Anime Review: Mushibugyo

Anime Review: Mushibugyo

It has been about a century since Japan was invaded by giant mushi (“insect” or “bug”, it’s a loose category) that rampage about, eating people and destroying buildings.  In Edo, the capital, the shogunate government has established the office of the Mushibugyo (“Insect Magistrate”) to protect the city and its people.  A new member has been requested for the field team, a fearsome samurai swordsman, Tsukishima.   But he’s unable to travel at the moment, having lost a leg.  So the team gets his son Jinbei Tsukishima instead.  Can the young and rash samurai help the Mushibugyo office prevail against ever more deadly bugs?

Mushibugyo

Mushibugyo is a 26 episode anime series, based on a shounen manga by Hiroshi Fukuda.  I watched it on the Crundhyroll website, where it is still available as of this writing.

The good:  This is a series that has lots of giant insects for our brave (mostly) heroes to fight in over the top battles.  The characters are mostly enjoyable, and the power of friendship and never giving up wins the day.

Not as good:  This series is very shounen.  The hero’s a bit of an idiot, most of the other characters are kind of cliche as well, and there is seldom any real feeling of danger in the battles.  Sure, lots of unnamed extras die horribly, but no one we actually care about.  As well, the fanservice gets kind of obnoxious–do we really need to see/hear about the tsundere kunoichi’s  (mood-swinging female ninja) loincloth quite so often?  The clip show episode features all the female characters at the public bath, plus an extra one-shot character for more fanservice.

There’s also several characters who are prominent in the opening titles but get only cameos in the show itself; presumably they got more development in the manga.  Likewise, some of the backstory for some characters (the Insect Hunters, most notably) seems to have been cut for time.

Still, if this is the sort of thing you like, you should like it very much.  If you want a grittier look at humanity fighting giant monters, with a lot more plausible character fatalities, see Attack on Titan instead.