Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040-Volume 3: Leviathans (1998)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Trailer-Gasaraki; Spriggan DVD Credits Biographies-Character
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	97:49
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Hiroki Hayashi
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	DV-4
RPI	$29.95	Music	Kouichi Korenaga

    The four episodes on this disc are:

• My Nation Underground - boomers are disappearing underground in one particular area; the only remains to be found are tiny pieces that look like they've been put through a crusher.
• Woke Up With a Monster - the Knight Sabers are taking on a giant monster, but discover to their dismay that this monster can drain their batteries.
• Sheer Heart Attack - Linna goes home to her parents, only to get stuck with a prearranged date; Priss takes on a giant military boomer by herself.
• Made In Japan - Linna is not around, Nene is stuck in police headquarters, Sylia is stuck in traffic, and Priss has only seconds left to live...

    Unlike a series such as Thunderbirds, where the episodes are pretty much independent of one another, this is more of a serial. The episodes are numbered, and you really need to view them in that numbered order to follow the storyline. As well as cliffhangers at the end of episodes, there's on-going plot development on both the good and evil sides. The plot is more complex than it may appear on the surface - the first big hint we get of this comes in Episode 12, although you can look back and see indications in earlier episodes. I suspect that the plan of the authors was to suck us in to the series with the visceral thrills of cute girls in high-heeled combat suits, but hook us with a more complex plot once that initial interest began to wane. If that kind of analysis puts you off, then forget about it and enjoy the ride.

    I wonder if they switched artists at some point before these episodes. There seem to be a few small differences between the drawings in these episodes and previous ones. Perhaps the most obvious is the ribbons on Linna's hardsuit - they were predominantly white in earlier episodes. Now they seem more colourful. Interesting.

    It is nice that the episodes play one after the other - you start Episode 9 playing and it will continue to the end of episode 12. You still get everything - the opening and closing credits for every episode, the mid- episode break (for advertisements, when broadcast on commercial TV), and the next episode teaser after the closing credits.

Video

    This is Japanese animation which was broadcast on ordinary (NTSC) TV. We shouldn't be expected immense detail.

    This series is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. That's the original ratio. It is nice to see how much detail the artists have worked into some of the frames.

    The image is fairly sharp, with little or no visible low-level noise. There are some moments when the picture seems a little soft, but never to an unacceptable level. 

    There are no film artefacts. There is quite a lot of aliasing, but that's normal for this kind of animation - it was unusual that there was so little aliasing on the previous volumes. There's no edge enhancement, but it isn't required because of the lines around the edges of things. I saw no MPEG artefacts. 

    Colour is good, as expected in anime, with brightly-coloured battle suits. However, many of the surroundings are dull - I'm sure that's intended.

    The English subtitles are presented in yellow in an attractive sans-serif font that feels right for the style of the show. Unfortunately, I don't think much of the content of the subtitles. I know that I'm supposed to regard the Japanese soundtrack as superior, and watch the subtitles in preference to listening to the dubbed version, but I think you miss some of the subtle nuances of the plot that way. When I was watching with the English dialogue and subtitles on simultaneously I found they differ considerably, and the dialogue was invariably better - more comprehensible, with greater depth and more interest. Unless you are a fanatic, hearing-impaired, or living with really picky people, then I recommend listening to the English dialogue, and giving the subtitles a miss. Oh, and I picked up a couple of spelling errors in the subtitles, too: I rather liked "militray" - isn't that how Americans say it?

    The disc is single-sided single-layer. No worries about layer changes here.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    This disc offers soundtracks in English and Japanese. Both soundtracks are Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround-encoded, at a bitrate of 192 kbps.

    English dialogue is readily understood. I don't understand Japanese, but the Japanese dialogue sounded mostly unmuffled, although there was some fluctuation in the volume which I found quite irritating. The music and sound effects are identical on both soundtracks. 

    The score is one of the best parts of this series - I can't categorise it, but it is good contemporary music, apt to the scenes it accompanies.

    The surrounds and subwoofers are not included in the soundtrack. My amplifier still tried to get them involved, and found some nice ambient effects to place in the surrounds - I re-checked the soundtrack flags to be sure that it wasn't Prologic encoded (it wasn't). 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Some of the extras are repeated from the previous disc.

Menu

    The main menu is animated, with sound appropriate to the theme of the disc. The animation going on behind the menu causes some of the entries to alias, but it is not particularly annoying.

Character Profiles and Hardsuit Descriptions

    On this disc we get the same profiles as on the previous disc.

Trailers

    We get trailers for two other ADV series: Gasaraki (1:31 minutes, 1.33:1) and Spriggan (1:16 minutes, 1.78:1). Both are presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 (not surround encoded) sound at 224 kbps).  It is good to get different trailers, and these look rather interesting. Our R1 friends get their trailers stuck on the front of the feature - I prefer them separate.

    The Region 4 disc misses out on:

• nothing

    The Region 1 disc misses out on:

• extra profiles

    I'd suggest that the R4 version is better by virtue of the PAL transfer instead of NTSC.

    Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 is a good series, and the episodes are starting to get really interesting. Given that it has a developing plot-line I'd suggest getting the first two volumes before getting this one.

    The video quality is quite good, although not quite as good as the previous volumes.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are basic.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall