Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is a masterpiece. The movie more or less launched Studio Ghibli (since that’s what most of the team involved with it went onto become), and while it is quite strong, the Manga is leaps and bounds above even that, standing as one of the fictions I most absolutely respect. What I’m saying, in context, is that if you’re going to flagrantly steal from somewhere, you could do a whole lot worse than Sabikui Bisco lifting from Nausicaa.
The reason for this is that, after a recap of the previous episode’s deaths and the toppling of Kurokawa’s Ganesha Cannon, we get a new disaster as Tetsujin, the source of the Rust, revives. Tetsujin was seen in the prior episode as a largely disabled metallic skeleton partially submerged in the Rust pool, its reactor being used to generate the Rust for Kurokawa. However, after the damage and death from the last episode, it becomes fully functional, striding out of the area as a giant monstrosity with a humanoid shape and viscous red flesh, as well as the ability to shoot energy blasts both at incredible range and yields that appear downright nuclear as well as sweeps of lasers or flames (Rust breath, really).
In its visual design, its capabilities in combat, and even its theme as a giant humanoid weapon with the capacity to ruin the world that will then be healed by fungi, Tetsujin is pretty much a direct copy of the God Warriors (Giant Warriors in the English dub of the film) from Nausicaa. Even its revival is rather similar to how the God Warrior ends up revived in Nausicaa. When talking about its apparent power, it’s even briefly called a God, so I don’t think Sabikui Bisco intends to “get away” with cribbing Miyazaki’s notes so much as it wants to be seen as a modern homage, a work with a very different tone and vibe but the same sorts of themes and concepts, at least in part.
In any case, the God Warrior fires its first shot, obliterating the ravine that is the source of the Rust Eater, and then starts to go on your traditional kaiju rampage, displaying its vast power by totally obliterating every military force that dares try to take it on, of course while being dealt no damage in return by conventional weapons. It chases Milo, Pawoo, and Jabi off (they’re fine) and then stomps off towards Imihara. Milo resolves to pursue it and bring it down as, thanks to his injection, the last remnant of the Rust Eater now exists in his blood.
We then cut back to the Imihara watch base, where the soldiers are recovering from being mushroom-zombified as Jellyfish arrives. They are greeted by some forces that escaped the previous fight, muttering about how Akaboshi and Kurokawa killed each other and that “it” is coming, and then see the Tetsujin walking in the distance (it also moans ‘Akaboshi’ in a way that suggests what’s left of Kurokawa’s rage and hate lives on in the God Warrior) towards Imihara. Jellyfish tries to mobilize the watch, but they’re unwilling to move without Pawoo, which is a fairly transparent setup for the eventual arrival of the cavalry seeing as she’s still active and not seen elsewhere.
Finally, Milo, now with enough Bisco in him to practically become Bisco as well as himself, confronts the God Warrior Kurokawa Remnant and fights it. A human-sized target isn’t easy for a lot of those kaiju-scale attacks to hit and Milo’s body is immune to Rusting, so Milo is able to get hits in, shooting it with mushroom arrows that quickly sprout and seem to actually hurt the moaning, seething abomination. As things start to look a little rough, Jabi shows up on Akutagawa to lend some supporting fire, but their foe isn’t going to go down easily, and fires another of those big nuke-like shots to make life harder for the mushroom keepers, with the episode ending on the cliffhanger of not knowing how they’re going to survive the blast and keep fighting to bring it down.
So, I’ll give the show that it provided a pretty good answer to “What are you going to do with three full episodes more?” as we get a much more impressive final boss than a limping wormy guy – not that Kurokawa wasn’t intimidating in his own way, but this is far more viscerally impressive. Tetsujin never quite lives up to the beautifully horrific design of its predecessor, but in such precise imitation, it comes fairly close – it’s really only that it’s face isn’t quite as monstrously uncanny. I’m not clear on if Bisco is literally alive inside Milo or if it’s just Milo taking up his beloved mentor/brother/whatever figure’s mannerisms and attitude to face down Kurokawa, but with Kurokawa apparently contributing some sentience to Tetsujin (enough to determine its targets and moan ‘Akaboshi’ in rage between its other hissing and moaning sounds), I’ll leave the door open to doing spirit stuff even though the show had until this point been firmly grounded to a material, if excessively strange world.
The emotions and action in this episode were also pretty good. It was a little distracting just how much Tetsujin is a straight-up God Warrior, but to reiterate my opening point there are much choices of what to steal and from where made by even still-competent works. Sabikui Bisco kind of felt like a very wacky AU of Nausicaa from the start, and while it can’t even come close to matching its predecessor, it is still quite entertaining on its own merits. We now have two episodes for the final battle and any cleanup for our characters and the world, which seems pretty comfortable to bring the story to a close. Now that the show has navigated “What in the world are you doing with another act?” I feel like we’re locked onto a course where Sabikui Bisco is going to sort out to being pretty good on the whole. But, while the creators have earned my trust at this point, we’re still going to see just how they stick the landing.