SeattleOtaku: Review - Bubblegum Crisis

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Bubblegum Crisis

Knight Sabers, 2040

Priss, old and new

Vision, in concert

One part Charlie's Angels, one part Terminator, and one part Blade Runner, there have been two incarnations of the lovely-yet-deadly Knight Sabers: Bubblegum Crisis, an 8-episode OVA series (30-50 minutes each, and it's sequel set of three OVAs Bubblegum Crash) taking place in 2030's Neo-Tokyo, and Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, a retelling of the story in a 25-minutes-each TV series format. The original series also developed a pair of music video collections called "Hurricane Live!".

Story Intro

The nightly grind for our heroines-in-armour -- Sylia, Priss, Linna, and Nene -- includes chasing down rogue robots called "boomers" and hiding their identities from the AD Police (who now have their own anime spinoff series) and the press. One developing plot point, expecially in the second series, is the relationship between Sylia, her father (the creator of boomer technology), and her younger brother, Mackie. Another is the nature of the suits themselves, quite the "using fire to fight fire" approach.

Sylia leads the Kight Sabers from their base in a back room of her lingerie shop. Nene leads a multiple life -- AD Police dispatcher by day, Knight Saber by night, and computer hacker on her own time. Priss has her own double life of alternately spending her nights singing in a rock group and disabling rouge Boomers. Linna's the one that switches rolls in the two series -- in the first, we only saw her as a Knight Saber and training in the gym at times (or was she a personal trainer?), but in the new series, we delve into her office and home lives as well. Nigel (possibly a redesign of the original series' "Doc") and Mackie help repair their bikes and "hard suits".

Other Notes

Since the two series span two different decades, the biggest difference in the two series are the music (80's pop/rock in the original; 90's techno/rock in the new one) and the character design (Nene, for instance, changed from a bright-red "Farrah" hair style to a short-cropped blonde). I'd have to prefer the original, as a big fan of Sonoda Kenichi (the character designer for the original as well as Gunsmith Cats, Riding Bean, and work on other ARTMIC shows such as Gall Force).

This series, in both incarnations, is also an homage to a favorite SF film, Blade Runner. Check out the huge pyramid shapes of the Tyrell and Genom headquarters, the special police units dealing with replicants and boomers, and characters named Priss and Leon (even Priss's rock group, The Replicants, in the original OVAs).

Bubblegum Crisis (8-episode OVA)

Hurricane Live! (2-episode music-video OVA)

Bubblegum Crash (3-episode OVA)

Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (26-episode TV)

The spin-off series AD Police, focusing on the police department's own battles against the boomers without appearances by the Knight Sabers, similarly has both '80s (video) and '90s (television) versions:

AD Police (3-episode OVA)

AD Police (12-episode TV)

I have listings of the Bubblegum Crisis OVA Cast (Seiyuu) and TV Cast (Seiyuu) with both images from the programs and actor information.

A nice encyclopedia of information from the OVA series is available at http://www.ravensgarage.com/a2z/index.html.

Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 images Copyright (C) JVC/AIC
All rights reserved. Distributed by A.D. Vision Inc.

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