Sabikui Bisco, also known as Rust-Eater Bisco, by OZ, is an anime adaptation of a Japanese light novel series written by Shinji Cobkubo and spans across 12 episodes of 23 minutes each.

Sabikui Bisco can be described as a unique story with an interesting setting and cool art. With machine-gun hippos, giant shrooms, slug planes, lizard-back cavalry, suited up mafia with bunny mascot headgear, and an OP rod-wielding woman, Sabikui Bisco delivered on action and adventure. I enjoyed being introduced to this version of a post-apocalyptic world and it was refreshing. I feel this was really well done for the first project of a new anime studio.

The narrative follows Bisco Akaboshi as he makes friends and enemies in the pursuit of a legendary mushroom that can cure all forms of Rust. Rust is a type of disease in this anime that infects everything from humans to inanimate objects. For each of the characters that are focused on most, this “magic” mushroom has great value as either they themselves need to be cured of the rust or a close loved one. I never thought I’d see the day where the OP main character’s superpower is the ability to fight with mushrooms and he’s just unstoppable, like a mushroom-powered Robin Hood. The narrative is sprinkled with some bizarre themes that don’t seem to fit, but the story in itself is interesting enough to keep you moving on until the narrative reaches a point where you feel like, okay the story can end here and I’ll be satisfied. After this point, the villain reveals some really unexpected information and then dies, again I thought it would end here, but no, it got whacky and I still have questions. After the villain dies there’s a major plot twist (which feels a bit far out) and the narrative is catapulted into situations that really have you sitting there wondering “what am I watching” which entices you to keep watching in the hopes of figuring things out. Did I mention I still have questions?

This anime may not appeal to every viewer and the audio can be considered an acquired taste, although I personally enjoyed it and felt that it was well composed. The writing, pacing, and editing feels slightly misaligned but this could be due to the timeline which could be considered a double timeline, but also not entirely. Although this timeline may be confusing, a natural anchor of day and night is used in order to discern which is which. The characters are relatively generic, but this was still an enjoyable watch.