At 09:13 AM 11/3/96 -0800, Mouse wrote:

Would some kind soul explain Bubblegum Crisis to me?  From what little I 
can understand of it, it seems enough like dark Shakespearian 
futuristic drama to warrant a closer look.  ^_-

This series is very much worth checking out, just for the tremendous rock
music score if nothing else.

Short-version of what it's about:  BGC is set in MegaTokyo, Japan, in
2032-2033.  Tokyo is still rebuilding from a major earthquake 7 years
earlier, and is now a company town for the Genom Corporation.  Genom is the
primary manufacturer of Boomers, which are cyberdroids that have taken over
a lot of mundane functions in daily life.  But Genom also makes things like
combat boomers, and these combat boomers tend to run amuck in the city
streets (by design? if not, Genom's got some major QC problems ; )  In
addition to running Tokyo, Genom is a behind the scenes power on just about
everything important in the world.  So basically, Genom does pretty much
what it wants, and people who protest too strongly tend to get squashed.

Into that mix add the Knight Sabers.  They were founded by Sylia Stingray,
the daughter of the creator of boomers (he was murdered by a Genom operative
for control of his creations).  Sylia is out to take Genom down, or at least
try to keep them under some sort of control.  She seems to have resources
all out of proportion for the owner of a simple lingerie shop (her "day
job").  The other 3 Knight Sabers are Priss Asagiri, a rock singer, Linna
Yamazaki, an aerobics instructor (although in the sequel anime series,
"Bubblegum Crash", she works for a stock brokerage), and Nene Romanova, a
member of the AD Police (the AD Police investigates Boomer crimes)

BGC is very dark and "cyber-punk"-ish.  As for the "feel" of the series,
it's close to the movie "BladeRunner" (the creators of BGC readily admit to
being huge BladeRunner fans).  The music, especially in the early OAVs, is
quite similar to that in the movie "Streets of Fire."  The "bubblegum" in
the title, according to Toshimichi Suzuki (the series producer), refers to
"a world in crisis, like a chewing-gum bubble that's about to burst"

If you are going to watch the anime (rather than just read the fanfics) I
recommend you watch the 8 OAVs in order, as there *are* story arcs (1-3,
5-6, 2 & 7).  There were 2 sequels.  "Bubblegum Crash" is a 3 episode OAV
series that takes place in 2034, and follows BGC directly.  "AD. Police" is
a prequel (3 episode OAV series) that focuses on members of the AD Police,
and takes place in 2027 (5 years before BGC starts)

There are also several very good BGC web pages.  I suggest starting at Brian
Edmond's BGC page at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/edmonds/anime/bgc.html


Jeanne Hedge
http://www.accsyst.com/jhedge/
                                 *   *   *
ADDER, n.  A species of snake.  So called from its habit of adding funeral
outlays to the other expenses of living.

                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"