EAT-MAN The Over Order will stream on Crunchyroll, as Masashi Ebara returns as Bolt Crank nearly 30 years on
Crunchyroll revealed at its New York Comic Con showcase that it will carry the third anime of Akihito Yoshitomi's manga, which debuted a second teaser visual drawn by Yoshitomi. No premiere date has been set.
Bolt Crank has had a long wait for his next meal. The metal-eating wanderer of Akihito Yoshitomi's Eat-Man has not anchored an anime since 1998, but his comeback series, EAT-MAN The Over Order, now has an international home: Crunchyroll confirmed during its New York Comic Con showcase on October 8 that it will stream the show. Neither a premiere date nor the list of streaming territories has been given, and the official site simply tells fans to watch for more news.
The showcase also gave the world its first look at a second teaser visual, newly illustrated by Yoshitomi himself. It frames Bolt in profile, high collar turned up, against a skyline of towers.
The man who eats anything
Bolt works as an "explorer," a hired adventurer in a trade few people trust, taking only the jobs that fit his own moral code. His gift is what makes him the best at it: he can swallow almost anything, metal included, and later bring it back out of his body whole and in working order. For all that, Crunchyroll's description paints him as a quiet man of few words who would like nothing more than to be ordinary.
Familiar names, and a familiar voice
Masashi Ebara, Bolt's voice in the earlier television series, is back in the role. In his comment on the official site he marks the reunion as coming after three decades.
Yoshitomi is more involved this time than ever. Besides supplying the original design concepts, he is writing the scripts, and he says on the official site that he took part from the beginning and hopes to try storyboarding next. Director Shunji Ōga says he built The Over Order as an original story set in the manga's world. Studio Cab is animating, with Satoshi Hirayama translating Yoshitomi's linework into animation character designs.
From Dengeki Comic Gao! to a third adaptation
The original manga ran in MediaWorks' Dengeki Comic Gao! from 1996 to 2003, and Viz Media released its first two volumes in English. Yoshitomi revisited the character in Eat-Man The Main Dish, serialized in Kodansha's Monthly Shōnen Sirius between 2014 and 2018.
On screen, Studio Deen adapted the manga as a 12-episode TV series that began in January 1997, and a second 12-episode series, Eat-Man '98, started in October 1998. The new project was first announced on September 10, together with a teaser video, a month before the Crunchyroll news.
