"Bubblegum Crash" (Anime)

[pkristen]

3 Episode OVA. Originally reviewed April 23, 2001

Summary
A sequel to the original Bubblegum Crisis series, with a focus more on Sylia.

Review
Unless you’re an ABSOLUTE die hard completist fan of the original BGC, then do not bother watching. Animation, stories and characterizations have been considerably downgraded. Given that Sylia is my favorite character of the original BGC cast, I find it completely ironic that I was so disappointed by this series, which had great potential — but then, so did the original BGC series.

And yes, I do believe there was probably intentional irony by the creators about the naming of the evil scientist Dr. Yuri.

Lesbian Analysis
Despite any official stance from AIC, the creative company behind the Bubblegum Crisis franchise, I personally have a hard time maintaining character and personal history continuity between BG Crisis and Crash. The characters are all stripped down versions of the originals, in terms of complexity and emotion. And the characters don’t act like the more subtle but pivotal moments which happened in BG Crisis even happened. In fact, all of the subtleties about the relationships and interactions have been devoid of any depth or feeling.

But with that, I would state that there doesn’t seem to be any orientation evidence for ANY character EXCEPT Largo.

My two cents about the whole Sylia/Largo thing is that I find it interesting that general consensus seems to be that Sylia reciprocates his infatuation with her (which began when she was still a child, by the way) but I didn’t see any evidence to support that. True, in a pivotal moment, she does seem to bend towards succumbing to his plea to join him to conquer the world, but you also have to keep in mind that he’s doing a brain invasion/control thing with her at the time. So I still hold my stance that she’s Suspiciously Inconclusive, leaning more towards Lesbian than any other orientation.