Fireball's complete series anime reviews

Most of you already know if you do not have access to the cartoon network watching anime on a regular basis can be expansive. Wether you buy each new volume as it is released or wait for the entire boxset an anime series can really eat into your hard earned cash. With that in mind I have started this thread to review some of the series I have purchased recently to help you decided when to keep those purse strings pulled tightly closed and when to beg, borrow or steal the nessecary funds to get that must see. On to the first review. I shall be avioding discusiion on special features for now as I do usually decide on buying stuff based on the actual movie/program.

Burst Angel a.k.a. Baskertu Tenshi
Story
Burst Angel centres around the exploits of Jo, Meg, Amy and Sei. A group of teenage (in Amy's case pre-teen) mecenaries employed by the Biolan organization. They live in tokyo, which due to recent crisises has passed laws making it easy to obtain firearms liscences. The recently armed police of tokyo (RAPT) have also been created to talke the increasing crime problem, the solution is worse than the problem, arrest rates go down but apprehension is up. Yes they are the shot first kind of force. In the opening epsiodes the girls hire Kyohei, a young cooking student with dreams of studying in Paris, to provide them decent meals. He is soon caught up in their other work due to be kidnapped after his first day of work and causing on of Meg and Jo's missions to go sour. It does however lead them to the new threat of the glowing brains and prototype cybots (mechas). And throughout the course of the series it becomes apparent that the brains, rapt and jo are all conected. But what I find more interesting is the personal journies the characters take. Such as Kyohei learning not to be ignorant of what is truely happening and Sei trying not to blindly follow the tradtions of Biolan and her family. But most importantly Meg realising how she has saved Jo emotionally as often as Jo has saved her physically.
Thats right the main romantic relationship in this series is between two teenage girls what of it. Anyway I have seen this described as this decades Bubblegum crisis, and while it is similar I don't think its warranted as the 2040 version of bubblegum crisis does the conspricacy and overplot a lot better. That said burst angel has a lot of wonderfully stand alone episodes and a brillant three episode arc in osaka.

7.5 for story


Characters
Sei: 19 year old granddaughter of Biolans leader. Mainly stays in the trailer and coordinates. Most missions are recieved through her. Played older than actually is. Kind of mother/big sister to the other girls especially to Amy.
Amy: 11 year old computer hacker. Typical annoying little sister type. Seems to have a whole network of contacts at the electronic market place and seems to have a cult following on the internet, for her hacking skills of course.
Meg: 15 year old field operative. Often suports Jo in the field which leads to her getting kidnapped a lot. This is her main function for the story. She is however very brave and shown herself capable of saving Jo from many threats. I guess you could also say she is the teams friendly out going type who can quickly get to the bottom of mysterious because people open up to her. Heck even Jo opens up to her.
Jo- 17 year old gunfighter/mecha pilot. Jo has a mysterious past one that probably caused her to gain great powers in battle. The powers which causes a wing like tattoo to appear on her arm and back in the heat of battle (or if some one has really pissed her off be kidnapping Meg). Some around the seeder parts of tokyo call her the angel of death. When not fighting she spends most of her time with Meg or watching incredibly violent horror films. But it is in battle when she is happiest. She is by far the most interesting character although we don't get to much insight on her till episodes seven and eight. You should be able to piece together what makes Jo tick by the episode entilted Wild Kids (a flash back which tells how Jo met Meg). She also pilots the cybot Django.
Kyohei: The regular guy trying to save up some money for his dreams. The accasible one to care about when you are first watching the series. We do learn that he has always had the inner strength the girls force him to use in later episodes.
Takane: Teenage cop from osaka who wears a school girls outfit and leads a motorcycle gang. Also carries a wooden sword. Daughter of the Osakan police cheif she represents the law when it is uncorrupted. Very Beane-esque for those of you familar with the character in Mr. Sporks stories.

8 for Characters

Mecha design
Very yawn so what when controlled by humans and not glowing brains ,until amy releases Django from the trailer and rockets him towards Jo along the freeways of tokyo. With a shilloutte (he even has the hat kinda) of a western gun fighter is armed with pistols similar to Jo's desert eagles but on a much larger scale and a blade concealed in a cavity on his fore arm. Django even has spurs, which are used for radip breaking when he his wheels on his feet are being used to increase his speed similar to how one rollerblades. He has also been given wings in at least one episode. The other cybots are very animalistic with a crow cybot and the dog like one in the second episode being the most memorable.

7.5 for Mecha

Music
While the opening (loosey) and closing (under the sky) are approraitely upbeat and slowly emotional respectifly, the true place this anime shines musically is the themes in the actual show. In particular Django's theme and Jo's theme as both evoke spaggetti westerns from which this show heavily draws.

7 for Music

Fanservice
Incerdibly high. With Sei's gravity defying top, Meg's short skirt combining with being captured and held in compromising postions and Jo's fighting outfight being a bit like a bikini combine with a gunbelt and long scarf (under a large jacket at other times except back at the trailer) I don't even now why they went for the typical beach fanservice epsiode at the half way point. I suppose it does a good little Meg and Jo romance part before their day is saddly cut short. Heck even Amy's outfit is disturbing. Of course a certain bit of the last episode highlights the strangeness of japanese censorship. Its okay if there is no nipple.

Fanservice level: Begs the question why bother asking if you can say nipple on the audio commentary? a.k.a. very high

Conclusions or Delusions
Well here I am at the end of the review. I may just add the lighting of the series also evokes westerns and the fact that funimation decided to give Osakan's texan accents in the english dub was an inspired move. Heck even the narrator for the next episode bits sounds like he could be that old guy at the tarvern telling the tales of the gunfighters from the old west. Funimations dub is also quite decent in other places taking its cues from the orginal track. Monica Real does a brillant job of Jo's voice despite playing against her voice type. So if you buy it you get a pretty decent sci-fi western with a lesbian romantic subplot and giant robots as an added bonus. So time for a total...

7.5 total score

Next time I shall be reviewing my all time favourite anime series. Bubblegum Crisis tokyo 2040. If you want to but your own review of a full series here please do so