

Masami Ōbari created the mechanical designs. Kenichi Sonoda acted as character designer, and designed the four female leads. However, he met Junji Fujita and the two discussed ideas, and decided to collaborate on what later became Bubblegum Crisis.
#Bubblegum crisis 2033 series#
The series started with Toshimichi Suzuki's intention to remake the 1982 film Techno Police 21C. Suzuki explained in a 1993 Animerica interview the meaning behind the cryptic title: "We originally named the series 'bubblegum' to reflect a world in crisis, like a chewing-gum bubble that's about to burst." Production The humanoid robots known as "boomers" in the series were inspired by several movies, including Replicants from the aforementioned Blade Runner, the titular cyborgs of the Terminator film franchise, and the Beast from the film Krull. The opening sequence of episode 1 is even modeled on that of the latter film. The setting displays strong influences from the movies Blade Runner and Streets of Fire. One of the series' themes is the inability of the department to deal with threats due to political infighting, red tape, and an insufficient budget. The AD Police (Advanced Police) are tasked to deal with Boomer-related crimes.


While Boomers are intended to serve mankind, they become deadly instruments in the hands of ruthless individuals. Its main product are boomers-artificial cybernetic life forms that are usually in the form of humans, with most of their bodies being machine also known as "cyberoids". The main adversary is Genom, a megacorporation with immense power and global influence. During the first episode, disparities in wealth are shown to be more pronounced than in previous periods in post-war Japan. The series begins in late 2032, seven years after the Second Great Kanto earthquake has split Tokyo geographically and culturally in two. See also: List of Bubblegum Crisis characters I also manage Mecha Damashii and do toy reviews over at. So if you are a fan of cyberpunk and appreciate impressively intricate animation, Bubblegum Crisis is worth a look, if only to see how influential it has now become.īubblegum Crisis is now available on Blu-ray and DVD for $29.99 and can be ordered from the AnimEigo online store.ĭisclosure: AnimEigo sent me a copy of this Blu-ray release for the purposes of this review.įollow me on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This collection then is something that I am glad exists, as it allows new people to check out this cult classic in a way that does justice to its animation. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Bubblegum Crisis back in the 90s, mostly down to the characters, it has grown on me in the years since. You also have some nice extras in the form of art galleries on the disc.Īs this is also an AnimEigo release, the localization is done very well indeed and is faithful with it. From the characters to the combat, this is a slick looking anime and has aged incredibly well. With remastered visuals for all 8 episodes, this really helps to show off the quality of the animation. This particular Blu-ray set is very nicely done though. To the extent that this anime OVA is more popular abroad than in Japan, the country of its origin. The interesting thing here is that Bubblegum Crisis was one of the first anime to really make an impact in the West during the initial anime boom of the early 90s. Specifically, what made Bubblegum Crisis stand out at the tail-end of the 80s, was its fresh character designs by Kenichi Sonoda, amazing mecha designs by Shinji Aramaki and impressive animation.

Unfortunately, rights issues halted the production of the original series and subsequent attempts to reboot it didn’t quite manage to capture what made the original Bubblegum Crisis work so well 'Bubblegum Crisis' looks magnificent on Blu-ray.
