#62: Bubblegum Crash! (1991)

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Directors: Hiroshi Ishiodori (Episodes 1 and 3), Hiroyuki Fukushima (Episode 2)

Screenplay: Emu Arii

Voice Cast: Akiko Hiramatsu /Barbara Barnes [Manga UK Dub] as Nene Romanova; Michie Tomizawa/ Stacey Gregg [Manga UK Dub]  as Linna Yamazaki; Ryōko Tachikawa/ Julia Brahms [Manga UK Dub] as Priscilla S. "Priss" Asagiri; Yoshiko Sakakibara/ Tamsin Hollo [Manga UK Dub]  as Sylia Stingray; Kenyuu Horiuchi /Michael McGhee [Manga UK Dub] as Daley Wong, ; Toshio Furukawa /Matthew Sharp [Manga UK Dub] as Leon McNichol

Viewed in English

Synopsis: 2034, two years after they helped Tokyo deal with rouge "Boomers", humanoid robots who have malfunctioned, the all female group known as the Knight Sabres have vanished from the scene. Three members - pop star Priss Asagiri, hacker Nene Romanova and Linna Yamazaki - presume, as their leader Sylia Stingrayhas been absent, that their previous role is over. When Sylia returns however, it's time for them to put the powered armour back on as a series of Boomer related incidents rock Tokyo again.

In 1987, a straight-to-video series started called Bubblegum Crisis. Futuristic Japan, directly inspired by Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) (and Walter Hill's rock 'n' roll action oddity Streets of Fire (1984), which was much more successful in Japan than in its homeland). A story where mass produced robots nicknamed "Boomers" exist, only for there to be the problem that exists in most anime and manga stories, that they can go kill-crazy and malfunction all the time. Four female leads donned cybernetic power armour, dubbed themselves the Knights Sabres and over eight episodes in 1991 dealt with tasks even the A.D. Police, specifically founded to deal with Boomer related crime, cannot handle. Bubblegum Crisis was a success, not only in Japan but with a following the West for a certain generation. Naturally striking the iron whilst it was still hot, not always something anime producers have done, this popular series was followed by two tie-ins. Inexplicably, whilst Bubblegum Crisis was released in the UK, you're more likely to find these tie-ins second hand still than the original, as they were licensed by our home-grown company Manga Entertainment, which gives you a peculiar issue where some have probably never seen the original unless they got those episodes from a separate company or imported US releases.

In general the story of the franchise after Bubblegum Crisis is not that well regarded either, lasting to 2003 and really given a critical dubbing. One of the only tie-ins to succeed for some, and it's a divisive creation for some still, was one of the entries Manga Entertainment picked up named A.D Police (1990). Made part of the way through the main series' releases, it is in vast contrast to the original or its sequel, A.D. Police not only a prequel set before the Knight Sabres existed, but a lurid and nasty cyberpunk noir with more gore, sleazy sexuality and a very bleak tone, even to the point of ridiculousness of how masochistic the dialogue could be. Less regarded however, out of Manga Entertainment's acquisitions, is the actual sequel Bubblegum Crash! started the same year Crisis finished. Even in context of one of their lesser releases - part of The Collection of licenses transferred from VHS to DVD, ropey English dub and removing the end credits screen for a black one with text - it feels like a bad follow on. Even without seeing the original Crisis, which I have to confess now before I feel like I'm lying, I utterly see why Crash! is not well regarded as, even without the original context, it's not a good sci-fi action anime even by itself.

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Crash!, contrary to my original opinion, only takes half of its first episode to bring back the heroines properly, who stay as friends but returned to their old lives, rather than a whole episode. However, as the OVA series consists of only three episodes in the first place, there's not a lot of time to work with and what does happen it exceptionally bland. A little joy is found in Crash!, at least in its awesome opening theme song of eighties synth rock, but the rest feels like a missed opportunity. Episode one, having to devote time to bring back the gang, skims over a mercenary army with cybernetic implants, all part of the series wide plot of a shady figure behind the machinations as that particular group rob banks. Pretty basic, cheerful action sci-fi. More egregious, and wasting a whole episode with its clichés, is Episode  2 following a more advanced form of Boomer with its own consciousness who is the target for theft. The member of the Knights Sabres who hates Boomers, Priss, is naturally the one who ends up with him and, not justifying its tale of her overcoming her hatred for robots to admire him, is syrup poured onto clichés, death to sit through. Neither does it help that, without the context of the original series, these characters for all the series are not interesting. Figures without the spark and colour their appearances and power armour suggest. The English performances are egregious as well, particular as for the Manga UK release an entirely different English language cast for the four main leads was hired, in contrast to the same one for an alternative dub who played the characters in Bubblegum Crisis.

The only interesting aspects of the first two episodes are the background details, a world with its own character that should've been pushed into the foreground more. Advertising and goofy promotional films for the A.D. Police, who are practically useless through these episodes. How the two A.D. Police with personality, Leon and Daley, get scenes like having to deal with a female cafe Boomer whose internal coffee machine has failed, pouring out coffee beans instead of the desired beverage. Material that makes the first two episodes more tolerable, at least more interesting. It's also specifically the comedy and exponential material which has nothing to do with the Knight Sabres as, especially in the English dub, what should be by all right interesting, tough female characters are the blandest gang of four you can get, where someone like Priss (here tough and hard boiled, and little else) is out staged by how camp the English voice for her slimy music producer is.

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Episode 3, starting with construction site Boomers in hard hats and robo-dungarees going murder-death-kill on humans, is the one truly redeemable part of Bubblegum Crash. Still an average series, but in context of the motley group of titles Manga Entertainment put together called The Collection, the only episode out of three where there's the trashiness I can enjoy as in some of the dumber entries from that series. It's certainly a lot more energetic and proudly trashy in an inventive way, when Boomers on mass crowd in the streets due to a virus that causes them to rebel, forming together into a giant bio-mechanical beast latched on a skyscraper, and leading to the heroes having to fire at it from an aerial vehicle. Something that's at least novel next to the predictability of the rest before, at least with the English dub providing a hoot of a line where the monstrosity screams, after it intends to kill them, to steal their data in that order. The episodes reintroduces a character from the prequel, making it the only episode of importance even if the plot's built from the first two, and generally has more on the line. A nuclear power plant in danger that could blow up all of Tokyo. A giant, street sized war machine on treads. The Knight Sabres in actual trouble, with inventive and scary looking robot designs. Even my pet obsession with characters entering phantom zones out-of-body makes an appearance, common in these old Manga Entertainment acquisitions, in this case an excuse for nudity and floating above the Earth for a weird cross pollination of sci-fi and psychic imagery.

In lieu of all the old licences Manga Entertainment put together as The Collection, Bubblegum Crash! is one of only two that [so far in 2018] have been made available on DVD in the 2010s. (The other is unfortunately the infamous Violence Jack OVAs, but that's for another day's review). They make a vast contrast next to the company in the current day who licences more respectable work like Dragonball Z and live action Power Rangers series. Out of those so far in The Collection, however, Bubblegum Crash! barring that final episode is one of the least rewarding I've seen, even with the third episode sadly both the most well known of two but the least interesting even paired next to the likes of Psychic Wars (1991) [Reviewed HERE] or the shambolic South Korean failure Armageddon (1996) [Reviewed HERE], bland and adequate rather than an utter, compelling disaster or something good.

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