Category: Cartoonz

In 2020, I learned that dystopia is not for me.

I don’t mean the fictional kind; I’m talking about the real life stuff. I know people who spent their Great Pandemic Lockdown getting their money’s worth from Netflix, watching 900 movies and binging 500 TV shows in between baking bread and updating their social media all about it.

I’m impressed–impressed that they were able to relax. Wish I could do that. Sincerely. I wish that I could’ve untensed my shoulders and plopped on the couch and watched something other than news, doom and conspiracy theories.

Instead, my thoughts went something like this:

Everything could collapse soon and I am not ready, financially, emotionally or in any other sense. This is no time to marathon watch the Fast and Furious movies. I got worryin’ to do!

In retrospect though, a bunch of car chases would have rotted my brain less than the YouTube videos that I was watching.

Now it’s 2021 and I wouldn’t say that I’m any more hopeful than I was six months ago, but fear gets old and you move on.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m still alive and I really want to sit and watch Japanese animation from over thirty years ago about girls in mechanical armor fighting killer robots. When you can concentrate on something like that, you know that you’re okay.

It also helps that this is a pretty good episode.

Continue reading “The Constant Bleeder Is Clearly Not Serious About Reviewing Anime #6: BUBBLEGUM CRISIS episode 6, “Red Eyes””

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.

Continue reading “The Constant Bleeder Is The World’s Slowest Anime Reviewer #5: BUBBLEGUM CRISIS episode 5, “Moonlight Rambler””

Well looky here, an episode of Bubblegum Crisis that ISN’T about the nefarious Genom corporation and their endless parade of killer robots. Am I still watching the same series? Did I click on the wrong thing on Night Flight?

No, I didn’t. (Seriously, I checked.) They just did something a little different this time. We all need to do something a little different sometimes. I’ve been doing the same shit for the past eighteen years, at least, and it hasn’t worked out that well, to be honest.

I digress.

Continue reading “The Constant Bleeder is the World’s Worst Anime Reviewer #4: BUBBLEGUM CRISIS episode 4, “Revenge Road””

Another episode of Bubblegum Crisis, another story about the evil Genom corporation and how they have their dirty fingers lodged into every orifice of the dystopian Tokyo of 2032.

Another batch of hulking mecha-monsters who shoot up the streets of the city,  another excuse for the girls of The Knight Sabers to slip into their armored disguises (complete with quick cartoon nudity) and batter some metal.

Another bucket of blood, another terrific score loaded with synthesizers and blazing audio neon.

It’s also another strikingly cinematic affair that’s fun to watch if ultra-80s junk is your bag. Even if the storyline is murky, each episode is a neat cyberpunk smoke ring blown out in the night. We’re talkin’ miles of style.

Continue reading “The Constant Bleeder Doesn’t Know Shit About Anime #3: BUBBLEGUM CRISIS episode 3, “Blow Up””

Bubblegum Crisis came out way back in 1987, a year when the top preoccupations in my life were comic books, movies, reruns of The Monkees TV show and trying to get Ruby, the cute girl in my 4th grade class, to notice me for even a few seconds. I picked up on rumblings about anime while I browsed the racks at Lone Star Comics (R.I.P.) or when I read comics news ‘n’ reviews mags like Amazing Heroes (R.I.P.) that covered animation on the side, but I never touched the stuff myself.

I don’t know even know how I would have watched this in my little corner of Texas back then. I don’t remember it showing on television. Maybe it was at the video store (R.I.P.), most likely lumped in with Strawberry Shortcake and Inspector Gadget in the greasy kid stuff section.

No matter. Decades later, I’m now digging into some anime at what I’m sure we’d all agree is the perfect time in a person’s life for it: when you’re a broken down, washed-up old man.

SO, in this second episode, Mega Tokyo in 2032 is still in danger from killer robots, but there ARE two major differences from the debut:

a) cartoon nudity

and b) cartoon violent death.

In the US, it took us a lot longer to get our heads around the idea that every animated series didn’t have to be “just for kids”.

Meanwhile, this episode offers up boobs and blood casually, like it’s nothing. Go Japan!

Like many good things, “Born to Kill” begins with the sound of a drum machine.

Continue reading “The Constant Bleeder Should Not Be Writing About Anime #2: BUBBLEGUM CRISIS episode 2, “Born to Kill””

I don’t know shit about anime.

Never watched it much. Didn’t grow up on it. Never cared about it. I watched Voltron every now and then when I was in third grade, but that doesn’t count. Everybody watched Voltron back then. And besides there are no fetish-y schoolgirls in it.

Back in the video store days, I rented the early chapters of a few series here and there (can’t remember any of the titles) and the occasional feature, but nothing ever stuck with me. I remember I even found them confusing to watch. I never followed any series to the end. I never stayed the anime path. I was never a weeb, just your regular ol’ dweeb.

It has come to my attention though, as I sail the internet high seas and even talk to the occasional stinky real life person once every few months, that there are people out there who are OBSESSED with this junk. It’s all they watch. I run across these anime freaks all of the time. I trip over them every Saturday night on my way to the barn dance. I see this so often that I’m beginning to wonder if I’m missing out. Maybe this stuff is cool. Maybe I’d be into it if I put a little more time into it. Maybe I’ve been living my life all WRONG.

Continue reading “The Constant Bleeder Tries to Figure Out Anime #1: BUBBLEGUM CRISIS episode 1, “Tinsel City Rhapsody””