Eat-Man: Eating Bizarre for Breakfast since (before) '98

Okay, Eat Man has one of the most ridiculous premises I've come across in manga/anime:  Man travels the world helping people, often by eating weapons piece by piece and producing them from his hand at just the right time to do damage.  I am not making this up.  So how come this show is so entertaining? 

It's certainly not the music, though there is something charming about the ending theme.  The animation quality varies.  I like most of the voice acting.  The plots are somewhat episodic and the characters not usually well-developed. Bolt Crank will really never be more than the strong, silent type. 

(Does anyone know if this was a shonen series?  It's different from the similar Immortal Rain, which has more of a shojo or modern cross-over shonen appeal . . .  But it also has the sort of character/world designs one tended to come across in titles for more mature audiences.)

I think what makes me watch is simple: there often comes a moment when someone is brandishing a deadly weapon in a menacing way, and Bolt just walks up and eats it.  You never know for sure when this is going to happen, but you want it to every time someone waves a gun or a knife at him.  I mean, the last thing a bully expects when he threatens someone with a weapon is for the guy to show absolutely no fear and instead to eat your weapon.  I mean, come ON.  It's so lame and hilarious that, when paired with the semi-serious sci-fi/fantasy drama world, I just can't help but like it.  And there's also a sort of fun tension that builds through the episode as he eats various nuts, bolts, bullets, etc.  Will he finish in time?   What will he produce this time?

And even though I know I'll never learn Bolt's backstory (even if I do learn Japanese), he's still a figure that makes me curious.  Ah, well.  Such is life.


Have you seen Eat-Man '98 or read the two or so volumes of the manga that came out years ago?  What are your thoughts?