Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040

The original Bubblegum Crisis is an iconic and stylish OVA that everyone should watch. It seems logical that remaking something that is so stylish would be going in waaaay over your head. And yet here we are! A good remake! Instead of trying to copy everything that made the original good and surely failing. It found its own strengths by taking the core of the original and doing something different, like a good remake should.

The year is 1998. Bubblegum Crisis 2040 was made into a 26 episode show presumably after AIC won the whole legal rights debacle by slicing the head of their former ... co-producers and absorbing their powers. Priss and the gang are back. Although obviously looking a bit different time around. They're still fighting boomers. And they still aren't exactly fans of the shady mega corporation Genom. That's the familiar core brought back.

A lot of the characters have changed though. With 26 episodes to work with there's no shortage of time to characterize them all. Unlike the original who only really bothered to characterize Priss and Nene properly. In this adaptation those two are more or less the same as the original. Priss being the cool and somewhat detached ace and Nene being the cutesy hacker working as their inside man in the AD Police. Linna actually gets to have a character this time around! Not only that but the show starts it's very first episode from her perspective as the idealistic small town girl going to Tokyo to get the most cyberpunk job of all. A shitty office job. High tech low life indeed. Still she wants to join the Knight Sabers that she heard about on the internet. As the devious Genom makes sure that the news don't report to them they're just a rumor. Sylia is given a new lease on life as a more mysterious ( with a mystery that's actually clearly explained this time around ) and tortured character with a seemingly personal vendetta towards boomers that plays a big part into the story. Yes! You heard me right. Story! This show actually tells a complete story from beginning to end unlike the original. Now I absolutely don't want to spoil any of it because it's quite a ride once it's set everything up. Although if you're at all familiar with the works of Chiaki Konaka who had a hand with the script of this series you can probably guess that it occasionally goes in some weird and dark directions. Not only that but they finally finished reading the "world building 101" book that they only briefly looked at in the original by actually showing the boomer working class that was so critical to the rebuilding efforts this time around ( although Crash did show some worker boomers as well ). Showing the general disdain that regular people seem to have towards boomers. Additionally Genom and Mason's motivations are a little more clear this time around too instead of just infinite resources to throw at anything and zero strategy other than being shady and shadowy for the sake of it. The story and characters is the one place where the remake clearly and unequivocally beats the original as it actually bothers to explain itself and expand on things rather than just bringing things up and then forgetting about it such as Priss' hatred for the AD Police for example.

Even though now AIC is way too busy coasting on it's former glories and IPs to make new and original shows. A fate that is tragically too common with old school studios. Back then at least it seems the studio had some smarts and probably knew they couldn't make this show as ultra stylish as the original, and instead playing to it's strength in the writing department. After all the OVA had months in between episodes to perfect its Blade Runner worshiping aesthetic instead of a TV schedule to deal with for one. If they tried I have no doubt it would've failed completely. Instead they settle for the tried and true classic 90's realism for their character designs. Although your mileage may vary when it comes to the redesign of the classic characters. I think the Priss redesign with the kind of spiky hair and sharper eyes captures the rebellious spirit of the original fairly well. The boomer designs are also more creative than the bootleg Terminators hidden in Genom secret service types that the original was so fond of. Everything from waitress boomers to Metal Gear style military boomers go mad. As they go mad they also grow monstrous and even eldritch looking at times. Liquid metal. I guess they updated from Terminator to Terminator 2 now that I think about it. Just because it's nowhere near as stylish as the original doesn't mean it looks bad. I prefer the 80's aesthetic of the old show and it's more detailed and alive looking take on the city. But it's certainly not without it's visually striking moments however. Though they mostly save those for around the end. The show is at it's most stylish when it's visually darker and shadowy in an almost horror-like manner. Perfectly complementing the monstrous boomers and making the Knight Sabers' opponents much more intimidating. Besides everyone knows sunlight and good lighting are the most un-cyberpunk thing in the world. It's animated well enough and fairly consistent. I only noticed one very odd slip up with Genom's chairman occasionally not moving his lips while talking for some strange reason. I guess Genom works in mysterious ways. Otherwise it's clear that care, polish and talent went into the series.

For the soundtrack you're getting served up some rock music. Just in case episode titles such as "Are You Experienced" "We Built This City" and "Shock Treatment" didn't clue you in. Although more alt rock and even sometimes industrial than the dad rock that the titles would suggest, some of them even being dad rock back in 98'. But atleast they didn't reference REO Speedwagon. I'm pretty sure it was mandated by international law to downtune your guitar in the 90's so you're getting a lot of that. For garnish you might get some acid bleeps and bloops that sounds like they came straight from a 303. Since Priss is still in a rock band she gets to play some songs too. But here I have to absolutely stress that you're not getting some sort of Konya Wa Hurricane showstoppers or even sequences where she gets to play a whole song while other stuff happens in some sort of montage. And even though I find the soundtrack to this show to have some good songs and it fits the tone of the show quite well ( I really like the OP song Y'know. The suspiciously sampled drums are delicious ) it comes up painfully and even embarrassingly short when compared to the lavish soundtrack of the original where the hits just kept on coming. AIC was probably aware of this and made the soundtrack more low key than the 80's excess original to avoid comparisons. Although I doubt it helped their case all that much. Priss' preformances are instead kept very short, presumably just as some sort of lipservice to the original. Or maybe to show that she has a hobby other than riding her officially mandated red cyberpunk motorcycle and being aloof.

I did love this show though. I was very fascinated by the mysteries that the series set up very early on. Such as Sylia's past and her volatile reaction and emotions towards boomers. And that even almost 10 years later Nene is still best girl. Of all things they even gave an explanations for why the Knight Sabers are all female, y'know besides the fact that they're more marketable that way. It's pacing is kind of deliberate in the beginning . And it keeps some of it's cards close to it's chest until the very end. But it all leads up to something special let's just put it that way.

As much as I love 80's anime aesthetic. And I know there's a lot of people out there that does too ( although they're not really to be found on great numbers on MAL ) keep in mind that not everything has to be made exactly like they did back then. There's joy to be had in exploring the different takes of different eras has on genres. It's a beauty that all mediums hold, not just anime. Ignorant nu schoolers that only watch seasonal stuff should definitely go back and watch the classics to actually get some sort of basic understanding of the medium they claim to love and it's rich history that might be lost if the community keeps going the way it is right now. And bitter old schoolers obviously needs to stop the Miyazaki style rambling and actually watch some good shows instead of just cherry picking the high school slice of shlock shows as examples. Unless they're mech-heads ofcourse then I'll pass them a 40' and bow my head with them in remembrance of when Sunrise used to be good studio.

SPOILERS

Its fine. This is my first review on MAL and I'm not necessarily sure this is the best show to start it off with. Regardless, it is the one I have finished most recently so giving it a review while it is fresh in my mind seems to be fair.

There are a few aspects of the show that are severely lacking, and a couple strong points that might compel someone to finish all 26 episodes. On the strong side, the characters are well realized and often more engaging than you would find in the original series (never mind the dumpster fire that is Crash); Linna ... serving as the vehicle to introduce you to the rest of the main cast by giving her this 'fresh off the boat' perspective is welcome, and Priss has at least a marginal amount more depth than she did in other versions of the series. Likewise, Sylia and Nene are also interesting and add valued contrast to the rest of the crew, and Sylia specifically has enough clouded history to help drive the plot forward. I miss the fact that Mackie isn't trying to bang his sister, however...

Though being a musician is core to Priss' character, I can't help but shake the feeling that the showrunners watched the "Hurricane" intro of the original OVA over and over again and tried to recapture that same magic. The Japanese VA for Priss in this series isn't even as half as good a singer as the original VA, and though that fact doesn't detract from her normal dialogue, it can't help but feel like a pale imitation of the original every time she sings.

The art is also a higher point of the show, the hardsuits are all decent designs and the setting is often well drawn though the animation is frequently 'quality' (not a good thing) in the way that late 90's shows often are. Some of the boomer art is also pretty decent, though many are worse than the original OVA, likewise the vehicles such as the Motoslave look somewhat worse than they did previously, but that is neither here nor there.

What is wrong with the show is the story, there is no villain and characters you'd think would serve a major role in the series turn into absolute non entities and seem to exist solely to bring about the half-baked final villain. It turns the 16 episodes you invested in before the final villain is revealed into a genuine waste where scarce little is related between the two.

If you're a fan of the series and need another dose after watching the original OVA it'll satisfy that desire, though the ambiguous ending still leaves you wanting more. But if you're looking for a worldbeater this isn't it.

Maybe this is a bad idea. Writing this review, I mean. I've already made it clear that I think Bubblegum Crisis 2032, the late 80's OVA, is my favorite goddamn media product and has been for the past six years or so, right? Of course I'm going to be disappointed in any reboot that tries to not only do different things than the OVA, but does so on what's clearly a fraction of the budget. Why should you listen to me? Ah, but who am I kidding, when was the last time bias or decorum stopped someone on the internet?

Fuck this. It's time for a ... reckoning. I was hurt by this anime. It's time to hurt the fuck back.

Bubblegum Crisis 2040 is the only anime I have watched tip-to-tail that I didn't just find bad in a way that I could laugh or scratch my head at. This anime made me angry, truly, terribly angry, a rising anger that bubbled up the second the show used a shitty repeating frame cycle for a backflip as early as episode two, then reused it for episode three. It doesn't just shit on the promise of its premise, it heaves out its own innards, every liter of black bilious blood and square inch of rancid green intestines, on what made Crisis good in the first place in exchange for chasing the hype of being an evangelion clone, with all the psychodrama and Deep and Flawed characters that entails. It is the kind of anime where the final building block in the romance between one of its heroines and the cop who's been chasing after her is when he saves her from attacking animated clown dolls, and thinks that this is it, this is how a woman falls for a man, when they're saved from FUCKING CHEAP-ASS CLOWN DOLLS...

Whew. Okay. Attempt Number Two. Let's break it down by different parts of the show, as one used to do on this site. Maybe that will stifle my rage a little.

Story: Spends one cour on robot-monster-of-the-week stories, with the actual plot seeming to build at something of a slow burn, until the real antagonist pair comes to the fore and this ostensibly cyberpunk-ish story becomes a rote robot-zombie apocalypse. The first cour has almost no bearing on the second cour's plot, you could cut so much cruft from that first half and focus more on the actual villain(s) of the show, but 2040 has no sense of its own narrative priorities. Almost every major story that advances the plot will be streeeeched out over two episodes when it's clear there's no need to do so, leaving us on annoying rug-pull cliffhangers everytime without a sense of satisfaction that anything has been resolved as the plot chugs along.
It's also thematically muddled as hell. One gets the sense, multiple times, that the show is trying to Say Something about the Boomer robots and their place alongside humanity, but ultimately none of it makes any sense, especially since Boomers themselves possess bullshit matter-morphing powers that turn them into Resident Evil monsters that are then the zombie-pawns of the Big Bad who wants to destroy humanity for reasons that change on a dime, reasons that even when they're being exposited in the penultimate episode make no goddamn sense. Why is this whole plot happening? What is the point? Why can't the Sabers ever be allowed to stop the robot apocalypse, or at least slow it down, only for plot-convenience to hinder them at crucial moments because the writers can't let anything be resolved, any victory that the Sabers have any agency over occur? No, seriously, the Big Bad fuses with one of the characters, decides She's God Now, and then fucks off into another dimension in the course of five minutes. What was the point, 2040? What was the fucking point? Oh, wait, there was none, you just wanted to sound Deeeeeep without having a cursory understanding of your own ideas. Which... wasn't that the promise of 2040? That it was supposed to have a deeper, more put-together story than its more fragmented predecessor? Oh boy is that not the case.

Characters: Infuriating. For all the insistence that 2040 is a more feminist show than 2032, 2040 seems far more willing to snatch away narrative agency from its characters, _especially_ Sylia Stingray. Jesus, I could write an entire essay on the character assassination she undergoes. Suffice to say that the cool-headed leader has been replaced with an alcoholic hysteric damsel with Other M-level daddy issues, who attempts to plan her war against the villains but is pathetically outplayed every goddamn time she tries to do something that might be cool. I felt bad for her in a metanarrative sense, because the writers clearly thought that making her a less competent Misato Katsuragi was somehow creating a Deep Character.
The rest of the characters aren't done much better. Linna Yamazaki goes from a money-crazed yuppie in 2032 with a big heart -- which is cliché but at least it's something -- to a total blank slate. She acts as the audience surrogate for the first few arcs -- because apparently we needed this show's premise fucking spoonfed to us over the course of four or five episodes -- before being seemingly forgotten entirely as a character besides one episode where she goes home to the country and then comes back to save the day. Priss Asagiri, the gal who snatches the protagonist spotlight from her, goes from hotheaded and loud and scene-stealing in 2032 to sullen and silent and honestly kind of boring. The only Saber who doesn't get character-destroyed is Nene Romanova, and that's mostly based on the fact that she was the token moe character in 2032 and needed a plot-power glow-up, not staying about the same as her old self. As it is, the only ways they can make her useful in 2040 are points where she... rewires an electrical grid to stop a monster-of-the-week? You would think a hacker would be cooler in this show, but nope, no, nyet, sorry, go fuck yourself viewer.
And the antagonists! They were right to kill Mason off in the first few episodes of 2032, his position in any narrative is inherently kind of boring, so 2040 keeping Mason around is... well, it makes sense, but like everything else about this show it doesn't fucking work. Jouji Nakata goes a great job voicing the bad guy, bless him, but Mason seems to never be hindered by anything right up until the last act where the REAL Big Bad shows up and fucks around with him, so there's no sense of him being anything other than a plot device. Oh God, and his motivation! Big Bad Galatea just *explains* it in one exposition dump, and it's a motivation, yes, but it's the most angsty, stupid motivation I've seen in anime! And what're Galatea's ultimate motivations for unleashing robopocalypse? Like I said, even when it was explained to me point-blank I began understanding it as 'Boomers have surpassed humanity', which we've all seen before haven't we, and eventually ended screaming 'THAT'S NOT HOW EVOLUTION WORKS YOU DIPSHITS!' at my computer. We've all been there, haven't we? No? Good, I hope not.

Art & Animation: You know, you can say a lot of disparaging things about Bubblegum Crisis's story, say that it's undercooked, throws you in at the deep end and expects you to swim, but at least it looks really fucking cool while doing it, leveraging all the money of the bubble economy to deliver brilliant cityscapes, fast-paced fight scenes, and wonderfully articulated mecha and character designs. It's really 80's, but definitely in a way that's aged well. 2040? Like I said, they resorted to tawdry animation loops in the middle of ostensibly high-budget fight as early as episode 2. Not a good sign, right? Well, yeah. Every part of Megatokyo looks cheapened, plasticized, from the hardsuits to the vehicles to the backgrounds to the Boomers. Oh God, the Boomers are just fucking awful. I don't know what possessed the designers to crib from the weird matter-absorption powers that Boomers had in 2032 for only one goddamn episode -- oh, no, wait, I do, budget concerns. This way Boomers can just attack by shooting tentacles at our heroines, our heroines can fail to adequately damage a Boomer in any fight, they can do some bondage stuff for a bit, and then some x-factor finishes the fight in a way that doesn't feel earned. Like, ever.
Again, it's baffling, because 2032's fight scenes are excellent, big and explosive and fast-paced in a way nothing in sluggish 2040 is. Could they just not get the money to make it work? Had BGC's star as a franchise faded so fast that they just couldn't get the money? I wonder. Certainly the turn of the millennium was not a time for big-budget franchises. But all the same, I can't forgive that the primary medium of action and motion in this anime is tentacles.

Music: 2032 had some of the most iconic 80's J-rock this side of Macross. I don't say that lightly: Konya Wa Hurricane, Mad Machine, Say Yes... all these sung tracks all hold up to this day. They feel big, loud, and cool, which is the point: Crisis was meant to sell music as much as it was meant to sell itself.
Now, I could forgive 2040 for not going for that golden standard, it was always trying to do something different, but the music we actually get in its stead is... yeesh. It's bad. It's droning, pulsing, techno every time, techno that never feels like it syncs well with the action that's going on but instead just exists because they needed an action track. I don't have much to say here, just that losing such a crucial part of the original 2032 experience feels so disappointing.

Overall: Goethe once said that criticism of a work should focus on three things: What is a work trying to do, does it succeed, and was it worth doing. Bubblegum Crisis 2040 wants next to nothing to do with the old Crisis, and maybe it knows what it wants to do in its stead, which is try to make a cyberpunk Evangelion with all the Depth and Darkness that implies.

Does it succeed? Fuck no. It would need a far more liberal budget to spend on actually interesting action scenes, it would need to give us interesting and competent characters, it would need to know what it wanted to say before it went and said it.

Was it worth doing? Maybe. Stand Alone Complex remains iconic for those who've seen it because of its excellent sense of itself and what it's trying to do, but that's not really cyberpunk Evangelion, and it isn't really Bubblegum Crisis either. But the sheer magnitude of Crisis's failure to deliver an exciting or interesting cyberpunk-superhero-action story, its almost willful need to suck, will remain in my mind for a long time, as something I can consider with ease whenever I want to feel rage, and then despair.

Don't watch this fucking anime, folks. You won't come out of it happier, or wiser.