physical—isolated cities, corrupt governments, and a poor and dying lower class. Nevertheless, capital-L Life has still found a way to heal that rust, crumb by crumb. That tiny bioluminescent glow is the spark of optimism at the heart of Sabikui Bisco, provided that you're willing to go with the flow and ingest a shroom or two. 

Rating:  

P.S. I'm glad someone finally addressed the fact that Bisco's name sounds like a cookie. 

Sabikui Bisco is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Steve can be found on Twitter if you want to read his World’s End Harem livetweets. Otherwise, catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.