The Show:
One trend I really like in anime nowadays is that many companies are
re-releasing a series in a boxed set after the volume-by-volume release
has finished. Not only do you get to buy the whole series at once,
but they are often at a much lower price. This way people who were
on the fence about a series, or don't mind waiting a little, get to see
it at a discount though they miss out on the internet discussions about
the show while it's being released. Manga has recently done that
with an older release, Virus Buster Serge. Now you can get
all three volumes of this show for slightly more than just one volume would
have originally cost you. While this is a great deal, the show isn't
all that hot. Director Masami Obari, the same person who was at the
helm of Gravion and Fatal Fury, creates another world filled
with fan service and odd looking characters, but once again forgets to put in a good
story.
In the year is 2097 Neo-Hong Kong's most elite fighting force is STAND.
They are a group of highly trained tough-as-nails police officers who protect
the town fighting in their Variable Gear armored suits. Now keep
in mind that this is TOTALLY different and not at all like Bubblegum
Crisis. BGC takes place in Neo-Tokyo, and their elite
fighting force in powered armor is called the Knight Sabers. Not
at all alike.
Anyway, a new villain is troubling Neo-Tokyo: Incubator. This
entity has developed a virus that can infect both humans and machines.
The disease takes over the infected person of object and causes them to
run wild. This could be STANDs greatest challenge.
Enter Serge, a young man who has had troubling dreams and tries to kill
STAND's enigmatic leader, Raven. He doesn't succeed of course, but
he is noticed by Raven who decides that he'll be a great addition to the
team. Being the 'reluctant hero', Serge doesn't want to join but
eventually does. This will come as no surprise to anyone since his
name is in the title.
So, with their new member STAND fights the Virus and tries to run Incubator
to ground.
If you've seen Bubblegum Crisis, you pretty much seen this series too.
It's hard to watch this and NOT draw comparisons to BGC, there are
so many parallels. There isn't really a lot that's new here, and
this program lacks a lot of the charm that BGC had. The characters
aren't as interesting, and the mysteries and questions that the show raises
didn't grab my attention at all. I just sat there thinking
"I've seen this all before, haven't I?"
The show is very disjointed too. It takes a while before they
actually get around to explaining what the plot is, and they never really
focus on advancing it as much as I would have liked. They just jump
from one idea to the next without developing a coherent theme for the show.
I really disliked the character designs too. While the Variable
Gear suits were pretty cool, the individual characters looked oddly grotesque
with exaggerated body parts while being heroin-junky thin. I think
the director was trying to go for a sexy look in both the males and females,
but I thought they looked like living zombies.
The DVD:
This boxed set consists of the original released packaged together in
a thin slipcase. Each disc comes in a keepcase with an insert.
Audio:
This show has both an original language Japanese track in stereo and
an English dub in 2.0 and 5.1. I started out alternating between
the two languages but soon stopped listening to the English tracks.
The dub was really bad and should be avoided. Though the 5.1 sounded
nice, the actors just didn't bring their characters to life, and the lip
synching was especially bad. They didn't really make much of an effort
to match the lip movement to what they were saying, and it ends up looking
just slightly better than a Sandy Frank movie. The Japanese track
sounds pretty good, but not superior. The sound wasn't as crisp and
tight as I was hoping, though there was a good amount of range.
Video:
This show was made in 1997, but it looks older than that. The
full frame image has a lot of grain to it, and the colors are muted and
a bit dull. This could be the look the creators were going for, and
if so it really made the show look old and worn. The image wasn't
as sharp as it should be either, and aliasing was a problem. While
this show doesn't look horrible, when you first start the show, your first
thought will be, "Wow, this doesn't look very good."
Extras:
The extras on this are the same as the original releases. Each
disc contains the same set of text character profiles, and there are some
design galleries. The third disc has a 15-minute interview with director
Masami Obari which is sort of a pain to watch. Each question is asked
in English, translated into Japanese, answered in Japanese, and then translated
back into English. I wish they had edited this footage and just subtitled
the answers. I guess you can't have everything though.
Final Thoughts:
This show is just not that great. It comes across as a low budget
BGC wannabe, with none of the charm or engaging ideas. The
plot is a mess, and the character designs are awful. Add to that
the fact that the dub is horrible and the video quality is below average.
If you are a big Masami Obari fan, this boxed set is a great deal.
Everyone else should stay far away. Skip it.
Buy: