Anime Review: Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040

I probably don’t talk enough about classic anime on this blog. Let’s rectify that today with Bubblegum Crisis.

Bubblegum Crisis was an eight episode OVA (original video animation; a "straight to video" sort of deal with more prestige) released in Japan starting in 1987. Set in and futuristic cyberpunk setting the series focused on a group of women who used mechanical suits, to battle against rogue robots called “boomers” and the evil mega corporation Genom. Heavily influenced by Blade Runner this series is considered to be both a groundbreaking and classic anime series. Despite this it’s initial run was cut short from thirteen episodes to eight leaving it unfinished. This was due, it would seem, to in-fighting within the studios producing it, budgetary problems and supposed a lack of initial popularity in Japan. Since then there has been a (less critically revered) sequel to try to tie the loose ends up, called Bubblegum Crash, as well as numerous spin-offs, prequels and adaptations. Furthermore Bubblegum Crisis was a pretty important anime for American audiences as it was from the same era of cartoons brought over cartoons like Akira and Project A-ko. It was one of the late 80s/ 90s anime exports that gained a cult-like fandom from collage age Generation X-ers (because there was once a time where Gen-X-ers were young and hip, apparently) that directly led to the anime boom of the early 2000s. The show is still popular today, having recently been the subject of a successful Kickstarter campaign to bring it to Blu-Ray. With so much pedigree and historical significance it’s a no-brainer that I review it now.

But instead I’m going to review its 1998 remake. Hooray.

It was decided to commission a re-telling of the original OVA, almost certainly because that anime was never properly finished. However in this new version the character designs were greatly altered, as were the personalities of most of the cast, and the story ended up going in a completely new direction with different themes. As far as I can tell Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (as it was called) is not considered to be as good as it’s predecessor. In fact it would seem that BGC fans kind of think of it as an afterthought. Hell, it doesn’t even have its own TV Tropes page, which I found to be really odd as those guys make pages about everything! (By the way, I wouldn’t mind a Beta is Dead TV Tropes page. I’m just saying…)

Anyway it was produced by Anime International Company and licensed for America by ADV Films in 2001. Since ADV Films’ mid-2000s bubblegum financial crisis FUNimation has picked up the license and re-released the show on DVD in 2010. I have never seen a single episode of the original Bubblegum Crisis so, unlike a lot of classic anime fans, I will be reviewing this on its own merit rather than comparing to the beloved series. Is it unfairly judged or does it have its own crisis of content?

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: The review contains a few spoilers for a cartoon that came out in the 90s so read at your own risk if you managed to remain spoiler free this whole time]
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