Bubblegum Crisis' art is one of its most astounding parts. Some of the art tells more about the characters than words can. Other art is just nice to look at. I thought I would create a page dedicated not only to being a gallery of this art, but to comparing the artists, styles, and artworks.

Kenichi Sonoda, one of anime's most well-known designers and creators, designed many of the characters for Bubblegum Crisis until he stopped working on the series about halfway through episode five, although he went back to work on production designs for episode eight. He was the second choice for character designer after Yoshitaka Amano declined to take the position because he did not want to work on mecha designs, which played a large part in BGC. At that point Gooda Hiroaki and Satoshi Urushibara took over and created characters such as Largo, who had traits of both Mason and Sylia Stingray to create an eerie portrait of the darker half of the world of the Cyberdroids. Reika Chang was designed based on some of Kenichi Sonoda's preliminary drawings of Irene Chang, Reika's younger sister.

Much of BGC's art is tremendously good, if not truly beautiful. But to be perfectly honest, some of the best work had absolutely nothing to do with Kenichi Sonoda. Here is a comparison between one of his most famous works and one of Tony Takezaki's less well-known works.

These are Priss Asagiri and Sylia Stingray's Hardsuits blowing off of their bodies. Sonoda drew the image of Priss while Takezaki drew Sylia Stingray superimposed over Largo. While Sonoda's is possibly BGC's best known image, Takezaki's has not only more artistic value, but says more about Sylia than Sonoda's says about Priss. It's remarkable what can be gleaned from Takezaki's image. You instantly know that there is a connection between Sylia and Largo, Sylia's expression speaks directly of her personality, half the Hardsuit being blown off implies that Sylia is torn in half over something (her relationship with Largo and the Boomers), and Sylia's glowing sword, which she used to kill Mason the first time (it was another sword, however), speaks a great deal about what has happened between them. Sonoda's work tells considerably less about Priss. It is an interesting work in that it implies that Priss is not one to be used; the look on her face says that much. But her gun and knife hold less meaning and actually appear in about five or six images with her in them. In fact, it's almost a cliched image. An attractive image, but a cliched image nonetheless.

There are several of Sonoda's images that copy indirectly and directly from each other, and usually it's Priss who suffers through this abuse. There are two images of Priss in mid-air with her mouth open in a yell while she has at least one arm extended outward. There are, as mentioned, many images where she is looking 'tough' with a gun and knife, or just a gun or just a knife. In several images she is partially in her Hardsuit and her upper-body is exposed while she is, of course, brandshing a weapon of some sort. Priss is usually at the front of any image save for one or two rare pieces where Sylia or another characters makes it to the front. There are at least two images where Priss in before a Sexaroid who is in a crying/screaming/pained position. Sonoda is very talented, but he is also a little predictable in his work.

Takezaki tends to be more original in his character designs and art, but he has his own trends that he goes through. He did the character designs and redesigns for The AD. Police Files, BGC's prequel series. Jeena Malso was entirely his, for instance. He redid Leon McNichol to make his appropriately younger while maintaing his general appearance. Takezaki's best known BGC work would either be the one of Sylia and Largo from Bubblegum Crash!, the image of the four Knight Sabers sleeping in their lingerie, or the image of Jeena Malso in a blue swimsuit holding Armstrong's eye and covering her face with her cybernetic arm. All of those are good images that are usually underappreciated.

Other BGC artists include Aramaki Shinji, who was also in planning for the series, and Satoshi Urushibara, who drew the most popular image of Reika Chang, a.k.a. Vision. It's a shame that Urushibara did not do more of BGC's artwork because if nothing else, he excelled at drawing beautiful women. To the best of my knowledge, Aramaki drew only one image of a K-12AT, a drawing that is commonly attributed to Sonoda.

Some sides notes are how the characters appearances changed over time. When Sylia was first designed by Sonoda in the form in which she currently appears she was not particularly attractive and looked to be middle-aged with bad taste in fashion. The Sylia who appeared in the first episode was gorgeous and very fashionable. Linna's hair actually shrank from episode one to episode two, and by episode eight her hair was no longer piled on top of her head and was more realistic, to put it one way. Priss remained more or less unchanged, thought at about episode five she started looking more mature. Nene remained childish in appearance and demeanor but her eyes seemed to grow, the color tone of her hair sporadically changed, and she became, IMHO, a little cuter over time.

Character designs for supporting cast seemed to improve after Sonoda left. Sylvie was far more attractive than most of Sonoda's secondary character designs had been, and Largo was one of BGC's most striking offerings, once again apparently based off of Mason and Sylia Stingray. Reika Chang, though taken from Sonoda's early versions of Irene, was more attractive than Irene had been. The designs went downhill for episode eight which was, once again IMHO, BGC's least interesting episode (Nene deserved better than that).

Finally, I guess it's only fair to say right now that I am not entirely sure about who drew some of the images here, so I either gave credit where it may not have been due (especially in Takezaki's case), or I listed the image as 'miscellaneous' even though Takezaki or Sonoda drew it. I apologize, and if anyone has any corrections to make, please e-mail me. Thank you.