Okay so let me see if I got this straight, for this Priss character they basically lifted Ellen from Streets of Fire and called it a day?? That can’t be the best character, right!!!??
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I really like Linna. She’s like the most normal of all the characters. She’s mostly well adjusted but just happened to get wrapped up in all this nonsense and has decided instead of freaking out to just roll with it and see what happens. I also really like her hardsuit design. I love that she and Priss both get the coolest weapon, the Knuckle Bombers (who doesn’t love an explosive punch?), but Linna also gets the second coolest weapon which are those charged/monofilament/whatever cutting ribbons, and they play up her agility because she’s a dancer/aerobics nut.
While Bubblegum Crash is just OK, the original BGC episodes are actually quite moody and evocative, and really engage with a lot of the transhumanist questions raised by the Cyberpunk genre. I am an unabashed fan of the original BGC episodes, even the later ones (pre-Crash). In fact, I think episodes 5 and 7 are both really fantastic and really stand out to me as embracing the larger world and some of the more far-reaching impacts of Genom’s corporate misdeeds.
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The only thing that I know about Knight Saber is that JPEGMAFIA has a Knight Saber tattoo.
Voted for Priss cause the internet told me she was a rockstar
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I also haven’t seen the anime in a very long time, but my gut check says Nene.
That said, I appreciate the comments connecting Mackie to Tenchi Muyo and later harem anime. I had no idea about that connection either, but when I first saw this topic, I already had Tenchi Muyo on my mind. The collection of girls made me compare my gut inclination toward Nene to characters like Mihoshi.
Where am I going with this? When originally watching Tenchi, I always had a certain dislike for him as a character. He was this cypher, a core around which more interesting characters worked. The qualities attributed to him were mainly things he inherited; otherwise, he was positioned more or less as an everyboy. Nice, well-meaning, and put into situations where he could passively skeeze without much blame. The women were always much more interesting - Ryoko, Ayeka, Sasami, Washu, and the rest. The grandfather was interesting. Even some of the villains were more interesting.
I want some alternative mid-1990s fork where, instead of putting Mackie at the center of a harem show, people watched Bubblegum and thought, “Let’s write a more realized version of this with cool women at the center,” and then we got, I don’t know, something focused on the budding friendship that could develop between Ryoko and Ayeka if they had to band together to fight existential threats. Keep the humor, the camaraderie, and the lightheartedness; drop at least some of the skeeze. Keep the grandfather and at least some of the stuff on arranged marriage; drop the pivot toward the grandson as a way to fulfill tradition.
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We got variations on that kind of thing (Utena, azumanga daioh), but certainly not very much of it. For the most part we got Love Hina (which I did watch back in the day).
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Tenchi was a very stock protagonist of the time in so many ways. He was helpful and forthright, and any skeeze was imposed on him by the universe (the authors) rather than his own ill-intentions. In that way he remains the good guy (not the Nice Guy, thank goodness) but the fans still get their service.
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You know, it occurs to me that if BGC had still been relevant later it might have made for a great beat 'em up. I can only dream about one for PC Engine. Curse those ROM and RAM cache size limitations!
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It would’ve made a fine download-style shooter, or a platform/rpg hybrid, or a fighting game! They just lacked vision (and budget most likely)
A lot of things need more visionary budgets.
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I just want to chime in and say that AD Police Files (the three-episode OVA, not to be confused with the 1999 AD Police TV series) absolutely rules.
If you like bugnuts insane over-the-top edgelord cyberpunk madness, I recommend it!
If not… avoid it. It’s wildly different in tone to the original Bubblegum Crisis.
Also because I didn’t see it mentioned in this thread: Blu-Ray collectors should take note that AnimEigo recently announced that they’re working on a new blu-ray set due out next year which will probably be the definitive edition unless they can do a 4k disc at some point.
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A new blu-ray of bubble gum crisis? animeigo keeps rereleasing things, and it’s unclear to me why. Why are there two megazone 23 releases??
Any idea how this would be different from the existing one?
Sometimes they release something on the new format first, and then later on they’ll remaster the audio and video for an improved release.
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I liked Priss enough to make a character mildly based on her. She really is the star of the show for me, but I’m a sucker for that character type (plus she has a badass motorcycle suit mod).
That being said though, I also really like Linna and Nene. Nene’s a tech nerd, which is also a big Type for me, but Linna has the cool haircut and suit abilities. I love her slicing ribbons and especially her power knuckles! I forget most of 2040, but Parasite Dolls rules and so does A.D. Police. Also need to watch CRASH at some point as I have no memory of it at all outside of the PC Engine game.
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I checked it out and it has some more dubs (I don’t care), and two more extras. I’ll get it just because, but it gives me less confidence in ordering from them going forward, because they KEEP doing it. I truly have no idea what’s new about the megazone 23 release.
Robert Woodhead has sold off Animeigo, thought he remains somewhat involved in some releases. I think he just likes scrounging up extra materials and then wants to put them out. If you’re just there for the shows there’s no reason no to get an older item unless it’s simply out of print (and sometimes that’s the motivation for making a new one as well). I have a DVD set and Blu-Ray of BGC and I don’t feel like I need to get the new one because I’m all full-up on my GBC now. I did sign up for the kickstarter for Macross II, though. They are clearly doing their homework for that to make it a fun release.
Here’s the page on the new Megazone 23 release. It’s pretty clear about what’s new.
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Gotta go with Sylia
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I see… not a whole heck of a lot! I just feel like these incremental releases are weird, but maybe that’s fine for people in general.
(I wrote most of this as a draft earlier in the day and even though Brandon and marurun have mostly figured it out, I’ll respond extraneously anyway!)
Earlier this year, AnimEigo was sold to Justin Sevakis, longtime superfan who’s been in the anime industry since the 90s (he founded Anime News Network, was a fansubber in the VHS era, worked for Central Park Media, now mostly authors Blu-Rays and has a solid reputation for that). Before that, AnimEigo has spent the past several years mostly just doing Kickstarters spearheaded by the company’s founder, Robert Woodhead. Just about every AnimEigo release from the past decade has been a limited-edition Kickstarter reward (with a few extras made) or a more bare-bones reprinted version of the Kickstarter reward, and they’ve mostly gone out of print.
Now that there’s a new owner with a background in video production, he wants to bring things he has the license for back in print with the best possible discs, and to give folks some incentive to double-dip, he’s trying to include as many bonus features as possible. They’ll be releasing new stuff in the near future, but for now, re-releasing older things is mostly a way to bring in cash to fund more licenses.
The less exciting new bits are the more language options, it has the content at a higher bitrate with uncompressed audio, and a new interview with Kenichi Sonoda. But as someone who has the non-Kickstarter Blu-Ray (and a very old DVD set) the big draw is the Hurricaine Live concert videos and the music videos! If you have the fancy Kickstarter version, it’s not enough to warrant a double dip, but I’m glad I’ll have a reason to get rid of the bad DVD set I’ve been holding on to just for the concerts.
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