Sabikui Bisco – 06

「道連れと獲物」 (Michizure to Emono)
“Companions and Prey”

Sabikui Bisco’s sixth episode highlights the next step in Bisco & Milo’s journey as they make their way through the Shirakaba Line. But while their perspective pushes the story forward, this episode belongs to Tirol, who has most of her backstory and motivations fleshed out this time around.

PRINCESS JELLYFISH

It might not’ve been the most eventful episode, but this was a fun episode because it moved the needle a little further for Tirol’s development. Rather than scurrying around behind the scenes, her direct involvement with Bisco and Milo’s trip to the Shirakaba Line gives us more details on who she is, why she keeps finding herself in the most dire circumstances, and why she resorted to mercenary work. It’s enough to get Bisco sentimental and claim that it’d be nice to know her real name because he wouldn’t know what to put on her headstone by only her nickname.

It was rough hearing about how she is genuinely tired of being given a crappy hand in life routinely, and didn’t ask for a miserable lot in life. While it initially sounds like she’s deflecting from the justified grievances Milo and Bisco would have about their lot in life, as we learn more about Tirol’s past, she’s dealt with quite a bit before she could muster up the drive to keep on keeping on.

The resentment she has for authority figures is well-justified with her skills as a mechanic coming from her thankless work for Matoba Manufacturing where she was worked to the bone only to be shafted when she had to excavate the Tetsujin and watch her co-workers catch Rust. She’s also able to understand the Shimobuki traders, begging to question how she came to speak the same dialect as the Shimobuki traders who had been displaced in a nomadic lifestyle where they trade items from before the Tokyo explosion.

AND YOU HAVE MY BOW

This was also a larger episode for Milo, who had been doted on by Tirol throughout the episode. While it seems like he’s playing into her crush on him by claiming he risks his life “because I love her,” his lack of cunning trickery compels him to be the mediator between Bisco and her when Actagawa isn’t doing the job for him.

It was also a nice detail that we got to see exactly how Milo tries to toughen up and adjust to a new life of having to protect himself from danger. I liked that they showed that, through his time traveling, he’s been able to pick up on a few tricks to help make up for his lack of combat experience such as poisoning his arrows with mushrooms to attack a Frost Rabbit without directly hitting it.

His advancement also has a ton of meaning with how he’s been bonding with Bisco. While Bisco’s always skewed towards mockery and tough love, Milo appears to dish out the snark just as easily when he finds a way to hit the Frost Rabbit while missing altogether. Bisco is also so proud of him for helping so many people out that he opens up to him about how Jabi taught him how to fight. They might still have their work cut out for them to avoid Pawoo’s wrath, but after the Oil Squid attack, it’s nice to see that Bisco is more than happy to lend Milo a helping hand as the doctor taps into his budding abilities as a marksman.