The OVAs are set in the Bubblegum Crisis universe, but I decided to try them out because I knew they were side stories and all pretty short, so it seemed like a way to check out part of the franchise without having to invest into watching a whole show.

Each OVA is about a half hour long and really is just a vignette set in the far flung year of 2027 where Toyko has become a cyberpunk hellscape.

It isn’t a slick and glossy kind of cyberpunk either, everything is truly gross and worn down, often with a heavy brown palette and grime and graffiti everywhere.

The AD Police are a police force that is a step above normal police and handle humanoid robots (“boomers”) and people who are so heavily cyber-augmented that they may as well be boomers.

Each OVA packs in a heaping of violence and horniness, though the later is usually mixed with the former is ways meant to be more offputting than enjoyable.

My favorite was the third OVA, which is a somehow more cynical version of Robocop.

I was getting whiffs of cost cutting in how some of the scenes were forced to cut to stills with sound effects, but the story was despite that well told and creepy enough to hold my attention.

I recommend all three OVAs for any fans of cyberpunk or dystopian media.

  • SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    Have you watched many other OVA from this era? This is the shit that got me into anime in my late teens and early 20s.

    • SSTF@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      Not particularly. My experience with anime is more or less an outgrowth of what was on Adult Swim back in the 90s. Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Hellsing, Outlaw Star, Mobile Suit Gundam and Gundam 8th MS Team, Ghost In the Shell, and Big O are representative of my kind of baseline. I’ve searched out a few anime things since then like Fist Of The North Star, Akira, Paprika and others but I’m not super deep. Cyberpunk settings have always been a fascination of mine so recently I decided to look into both Patlabor and Bubblegum Crisis.

      • SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        See if you can get your hands on a series of OVAs called Genocyber, it takes cyberpunk concepts to their extremes. Very dark and violent.

        Also worth watching Wicked City if you haven’t seen it. It’s more supernatural than cyberpunk but has very CP vibes and atmosphere, it’s a classic of the era.