28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 28: Relevance to Today's World?

When 80s fashion came back in style near the end of my college experience, I was mortified. Hadn't we spent the last decade trying to rid the world of neon colors, big hair, and piano key ties*? I mean, yes, the 90s had Zubaz**, bucket hats, and crushed velvet, but I don't even think those are in the same category of awful.

Via Yahoo! Sports

On a positive note, though, a lot of younger people were watching the movies from that time period and recognizing what I, of course, already knew: that they were awesome. I'm not talking about John Hughes films, although those have a special place in my heart. Nope, I'm talking about the cyberpunk and sci-fi films from the 1980s: Blade Runner, Heavy Metal, Robocop, Akira, Scanners, Dune***, Max Headroom, Videodrome, Brazil, The Running Man, Escape from New York, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, etc. I could dedicate an entire day to talking only about these, but this is a Bubblegum Crisis challenge, and I swear, there is a point to all of this. Just go with me.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 27: What I Would Like to See Next

As you may know, I love Battlestar Galactica. I nearly cried when I found out Netflix was removing it from their catalog and immediately went out and bought the entire series on DVD. I didn't watch the original series until well after the reimagining went off air, and I walked away from that version of the show incredibly glad that it got remade into something that wasn't just a cheap Star Wars ripoff*.

Bubblegum Crisis is due for a kickass reimagining. It doesn't have to be a gritty reboot, I swear!

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 26: What Did I Think of Bubblegum Crash?

Back on Day 22, I said that ARTMIC produced Bubblegum Crash without Youmex's approval, which resulted in a big lawsuit and, ultimately, ARTMIC's bankruptcy in 1997. Similarly to the original series, there were more episodes planned based on the originally planned ending, but because Youmex was all, "Oh, you did not just try to pull that shit," it was cut down to only three episodes. Sigh.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 25: Homosexuality's Portrayal in the Series?

I'm a little torn on this topic because, while I think Bubblegum Crisis dealt with Daley's homosexuality as well as a 1980s anime could, they really dropped the ball on their portrayal of lesbianism, particularly when it came to the sexaroids Anri and Sylvie. 

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 24: Dubbed or Subbed?

The DVDs that I have of BGC are some of the older ones, and from what I've discovered, the series was remastered and released by ANIMEIGO back in 2004. Whether this means that they also rerecorded the dub or not is something I'll have to find out at a later date, if I feel like spending $40 on shit I already have.

That being said, this question is not difficult to answer ...

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 23: Something That Didn't Happen I Wish Did

Well, this is harder than I expected it to be. I've been staring at my screen for about ten minutes now, trying to figure out something in the plot that I wished would actually occur on screen, but I'm drawing a blank. Of course, I could just rehash what I wrote yesterday, but that would be cheating.

I guess what I would change would be one of two things: 1) to give Daley more screen time or 2) at least be consistent in the portrayal of Leon.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 22: Something That Happened I Wish Didn't

While I usually make myself focus on plot to this question, I'm going behind the scenes for today's challenge. Like I have said previously this month, Bubblegum Crisis was plagued with a lot of legal issues that truncated the original run length of thirteen episodes into eight, but I've been pretty vague so far.

Well, that, my friends, is about to change. Kind of.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 21: Favorite Fan Art

And now for the non-professionals! Honestly, I would love to have a lot of these on my wall at home.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 20: Favorite Promo Art

Yay for promo art! 

Most of the images that were directly tied with the series were done in a more classic manga style as opposed to the crisper lines of animation, but there are several pieces, like the one below, that stand out to me.

Via Zerochan

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 19: Happiest Moment

Even though a lot of sad shit happens within the universe of Bubblegum Crisis, I don't feel like the series is negative. Maybe it's the bright 80s candy colors or the cheery, upbeat music, but it never seems pessimistic, even if an episode ends on a downer, like yesterday's "Tinsel City" or the follow-up episode, "Born to Kill."

That being said, it is ridiculously difficult to find a happy moment, let alone the happiest one. There are little bits that make me laugh or leave me feeling like something good is going to happen eventually, but I can't recall a moment where I generally felt good about the world. So I had to go back and watch the only episode that I remember ending on a happy note: "Scoop Chase."

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 18: Saddest Moment

There are a lot of sad moments in Bubblegum Crisis, and most of them involve death (or near-death). Priss has to kill Sylvie, her probably-most-definitely girlfriend, Leon is beaten to a pulp a bunch of times because he tries way too hard to be a good cop, and Irene is murdered by a boomer because she's trying to reveal that a boomer killed her fiance (at the order of Genom), etc. But really, the Ultimate Sad (TM) is from the first episode, "Tinsel City," which not coincidentally also has to do with death.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 17: Favorite Songs Off the Soundtrack

Eeee! These are always some of my favorite challenge days, because YouTube! Reliving the moments! Singing along (when applicable)! Despite the 80s-ness of Bubblegum Crisis music, it was infinitely more awesome than Tokyo 2040's attempts. Not that I didn't enjoy the trance, underground techno metal - seriously, I'm running out of adjectives here to describe it - because I did; hell, I still own one of the soundtracks and listen to it regularly. But there's a reason that the first video below is the ringtone on my phone and not one of Opus 4s tracks.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 16: Favorite Reference to Blade Runner

I could make this easy on myself and say that Priss' band's name, the Replicants, is my favorite; sure, it's the first one that I recognized, but not really my favorite. To be honest, I watched Bubblegum Crisis before I had ever seen Blade Runner (which, I knooowwww), so I didn't catch the references until I finally rented the movie from Blockbuster when I was in high school, and it took repeat viewing before I caught most of them.

But my favorite? Yeah, has to be in "Scoop Chase."

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 15: Favorite Fight Scene

While the fight scenes in this series are numerous, they aren't really the reason that I watch Bubblegum Crisis. Actually, the fights scenes tend to be short and sweet - akin to punctuation, in a way - where the action is just a natural resolution to the drama (and occasionally, political intrigue) that's been building throughout the episode. To be honest, I kind of like that aspect of the series. There's a reason that I can't stand to watch most of Michael Bay's movies, like the Transformers franchise, and why I felt that the Wachowski's The Matrix was so extraordinary: while the former's films are, at best, minimally entertaining - if you turn your brain off and think "ooooh, pretty explosions!" - I walk away feeling like I've gotten absolutely nothing from the experience, except to feel like I've been manipulated into thinking the movie is better than it actually is. With the latter, however, the fight scenes served a purpose, to show that Neo was becoming more attuned with his destiny and abilities. The Knight Sabers aren't necessarily learning anything about themselves in Bubblegum Crisis, but their encounters with boomers display to the audience who and what the women are and propel the plot forward.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 14: Which Episode(s) Would Be the Best to Adapt into a Movie?

Happy Valentine's Day, LOVAHS! I know, I know, I don't celebrate the holiday because I think it's a little silly, but to those that do, enjoy your chocolates and roses!

Anyway, I'm spending the weekend in Nashville to see my sister off to South Korea (click over to her website, 52 Weeks of Wordage, to wish her the best of luck!), but that's doesn't mean that I'm still not doing my BGC challenge posts. Obviously. Just look at that title.

Ahem. 

Even though I feel that Bubblegum Crisis would be very difficult to translate well into a movie, especially an American one, there are a few that I feel might do the series justice - given, of course, that they didn't whitewash the cast, and of course they would, because this is Hollywood we're talking about. "Tinsel City" would probably be a good introduction with a rather bittersweet ending, and "Moonlight Rambler" paired with "Red Eyes" has relationship drama in it that would ground the more action-oriented sequences. However, I think the best option would be "Scoop Chase," the final episode produced that delightfully centers around the least likely person imaginable, Nene Romanova.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 13: Favorite Boomer

So I'm going to go into a bit of fan theory here because, well, a lot of the boomers in Bubblegum Crisis are essentially copies of each other beneath the skin (kind of like humans?) and not a single one really stands out to me, except maybe Largo, but I think I've covered him fairly well. Then again, my choice as favorite boomer is Sylia, who as you remember is my favorite main character, but hear me out.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 12: Comparison to the Remake, Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040

Like I said way back on Day 1, I actually watched the reboot of Bubblegum Crisis before watching the original, so I came at the series a little different than those who'd done the opposite. Now, I actually prefer 80s anime over most modern series, and a lot of that comes from character design, which I guess is the best place to start here?

Since you've seen plenty of images from the original series, I'll start with this one from Tokyo 2040. 

Via Hero Machine

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 11: Least Favorite Secondary or One-Shot Character

Okay, so remember Irene, the woman I referenced back on Least Favorite Main Character? Well, Irene was such a close friend of Linna's that Linna didn't know that Irene was related to a very popular singer, Vision, pictured below.

Via JapPop

I'll be clear here: I really, really like "Double Vision" as an episode, even though I have ragged on it a little bit in the past few challenge days. It's definitely in my Top 5 BGC episodes, but that doesn't mean that I agree with portions of it.

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 10: Favorite Secondary or One-Shot Character

Wheeee! I have been looking forward to this particular day because OMG how much do I love this character. If anybody ever gets the idea to do a whole new series around Daley Wong and his awesomeness, I am there.

Via Comic Vine

28 Day Bubblegum Crisis Challenge, Day 9: Least Favorite Villain

So I know that today is the 12th, but I've had major connectivity issues. The wifi around my apartment complex is shoddy, at best, but for the past few days, it's been completely gone. However, I do have all of my challenges up through today done, so don't think I've been slacking!

Anyway, onto today's challenge, which, I'm sad to say - or happy? - is going to be a rather short entry.