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Illegal Army Geo Climbers Meltdown
Main Series Review First off, I'll say that I do enjoy Bubblegum Crash. I think that this series is quite excellent and nearly as good as the original Bubblegum Crisis. I think that AIC made some mistakes that they shouldn't have made or should have found a way to work around, but all in all they did a decent job on the series.
That said, there are some problems which the series has. The biggest complaint I have is character designs. While recognizable as the various characters, the designs are much simpler, and the faces of the characters, while recognizable as being Priss, or Mackie, are just drawn so differently from Bubblegum Crisis that they're not anywhere near as impressive. It's almost as if AIC wanted much cuter characters, characters who weren't as chiseled and adult as they were Bubblegum Crisis. I don't know why AIC made this choice, but I personally feel that they did the anime a severe disservice in the process.
My next major complaint is the total lack of Genom. It simply doesn't exist. The entire first series revolved around Genom, and Genom was the reason for the Knight Sabers to exist. How could that reason for existing be just yanked out while the Knight Sabers remain? The only way I could come up with is by placing the entire Bubblegum Crash world into another, parallel universe. It works ok, but not having Genom around really does bother me badly, even then.
The parallel universe also makes the third major problem more palatable: the relative unimpressiveness of the Boomers. Boomers in Bubblegum Crisis are powerful, omnipresent, and extremely dangerous. Their mere presence makes a normal person uncomfortable even if the person realizes thier necessity. And the Boomers are generally very difficult to kill, even for the Knight Sabers.
But in Bubblegum Crash, even the smart Boomers are generally stupid, and even the powerful and dangerous Boomers are easily killed by a powerful hand gun. I'm sorry, but no handgun should be powerful enough to kill a Boomer by itself. A gun with a grenade attached? Sure. But not a simple pistol.
I must admit that I'm still a little disappointed with the voice actress for Priss. However, I do feel that she gets a really bum rap, and she has been growing on me somewhat. Who knows, my opinion of the new voice may change. It's already changed some. I also feel a little cheated by the constant opener for all three episodes. After being treated to totally different openers for all the original Bubblegum Crisis episodes, having only one is a bit disappointing. And I'm simply not as impressed by the music on this series as I was by the first series.
On the other side of the coin, however, I do really like the references back to the original series, most specifically to Largo himself. I also enjoy the questions asked about the AD Police and their destructiveness when compared to the destructiveness of the criminals and Boomers they are supposed to protect the public from. And the commentary on the state of planet by the main villain at the end of the series is a very serious attack on the way we ourselves treat the planet we live on. Unfortunately, only the last episode really carries any significant discussion on social issues.
These issues alone aren't enough to carry the entire series, but when added to the individual episodes, I really do feel that this series is pretty good. After watching the series specifically looking for character development and discussion of various issues, I was forced to conclude that I don't think Bubblegum Crash is anywhere near as good as the original, but it's still not bad. Not bad at all.
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Revised - September 21, 2000
