Bubblegum Crisis (1987) Anime OVA Review.

 

A lot can be said over style over substance. The slick look of neon colours and psuedo futuristic wear, the towering scrapers of a dystopic cyberpunk landscape, the ever present feeling of people made of metal hiding under human skin. It is something that can impact is, especially when complimented by the medium of animation carrying it to even greater heights. It's when the work manages to pull of something sincere or grounded with that work where we find and adore that substance.

 

Bubblegum Crisis 87, as I'll be calling it, finds that substance at the very last moment; it starts off with visual promise, a punkish rocker woman playing a catchy song amid robot people covered in viscera blowing up future police. And then as the episodes go on, the show continually makes the mistake of trying to approach subject matter with depth or meaning, the idea of justice and casually throwing it away or using lives as motivation to maintain a sort of lackluster status quo. A child dies but because she was a robot, it feels glossed over and looked past. Things matter sometimes and have ongoing effects, but the punk nature of cyberpunk feels absent; instead of truly making a change to things, it feels like holding onto what little we have is all that really matters. A corporation loses almost all its holdings and is fine, in a way that's not explored or matters at all. And characters only matter in the most functionary way; to give our protagonists, the self-styled heroes of justice, who are also mercs who do it for money, something to do. A woman's need for vengeance is slapped out of her so she can go sing, hooray?

 

All of this kind of feels hollow, the visuals really feeling like they're not present or they don't matter all that much. It sincerely feels like by the end, the show has devolved into tropic fiction that feels exhausting to watch because you know where it's going and it's not an inspiring direction; it's a shrug and you'll miss it direction. And it's made worse in that the final episode, which focuses on the cop member of the team, is one of the best, if not the best episode of all eight; it's grounded in reality, focusing on the down trodden and 'physically weakest' member of the team as she is accompanied by a girl who wants to expose the identity of the team she's working for. It's an episode allowed to point out the optimistic, it doesn't abandon characters of relevancy and is a colourful and bright affair that maintains an honest heart to it, even if it still stumbles a bit tropey.

 

Bubblegum Crisis 87 is a pretty and rather exciting show with some interesting ideas but it's so bogged down by either fatalistic or hopeless tropes and when it finally comes into its own, it's kind of of tiring by the time its run its course. It'a a shame it's as bright as bubblgum by the end; even if the enjoyment kind of popped a long time ago. But hey; that's why you can blow it back up again. 

 

Image from iMDB.

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