AD Police
Daniel:
This 3-part miniseries is a prequel to the more famous "Bubblegum Crash", and later the "Bubblegum Crisis" series, and it is based on the spin-off Tony Tezuka original comic series. It takes place in the year 2027, 2 years after the "second great Kanto earthquake" reduced Tokyo to rubble, and 4 years before Bubblegum Crash's Silia Stingray forms the "Knight Sabers", the original 'babes in battlesuits' whose mission is to save Tokyo from the Boomers (or Voomers- depends where you look) who the AD police couldn't handle.
The AD (Armoured Defense) Police is a special heavily armoured unit of the Tokyo police force that was set up to combat crimes committed by renegade Boomers (which is just a fancy word for androids as far as I can see), who are too tough for the normal police. The series centers around Leon McNickoll, who is transfered to the AD police after killing a female Boomer who was trying to rape him; and his partner Jeena Malso who's a tough, battle-hardenned bitch. In contrast with Bubblegum Crash and with Bubblugum Crisis, AD Police is much more deep and philosophical, and the action usually takes a backstage to the characters' thinking about the philosophical implications of androids- are they human, what is human, does plastic surgery, for example, make one less human, etc. It's a very strange, dark, sick series with a lot of sex and violence, and bad guys such as a millionairess who becomes a serial killer on the mega-Tokyo subway as a psychological revenge for having had 70% of her internal organs replaced by cybernetic ones so that she would get promoted in her work by a boss who though women couldn't handle executive positions because of PMS; and a Robocop-style story about a police officer who was Jeena's boyfriend who dies in the line of duty and is turned into a robotic police officer who can only feel pain in his tongue, and feels that he's only human as long as he feels pain.
While this mini-series is more thoughful and philosophical than exciting and action-packed, it is a classic of animated science fiction, and, for those who like Bladerunner and suchlike, I highly reccomend it. It's well made, and it has a strong, consistent story, and is far bleaker and grimmer than Bubblegum Crash or Bubblegum Crisis. Good stuff!
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