An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Seasonal Selection – Sabikui Bisco Episode 11

I would be so frustrated right now if this world had ever pretended to heed any sort of logic or reason beyond “It’s cool, therefore we’re going with it.” Mercifully, that was never the case, so I can enjoy this episode and the ending that will be coming from it with a resounding “OK, sure.”

The bulk of the episode is the continued rampage of Tetsujin/Kurokawa/the God Warrior back along the path of the initial road trip, blowing up stuff in the way. We start with a continued fight against it where we left off, more or less, where Milo leaves a wounded Jabi in order to pursue the enemy. The town that was populated entirely by kids is the next big battle site, with the kids evacuating until Milo comes to once again engage Kurokawa. Tirol, Jabi, and Pawoo show up to help, and Milo (for the most part) gets some hits in until, shortly after the Imihama watch joins the battle, the big monster reveals its ultimate weapon, opening up its core to create a colossal Rust Sorm that Milo and the crab are barely able to shield the non-immune members of their party from. The break in the fighting lets the beast march onward, blasting more stuff en passant until it reaches the walls of Imihama.

There, Milo once again engages, and seems to get the upperhand, somehow, as he stabs his knife into the titan, causing it to grind to a halt. He finds his blade has hit something in its weird flesh, and the object turns out to be Bisco’s goggles, which brings Milo close to breakdown. Tetsujin gets its animation back and flings Milo into the wall, which threatens to be the end of things.

Except, from the wound in its back, a hand bursts out of the rust-flesh, and sure enough more follows as Bisco appears, pulling himself free of the abomination, now seemingly alive and well, albeit shirtless and with one arm burning red-hot. Bisco leaps over to Milo, said that Milo called him back from the brink of the next world, and takes his goggles back, and stands to fight Kurokawa for the final-final battle.

“OK, sure.” Death by arrow to the heart isn’t a bloody trip to the airport, but this is a world of sentient giant crabs, flying fish, instantly-growing giant mushrooms, slugs used as fighter jets, and less adherence to conventional physics than Gurren Lagann, where galaxies were used as throwing stars by the end of it. You want to have Bisco just drag himself back from the other side like it’s no big deal, you do that. I can’t say it’s not possible in the universe you established, so fine.

It does, to a large extent, still cheapen what was a fairly powerful death. Kurokawa and Bisco going down together, followed by Bisco willing his legacy onto Milo was strong stuff, which becomes pretty darn irrelevant when Bisco pops back up like he was a video game character just waiting to respawn through the previous episode. I was enjoying watching Milo try to live up to someone he idolized and carry on as both of them, at least far enough to bring down the last, miscreated form of their hated enemy (not that they needed Tetsujin to be Kurokawa, but that kind of worked better because it’s mostly just a seething monster or hateful remnant and not the same gangster mayor inexplicably fine).

So, that’s where we stand. Bisco is back, and we have an episode to drop Tetsujin (probably involving hitting the core when it does that super attack that needed it to open up) and do whatever cleanup this show is inclined to do. I’m expecting it to show off a lot of action and not make a whole lot of sense, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what we get.