Wanted to get around to this for years, as i distinctly remember its cover displaying in the anime section of pretty much any video stores here in “Da Boot” back in the 2000s, and also being pretty featured or sold online. The power of anime cyberpunk and early CG.
Curiously, i’m not really familiar with the series this being a spin-off for, Bubblegum Crisis, which may sound sacrilegious to many, but i never saw as it was distributed on VHS at the time here too, but it was never pushed as much as others, at least as far i remember, i was a more casual anime fan back then and i would have been busy catching localized broadcasts of Dragon Ball, Hokuto No Ken/Fist Of The North Star and -especially – Ranma ½ anyway.
Parasite Dolls does feel immediatly like a product of the late 90s early 2000s, as in it’s not a feature film per sè, not a compilation film of 3-4 episodes, but an anthology/mini series of 3 stories set after the events of the original Bubblegum Crisis OAV series.
Which also means in this case i can’t really complain too much about the show not really introducing most of the characters (and organization names) as it logically assumes i known them from the main series, at least i’m assuming i’m supposed to since the way the dialogues are written, the only thing i actually know it’s the term they use for the androids that go out of control… the in insight hilarious (remember, Bubblegum Crisis is from the 90s) “Boomers”.
Not the worst segway to talk about the storylines, since they do revolve around people working for a special secret government agency tasked to investigating and dealing with crimes related to these humanoid robots, with the main officer of this secret police, Buzz, in the first episode having to also work with a Boomer (not that kind) sergeant, Kimball, in spite of his prejudices, etc.
Without describing every single scene or giving away everything, the other two episodes do tackle fairly typical cyberpunk storyline, with a mysterios trail of murdered Boomer prostitutes and a political conspiracy and terrorist style attacks, but the stories do feel like they come to a proper conclusion at the end, instead of being just episodic snippets of cyberpunk anime “best hits selection and curated classics works”.
As in, there’s nothing you haven’t seen before or after in terms of cyberpunk anime, there’s nothing groundbreaking at all, with androids experiencing glimpse of humanity, rogue robots used by wealthy douches for their desires and agenda, biblical references, violent murders and nudity displayed without much ado, seedy figures and detectives both wearing trenchcoats while perusing the rainy streets of the city constantly seen at night and neon swept… the whole cyberpunk shebang.
All in a fairly neat and compact package too, just about the standard feature lenght runtime of 90 minutes, so there’s very little in terms of “kerfuffle” or “excess fat”, the animation is quite good, not impressive for the time or now, but still, quite good work by AIC, mecha design is surprinsigly cool if sparce, the characters are typical of the genre but quite likeable, the action scenes are quite fun and stylish, even the soundtrack is surprisingly more zesty than i expected.
so yeah, i honestly have little to complain about in Parasite Dolls, besides originality, but that without actual quality means bugger all, this is good and fairly mature cyberpunk anime cop drama, again, not surprising in many ways, aside the fact it’s quite good on its own, regardless if adds or not much to the universe of Bubblegum Crisis, it’s a little, good short cyberpunk anime series in its own right. It’s the kind of quality stuff that today is mostly forgotten and actually could be defined as “an underrated gem” of sorts upon (re)discovery, even more since it’s short but tightly fitted in a feature lenght format, which in this case works for the best as the stories come together in the end.
Recommended, check it out, my Boomers of all ages.
Wise Cafe (International) 