Bubblegum Crisis, if you’re wondering, named after the idea of a society being so close to the brink of total collapse that it’s like a bubblegum bubble about to burst, was an OVA series released in eight parts between February ’87 to January ’91, with runtimes that vary from under half an hour to an hour (meaning yes, people back then brought a full-price tape containing a single 26-minute episode to get the next chapter in the story and now here we are with all eight episodes on one set!) The story is full-on 80s cyberpunk as it’s based in “Megatokyo”, a version of the capital city, awash with large buildings, neon signs and slums full of mohawked thugs. While various classic films, TV shows and other media can be seen influencing the series the key one has to be Bladerunner, as in this world androids that look like humans called Boomers are both a helping hand and often a dangerous threat, leading to a special police until called the AD Police to deal with them… but they’re not the focus here (that’s for their own spin-off show!) instead we have an all-female group of cyber-suit wearing vigilantes called the “Knight Sabres”.

The Sabres are comprised of Sylia Stingray, the leader of the group who is a wealthy business woman in her real life; Priscilla “Priss” Asagiri is, if anyone, the main character of the show as she’s the young “hothead” of the group who also doubles as a pop singer, with her Japanese voice actress Kinuko Ohmori being an actual J-Pop singer meaning her in-show songs were sung by her as well (in English the songs are actually dubbed in English, which is quite rare nowadays, but sung by someone other than the character’s regular voice actress); Linna Yamazaki is a money-obsessed aerobics instructor outside of her Knight Sabre duty; and Nene Romanova is the bubbly airhead type who actually works in the office-side of the AD Police as a means to get the Sabres extra info. It’s a fun group that interact with each other well, but it has to be said that “posh one, hothead one, money-obsessed one and bubbly airhead” are the main cast’s personalities and they don’t evolve beyond them. Again, at most Priss gets some momentum, having a sort-of love interest in the AD Police officer Leon McNichol (though given her personality it takes a while to become anything other than her treating him like crap) and sometimes you get an episode focused on one Sabre over the others, but I wouldn’t go into this expecting lots of character development or a strong linking narrative.

Given its nature of being released one at a time over a period of years it’s not a shocker that most episodes are entirely stand-alone. The only slight exception is that the first few episodes feature an evil megacorporation called Genom linking all the crimes together (as they create cybernetic parts and boomers mostly for illegal trading and such) but even that has a different person from the group as an antagonist each time, with Genom owner Brian Mason appearing briefly here and there before it’s his turn in the spotlight. Still though, on their own, most episodes feature some fun dialogue and great action, the plus side of making half an hour of anime every few months is the increase in animation quality over a TV series and that’s never been more obvious thanks to this Blu-ray clean up. The soundtrack is great too, with lots of cheesy 80s pop songs, no matter which language you pick between Japanese and English. I will say though that the English dub is the same one recorded back in 1994, extremely early for anime dubbing, and therefore it might not be up to modern tastes. I loved it, but that’s with nostalgia goggles firmly strapped to the face, but of course if you don’t enjoy it, the original Japanese version is still here, with accurate subtitling. (plus an array of other languages, including Spanish, Italian and even Korean for the first three episodes)

Alongside the wide choice of languages the extras are also quite extensive. You have a 2024 interview with character and cyber-suit designer/artist Kenichi Sonoda, three classic SD music videos and eight recut HD music videos, along with your regular trailers and pretty detailed art gallery. The Collector’s Edition also contains a 50-page booklet housed in a rigid art case (not seen).

I was looking forward to reviewing Bubblegum Crisis as it was one of those early anime they showed on the sci-fi channel in the late 90s/early 00s when I first got into what was then seen as a seedy adult spin-off genre to regular entertainment, but beyond featuring four women as the main cast and plenty of deliberate suiting up close-ups and aerobics scenes clearly meant for no other reason than fanservice, it’s not as one-note and violent as a lot of the intentionally picked anime was at the time and I honestly think it holds up very well. The action scenes are well animated and the characters are easy to like, even if they’re paper-thin, personality-wise. While the older-fashioned English dub and 80s soundtrack may not appeal to everyone, if you’re into the cyberpunk then you’ll find a lot to like in this OVA series.

Our review copy was supplied by MVM.