The most emotionally effecting episode so far of this cartoon series about girls in mechanical suits who fight evil robots.
That’s the Bubblegum Crisis way, though. Among its essential ingredients–synthesizers, drum machines, neon, some goofy humor, lots of flaming destruction and plenty of Blade Runner love–is a curious tragedy that runs through everything.
The setting is a world gone wrong and it looks like the bad guys are going to win. The villain gets more imposing with each episode because it’s not a single person. It’s the Genom Corporation, a weapons and technology mega-manufacturer. It’s a beast with no single controlling head that you can cut off. Rather, it’s a complex, many tentacled creature that, when perfectly constructed, is designed to live through anything. As long as it’s making money and is a part of everyone’s daily lives, a corporation is an unkillable enemy.
Genom’s latest dastardly deed is the invention of realistic human robots that run on human blood–and they need fresh infusions to keep going. The robots themselves even feel human and have emotions. Cut them and they literally bleed.
Yep, we’re talking robot vampires.
And not just robot vampires, but sensitive robot vampires. They want to be free and live lives. Meanwhile, they’re outlawed on Earth so they’re kept in a space station way up in George Jetson territory.
In the terrific opening scene, a group of them–the bloodsucker robots all seem to be young women–stage a frantic escape full of laser beams and heartbreak (not everyone makes it). We have no idea what’s going on yet, but when you see cute young girls run away from big ugly robots and cry over their companions who get mowed down in the pursuit, you tend to side with the girls.
Two of them get lucky and rocket down to Mega-Tokyo where the most determined of the two, Sylvie, manages to pass herself off as a real, if awkward, girl who’s new in town. She even makes friends with Priss and the gang who have no idea that she’s making like Nosferatu at night. Meanwhile, she’s also quietly after a datadisk that upgrades the robo-vampires so that they don’t need blood anymore. Or something like that.
What makes this episode sad is that Sylvie is the main character. We sympathize with her right away when she escapes within an inch of her life from the space station and we’re still with her when we know that she’s suckin’ blood all over Tokyo. She’s tragic, not bad. She even shares the blood that she collects with her more timid companion (in a moment that teases us with a suggestion that it’s about to turn into a tender lesbian sex scene).
It’s one of the classic cyberpunk themes. Artificial intelligence that thinks for itself so well that it also convinces us that it’s human even when we know better. That story could go light or dark.
This one goes dark. Another sad tale of the big, treacherous city.
Providing a little levity is this episode’s second most important character, Leon the police detective who’s investigating his way into Priss’s pants–and coming up short on clues–while his pink blazer-sporting gay police partner is trying to get into his pants. In true 80s fashion, Leon’s always getting chewed out by the police chief. Leon’s a good cop though, one who gets serious when it means exposing Genom’s corruption. His involvment here starts when he checks out Sylvie’s crashed rocket on the outskirts of the city and then quickly gets yanked from the case for fishy reasons. That’s not gonna stop a guy like him, though.
It all culminates in the expected fight between people in robot suits. Plenty of metal gets battered, but so do hearts and souls.