Customer Reviews

Bubblegum Crisis: Remastered Edition

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

Bubblegum Crisis: 7 out of 10: Hot chicks, giant robots, and evil corporations fill every frame of Bubblegum Crisis as does some surprisingly catchy Eighties tunes.


Bubblegum Crisis, like Akira or Macross, is one of those Anime that separate the thirty something Anime fan from this year's crop of snot nosed punk kids. When you think Japanese cartoons, do you think Pokémon or shower scenes. Do you think irritating children or kick ass adults. Do your favorite plots involve the little kids defeating the big evil corporation or adults facing economic hardship and self-sacrifice. Bubblegum crisis is an Anime for the thirty something.


As I settle into my damn kid's today voice and distaste for every exaggerated, rapid cut seizure inducing, saccharine piece of crap that passes for entertainment these days. (I am looking your way Cartoon Network). I can sit back and watch full-grown woman destroy some boomers (as well as half of Tokyo) and reminisce about my childhood when cartoon characters swore and a gratuitous nude scene followed every battle.


Is Bubblegum Crisis as good as I remember it? No. The episodes do not flow into each other well and vary in quality. Some of the dubbing is dubious and the live action music videos contained in the extras are simply painful (In a OMG what cheese kind of way).


Bubblegum Crisis allows me to both relieve my childhood and look down upon kids today. What more could I ask for my entertainment dollar.

I hadn't seen this series since it was originally released on VHS back in the early 1990s, but when I saw the DVD box set on special a few weeks ago I felt nostalgic enough to pick it up.

BGC is about a group of four power-armored mercenary women challenging an evil corporation in the Tokyo of two decades in our future. At the time of its original release, it was cutting edge anime that evolved into something pushing the limits of what could be done without the help of computers. Though its early episodes are rough by modern standards, as each one passes it gets better until the final four stand up quite well.

The story told has an unfinished quality that seems to wander at points, but this is because the series was part of the direct to video [OVA] movement and no one on the production team knew how many episodes they had to tell their story. The first three are self-contained and tell a story arc that sets the tone of the characters and introduces the world. After that, however, various directors take their turn at telling stories inside that world, taking it in slightly different directions.

They were really on to something in the unity being created by their diverse stories and it is a shame that this original group of creators were not allowed to go beyond the eight episodes in this package. The character, and particularly the mecha and power suit, designs are very well done. The stories effectively draw you into the character interactions, making it more than a mere high tech smash up. And the music was ground breaking for anime, as the show was specifically produced to be an animated rock show over top the action. A huge number of songs were written for it, many of them with vocals, and most of the latter are well worth a listen; good j-rock and j-pop tunes for the time.

In fact, the music was so popular that three separate music video collections were released parallel to the program. All of them are included in this box set, comprising nearly twenty performances. Most of the ones from the first two are animated sections from the series; however, one has some original animation made specifically for it that shows how Sylia rounded up the other ladies. There are also a few showing the original voice actors singing songs. Look up Bubblegum Crisis "Rock Me" on You Tube and it will give you a pretty good idea about what things are like.

If you are a BGC fan you have likely seen all of this before, as it was released in North America, but you have probably not seen the third one: Holiday in Bali. I remember friends of mine in the early Nineties, who were BGC fanatics, trying to do anything and willing to pay any price to get a laser disc copy of this, as it was not part of the original releases over here. None of them ever got one and, now having seen it, I don't think that they missed much. It is an amateur quality puff piece following the voice actors around Bali. They call each other by their character names and each has a little adventure where they sing a song from the series. The one who comes across well is Akiko Hiramatsu, Nene's actor, who also provides the most entertaining moments when she goes para-sailing and when an entire barbecue pig is plunked down in front of her.

The other extras are fairly standard. These are the obligatory artwork, background information, and interviews. However, the latter are merely text on the screen and most of it is not particularly enlightening unless you are new to the program and its history.

At this point, BGC is a classic anime that changed how people viewed the medium and influenced the direction of many programs that came after it. A feast of advanced technology with a Blade Runner sensibility, you should enjoy this series quite a bit, as long as you are willing to view it in the context of the place and time of its creation.

Very classic. The setting is MegoTokyo, in 2032, which is recovering from a earthquake. Within the ashes fight two sides - GENOM corporation and its androids, Boomers, against the Knight Sabers, a small band of high-tech warriors (who fight for a price). Battles, rock-n-roll and diet issues.
Tons of music videos, text interviews, programs notes, art calleries and promos.
You can follow the changes in artwork, the evolution of characters and production methods from episode one to episode eight. Many of the staff who worked on it, like Sonoda Kenichi, Hayashi Hiroki and Gooda Hiroaki went on to become big names after this series. Their art skills and ideas about anime developed during these episodes.

Ah, the original series and not that horrid Tokyo 2040 remake. This is the second part in the Mega Tokyo Trilogy (AD Police Files, Bubblgum Crisis, Bubblgum Crash) and still one my all time favorites. For those of you who are familiar with Cyberpunk and the political, economic and social issues in the 1980s, this is a must buy. This was written envisioning a dark future where corporations rule the world and people's lives are worth very little. There is also a lot of interesting questions posed as we meet boomers who have AI that is the same as humans (such as the Sexaroids) but are banned on Earth. There are plenty of memorable characters and music (the vocal soundtrack is 3 CDs). Overall, if you like Cyberpunk and are intelligent, then this series is for you.

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.

BGC 2030 is the story of the Knight Sabers, four women who don powered armor to fight rogue boomers (robots/cyborgs) in MegaTokyo. This collection has the 8 OVA's animation, the Hurricane Live music videos, and the Holiday in Bali video showing the characters' voice actresses. The stories start off slow but get faster paced towards the end of each episode, the music is really good (Priss' voice actress sings many of the opening and ending songs-what an idea! This prompted me to buy the vocal collection cd to listen in my car even though I don't speak Japanese. There are a lot of good rock songs, ballads), and the characters (Sylia, Priss, Linna, Nene and various supporting ones) are all well portrayed. Recommend that you listen to the Japanese dialog. Gripes I have are the plot holes that are evident after repeated viewings and teh lack of more after episode 8. All in all a solid purchase, the 2030 OVA is way better than the newer BGC 2040 TV series.

In my personal opinion this is the best anime ever! The music featured in the series is amazing and the English versions of the songs are equally perfect. If I rember corectly this wonderful series was created as an OVA in the late 1980's. Never concluded Bubblegum Crisis Crash was created in the early 1990's to conclude the series.

This work of art, im my opinion, is the story of the Knightsabers - without going into detail they are a group of women with extreamly powerfull hardsuits (advanced battle suits) that they use to combat boomers.

I am a huge fan of Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, released in the 2000's, however I believe I like the originol Bubblegum Crisis the best.

I believe that any fan of Classic Anime and Science Fiction anime will enoy this series.

Let me just say, I've been dying to get my hands on this series without breaking my wallet. I'm happy to say that everything went quite smoothly with my expectations. I'm a huge fan of 80's style anime, like Dirty Pair and Robotech. It just has that look that anime now a days just can't replicate. First of all, most if not all of the series was made by hand and not computer help. It just shows a lot of blood and effort on that part alone. They also took great care in making each episode on movie standards, all quite polished thanks to the remastering. I would highly recommend putting the settings of audio to Japanese and subtitled, since the english is a bit crappy, America back then was just getting into anime and unfortunately not every voice actor was good at expressing emotions or tone for that matter. Other then that, this series is an absolute gem.