Bullbuster

Bullbuster - Wait, is that how you pronounce ballbuster? Oops, sorry, wrong spelling. It's BULL-buster, not BALL-buster. The one show this season that I was so shell-shocked by its absurdly low rating (which it clearly does not deserve), brought on by the sheer number of very few people watching it. It's a rather unassuming anime called Bullbuster. Kadokawa's mixed-media franchise, which started out shikas a concept book in 2017, later receiving Hiroyuki Nanao's 3-volume novel that's illustrated by Eisaku Kubonouchi, the original character designer for Carole & Tuesday. This then, leads us to the return of the NUT: the studio responsible for Youjo Senki: The Sagaof Tanya the Evil, studio NUT is back after a rather lengthy hiatus (if you don't count the mediocre FLCL variants) doing what it knows best, though it may come at the cost of being too niche of a product to sell to the general public. For reference, Bullbuster's story about a company's "rags-to-riches" journey through business acclimation and acquisition through cost-cutting measures, resources, and the like. It's a rather novel concept that has been done in anime before, but not to this degree of affinity as compared to the real-life counterpart. If you're at least 20 years old and older and have experienced the ins and outs of working at jobs full-time (like I am), this show is clearly geared for you. Meet Tetsuro Okino. The mech designer and pilot from his home company, Kanie Technologies, develops a rather robust (but still in the works) giant robot that would help a company take advantage of its resourcefulness, which he dubs Bullbuster. And it's a rather dire need for companies to employ these robots to do their job, because in a dystopian future, the fictional Ryugan Island off the coast of Japan, once a home for its small population of islanders, will one day, become the site for the manifestation of giant beasts. So much so that the infestation has caused too much of a problem for its people that they had to be evacuated out immediately, leaving the island in a state of poison-like rotting disrepair, with its people wanting to know the reason for these sudden giant beasts appearing out of nowhere, wrecking people's homes and lives. And it's the job of pest control companies like Namidome Industries, who are assigned to do that part of the extermination of these Kaiju giant beasts through the robots leased to them, finding Tetsuro and immediately warranting his transfer over to Namidome to help teach its pilots on Bullbuster's operations to effectiveness. There is just one problem: the pest control company looks grand on the outside, but on the inside, it reeks of unkempt mismanagement and a dangerously low cash flow from its rather small staff team, who constantly will chew Tetsuro from the inside out, teaching him about constraints because of its careful and meticulous investment in Bullbuster. You have the company's president, Koji Tajima; the general affairs a.k.a HR manager Miyuki Shirogane; the accountant, Kintaro Kataoka; and its lone pilots, Ginnosuke Muto and Arumi Nikaido, who have been piloting their company's own robot Bullrover, which is in heavy need of servicing. With Tetsuro's entrance alongside his next generation mecha robot, Namidome, from the get-go, there is some serious heavyweight lifting to do managing Tetsuro and both robots, with Bullbuster being the way to go to turn a profit for the visually near-bankruptcy small company while keeping their relations with the islanders tight-lipped so as to ensure the job is being done to their satisfaction. If you have a hinge of business acumen, you'll know that companies like Namidome need further backing for their job purposes from bigger companies who would finance their efforts, so long as the terms and conditions of contracts are not broken, and this leads us to their biggest sponsor: Shiota Chemical. Led by its president, Washizu Shikauchi, both Namidome and Shiota work together to eradicate the giant beasts from Ryugan Island, and for the most part, it's Namidome's work to ensure that Shiota (through its Bio department, led by Mitsuru Inomata) gets the intel they need to crack the case and return Ryugan Island to its people, such as in the case with one of their brightest stars: their intern, Shuichi Namari, who, like Tetsuro, is loaned to Namidome as an exchange for their partnership on the investigation of the Giant Beasts. And some of you might already have surmised that since Shiota Chem gives a chunk of change to Namidome, they are still the ones responsible for releasing factual cases. Though going by the usual "money is the root of all evil" route, they can also manipulate its people and others into thinking that their efforts will bring about better change while hiding the glaring truth that their company is responsible in the first place by way of cover-ups. It's "Business as Usual", and what the small, weightless company has to go through weighing between the islanders and Shiota, Namidome is literally running a very tight mechanical rope to discern what is right and wrong on a business level. For one, Tetsuro is rather unlikable, as he is a go-getter who suffers easily under pressure to boost his ego and think that he is right in most typical arguments. And as if Namidome's staff themselves are another story, Tajima is a scaredy cat for making the wrong decisions; Kataoka is the ever-so-stringent accountant who weighs every weaponry use like its money invested and inquires to do more with less; Muto is simply the old traditional bulldog; and Arumi is a very closed-up girl. This mix of characters simply does no favour in giving people a chance for their redemption, much as it is that they have to learn the hard way when they have to make decisions ranging from crisis aversions to near-salvage. I hate to say this, but the characters are one of the low points of the show, being too similar to a rag-tag team of people who clash with issues and suffer by themselves, then mysteriously bond together on a consensus when things are forced against their will. I'd chalk this up to bad character writing based on the original novel, like it was written by someone who had to work with more but understood less. Studio NUT's production is also rather decent, though with the ever-so-present 3DCG models of the Giant Beasts, I'd allure that it really doesn't look as bad as you might think. With the experience taken from Summer 2020's Deca-Dence, Bullbuster is as similar as it can get with the mecha theme, and with the (mostly miss) director Hiroyasu Aoki, the show could have benefited from a better director than someone who's done more storyboarding than being in the director and series composer's chairs. But it is what it is, and that's the least of my complaints about the show. The best aspect of the show is the music itself. The OST, like the rest of the show, is also decent, though nothing noteworthy at best that I can remember. But the anime's theme songs, they really (and I mean, REALLY) deliver. From what I can tell, this is Anisong cover artist NORISTRY's debut (despite being composed by Tom-H@ck, who is usually paired with Masayoshi Ooishi as OxT), and it's a criminally underrated song that deserves more attention as one of the best OP songs of the season. And as usual with all Kadokawa-related stuff, there is Konomi Suzuki coming back with her new song, which sounds great. In a rather ironic twist against the current pandering to the mainstream, both the OP and ED songs (to me) are unironically banger pairings; this is an OST that I can listen to endlessly on repeat. At the end of the day, Bullbuster does know its target audience, which, as mentioned, is quite the niche product as it is, serving the adult working classes of young and old to enhance its appeal and relatability. But while it's too bad that that market is quite small, which may seem like a missed opportunity, it's certainly not worthy of MAL's woeful and abysmal 6.0-score levels of bad...that ironically is a misunderstanding as well to the general public who may be a pinch interested in the show that's quite frankly, solid as heck, despite its many glaring problems. All the show needs are people who can relate to or understand its themes, mecha or otherwise, on a level of experienced business infotainment. That somebody who just gets it.

Eh. It was okay. Nothing special to be honest. 3D models of robots and monsters fighting. The story was interesting, but some episodes are too boring in my opinion. And I do mean boring. The character development. One or two characters developed good I think. The other people don't develop much unfortunately. In my opinion. Or maybe three characters developed. Not sure. The art and animation of this anime is alright I guess. The fights are mostly 3D. Outside of that, it's alright. Average I would say. It's difficult. Really difficult. One hand, the story is interesting, but some episodes are so boring, like Iwas really bored. The character development is fine for what it is. The art and animation is okay. It's just nothing special in my opinion.

From the beginning of the series it is made clear that this anime will be slow, perhaps a little more than other "slice of life", and that what sets it apart is the "seriousness" with which the main story is taken. Which is basically having an independent company with a low budget. Of course, this company is not ordinary, since its job consists of exterminating pests, pests in the form of Kaijus, with bad CGI, that forced the inhabitants of an island to abandon their homes. The main characters have a good design along with their well-defined personalities and, in principle, different motivations that make us ignorehow slow the chapters can be in favor of knowing more about them. The Mechas are...Rustic and of course, the world seems to be a modern Japan, so the technology together with the company's money does not give more than realistic robots, with the mixed appearance of an excavator and the load lifters seen in works like alien. But these designs change as the budget increases, leaving those first models for something more similar to what "Tsubame Industries" has shown us with its "Archax" model not long ago. The plot will advance as the motivations of the members of the company are explored and more about the origin of these Kaijus are discovered. In summary: The anime is slow and relaxing, with a plot that, although not original, is rarely seen, with a good cast of characters and a world in which it is easy to get involved. The CGI seen in the monsters is one of the worst I've seen in a while but the 2D animation, for my taste, is on point. And until Chapter 10, I can say that it promises, I don't think there is any unexpected revelation or plot that will blow our minds, but if there is something that it will have, it is a love and respect for the work and its characters that is always a joy to see. Final chapter, definitely a great series, with a closing open to more but that probably won't happen. In the end they used all the characters in the company without less valuing their roles and personalities, and even showing a little, not much, of growth for the youngest members of the company. As I had written at the time, the respect and affection you have for the characters and the world in which they find themselves brings joy.

An entry in the “real robot” genre of anime, Bullbuster focuses on the members of the vermin extermination company known as Namikome Industries. The pests in question are mutated creatures known as “giant beasts” and Namikome utilizes super powered robots to handle extermination of the beasts in order to allow the residents of Ryugan Island to return to their home. However with the small scale of Namikome’s operations, they also have to be careful with business expenses as far as management of ammunition and maintenance of their robots go. I suppose I’ll just get the main thing with Bullbuster out of the way first in mentioningthe title’s mecha elements. Bullbuster goes pretty hard with its “real robot” element with the titular mecha and a few other units used by Namikome Industries being designed to be more practical with their designs instead of the humanoid-like designs that many popular entries within the “real robot” genre like Gundam typically implement. Plus, the action scenes are nothing to write home about with the title’s more realistic implementation of weapons and technology employed by Namikome’s mecha to handle the beasts they are seeking to capture or eliminate instead of anything more flashy and elaborate. The mechas are CG-rendered, but the more practical designs help go well with Bullbuster’s more grounded approach to its storytelling. The only bad part of this element to the series is the rather rough looking rendering and animation of the various giant beasts that would look more at home with a 2000s TV anime with how ugly they look. The other major element of Bullbuster that sticks out is the office politics in play with the series, harking back to past titles like Patlabor and Dai-Guard that offer this unique focus with a mecha series. In the case of Namikome, the series believably portrays the struggles of a small company with managing their budget and public reputation among the masses as they are financially struggling due to the use of their mecha being a financial strain as far as maintenance and repairs go. Each of the employees have their aspirations and stances with whatever element of Namikome’s operations they are part of, from Kataoka’s efforts to rein in expenses as the company accountant to Tajima trying to keep his employees under control as the company president. Elements of corporate culture also come into play as the origins of the giant beasts are gradually revealed to be linked to some shady corporate activity and exploring the lengths that the corporation in question will go through to mask their true motives and maintain their public reputation. Characterization isn’t the largest focus of Bullbuster, but it does take some time to focus on the various characters involved with Namikome. Each of them undergo some degree of exploration and development involving their work with the company or how they are personally affected by the giant beast threat, this giving them a bit of dimension and also helping to add more to explore with the office politics explored within the series. The only character I was largely indifferent towards was Okino, whose typical young, idealistic character doesn’t get as much fleshing out compared to his co-workers. While seemingly introduced as the main character of focus at the start of Bullbuster, Okino’s character gradually loses focus as the series puts more focus on exploring his co-workers. In short, I can see where Bullbuster may not be everyone’s cup of tea within the mecha genre as I’ve heard quite a bit about the indiffernce many had to its premise and the lack of elaborate action scenes involving mecha and mutant monsters. Those wanting something like Gundam or Evangelion with their elaborate action and high drama aren’t likely to enjoy this series. But if you are wanting something that goes hard on the “real robot” element of mecha anime mixed in with exploring office politics a la Patlabor or Dai-Guard, Bullbuster is a solid series that dabbles into those realms with the challenges faced by the members of Namikome and would recommend if you are looking for something different to dabble into within the mecha genre.

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