He is under the employ of Quincy, the Chief Executive and founder of Genom. He is the high-level executive in Genom that killed Dr. Mason, who is also known as Largo, is the main villain of the first three episodes of the original OVA series. She is often presented as shallow, greedy, and superficial.īrian J. Linna Yamazaki is the final member of the Knight Sabers. Outside of her skills as a hacker, Nene is often portrayed as bubbly, naive, and blissfully inept with real world logic. Police, where she functions as the Knight Sabers' mole. Nene Romanova, another member of the Knight Sabers, is a technical conductor and hacker. Leon has a tendency to rush into things without thinking, and is a skilled armor pilot. Priss also finds herself in a love/hate relationship with an A.D. She is also a motorcyclist who has a bad temper and hates virtually all authority figures (especially the A.D. Priss Asagiri, a member of the Knight Sabers, is also a rock 'n' roll singer. Mackey also drives a truck that delivers the Knight Sabers and their bikes to any situation they need to attend to. He's a whiz kid with computers and technology, and is the sole caretaker of the hardsuits. Sylia's younger brother, Mackey, serves as the Knight Sabers' youthful mascot and mechanic. Sylia is a scientist in her own right, and is also a wealthy businesswoman. Stingray managed to send Sylia a data unit that provided the technological means to create the Knight Sabers' suits. Her father was murdered by a Genom executive, and the death was covered as an accident. Katsuhito Stingray, the man responsible for creating the Boomers. Sylia Stingray is the ring leader of the Knight Sabers. These four women are a fighting team with incredible abilities, and they also have powered armor suits. However, there are also the Knight Sabers, a group of women who fight the Boomers for money for those who are willing to pay. Police have the task of dealing with Boomer-related crimes.
Their main product are Boomers, which are artificial beings used for manual labor however, the Boomers end up being used by villains to be deadly instruments of destruction. Bubblegum Crisis is a cyberpunk-style anime that is set in 2032, in a post disaster Tokyo that has been renamed "Megatokyo." A corporation called Genom holds immense power in Megatokyo. I also manage Mecha Damashii and do toy reviews over at. So if you are a fan of cyberpunk and appreciate impressively intricate animation, Bubblegum Crisis is worth a look, if only to see how influential it has now become.īubblegum Crisis is now available on Blu-ray and DVD for $29.99 and can be ordered from the AnimEigo online store.ĭisclosure: AnimEigo sent me a copy of this Blu-ray release for the purposes of this review.įollow me on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This collection then is something that I am glad exists, as it allows new people to check out this cult classic in a way that does justice to its animation. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Bubblegum Crisis back in the 90s, mostly down to the characters, it has grown on me in the years since. You also have some nice extras in the form of art galleries on the disc.Īs this is also an AnimEigo release, the localization is done very well indeed and is faithful with it. From the characters to the combat, this is a slick looking anime and has aged incredibly well. With remastered visuals for all 8 episodes, this really helps to show off the quality of the animation. This particular Blu-ray set is very nicely done though. To the extent that this anime OVA is more popular abroad than in Japan, the country of its origin. The interesting thing here is that Bubblegum Crisis was one of the first anime to really make an impact in the West during the initial anime boom of the early 90s. Specifically, what made Bubblegum Crisis stand out at the tail-end of the 80s, was its fresh character designs by Kenichi Sonoda, amazing mecha designs by Shinji Aramaki and impressive animation.
Unfortunately, rights issues halted the production of the original series and subsequent attempts to reboot it didn’t quite manage to capture what made the original Bubblegum Crisis work so well 'Bubblegum Crisis' looks magnificent on Blu-ray.