Bubblegum Crisis

Given that this is Bubblegum Crisis\' 20th anniversary year, I\'m going to start with some historic background. In 1987, amid the boomtimes in the west, the rise of Japanese industrial and corporate power appeared to be potentially endless and the west seemed unable to match it. Japan, and much of the first world was getting rich quick and advancing technologically in leaps and bounds; but at the same time, other countries were still stuck in a past age, unable to keep up. For the first time socioeconomic concepts like the multinational corporation and the global market became realities, and the division between ... the first and third world had never seemed wider. While some revelled in the abundance, others feared it.

Science fiction, ever the barometer of public fear, reflected this in books and film. Alien, in 1979, brought the world a vision of space travel in the future that for once was filthy and corrupt and run by giant corporations with no morals. The seminal Blade Runner stunned 1982 with the visually amazing concept of a huge, grimy neon tech-sprawl future LA of totally mixed ethnicity and robots that behave more like humans than humans do. And William Gibson’s famed 1984 novel Neuromancer gave the world a fevered, lavish nightmare of clashing technology and humanity embroiled in a tale of global tech businesses up to no good, in the process giving this burgeoning genre a name: cyberpunk.

Where one media succeeds, others will follow. Cyberpunk anime was as inevitable then as live action western versions of anime have become now. Bubblegum Crisis was the leading edge of that cyberpunk anime, taking the elements that worked for the rest and expertly marrying it with many of the elements that make anime unique. Today, Bubblegum Crisis is one of those \'classic\' titles that anime fans need to know about, a Terminator or Star Wars of the anime canon. Even though its popularity in Japan was only a fraction of the reception it enjoyed overseas, it’s my contention that without Bubblegum Crisis there’d have been no Akira film.

But is it any good? On one hand, detractors can say that this is a messy blending of many things that have already been done; a Blade Runner city with a flavour of Neuromancer-come-Alien-come-Aliens dystopian griminess and high-tech evil and full of Terminators and Robocops, filtered through that anime staple, mecha. This is largely true, but doesn’t matter. Outside anime, nothing so ambitious could ever work; but within the totally created universe that’s only possible in animation or CGI, and only really practical in animation, it not only works but excels.

Originally planned as a series of 13 OVA episodes, it eventually ran to only 8 episodes, and some key plot points were altered because of this. Another 3 episodes were released later in an OVA series called Bubblegum Crash, using elements of the 5 unmade episodes that never made it originally. Each is largely self contained, but both multi-episode arcs of storyline and a loose overall plotline are also present. Being an OVA, the time period and hence staff is not as fixed as can be seen with a TV series, the net effect of which being that pretty much every episode is different from each of the others, with different emphases and different priorities. On top of this, half way through, some key decisions were reversed about the planned death in episode 5 of a character who, in hindsight, clearly stands out as the main protagonist. Plus, the eventual premature demise of the series stemmed from the two owners of the franchise, Artmic and Youmex, taking each other to court. DVD releases nowadays seem so snarled in legalities that the horrendous dubtitling is almost forgivable. So, it’s a total mess, basically.

But like I say, this doesn’t really matter. What Bubblegum Crisis does so well, well enough that it relegates these things to positions of secondary importance, is cool. BGC may not have a very sure idea of what it wants to be and do, in a general sense, but it does it with irrepressable style; everything about BGC is very cool. Kenichi Sonoda, who went on to be the man behind Gunsmith Cats, designed the characters impeccably, including their incredible sleek hardsuit armour, which look like what Lamborghinis and Ferraris would look like if they were shaped like women. Various other mechanical designs, by Aramaki Shinji, later to be mechanical designer for Evangelion and director of Appleseed 2004, largely borrows from much of early \'80s sci-fi, and frankly looks fantastic. There’s a very brash, colourful, in-your-face ‘80s vibe also driving the general design ethos, which might sound ghastly but is in fact perfect for crumbling, self-digesting neon dystopias. Much of the visuals are, as mentioned, lifted from Blade Runner and run through a series of anime design quirks. Animation is by no means stunning generally, but gets the job done, and when you factor in the fact that this is from 1987, it really has some very nice touches.

No review of Bubblegum Crisis is remotely complete without mention of the music. BGC is famous for its music almost as much as it is famous for popularising women kicking arse. Synth-rock songs that are as artificial and processed as the nutrasweet in diet coke, tunes painstakingly designed to be catchy and memorable, are the order of the day; it is hard to express how much raw fun it is. It\'s also archetypally \'80s, overblown and brash - and outside of BGC, I generally hate \'80s stuff. The songs especially manage to encapsulate that B-movie feeling; like the irrelevant pop songs at the end of a film that was cheesy but still really entertaining, they are driving, infectious ballads with amazing powers of mood-lightening. Many have noted the similarity between the opening of the first episode and the start of the 1984 film Streets of Fire; but the integration of the music into the story in BGC is much smoother. And, while I love the music, it\'s immediately obvious it\'s the kind of thing that\'s likely to provoke strong responses that won\'t be positive for everyone - a gamble any series that relies so heavily on music must make. Even if you\'re not keen on the sound, though, there\'s no mistaking the skill, high production values and copious amounts of effort behind it.


By having the rock singer character as one of its toughest protagonists is a move that trumps Streets of Fire\'s equivalent role in every way. BGC\'s other characters are far from original by modern standards, but it\'s worth remembering that they set many of those standards themselves. These are archetypes, not stereotypes; those that set the trend, not those who follow them. No-one looks down on Dirty Harry, just because he spawned a thousand maveric cop characters.

It can\'t be denied that there are some fairly major things wrong with BGC. For one, it\'s almost totally episodic, with no real overarching plot and little other than the strong, well rounded characters to link one episode to another. For another, the characters may be strong and extremely charismatic, but they don\'t really change much or develop like they should. For a third, it suffers from the lack of an ending; the last story just stops like any other, and you reach for the last disc...and it\'s just music videos (also real fun). These problems are at least addressed in the 1999 remake, Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, but at the expense of design, music and general coolness. What the remake did not fix, however, is the basic implausibility of the whole thing. Bloodsucking robots, transforming motorbikes and mecha-tentacle beasts strain one\'s suspension of disbelief unpleasantly at times.

Nonetheless, Bubblegum Crisis, or, to give it its full title, \'Bubblegum Crisis MegaTokyo 2032: the story of Knight Sabers\' (yes, BGC was in fact the origin of the now-common phrase MegaTokyo - another example of its wide influence), remains immensely enjoyable popcorn anime, and remains fascinating for anyone interested in the history of anime. After 20 years, that\'s pretty damn impressive.

Containing what might be one of the best opening 7 minutes of an anime ever, this OVA opens with a montage of the future, a dark sprawling Mega-Tokyo.

Immediately Ghost in the Shell comes to mind, some scenes look almost identical, the Oshii vibe so thick, the possible influence on the man (and even Shirow himself) is made more and more questionable throughout the OVA with many stylistic choices bringing the GitS franchise to mind.

After the introduction of the various comings and goings of the city, a concert suddenly begins, introducing a blonde wigged character Priss, and is intercut with the appearance of a boomer wrecking ... havoc. The direction and editing, and hell even the music are all excellent and ensure the OVA gets off to a cracking start. 80's cyberpunk at its best!

The story follows four plucky young women with nothing better to do in their spare time than to don cyber-outfits and blow crap up, preferably those pesky rogue boomers who keep appearing all over the city. The combined IQ of these four women finally figures out that Genom corporation, which apparently "accounts for 68% of the world's cars", might have something to do with these incidents and so Bubblegum Crisis delivers 8 episodes of pure unadulterated fun in a way only 80's anime can.

Mega-Tokyo, 2032. This is the future, but seen from the eyes of the 80's. Each decade's vision of the future is idiosyncratic, and so each decade produces strange and brilliant works of genius or garbage, with Bubblegum Crisis firmly in the strange and brilliant camp, albeit lacking both genius and garbage, though still retaining quality production and vision. Plenty of great directorial choices, POV shots, pans, zooms, it's all dynamic and makes up for the dated, yet still decent, animation.

No matter the humour or clunky dialogue or 80's sprinkled aesthetics in hair styles and clothing, this is cyberpunk at its peak. Everything associated with the genre is present, the connective nature of society, the paranoia of having satellites hovering above your head with the capability of blowing you up, biotech suits, corporate power run amok. In a sense Bubblegum Crisis is more cyberpunk than a lot of cyberpunk anime out there which sometimes jettison a lot of the genre's traits and settle for dystopic hijinks with the occasional robot AI thrown in. Bubblegum Crisis revels in the genre and doesn’t leave anything out.

The anime came out at what might be seen as cyberpunk's peak of influence and exposure in the mainstream, and as such is worth a watch for its historical significance, in terms of impacting the genre of cyberpunk in anime and also being a window to the time. It's so classy it even has time to throw a shout out to The Third Man!

It's flawed, but packed with so much creative ideas and flair, you can't help but bop along to the 80's tunes. Each episode starts with a cinematic musical montage of 80's soft rock/pop and narrative-advancing imagery. This isn't on-par with cyberpunk like GitS, you have to accept the humour and gaping plot-holes as part of the charm, or you'll just not be involved and will tune out. The AD Police are written as what a 12 year old imagines the NYPD are like, complete with the gruff black police captain arguing with the rookie cop.

There's lots of subtle visual flair in this OVA, the directors knew what they were doing. (Except for episode 5 and 6. That director probably went to the school of Koichi Mashimo, though he wasn't helped by the screenwriter for those episodes either) Too often in post-millennium anime there are tons of 'arty' shots that are meaningless and the camera either flies around the place like a steadicam-operator on crack, or pans laboriously across the screen as if directed by an old age pensioner, but back in the 80's/90's they knew how to pace episodes just fine while choosing narrative-coherent viewpoints to the action. I guess I'm harping on about that old cliché of modern day anime being too shallow with emphasis on looks rather than content, but considering that this anime is packed with very clichéd jokes that were old even back when this was released, the argument is kind of moot.

If you want to go extra deep you could propose that Bubblegum Crisis is yet another exploration of the relationship between man and machine and clearly veers on the side of external mechanics and views bio-implementation, or to be simple about it: cyborgs, as a threat to the world. Even though boomers are technically robots, though the distinction is rarely made clear especially when they all have such charming personalities, their humanoid form isn't a random creative decision. Boomers, anyone associated to them, and augmentation in general are clearly bad for your health and the only way to make the world a better place is to jump into exoskeleton mecha-suits and be a master of cybernetics, not a slave to them. It's possibly an archaic almost Luddite philosophy, especially in the 21st century where bio and nano-technology is getting more and more traction. Yep, I just analysed an anime with 'bubblegum' in the title.

But you get the gist, Bubblegum Crisis is consistently entertaining and has very good direction to boot, and its shortcomings can be seen as part of the package; a conscious decision and not a by-product. You're meant to laugh at the ridiculousness of the entire premise, especially the glorious last episode's tribute to the character of Nene, and you're meant to lap up the universe presented because you're a cyberpunk fan. The damn anime's called Bubblegum Crisis!

If you're not grinning while watching this, you're in a crisis of your own and I suggest you chew some gum to get over it.

I didnt want to write a review of the series for a long time since im clearly a fan and anything i write might be seen as having bias towards rating BGC too highly.
However at the same time, being a fan I think i can give you a true reflection of the series, being able to mention things that other reviews are missing because they glossed over the series and did not give it the attention it deserved. I think in some ways a review that the reader can relate to can sometimes improve their watching/re-watching of a series.

So onto the matter at hand Bubble ... Crisis 2032, an OVA series which 3 top notch studios (AIC, Artmic and Youmex) gave their all towards in the 80s and in my opinion really raised the bar when it came to what you could achieve in animation and also among all of these talented people was none other than legendary designer Kenichi Sonoda. Unfortunately the downside of having so many good chefs, is the inevitable arguments over who owns what, which in the end was the downfall of BGC.

First lets talk about story, BGC gets a lot of flak over its story, many arguing that it is poor or lacks any real overbearing plot. Now i have a problem with this, yes you could say that if you're comparing it to syndicated series which run with week by week episodes and are produced much quicker, but BGC was not produced in that manner and was never intended to be, its release of 8 episodes was staggered over 4 years due to the amount of work it required to do it to the level of technical quality wanted. At the time most of us never were able to see all episodes back to back like people now get to do, the producers knew this and focused on trying to convey EMOTIONS in each episode. The dying of a loved one, loyalty and vengeance for a friend, saying goodbye for a last time, fighting a losing battle, all of these concepts were tried to be portrayed using a situation and an fitting background song, right up to the end credits music and background image the directors were trying to convey a feeling with their story above all else. And i think that was a good approach, since the episodes had more impact on me and i was not simply waiting to see the next episode like i do with anime nowdays, i was instead thinking about the episode i just watched, which was a very good thing since the next episode was likely weeks if not months away. A lot of money was put into this series, and it was risky even for the time but im grateful they decided to do it this way as it leaves a lasting impression on most that watch it, sometimes subconsciously.

The characters themselves were a revelation, they were a new breed of tough woman leading the fight in mechanized combat suits. That was barely common to have only woman as leads in the action genre.
Though with only 8 out of the 13 episodes completed they did what they could with depth, but its what the characters represented that was most special.
They covered a broad spectrum of female heroines, Priss a tough, bike riding, battle hardened fighter who happens to be a singer, Linna the represented average aerobics girl of the 80s but with the ability to be able to tranform that athletism into fighting prowess, Sylia a smart weathly elite who isnt a afraid to drop the high class lady act and dirty her hands when she needs to, and lastly Nene a computer and electronics specialist willing to put herself in the battle zone.
What made them even more special though was they all had their weaknesses, and the designers wanted us to know they were not perfect individuals and this added something to the characters that was largely absent in other action movies of the time.
Priss is poor and has had a rough life, its also implied that she never was well educated but she does what she can to get by and enjoy her life and improve the life of people she knows...or at least exact justice on their behalf.
Sylia is seen as the cool headed leader, but secretly she has an immense hatred for Genom Corp inside her which is strong enough to impair her judgement and cause her to lash out at others.
Linna although generally up beat is not living the life she wants, she would love a glamourous life and a great boyfriend but she is stuck in the mediocrity of being a below middle class person in Megatokyo, a cycle she cannot break out of. Then theres Nene, she desperately wants to be more physically imposing and it frustrates her that she isnt given much respect, she doesnt just want to be known as a computer geek at a police department and really would like people to know what shes really capable of.

Art and character design, I think the series gets its deserved ratings here. Personally i think its a masterpiece of its era, using methods an approaches that will never been done again since they would be unfeasible today. Its a testament to what human artists are capable with just simple tools and hundreds of hours of painstaking work that they simply poured to their hearts into. If you're an artist or have ever worked with professional artists you will understand it and appreciate it for the true paramount achievement that it was. If you're not an artist, just look at it like this, BGCs artwork is very much like a Ferrari F40, its not the best car ever made, but its a representation of what was achievable by the experts of that era, and for that it will never be replicated again because the technology changed, people have changed and the mindsets have changed. For that reason its look will always be unique and special.

The sound, for me the music production was the best id ever come across, in both English and Japanese the production quality was supreme, the musical ability of the producers and the vocal ability of the singers is as good as it got for any form of entertainment in the 80s, and that's saying a lot considering how great an era for music and movies the 80s is considered as being.
Lets talk about the english version music first, since for me its unbelievable to say there are some tracks that are actually better in English (Rock me & Don't Forget). Now if any of you are familiar with older anime, you'll know that how botched english versions can be, but with BGC they really gave excellent attention to it so it could stand alone as an equal in quality.
Though the Japanese version is better overall as expected, Ohmori Kinuko really giving a vocal performance that's as good as it gets.
Voice acting though is just average for both English and Japanese versions. Nowadays we have near Hollywood quality (or Japanese film industry quality) voice acting in games and anime. So BGCs voice acting is a couple notches below, it just lacks the substance that you get with newer productions that really drive home the characters intentions. The relative background silence you get during speaking is typical of the sound production of the time, that is one area I am glad is gone these days.

In terms of enjoyment, if you're a person of the era there is no way you would say this is anything less than a 9 (i say 10), because you simply hadnt seen anything like this at the time, especially if you were outside of Japan. Taking nostalgia out of it and looking at it just as an Anime fan...a knowledgeable anime fan would certainly understand what was achieved here and in that case its an 8 or even 9 still. (If you got this far i want to thank you for reading this rather long review)
Overall, its a 9/10 for me and if you grew up in the 80s and are an anime watcher you absolutely must watch Bubblegum Crisis.

Okay, so Bubblegum Crisis isn’t the greatest anime of all time. It’s not even the greatest cyberpunk anime of all time. It’s not even the greatest cyberpunk anime of the eighties, because critical opinion placed that crown firmly on Akira’s head long, long ago. And yet Bubblegum Crisis, not Akira, or Ghost in the Shell, or even Evangelion, is far and away my *favorite* anime out there - nothing else even comes close. Admittedly, I’m something of an obsessive person. I’ve been latching onto sea-tossed fandoms like a memetic lamprey for years. But why BGC?

Because it’s fucking awesome, that’s why. Because it’s a synthesis of ... things that I like in this point in time. Because its open-endedness, its willingness to focus on action and put all the existential stuff in the backseat, the sense of what BGC could have been rather than what it is, make it more than the sum of its parts.

But that’s a fairly vague reason. Let’s ignore the sum and focus on the parts first.

Story: There’s admittedly not a lot of story or super-deep psychoanalytic shit going on in BGC. There are Boomers, which are like Terminators with big meaty muscles. There is a megacorporation that produces them. There are some cute anime girls who don cuter power-armor to wreck their shit. There are some Miami-Vice-meets-Robocop police dudes who dick around and get their shit kicked in by the Boomers.

Of course, the synthesis of these disparate elements could have all gone together in a very bad way (Lookin’ at you BGC 2040). But each episode - there are only eight, and three of them are barely TV-episode length - generally does its best to not require deep viewing and following the plot to enjoy the spectacle. There is a metaplot running between episodes, but it’s diluted by the fact that the creators clearly had no idea what they were doing at first, and the fact that the director’s seat kept changing after the original trilogy of videos. You have to dig into wacky fan speculation to get mileage out of the plot, and that’s fun don’t get me wrong, but it’s not as engaging overall as, say, Stand Alone Complex, which in my mind sets a high bar for thrilling conspiracies and weird cyberpunk shit mixed together. But plot is only one half of a compelling narrative, which brings us to the...

Characters: Some may say that the original four Knight Sabers are all to some degree stereotypes. I think there was another review awhile back that argued that they were more archetypes, more forerunners for the character molds that have become so essential to anime nowadays. (Supposedly a proposal for a BGC ‘Hot Springs’ episode mutated into Tenchi Muyo, the godfather of harem anime. Wacky, eh?). And indeed each main character has their own thing going on - a distinctive voice, distinctive character design, distinctive behavior. They play roles, yes, but those roles are always interesting and compelling and aren’t as shallow as they seem to be at first glance.

In particular I love the character of Sylia Stingray, the cool-beauty ‘big sister’ of the Sabers. Her voice is Yoshiko Sakakibara at her best, somehow warm and loving yet stone-cold cool at the same time, not the brutal villainess of Haman Karn nor the resignation of Shinobu Nagumo. No, Sylia Stingray is sort of what happens when you cross James Bond, a Bond Girl, and a Bond Villain all in one package. She’s beautiful, capable, knows what’s going on for the most part, is implied to be some sort of cyborg, and isn’t afraid to stab her enemies in the throat. Also she runs a lingerie shop as her secret identity. There’re very few other characters like her in anime and that’s a pity. Also Priss is fun to watch smash her way through obstacles and occasionally get her shit kicked in. All told BGC’s characters may not be vividly realized portraits of pain or emotional melodrama, but they have depth to them. It’s like how a few choice strokes can be a landscape in the human mind as much as a photorealistic painting can be. The characters of BGC work because they are a few strokes placed very well.

Art: 80’s cel-shaded awesomeness - explosions and lighting and lasers and color mixed in with urban grunge, the kind of stuff it takes a real budget to show off. Mecha range from simple yet elegant (hardsuits) to hideously baroque (the Hyperboomers from Episode 6) but for the most part they all feel like they’re inhabiting the same high-tech high-octane universe. Sure, Megatokyo goes from being a gritty Streets of Fire-y hellhole to a brighter, cleaner urban sprawl over the series. Sure, the art style changes to reflect which director is in the seat this time around. But, again, each episode mostly stands on its own as a collection of awesome set pieces, plot be dammed. They don’t make em’ like this anymore.

Sound: Okay, so the sound effects aren’t necessarily memorable. But BGC indulges itself in the style of 80’s MTV music videos, especially in the iconic opening sequence of the first episode. Hardcore 80’s J-Rock, some of it using the vocals of the Sabers themselves, pops and crackles through the beginning and end credits of every episode, each time a selection of unique songs. You can tell that part of the revenue from the OVA was trying to get people to buy the soundtrack on tape. Hell, the voice of Priss ended up being a real singer instead of a voice Actress. You haven’t lived until you’ve listened to her belt out ‘Konya Wa Hurricane’ intercut with a Combat Boomer wrecking the shit out of a whole bunch of cops. If nothing else, watch that sequence, you’ll be surprised how much it makes you want to watch the rest.

Enjoyment: This is an awfully vague category, so I’ll use it to talk about the BGC fandom - or what’s left of it. See, BGC was a big deal in the 90’s, especially during the hot times of the VHS boom. Even after Sailor Moon took the West by storm, even after Evangelion upended weeb’s conceptions of what anime was capable of, people still wrote a good deal of BGC fanfiction and posted it on their Geocities or Usenet forums. Much of it is bad, yes, but there’s so little of it compared to the vast seas of shit that dominate fanfiction today, that the good stuff floats to the top easily. And that good stuff is usually consistently good, because it was written by adults who got weirdly into the series’ metaplot and tried to wrap up its unexplored threads to varying degrees of effectiveness. Really, though, the reason BGC is so good for fandom is because it builds its world and its plot in those same broad strokes. It’s up to readers and writers to interpret, elaborate, accentuate what’s there to make more comprehensive stories, ones that aren’t just mashing two characters together to make them kiss.

(By comparison, say, Ghost in the Shell is a more complete work, yes, but it doesn’t have the same spark of manic vitality that lends itself to writing fanfic (at least I think so). No wacky mecha, no melodrama, no flawed characters, just Tom Clancyesque cyberespionage and tactical combat.)

What else is there to say? Bubblegum Crisis is a product of its time, yes, that’s why the Vaporwave gif makers of the internet have latched onto it without appreciating it, but it still holds up remarkably well today. It has the stuff hobbyist fandom used to look for in anime, and seems to have forgotten today, as our collective taste is drowned in a sea of VTubers and gacha games. It’ s lightning in a bottle, a cool concept backed up by cooler design work to make a series that, like many of the action movies of the eighties, has a sort of iconic feel to it, something that, once you put in Konya Wa Hurricane, cannot be denied.

Finally I watched this cyberpunk classic which was lacking in my list.
This anime (more than Gall Force) was considered something like a groundbreaking for opening the way for groups of female heroines.

The story is set in Megatokyo year 2032, a blade runneresque society where androids are quite developed to even look like normal humans, except that they do not have the hability to speak.
Our heroines are an secret and independent force called the Knight Sabers, with some high developed suits and they do the work that the cops, in this case the special force of the police, the AD Police, can't do. Which is mainly ... to fight the androids that went berserk and the other kind of special cases just like Rick Deckard did in it's Blade Runner Universe.

We have four main girls here; Stylia, the calm intelligent and founder of the group, Priss, which is also a popular singer in bars and it's the "action" girl of the group, Nene, the infiltrated girl in the police but pretty coward and annoying in the action field and Linna, the average girl.
We also have Leon McNichol, the AD Police detective which is interested in Priss the singer and he turns out to be a pretty dependable and interesting character (thus leading into his own OVA series).

The overall mood of the series runs smoothly ranging from comedy to dramatic and cyber punk obscure scenes and the story flows without much relation from one episode to the other making the series quite episodic, there are indeed some episodes that are stronger than others, but in the end they tend to be a "Case of the Day" alone episode type of stores with just small links between them.
We have either good characters like Priss Leion and Styllia and annoying characters like good for nothing Nene, though she redeems herself in the last episode which was also a nice way of putting things.

Oh yeah, the opening scene of the first OVA is simply great, with Priss singing her popish 80's cheesy songs and showing some police scenes in between. Classic. Hearing that music these days sounds pretty nostalgic.

It is definitive a classic anime sci-fi of the 80's and a must watch nevertheless. The classic Blade Runner atmosphere just can't be ignored. Recommended.

Rate; 7.2/10

I don't usually like giving perfect scores on such a detailed scoring system, but this actually had everything I ever wanted in animation. From the opening scene, it features strong women who don't take any nonsense from anyone, has a sizzling score to keep my heart racing, and I immediately recognized the unique graphic style of ArtMIC from the Captain Power video/game that I used to play at my grandparents' house. I know that aesthetic isn't for everyone, but it's like a drug to me. The flashiness doesn't seem to distract from the action like so many special effects suffer from these days, but skillfully ... directs attention to where the action is. The future tech is imaginatively designed, and artfully brought to life. The dark, gritty visuals set the tone for an equally dark and gritty story. The viewer is brought along on a mission to discover the terrifying secrets of a corporation pulling the strings of a seemingly prosperous society.

Bubblegum Crisis is one of, if not THE essential 1980s cyberpunk anime. Watching it 30 years after its debut almost feels surreal, because it is SO pop culture laden, so aesthetically referential to other works of its time, it almost feels like something made in TRIBUTE of the 80s, like the video game Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, but nope, Crisis is true blue authentic, and it is AWESOME.

Bubblegum Crisis EMBODIES "cool" as its primary driving force. A cyberpunk future where illegal robots called Boomers are made to stir shit up for shady megacorporation reasons that are never really explained because dammit, that isn't ... what you're here for. Crisis has eight episodes and while there is some light continuity between them, it knows you aren't here for deep introspective plot full of sympathy motivations for villains - it knows you're here to see four kick ass girls in power armor duke it out with cyberpunk androids all set to some fantastically good original music set in the style of synth rock and pop of the time. There's evil AI cars that go on the fritz, sexbots from the moon, a couple of buddy cops who can't get a break trying to clean up the streets of their city, and... aerobics montages. Yeah, its very 80s, as I said before.

While the story is not the focus, it isn't terrible all things considered. A few episodes have some continuity between them and the individual plots of each episode all have an interesting hook to them as well. They aren't groundbreaking, but they get you interested and aren't BAD either. Character is where the series shines stronger as a narrative: all four of the Knight Sabers are fun, distinct individuals who all bounce off each other very well both in armor and out of it. Priss is a hot headed go getter who moonlights as a rock singer, Sylia is the aloof and cool headed leader who operates a successful business to fund the Knight Sabers, Linna is social butterfly who works as an aerobics instructor and is constantly looking for a new boyfriend, and Nene is the bubbly, brilliant minded hacker who also works on the inside as a police officer. Aside from the Sabers, the other major recurring characters are the police officers Leon and Daley, who always try to stop boomer crimes within the law with limited success. They're a traditional buddy cop duo, with Leon as the go-getter cowboy cop and Daley as his more relaxed, humorous counterpart. Every episode's own original characters are also strong presenters, making up for their lack of depth and screen time with excellent presence.

Last but certainly not least to mention is the aesthetics. Crisis is all about style, and ESPECIALLY the music: every episode has an entire original soundtrack, including an original opening AND ending theme, complete with original animated footage. Every episode feels distinct from one another with its own sounds and songs, and the series is worth watching easily for just the music. For visuals, you have some of the best looking mech designs of the decade, be it the sleek armor of the Sabers, or the bulky police armor, the stylishly cool police vehicles, the strange and bestial looking Boomers, or just the overall lo-fi used future boxy clunky neon designs that defined the 80s being beautifully rendered in some of the best hand drawn anime art I've seen. Crisis is a treat for the eyes and the ears.

The only real negative to say about the series is its infamous non-ending. Originally scheduled for 13 episodes, we only got 8, and that last one was ironically the mid-series suit upgrade for the girls so they can face even tougher opponents. If you really want a conclusion, there is Bubblegum Crash which condensed the remaining 5 episodes story material into 3 more episodes, which does give some closure but is overall a weaker product than Crisis, lacking the high quality art and sheer amount of original music that Crisis boasted, plus some plot holes. Still, with or without an ending, Crisis stands out as a testament to 1980s anime, a shining champion of style. If you're into the retro anime scene, you owe yourself to watch this. Even if you aren't, Crisis is just that good enough it deserves watching anyway. This is one of the milestone series that will remain important throughout history.

Bubblegum Crisis is a cyberpunk series from AIC, you may remember them from such titles as Sasameki Koto, Viper's Creed, OreImo and Battle Athletes. It's also one of those uncommon series where the anime is the original work rather than being based on a game, manga, light novel or something else. The series has had media based on it including video games, a western comic book from Dark Horse and even a tabletop RPG. So what is it about this OVA that enabled it to grow into a full blown franchise? Let's take a look and see.

Our story takes place in a not too distant ... dystopian future. There's a rise in crimes involving robots called Boomers and there's a corrupt multi-national corporation called Genom, because dystopian stories always have to have corrupt corporations. I wouldn't be surprised if Genom sent an ordinary worker into space for no reason and forced him to watch cheesy movies while monitoring his mind. Genom may very well be involved in many of these crimes for their own purposes. Unfortunately, the AD police force charged with handling Boomer crimes isn't quite adequate to the task. Fortunately, the Knight Sabres, a female vigilante group, is there. Possessing powerful technology and highly skilled, the Knight Sabres take up the fight against Boomers. Each episode tells the tale of one of the Knight Sabre's adventures, either fighting Boomers or taking on tasks for money. The story isn't particularly unique, but it is compelling. Those episodes that do tie into each other directly do so in a clever way, the world is fascinating and I like that there are positive aspects of Genom instead of it being just another needlessly evil corporation in a dystopian cyberpunk story. The basic premise has been done a huge number of times, but this does provide a creative and unique take on it. There are some issues with it, however. The most obvious being that the Knight Sabres are kind of crap at safeguarding their secret identities. There are several cases when they should be found out, but aren't. For example, there's a scene early on where they go in their armour to hear about a job from a military group. After leaving they notice a satellite's tracking them. So they meet up with their mobile base under a bridge, ditch the armour and exit out the other end. In spite of no one else being near that bridge or having gone under it, they are not found out. No one watched the footage and thought it was strange that these two women mysteriously appeared right when the Knight Sabres vanished? There are also quite a few episodes that focus on a situation involving someone who just happens to coincidentally be closely connected to one of the Knight Sabres. This is a group of mercenaries/vigilantes, you don't have to give some contrived reason for them to get involved.

The characters in this are mostly really well handled. All of the Knight Sabres get episodes focusing on them and all of them get character developing moments. The characters are largely complex and interesting. They also have some great interactions with one another. There is one notable exception, Mackey. Mackey is the younger brother of the Knight Sabres' leader, Sylia. To call him incredibly obnoxious would be an understatement. He's a perverse little worm who's there to serve as an errand boy and perv on the Knight Sabres, including his own older sister. In fact, she's the one he pervs on the most. Fortunately, he isn't a major character, but the few scenes that feature him are frequently downright unpleasant.

The art is very meticulous. It's a bit dated, but you can tell a lot of effort went into getting all the details right and making the world expansive. The action sequences are suitably epic, the tech is really cool. It just looks excellent. That being said, there is one issue with the art. That's right, there's excessive fan-service. There are semi-long scenes of the ladies changing into their suits for the sole purpose of getting some nudity into the OVA. Frankly, they could have done one changing scene and had it make sense since it does show you something about the way the suits work, but it isn't something that needed to be seen multiple times. There are also some fan-service costumes at several points and some other scenes that have little purpose aside from titillating the heterosexual male portion of the audience. Because that's totally worth interrupting the fluidity of the narrative for. Wait... what?

The cast in this is really good. Hiramatsu Akiko, Sakakibara Yoshiko, Oomori Kinuko and Tomizawa Michie are all great in their roles as the Knight Sabres. The music is excellent. Each episode has about three or four songs and they're all really damn good.

The ho-yay factor is a 5/10. The relationship between Priss and Sylvie is pretty homo-erotic. Nene admires other girls' beauty on multiple occasions, as does Linna. There's also some flirtation between two men in the AD Police, Leon and Daley.

That's Bubblegum Crisis. All in all, it's a really good OVA. The voice acting and music are top-notch, the story is really good, the art is great and most of the characters are really well done. Its biggest issues are Mackey, the occasional story element that doesn't work, Mackey, excessive fan service and Mackey. Still, it is a great cyberpunk series and I do recommend checking it out. My final rating is an 8/10. Next week I'll take a look at Slayers Return.

Bubblegum Crisis is a classic: any old-school anime viewer will know what it is, even if they didn't like it or have moved on from watching animation.
With obvious influences from various science fiction works from its time (Blade Runner being the most cited one), one could argue Bubblegum Crisis really did nothing new to the Cyberpunk genre. In fact, it isn't innovative at all: the plot is so episodic you realize there really isn't much of a story, the characters don't really develop or grow much as the show advances, and it's really clichéd in many senses.
But Bubblegum Crisis gets away with this for the ... following things: visually, it looks neat, cool, amazing, thanks to the artists (Keinichi Sonoda making beautiful character designs, to note just one aspect); the music is classic 80s, but it isn't annoying like that of anime series concurrent to it; and thirdly, it is precisely this cyberpunk setting that gives it so much life.
The series has one of the best introductions, opening with the aformentioned glorious music and a display of MegaTokyo, Boomers, the AD Police, and many of our main characters. That alone hooks a viewer into the show. That alone is an important factor, because a show that doesn't hook a viewer isn't worth the viewer's time.
Ther series isn't without its faults: as mentioned before, the plot is practically nonexistent, with the series being of a highly episodic nature; it's pretty clichéd (the eeeeeevil megacorporation and its schemes threaten MegaTokyo! And only a band of sexy, classy girls in power armor can stop them!). But that doesn't make it a really bad series. One can simply disregard this (the series makes it easy for the viewer to do this) and enjoy it for what it is: an old, 80s, generic (but highly-influential) animation series that holds on its own thanks to its visuals and music.

I highly recommend it to anyone who is curious to what was some of the first exposure of mainstream anime back twenty years ago.

Buublegum Crisis is a peculiar series. It seemed to be very popular in both the US and japan at the time of it's release, but nowadays nobody seems to be talking about it at all, maybe that's due to the fact that it hasn't got a new installment in ages, or just that it doesn't jive well with modern audiences, among the people that do talk about Bubblegum Crisis is considered something of a classic, and i think that it's reputation definitely holds up well in that regard.

This series LOOKS fantastic, it's probably my favorite looking anime from the 80's, from the character designs ... to the art style to how fluid the animation can get. this show looks amazing. It only gets better and better as it goes on, and more interesting character designs get introduced, and the characters that we already know feel more expressive and more well animated, like the staff had gotten a lot better at drawing them by episode 8.

The music is so 80's it hurts, and i mean that in the best way, it has this distinct sound and feel that just gives off a unique sound that you really aren't going to hear in modern anime, i love it.

The plot is where it starts to get rocky, this show absolutely shows the fact that it was cut short, episode 8 was far from a satisfying ending, but this show did get a continuation though. It's very episodic, and that sometimes gets in the way of delivering a plot that leaves you feeling something, but i felt that Bubblegum crisis' highs aren't really in whats going on in the plot, the story is pretty simple and surprisingly uneventful, it's mostly just fighting villains of the week, and the supporting cast are also mostly one-off characters that aren't particularly interesting or memorable. the best parts of this show are the ones that are just the main four girls interacting with each other, whether it's in their civilian lives, or on the battlefield as Kight Sabres, the chemistry between all four of the main characters palpable. each one of them is also a stand-out, recognizable. memorable character, and their characterization is where the show thrives. You get enough of the main characters together that Bubblegum Crisis feels like a worthwhile series, despite the fact that the regular episode to episode plots were so lackluster.

Overall, Bubblegum Crisis is a classic, a great series that is definitely worth a watch, even if it happens to come with a few issues, it's still a fantastic time all around.

Bubblegum Crisis is an OVA series that thrives on a great artstyle and well animated action. However, the rest is average. The narrative is weak throughout the series, with some plot points never being explored. With the exception of several scenes none of the characters are really developed. While the action is well animated the other scenes are lackluster in comparison. The designs and overall artstyle, as previously stated, are a joy to look at. The action scenes are fun to watch and well executed. The animation seems to take a backseat towards the end of the series ... in favor of attempting to develop the characters more, but it is a little too late. The OST is also worth a listen. While Bubblegum Crisis caters to sci-fi and animation enthusiasts, those seeking a thought-provoking story and well-developed characters should seek elsewhere.

First of all I want to emphasize that this anime has the best introduction I have ever seen in my life, it is simply magnificent, I didn't expected it.
I find it very interesting that the songs of each episode are different and have a lot of 80s vibes, it was so sad that we only were able to see Priss on the stage once.
The animation was what I liked the most (apart from the music of course) very much in keeping with the time, in itself the story was very normal, a group of girls fighting robots called "boomers", but the animation and the ... "cyberpunk" context of the story was what really drew me.
I recommend it.

Bubblegum Crisis has one main issue, and that is focus. The focus of the budget seemed to have gone towards the aesthetics, many of which happen to be lifted directly from Blade Runner, and while the aesthetics are certainly good, you need more than that for a series to thrive.

So, accounting for the absence of focus towards other areas, the one that is most negatively affected is the story. With that said, it is an action series, which are typically sparse in story for the obvious reason that if you have to regularly include action sequences, then that’s going to subtract from the available time ... to produce a story. Bubblegum Crisis seems to have all the intent to set up a story with the makings of something like Robocop, i.e. an action series that actually has a well thought out and multi-layered story, but calling the story surface level would be generous – the issue with Bubblegum Crisis’s story is not that it is too generic or too black-and-white, the problem is that there is almost no story in the first place. The basic premise is that robotic people named Boomers are knocking about, mostly hiding in plain sight with the rest of society, and some of them do a competent job of hiding in plain sight, looking like just like regular people, whereas other people are built like The Terminator. In general, there appear to be a wide variety of models of Boomers, some of which don’t attempt to hide at all and just look completely like regular robots, and it seems the majority of Boomers seem to exist for the main purpose of beating the shit out of people, although when it comes down to it they’ve probably got more in common with people from Ancient Greece than people from the 1960s, considering they all insist on fighting naked. In any case, the Boomers don’t really serve much narrative purpose apart from the fact they exist, these particular robots superficially resemble humans, but there’s not any particular reason for it. They’re largely lacking in any actual humanity, there isn’t any reason for them to keep that fake human flesh on, they aren’t wrestling with a sense of self-awareness, or perhaps mistreated on account of being Boomers, or anything at all. They’re just robots who appear to enjoy committing terrorism, because I guess that’s what robots like to do.

But, what’s more critical than an absence of story, is that there is not a huge amount of consistency in the small story that is told. While in the majority of the episodes, it’s kind of small, there are some wherein it becomes a huge focus, and the main characters, the Knight Sabers, are vaguely developed. Not much to say about the main characters, they’re women, they wear these combat suits and fight the Boomers. However, once or twice, they do try and develop these characters, by trying to get them to talk about their feelings, and it just does not work. A series needs consistency to work, you wouldn’t want something to completely change genre halfway through, and the same goes for subtler things like the episode composition. When it changes from finding and killing Boomers to the main characters talking about their fear of abandonment, it’s a less than welcome paradigm shift. And, that’s the main issue, there is not much consistency, while sometimes the episodes are good, nothing astounding, not something that’s going to permeate my psyche the way Robocop did, but the kind of thing you can tune in to with a chippy in one hand and a drink in the other, and just have a good time. But it does not consistently offer that experience, and that’s the issue, it’s not consistently good, yet it’s not consistently bad either, which leads to a conflicting feeling. And, I wouldn’t necessarily object to them changing the tone or the pacing now and then if it was actually integral to the central questions the viewer may have. A major one that comes to mind is how society evolved into the way it is, to which you’re given “a war happened”, and that’s it, or how Boomers cultivated into the way they are, or who the Knight Sabers are, their backstories aren’t particularly compelling, and neither are they. Soldiers who begrudgingly fulfill their duty to kill the Boomers, and there’s not a huge amount else to say about them, as for their backstory, the most you get is that they also happen to be rockstars, but that certainly doesn’t correlate to their character, there’s no sense of rebellion you’d expect from a rockstar, they don’t even make musical puns when they fight, it’s a detail as insignificant as their blood type. They don’t tell you any of these basic details, but they throw in a ton of pointless side characters, like some photographer who appears in the last episode, who is about as important as you can typically expect a character introduced in the last episode to be.

The aesthetics are certainly impressive, the visuals of the city look great, and there were some legitimately cool looking robots once or twice, although this is somewhat held back by a poor budget, it’s an action series but they don’t seem to have the budget to properly orchestrate action sequences, most certainly not the sort that involves them jumping around like crazy, so it can feel a bit disjointed at times. And, while I’m typically opposed to any more than one music video put into a single series, Bubblegum Crisis just barely gets a pass for having music that’s a lot better than usual.

In summary, Bubblegum Crisis is a shit sandwich with some nice sprinkles on the top. It’s got a couple good parts, and some decent ideas that could probably work if they were elaborated upon, but it’s got some major problems, and even with its good points, they are held back by its shortcomings, resulting in a work that ranges from mediocre to somewhat good, depending on which episode it is.

I'm going to give this a quick review since it is a fairly short series. This is a kind of mech anime from the late 80s that tells the story of 4 women who are the "Knights Saber". They basically take hired jobs and fire enemy robots to try and stop the evil Genom corporation. This OVA has 8 episodes, and contrary to many reviews I've read I think it ends in a pretty descent place and if this was the end and there were no sequel I would have been OK.

The good:
Awesome soundtrack that is 80s goodness, the intro and outro of each episode ... play like an 80s music video.
Interesting characters who each have unique personalities.
PG-13 but shows boobs, which I think WAS PG-13 in the 80s.
Each episode is like a stand alone movie in the universe, minus a few plot points that are carried forward through the series.
Basically, everything cool and awesome about the 80s is in this anime.

The bad:
Pretty poor graphics.
A story that basically goes no where.
Little to no character development... people die and no one seems all that bothered for more than a few seconds.

Overall: It is neat. If you have some time to kill and like the 80s and mech/fighting anime you'll enjoy this.

Bubblegum Crisis has a special place in some people's hearts as one of the "must see" series from the 80's. There are really some particular elements from the show that are outstanding. Set in a dystopian future, humanity is heavily dependent on technology in the form of Boomers, autonomous androids, that have various uses. The story of Bubblegum Crisis, or rather the premise as a whole, isn't particularly unique. The Knight Sabers, a group of mercenaries, often meddle in the abuse of Boomers and the Genom Corporation.

The art in Bubblegum Crisis is wonderful. It is refreshing to see the detail that can be achieved ... through hand drawing. Current techniques using computer modeling is unable to produce similar results. The same could be said about the quality of the sound. The opening song, "Konya wa Hurricane," is very emblematic of the sound of the decade. This theme is captured throughout the series.

The characters of Bubblegum Crisis are each very identifiable. Priss expresses very human-like traits and acts accordingly with her personality. However, I feel that there is little room for development due to the episodic nature of the series. Each episode is approximately 45 minutes long and does well to engage the viewer from start to end. Still, little carries over from one episode to the next aside from the characters themselves.

Bubblegum Crisis captures the 80's through its audio and visually striking style. Due to its episodic nature, the potential of the series was limited. Nonetheless, I felt that the series was still very enjoyable and can be used as a gateway into other shows with similar animation such as Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Gunbuster.

Bubblegum Crisis looks beautiful, sounds beautiful, and generally speaking, feels beautiful. However, its writing leaves much to be desired. This is an anime best enjoyed with your brain turned off. Watch for the characters, aesthetics, and action.

Now, there are episodes that are extremely well written, such as the cool ass car episode. What I mean by poor writing is that the overarching story itself never really goes anywhere. If you go into it knowing that, you'll probably be less confused when you've finished the last OVA. I was certainly a little puzzled.

Why? Because there are mysteries set up about certain characters, well, one in particular, ... that I expected to be wrapped up by the end. The last episode is cute, but not a finale. Definitely a good episode, but - again, perhaps I expected something I shouldn't have in Crisis.

I haven't seem Bubblegum Crash yet, but from a cursory glance of reviews, I doubt it answers the questions I have about Crisis.

Oh, and now that we're farther into the review, I won't spoil per-say with my next comment, but I will let it be known. There is an episode that tries desperately to make the viewer care about some newly introduced characters - and while other episodes achieve this quite easily - this episode does not. The episode after it continues the narrative, but failed to make me care even then, though the antagonist certainly uplifted the experience tremendously. Those two episodes, while as pretty as the rest of the show, definitely felt like the weakest link, only held up by the crazy shit the new bad guy introduces.

And before I close off this review, Bubblegum Crisis has disappointing bad guys. The antagonists feel too easily defeated, kept along for an episode or two. Only one of them makes the protagonists struggle, but not for long at all.

Still, I tend to overanalyze that side of fiction.

Anyway, it's still very good. And you should watch it, if you haven't already.

Timelessness is overrated. Every creation comes from an era of media culture, and even the most “timeless” productions can’t help but reflect contemporary trends and zeitgeist.

“Bubblegum Crisis” is the opposite of timeless. Its creators, voracious creatures of popular media culture, slathered a goopy concoction of everything that was hip at the time onto each animation cel. The series has no original bone in its body. Everything is a reference. It has nothing to say other than, “This is what cool is.” As a result, it is one of the purest anime time capsules you can watch.

BGC takes place in a true-to-genre “Megatokyo”, a turbulent east-meets-west ... cyberpunkian metropolis in which shadowy megacorps pull the strings. Murderous Replicants and Terminators prowl the neon-lit streets, kept in check only by a super-sentai bishoujo team and their transforming mecha-motorbikes and acrobatic power armor. Lasers and explosions dance across kaleidoscopic chrome to full-vocal 80s hard rock. It’s adolescent hyper-kitsch fit for an otaku.

What it lacks in taste, it makes up in design-work. The joy of watching BGC today is its now-retrofuture world of chunky appliance-like computers, physical media, handheld gadgetry, toy-like vehicles, colorful fashions, and range of sci-fi-appropriate architectural & interior-design styles from modern, postmodern, and high-tech. When it comes to late-80s tech & design, it oozes.

As the creative personalities driving the series grow ambitious, it becomes more apparent when one is watching a Masami Ōbari episode (e.g. #6) with his obsessively detailed mecha animation, or a Satoshi Urushihara episode (#7) with his crisply rendered bishoujo. By the end, it takes another hard turn and resembles Kenichi Sonoda’s “Gunsmith Cats”. Such hobby-like swings in style are a reminder that passionate people made the series; they clearly loved the stuff.

The OVA’s storytelling noticeably improves with each installment. In its finale (#8), which devotes ample time to the rhythms and anxieties of the bishoujo-hero lifestyle, its previously underdeveloped protagonists begin to take on a new dimension. It’s unfortunate that it ends on that high note. (“Bubblegum Crash” is a poor followup.)

Bubblegum Crisis exists in a continuum of genre anime, with “Akira” and (Mamoru Oshii’s) “Ghost in the Shell” serving as its high points. But where those distilled a handful of genre concepts into profound works of pop entertainment, BGC is the raw, unrefined sludge of late-80s otaku culture. And sometimes, an otaku just needs it raw.

Bubblegum Crisis 2032-2033. Don't let the name fool you this series packs serious heat, despite its age. Maybe they call it Bubblegum Crisis, because three of the girls look like teenagers. Much of the focus in this series is on Priscilla (Priss) the brunette and her boyfriend from the AD Police. The focus towards the end and especially in Bubblegum Crash (the finale) shifts gradually towards Sylia Stingray the brains of the outfit (literally).

I thought the story was very enjoyable and complex. Do yourself a favor though and buy the Blu-ray version as you don't have to shuffle discs. ... When a new Boomer arrives it's up to the Knight Sabers to stop them; Priss, Linna, Nene, and the mentor Sylia. The Knight Sabers suits remind me of Iron Man's suit as they fly, blast things, and are pretty durable. The Boomers are mechanized machines and Genom is bent on world domination. The AD Police try to help, but mostly get in the way. Who's that pink haired girl who works for them? Anyways, when the Knight Sabers get in trouble it's up to the AD Police force, I mean their backup to save the day. I liked the premise of the show, with heroines and the romance. Bubblegum Crash does a nice job of tying up loose ends.

The animation was decent, but passable. I would give Bubblegum Crisis (Crises) animation a 7.5/10 and Bubblegum Crash (Crashes) animation a 6.5/10. The titile menu for Bubblegum Crisis on Blu-ray is immaculate.

The sound was like a shining star and made a good anime series very good. The songs are mostly dubbed in English and actually play a new song during each of the eight episodes. You listen to the music as the animation flows with the music. It adds excitement to every episode, but Bubblegum Crash doesn't have this.

In conclusion, fans of older anime will love this one. It hits hard and ends with a crash!

In full disclosure, Bubblegum Crisis is not in my normal wheel house. With that aside, what is presented is a fair anime with some strong points but a few misses.

The story to Bubblegum Crisis is fairly easy to follow and at time both very good and enjoyable. However at other times it can feel forced or convoluted. Unfortunately, that leads to some episodes being really good and others being okay. The show begs to be more of an overarching story line and while I'm aware that would've been uncommon for the time, it's episodic format leaves a lot to be desired and makes the overall ... show feel really disjointed.

Art is good for the time and periodically correct. Sound is good and the songs are, for the most part, enjoyable even dubbed. Acting is good.

Character design was enjoyable and each character feels and looks sufficiently different. You will find very little character development within the show. The character are who they are and they don't change very much, if at all, over the course of the eight episodes.

As I mentioned, Bubblegum Crisis was not in my wheel house. That was partially why I didn't enjoy the show as much as I had hoped. That being said, I've also seen shows out of my normal niche and have enjoyed them, so I think a lot of my lack of enjoyment comes from the merely fair story and good characters. To me, there just isn't anything that stands out as fantastic in Bubblegum Crisis, making this a fair anime overall.

Loaded with action and entertainment, Bubblegum Crisis is anime where its highlights make up for the overall flaws. I wasn't sure if I'd like this due to its 80s' cheesiness, yet said characteristic is the one that creates such a beautiful retro-futuristic world, with one banging song after the other (the first ten minutes are honestly incredible) and stylish outfits throughout, set against this alluring nocturne urban landscapes. The animation is the one to thank for this aspect, as well as for some truly pretty shots that have landed their way in most of the "slow+reverb" videos. Nonetheless, storytelling wise lacked strength, it would've been ... beneficial to this anime a full-on dramatic arc, from first to eighth episode, instead of a different adventure each installment. Although the episodes are told with a patience, the fights are so brief it was a let down. Not only it would've benefit the story, but the character development too, as you barely know their backgrounds and motives to join The Knight Sabers. I'm aware that most of the animes at that time weren't use to break archetypes, still, it had the potential. On a good note, for an anime this old, it was very upbeat to watch that most of the characters were women, especially this group of strong women that fight with little to no help from men, showing little and teenage girls that they hold power too. Generally, Bubblegum Crisis wasn't the most deep or perfect anime I've seen, yet the flaws, which are mostly dated, can't ruin the nicely build episodes and how enjoyable everything is, showcasing friendship and aspects of anime that are mostly attributed to a male demographic in an unapologetically girly way. Liked this one quite a bit, I'm feeling a light to decent seven on this one.