T・P BON Season 2 Anime Series Review – Review

This second half of studio Bones’ adaptation of Doraemon co-creator Fujiko F. Fujio‘s 1976-86 manga maintains the same light educational tone as its first, mixed with occasional graphic (historically appropriate) bloody violence, and even some (also historically appropriate) nudity. While the character designs, general premise, and overall episodic structure remain fairly juvenile, T・P BON‘s subject matter often isn’t, which makes for a mixed viewing experience – in the English-speaking world where Doraemon isn’t as well known, who, exactly, is this show for?

Don’t get me wrong – I adore T・P BON, and I’m thrilled it got made. Bones’ stellar production values make this one of 2024’s glossiest anime productions – but unfortunately, I can’t see Bon and Yumiko’s adventures having widespread appeal to modern anime audiences. Head writer Dai Satō and director Masahiro Andō have stuck to their guns with this adaptation, keeping the traditional episodic adventure structure and quaint character designs intact. Audiences should applaud their purity of purpose. Apart from gorgeous digitally animated visuals, there’s little compromise to modern storytelling or character tropes here. T・P BON feels like a throwback to the old cartoons like Superbook and Mysterious Cities of Gold that I watched as a kid, and that’s both its greatest strength and weakness.

Bon himself is often written as an annoying child – he’s a poor student who slacks at school, his main motivations are impressing his friends, and he makes terrible decisions at crucial times that threaten to derail his missions. However, it’s worth remembering that he is only fourteen, and we still haven’t received any explanation for why the Time Patrol thinks it’s a good idea to employ teenagers to run dangerous missions in the past. When the entire fabric of space-time can be rendered asunder by saving or killing the wrong person, surely someone more experienced should be fulfilling this role? Ah, but then we wouldn’t have this presumably child-targeted story about a kid somehow succeeding in a fantastical sci-fi world.

T・P BON‘s lack of coherent world-building doesn’t do it many favors, and I did find myself asking multiple questions every episode about the logic behind the Time Patrol’s existence, my overly analytical adult mind poking so many holes into this show’s internal consistency. Original author Fujio didn’t seem interested in exploring the future world where the Time Patrol originates, so we, as viewers, learn very little about Bon’s organization – we don’t even learn if they pay him for his efforts! I get the impression Bon would do this work without pay, though – despite his adolescent annoyances, he’s a good kid who wants to help people. And to be praised for doing so!

This season, we travel to all manner of fascinating and exotic locales – from the Battle of Dan-no-Ura in 12th century Japan to the Beringia Land Bridge joining Asia and Alaska during the last ice age to ancient Mesopotamia, where the written word was invented. Through the conceit of “compressed learning,” Bon can essentially download mission-critical historical information directly into his brain and can then expound to his new assistant about the period they’re visiting. Although this could come across as overly didactic, somehow T・P BON manages to remain entertaining and fascinating despite the frequent info-dumps. I’ve learned a lot about history from this show!

Agent Ream Stream was one of my favorite aspects of the first season; with her quiet competence, sweet nature, and cute character design, she lit up the screen in every scene. Unfortunately, Ream is mostly off on other missions this season (as happened in the original manga) and has been replaced by newbie recruit Yumiko. This changes the character dynamics, with Bon appropriating Ream’s prior mentor role and Yumiko taking the role of wide-eyed apprentice. While I don’t think their relationship is quite as fun as Bon and Ream’s, they do make a good duo, even if the dialogue keeps hitting us over the head with “We make such a good team!” on multiple occasions. Yumiko is substantially more intelligent than Bon; her ideas often save them from trouble. Once more, romantic tension is kept to a minimum, though Yumiko picks up early on that Bon may have an unspoken attraction to his erstwhile senpai. Yumiko’s also much more reticent about undressing in front of Bon, which makes a change from the extremely matter-of-fact Ream.

Floating yellow mascot Buyoyon remains fairly irritating, though such characters seem to be a mainstay of this sort of late ’70s shonen manga adventure. His main job seems to be to berate Bon for his mistakes (sometimes fairly, sometimes not) and to heavily favor whichever female character is around. I’d always assumed he was Ream’s friend, and he gives little explanation for why he’s suddenly following Bon around, nor why he suddenly thinks Yumiko is the best thing since sliced bread.

While most episodes are almost entirely stand-alone, with only minimal narrative connecting threads, the final three are loosely linked in an ultimately apocalyptic arc that leans more heavily into the show’s science fiction conceits. Massive purple holes in reality start appearing throughout history, sucking everything into the space-time vortex. While the plot itself is full of holes, it provides an exciting and compelling conclusion to the show, with some lovely callbacks to scenes and concepts from the first season.

Unusually for a shonen adventure, T・P BON doesn’t have a main antagonist, apart from perhaps the cold reality of history and the universality of death. Even though we meet a couple of rogue Time Agents, they’re not bad people, and we can empathize with their motivations, if not their actions. Bon and Yumiko meet plenty of nasty, mean people throughout history. However, most characters they interact with are ordinary, unremarkable people trying their best to survive in an often harsh world. While the societies around them convulse in war, volcanic eruptions, or other tragedies, Bon and Co. focus on helping these decent, little people who aren’t even footnotes in the history books. While Bon and Yumiko struggle with the fact that they can’t save everyone, their efforts bring relief and joy to the few they can save. And as Bon himself says in the final episode, that’s what makes everything worthwhile.

Ultimately, T・P BON is an upbeat, (mostly) optimistic sci-fi adventure that doesn’t shy away from the darkness of human history yet celebrates and uplifts the lives of the “little” people. It’s by turns childish, surprisingly adult, horrifically violent, and gently amusing. It’s not for everyone, and if you didn’t like the first season, then the second will do nothing to change your mind. However, Bon’s retro-styled time-traveling adventures have been one of my anime highlights of the year so far.