Sabikui Bisco Episode 1: Civilization Devastated by Rust

A new post-apocalyptic anime made its debut with episode 1 on Monday, and Sabikui Bisco tells the story of a world riddled with ‘Rusty Wind’. We don’t know much about it for now, but it seems much like a virus. It has decimated the civilization, and one of the symptoms is rust appearing on the bodies of the infected while simultaneously spreading inside. Studio OZ is in charge of the production, with Ikariya Atsushi as director.

The beginning of the episode shows a large explosion, along with a human-like silhouette rising within it. It’s brought up within the story, although through a tale of an elderly woman who isn’t being taken seriously. She talks about her childhood, and both of her parents died from ‘Rusting’. She was 8 at the time, and for some reason they were kicked out of the village. At her wits’ end, she roamed a field and found a finger of ‘Tetsujin’, which one of the younger girls knows as the thing that exploded and brought ruin to Japan with the large hole we saw at the start. The woman also remembers that a man was present next to the finger, and he was scraping rust off of it. This is the first time we hear of the term “Mushroom Keeper”, and the woman considers them evil.

The main characters

We later learn that the main character, Akaboshi Bisco, is also a Mushroom Keeper. He disguises himself as a monk as he tries to get past the walls of Gunma Watch. We could see his wanted poster from the start, and he’s a 17 year-old criminal worth a 800,000 reward. He is about to successfully sneak in, but the guard notices his bow. We don’t see what exactly happens, but he clearly managed to go through since he appears inside and makes a scene before appearing in front of the other main character.

Nekoyanagi Milo. A young doctor who seems to be the text-book perfect kind of person who selflessly wants to help everyone. We see that he’s skilled, but he also does secretly gets and studies mushrooms, which seems to be forbidden. His motivation seems to be his sister Pawoo, who has a serious case of Rusting. She also happens to be captain of the Imihama Watch, which we don’t much about for now. Despite the Rusting being close to reaching her heart, she decides to head out when she hears about a terrorist nearby, even knocking her own brother out because he was trying to stop her.

The ‘Villains’

While it’s still too early to call the characters good or evil, we can assume that Bisco isn’t really a terrorist and that the mushrooms (at least the one he creates) don’t really cause Rusting. It wouldn’t be surprising if it’s some ploy by the government, and Governor Kurozawa definitely seems suspicious. Pawoo warned Milo about owing him favors, and we see that his underlings have the weird rabbit masks. We previously saw one of them flying a helicopter, and it looked like it was aiming for the giant crab. The person who saved it was none other than Bisco, and he did it by shooting the missile with his mushroom-producing arrow and causing an explosion. From what I could hear, the voice of the masked underling in the helicopter belongs to Tomita Miyu. She actually voices Tirol Oochagama in Sabikui Bisco, and we hear again when the character makes an appearance without the bunny mask at the end.

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It’s clear that the Rusty Wind is a real danger to humanity. However, the mushroom theory seems like it’s not completely true, though there’s not much information yet. We saw that Bisco brought an old man to Milo, and he asked him if he can produce medicine. The story about a Mushroom Keeper taking rust off the Tetsujin is also vague, and he could have just been taking it to try and find a cure, rather than to spread it. As main characters usually are, Bisco is probably actually a good guy, and I’m very interested to learn how and why he got to the point of being wanted and treated as a terrorist. If you enjoy a post-apocalyptic kind of anime with a supernatural element, I can already recommend Sabikui Bisco, and you can watch episode 1 on both Funimation and Crunchyroll. The synopsis:

Japan has become a wasteland devastated by the Rusty Wind which causes all things to rust away. A suspicious looking priest visits a checkpoint all alone, yet on his back rests a bow priests wouldn’t use.

Meanwhile, Milo, a doctor running a clinic in the town of Imihama, is researching new medicines in secret in order to save his older sister, Pawoo, who’s being corroded by the Rust. But that day a stranger appears before him… (Crunchyroll)

If you also enjoy the first episode, you can vote for it as the best of Winter 2022 Week 1! Episode 2 of Sabikui Bisco is titled “Soar on King Trumpets” and will release next Monday on January 17, 2022.

Images via Crunchyroll
Sabikui Bisco Website: sabikuibisco.jp
Sabikui Bisco Twitter: @SABIKUI_BISCO
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