Sabikui Bisco Episode 5 - Hard To Know If The Rust Is Destroying The World Or Whether People Are

Sabikui Bisco split its focus this week with Akiboshi and Milo allowing themselves to be taken prisoner by a town full of children while Pawoo discovers a place where it really is raining men before she accepts the ‘hospitality’ of strangers. As usual for Sabikui Bisco we have giant spiders, flying blowfish, a weird skin disease called shell-skin, as well as desolate rusted landscapes. It continues to be an intriguing adventure.

At some point in anime they will have to explain to me why characters like Akiboshi can happily jump off a tower onto the back of a crab and be perfectly unscathed, meanwhile the character in the background of the picture above is about to splat somewhat awfully upon the ground. Does gravity work differently for protagonists? Even Pawoo, while she doesn’t jump down long distances this week, does somehow get to the top of a building in an instant and practically flies sideways into the head of a giant spider this week.

Sabikui Bisco reminding us that gravity is subjective.

Focusing on Pawoo first, this week she is riding her motorbike down a road when she busts a tire on a caltrop. This is when she discovers the building that is raining men and goes to the rescue of a sweet old couple. Sabikui Bisco seems determined to undermine our trust in other humans as last episode Milo tried to help a girl and she ended up trying to steal their crab. This week Pawoo saves the old couple and then they feed her poisoned tea and try to… well, it isn’t really clear exactly what their game is but it isn’t good.

Interestingly, the old couple tell Pawoo a story of a mushroom keeper who came to town and offered medicine to people and how it led to many deaths and the rest of the people abandoning the town. I’m wondering if they were playing with poisoned tea even then and just blamed the mushroom keeper or if the mushroom keeper really was up to no good. It is hard to tell given it was already established in Sabikui Bisco that a lot of the stories about mushroom keepers are clearly just exaggerated or propaganda by those in power.

Of course, this story also reinforced Pawoo’s already strong distrust of Akiboshi who has left town with her brother. I somehow don’t think she’s ready to be friends with him if she actually catches up.

However, the old couple also weren’t actually much of a match for Pawoo and ultimately she’s ready to head off again.

For Akiboshi and Milo, they are separated and end up helping the kids who took them captive in different ways. Milo naturally falls into doctor mode when he notices the skin disease on the girl feeding him. He’s also pretty horrified that they were lied to about their disease and that all the adults were taken away to work leaving the kids alone in the first place.

Akiboshi is treated more as a prisoner though isn’t really all that well confined as he happily leaves when he’s ready to. But in the meantime he converses with the kids and even manages to get a map of the subway stations.

Thoroughly proving that unlike everyone else in the story Akiboshi is actually a good guy despite his rough nature, Sabikui Bisco then has the blowfish swarm, not expected for months, attack the kids just while they happen to be there and Akiboshi comes to the rescue. Plot convenience aside, it does make for a nice action sequence to end the episode.

It really is hard to know whether the world is falling apart because of the rust or because of the choices of people. While the rusting disease seems awful, it does seem that far more people are dying or living awful lives because of the actions of others. Meanwhile, Sabikui Bisco did establish a time limit for Akiboshi and Milo to find the rust eater to save Akiboshi’s friend and Milo’s sister and yet they don’t seem to be in much of a rush.

Anyway, the series continues to be fun. There’s a good mix of post-apocalyptic doom mixed in with fun action and just weirdness and Akiboshi and Milo are fun characters to spend time with. Looking forward to the next episode.

Images from: Sabikui Bisco. Dir. A Ikariya. OZ. 2022