Similar to my first episode review... episode description and spoilers follow. This is the second episode of the second story arc. After spoilers is the same history in the rest of my bubblegum crisis reviews.

Episode starts with a space station with advanced boomers called Sexaroids trying to escape. The sexaroids are boomers created for comfort and sex and ultra good looks. They are maintained with human blood in their systems. Only two sexaroids make it out of the space station with a new battle armor known as the DD Battlemover. The DD is the most powerful armored suit known to exist. Priss becomes close friends with one of the sexaroids... However, there are crimes where the victims are found without blood and are called the vampire crimes. Priss sexaroid friend is committing the crimes with the DD Battlemover. The sexaroid decides to infiltrate Genom to get the files that allow sexaroids to exist without using human blood. However, she is discovered by the boomer security guards at Genom. A battle ensues and she is injured while in the DD battlemover.... but when the battlemover senses that the user is dead, the machine goes into emergency mode and starts a self destruct mechanism that is actually a nuclear bomb! Priss is ultimately forced to kill her friend... but during the battle... Leon discovers that Priss is a knight saber...

A good series for its time with a great soundtrack (although it does sound like many songs from hit artists at the time!) decent animation and decent character development for some of the series. This was a creation of the early 80s and heavily influenced by cyberpunk themes like Blade Runner and some role playing games. This was an 8 episode OVA series had a few inconsistencies that actually reflected the real life problems with the creation of the series...

This series deals with four women with rather different personalities in hard suits (tight form fitting robotic outfits) to fight Boomers (machine like entities created by the Tokyo megacorporation Genom. They call themselves the Knight Sabers. Priss is the most aggressive of the bunch and the voice actor does most of the singing for the entire series. Priss is the most able fighter and works for the Knight Sabers for money and other personal reasons. Nene is the youngest with a more imaginative role for the Knight Sabers. Nene is the computer whiz. Linna is a stock broker and aerobics instructor. The most acrobatic of the group and likely the second best fighter. Sylia is the leader and the one who built the hard suit technology that is similar to the boomer technology since her father created the boomer technology. It is rumored that Sylia is a boomer herself although never stated in the series. There are several supporting characters like Mackie (Sylia's brother), Leon (ADPolice force and developed into possible love interest for Priss) and Daley (Leon's gay partner). There is character development and some consistent storytelling in this series... however, do not count Bubblegum Crash or BubbleGum Crisis Tokyo 2040 with this series...

BubbleGum Crash uses the same characters and improved hard suit designs but ignores most of the character development and character interactions of BubbleGum Crisis. This is a 3 episode series focusing on Sylia (and the possibility that she is a boomer) and Mason/Largo (human who was VP on Genom and was killed then became a superboomer).

BubbleGum Crisis Tokyo 2040 used the same characters but is a much longer series since it was made for TV. The designs of the characters are different but the hard suits look the same... much better character development for Linna, Nene, and Sylia but the music is not as good and Priss's character doesn't have the same depth as the original... Leon looks more like a grunt and isn't as cool as the original Leon.

ADPolice OVA series is also tied in to this series... this takes place before BubbleGum Crisis and concentrates more on Leon.

Quick history on the development of the original BubbleGum Crisis... some will say that the storyline and character development of BubbleGum Crisis is inconsistent... unfortunately, this may be due to the result of contract problems with the voice actress playing the character of Priss. The voice actress of Vision (in episode 7 of the series) was supposed to take the place of Priss who was supposed to die in episode 6 in the confrontation with Largo (a main bad guy in the episode 4-6 story arc). Vision character would replace Priss and the voice actress would sing the rest of the songs for the series. Vision's voice actress was also prettier and had a much better voice than Priss's voice actress. Word leaked and Japanese fans were rather upset at this situation... they flooded the offices of the creators and animators to keep Priss alive... so what you see of the end of episode 6 was a hack job to please the Japanese fans. Vision's voice actress went on to have a very successful career I believe... They were other legal problems near the end as well... With episode 8 and the Bubblegum Crash series, two companies had rights to BubbleGum Crisis and their characters but had a major disagreement during the production of episode 8 and fell out with each other by the time Bubblegum Crash was being made... maybe an explanation of why BubbleGum Crash stunk!

The series overall develops Priss the most in this series and concentrates mostly on her. There are revelations about Sylia's character but as I said, this was done mostly is BubbleGum Crash. Mostly, the past of Sylia is shown. Nene is really only developed in episode 8. Linna is left to hang and dry unfortunately (althought I think episode 7 was supposed to develop her character before being stolen by Vision's character). This is mostly an action series... lots of fighting and weapons, quite a few dismemberment scence of bystanders and ADPolice officers, and some nudity when Priss gets dressed into her hardsuit. By the way the ADPolice, are the Advanced Department Police Force to deal with boomer crimes. There is also development of another character Leon, an ADPolice detective who is attracted to Priss and vice versa. The ADPolice usually get really really beaten up and the Knight Saber have to save the day. The only other notables are that Priss and Leon seem to have 100 times the blood capacity of normal humans, can take more punishment than armored tanks (Leon survived and point blank satellite laser beam blast while his fellow officers right next to him didn't and were vaporized... and Leon was just wobbly!) Priss and Leon are human if you were wondering.

Nice art, good hard suit designs, and great rock music and 80s music.
I still recommend the series to beginners although it is fading to a more cult following... the series is rather cheap now.

The entire series is on 3 DVDs
DVD #1 has episodes 1-3
DVD #2 has episodes 4-6
DVD #3 has episodes 7-8 plus music videos
Hurricane live 2032 and Hurricane live 2033 are seperate VHS tapes
The same set up for the VHS tapes now
BubbleGum Crisis Collection has 3 VHS tapes either subtitled or dubbed
Collection #1 has episodes 1-3
Collection #2 has episodes 4-6
Collection #3 has episodes 7-8 plus music videos.




Recommended: Yes