Based on the manga series by Fujiko Fujio, Masahiro Ando’s T. P. Bon follows Bon Namihira as he randomly finds out that there’s an agency called the Time Patrol, which pops up at various points in the history of humanity to save people. The methodology behind these rescue missions isn’t very clear. They just get directions from the Headquarters. The agents have to follow a strict set of rules. They can improvise during the mission. Beyond that, everything is a mystery, and, for a change, it feels good to watch a show that doesn’t overwhelm you with details. Anyway, right after Bon finds out that time travel exists, he is about to be erased by Ream to ensure that his awareness of Time Patrol doesn’t affect the future of humankind. Bon protests this decision and proves that his life is worth something. That’s when the agency finds out that Bon is actually integral to keeping Time Patrol functional and recruits him as a potential Time Patrol agent. He assists Ream and Buyoyon (a yellow ghostly entity) on various missions in each episode. What does he get in the end? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Hana Yamada
For his first mission in T.P. Bon, Bon travels to 1947 Tokyo to save Hana Yamada from Typhoon Kathleen. Hana refuses to leave his house until her son, Taro, comes back from the war. As per the rules, the Time Patrol can’t physically save someone. They have to make the rescue operation look as natural as possible. The Time Patrol agents have devices that can freeze time, reverse time, go forward in time, make people forget they’ve interacted with an agent, and manipulate gravity. And they have a Time Boat that can help them move through space and time easily, download huge amounts of data seamlessly, and more. So, they use a combination of these equipments to get to Taro, who is sleeping in an abandoned truck, and bring him near Hana. In doing so, Hana not only avoids the flood, but she also reunites with her son.
Thoth
Bon’s second mission with Ream and Buyoyon is to save Thoth from being buried alive in a pyramid in 2592 B.C., Egypt. They use a holographic image of an Egyptian goddess, Hathor, to prevent Thoth and Sneferu from reaching Tawi (which translates to Two Lands, and that’s allegedly the original name of Egypt). But that doesn’t stop him from reaching King Djoser’s mastaba and building the tomb for him. Imhotep, who is overseeing the construction process, tells Sneferu that Djoser is afraid of grave robbers. So, his tomb has to be extra secure. Sneferu dedicates the rest of his life to making the tomb. Thoth gets married and completes his father’s work. In order to preserve the secret of the pyramid, Thoth is buried alongside Djoser. Bon and Ream isolate the pyramid and move forward in time to the point where it’s infiltrated by grave robbers. That allows Thoth to escape. After that, Bon and Ream return Thoth to his original timeline, thereby saving him and reuniting him with his family. Amidst all this, Bon and Ream also manage to nab a temporal robber (someone who travels through space and time to commit crimes) and hand him over to the Time Patrol Criminal Investigation Unit.
Toge
After fooling around with his new gear, Bon and Ream travel to 800 B.C. to save a man named Toge, who is stranded in the open seas. He is supposed to travel to Japan and become an essential building block in the development of the country. So, Bon uses his gadgets and even transports essential items from the Headquarters to nudge Toge in the right direction. When all seems lost, Bon literally pulls Toge to Japan. Toge’s lack of hunting skills brings him to the brink of death. However, since he gets in touch with the villagers, who have already settled there, he saves himself from dying miserably. In addition to that, Bon inadvertently turns the readily available akebia fruit into a rare one by biting into it in 800 B.C. And he inadvertently saves a kid, who goes on to become a prolific doctor, by kicking a stone at a passerby. Yes, it’s the show’s version of the butterfly effect.
Celine
Bon is taken 350 years into the past to save a woman called Celine from being labeled as a witch and then being burned on a stake. But since Bon and Ream are shot with arrows by a poacher, Celine ends up taking care of them. Celine’s grandfather was an expert in making medicinal potions, and Celine uses his methods to help people. She is in love with Jean. All the animals in the forest where she lives love her. The aforementioned poacher hates animals, as well as Jean. And since he is unable to woo her, he spreads the rumor that Celine is a witch. Bon and Ream use their gadgets to project the nightmare of Celine being burned for being a “witch” into Jean’s mind. Jean, who is in Lyon, fears that Celine is going to be killed. So, he rushes back to her to marry her, thereby changing the trajectory of her life.
Chamuku
In A.D. 628, a kid called Chamuku is supposed to die in an avalanche in the Tian Shan Mountains. Chamuku defies his father and becomes an explorer to travel all over the world with the monk, Xuanzang Sanzang. Bon thinks that if they stop Sanzang from ever going on the voyage through the mountains, then Chamuku will never die. So, Bon goes up to Sanzang and urges him to cancel his trip. But Bon’s Forgetter erases the memory of Sanzang’s conversation with Bon, and he and his posse head to the Tian Shan mountains as per his original plan. When they eventually face the avalanche, Bon and Ream (dressed as a monkey and a pig, respectively, to keep themselves warm) use their devices to save Chamuku as well as Sanzang. The Forgetter malfunctions, and this incident becomes the basis of the story of Journey to the West.
Menesthes and Creusa
Due to a treaty between Minos, the king of Crete, and Athens, the latter is supposed to sacrifice a man and a woman to the minotaur that lives in the caves of Crete on an annual basis. So, Bon, Ream, and Buyoyon travel to 1500 B.C. to save Menesthes and Creusa from being killed. They use a hologram of a goddess to try and dissuade Minos from killing Menesthes and Creusa. When that doesn’t work, Bon and Ream swap places with Menesthes and Creusa so that the couple can escape undetected. Of course, that means Bon and Ream have to face the minotaur, which is basically an oversized bull. The ordeal is disastrous, and Bon and Ream actually end up being killed by the minotaur. However, Bon’s malfunctioning Time Boat somehow reverses time and allows Bon and Ream to escape unscathed. I love how the show is mostly kid-friendly and is suddenly punctuated by moments of horrifying gore. It’s perfect.
Ensign Sakuragi
For his class assignment, Bon has to interview Ms. Akiko Shikishima. But during the interview, Ream whisks Bon away to Okinawa in 1945 to save Ensign Sakuragi. This episode has an incredibly haunting moment where the Time Patrollers have to ignore the deaths of thousands of kamikaze pilots and focus only on Sakuragi. Thankfully, that’s balanced out by a heartwarming moment where Bon, Ream, and Buyoyon link the suicidal Sakuragi’s consciousness across space and time with the consciousness of Akiko. Back in the day, Sakuragi and Akiko used to be lovers, and, in the present day (which is actually the past), the memory of Akiko’s affection manages to calm the pilot down. He surrenders to the American army, which sends him back to his country, thereby allowing him to reunite with Akiko and live a happy and peaceful life.
Juramaia
Since Bon doesn’t have any summer stories to share with his friends, Ream takes him to the Late Jurassic period to see some dinosaurs. But it ends up being a mission to save the Juramaia, which is a creature that’s apparently pivotal to the evolution of mankind. A time poocher injures the Juramaia and nearly causes the extinction of humans. Thankfully, due to some timely intervention by Buyoyon, they manage to nab the poacher and save human civilization from crumbling by using a quick healing potion on the Juramaia.
James Wright
Serving as the prequel to the iconic gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Bon, Ream, and Buyoyon travel to 19th-century Tombstone, USA, to rescue James Wright. In order to blend with the White crowd of the Wild West, the Time Patrollers use some kind of camouflage machine that alters Bon and Ream’s looks. While Ream looks the part, Bon’s blonde hair and blue eyes turn him into a replica of James Wright. That’s why Wright’s enemies go after Bon, thereby forcing him to partake in a gunfight. Since it’s not a fair battle, Ream uses her devices to neutralize Wright’s enemies and saves Bon from dying brutally. Then, they hand over the felons to the real James Wright and prevent him from going down a path of brutal revenge.
Pheidippides
This one’s the most complicated and exhausting episode of T.P. Bon. For starters, Bon, Ream, and Buyoyon travel to 490 B.C. in Marathon, Greece, where the Greeks are battling the Persians, and save the messenger, Pheidippides, from dying due to exhaustion. That allows Pheidippides to deliver the message that the Spartan reinforcements won’t reach the Greeks on time. Then Bon and Ream have to save soldiers from the Greek as well as the Persian army during the battle. That means they have to slow down time, check if saving an individual won’t have any large-scale repercussions on the space-time continuum, and then use the quick-healing potion to save them. Once that’s done, Bon and Ream have to ensure that Pheidippides dies right after delivering the message that the Persians are heading towards Athens. However, since Pheidippides is unable to complete the journey, Bon takes on the identity of Eukles and runs all the way to Athens so that the Greeks are prepared to face the Persians. In doing so, Pheidippides is saved, the Greeks fight back valiantly against the Persians, and the name of Eukles is recorded in the history books as the man who inspired the Greeks during a time of crisis, which in turn leads to the conceptualization of the Olympics.
Did Bon Namihira become a Time Patrol agent?
In the final episode of T. P. Bon, Bon and Ream travel into the future (which is rare) to rescue a “Time Tripper” called Ambrose Bierce. Due to an anomaly, Bon, Ream, and Buyoyon land in a time period when Earth has become uninhabitable. The environment traps them in some kind of time loop, thereby preventing them from going back into the past (which is their present). When Bon, Ream, and Buyoyon have lost all hope, they find Ambrose, who is seemingly content about being ripped out of his timeline because he is getting to experience things that a writer like him can only imagine in fictional stories. Thankfully, their miseries are brought to an end by another Time Patroller, who informs them that humans have moved to other planets. But for some reason, people still keep getting transported to this barren, future-version of Earth. So, the Time Patrol has to keep track of these Time Trippers.
Upon Ambrose’s request, the Time Patrol agent takes him to the planet where humans have emigrated, and he returns Bon to his original timeline. Ream announces that she is leaving the Rescue Unit and transferring to the Anomaly Handling Unit. She tells Bon that he is going to be an official Time Patrol agent. And, on that abrupt note, Ream and Buyoyon just leave. It seems like the trip to the futuristic Earth has convinced Ream that she is limiting herself to the history of mankind on Earth when she could be dealing with time-space-related anomalies happening across the universe. Ream is experienced enough to be an integral part of that department. That said, Bon has a lot to learn, and he won’t grow if he continues to depend on Ream and Buyoyon. So, it’s a good thing that Ream has decided to part ways with Bon. Hopefully, this will teach Bon to be self-sufficient and capable enough to teach the next generation of Time Patrollers how to take care of time and space.
