He's here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And he's gonna do both.
Eat-Man is a manga by Akihito Yoshitomi, which was serialized in Dengeki Comic Gao! from 1996 to 2003 and compiled into 19 volumes. It's probably best summarized as an episodic parade of Schizo Tech Cyberpunk Wild West.The hero of the story is Bolt Crank, a badass dude who has the ability to eat anything, then re-create it, whole and functional, from his arm. This is, more often than not, a ridiculously large gun of some kind. He typically travels the world, righting wrongs and spending a surprising amount of time helping young couples get together despite enormous odds. A 12-episode anime adaptation was made in 1997, animated by Studio DEEN and directed by Koichi Mashimo, followed by another, named Eat-Man '98 and directed by Toshifumi Kawase, in the following year.
This series contained examples of:
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Series MVT. Typically when Bolt is first introduced, he'll be chowing down on a bunch of screws or something. Expect them to turn out to be the final pieces of some massive Wave-Motion Gun.
- Lampshaded at one point when Bolt actually panics after (not quite) losing a tidbit. Its purpose is never revealed, though.
- Evil Twin: Leon. If the series bothered to take itself seriously, this would probably induce quite a few crazy theories.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: Bolt throws a sword in Stella's direction. She thinks he missed... Until the guy coming at her from behind picks it up and cuts her in half.
- Exact Words:
- Bolt sometimes takes jobs from very shady or outright evil people, and being a professional, never breaks his contracts. Every single time though, he will interpret the contract extremely literally and end up screwing his contractor.
- Hard, possibly inspired by seeing Bolt in action, tries to pull this during the Eurydice arc. It almost doesn't work.
- Extreme Omnivore: Throughout the series, Bolt has eaten: guns, bazookas, big guns, swords, bikes, ships, armor, trains, bombs that explode inside him, monsters, robots, death itself...
- Food-Based Superpowers: Combined with Extreme Omnivore. Bolt Crank has the power to eat anything (especially metal), and then produce the fully functioning original item at will. Naturally, this usually translates to a hero who can pull out massive firepower when he needs it most (though, mercifully, he pulls it from his arm rather than his ass).
- "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: The cure for Future's memory loss/mental regression in the Big Generator Arc.
- Fun with Acronyms: Moving Of Limited End point.
- Gentle Giant: Bolt is more inexpressive than stoic and is shown to be very kind and considerate.
- Hope Spot: During the MOLE arc, Macus has his legs cut off and is set adrift in Zero G. Bolt pulls out the yo-yo that he ate earlier and flings it in Macus' direction... But the string isn't long enough.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Seemingly every single Girl of the Week Bolt encounters. Played with in the first chapter
. A number of them are average sized, but he's really tall.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: Bolt's is both justified and of a particularly epic nature.
- Implacable Man:
- Bolt never fails to come back and finish his job even after he starts getting visibly injured. He was Immune to Bullets (or at least impossible to hit) earlier in the series, as well.
- There was a point where he survived getting hit by a missile which failed to explode and became embedded into his chest thanks to a train he ate. Seriously.
- In Name Only: The first anime series had little to do with the story and only featured the main character. Due to the bad reception resulting from this, the next series faithfully adapted selected stories from the manga.
- Insane Troll Logic: Hard was hired by Stella to bring Eurydice back to her sister. Later, after Stella replicated herself and Bolt hired Hard to help out, Eurydice asks him to finish the job to bring her to her sister. His logic in refusing to do so is that Stella was the one to hire him to do that, now that there are "so many Stellas" it's "Only logical to finish what Bolt hired me for first."Eurydice: "What kind of logic is that!?"
- Ironic Echo: "You said you would have a "go" with me, right?" As well as "They're from a different world."
- Meaningful Name: Bolt's favorite foods are bolts and cranks. Some old work companions gave him the name because of that, since he lacked one before.
- More Dakka: One of Bolt's many BFG's managed to entirely pulverize the walls around one floor of a tower. It's a machinegun.
- The Quiet One: Bolt rarely ever talks and changes his expression even less often, though this is more of a personal quirk rather than due to any form of psychological issues. He's simply quiet.
- The Reveal: Bolt apparently created the series universe using his ability. He makes a new one at the end and it is implied that he will continue Walking the Earth after going there.
- The Rival: A few, some self-proclaimed only and others who are at least a bit credible. Bolt has apparently inspired many explorer wannabes to follow in his footsteps as well, and all of them have a strange desire to take his title.
- Shout-Out: Silvaka's outfit looks a lot like that worn by Kamen Rider.
- Soul-Cutting Blade: One issue has Bolt consume and produce the blade of a sword created by a blacksmith who didn't create swords to harm people's bodies, but to cut their souls.
- Spot the Imposter: Bolt will occasionally have Chuck act as a decoy, but Chuck has a vastly different personality — Warren realizes that he's an impostor when he sees "Bolt" laughing and chatting it up with a bunch of ladies. It does not help that "Muwahahaha" is practically his catchphrase.
- The Stars Are Going Out: Referenced in the Big Generator arc as something that the Big Generator is capable of doing.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Subverted at the end of the Gargoyle arc. Wanda turns to find that Bolt is gone, and runs off looking for him... But it's revealed that he accidentally fell down into a pit trap, just like he did at the beginning of the arc.
- The Stoic: Bolt, although he is largely inexpressive rather than cold.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In the Misha/Mira arc, Bolt is stabbed through the heart — with a missile. He lives.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Subverted. See "Exactly What I Aimed At" above. And then it's played perfectly straight during the Gargoyle arc.
- Winged Humanoid: Mana, but only briefly. Also, the titular entities of the Angel and Demon arc.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Warren. He hears that Mana controls a superweapon, and he knows that Mana is holding onto the last bolt of a device for Bolt to eat. He makes the logical assumption. He's wrong.
