Following the Knight Sabers, a highly elite group of female mercenaries living in a futuristic cyberpunk Tokyo, where they take down machines known as Boomers, many created by the evil mega-corp Genom. This whole series screams 80s anime and I loved it. The original series is only 8 episodes released over multiple years, produced more as OVAs (Original Video Animations) rather than a series, meaning each episode tends to be longer, typically at 44 minutes, and is considerably higher budget than the traditional 26 episode 22 minute standard we often see. This also means each storyline, while generally disjoint from other episodes, is a bit more involved or complex than other anime shows of the time, and I was quite impressed by its visuals. The art and aesthetic is perfect though and through. If you're one to have nostalgia from any of that sci-fi anime future punk era: Akira, Mobile Suit, Robotech, etc, you're going to love this. Definitely adult, there is nudity, violence, and swearing, the plots are generally good, again with each narrative being self contained per episode and each slowly clueing us in on the futuristic city, its technology, and how society now functions. Its not all great, plot-wise we never really get as much explained as we'd like, characters don't really develop, and with transforming vigilante heroes a la Charlie's Angels meets Power Rangers, there's a lot of tropes presented, some great, some not the best. I don't know enough anime history to say which if these tropes the series pioneered vs simply reenforced, but overall I did constantly have fun and felt vested in the characters. Unfortunately the english dub of this series is also not the best, with a lot of line delivery being very questionable if not laughable, but if you're like me it somehow only added to the charm and nostalgia. Also something not an issue if you watch the original subbed, so I can't fault it for that anyway. Fortunately for those wanting more there's multiple other spin-offs and reboots since this original, and for all this series was it deserves them, I'd already consider this a classic.
Review of Bubblegum Crisis
