Overview (Spoilers Below):
Teenager Bon Namihira (Griffin Burns) becomes part of a team of time-traveling agents tasked with saving lives during major historical events in different eras and locations worldwide.
Our Take:
T・P BON (Time Patrol Bon) is an ONA adaptation of a manga series written and illustrated by Fujiko Fujio. It is directed by Masahiro Ando, with Yūko Kakihara writing the screenplay. It is produced by Bones, the animation company behind shows like My Hero Academia and Bungo Stray Dogs. The music is composed by Michiru Ōshima.
Do you wish you could travel through time and visit some of the iconic moments in history? One particular teen does. Of course, it does come with the cost of being the protector of the space-time continuum. This defines the concept of a late 1970s manga series depicting two teens traveling across different periods with a mini-rocket, which is now adapted into a new original net animation series for Netflix to fill our anime-seeking needs. This wasn’t the first attempt at adapting T・P BON to television, as it was previously released as an anime television movie by Studio Gallop in 1989, directed by Kunihiko Yuyama. So, I’m assuming the manga might’ve been popular enough to receive more than one television adaptation despite my unfamiliarity with the source material. The question is whether this new adaptation is worthy of matching its timeless legacy.
Consisting of twelve episodes, the first season of Time Patrol Bon depicts a modern-day teenager named Bon Namihira, who encounters a mysterious young woman, Ream Stream (Erica Lindbeck), and her companion, a yellow alien named Buyoyon (David Errigo Jr.). Ream is a member of a top-secret organization known as Time Patrol, which is tasked with traveling across time and space to ensure the safety of innocent civilians in different eras. When Bon discovers that he’s become relevant to history, he’s recruited by Ream as the Time Patrol’s latest member to assist her in her duty. Bon and Ream travel through different parts of history to help their targets avoid their demises, including Ancient Egypt, the Tian Shan Mountains, and the Battle of Marathon.
Time Patrol Bon aligns with other time-related content, mainly Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Back to the Future. For the former, the series provides a surprising amount of historical education of the eras during each mission due to its compressed learning tech Bon and Ream use. Of course, there’s also the Back to the Future element, in which the protagonists attempt to avoid changing the course of history while rescuing their targets from their unwarranted deaths. On some occasions, they could solve another problem Bon accidentally created. One example is the 11th episode, “The Marathon Battle”, where Bon is tasked to deliver a message to Athens by running when he shoots the original messenger.
While there are some entertaining moments of watching Bon and Ream performing their rescue missions, Time Patrol Bon can be a bit tedious with its episodic plots. If you’ve seen one episode of the show, you’ve practically seen them all, with the difference being the historical eras. Sure, it offered plenty of stakes for the characters to come across during their missions, including the minotaur in “The Dark Labyrinth” and Bon’s self-absorbed carelessness. However, those elements didn’t affect the overall development of its characters too much. It left me with a sense of repetitiveness where nothing essential happened until its finale, which sets up the upcoming second season.
That’s not to say that it’s automatically a bad series, as it had plenty of decent moments that kept this time-traveling adventure from being a chore. While its formulaic plots wore me thin by the second half, only a couple of episodes were able to provide something refreshing. “Riding a Dinosaur on Vacation” has Bon and Ream on vacation in the Late Jurassic Period while coming across a time-traveling poacher. Then there’s the season finale, “Hyperspace Castaway”, which sees Bon and Ream surviving an apocalyptic wasteland in the distant future while searching for a Time Tripper. These episodes delivered enough interest to soften its derivative blow, especially with Ream and her history with her previous partner.
I also didn’t mind its animation style, which is produced by Bones. The presentation and character design in Time Patrol Bon offer a style more akin to light-hearted anime like Doraemon than the detailed ones from My Hero Academia and Bungo Stray Dogs. It also delivered a mixture of 2D and CGI animation to make its surroundings and character movements more immersive. Some moments worked well in providing that seamless balance, although at other times, the CGI effects looked a tad rough with their polishing and rendering. It’s one of the cases where the art of CGI can often affect the interactions between different characters depending on the execution and budget.
Overall, Time Patrol Bon is far from a time-waster due to its enjoyable moments of humor and presentation. But it’s also far from a historical landmark in the Netflix anime department. While the English dub cast did pretty well with their performances and chemistry, it doesn’t excuse their characters’ lack of compelling development, save for Ream’s past. As for its episodic plots, some of them were pretty entertaining and even educational despite the repetition that wore itself thin rather quickly. Based on the season one finale, with Ream leaving Bon due to her promotion, it does appear that the series might turn itself around with its upcoming second season due in July. The question that’ll give itself time to answer is how much of an improvement it’ll have.