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 Saga ... of 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 I ... was 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.

Despite probably being one of the least hyped anime in history, I really wanted to watch Bullbuster as soon as I read its premise, because it was about mecha, and because it sounded really retro, immediately making me smile. Unfortunately, besides the meme initial reaction it caused because of the combination of its name and studio, the one behind Deca-Dence, and the second reason why I wanted to watch this, its reception was almost completely negative since the very first episode based on its elements alone, which is sad because it proves that shows like Patlabor or Dai-Guard would be very negatively received today on ... concept alone.

Granted, Bullbuster has serious issues in its execution, but most of the criticisms towards it come from its elements alone, and not because of its handling of them.

Visually, Nut isn’t a very good studio, and Bullbuster is a very solid proof of that, it looks outdated and uninspired, from its artwork, character designs, five backgrounds being repeated throughout the whole series (water, forest, office, laboratory, restaurant), so-so motions, and crappy CGI monsters, giving it a very mediocre visual presentation as a whole.

The audio is the best part of the anime, even though neither the opening nor the ending nor the background music are remarkable in any way, they do their job just fine, as does the voice acting, which is nothing special either. The sound effects are of inconsistent quality, some are incredible and very immersive, while others are really weak, giving them an average to just good result as a whole.

The premise is about a small company that kills giant monsters with their giant robots on an island, while dealing with issues of funding, bureaucracy, relationships between co-workers, scientists that don’t want to help them or that don’t want to spend money on that, other companies suspecting them, the people that they fight for being disappointed in them, and there’s even some character drama as some of the main ones are directly involved with the starting point of the conflict and the monsters they fight against.

All these elements enrich the plot despite its low stakes and scope, but are also what alienated a lot of the public that went into it for, I guess, a silly comedy based on its name and studio, and received a real mecha type of show that tries to combine all of these elements with different tones.

And that ends up being the main issue of Bullbuster, it doesn’t know how to handle such big mix of many very different elements and tones. There is action and some battle choreography put into it, but at the end of the day every fight is resolved in the exact same way and the so-so motions and the crappy CGI monsters with very uninspired designs for them don’t help one bit. There is some minimum level of mystery about what the monsters are and where they came from but it comes mainly from the people that can find out about it not wanting to do their job properly. There is an attempt of taking the plot seriously, but its progress is slow and its execution leaves a lot to be desired because most of the conflicts come from the characters acting like idiots instead of doing what they should, plus, the comedy prevents from taking seriously anything that happens in the show.

Said comedy is quite goofy and it could be enjoyable in its own, if the series didn’t want to take itself more seriously than it should, there is some character drama but it’s not the best nor the most original thing, it’s something that you can find in any monster movie or show, plus the plot is stopped for a good number of episodes because of it, and the comedy clashes with it, there are also classic naïve and idealistic ideals and ideas that belong more on a super robot than a real robot type of mecha show, here they come off as immature and the cause of problems instead of giving the anime the epic feeling it normally would. Also, despite all the serious issues that the company the characters work for face on a daily basis, each one gets a convenient and naïve solution almost right away, in the same episode or the next one. It’s true that every solution leads to another problem, but that in turn leads to another easy solution, thus any attempt at seriousness and realism is completely ruined.

The revelation, along with the plot twist, of the origin of the monsters is quite good and could have flipped the whole series up until that point, from every inconsistent thing in the writing, to the relationships between companies and even characters, but even that led to nothing special and easy resolutions, and even a finale that feels like sequel-bait.

It doesn’t help that the characters are quite awful. Leaving aside two women, one because she is the only one with a little bit of a backdrop and emotional conflict within the story, and the other one because she is the only one that tries to do things right, everybody else is rather stupid or useless in the plot, if not both things, remains a character archetype throughout the whole anime, acts stupidly and creates conflict in superficial ways because of that, and is overall just not a good person nor an enjoyable character to follow for a whole season.

At the end of the day Bullbuster had an enjoyable first episode in my opinion thanks to being and feeling like a retro real robot comedy in the likes of Patlabor, which was a short silly episodic comedy before it was made into a long episodic slice of life series, and before it was also alternatively turned into a serious crime mystery on separated entries, or Dai-Guard, which had many of the same elements as this anime or Patlabor, but remained mostly a comical take on the usual super robot mecha premise. After that first episode, most of the conflicts in this show came off as superficial because they are all the result of the characters being written like complete idiots and jerks, and any attempt at seriousness is ruined by the bad writing and the poorly timed mixed of action, drama and comedy. Its low rating and negative reception are perfectly understandable, but the reasons behind them are not, since it’s the execution that’s the problem, not the concept alone, as the titles I compared it with proved in the past.