English dub season review: T・P BON season one

Overview (spoilers below):

Teenager Bon Namihira (Griffin Burns) becomes part of a team of time-traveling agents tasked with saving lives during major historical events in different eras and locations around the world.

Our opinion:

T・P BON (Time Patrol Bon) is an ONA adaptation of a manga series written and illustrated by Fujiko Fujio. It is directed by Masahiro Ando, ​​with Yūko Kakihara writing the screenplay. It is produced by Bones, the animation company behind shows like My Hero Academia And Bungo stray dogs. The music was composed by Michiru Oshima.

Do you wish you could travel through time and visit some of history’s iconic moments? One particular teenager does. Of course, this comes with the cost of being the protector of the space-time continuum. This defines the concept of a late 1970s manga series depicting two teenagers traveling through different time periods on a mini rocket, which has now been adapted into a new original net animated series for Netflix to meet our anime needs. This was not the first attempt at adaptation T・P BON to television, as it was previously released in 1989 as an anime television film by Studio Gallop, directed by Kunihiko Yuyama. So I guess the manga was popular enough to receive more than one television adaptation, despite my unfamiliarity with the source material. The question is whether this new adaptation is worth living up to its timeless legacy.

Consisting of twelve episodes, the first season of Time Patrol Bon features a modern teenager named Bon Namihira, who encounters a mysterious young woman, Ream Stream (Erica Lindbeck), and her companion, a yellow alien named Buyoyon (David Errigo Jr.). Ream is a member of a top-secret organization known as Time Patrol, whose job is to travel through time and space to ensure the safety of innocent civilians in different eras. When Bon discovers that he has become relevant to history, he is recruited by Ream as the newest member of the Time Patrol to aid her in her duty. Bon and Ream travel through different parts of history to help their targets avoid their demise, including ancient Egypt, the Tian Shan Mountains and the Battle of Marathon.

Time Patrol Bon mainly corresponds to other time-related content Mr. Peabody & Sherman And Back to the future. For the former, the series provides a surprising amount of historical education across the eras during each mission thanks to the compressed learning technology Bon and Ream use. Of course there is also the Back to the future element, in which the protagonists try to avoid the course of history while saving their targets from their unjustified deaths. On some occasions they were able to solve another problem that Bon had accidentally created. An example is the eleventh episode, “The Marathon Battle”, in which Bon is assigned to deliver a message to Athena by running when he shoots the original messenger.

While there are some entertaining moments as you watch Bon and Ream carry out their rescue missions, Time Patrol Bon can be a bit annoying with its episodic plots. If you’ve seen one episode of the show, you’ve pretty much seen them all, the difference being the historical eras. Certainly, there was a lot at stake for the characters to encounter on their missions, including the minotaur in “The Dark Labyrinth” and Bon’s self-centered carelessness. However, these elements didn’t have much of an impact on the overall development of the characters. It gave me a sense of repetition where nothing essential happened until the finale, which kicks off the upcoming second season.

That’s not to say it’s automatically a bad series, as there were plenty of good moments that kept this time-traveling adventure from becoming a chore. While the formulaic plots wore me out in the second half, only a few episodes managed to offer anything refreshing. In “Riding a Dinosaur on Vacation,” Bon and Ream are on vacation in the late Jurassic period when they encounter a time-traveling poacher. Then there’s the season finale, “Hyperspace Castaway,” in which Bon and Ream survive an apocalyptic wasteland in the far future while searching for a Time Tripper. These episodes generated enough interest to soften the resulting blow, especially with Ream and her history with her previous partner.

I also didn’t mind the animation style, produced by Bones. The presentation and character design in Time Patrol Bon offer a style more akin to light-hearted anime Doraemon then the detailed one My Hero Academia And Bungo stray dogs. It also delivered a mix of 2D and CGI animation to make the environment and character movements more immersive. Some moments worked well in providing that seamless balance, though at other times the CGI effects looked a bit rough with their polish and rendering. It’s one of those cases where the art of CGI can often influence the interactions between different characters, depending on the execution and budget.

General, Time Patrol Bon is far from a time waster due to its enjoyable moments of humor and presentation. But it’s also far from a historical landmark in Netflix’s anime department. While the English dub cast did quite well with their performances and chemistry, this doesn’t excuse the lack of compelling development of their characters aside from Ream’s past. As for the episodic plots, some of them were quite entertaining and even educational, despite the repetition that fizzled out quite quickly. Based on the season one finale, which saw Ream leave Bon due to her promotion, it seems like the series could turn itself around with the upcoming second season coming in July. The question that gives itself time to answer is how much improvement it will bring.