Customer Reviews

A.D. Police - To Protect and Serve (Complete Series)

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

 

 

AD (Advanced) Police started out as a take-off from Bubblegum Crisis, the 1990 story of a private squad whose purpose was to stop the spread of evil robots engineered by Genom Tech. Somewhat darker than it's inspiration, the original AD Police only lasted three episodes and then disappeared. But, when Bubblegum Crisis 2040 appeared in 1999, Director Hidehito Ueda retried the spin off idea with this 12-part TV series.

The new series has much less depth than its ancestor, and focuses primarily on the 'buddy' relationship between Kenji Sasaki and his new partner Hans Klief. Set in Genom City (a Tokyo revival) the AD team is dedicated to fighting rogue robots. Genom Corporation plays an anomalous role, sometimes villain and sometimes support. One of the grey areas of the story is whether all the mad robots are accidents or intentional. The underlying technical story arc is the creation of engineered cyber-humanoids and the inevitable question of where humanity starts and ends.

Essentially the series is a shoot out between the AD Police and escalating levels of robots. The phrase I used as the title is a regular refrain on the show, because the team does not fare very well. Liam Fletcher, who is a ringleader behind a long string of robot-nappings, generally runs rings around the police, causing a lot of blood and gear popping. Hans and Kenji are the cowboy heroes, breaking all the rules and occasionally actually saving the day. This isn't a comedy, though, and the two stars have serious troubles of their own.

If you are a logician you are going to find a couple things that don't make sense, but I wouldn't worry about it, the point of the series is a lot of action, and a bit of dialog, not an intellectual exercise. What is odd is that, while done in 1999 the art and animation is very retro - straight out of 1990. This didn't bother me, but I think a snappier production might have earned this series a longer run. But we're just viewers, ours not to reason why. The series is quite watchable, but is just a little too formulaic for my tastes.

I know for fact this anime was overrated for climatic ending which grasped every viewer in a dramatic fashion.. but take out the ending, this is average at BEST anime series.

Story is too un-original, typical men VS out of control robots in futuristic era, BubbleGum Crisis Spin Off (and no, THIS IS NOT prequel, it's a freeking spin-off!). At least you'd expect good quality artwork and music?? NOPE! Art is mediocre at best (to save budget) while music gets soooo tidious, especially when that girl plays same o'same depressing violin music over and over and over and over.. AHHH!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!. BUT AT LEAST, AT LEAST make the fighting scenes more exciting?? Make it into some action packed adrenaline pumping anime like "Spriggan"??? HELLLLL-NO! Fighting scenes are probably the WORST features of this anime series. You have this supposedly HIGHLY DANGEROUS BOOMERS (Voomers (VOodoo Organic Metal Extension Resource) produced by Genom City, but when it turns into a violent out control freak, they called it a B-oomers - GEE-Whiz, how creative!), that needs highly trained AD Police squad to contain them, you'd expect these so-called, "BOOMERS" to be some tough cookies eh? Eh.. no.. if you call one bullet pop and explode type a tough challenge to this highly trained AD Police squad, be VERY dissapointed. Makes you wonder why do they even need these highly trained "AD POLICE"??

I don't know how I got through the first disk (1-6 episodes). It was one of those rare anime series that I didn't even bother to pause if I had to get something or do something.. but after 6th episode, AD Police and its characters kinda grows on you and the story&drama kicks into another notch/gear.

You have this gung-ho, heart of ice as a hero named Kenji Sasaki, who is a total A-hole (one of the few main characters you'll REALLY hate in first couple episodes), keeps losing his partners because he acts alone in scene of action... until he meets the mysterious Hans Kleif, guy with little or no memory of himself. They make a very odd-couple, but after sixth episode, they form sort of an odd friendship which Hans brings out the kindness and care from Kenji that no one knew he had (along with few humorous scenes here and there), to which it makes the climatic ending more dramatic and heartfelt..

Overall, you get what you pay for.. five full hours of, "Great series! Was sad to see it end!"

"Well Done!"

"Great!"

...then you start to wonder.. what the HECK were they watching???

This series is pretty good. The animation isn't quite as nice as Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, but it's better than the origional Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash. For ten bucks less than the Special Edition of Jin-Roh or Akira you can get 5 hours of really good anime. There's twelve episodes on two dvd's. The second disc has a the normal "extra" features which include clean opening and closing animations, sketches, and art. You can choose from English, English with song subtitles, and Japanese with subtitles.

AD Police plays more like a cop drama than a mecha anime.
If you're into getting as much anime as you can for your dollar you should really pick this one up. Blue Seed would be another good series for a great price.

Rented this one as the freebie in "rent 1, get one free" & found it better than Wrath of the Ninja(the paid rental). I rented a Bubblegum Crisis tape & couldn't get it out of the machine quickly enough, so I was pleased this one was so interesting. It's not groundbreaking or anything, but nice, entertaining fare, keeps the interest up, although one figures out the "secret" pretty much as the show starts revealing it exists. The lead characters were interesting & seemed realistic enough--not just something to show off the artist's latest scantily-clad fantasy in action. Kenji starts off more of a jerk than Dark Schneider's alleged to be by his show's title, but warms up realistically--not overnight or miraculously the day he meets his new partner. Hans is tragic & interesting, although maybe a bit dense--the average viewer should figure out his secret before he does(Kenji does). Worth the time

I consider myself a very generous rater as I can usually find something entertaining about virtually every movie or series I watch, but "A.D. Police" is simply terrible without any redeeming qualities.

Whatever potential "A.D. Police" might have had is buried under a mountain of weak art, poor animation, hackneyed dialogue, and terrible to the point of being nonsensical episodes, the likes of which you might expect from the worst of what was produced in the '70s or early '80s, but this came out in 1999: Nine years after "A.D. Police Files" (of which it is a spin-off of), and a full decade after "Bubblegum Crisis" (which "A.D. Police Files" is a prequel to).

A typical episode has roughly five minutes or less of either a single "tentacled" robot (called "boomers") gone wild or a dozen machine-gun toting boomers shooting hundreds of rounds but never hitting anything which the two main A.D. Police take out with a single shot, and as bad as that sounds, it's almost preferable to the failed attempts at character and plot development that fill up the rest of each episode.

If you have the misfortune of having purchased "A.D. Police", save yourself the torture of watching it all the way through and skip to episode nine as virtually the entire story is told in the last third of the series and the attempts at character and plot building in the first two thirds are not essential viewing. Also, in case you were wondering, you might as well watch it dubbed because the Japanese voice acting is no better than the substandard English dub, and reading the English subtitles only emphasizes just how bad the dialogue really is.

Extras include textless opening and ending videos, production sketches and artwork, trailers, and production notes which are actually worth reading before you watch the series (except for a single spoiler which you are warned about before it's shown to you) as they provide some clarity about the setting.

AD Police Files: To Protect and Serve (1999): 4/10: After greatly enjoying AD Police Files (1990) I was looking forward to this updated series. What a disappointing mess.


The first disk is a repetitive find malfunctioning robot (In the series they are called Voomers but trust me they are simply robots), Shoot said robot (one bullet usually does the trick) Find new malfunctioning robot. (This town doesn't need the AD Police it needs the consumer protection agency)


Actual plot doesn't rear its head for half a dozen episodes and when it does it's a sleeper. The villain is right out of Batman complete with silly explosives designed to look like toys and a big secret. There is a double-crossing love interest with a big secret. There is a guy who endlessly shows pictures of his kids and how he is going to retire soon (No secret what happens to him.) There is a big company that owns everything. (Gee you think they have a big secret.)


You can see the secrets a mile away and the entire plot reminds me of the background story on a third rate Playstation game. (Think Twisted Metal not Final Fantasy) The show also demonstrates some of the sloppiest police work around. (If your going to arrest a subject under surveillance shouldn't you cut off the exits first?) Also the characters seem to drink at Leaving Las Vegas levels (one entire episode takes place entirely at the bar.)


The voice work on the dub is surprisingly good but the animation is the last straw. Done in that Ken Burns style (pan the photo as substitution for action) it is cheap and like the show itself repetitive.


I'll admit I watched all twelve episodes as they are short and I really hoped for a good payoff at some point. I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone else take the same plunge.

The only reason I give this two stars is because the animation is decent. I guess given the choice, I'd give it 1 1/2 stars.

I owned this series once upon a time when there was no such thing as DVDs. Like most, I went for it because it was set in the world of Bubblegum Crisis, Crash, etc. One of the Bubblegum characters even was a member of the A.D. Police, though it was made very clear that none of the Bubblegum characters would be in this sub-series.

So, I owned this series, and traded it in for credit at a used video store within a day of viewing it, accompanied by an even more die-hard fan of Bubblegum and anime in general. There was mass agreement that nothing in this series added to the Bubblegum universe and it seemed to just be an opportunity for some pretty disgusting animation and confusing stories.

Seriously, when a character is reduced to a tongue supported by a bunch of technology (yes, a TONGUE), you've gone too far into some improbable and twisted alternate reality. The tongue was actually not the most disturbing thing, which is truly frightening. Fortunately, my brain has blocked most of the other sicko concepts, but I can't shake the damned tongue image.

You don't want that image for the rest of your life. I've carried it around for at least 13 years, and it shows no sign of fading.

A.D. Police files 1-3 (1990): 8/10: Despite a third episode that is almost a scene remake of Robocop this is one of the sharpest anime's around. Sexist and racist in that unconscious Japanese way with over the top violence and just a dash of nudity A.D. Police doesn't fail to entertain. The first two tales are gripping and inventive if a little hard to follow (Character development is minimalist at best) with great moral arks about the downfall of artifical people. The third episode is a letdown and quite skippable. Tons of action keeps AD Police moving even when the story seems to stall.

13 up: violence, grotesque imagery, alochol and tobacco use

A.D. Police is an episodic near-future police story. In fact some of the episodes seem like a cross between Terminator, N.Y.P.D. Blue and Alley McBeal. This is not a bad thing though inasmuch as the development of the male/female characters (good and bad) is relatively quick, and the plot compounds concurrently.

Just imagine the bad guy as a manipulated tentacled robotic killer, very very smart, with one weak spot, and the good guy as a potential victim with a big gun and a good aim, and a license to use both...then mutiply. There is sufficient action and plotline-twists to hold your attention and make the storyline challenging, entertaining and eventually cohesive. This action also puts you on notice early-on in the series, that main characters can die and that the bad guys may be smarter than the good guys..."tomorrow is the weekend"...

After all the explosions and gunplay, the scenes always return to headquarters with the team going thru debriefing, revelation and reassignment. In fact, the most amusing character revelations come in an episode that resembles CHEERS and has no relevant "action" at all. This DVD is an understated bargain. It is good entertainment in an American-evening-TV-police/detective-series format. I liked it..."tomorrow is the weekend"...

One other thing is the mesmerizing..."tomorrow is the weekend"...title song which alternates from English vocals with Japanese subtitles to Japanese vocals with English subtitles every episode..."tomorrow is the weekend"... It just stays with you.....like a...like a..sharp knife stabBING AT THE BACK OF YOUR BRAIN...INCREASING IN VOLUME AND INTENSITY...REPEATING ITSELF OVER AND OVER AND......"tomorrow is the weekend"...

I initially picked up A.D. Police, because I was bored, and wanted an anime series that was reasonablly priced. I was'nt sure what to expect. After the second episode, however, I was hooked.

A.D. Police has a drawing quality, which makes you want to see it through to the end. The two main characters, Kenji, and Klaif, have their share of differneces, which effects their role as partners. Kenji is a loaner cold as ice type of guy. WHile Klaif is a freindly type, who cna't remember his past.

THe sereis takes some interesting twists and turns, as the two partners hunt Voomers (rouge robots) in the city of Genom. THe setting is the near future, so don't expect a futuristic mech type anime. The series works well as is though.

While the ending may not be a total surprise, you'll still want to see how everything turns out for the characters.

A.D. Police is also a good value for a five hour anime. If you're looking for a short, but good anime series at a resonable price, give A.D. Police a try. You won't be disappointed.