Sabikui Bisco – 07

「奪われた錆喰い」 (Ubawareta Sabikui)
“The Stolen Rust Eater”

The seventh episode of Sabikui Bisco makes a compelling case for Pawoo as a formidable standalone character as a sympathetic warrior who finds herself catching feelings for the redheaded lug. Unfortunately, she still has some competition since her brother Milo spends the second half of the episode proving himself to also be waifu material.

ALL ABOUT PAWOO

This was a pretty solid episode for Pawoo since she’s made for a fun side-protagonist during times where she does her own personal investigation on matters relating to human experimentation. I was worried they’d make her a static character who’d shift into Javert levels of determination to hunt Bisco. But as she chips into the battle and sees that Bisco rubbed off well on her brother, it’s heart-warming to see her change her tone on being completely in vengeance mode.

Learning about the true nature of making the Rust Eating Mushroom serum and why both Bisco and her boss are invested in finding them helped to steer her in the right direction as far as making her more sympathetic and preventing her from falling into the trap of being a crony for everything the Governor stood for. I was disappointed to see that the Governor’s bullet made it so that Pawoo would have to wait on the serum, but her reasoning made sense and it showed off her hidden compassionate side where she can see the good in someone she once swore was a domestic terrorist because of what she was told.

MORE THAN A BROTHER AND A LITTLE LESS THAN A WIFE

I’d like to start out by getting the more serious parts of Milo’s scenes out of the way. Namely, it’s an interesting decision to have him try to soldier it out and act as the one to personally save Pawoo and Jabi. Even though Bisco is currently dealing with working Rust out of his system, Milo is infuriated that Bisco wants to pretend he’s not seriously ill and wants him to rest as he channels his own personal rage towards the Governor and the state that abducted his sister.

They did such a great job at making Milo both mortified and enraged about Pawoo’s hostage situation, so it’s cool to see that, even if he’s portrayed as being more sensitive, he’s also ballsy enough to shoot arrows in mid-air and take a few bone-shattering punches from Bisco during their fight. Even if he doesn’t quite get far enough in the next episode, I have no doubt in my mind that Bisco taught Milo well in how to handle himself in a brutal fight.

Now here’s where the fun part kicks in though. There’s an amusing level of entanglement that Bisco wound up stumbling into with both Pawoo and Milo. Pawoo’s situation is easy enough since she was impressed enough with Bisco’s efforts to protect her brother that she would be interested in him as a guy. Pawoo is definitely more interested in Bisco on a basic level with her musings on how fascinating she finds him.

But if you’ve seen the coded dialogue that makes up Solid Snake and Otacon’s conversations in Metal Gear Solid 4, it’s hard not to see parallels with how Milo talks to Bisco. Milo shouting “Friend” and “Friendship” whenever he talks about Bisco in a passionately concerned manner feels like a measure to prevent their fighting from looking entirely like a domestic spat.

I guess it trivializes their friendship to suggest Milo has a one-sided attachment to Bisco when they’re shown to be genuinely good friends for the past six episodes. But it’s mostly a perfect storm of Episode 07 being the one where Milo has to get mad at Bisco for not resting when he’s making soup for him and the one where Milo chooses his words wisely as to not make it seem like he’s moments away from switching “friend” with “partner”. How can I not see it when it would be the same response someone’s spouse would have if they caught their partner trying to work while they had a high fever?

I wouldn’t be surprised if they just go with the obvious straight couples established. The last episode made a cute ship with Milo and Tirol as they bid each other farewell, and Bisco finds Pawoo to be pretty as her newfound affection blossoms. But they really make no bones about the baiting they do whenever Milo coddles Bisco, especially with the second half of this episode. And it’s fun to rattle the bee’s nest on which ships are popular since there’s a fair amount of teasing for everyone involved.

It’ll be hard to tell how Milo will be able to hold out on his own against Governor Kurokawa and his army, but with how he helped take out the giant worm from earlier this episode, he at least has a solid 50/50 chance. I wouldn’t be surprised though if Bisco ended up catching up with him to help him if his plan goes awry.