Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040-Volume 2: Crusade (1998)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Trailer-Neon Genesis Evangelion, Martian Sucessor Nadesico DVD Credits Biographies-Character
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	97:53
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	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$29.95	Music	Kouichi Korenaga

    This series (this is Volume 2 in the series) follows one of the classic patterns - the misunderstood super-heroes (er, heroines) are battling to protect society, but are labelled criminals/terrorists by authority. In this incarnation, the super-heroes are beautiful young women (this is anime, after all!) encased in armour (called hardsuits). The face of authority is the AD Police, but the real power behind them is the Genom Corporation, the makers of the boomers, which are the machines that are going berserk.

    I haven't seen this series before, so I have missed out on the introduction that I assume lay in the first four episodes. What I have managed to gather is that our heroines call themselves the Knight Sabers, and they are pledged to destroy boomers which have run amok, probably because their leader (Sylia) is daughter to the man who invented the boomer. Their hardsuits have been developed by Sylia, with help from a genius mechanic called Nigel.

    Anime is often shown as a half-hour show in Japan, so the episodes are around 24 minutes long, with a break in the middle where advertising goes. Part of the "standard" in transferring anime to DVD involves including all of the original episode, including the opening and closing credits, plus the flash cards that are placed either side of the advertising break Take all of that out and you have around 20 minutes of actual episode. Some series (Slayers, for example) are packaged with six or seven episodes per disc. This series has four episodes per disc, but that is still better value than those with only two or three. Another tradition is to include subtitles for the opening and closing theme songs, with the subtitles being in English for the first episode, Japanese (transliterated into English characters) for the second episode, then English again, ... I don't know why, but I do rather like it.

    I am not an anime fanatic, but I enjoy it. The fanatic will insist on watching anime with the original Japanese soundtrack - some even learn Japanese so they can enjoy it without subtitles. I usually watch with the English soundtrack because I'd rather be watching the action than reading about it. (Yes, I just got struck by lightning, wished upon me by the legions of anime fanatics for my heresy.)

    On the cover of each disc in this series you will see one of the women who are the Knight Sabers, both in her hardsuit (each hardsuit is distinctively coloured) and in the black and white outfit that seems to serve as underwear for the hardsuit. This disc features Linna, the newest member of the team.

Video

    This is a television series, made for 4:3 TV, and it is presented like that. Naturally, it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    With the exception of the credits, and any scene meant to be portraying a TV screen, the picture is sharp and clearly defined. There is no discernible low-level noise.

    Colour is excellent. The colours cannot be described as natural, but they look right. I saw no colour bleed, and colour balance is maintained at all times.

    I saw no film artefacts, and I wouldn't expect to, on a series made so recently. I saw no MPEG artefacts - I suspect that animation is kinder to MPEG than live action, due to the presence of blocks of solid colour. Aliasing was common on any panning shot that including hard edges (most of them), but it wasn't too distracting, and would probably not be a problem on an ordinary TV set. I saw no aliasing on non-panning shots.

    The disc is single layer - simple enough to achieve with only 98 minutes of animation and two trailers, so there's no layer change to worry about.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Dialogue is clear and readily understood (in English, at least). The voice actors have done an excellent job of matching their voices to the character expressions. As always in anime, there are a few words used that seem a little odd. Perhaps the strangest is the use of the word "reflector" for a person who is remotely operating a robot - I might have used the term "tele-operator", or even "waldo-operator", or even just "operator". I suspect this is a case of directly translating the corresponding Japanese word. I have less trouble with "boomer" - these are clearly not just robots, but rather robots with some organic component. Interestingly, there is one point where the subtitles refer to "semi-human", while the spoken dialogue uses "bio-organic construct", when referring to the first boomer. While I'm talking about the subtitles, I'd like to mention that they are presented in a nice clear font and are consequently easy to read.

    There are no visible slips in audio sync.

    The score was fine. It worked well with the on-screen action, and never made itself intrusive - exactly what I want from a score. The opening and closing theme songs are pleasant, although they don't stick in my memory as much as the theme for Neon Genesis Evangelion. Priss (one of the Knight Sabers) is lead singer for a band called Sekiria, and performs a couple of songs during episodes. I must admit that the Japanese versions of the songs sound better.

    The surrounds and subwoofer got the night off - this is not a surround sound spectacular. Even so, the sound has some directionality - it is definitely stereo, not a mono track spread into two speakers.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Trailers

Character Profiles / Hardsuits

    Our friends in R1 only get profiles for three characters on their version of this disc - nice to see us getting more for a change.

• Spanish soundtrack

• Profiles for all characters (only includes three characters)
• Trailers

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is good for a straight stereo track.

    The extras are nice, but I'd like more.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall