Bubblegum Crisis Review

Now for a trip to the 80s.

2032 Tokyo, the city having recovered from an Earthquake has given rise to a growing gap in rich and poor allowing megacorp Genom to do as they please including it's development of Boomers, cyborgs built for jobs and war but these cyborgs have a nasty habit of going rogue. The AD Police assigned to tackle this are under funded, under equipped and likely held back because of political meddling. Enter Sylia Stingray who forms a team of vigilante women in power suits called the Knight Sabers, made up of AD Police Hacker Nene, Night Club Singer Priss and Aerobics Instructor Linna. Even if the boomers are being stopped, the conspiracies behind their creation deepens as to why they came to become rogue.
If there's any show which encapsulates 80s then it's this one, the creators took plenty of inspiration from Japan's new fondness of American film back in the mid 80s including most notably Blade Runner and Streets of Fire. Being an 80s child myself, I can appreciate the references on display.
The anime itself works well in it's setting and can pull off some decent action but the story is somewhat moot as disputes between it's owners caused the series to end unexpectedly with sequel Bubblegum Crash only barely scrapping an ending. It wouldn't be the only issue plaguing the story. The villains are written in a way that never sees them punished for their actions and even when one of their own turns against them they don't seem to do much about it. The Knight Sabers themselves are a mixed bag with Nene being a genki airhead, Priss starting bad ass then becoming one note by Bubblegum Crash, Linna who I always feel was never really suited for this and Sylia lacking an edge to her character. It's frustrating to see especially when the actresses added more drama behind the scenes with contract disputes affecting the episodes at the time.
The dub was remarkably good for it's time even going as far as to translate all the music which is a mixed bag at best in English but in it's original Japanese it's argubly one of Anime's best soundtracks.
Final Verdict: A fun cyberpunk series heavily flawed by it's troubled production history. The plot struggles to stay grounded but I find it admirable that they still pulled off a good series in spite of the story.

End