HISTORY OF BUBBLEGUM CRISIS
FROM THE ADV WEBPAGE: Arguably one of the best known titles in the history of Japanese animation, BUBBLEGUM CRISIS began its life as one of the first major hits of a mid-eighties boom in made-for-video animations. Although plagued by budget and personnel problems, the original B.G.CRISIS attracted a large and faithful fan following and subsequently spawned a series of seven follow-up episodes, each of which expanded upon the concepts and story of the original. Emboldened by the series' continuing success, BGC's creators developed a 13 episode story arc that would bring the story to a climatic conclusion, but those plans fell apart after one of the original production companies ran into financial problems. A three episode follow-up series by a different production team, BUBBLEGUM CRASH, was later released in an attempt to tie up many of the loose plot ends, However, due to less than spectacular animation and the non-participation of many of the original staff, CRASH failed to find fan acceptance. Now, after years of legal wrangling and rights re-negotiation, original co-producers AIC and original series director Hayami Hayashi and have reunited to produce BUBBLEGUM CRISIS 2040, a twenty-six episode TV series using state of the art computer-assisted animation. Featuring new character designs and a more intricate and fully developed storyline, BGC 2040 is not a sequel to the original but a new interpretation and elaboration on the same basic plot, characters and concept. Simply put, this is how the original BGC might have turned out had the creators had both the proper financing to complete the original series as they originally intended and access to modern, state of the art animation technology. The story and events of 2040 start before and end after those of the original BGC, and many of the mysteries that were left unanswered in the original will now finally be solved.
So what exactly are the differences between the original Bubblegum Crisis made between 1987 and 1990 and Bubblegum Crisis 2040 made in 1999? The really major difference is that BGC 2040 was planned as a unified whole 26 episode series which allowed the plot to be fully developed and completed. The original BGC was made episode-by-episode; there were actually five different directors for the eight episodes that were completed. The episodes are of all different lengths, and the series just ends after Episode 8 with no resolution at all. How the series was intended to end has never been revealed although the disappointing three-episode Bubblegum Crash is thought by some to have elements of the planned conclusion, if there even was a real plan.
So what's the same in the two series? The names of the basic characters are the same, Genom Corporation and its Boomers are the enemy, and the action takes place in Tokyo. In other words, the very basic outline of the story. And that's about it; there are many, many differences in the details of the two stories. Below we'll get into a few of them.
Although most of the main characters have the same names, there are many differences in their personalities and backgrounds. For example, some of them have different jobs. In general, the girls seem to be friends right from the start in the original BGC. They are certainly no where near as together through most of BGC 2040. Part of the reason may be that there is time as well as a unified plan in BGC 2040 allowing for character development. The Saber Knights do certainly come together as the plot develops in BGC 2040. For a good description of how the characters differ ( which describes things much better than I ever could ), check this page of Neo Tokyo 2040 out.While you're there, check out the rest of the page too. It's really good.
Obviously, there is also a difference in the look of the characters, more so for some characters than others. Here's a picture of each character both old and new.
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The city of Mega-Tokyo in the original BGC certainly looks grittier and more lived in than the sterile Megalo-Tokyo in BGC 2040
And there's certainly a difference in the music, starting with the names of Priss's band. In the original BGC, her band is called the Replicants, an obvious reference to the movie Blade Runner where replicants are androids ( human-appearing robots ). In BGC 2040, her band is called Sekiria, which has a rather interesting derivation. It seems that "sekiri" is Japanese for "dysentery" and "ya" is Japanese for "store". So put together "Sekiria" (Sekiri-ya) would mean "dysentery store".The band apparently used to eat in a rather unsanitary restaurant which resulted in them spending a lot of extra time in the bathroom. Nice name for a band! Below we have a small sample of the music from each.
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An MP-3 of part of the opening theme "Konya Wa Hurricane" from the original BGC
An MP-3 of part of the opening theme "YKnow" from BGC 2040
Speaking of music, take a quiz on the episode titles of BGC 2040!
