It’s been nearly four decades since the first episode of the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA series touched down. Around 30 of those were spent living in my head as one of the most fun projects of its type—of which there were many, being the era of the all-timer OVA—so a rewatch was well overdue. Thankfully, AnimEigo recently continued its tradition, now under the ownership of MediaOCD, of re-releasing the series in top form.
For those who haven’t seen it, the series centers on a group of mechanical-suited mercenary women known as the Knight Sabers. Together they take on jobs that might be a little too hot for the AD Police to handle, try as they might. Many of those jobs have to do with the GENOM megacorporation and a line of deadly robots they produce called Boomers. Just like our very own Boomers, these robots lead to nothing but trouble that the younger generation ends up having to either fix or live with forever.
The story starts in 2032, with each of the eight episodes typically presenting a new threat for the Knight Sabers to tackle. The city of MegaTokyo already had to deal with a devastating earthquake, and now it’s shaking, rattling and rolling to the beat of marauding bikers and seemingly unstoppable robots bent on destruction. As tends to be the case with stories in the cyberpunk genre, technology has, indeed, gone wild. Bubblegum Crisis carries the tradition proudly with nods to the likes of Blade Runner and Walter Hill’s classic 1984 neo-noir film Streets of Fire.
Like many OVA series of the time, each episode has a go-for-broke feeling to it, with the directors and the rest of the staff working like this could be the last project they animate. The first is particularly all-or-nothing, taking what would otherwise be a standard cyberpunk kidnapping yarn and building it up to a bombastic, ground-shaking conclusion. The teams at Artmic and AIC put so much care into every frame, and each director puts enough of a stamp on their respective episodes to make them all seem like short anime films.
Not every episode is just about taking out rogue Boomers. Installments like episode 4, 1988’s “Revenge Road,” have a special place in my heart. In this yarn, a race aims to enact vengeance upon MegaTokyo’s roving biker gangs with the help of a modified car. Naturally, this doesn’t go as planned, and the task of stopping this now out-of-control vehicle falls to the Knight Sabers. There are exsanguinating killers, Knight Saber impostors and singers with an ax to grind, among other threats looming on the bleeding-edge transition from the late ’80s to the early ’90s.
Directors include the likes of Katsuhito Akiyama (Armitage III), Masami Obari (Detonator Orgun), Fumihiko Takayama (Patlabor III), Hiroki Hayashi, Kenichi Yatagai, Yasunori Ide and Hiroaki Goda. They all leave a unique impression on the series to the tune of Koji Makaino’s excellent soundtrack and plenty of Ellen Aim/Face to Face-caliber bops. If your exposure to classic anime is strictly through looping GIFs on YouTube City Pop compilations, you’ll probably find some of that footage here, too.
The latest Bubblegum Crisis Blu-ray release is a two-disc special edition that packs the eight-episode OVA with a 50-page booklet. The video itself is the same HD remaster from 2014’s three-disc Kickstarter Ultimate Edition release. No complaints here, because it looks stunning. AnimEigo has once again presented an iconic OVA in the best way possible, imperfections and all. That there are a bunch of extras to sift through on top of that is truly the icing on the cake.
Studio/Company: AnimEigo
Available: Now
Ratinng: 16+