500https://i.ur.com/hMprzfY.png 500https://i.ur.com/VJ4frmo.png The legend. The hero. The character everyone knows for the vast legacy he has had upon manga as well as anime. He is in the top ten of hundreds and hundreds of peoples favorite characters lists. EATMAN. 440https://i.ur.com/EwVzWGS.png The greatest mercenary he who is otherwise known as Bolt Crank possesses a very unique power. A very unique skill. A power that puts him above every single other action protagonist that has ever or ever will exist. He can eat a thing usually guns but sometimes just assorted metal objects and then he can materialize it in his hand You hold a gun up to his head? Well guess what hes gonna chomp down on that motherfucker and then HELL have the gun Bolt Crank has no weaknesses. There is no possible other way you can defeat a man without shooting him. And once you try to shoot him hell just eat your weapon and bam back to square one 440https://i.ur.com/FLYs1DE.gif You could set him on fire though. Or you could drop a heavy object on him. Or maybe you could just knock him unconscious with a blunt object or perhaps even via a tranquilizer and then place a muzzle over his mouth to prevent him from being able to utilize his legendary eating abilities... or rather I guess restraining him in general and preventing him from getting around guns or metal would probably do the trick. This legendary protagonist who waltzed forth from the mind of Akihito Yoshitomihttps://anilist.co/staff/97054/AkihitoYoshitomi deserves an equally legendary anime adaptation. 440https://i.ur.com/T3glJnI.png Now some will try and have you believe that the series that followed this called Eat Man 98https://anilist.co/anime/1599/EatMan98/ is the true adaptation as its apparently closer to what the mangahttps://anilist.co/manga/31800/EatMan/ actually is this is 100 an assumption on my part and Eat Man 97 is just a bizarrely weird attempt to turn EatMan into some different and randomly episodic series but... I say thats a load of nonsense. Look at this doofy ass face of the worlds greatest mercenary. He can eat metal man. He just chomps through handguns like its no big deal. 440https://i.ur.com/17qKSvG.png But yet hes just this quiet lumbering goofy vagrant wandering from place to place and giving people odd smiles. Like hell just say nothing and fire off one of his smiles out of nowhere. 440https://i.ur.com/pK2hE87.png If somebody smiled at me the way Bolt Crank smiles I would immediately call the space police. Like Bolt is always wearing those sunglasses. Is it to hide the demonic entity that is hiding within??? Will he chomp you if his true identity is discovered??? 440https://i.ur.com/zJFZQ36.png The point is Eat Man 97 is like completely episodic and more and more throughout the purpose Bolt Crank plays in these stories become more and more dubious. There were a handful of which that I had forgotten I was watching a show about a man who could eat handguns until of course Bolt Crank showed his goofy goofy face. And more and more I just kept questioning why these characters were so friendly or at ease towards Bolt Crank. Especially those who have personally seen him down a handgun or periodically popping screws into his mouth like he was chewing gum. Or... you know drinking gasoline which he fished out of the ocean. 440https://i.ur.com/mCKJjUF.png 440https://i.ur.com/UNODWfW.png 440https://i.ur.com/x0zI5mQ.png 440https://i.ur.com/qN0152p.png Why did you let this man on our boat. HE JUST DOWNED AN ENTIRE CAN OF GASOLINE. I think probably the most disappointing aspect of Bolt Cranks character is him actually not tapping into his full potential. 440https://i.ur.com/gx77LvO.png 440https://i.ur.com/Nrgt4HE.png 440https://i.ur.com/nzkFWQ2.png Most of how he resolves the situation is he eats something and then boom a gun materializes. But if your teeth are capable of biting through METAL... ...why doesnt he just bite people? 440https://i.ur.com/AgUr8Dt.png 440https://i.ur.com/mzcflXG.png 440https://i.ur.com/7m1bbhx.png 440https://i.ur.com/hqn5gFo.png I know Bolt Crank biting a rival mercenarys arm off would flip the entire foundation of what the series is on its head but I just feel the idea that his teeth can literally chew through anything is more interesting than the idea of his stomach being a portable dimension from he can retrieve and/or make guns from the metal he eats. But really its not like every single episode of this series is packed with action. 440https://i.ur.com/6QPs0Aw.png 440https://i.ur.com/is1MVlF.png One of the episodes I remember the most clearly all Bolt did was move a girls arm to prevent her from killing the guy who owned the strip club the episode is centered around because the owner wanted the girl to stop doing artistic dances and just strip. Like the entire episode is centered around this dancer character and how she wants to be in the spotlight and how she wants to be like her mother and theres just... one problem with that. Where does Bolt Crank fit into this? 440https://i.ur.com/btzSAQT.png 440https://i.ur.com/cg8f3eo.png 440https://i.ur.com/ho8GwqA.png Hes just standing outside of the strip club in the rain pointlessly and she as one rationally does decides to take this tall lumbering and odd man in. Even gets old Bolt a janitor job at the strip club 440https://i.ur.com/4M5z1rV.png Conclusion...? Truly the worlds greatest mercenary 440https://i.ur.com/t9KAYHj.png ...This entire review has been centered around Bolt Crank for good reason. He is the WHOLE reason to ever watch this series. Like sure some of the episodes are weird and that weirdness is almost enough for me to call those episodes notable but apart from two episodes in particular its really not the episodes themselves I remember. Its Bolt goddamned Crank. 440https://i.ur.com/TefGrwW.png Like the entire way I ended up deciding to watch this was I just read the description and it was just yeah its about a guy who eats metal and guns. And I just remember thinking: no theres gotta be something more to it than that. And at least for this anime there isnt Hes just a weird goofy and tall guy who eats metal and drinks gasoline. Theres really nothing tying any of the episodes together because it always ends with Bolt Crank just wandering off to somewhere else for some new wacky adventure. Hell the next to last episode ends with Bolt Crank coming out of a coma ??? and he tells the lady who resurrected him for some job no because hes not a mercenary anymore. 440https://i.ur.com/Pd6NzZq.png Who... decided for that to be episode 11 rather than episode 12? I give it... a 4 out of 10. Ive forgotten a whole lot of it yet for some bizarre reason it somehow managed to get lodged somewhere deep down into my brain making it possible for me to review it despite it being almost two whole years since I originally watched the series. https://i.ur.com/NZRYP74.png ...Would I recommend you to watch it? My answer would have to be... I have no fucking clue. If you want to watch a weird episodic show with a main character who possesses charisma but only possesses it because of how odd he is and how other characters treat him then maybe...? The best thing about this series to me personally is that I still dont even know if its better or worse that they strayed from the original manga. Like sure this is weird but I have to assume Bolt Crank in the original manga or Eat Man 98 is relatively similar to this version. Maybe hes just not quite as goofy. 500https://i.ur.com/pD33dIa.png