Prep yourselves guys, it's time for a cop out. Let's sum up my take on the Bubblegum Crisis Franchise with a review of mah' frothy babble:
Bubblegum Crisis
An 80's piece of genius that took from the films Blade Runner and Streets of Fire with both hands making for a fun and unique vision of the future propelled by granting humanity to the inhuman to the sound of eighties pop rock as a group of lady mercenary/vigilantes fight the good fight against boomer manufacturer Genom, rogue Boomers loose in the city, fast & furious speed demons in android-cars, vampire driven mecha and vengeance craving rock stars. This is one of my favorite anime series of all time.
Bubblegum Crash
Following the lawsuit that killed the series, half the staff from the original came back to give us closure we never found. In this heavily disliked portion of BGC an old enemy comes back from the dead and manipulates Mercenaries, AI scientists and every boomer in MegaTokyo in his attempt to permanently end the Knight Sabers and humanity. This 3-part series is meant to give closure, but it leaves more issues hanging than it can resolve.
A.D. Police Files
Set before the original BGC, Leon McNichol is a rookie paired with a somewhat disturbed lady cyborg partner in his rise from ADP shock trooper to detective. Steeped in sex and violence, ADP strays pretty far from the mark of the original series making for a very disturbing experience.
It's not clear why Leon's pinning down a boomer with grunts in the same episode as he's running investigations, but who needs that "accuracy" crap, right?
Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040
The Knight Sabers get a new lease on life with a TV series that gives a clear beginning and end to a great story that takes a few artistic liberties with the original story and cast. Putting BGC back into pop-culture relevance and opening the door for a potential follow-up series and bringing the girls in armor back into the pubic eye.
A.D. Police: To Serve & Protect
RUmblings of an ADP tv series made my pants explode, unfortunately the actualy result was a 12-episode mini series that has no ties to any BGC continuity. Genom City is rough place, but if you're chasing rogue Boomers it gets much harder to live there as for ADP officers Hans & Kenji soon learn in their wild antics endangering the innocent, killing partners and otherwise being some of the worst cops ever animated. There's so much I wanted to like about it, but you can't polish a turd. This my friends... is a turd.
Parasite Dolls
The most recent BGC entry to date. There's no Knight Sabers and the ADP are essentially an eyesore as in three episodes we learn of a shadowy investigative branch of ADP known only as "Branch". Yeah, kind of redundant... Anyway, these guys make life for Genom and Politicians difficult in Genom City, and making those kinds of ways makes for some high-profile enemies. It's basically a desperate grasp at the series' Blade Runner origins that serves to add more pointless sex and violence in lieu of an actual story and ironically that same intention takes it further away from its origins than ever.
BGC... the movie?
It's said that an asian/caucasian cast has been assembled as of 2009 to release a Bubblegum Crisis live action film! Rumors persist saying that we can expect its arrival sometime in 2012. Given all the disappointing events surrounding BGC, I can only hope that this one film can galvanize the efforts of the former staff members in either remaking or finishing the original series as it deserves. My hopes and prayers have been going out to this effort since I first heard of it.
I bitch and moan, yeah. It's kind of my thing. It's cathartic! But you see, BGC is possibly one of my most important anime favorites. It molded my appreciation of anime throughout and gave me critical insight throughout the very legal drama that tore it apart.
I could make all kinds of wild accusations that it was its greatness that killed it and all the pale imitators are to be expected given its fine pedigree as they grasp into a light so bright it blinds them and they keep coming back empty handed... So I will! That's right! It was THAT damn good.
