Sabikui bisco is a light novel series that recently received an anime adaptation and premiered at the beginning of 2022. Given that it is a pretty decent watch, I would like to share some thoughts on it.
The world building in this anime has its interesting points if you are willing to accept the craziness that it constantly thrown at you. It is difficult to speak about suspension of disbelief in this case and it is best just to accept the show for its eccentricities. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic Japan and slowly throughout the episodes you realize that this was because of a weapon of mass destruction (obviously it had to be a giant-ass robot).
In this dystopian world, the singularity that plagues the world because of the unleashed weapon is rust; almost as an epidemic, rust winds blow through Japan and people that enter in contact with it in the dead zones are affected by it. Their bodies start rusting and eventually decay into nothingness. One of the few things that can cure or sap the rust’s effects are mushrooms, but these are banned because political intrigue made people believe that in fact they were the cause for the epidemic. As such, mushroom keepers are also considered outlaws and of course the plot follows one of them, Akaboshi Bisco; oh yeah, he is able to make mushrooms grow instantly by shooting arrows with his bow (because why not).
It is never explained if the fauna that is found in this particular world already existed or if it is a consequence of the rust wind. Let’s just say however that the bizarreness of the world is striking: instant growing giant mushrooms, machine-gun hippos, giant crabs and giant flying puffer fish, elephant-cannons, an octopus made out of oil, raptor cavalry used by the police and so forth. Did I mention that the hippos are actually machine-guns by themselves and not just mounts with machine-guns on top of them? This is what you can expect from this world and you just have to accept it without questioning it too much.
The mushroom powers as well as some of the bizarreness of the world building remind me a bit of Dorohedoro, with that very same flavour for the absurd. The first part of the series also focuses on the journey and the people and circumstances the two protagonists meet; this technique was somewhat frequent in previous years in animation but it manages to have its appeal (thinking for instance about Samurai Champloo and Kino’s Journey). This is functional to introducing a strange world and the absurd laws that govern it.
Given that in only twelve episodes Sabikui bisco manages to create a bizarre yet fascinating world, give the plot a sense and even manages to give a decent ending, I am willing to close an eye on several of the tropes used (given that they are however well executed). Furthermore although the final deus ex machina solution for the ending may seem a bit exaggerated, it has its sense and in my opinion at least gives a good conclusion to it all. Sabikui bisco is worth the watch, something I am unable to say about other anime of more recent years.