The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

Bullbuster

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A young engineer named Tetsurō Okino, who has developed the new robot Bullbuster, is transferred to Hato Industries, a company that exterminates harmful animals. There, the company and its president, Kōji Tajima, are up against a mysterious lifeform named "Kyojū." As a small business that is always finding itself short on money, Hato must always account for every expense, such as fuel and pilot labor. And, of course, missed shots are not tolerated. The company is always stuck between its ideals of Kyōju extermination and the reality of the economy.

Bullbuster is an original project devised by director Hiroyuki Nakao and P.I.C.S. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Wednesdays.

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Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:

I get what Bullbuster is aiming for. It wants to be a realistic, near-future mecha show. These are generally few and far between—with Robotics;Notes being the only other one I can think of offhand. But while Robotics;Notes was more concerned with the technology (and problems) behind trying to make a real giant robot, Bullbuster is more concerned with the bureaucracy behind using such technology. In fact, when it comes down to it, Bullbuster probably shares more with Ghostbusters than Robotics;Notes. The whole point of Ghostbusters (and the core to its comedy) is taking a sci-fi concept and turning it into a blue-collar job. Bullbuster is doing the same thing but for giant robots instead of ghosts.

On this level, I'd call Bullbuster a rousing success. While Okino may just want to hop in his spiffy new mecha and stomp monsters, the fact of the matter is that he's not a superhero or a soldier—he's a company employee. Without a proper signed contract, who's going to pay if he gets hurt or his robot gets damaged? Who is liable if he breaks a building on the island he is supposed to be protecting. There's clearly money to be both lost and gained on the island and its important for both sides to cover their butts. (And, let's be real, the printer gag was so relatable it hurts.)

Where the show does less well is the other side of the story. The monster designs, in this case a giant naked mole rat felt like it didn't quite fit the visual style of the show. Meanwhile, the mecha fights aren't really exciting. It's basically grabbing or being grabbed by the monster and then shooting it.

But what really kills it for me is Okino himself—and how he shatters my sense of disbelief for the show. Okino built a literal mecha designed for fighting monsters—yet he never did any research on what the monsters were? Not even their sizes? He never did any test programs fighting simulated versions of them? He just, built a mecha and expected that it would work fighting monsters because... he designed it? Are we really supposed to assume that he is that arrogant—and that, in this world of realistic corporate bureaucracy someone actually funded him?

All in all, this episode is a mixed bag. The “mecha fighting monsters as a business” angle is great and done well. But as for the rest of it… well, I'll give it one more episode to wow me but if it fails I'm out.

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James Beckett
Rating:

I'm a classy, professional critic, so I'm not even going to make the dozens of crass jokes that I immediately formulated once I learned that a studio named Nut was producing an anime titled “Bullbuster.” You are welcome to congratulate me on my maturity and self-restraint at your leisure. While you do so, I'll take the time and energy that I could have spent on perfecting some delightfully terrible knee-slappers and use to it express how much I enjoyed Bullbuster's first episode: It was good!

Having just literally today spent more time than I would like to consider on trying to fix one of the busted copiers in my department office, I found a lot to appreciate in a story that takes all of the usual mecha-anime hallmarks and filters them through the lens of a purposefully banal office workplace comedy. This isn't a new concept, or anything—Patlabor was already proving how well the mix of sci-fi action and grounded office shenanigans could play back in the 80s—but instead of going for a job that at least offers some veneer of excitement, Bullbuster instead slathers on an even thicker veneer of boring, blue-collar mundanity to the proceedings.

This is a good thing! The fact that our hero Tetsuro can't hop into his new Bullbuster robot to kick monster butt until his new job files his insurance and liability paperwork is funny enough—but further impeding that already very stupid roadblock with busted printers and expired I.D. cards is the extra layer of comedic effort that could bring this show far, if it plays things right. The whole crew of Hato Industries seems very down to earth and I could see their growing camaraderie becoming a highlight of the story.

Really, my only major complaint about the show has to do with what should be the exciting contrast to all of the bureaucratic rigmarole: The monster fights. Given the show's general tone, I wasn't expecting the action scenes to be great, necessarily, but I wouldn't have minded if the actual beasties being battled looked a bit less…well, goofy and stupid. I can see how making the threats faced by the mech pilots resemble larger-than-life versions of regular pests and critters makes sense with what Bullbuster is going for, but I just can't say that I am eager to watch a bunch of CGI naked mole rat looking things wrestle a tractor-bot every single week. Still, that's the kind of blemish that I can overlook when the rest of what a show is doing works for me—and Bullbuster works. I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

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Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Now, look here, Bullbuster. You promised me a Boston terrier, and this episode has a total lack of terrier action. What it has instead is a somewhat awkward attempt to create a "realistic" mecha show – in Bullbuster's world, mechs aren't used to fight in space; they exist to fight "pests," which our naïve protagonist Tetsuro assumed were normal-sized animals. That seems to be part of the impetus behind his design of the eponymous robot; most mecha used for pest extermination is on treads, and Tetsuro is really, really proud of his new design. Regretfully, as awesome as it looks, it's at a distinct disadvantage when fighting something that looks like a dinosaur/naked mole rat hybrid, namely that it's easy to knock right off its giant feet.

Apart from the question of why Tetsuro was allowed to design and sell something so apparently impractical (although it does work out in the end), I also have to wonder why he was unaware of the true nature of the pests. It seems very counterproductive to have him working on a project he doesn't fully understand, but that's part of Bullbuster's deal because just when he's about to roll out, he's stopped by a man with a comb-over screeching about how he hasn't filled out the paperwork yet. It's meant to be funny, an attempt to juxtapose the tension of an imperative battle against a monster with the day-to-day reality of corporate life. It doesn't fall flat, especially since we're assured that Ryugan Island's town is devoid of people, so there's no one in imminent danger, but it's also not particularly fun to watch. It's like if one of the drivers in a racing show was pulled over mid-race by a cop asking, "Do you know how fast you were going, son?"

Another less-than-stellar juxtaposition is in the art. Most of it looks just fine, from the characters to the giant robots' workaday color scheme and design, but the pest looks terrible. There's been some effort made; the teeth alone show that. But it also looks distinctly out of place against the rest of the episode's artwork to the point where it sometimes doesn't even look like it's interacting with the rest of the scene. I've seen worse, but that doesn't make this any more pleasant to watch.

Bullbuster may be able to pull itself out of this episode's moderate mess, and it isn't a terrible decision to start in a place where the audience isn't 100% sure of what's going on. But this also didn't make me want to stick around to find out the answers – even with the promise of an eventual Boston terrier.

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Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

I fell in love with this one pretty quickly. I'm always happy to see new, original mech anime, and this one has a pretty unique hook, taking that old "Real Robot" vs. "Super Robot" dichotomy and steering as hard into the former as possible. The result is something that feels remarkably believable, even for its more fantastical elements, envisioning the kind of technological future that's quite possibly just around the corner and a pretty rewarding watch for my particular stripe of nerd.

Seriously, I love this show's take on what a near-future piloted robot would be like. The titular mech resembles construction or farm equipment more than any military hardware. The newest model might have a 360 visual display and AR, but the first version is an open seat and looks like it started life as a bulldozer. It's established that there are competing design philosophies between tread-based and bipedal robots. When it comes time to repair a malfunctioning one, it's essentially the kind of tossed-together rush job you'd do for a car that you need to get to the nearest shop. If you're the type of weirdo who likes to speculate on how an actual robot might work in real life, this kind of grounded design and world-building will set your brain on fire. It feels like the sort of design a bunch of engineers would come up with for the most intense episode of Robot Wars ever filmed, and seeing the thought put into the design of this thing is very gratifying.

That approach is applied to the rest of the premise as well. Rather than a cutting-edge military tech firm, the company our hero works for is a "Pest Control" outfit working out of a rusted-out office. Before Okino can head out on his first mission, he has to sign all the necessary employee paperwork and liability forms so that nobody gets sued if he gets injured. It's both funny and pretty smart to see that level of mundane bureaucracy applied to fighting big monsters with a robot, solidifying this whole setup's charm. Playful gags like Okino designing a bunch of different logos for the company – all of which look like popular mecha anime logos – cement that this is a show made by and for robot nerds who want to play with the idea in a novel way. The characters are nothing special, but they're a vibrant and likable bunch with diverse designs that stand out.

My biggest caveat is that, while grounded and believable, the action sequences in this episode don't do much to impress. The opening sequence has some weird editing that makes it hard to tell what's happening, and the monster they fight looks terrible. It's not the worst CG I've ever seen, but it's shiny enough to look totally out of place compared to the rest of the show. Maybe that's an artistic choice to make the creatures look alien, but either way, it's not great to look at, and the episode's climax hinges on it. The central struggle is still comprehensible, and the mechs themselves look pretty good, but if this is going to be a monster-of-the-week setup, this is a bad first monster to get us started with.

That issue aside, the rest of this premiere is a charming, unique take on a subgenre I love, and I will follow it. I don't know how much the idea will appeal to folks who just want some cool robots shooting guns, but for me, the thought experiment was more than enough to win me over. The charming characters and intriguing world-building are a plus, and all together, they make for a fun time that I can't wait to see more of.