地球へ…/ Toward The Terra

One of the best OVA from the 80's.

Today's entry is about a mildly obscure, yet influential OVA from 38 years ago (1980) that is probably one of the best Anime from the 80's due to its vision of a distant future where humanity has survived poisoning planet earth and become star trekkers while evolving into a very special kind of human that is not welcomed by a super computer controlled-society of clone slaves.

Toward the Terra (Japanese: 地球(テラ)へ… Hepburn: Tera e...) is a Japanese science fiction manga series by Keiko Takemiya. It was originally serialized in Asahi Sonorama's Gekkan Manga Shōnen magazine, between January 1977 and May 1980. In 1978, it won the very first Seiun Award for manga, and in 1980 also won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen/shōjo manga (along with Takemiya's Kaze to Ki no Uta).

 

In 1980, Toward the Terra was adapted into an animated movie, produced by Toei Animation and directed by Hideo Onchi. The music score was written by Masaru Sato. The only two actual songs featured are "Terra e... Coming Home To Terra" and "Ai no Wakusei All We Need Is Love" both performed by Da Capo.  

Overseas, Rightstuf released a hard-subbed version of the movie in North America. It was titled Toward the Terra, and appeared on VHS in 1994 and on laser-disc in 1995, almost 15 years after its original release! Later, at Anime Expo 2008, The Right Stuf International announced that its Nozomi Entertainment division had licensed the Toward the Terra film for the North American market meaning you can still buy it on DVD and Blu Ray in the official market. In 2007, the manga was once again adapted, this time into a 24 episode anime television series. However, our review is about the original 1980 film. 

Clones made to serve.

Clones made to destroy the Mü and protect their sterile society.

Toward The Terra, has a great dystopic setting where people don’t give birth naturally anymore but are born from test tubes, where couples are randomly assigned babies to rear, where another breed of being, telepathic people called Mu, are persecuted and hunted down by esper interrogators.

Basically it’s a fascinating mix of contemporary literature classics in the likes of Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and even Star Wars. Moreover, Anime connoisseurs will notice the main story arch is somehow similar to that of Mobile Suit Gundam: Two human factions escape to space to secure survival of one another while fighting a war against each other. In addition, you can tell that some of the artistic ideas from Toward The Terra were used in other Animé from the same decade. For instance, there's a character that plays a harp in a room that's very similar to that of the Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross (1984, but made widely popular as "The Robotech Masters", the second generation from Robotech). Also, humans in TTT are basically clones "programmed" to follow instructions and incapable of displaying personal emotions, while the Mü are naturally born and live freely loving one another, just like what we see causing trouble in  the aforementioned Anime.

Violence in times of war.

The military aren't happy about the Mü.

The story takes place in the distant future sometime after the 31st millennium where humanity exists under the rule of the political order controlled by supercomputers known as Superior Dominance (Hence the SD logo you'll see in many scenes) and the carefully selected humans known as the Members Elite. Centuries before the story begins, the human race came to the conclusion that war and pollution rendered life on Earth unsustainable. Using warp travel the decision was made to leave a supercomputer Artificial Intelligence and caretaker humans behind and colonize distant stars. Under the rule of Superior Dominance all humans are born in vitro and given to carefully selected parents. At the age of 14, all children are put through brainwashing where their memories are wiped by Superior Dominance and overwritten to produce functional adults. A race of advanced humans with psionic abilities called Mu (pronounced myuu, μ) has evolved, and the supercomputers that control Superior Dominance make every effort to exterminate them. Led by Soldier Blue and then Soldier Shin, the Mu make every effort to locate and rescue as many Mu children as possible before the children are discovered and eliminated. The Mu have only one wish, to return to what they see as their promised land, Terra. 

The movie spans a large number of years, jumping back and forth multiple times, from Soldier Shin's life on Ataraxia, the various events on Station E-1077, Soldier Shin's founding of a Mu colony on a habitable planet, Neska, the Superior Dominance war of extermination on the Mu, and finally to the Mu's return to Terra. 

The power that rules.

The people that power fears.

The Mu themselves are a fantastic concept, not merely generic super-humans, their telepathic powers are actually a method of balance and compensation to make up for a variety of deficiencies they suffer from ranging from deformities, asthma, blindness, etc.

Well, not that the movie remembers this plot point after a while, forgetful as it is with many details. We see a dude hilariously drop his arm on the ground to prove a point, and a few coughs here and there but for the most part the Mu look ready to roll and you realize the movie isn't going to bother to stick to its own rules.

It’s a movie of two halves, lots of meaty ideas, but speedy execution. Conflicts are brought up, but then are resolved quickly; and thus unrealistically. Though expecting realism in this story is moot, the ideas are totally out there into fringe-science territory, but the realism I'm talking about is narrative-based, the suspend-disbelief-o-meter. It’s off the charts with Terra e.., unless of course you know how to enjoy yourself with this movie and just accept it for what it is.

It’s a cliffs notes of dystopic literature animated for kids and teens. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s brilliant. There are also some classic Gundam-level slaps, as well as unintentional hilarity due to the animation limitations, but it’s not enough to detract from the core message of the story.

Soldier Blue.

Jomy Marquis Shin.

So yeah, there are plot holes galore and liberties are taken because of animation limitations, and also to condense the story into a two hour movie, but at the end of the day this is great food for thought for kids and teens. I'll take this hole-ridden cheese over modern day flashy anime that are more concerned with fan-service and panty shots than communicating worthwhile ideas to their audience.

No matter how many holes it has, it remains consistent throughout, whether in entertaining the viewer with backhands to kids' faces, or with character relationships and conflicts, which again should be commended, because there are far too many po-faced anime out there with pretensions of being seen as smart or deep but are actually made up of nothing but clichés, coincidences and deus ex machinas, preferring pointless cliff-hangers over carefully structured story development.

TTT seems to revel in its throw-everything-into-the-sink nature with near glee. About an hour and ten minutes into the movie things go crazy with unrestrained violence and mayhem that makes you wonder how many kids got scarred for life watching it when it was released in 1980, especially during one particular sequence involving a woman screaming like a banshee while running into a fire.

The mu are monsters!

No, we are not.

TTT goes bonkers as if someone wrote it while on crack, and after filming it all, leant on the fast forward button on his remote and fell asleep. With people flying around space, babies evolving into fleet commanders and ships that look like they came out of the backside of a farm animal, Terra e... spirals into a tornado of insane and random stuff happening on screen just for the hell of it.
Overall, Toward the Terra is a Space Opera of epic proportions, covering approximately five decades worth of events. It's an old school sci-fi series with complex Character Development, starting slow but gradually building its story to an extremely emotional ride through the galaxy. Recommended for everyone.

here's the movie trailer:

The opening & ending themes:

And a selection of "hot clips" from Manga Entertainment:

バブルガムクライシス / Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2032

The heroes from the 80's and forever!

Following our  latest self-inflicted trend, we continue to look back at some of the most memorable Anime ever created. No matter whether they had a long or short run, if they're archetypal, they're here. That simple.

Today's entry involves one of those unique cases where conveying ideas that were already established, become greater than the original places where they took place. The 80's were a neon-fueled decade accompanied by the rise and fall of some of the greatest pop music acts worldwide. I was born in 1981, I spent nine years there. Nine years where I was lucky enough to find my way into the world of Anime. Today, 36 years later I can state, Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2032 is the most 80's Anime you will ever see.

Bubblegum Crisis (Japanese: バブルガムクライシス Hepburn: Baburugamu Kuraishisu) is a 1987 to 1991 cyberpunk original video animation (OVA) series produced by Youmex and animated by AIC and Artmic. The series was planned to run for 13 episodes, but was cut short to just 8. The series premiered on February the 25th, 1987 and ended on January the 30th, 1991. Six months later (August the 30th, 1991) the series would have its first official US release. So it took nearly four years for it to be enjoyed by a growing wave of Western Anime fans like yours truly. 

In North America, AnimEigo first released Bubblegum Crisis to VHS and Laserdisc in 1991 in Japanese with English subtitles. The series is notable in that it was one of the few early anime series that were brought over from Japan unedited and subtitled in English. While anime has become much more popular in the years since, in 1991, it was still mostly unknown as a storytelling medium in North America. Bubblegum Crisis was aired in the US when it first aired on PBS affiliate Superstation KTEH in the 1990s, and STARZ!'s Action Channel in 2000.

Girl power.

Girl armored power!

The series started with Toshimichi Suzuki (writer of the series) intention to remake the 1982 film Techno Police 21C. However, he met Junji Fujita (one of the series producer) and the two discussed ideas, and decided to collaborate on what later became Bubblegum Crisis. Kenichi Sonoda acted as character designer, and designed the four female leads. Masami Ōbari created the mechanical designs. Obari would also go on to direct episode 5 and 6.

The OVA series is eight episodes long but was originally slated to run for 13 episodes. Due to legal problems between Artmic and Youmex, who jointly held the rights to the series, the series was discontinued prematurely.

Another unique features BGC has, is the fact it has a different soundtrack for every OVA, meaning there are 8 albums full of music from the series. The majority of songs were sung by Kinuko Oomori, Yuiko Tsubokura, Maiko Hashimoto, and The Knight Sabers.

 Here is every opening theme song: 

#1: "Konya wa Hurricane (今夜はハリケーン)" by Kinuko Oomori (ep 1)

 
#2: "Mad Machine" by Kinuko Oomori (ep 2)

 
#4: "CRISIS ~ Ikari wo Komete Hashire" by Yuiko Tsubokura (ep 4)

 
#5: "Mysterious Night (ミステリアスナイト)" by the Knight Sabers (ep 5)

#7: "Say Yes!" by Maiko Hashimoto (ep 7)

 
#8: "Bye Bye My Crisis" by the Knight Sabers (ep 8)

And the respective ending theme songs:

#1: "Mr. Dandy" by Bluew (ep 1)

 
#2: "Kizudarake no Wild (傷だらけのWild)" by Kinuko Oomori (ep 2)

 
#3: "Wasurenaide (忘れないで)" by Oomori Kinuko (ep 03)

 
#4: "Twilight " by Tsubokura Yuiko (ep 4)

 
#5: "Omoide ni Dakarete (思い出に抱かれて)" by Tsubokura Yuiko (ep 5)

 
#6: "Rock Me" by Yuiko Tsubokura (ep 6)

 
#7: "Never the End" by Maiko Hashimoto (ep 7)

 
#8: "Chase the Dream" by Kinuko Oomori (ep 8)

 

Neon colors, pop idols and fast bikes.

And graphic violence!

BGC opens with what might be one of the best opening 7 minutes of an anime ever, this OVA opens with a montage of the future, a dark sprawling Mega-Tokyo. (Many have noted the similarity between the opening of the first episode and the start of the 1984 film Streets of Fire)

 
Immediately Ghost in the Shell comes to mind, some scenes look almost identical, the Oshii vibe so thick, the possible influence on the man (and even Masamune Shirow himself) is made more and more questionable throughout the OVA with many stylistic choices bringing the GitS franchise to mind. Moreover, some people consider BGC the archetype used for Akira.

After the introduction of the various comings and goings of the city, a concert suddenly begins, introducing a blonde wigged character Priss, and is intercut with the appearance of a boomer wrecking havoc. The direction and editing, and hell even the music are all excellent and ensure the OVA gets off to a cracking start. 80's cyberpunk at its best!

The story follows four plucky young women with nothing better to do in their spare time than to don cyber-outfits and blow crap up, preferably those pesky rogue boomers who keep appearing all over the city. The combined IQ of these four women finally figures out that Genom corporation, which apparently holds accounts for 68% of the world's cars & robots, might have something to do with these incidents and so Bubblegum Crisis delivers 8 episodes of pure unadulterated fun in a way only 80's anime can.

Priss, you're a pop star!

While some are dancing, some are hunting.

Mega-Tokyo, 2032. This is the future, but seen from the eyes of the 80's. Each decade's vision of the future is idiosyncratic, and so each decade produces strange and brilliant works of genius or garbage, with Bubblegum Crisis firmly in the strange and brilliant camp, albeit lacking both genius and garbage, though still retaining quality production and vision. Plenty of great directorial choices, POV shots, pans, zooms, it's all dynamic and makes up for the dated, yet still decent, animation.

No matter the humor or clunky dialogue or 80's sprinkled aesthetics in hair styles and clothing, this is cyberpunk at its peak. Everything associated with the genre is present, the connective nature of society, the paranoia of having satellites hovering above your head with the capability of blowing you up, biotech suits, corporate power run amok. In a sense Bubblegum Crisis is more cyberpunk than a lot of cyberpunk anime out there which sometimes jettison a lot of the genre's traits and settle for dystopic hijinks with the occasional robot AI thrown in. Bubblegum Crisis revels in the genre and doesn't leave anything out.

Front and center.

The looks of stardom.

The anime came out at what might be seen as cyberpunk's peak of influence and exposure in the mainstream, and as such is worth a watch for its historical significance, in terms of impacting the genre of cyberpunk in anime and also being a window to the time. It's so classy it even has time to throw a shout out to The Third Man!

It's flawed, but packed with so much creative ideas and flair, you can't help but bop along to the 80's tunes. Each episode starts with a cinematic musical montage of 80's soft rock/pop and narrative-advancing imagery. This isn't on-par with cyberpunk like GitS, you have to accept the humor and gaping plot-holes as part of the charm, or you'll just not be involved and will tune out. The AD Police are written as what a 12 year old imagines the NYPD are like, complete with the gruff black police captain arguing with the rookie cop.

There's lots of subtle visual flair in this OVA, the directors knew what they were doing. (Except for episode 5 and 6. That director probably went to the school of Koichi Mashimo, though he wasn't helped by the screenwriter for those episodes either) Too often in post-millennium anime there are tons of 'arty' shots that are meaningless and the camera either flies around the place like a Steadicam-operator on crack, or pans laboriously across the screen as if directed by an old age pensioner, but back in the 80's/90's they knew how to pace episodes just fine while choosing narrative-coherent viewpoints to the action. I guess I'm harping that old cliche; of modern day anime being too shallow with emphasis on looks rather than content, but considering that this anime is packed with very cliched jokes that were old even back when this was released, the argument is kind of moot.

There's always time for lingerie in the future.

No flat LED screen TV in Mega Tokyo.

If you want to go extra deep you could propose that Bubblegum Crisis is yet another exploration of the relationship between man and machine and clearly veers on the side of external mechanics and views bio-implementation, or to be simple about it: cyborgs, as a threat to the world. Even though boomers (not the ones from the Left 4 Dead games) are technically robots, though the distinction is rarely made clear especially when they all have such charming personalities, their humanoid form isn't a random creative decision. Here's where I'd say BGC was clearly inspired by some Hollywood blockbusters from the decade: Blade Runner, Streets of Fire & The Terminator. Each film, gives its own view on the future of mankind, and BGC is the blended result of the combination of all three.

If I were to choose the best part of BGC, I'd pick the characters, because they were a new breed of tough woman leading the fight in mechanized combat suits. That was barely common to have only woman as leads in the action genre. Though with only 8 out of the 13 episodes completed they did what they could with depth, but its what the characters represented that was most special.
They covered a broad spectrum of female heroines, Priss a tough, bike riding, battle hardened fighter who happens to be a singer, Linna the represented average aerobics girl of the 80s but with the ability to be able to transform that athleticism into fighting prowess, Sylia a smart wealthy elite who isn't afraid to drop the high class lady act and dirty her hands when she needs to, and lastly Nene a computer and electronics specialist willing to put herself in the battle zone.

Heroes wear no capes.

...And no underwear apparently!

What made them even more special though, was they all had their weaknesses, and the designers wanted us to know they were not perfect individuals and this added something to the characters that was largely absent in other action movies of the time.

Priss is poor and has had a rough life, its also implied that she never was well educated but she does what she can to get by and enjoy her life and improve the life of people she knows...or at least exact justice on their behalf.
Sylia is seen as the cool headed leader, but secretly she has an immense hatred for Genom Corp inside her which is strong enough to impair her judgement and cause her to lash out at others.
Linna although generally up beat is not living the life she wants, she would love a glamorous life and a great boyfriend but she is stuck in the mediocrity of being a below middle class person in Mega-tokyo, a cycle she cannot break out of. Then there's Nene, she desperately wants to be more physically imposing and it frustrates her that she isn't given much respect, she doesn't just want to be known as a computer geek at a police department and really would like people to know what she's really capable of. 

Art and character design, I think the series is excellent by 1980's standards. Personally, I think it's a masterpiece of it's era, using methods an approaches that will never been done again since they would be unfeasible today. It's a testament to what human artists are capable with just simple tools and hundreds of hours of painstaking work that they simply poured to their hearts into. If you're an artist or have ever worked with professional artists you will understand it and appreciate it for the true paramount achievement that it was. If you're not an artist, just look at it like this, BGC artwork is very much like a Lamborghini Countach, it's not the best car ever made, but it's the embodiment of 1980's cool, and for that it will never be replicated again because the technology changed, people have changed and the mindsets have changed. For that reason its look will always be unique and special.

Suit up!

Clean up!

The sound, for me the music production was the best id ever come across, in both English and Japanese the production quality was supreme, the musical ability of the producers and the vocal ability of the singers is as good as it got for any form of entertainment in the 80s, and that's saying a lot considering how great an era for music and movies the 80s is considered as being.

Though the Japanese version is better overall as expected, the English sung tracks are also very good, and you know that is rare for an Anime from the 80's where most of the dubbed into English was awfully bad. A quick good example of this, is Lynn Minmay from Macross & Lynn Minmei from Robotech...

Voice acting though is just average for both English and Japanese versions. Nowadays we have near Hollywood quality (or Japanese film industry quality) voice acting in games and anime. So BGCs voice acting is a couple notches below, it just lacks the substance that you get with newer productions that really drive home the characters intentions. The relative background silence you get during speaking is typical of the sound production of the time, that is one area I am glad is gone these days.

No rest for the Knight Sabers.

No means no!

In terms of enjoyment, if you're a person of the era there is no way you would say this is anything less than a 9 (I say 10), because you simply hadn't seen anything like this at the time, especially if you were outside of Japan. Taking nostalgia out of it and looking at it just as an Anime fan...a knowledgeable anime fan would certainly understand what was achieved here and in that case its an 8 or even 9 still. 

Overall, its a 9/10 for me, and if you grew up in the 80's and are an anime watcher you absolutely must watch Bubblegum Crisis.

Here's the original Japanese episode guide plus the first US air dates

#	Title	Japan first release dates	English first release dates
1	"Tinsel City Rhapsody" "(Runtime: 45 minutes)"	February 25, 1987	August 30, 1991
The Knight Sabers are hired to rescue a little girl from a group of kidnappers, but the girl is far more than she seems...
2	"Born to Kill" "(Runtime: 28 minutes)"	September 5, 1987	September 27, 1991
A friend of Linna's threatens to expose Genom secrets that led to the death of her fiancé, but Genom plans to silence her, first.
3	"Blow Up" "(Runtime: 26 minutes)"	December 5, 1987	October 10, 1991
The Knight Sabers attack Genom Tower to put an end to the machinations of Genom executive Brian J. Mason.
4	"Revenge Road" "(Runtime: 38 minutes)"	July 24, 1988	December 19, 1991
A racer modifies his car into a weapon of vengeance against the biker gangs of Megatokyo, but the car soon develops a mind of its own.
5	"Moonlight Rambler" "(Runtime: 43 minutes)"	December 25, 1988	January 23, 1992
A killer is draining victims of their blood, but this is no vampire. And what do a pair of escaped love-doll androids, Priss's new friend Sylvie and the D.D. super-weapon have to do with it?
6	"Red Eyes" "(Runtime: 49 minutes)"	August 30, 1989	February 27, 1992
A group of fake Knight Sabers are ruining the group's reputation, leading to a fight against a returning foe.
7	"Double Vision" "(Runtime: 49 minutes)"	March 14, 1990	March 19, 1992
A singer with a vendetta comes to Megatokyo, and brings some heavy firepower with her.
8	"Scoop Chase" "(Runtime: 52 minutes)"	January 30, 1991	April 2, 1992
An ambitious technical scientist and an aspiring reporter both plan to make their names at the expense of the Knight Sabers, and of all people, Nene is caught right in the middle.

Here's the Bubblegum Crisis trailer:

The Anime Eigo trailer for their release of BGC:

Unboxing of the deluxe 2017 blu-ray box:

a fan made "Megamix" with the music from BGC:

And last but not least, do you why the show is called "Bubblegum Crisis"? Simple, When you start blowing up a wad of bubblegum it inflates and inflates. Eventually the bubblegum is stretched so tight around the air inside it that it reaches the "crisis" point. That is, the slightest influx of air into the bubble will cause it to pop.

Bubblegum Crisis, therefore, refers to the fact that in the world the situation with Genom v Knight Sabers has reached that "crisis point" the slightest addition will cause it to explode.

Why specifically did the creators use that term? The Japanese like funky metaphorical names, apparently.