[Categories: OAVs, Movies and Full Series]
Bubblegum Crisis OAV
Being a newish fan to anime I like to hear from the long-standing hardcore fans who can remember when fansubs were on VHS and the genre was even more of a niche and misunderstood interest than it is now; I suppose it’s partly because I like to remind myself that we as fans don’t have it so bad these days. Another reason why I enjoy conversations such as these is that they also make me aware of old fan favourites that have been forgotten by, or haven’t been brought to the attention of, the ‘new generation’ of fans. The original OAV series of Bubblegum Crisis is case in point.
A shiny mecha on the warpath, yesterday
Because I enjoyed the Tokyo 2040 remake, I wasn’t sure how the older version would measure up. Time and technical advances aren’t always kind to a show (take the Appleseed OAV for instance) so I was a bit worried when the first four or five episodes of this particular series came across as a bit dated. Unlike the remake, which has an over-arcing storyline, the OAV opts for a more episodic structure, with ‘monsters of the week’ for our female vigilantes to deal with in self-contained instalments. It is not until later in the series that a bigger picture emerges, at which point the series is cut somewhat disappointingly short.
Dig Sonoda’s character designs
Its age actually works in favour of Bubblegum Crisis at times, especially (but not exclusively) in the eyes of the more nostalgic among us. The character designs (courtesy of the legendary Kenichi Sonoda, whose talent was hot property at the time), the cyberpunk atmosphere and destinct lack of emotional angst that permeates so much of the post-Evangelion anime industry’s output are old-school through and through; there are also nods to other iconic bits of pop culture of the day, such as names of characters from the Hollywood movie Top Gun that appear on a display screen at the beginning of one of the episodes. The influence of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (a personal fave of mine too) is especially obvious: the futuristic setting, themes concerning the place of artificial life forms in human society (the android-like creatures are known as ‘boomers’ in BGC’s case) and even certain characters’ names all borrow heavily from that seminal cyberpunk movie.
In some ways, Bubblegum Crisis is actually cutting-edge. It hit Japanese screens around the time when Masamune Shirow and Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga creations were being given the animated treatment, during a fashion for animated sci-fi that accompanied the 80s boom of urbanisation and whatnot. Girls with guns and robots running amok in a high-rise, gritty vision of a future metropolis were in fashion and truth be told they enthrall us even now, even though the ideas has been done to death in the intervening years. It also makes use of an almost completely female central cast, with only a couple of male characters of any importance: tough-guy cop Leon’s advances on Priss are given the brush-off repeatedly and his sidekick Daley is as camp as they come (I’m still convinced he’s gay). The heroes of the piece, the Knight Sabers, are an all-girls organisation who buck the trend of manly heroes and the Huerrgh Factor: in that sense, this could possibly be viewed as a pro-feminist show.
The token panoramic cityscape shot
Of course, Bubblegum Crisis isn’t meant to be viewed as social commentary: it’s principally about cute gals kicking the crap out of boomers and looking cool while they’re at it, along with the personal strife that accompanies their efforts. After the shaky and formulaic opening episodes the animation quality improves, we get to know the main players a bit better and character development becomes more important. Priss gets the majority of this at first, but Nene also has an episode or two in the spotlight; had the series run longer I suspect we’d have seen more into Sylia’s and Linna’s minds too (plus finding out if what, if any, there was in the way of romantic stuff between Nene and Mackie).
This brings me to the only real criticism of the series, which isn’t really its own fault. The cold hard truth is, as much as corporate disputes were responsible, it’s an unfinished story. The episodic nature actually works in its favour here since there are not a great deal of loose ends left dangling but after watching the final episode there’s a feeling of much going unsaid and there are a few hints and subplots referenced earlier on that weren’t followed up.
Hard suit action FTW
Despite this, the series stands up well against similar fare on offer around the same time and since. The characters are engaging, the old theme of cute girls with guns kicking shiny metal ass never gets old and it’s pretty well written too; no review of the series can go without mentioning the soundtrack of course. The standard by which anime OSTs were measured for years afterwards, it’s a fantastic celebration of 80 synth-driven Jpop: it owes as much to the likes of Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and more upbeat pop idoru offerings of the day as the visuals do to Blade Runner and Hollywood. Even more amazingly it’s more than a few slabs of 80s cheese repeated ad nauseam - every episode has a different opening and end theme, plus some of the vocal tracks that provide the background music. Even if you’re not a fan of the material of that era per se, you can’t help but be impressed with the standard and variety of the songs used here.
In Summary
The themes and ideas that make up the concept of Bubblegum Crisis may be old hat now but after a faltering start it becomes an outstanding, if somewhat unfinished, piece of cyberpunk that still deserves to be revisited and enjoyed for its own approach to gritty, futuristic science fiction. The cast are colourful and the music is superb; it’s retained some of its entertainment value over the years but has, as if in compensation, acquired a delightful retro charm along the way.
Posted on October 1st, 2007 @ 11:36 pm
It sounds like you’re going down the list of backlogged anime I have sitting on my shelf with this old school thing you got going on. First Riding Bean and now Bubblegum Crisis. Your review makes me glad that I bought it. The unfinished aspect doesn’t sound so appealing, but hey, it happens. Sometimes an anime can still find a way to be enjoyable despite such shortcomings, and this sounds like one of them.
VHS fansubs? Oh boy. I happen to come from those days. The bulk of my VHS fansub collection contains the entire DragonBall and DragonBall Z series. I have a few other series as well, but DB is what got me into the game. They come from all different sources, some better than others. The picture quality was horrible for most of them as they were copied over and over and over again, but they sure were memorable. From the totally stupid translations from some groups (AnimeLabs comes to mind) with insane amounts of cursing, to the Japanese commercials you’d see sometimes that were left on the tapes. DragonBall eye drops anyone? How about a DragonBall desk? *laughs* It was also cool to see advertisements for some of the movies that were coming out at the time.
The VHS fansubs days weren’t so bad. They were pretty easy to obtain, though you did have to pay for them (usually around 4-7 dollars a tape, with 3-4 episodes on each tape). But the anime scene is definitely about 200% better now than it was then.
Posted on October 4th, 2007 @ 1:32 am
@KT: Yeah, the ending is a bit sudden but it doesn’t happen mid-arc or anything since the arcs are mostly contained in each episode. It’s a shame the series didn’t continue but it’s not as disasterous as it sounds either. I’ll probably be digging out some more old classics in the coming weeks - I really need to re-write my Gunbuster review since it was written so long ago it’s embarrasing.
We also need some old timers in the blogosphere to do an article or two on anime fandom in the ‘pre-broadband-internet’ days - things have changed a lot in the past few years but not many people can recall how things were now.
Posted on October 4th, 2007 @ 7:42 am
You know, I might have to make a post like that. Though I’m not sure sure what context to place it in. Perhaps I could just reminisce about old times through writing and see what comes out. In any case, thanks for the idea.
Posted on March 13th, 2008 @ 12:15 am
The first anime I ever saw and still the best…
Unlike Gundam 0079 that was released a few years before, thanks to such a gritty and indeed gruesome harshness of a cuture on the brink of collapse, Bubblegum crisis has still enthralled many viewers of younger generations. It is such a terrible waste that Artemic and Youmex couldnt resolve there differences to continue to the projected 13 episodes.