Bubblegum Crisis

Bubblegum Crisis

バブルガムクライシス
1987 –1991 Artmic / Youmex OVA 8 episodes Completed
Action Cyberpunk Sci-Fi
Details & Synopsis
In the MegaTokyo of 2032, a group of women in powered armour - the Knight Sabers - fight for-hire against rogue Boomers, biomechanical androids produced by the Genom corporation. Eight OVA episodes released between 1987 and 1991. Bubblegum Crisis is cyberpunk, it is feminism, it is hard rock, it is 80s excess at its absolute peak. If you know, you know. If you don't - you're about to.
Alt Title バブルガムクライシス
Studio Artmic / Youmex
Network OVA
Aired 1987 – 1991
Episodes 8
Genre Action, Cyberpunk, Sci-Fi
Status Completed
Search Go to ep Filters
Mega Tokyo 2032 (8)
Mega Tokyo 2032 8 eps 8 canon 📷 8
001 Tinsel City Aired Feb 25, 1987 canon 📷 145
In the neon-lit sprawl of Mega Tokyo, the mega-corporation Genom controls the city through the production of Boomers-synthetic cybernetic lifeforms. When a rogue Boomer goes on a murderous rampage and the AD Police are outgunned, a mysterious, heavily armored mercenary group known as the Knight Sabers emerges from the shadows to violently clean up the streets.
002 Born to Kill Aired Sep 5, 1987 canon 📷 152
A friend of Priss, a young woman named Irene, discovers a horrifying secret about Genom's latest combat Boomer models. When Irene is brutally murdered to protect the corporate conspiracy, the Knight Sabers launch a heavily armed, deeply personal vendetta against Genom executive Brian J. Mason.
003 Blow Up Aired Dec 5, 1987 canon 📷 175
Tired of Genom's unchecked power and the rising body count in Mega Tokyo, Sylia Stingray leads the Knight Sabers in a direct, high-stakes assault on Genom Tower. The mission culminates in a devastating confrontation with Mason and his elite personal guard of military-grade Boomers.
004 Revenge Road Aired Jul 24, 1988 canon 📷 175
The neon highways of Mega Tokyo become a battleground when a highly modified, heavily armed smart-car named the Griffon begins hunting down heavily augmented biker gangs. The Knight Sabers must intervene before the grieving driver pushes his machine into an unstoppable, murderous overdrive.
005 Moonlight Rambler Aired Dec 25, 1988 canon 📷 175
A rogue, experimental Boomer model resembling a vampire begins draining the blood of Mega Tokyo's citizens to survive. Priss forms a tragic bond with Sylvie, a runaway who holds the key to the rogue Boomer's origins, leading to a heartbreaking confrontation in orbital space.
006 Red Eyes Aired Aug 30, 1989 canon 📷 225
A group of imposter Knight Sabers orchestrates a series of violent terrorist attacks, turning the city and the AD Police against the real team. Behind the smear campaign is Largo, a terrifyingly advanced super-Boomer with god-like ambitions who survived the destruction of Genom Tower.
007 Double Vision Aired Mar 14, 1990 canon 📷 225
A famous singer named Vision arrives in Mega Tokyo, but her stadium tour is a cover for a heavily armed mission of corporate espionage and revenge. When her high-tech mecha suit clashes with Genom's forces, the Knight Sabers are caught in the crossfire of a deeply personal vendetta.
008 Scoop Chase Aired Jan 30, 1991 canon 📷 164
An ambitious young tech reporter named Miriam arrives in the city determined to expose the true identities of the Knight Sabers. Her relentless investigation puts the team at immense risk just as Genom unveils a terrifying new project designed to replace the AD Police entirely.
Legend
canon Episode adapts events from the source manga.
mixed Adapts source material but adds anime-original scenes.
good-filler Anime-original episode generally well-received by fans.
filler Anime-original episode not based on the source manga.
📷 Number of user-uploaded screencaps available for this episode.
SS

Sylia Stingray

Protagonist

Runs a lingerie boutique in MegaTokyo. Built the hardsuits. Recruited four women to wear them and fight boomers under the name the Knight Sabers. The operation exists because of Sylia and it exists for reasons the series reveals carefully across eight episodes rather than all at once. Her father created the boomer technology that Genom subsequently stole and industrialized, and what that history means to her personally is the spine everything else hangs from. Cool, precise, managing people and information with the same deliberate control. The most unknown quantity on the team, including possibly to herself.
PA

Priss Asagiri

Protagonist

Singer. Priss and the Replicants play bars in MegaTokyo and she writes songs about a city that eats people. Off the stage she rides hard, fights harder, and treats most human interaction as an obstacle to get through. The most aggressive of the Knight Sabers and the most obviously damaged. She has personal reasons for what she does in that hardsuit that go beyond Sylia's money and the city's boomer problem. The music and the violence come from the same place in her. One of the great protagonists of 1980s anime and the character Bubblegum Crisis was built to showcase.
LY

Linna Yamazaki

Protagonist

Came to MegaTokyo from the countryside chasing a version of the city that the city was not going to hand her. Works as an aerobics instructor. Joined the Knight Sabers for the money and stayed for reasons the show develops more quietly than it does with Priss or Sylia. The most grounded of the four. That groundedness is exactly what the team needs even when it does not look like much from the outside. Her arc across the OVA is understated and honest.
NR

Nene Romanova

Protagonist

Works the AD Police data systems by day. Wears a hardsuit at night. The gap between those two facts is a security problem she manages with more competence than anyone in the AD Police would find comfortable if they knew. Youngest of the Knight Sabers, cheerful in a way that reads as lightweight until you watch what she can actually do inside a computer system. The team's intelligence infrastructure runs through Nene entirely. Without her the other three are fighting blind.
LM

Leon McNichol

Supporting

AD Police officer. Has been chasing the Knight Sabers, and Priss specifically, for long enough that the pursuit has become something more complicated than police work. Competent, consistently frustrated by the gap between what the AD Police can legally do and what MegaTokyo's boomer problem actually requires. His relationship with Priss runs through the series as a background frequency that neither of them fully addresses. The show is honest about the limits of his jurisdiction without making him useless inside them.
DW

Daley Wong

Supporting

Leon's partner in the AD Police. More observant than his relaxed affect suggests and considerably more comfortable with ambiguity than Leon is. Daley is the one who sees the full picture and makes careful decisions about which parts to act on. His role as comic counterweight to Leon is real but it is not the whole of what he brings. The show uses him well in the background of scenes that are technically about other people.
MS

Mackie Stingray

Supporting

Sylia's younger brother. Maintains the hardsuits, runs technical support, and is enthusiastically present in situations where a teenager probably should not be cleared for. Mackie is comic relief handled carefully enough that he earns his actual place on the support structure of the operation. His relationship with Sylia carries its own texture separate from the Knight Sabers business and the show gives it room without making it the focus.
BJ

Brian J. Mason

Antagonist

Genom executive vice president. The primary human antagonist for most of the series. Uses boomers as instruments of corporate power with a coldness that makes him more genuinely threatening than any rogue unit the AD Police has logged. Ambitious, controlled, operating within Quincy's shadow while building something of his own underneath it. Bubblegum Crisis's argument that the real danger in MegaTokyo was never the boomers going rogue. It was the people who decided what they were for.
QU

Quincy

Antagonist

Chairman of Genom Corporation. Old, seemingly frail, in complete control of the largest and most powerful corporation on earth. Quincy does not move much. He does not need to. Everything Mason does and everything the boomer industry represents traces back to decisions Quincy made long before the series starts. He is the still point the entire conflict orbits around. The show keeps him at a distance deliberately and the distance makes him larger.
LA

Largo

SPOILER!

Antagonist

The antagonist the later episodes build toward. What Largo is and where he comes from is something Bubblegum Crisis holds back deliberately, and the reveal recontextualizes several things that came before it. You have likely encountered him already. Leave the rest for the show to explain on its own schedule.
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