English Dub Review: Sabikui Bisco “Tag Team”

Overview

Bisco and Jabi continue their journey through Touhoku in search of a mythical cure known as the Rust-Eater, a mushroom said to cleanse away any rust. Milo also realizes that he could cure his sister, Pawoo, if he had this Rust-Eater. Meanwhile, the governor of Imihama, Kurokawa, burns with an unusual obsession with killing Bisco…

Our Take

This time around, we get our long-awaited fight between Bisco and Pawoo. Despite her rusting condition, Pawoo can is quite capable of a fight when she wants the situation calls for it. We also learn that each time Bisco comes to a town, he sucks at conveying any other emotion other than anger trying to explain some interesting things about the mushrooms to Pawoo. While we the audience were told in early episodes that Rust is caused by the mushrooms. When in reality it’s actually the complete opposite as the mushrooms are absorbing the rust. But due to how poorly educated everyone is, people easily perceive it to be the cause of the Rust disease since the process of removing it takes time for the mushrooms to get rid of it. In a weird way, this feels like the not-so-subtle social commentary that mirror’s how governments manipulate the masses with perpetuated lies, much like how certain conspiracy theorists claim that marijuana cures cancer more effectively, but is only legalized or government-regulated in certain parts of America.

During the course of the proceedings, it’s also revealed that Bisco has a clear goal. To seek out a specific mythical mushroom of legend that is said to take away rust from people in a matter or seconds. Something that could save many lives including Jabi and Pawoo, and possibly others around this desert world. Jabi is now unable to travel with Bisco due to the severity of his condition but this is also, the perfect lead into Milo traveling with Bisco instead. So now we have the setup for the rest of the story with this sort of buddy cop/road trip dynamic across this vast bizarre world to find this mythical cure.

Overall, I was super confused at first by what’s going on due to the bizarre nature of the anime itself, but the unraveling twists have started to make sense in the last couple of episodes. The concepts and weird-ass ideas of this show have managed to keep things consistently unique. Bisco really is a badass who isn’t afraid of anyone, yet kinda lacks the proper social skills of persuasion given the antagonistic bullshit of people he seems to encounter on a regular basis. And while it’s not yet explained why Governor Kurokawa is so determined to keep this lie going or why he wants to kill Bisco’s ass so badly, let’s see where these new adventures will take them.