The show really wants Priss to be everyone’s favorite knight saber. But is she?? This is what I wish to find out.
Favorite knight saber:
Priss
Nene
Linna
Sylia
0voters
(note: no judgment on who is your favorite - I’m genuinely curious whether the marketing and vibe of the show had the right pick)
I just finished watching the original ovas - I saw Bubble Gum Crash as a youth, which I thought was fine, and some of 2040 which I did not like. The original few eps of the ovas is the real deal though, and a super interesting look at how culture can influence both ways. Blade Runner was influenced by Chinese film and Japanese Anime to an extent - but bubble gum crisis is influenced by aliens, Terminator, etc etc. It’s kind of a cycle I guess.
Feel free to discuss bubble gum crisis (and other related series) in here as you like. Did you know there’s a pc engine game? It’s expensive now.
Bubblegum Crisis had all the OVAs on YouTube for awhile so I watched it back. I remember on the retronauts podcast (I think it was retronauts in the 1up run, but this is 10+ years ago at this point) they always spoke of it in the same breath as Ghost in the Shell and Akira, as something they really loved and was foundational. And at first I thought it would be played similar to Akira so I was disappointed. Now I just mostly find it super fun, but could not tell you a single thing about the story, as it’s perfect for when you’re working and that’s when I watch.
Hurricane is like seeing god though. You can probably draw a line from it to something like Panty and Stocking which rules.
Priss is cool. But like too cool to be real. Or if you have ever met anyone that cool they are definitely as prickly as Priss. So Nene for me, she feels the realest of the four.
They showed Bubble Crisis 2040 on god darn free-to-air TV over here in Australia, among other hyper-violent 90s anime, like Cyber City. Anyway I voted for Nene because even though I’m not 100% sure in my mind I’m picturing her as the nerdy one. Need to re-watch some day…!
I just remember that episode where Nene is like defending the police station by herself with pistols bigger than she is and it was awesome. Priss’s voice actor changed for Crash and Ryoko Tachikawa’s voice cracks sometimes during that and I always thought that was super endearing.
Your own forum is a PRISS (the bad kind). The people at Discourse deny us such joys of posting.
Also I tried watching 2040 once and didn’t make it far. Was always curious about the AD Police OVAs and Parasite Dolls which I completely forgot existed but haven’t touched them.
I’m sad to report that I haven’t watched the OVAs since the 90’s! But I think it’s telling that it resonated so strongly for me that I can remember it vividly enough to vote in an informed way!
I did this! I watched all of them a few winters ago while spinning on the stationary trainer in the garage!
I do think it’s interesting how the first episode really went all-in on making Priss the flagship character. She’s a rock singer! She rides motorcycles! And … it almost feels like they pivoted to a more contemporary vision of what the girl-group anime is: a way to showcase all these characters so everyone’s favorite is represented.
Voted Linna because she’s a square, and let’s face it, I’m a square. A good ways to hassle me about this is to reply “OK boomer.”
at the start, priss was the Only Character. Everyone else was just whoever else was there, basically. They didn’t really even differentiate their abilities well until much later, if at all. The others were kind of support, but then later the creators realized maybe the others could also be interesting.
priss is the one who rides a motorcycle (the most). The others also ride motorcycles. Priss is definitely the one who’s in a famous band and yet somehow nobody knows it’s her in the band despite living in a van that has the name of her band on it. She’s very cranky and indeed prissy which is why she’s not my favorite.
Sylia is the leader. She maybe designed the suits? She’s mysterious and the oldest which probably means she’s like 23. She’s there to spout wisdom and clean up everyone’s messes. I feel like she should’ve gotten more character development.
Linna has the worst haircut of the four, unfortunately. She is indeed kind of square and relatively normal. If you watch carefully, in the early eps her special attack is basically a rocket punch that one-shots almost every boomer she encounters. Why doesn’t she use this all the time? Why’s she the only one that has it? I don’t think they really planned that out. They really start mixing and matching abilities as the show goes on.
Nene has pink hair and is more OMG bubbly but also toward the end becomes the one who knows about computer. She’s more of a regular person and “not as committed” as everyone else but she shows up every time unlike priss who is like 50/50 no-show or solo mission. She wants to have conversations about things other than fighting boomers.
Mackie is the younger brother of Sylia. His character traits are “fix machines” and “try to see all the ladies, especially his sister, naked - with no consequences.” This guy sucks and I recently found out that he was the inspiration for Tenchi Muyo. The creators of that series watched bubble gum crisis and were like WHAT IF he was the main character and it was fine that he just skeezed on everyone. There’s some cosmic injustice in the harem anime being popularized by some dudes watching a show about ladies with a gross man as a side character and being like “this will not stand, he is getting maligned.”
Also in the last ep of the OVA megumi hayashibara is there! That’s cool. The queen of the 90s appeared just in time for it to be 1991.
Overall the whole show is interesting - not great, but interesting. The first 4 eps are basically long mood piece music videos with some plot and action in between, and those are by far the most interesting and most successful. Watch those in a meditative state with the lights off. Across the latter 4 it sort of just turns into episodes of an anime. This is fine, but less striking. It just becomes something to watch rather than a relaxing journey through “wow, this is where all the cool gifs I saw on tumblr in the 2000s came from” every 5 seconds. Like I said above, it’s a really interesting exercise in cross-cultural influence.
I really think a woman-directed reboot of this show would be super cool and successful but unfortunately I don’t think that would ever happen.
Oops also the PC Engine game is for Bubble Gum Crash, not Crisis! you play as Nene.
I think based on this description I’m feeling pretty confident in placing down a vote for Sylia
I’ve been behind on the podcast (things have been going hard over at Friends at the Table with a monumental season finale) but that sounds like quite a show-bookending Recommendation, if you haven’t already recommended that
