Bullbuster

[lilitu93]

Title: Bullbuster
Publisher: Kadokawa
Author: Hiroyuki Nakao
Illustrator: Eisaku Kubonouchi
Number of volumes: 3
Complete: Maybe? I heard it was but am not sure how to check.
Anime: Yes
Manga adaption: Yes

Summary:
A young engineer, Tetsurou Okino, is transferred to a vermin extermination company called Hato Industries with the new robot Bullbuster that he developed himself. There, Hato Industries, a small company with little money, and its president Tajima are against a mysterious creature. There are fuel costs for robots, labor costs for pilots, and of course, wasting even a single bullet is unacceptable. Between their ideals of extermination and the reality of budgets, what does the future hold for Hato?

(Source: Translated, edited from official website) - taken from My Anime List

Why I’d like it licensed:
The anime is airing right now, and even though it’s flawed (the CGI monsters are really bad, for instance, and the characters start out more as types before getting a bit more developed), it’s a rare anime about adult characters in the workforce. Sure, it’s a mecha cleanup company, but there is a sense of grounded realism, and it’s more about company politics than mechas fighting monsters. It gets compared to Patlabor, and I can see why, though I’ve only watched the films and not yet seen the OVAs or TV series, which I understand are different and are more the mix of comedy and working life that Bullbuster has.

I’d really like to read the novels to see if they flesh out some of the problems I’ve had with the series, since the novels are based on them. I’m guessing a lot got cut from them to fit it into an anime series. Plus no bad CGI monsters which is always a plus! And as a not that young adult, it’s nice to read science fiction that’s about adults for a change.