Customer Reviews

Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040: Collection 1 - The Legend Reborn

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

 

 

As any good series nowadays, you start out with one of the main characters being introduced to the concept as a way to help the audience grasp what's going on. This series is no exception to that. It starts off following Linna around until she meets the Knight Sabers and becomes one of them. It is then that we realize how hard it is to be a Knight Saber and such.

It is several years after a massive earthquake, Boomers are created to help humans rebuild Tokyo. Eventually, the Boomers start going rogue and tearing things up, so the Knight Sabers have to step in and stop them and they do a better job than the AD Police, their rivals, do.

This anime is full of excellent battle scenes, very good animation, weird monsters (the rogue Boomers), and cool looking armor. This is a must have for anime collector. This particular collection is excellent because it's cheaper to buy all three volumes than it is to buy the boxset (in some places, like the Amazon marketplace) or the series seperately (which has six volumes) since one volume costs less than buying one volume and it has 9 episodes. ADV has has made a smart move by releasing the series like this and I applaud them.

I had seen the original bubblegum crisis years ago and loved it. Then I caught the first episode of the new series and it totally blew me away. The characters were more refined and instead of loosley connected stories, there was an ongoing story that continuosly evolved. There was a little more realism too with ammo running out and the fact that they did'nt have endless energy to defeat any odds. I do wish sylia would have fought more, but you understand why she doesn't. All in all a superbly done anime.

I originally viewed this anime as a result of a friend's high praise of it. Sure, young women in power suits fighting evil cyborg monsters wouldn't usually be my thing. I've seen and enjoyed sillier things, however, and I do not regret giving this one a chance. The animation is quite good, the character development is believeable and at times amusing, and the setting is JUST futuristic enough not to bore fans of the sci fi genre. I can't even complain about the voice actors in the dubbed version, which is one of my biggest problems with some otherwise decent anime.

I should also mention that the power suits the women use actually periodically experience reasonable tehcnical difficulties, and not just when it's convenient to enhance the plot, although it does. Too often, in "big robot anime", nothing goes wrong with these things, ever; and they are used in situations where something more conventional would perhaps work better. If you are fighting renegade robots however, ehnancing your own movements and armoring yourself in slight mimicry of them might not be such a bad idea.

But perhaps the biggest selling point about this dvd is the sheer amount of content you recieve. This DVD includes nine episodes, compared to the three to five you usually get.

If you've already seen the excellent OVAs and follow-up "Bubblegum Crash Series" & are expecting much of the same with Bubblegum Crisis 2040, then you are in for a big disappointment. With many changes from its 2 predecessors, BGC 2040 is an inferior re-make in every way. The wise and elder Sylia Stingray is now 24-years old with long hair. She is less prudent than her original counterpart, and suffers from vioelnt mood swings. Nene now dons short, blonde hair, and is mostly stuck at AD Police HQ where she still works. Linna has been relegated to a coffee-serving secretary office worker who has her hands full trying to ward off the unwelcome advances of her boss. Priss is essentially the only one unchanged from the original. She, along with Linna, are always out fighting GENOM and the Boomers. Nene usually gives them reconnaissance support from her station at AD Police. Sylia, for her part, directs the Sabers' actions from homebase. Also gone are the humorous banter and cameraderie that would always unite are beloved heroines in Battle. In its place are 4 individuals with streaks as dark as their cynicism for life, and who are more than interested in fighting for their own personal gains than a common goal.The animation is very lackluster. It may be cleaner than the original as 2040 supporters will claim, but is also less consistent. The world of BGC 2040 is a sterile one. There are hardly any movements other than those by the principal characters; they seem to makeup the entire populace of Tokyo 2040(where have all the crowds from the original BGC Crisis & BGC Crash gone?). Any other background movement consists mostly of the camera panning back and forth over still images. People and Boomers might seem detailed one moment, and cartoonish the next. In contrast, the original's animation was more lively with people and objects moving, lights flashing in the background. The original also had a better plot and great soundtrack, which were noticible missing from 2040. AnimEigo, the U.S. distributor of the original BGC and BG Crash, was actually given first crack at BGC 2040, but passed when they found it was below their standards. I find it very annoying that whenever AnimEigo releases a classic animated series, ADV follows up by acquiring then horrible re-makes. Such is the case with the wonderful "You're Under Arrest", resurrected as insipid, 5-minute "mini-specials" that ended up making ADVs catalog. ADV should stop relying on the past glory of products, and get back to the basics that made it a well-repsected importer of Anime during the early 1990s. That was a time when it introduced us to such memorable fare as "Devil Hunter Yokho", "Battle Angel", and the endearing "All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku"! Unless you are willing to slog through 11 boring hours of bland and uninspiring TV, I can't find any other good reason to recommend this watered-down dreck. 1 out of 5 stars.

This was decent anime. The music was somewhat cheesy and poor. Kudos on a cool villian, who somewhat redeemed the "mad boomers." The concept was cool, but I'm not a fan of the show over all.

Why is it so many sequels or remakes in this case seem to just go downhill. The original Bubblegum Crisis was by today's standards pretty good. When you consider this was released in the late 80s with traditional cell animation it was downright awesome. It had good animation and a really good soundtrack. The sequel Bubblegum Crash not as good as the original but acceptable. This new series BGC 2040 is just a disappointment. It looks like they gutted the budget for the screenwriters and figured nostalgia and repetitive computer animation would get them by. Judging by this first disc the character development is gone. In the original BGC there was character development, humor, and you got to see how they balanced their regular lives with their alter ego. It seemed like the character with the most development was Nene. She went from being totally frightened to really coming into her own in episode eight. Priss also went through a lot of character development. There is no way to relate to these new characters in 2040. Maybe they're just trying to go for the Riddick anti-hero here, or cyberpunk Beverly Hills 90210. Either way save your money and save the brain damage that would be required to watch this entire series.

There are people who don't like this show simply because it is not the original Bubblegum Crisis. They should call up the people who hate Battlestar Galactica because it isn't the original and have a party. As for me, I'll stay home and watch me some good sci-fi!

When it comes to cyberpunk, there are only a couple of classics that really nail what it's all about. In the west and the live action department, we have Blade Runner and the Matrix. In the East we Ghost in the Shell (the movie, and the excellent first season of the tv show in particular), and this awesome show that just screams classic in every way if you love sci-fi action with cyberpunk overtones. I started to watch the first Bubblegum Crisis and got bored. I started to watch this show and got hooked. It tells a story of a Tokyo of the future that's crawling with humanoid robots called Voomers (boomers?). Everything would be great except...every once in a while the robots go bezerk and try to kill people. And that's where the heroes come in.

The Knight Sabers are a group of girl vigilantes who destroy Voomers gone awry. In the first episode a country girl moves into town wanting to know about the Knight Sabers, manages to track them down, and joins up! And so she joins a techie nerd girl who works for the A.D. Police (police who take care of Voomer problems), a rather butch rock-singer biker chick named Priss, and their rich-girl employer in their night-time cyber-crime fighting. All that would make for a great show alone, but this show just exceeds expectations in every way.

Every character has a deep personality, a complex backstory, and great voice-acting (especially in the incredible English version which is easily up to par with Battle Athletes Victory and Princess Nine for top ranking in greatest dubs ever) to go along with some really snappy dialog. The first time through you'll enjoy the characters and the story (which is much deeper than you'd expect and has some great plot twists), but each time I watch this show I like it more. The relattionships between the characters, the great action sequences, the high-budget animation (easily OVA quality), and awesome music (yes, I do own the awesome soundtrack cd with all the Japanese songs and printed out the BIO for the singer), just get better and better with each viewing. And speaking of audio, if you really like this show, the defnitive version is the Essential Anime version, which features audio commentary with the voice actors and director (the best commentary in any anime I've ever heard), and a great 5.1 surround remix of the English audio. And at something like 9 episodes each, it's also a great value.

If this show has a flaw, it's the unevenness of the show. It starts out an edgy comedy-action/light-drama with light horror elements (the core of the Voomer that they have to destroy looks an awful lot like a heart, and the first time the protagonist Leena tries to fight in a simulator she's terrified) , turns into a pretty much straight-action show, and then becomes horror again (armies of Voomers that look like zombies assaulting a police station) with heavy-introspection (mind-linking with the mother of all Voomers who is hacking the Knight Saber's minds while they fight in the vaccuum of space). If you aren't ready for it it might be enough to derail it for you. If you can hang on for the wild ride you'll find one of the most deeply satifying of anime with strong female protagonists, great action, wonderful storytelling, fantastic Japanese Rock music, and top notch writing and direction (the anime was produced with cooperation between East and West).

This is one of the few shows where you'll watch one episode and end up watching the whole disc in one sitting (one episode flows directly into another like it's one long movie). One of the best anime every produced, and definitely one of Pioneer's best. If you loved Battle Athletes Victory, or especialy Generator Gawl, and enjoy cyberpunk, you owe it to yourself to watch this show. It's awesome.

I am a beginner when it comes to mecha ANIME, and like many men I was drawn in by the chicks in slim and streamlined powersuits. Looking online for picture galleries quickly informed me that there were several different models of the hardsuits. In other words, newcomers to the series may be confused with what they get.

This collection begins the series with 3 of the Knight Sabers intact and Linna (sp?) just starts her involvement with them. The action is fun to watch, but it makes you wonder why (and how) only Priss and Nene combated boomers. I also noticed Sylia stayed 90% out of combat (and her beautiful hardsuit) in this collection. She's my favorite character, and it annoyed me to see so little of her.

The collection is filled with songs by Priss's vocal actress; and despite the DVDs filled with more than the average number of episodes, I wanted more - especially after the last episode on the 2nd disc. Fortunately, Amazon has the other two volumes.

If you were looking to see all four Knight Sabers in their hardsuits, look to the Perfect Collection. Otherwise, the sexy femme's will increase their appearances at a gradual rate. Definitely worth the sale price, though - getting this from an overseas vendor cost me twice the price and 3 months in shipping. Amazon is the way to go.