Sabikui Bisco (Episode 4) - Ride the Crab

Bisco and Milo begin their adventure together, but they are running against the clock and walking is too slow. Luckily, Bisco has someone waiting to help with that, although Milo will need to win over Actagawa first!

Sabikui Bisco (Episode 4) – Ride the Crab

What happened?

They’ve been walking for some time now, although Milo feels like they are heading in the wrong direction. Jabi has about a month to live and Pawoo has three. Can they really make it there and back in that time? Not it Milo keeps fainting. There’s little to eat outside the cities and they didn’t bring much in the way of supplies. That’s when Bisco finally finds what he’s been looking for. Actagawa had gone somewhere cooler to wait for them. Milo is stunned at the size of Actagawa and then again when he tries to climb on and is repeatedly thrown off.

As they travelled, Milo tried to get Actagawa to let him take the reigns but he wasn’t having much luck. Then, he almost ran over a girl, stopping just in time. She offered to show him how to ride a giant crab and then tried to steal him. Milo tried to stop her, but it was Bisco that saved the day. However, Milo may have just had a breakthrough with Actagawa.

That night, they stopped at the Nikko War Memorial to sleep and found the same girl, Tirol Oochagama. She was the one that flew the Escargot and got caught up fighting Bisco in Imihana. However, she appeared to be choking. Milo ran to help. He slapped her back, causing her to cough up something, but it wasn’t enough. He apologised and then put his mouth to hers. Before anyone could say anything he pulled out a giant worm with his teeth. As if that wasn’t strange enough, the Nikko War Memorial was on the back of giant mantis shrimp!

Sabikui Bisco Episode 4 Milo Nekoyanagi and Actagawa chased by coal eating mantis shrimp

What did you think?

This world is fantastic. The driftweed floating through the air was spectacular, but then Bisco warned that it glowed at night which attracted predators. Then, we met Tirol again, however, it was their second meeting that will forever be etched into my mind. She was choking and they had just shown up. At first, I thought that was a terrible coincidence, but when Milo pulled the balloon worm out of her mouth, I was just glad he was there to do that.

The idea that it was intentionally put in there by Kurokawa should tell you exactly who the villain of this story is if it wasn’t already obvious from meeting him. The idea that they are stopping it from growing by feeding it a special substance was gross. Miss your “medicine” or if it’s withheld, it blows up and you die. It’s twisted but it’s a great world-building detail.

I thought the Nikko War Memorial was going to be a bigger crab when it was a giant mantis shrimp. That’s close enough. Either way, it was a ridiculously large adversary, not to mention that it was armed to the teeth and managed to destroy their route through the mountain, even after Bisco had grown mushrooms out of its brain. It sounds so ridiculous, but it’s incredibly entertaining.