Synopsis
Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 is bubblelicious! I love this series. It’s a remake of the very successful classic… guess what it’s named? Bubblegum Crisis, silly! It’s about this underground group of girls know as the Knight Sabers, who fight these robots called ‘Boomers’ when they malfunction and go on a rampage like Godzilla looking for his next movie sequel. The Knight Sabers do this incognito, so they try and get things done before the police get there.
Review
The ‘Boomers’ have taken the place of the workers who do routine jobs and are basically everywhere in Tokyo. Priss (the main character) has heard about this underground organization on the web and will do anything to find out how to join them. I couldn’t believe that this series is so entertaining. Everything about it is great. The music (Neo Techno stuff) is excellent and fits the scenes perfectly. The voice acting is superb (except for Leon’s, It’s a little to gruff for me). The character design is great (but you can definitely see El- Hazard inspired designs in this series too. Boy, I didn’t think that series had such an impact on characters. It’s everywhere now).
The new designs for the exo-suits the Knight Sabers wear are extremely cool too. The effects used in BC 2040 are revolutionary. It’s one of the first times I’ve seen computer graphics seamlessly integrated into hand-drawn animation done right (the other time is in Serial Experiment’s Lain). On a down note, the series really losses it’s budget near the final chapters and the animation drops dramatically. What happened? The story started losing steam in the latter half of the series also. Even though BGC 2040’s bubble popped near it’s finale, I still recommend it.
The Breakdown
If you’ve seen the original BGC or not, this updated version is worth a viewing. One question though…Why is it called Bubblegum Crisis? Is it because they are in a sticky situation?
» The Pros
Solid character design that basically started a huge trend. This, along with El Hazard was the nineties look!
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» The Cons
They ran out of steam and money on the final stretch. It was almost a touchdown. Sadly they had to go with a field goal.
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» Animation
7 |
The animation starts off strong then it seems the studio used all of it's budget. By the end the series is animated poorly. |
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» Sound
8.5 |
Industrial Techno is a good fit for the robot theme. Priss' songs are good too. BGC 2040 has one of my favorite intro songs ever. |
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» Story
5 |
Started interesting but then ran out of steam and kind of got repetitive and stagnant. |
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» Recommend
7.5 |
Even with all of it's short comings, I recommend it. It's a fairly fun ride. |
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» Other Information
Language: English, Japanese and Spanish. English subtitles.
Extras: Character profiles. Trailer's auto play when you put the disk in but aren't selectable in the menu.
Package: The same as the Original VHS cover (Priss and her Knight Saber suit). |