2040 #1

Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 #1: Genesis

ADV

100 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
09/12/2000

I met this girl at a party once, right? The night's going good and I think I'm gonna hit some of that sweet poonaner without even needing the aid of the universal lubricant. All of a sudden she starts up with "So, do you like that Japanimation stuff?". I'm fucking STUNNED, where did that come from? Then I look down at my shirt and it hits me. I'm wearing an anime shirt. Well I try to rebut with something clever but all that comes out is "Well I uh... no, not really. Just a little." As I went over in the Cutey Honey review, chicks don't like the anime anymore than I'd like choking down a fat horse cock. And just in case you're unsure I wouldn't like to do that. At all. Even when she harshed on my beloved Bubblegum Crisis I had nothing to say in return.**
But if there's one thing in this world that I like it's short haired punk bitches. I'm gonna lay that out on the line right now just like I do in every review of a show that contains said punk girls. Not only that but there's a strong prevalence of angry songs sung by chicks, and a whole cyberpunk feel to it. As if THAT weren't enough to reel me in there's robots in this. And they die. A lot. It's basically like someone sat down and decided that they weren't making enough anime for the Dave Riley crowd. I'm glad it happened, I just wish it hadn't taken this long.

So what exactly is Bubblegum Crisis 2040? I'm glad you asked. I'd love to give you the whole sordid past of the transfers and what have you, but I'd probably fuck it all up anyway. AIC's got it now and they've made it sleeker and sexier and looking a lot more like El Hazard, what with all the stolen character designs and all. On the note of more original stuff, though, they've made Priss sleeker and sexier instead of the god damn scary weird butch chick she was in the previous show. Other characters that aren't turned into magical world counterparts (Sylia, Mackie) get facelifts too. Nene is no longer mistakable for one of the iterations of Irresponsible Hyper inappropriate Catgirl Nuku Nuku the Third. Linna also has lost her Sean Young haircut. That made me kind of sad, but I guess you can only ride Bladerunner's coattails for ten years or so before it starts to get a little old.
Linna's the country bumpkin that's come to the big city to get a new job. But really she's decided that she's gonna join up with the Knight Sabers, a vigilante group who's decided the police task force dedicated to stopping rogue boomers (robots) is completely ineffective. And to be fair, they are. They're about as useless as a female condom, and twice as hard to remove. That didn't make very much sense but I had to relate them to something and female condom was the first thing that popped into my mind. Much to the chagrin of Leon McNichols (big and manly) and Daily Wong (small and slightly less homosexual*** than his previous iteration), they're really freakin' good at it too. More power to them, I say. Any robot killing hot chicks can feel free to stop by my house and hit me up for some loving par muy excellence. While I won't list my address here, you can find it just like everyone else has. It always makes me a bit perturbed that people can do a simple search to find out where I live. Or rather, where my parents live. Suckers!

Anyway, seems like Linna's boss is named Lester. Because he's one HELL of a molester. Everything works out in her favor though, as the Knight Sabers come to save the day and she all but needs a change of underwear after she sees them go. That's a strong underlying theme in the show, it'd seem. Lesbianism... or so I'd like to think anyway. I have to wonder why even the cartoon girls I'm hot for turn out to be lesbians. Maybe they just don't want to go out with me and they're letting me down easy.

But Priss is just my type of woman, and that's a totally different response than the one I'd give you about the original show. She's a badass who wears a lot of leather and is generally angry. Despite all this, she spends more of her time being a loner and less of her time swearing that she'll get revenge for every Tom, Dick and Harry that happens to land in her lap, only to be very conveniently killed off by the next squad of rogue boomers or evil corporate-types that happen to wander by with their all important agenda on their minds. There's still corporate goons that don't give a lick about the common man, but Priss seems more concerned with smashing robo-face than she is about saving the world, or even her partner's skins.

This is promising, because it suggests the mantle of heightened focus the show has taken on. As far as anime goes, Bubblegum Crisis had a pretty manageable skeleton plot. They just screwed it up by making it the pretty trash piece of 80s pop-whatever that it turned out to be (but it did have pretty kicking music). It's successor starts with a purpose and continually excises all the fat that was left behind. What we're left with is a more concise narrative that continually provides moments of severe robot beatdowns. I mean, good god, the bitch's KNUCKLES EXPLODE and then she does like a million backflips before shooting a giant laser out of the palm of her hand.
Watching this show again has brought a happy feeling to my heart, and my pants. I could honestly look you straight in the eye and inform you that I did indeed want to spray baby batter all over the inside of my undergarments whenever a fight scene started. I don't know who choreographed this crap, but I think someone needs to buy him a beer. Hell, a whole case of the stuff. Bubblegum Crisis 2040 puts out like a Catholic school chick at a Prep mixer and I love it for what it gives me. While I gotta admit that I'm always kind of embarrassed to watch the parts where the robots aren't dying, it's all good. It's worth it. The art's good enough, the character designs are great, and the fights are worth the price of admission.

**PS: There was a total lack of poonaner that night, unfortunately.
**This is not a slight. Daily is actually gay. Holy shit is he gay. He's like... Will And Grace gay.