Eat-Man

Eat-Man is one of those shows that you'll pick up on whim based on the title alone and then the pace will either cause you drop it or you will slog through until the final couple of episodes because that's where any of the overarching story is.

Story: 3

The story is rather poor being a very episodic show. Until the last 3 episodes, there is almost no plot progression. The general plot for all of the other episodes follows around some girl that Bolt Crank has met this week and he will do some "mercenary" work which is just odd jobs.

Characters: 5

The characters are ... interesting enough with our main character Bolt Crank having a fairly unique power. He can turn metal and other items that he ingests into more useful items like guns. Seems like a very helpful skill if he ever needed to walk in somewhere unarmed. The girl of the week can be interesting with the soldier girls and the doctor woman being my favorite. All of these stories are self contained so you could watch episode 1 and then skip to episode 9 if you really want to avoid all of the pointless stuff and meeting Bolt Crank more.

Sound: 6

Sound is fairly good with that 90s synth and style to it. If you like generic 90s background music then this will be perfectly fine. The opening is lackluster with no visuals other than credits and the ending is the same way. This was a bit strange but the songs themselves are fine.

Art: 5

You can really tell this show had a low budget compared to other anime that Studio Deen was making at the same time. Rurouni Kenshin was airing at the same time and that looks fine to this day if you don't mind the 4:3 aspect ratio. The art in Eat-Man is fine and if you like 90s science fiction anime then this will feel right at home but it wasn't the greatest looking anime airing at this time. Also for some reason Bolt Crank has his mouth slightly open most of the time for no good reason. Probably a good thing for memes since some of those faces are pure gold out of context.

Enjoyment: 6

This is a show you can kill some time with and the story is very straightforward most of the time. Its not a hard anime to enjoy. The biggest barrier to entry is the age and how its not as refined as modern adaptations. Its also supposedly out shined by its own sequel Eat-Man 98.

Overall: 5

You could do a lot worse than watching this anime. You could also do a lot better. Its not a waste of time but it is one of those things that will never gain any real popularity at this point so there is hardly anyone to talk about this anime with. Its just a very slow show that puts its best foot forward at the very end which makes it just okay. Its an okay anime from the 90s and in most cases if time is a big factor, your better off watching something else.

Eat-Man will be one of those anime that is just forgotten to time by the general anime watching community and that's okay.

Eat-Man is a fascinating 90s anime that bewilders from the very start, doing whatsoever it pleases and never apologizing for it, which is an admirable thing, even if the end product is a pretty eclectic title that won't be everyone's cup of tea. Beginning with the story, I must be immediately clear that there isn't one. Eat-Man is an entirely episodic compilation of vignettes, these self-contained sci-fi short stories that sometimes touch on certain themes, but most of the time happen just because the dudes putting this together thought it'd be cool. Even though a good coherent story is always a good thing, Eat-Man still ... manages to make this a fun ride from start to finish, even if you are left wondering why or how certain things work every now and then. Regardless, you can always count on the protagonist Bolt to eat some metal and kick some ass, and at the end of the day, that is exactly what this anime should be delivering to you. Interestingly, it's based on a manga, but this anime has essentially nothing to do with it. It just took the concept of Bolt and some other stylistic elements and made the rest up as it pleased. They did make a later adaptation that's more faithful to the manga, but from my understanding this one has a lot more character and creative spirit.

The art is the strongest aspect of the anime, for pretty simple, straightforward reasons. It embodies that 90s warmth and detail that makes that decade of anime so loved, complete with fascinating visual worldbuilding, solid character designs, and some really strong examples of good animation. Having said this, the animation is sometimes lacking, but not in any places that necessarily matter. It is just a solid visual experience, and a fair bit more consistent than the story, and for that alone it is the central pillar of this show.

The sound is good, with a fun synth-based soundtrack, voice work that meets all the standards of quality for the time, and sounds of life that give the world a sense of gravity and impact, especially during action sequences.

The characters are interesting, though none of these single-serving secondary characters recur at all, leaving the inimitable Bolt Crank standing alone as the mysterious, sometimes oafish, and consistently badass main character that makes this show what it is. Throughout, he really does feel like he's driving the story. He sometimes completely transforms a situation he's in, and sometimes he's pretty much just an observer, but whatever the case, it almost feels like the world exists just for him to explore and get lost in. Overall, Eat-Man is a weird anime. I enjoyed my time with it, but you have to like the story format if you're going to get anything out of it. That last part's pretty much up to you to decide, but as for my part, I'd definitely recommend it, even just on the grounds that it's a thoroughly unique, maverick title in a time period and genre that has the tendency to get kind of same-y by way of sheer volume alone.

I'm writing this review after watching both Eat-Man 97 (this) and Eat-Man 98. When I began watching it, I had different expectations, but I soon learned that this series was not made after the manga, but instead it was random stories by a different person who uses Bolt Crank as a centerpiece of his stories.

So this is an anthology series loosely based around Eat-Man's character Bolt Crank. Each episode is its own story and they aren't necessarily very engaging, at least not for me. The personality of Bolt Crank is more or less in line with what the original character is - silent, stoic, enigmatic, ... mysterious, hard to read and hard to predict. On a few occasions he is shown smiling or making weird faces, which, I learned is not canon for his personality.

As for the stories, I found them to be rather boring for the most part, but Bolt Crank is an interesting character and somehow he kept the plot going. I ended up watching the better portion of the series on x1.5 speed, if it wasn't for the protagonist, I would have probably dropped it.

I decided to write this review after seeing the sequel, because I thought it will give me a better idea on the character and the universe and I was not wrong. If you decide to watch this series, definitely watch the sequel right after and form an opinion only then.

Overall, I think the series is not horrible, but the lack of continuity between episodes really made it hard for me to stay interested, it's not a bad series, just difficult for me to watch, you may feel differently. I kind of recommend it, but with a grain of salt, beware.

If you are interested, see my review for Eat-Man 98.