Excellent show If I had to say anything negative about this series. Then it would have to be these things. It was too short, it should have been thin packed cases, and the name is just gay. I know lots of people who refuse to give this anime 5 seconds of their time because of the name alone.
Putting those minor gripes to the side. This is my favorite sci-fi anime. All of the main characters are likeable. The episodes are packed with action, comedy, and excellent written stories. Its only 8 episodes on 4 disk but the episodes are long. They combine to at least 109 minutes. So much happened in these episodes, I really feel good about my purchase.
The animation is that late 80's style, but its still excellent and doesn't seem dated to me at all. The character designs for the Knight Sabers and several Boomers are awesome to say the least. The soundtrack is great as well. To include the extras contain the soundtracks with the video.
I could talk all night about this collection and say only good things about it. But that would result in spoilers. Bottomline; Dont look at the cover and name, then blow this off. This anime here puts alot of titles of yesterday and today to shame. I really did enjoy this and I recommend this to any anime fan.
This anime isn't for kids due to some profanity and violent scenes.
Classic anime! The Bubblegum Crisis anime is a classic OVA series and needs to be a part of any fan of either cyberpunk or Japanese animation. Despite the animation for the first three episodes dating from the late 1980s the storylines remain interesting and eminently watchable. A great anime series for your friends to watch if they are over 16 and have never watched anime before or think it is just what is found on Cartoon Network.
Good stuff In a "Blade Runner" like future, four vigilante women - the Knight Sabers - assist the AD Police in fighting boomers, living machines not unlike the Replicants from "Blade Runner". The Knight Saber ring leader is Sylia Stingray, a rich, mysterious brunette who is the daughter of the man who created the boomers and whom might actually be a boomer herself. The others include rebellious biker girl Priss Asagiri, aerobics instructor Linna Yamazki and ADP computer hacker Nene. Other characters include ADP man Leon McNichol, a Brad Pitt like pretty boy with high ideals and a jerky attitude as well as a thing for Priss and with Leon is his hilarious partner Daley Wong. Oh and Sylia has a pervert whiz kid for a brother by name of Mackey. The villains include Quincy, chairman of GENOM, the company that produces the boomers, his right hand man Brian J. Mason (killed off too soon) and an obnoxious boomer man named Largo.
A good series overall, but being dated is the least of its problems. Originally slated for 13 episodes, it was cut short at episode 8, leaving many series plot threads unresolved. A sequel series, Bubblegum Crash, was concocted to solve this problem but it didn't help. Also the characters are never as well developed as you would like them to be. The most interesting character, the Knight Saber ringleader Sylia, is never completely explored. Linna had potential, but her subplot involving a friend who was apart of a mafia family was never resolved and most of the time Linna was just ignored. Nene was cute and funny but only had one episode to call her own, the last one. Sadly, most of the series attention was centered on Priss, who somehow became the most popular character of the series, so much in fact that although she was originally suppose to die, a fan backlash saved her; I think this was due partly to the fact that she was voiced by a then popular Japanese singer. But Priss herself was not that interesting of a character: all her episodes basically revolve around her seeking revenge for a minor character friend that we the audience sometimes didn't even get to know in depth. Priss became repetitive and dull after a certain point. I could never quite figure out what Leon saw in her.
But the series itself is not inherently bad. Animation is still pretty good in most of the eps (excluding the first one, which is a bit herky jerky, and the last one, in which the characters are drawn much too thinly), was generally good natured, good humored, and it had an interesting theme on humanity VS technology.
Remade for TV as "Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040" in 1999. Hate to say it, but 2040 was superior in many ways, though not completely perfect in and of itself.
Bubblegum Crisis, an Original Classic The Bubblegum Crisis franchise in one of the strongest anime franchises out, with numerous spin-offs and a release of a new Bubblegum Crisis series, and there's no wondering why in my book. The characters, for there time, were original, the story was well-done and plotted excellently, the world in which the series was based was thoroughly thought out, and the music, though dated, works well with the anime.
In 2032-33, we get to meet the original four girls: Sylvia, Lena, Nene, and the ever popular Priss, as they battle Genom made Boomers from episode to episode in order to protect MegaTokyo. The first three episodes deals with the Knight Sabers battle with Brian Mason, the evil leader of Genom bent on destroying these four girls at all costs. The next episode gets away from the Genom story as the girls must fight a car infected with the Boomer virus, which is determined to destroy the Outriders, a biker gang. When Priss becomes a target, the Knight Sabers are forced to act. The fifth and six episodes gets back to the battle with Genom, and the Knight Sabers find themselves fighting some powerful new enemies: themselves, and the mysterious Largo. This is essentially the end of the series, yet two more movies follow that are almost entirely unrelated to the first six. In Double Vision, they must figure out a series of terrorist attacks against Boomer engineers. These attacks somehow involve Vision, an American singer. In Scoop Chase (my personal favorite) we follow Nene in her job as an AD Police officer while she watches over Lisa, a young girl who seems to idolize the Knight Sabers. That's when a new group of Boomers attack the AD Police headquarters and the Knight Sabers must act in order to save allies and friends from the ongoing Boomer threat.
What's great about this series is that it's actually a huge collection of short films. None of these episodes are less than a half-hour, and some are near to an hour or more. It makes it much more watchable, in the end, since there is never a "to be continued." You see one conflict resolve itself before moving onto the next, without ever truly escaping the core storyline.
This is a classic anime series that should be picked up by any person who truly wants to call themselves a hardcore fan. This is one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre and without this series, great anime like Akira may have never been. I recommend this to everyone.
Original anime classic First, my review, then some corrections.
Short version, this is an exceptionally good (groundbreaking at the time) original series, paying homage to Blade Runner and cyberpunk as well as demonstrating the influence that a great soundtrack can have. Presented against more recent anime, it shows its age, but I still rate it a buy.
Corrections to other reviews: First off, Bubblegum Crisis was the first series to appear. Bubblegum Crash is a sequel attempted by a different production team, and it shows. There are jarring differences in some characters and the Crash plotline is confusing and weird. The AD Police series is also a spinoff, taking place before BGC and it has nothing to do with the Knight Sabers; it's quite dark and more adult in nature. The relationship to the original BGC and the 2040 is tenuous at best, limited mainly to character names and plot basics. 2040 is hardly a remake.
The series was originally slated to run to 12 episodes, and some plot elements were affected by popular responses to the series, but it was cancelled at eight episodes due (I believe) to cost of production, so yes, some plot elements were left unfinished. It's disappointing, but I think it's better in some ways than an unsatisfactorily rushed or poorly wrapped up ending. Nonetheless, the series stands as my favorite anime of all time and is highly recommended.
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