The Accidental Otaku (#2 05292010)
The Bubblegum Crisis (1987-1991)
Directors - 5 notables, including Masami Obari
Character designs - Kenichi Sonoda
Plot : (ANN Encyclopedia. Again, because I can't do summaries)"In the near future, Tokyo was left flattened as a result from a great earthquake. A new city, MegaTokyo, was then recreated due in no small part from the aid of a multi-million dollar company, Genom Corp. Genom created and mass-produced biomechanical creatures called Boomers to aid in the restoration of MegaTokyo. When the Boomers began to run out of control, the ADPolice at first tried to stop them, but they proved to be far more difficult to deal with than was first imagined. Under the ever looming Boomer threat, a group of four girls from varying degrees of society banded together. Calling themselves The Knight Sabers, they were the only ones with enough firepower and resourcefullness to defend the fledgling MegaTokyo from Genom and it's berserk Boomers."
Opinions : Let's face it. There are very few completely original ideas left when it comes to media entertainment. What makes a success is taking something tried and true and presenting it in a new fashion. The Bubblegum Crisis is like that. Yes, it's a wholly derivatiev work. Hells, the mood music in the begining, the hero and villian names and even the backgrounds are all taken out of Ridley Scott's masterpiece, Bladerunner...
...until the soundtrack kicks in. You know it's going to be something different when the first few strains of Konya wa Hurricane spin up. And that's how the whole series is, connected as they are from one to another with bitchin' music. At about this same time, there were a few other anime to come out that had a similar idea. Kimagure Orange Road, to some extent Maison Ikkoku and, later on, Ranma Nibun no Ichi, just to name a few. Luring new viewers in with catchy and, more importantly marketable, tunes, The Bubblegum Crisis and shows like it grew followings for their music as much as for their anime. Soon, seiyuu weren't the only stars of the shows. Megumi Hayashibara has made a careerr out of being both seiyuu and songbird and is, or at least was, the arguable queen of anime. Or, possibly, its' powder puff princess. Even today, established bands are doing anime (The Pillows, X Japan, Origa) as a way to reach out to more fans. We've grown almost accustomed to having at least the opening and ending themes being snappy.
The animation for The Bubblegum Crisis is, for the time period, a bit above standard in most areas, but much above in others. If you look at the comtemporaries (Kimagure Orange Road and Urusei Yatsura), you can see that's how anime was done. When it was brought to America, AnimEigo was the first company to dub it, indeed one of the first technically correct dubs out there. And by that, I mean that they didn't edit the script for the sake of the audience. That much is good. However, their budget apparently lacked when it came to finding people that couple, well, act. If you want to watch / listen to an anime series and how it's NOT supposed to be dubbed, find AnimEigo's versions. Simply hideous.
The first three episodes of The Bubblegum Crisis were probably designed like a pilot, as their story is self contained and really could be seen by themselves. The next five are another seperate set of stories that build on the first three, but also build each of the characters and let them grow. Oddly enough, the quality of the animation in episodes 4-8 increase dramatically over the first three.
The Bubblegum Crisis wasn't the first powersuit anime, or the first team crime-fighter anime, or strong women anime, but add a rockin' soundtrack and perhaps it's the first to be all of that and more...despite being derivative.
Directors - 5 notables, including Masami Obari
Character designs - Kenichi Sonoda
Plot : (ANN Encyclopedia. Again, because I can't do summaries)"In the near future, Tokyo was left flattened as a result from a great earthquake. A new city, MegaTokyo, was then recreated due in no small part from the aid of a multi-million dollar company, Genom Corp. Genom created and mass-produced biomechanical creatures called Boomers to aid in the restoration of MegaTokyo. When the Boomers began to run out of control, the ADPolice at first tried to stop them, but they proved to be far more difficult to deal with than was first imagined. Under the ever looming Boomer threat, a group of four girls from varying degrees of society banded together. Calling themselves The Knight Sabers, they were the only ones with enough firepower and resourcefullness to defend the fledgling MegaTokyo from Genom and it's berserk Boomers."
Opinions : Let's face it. There are very few completely original ideas left when it comes to media entertainment. What makes a success is taking something tried and true and presenting it in a new fashion. The Bubblegum Crisis is like that. Yes, it's a wholly derivatiev work. Hells, the mood music in the begining, the hero and villian names and even the backgrounds are all taken out of Ridley Scott's masterpiece, Bladerunner...
...until the soundtrack kicks in. You know it's going to be something different when the first few strains of Konya wa Hurricane spin up. And that's how the whole series is, connected as they are from one to another with bitchin' music. At about this same time, there were a few other anime to come out that had a similar idea. Kimagure Orange Road, to some extent Maison Ikkoku and, later on, Ranma Nibun no Ichi, just to name a few. Luring new viewers in with catchy and, more importantly marketable, tunes, The Bubblegum Crisis and shows like it grew followings for their music as much as for their anime. Soon, seiyuu weren't the only stars of the shows. Megumi Hayashibara has made a careerr out of being both seiyuu and songbird and is, or at least was, the arguable queen of anime. Or, possibly, its' powder puff princess. Even today, established bands are doing anime (The Pillows, X Japan, Origa) as a way to reach out to more fans. We've grown almost accustomed to having at least the opening and ending themes being snappy.
The animation for The Bubblegum Crisis is, for the time period, a bit above standard in most areas, but much above in others. If you look at the comtemporaries (Kimagure Orange Road and Urusei Yatsura), you can see that's how anime was done. When it was brought to America, AnimEigo was the first company to dub it, indeed one of the first technically correct dubs out there. And by that, I mean that they didn't edit the script for the sake of the audience. That much is good. However, their budget apparently lacked when it came to finding people that couple, well, act. If you want to watch / listen to an anime series and how it's NOT supposed to be dubbed, find AnimEigo's versions. Simply hideous.
The first three episodes of The Bubblegum Crisis were probably designed like a pilot, as their story is self contained and really could be seen by themselves. The next five are another seperate set of stories that build on the first three, but also build each of the characters and let them grow. Oddly enough, the quality of the animation in episodes 4-8 increase dramatically over the first three.
The Bubblegum Crisis wasn't the first powersuit anime, or the first team crime-fighter anime, or strong women anime, but add a rockin' soundtrack and perhaps it's the first to be all of that and more...despite being derivative.