Pretty much every season (stop me if you’ve this before) there’s one.  A light-novel adaptation that I’m assured is different – and it really is this time, honest – one that will break through and win me over.  There’s even a patten to how this evolves – I’m often interested for a few episodes, sometimes even intrigued.  Some keep me around for just an ep or two (like 86), some for half a season (like Saihate no Paladin or Mushoku Tensei).  But the endgame is pretty much always the same.

And so here we are again.  May I have this dance, Sabikui Bisco?  I have no idea if it really will be different this time, though my history gives little cause for optimism.  Because of that history even the fact that I liked this premiere (and I did like it) doesn’t in itself give me much hope.  But against my better judgment, I do sort of feel hopeful this time.  This… felt different.  Even the good (at the start, anyway) LN adaptations almost always feel unmistakably like LNs.  There’s a certain tone, a certain style of exposition, a recognizable rhythm to the dialogue.  But Sabikui Bisco would have fooled me into thinking it was a manga if I didn’t know differently.  For one week at least.

Another thing this show has working in its favor is that it has a hedge working in opposition to my anti-LN tendencies.  Some series I can tell without even having to look – the director learned his trade at Gainax.  If any studio ever had a signature style it’s that one, and it was my baby formula as an anime fan – I can always spot it.  And sure enough director Ikariya Atsushi is a Gainax grad, though he also worked on some big projects at Bones (those two studios had a ton of crossover).  Gurren-Lagann, the Eva films, Panty & Stocking – the fingerprints are unmissable in this premiere.  That represents a sort of security blanket for me, I’m not ashamed to admit.

That said, my experience has been that the Gainax connection is only enough to hook me – not to reel me in.  The story and characters have to do that, and this is still based on a light novel – I have no idea if it will.  But – and admittedly Ikariya’s flourishes are a part of this – the premiere does a very good job of world-building.  Most of what’s really going on here is still a mystery but that in itself is a positive sign, since LN adaptations all too often explain the entire premise too you (clumsily) in the first episode.  If not in the title…

Post-apocalypse is pretty standard in anime, so it all boils down to what the story does with that.  “Rusty Wind” (somehow connected with a giant robot – “Tetsujin” – apparently) has blown through Japan and turned most of it into barren desert.  The prefectures are walled encampments, and “mushroom terrorists” go around shooting arrows which make giant mushrooms grow and spread the rusting disease.  And there are also giant crabs and soldiers who look like man-buns, for some reason.  Explain it to me later, that’s fine – it’s agreeably goofy for now.

As for characters the one who gets the most focus in the premiere is “Dr. Panda”, Nekoyanagi Miro (Hanae Natsuki, still determined to leave as many other seiyuu unemployed as possible).  The reason for the panda moniker is obvious enough.  He’s a kindly and brilliant doctor working in the slums, where he gives away medicine and works on a cure for the rusting disease afflicting his military elite older sister Pawoo (Kondo Reina).  To that end he secretly uses mushrooms he buys from the manjuu seller.  The title character is here too, Akaboshi Bisco (Suzuki Ryouta).  Andthe fact that he’s one of the supposed terrorists makes it obvious if it weren’t already that the truth is very different from the one being fed the people.

It’s way, way too early to know whether all this is going to amount to anything.  But what’s clear is we have a director with real talent and a premise which, on the face of it, has at least modest potential to he engaging.  I think it helps if you’re a fan of retro-style anime, because so much of Sabikui Bisco is very 2005 – the look, the character designs, the dialogue.  It even features a boatload of seiyuu (in supporting roles) who were big then.  I’m more than interested enough to give this series a shot, and far too conditioned by experience to get my hopes up yet.