Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 #5: Blood And Steel ADV 125 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 05/15/2001

This show's dub continues to amaze me. It's the ridiculous amounts of overt sexual innuendo they just drop in there like carpet bombing a dog house. One of the better parts of this disc occurs when Priss and Linna are discussing the new hardsuits. The subtitles obliquely mention how revealing it is, dub Priss shows no mercy and informs Linna that she might have to start shaving a "sensitive area". Shaved girls scare the crap out of me, you know? I prefer my fetishists to be something relatively normal like biting or spanking. Taking hair off such tender places not only isn't a lot of fun, but conveys the image of immaturity. I'd prefer not to be confronted with baby smooth parts when I'm doing the dirty. It's a strange little cute Nene cover that totally belies the content of the disc. Which is okay in a way, because 2040 doesn't seem to be bothered with "keeping in theme" and moments of hilarity often follow some really deep emotional stuff, sort of like Nadesico but without non-sequiturs thrown out by strange and precocious twelve year olds. Still, for all the weird babbling and sweatdrops more suited to your standard Tenchi nonsense, Bubblegum Crisis 2040 keeps a pretty solid narrative going. I'd say compared to many other titles of a similar subject manner, the cute/crazy (crap) stuff is kept to an all time low.

What I'm saying is we could've been given worse, a lot worse, you know what I mean? As much as this disc belongs to Nene and her "wild antics", it's also the AD Police's time to shine. They finally break out the heavy artillery and we're even treated to many quality scenes of an older fellow trashing boomers in a K-Suit. Old dudes who are still badass are the greatest. Nick Roland can head up my police department anytime he wants, he just needs to smoke a few packs a day to enhance his anime cool factor. The riot gear on the grunts also does a good job of looking pretty neat, especially the helmets with red eyepieces. Shamefully, Leon and Daley manage to queer it up a bit in theirs.** A few things have been brought to my attention by this disc. Mostly obvious, every Knight Saber has their own personal fling but Linna. Poor girl, maybe she should've stayed with that dorky date guy in disc three. If she was a moron. Let me reiterate: trashing robots or dating some momma's boy. Linna might not be getting any play, but if not dating chauvinist assholes for a month meant I got to kill out of control constructs then I'd have tickets to Tokyo Tower faster than you could say "intensive hypnotic therapy". I sometimes wonder why things like killer robots and vampires aren't real, merely because I want to get a job blowing up/killing them. Afterwards, I think many thoughts that aren't nearly as flattering.

It's a testament to the show's overlying narrative that they can go three or four episodes without even the briefest hint of a hardsuit or a Knight Saber. For three episodes the main focus is on the little war going on inside the AD Police tower. In the formative episodes of this show, I was kind of concerned about the changing of boomers from their standard terminator mold to the insane metal absorbing ones we've been introduced to for over twenty episodes. You probably were too, if you're anything like me (intelligent and attractive). This is kind of where it all comes together. I feel that it really reinforces the idea that they're this unstoppable force when, well, nobody can stop them. There's a real cementing moment where a recently decapitated robot is picked up and absorbed by another in the crowd before it can even hit the ground. I'm not saying this is Billy Shakespeare's caliber of work or anything, but it's still an interesting watch for more than just the action, albeit not much more. I just wish that they had spread their wings a little sooner. It seems like a shame that all the really cool choreography doesn't coincide with all the really cool developments in the overlying plot.

When it's cooking Bubblegum Crisis 2040 feels like it's doing on all burners. When it's not, it's probably stuff that you could dump into any other piece of garbage without a second though and get away with it and frankly, there are digressions in this show that makes me embarassed to watch it. I may not be your typical anime fan, so maybe my opinions are moot, but the fact of the matter is that I'd much rather see ten minutes of exposition followed by a giant robot getting it's face blown off than I would ten seconds of chicks in panties followed by a giant robot getting its faced blown off. This show contains both and instances of the latter are mercifully few and far between, but sometimes one is too much. There wasn't a nude scene in Terminator 2. But I guess in the world of Japanese animation it's all about the process of giving and taking when it comes to boobs. Sort of like the final blow for the disc, there's a scene directly from Aliens. This isn't even an homage, it's a total rip off, but I suppose if you're gonna steal from someone it might as well be the best. Remember the part where the marines had the scanners and the aliens should've been right in front of them but there was nothing, and eventually Ripley realized they were coming in through the ceiling? Same deal, straight down to Sylia going "There's something we missed!" Except there's a giant swimming pool and there's robots. Both things are good, I guess. You can probably assume which change I prefer.

**Then again, Daley manages to "queer it up" in a lot of things. LOL!!! I made a funny.