Moved to ravensgarage.com on Sept 30 2000. This document was originally located at Ben Kosse's Website.

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Originally compiled by many people, notably Celia Stingray (Carmen Spray), Andy McDermott, Lyn Powell, Tony Montana, Martin Osborne and Claire "why's it called a boomer?" Turner.

DYN - Did You Notice - this refers to interesting things in the backgrounds, such as unusual names, anime character cameos, etc.

CIB - Could It Be - Theories related to what may have gone on behind the scenes involving the situation in question. For example, is the fact that Priss is told "she'll never work again" at Hot Legs related to or caused by the fact that Kinuko Ohmori, the voice actress, was no longer able to sing solos due to contractual obligations??

IIC - Isn't It Convenient - Plot points that seem a tad stretched.

TSU - Technical Screw Up - some problem with the animation itself (eyes are wrong color, etc.), continuity, plot, dialogue, or other catagories with nowhere else to go.

IPT - Isn't Priss Tough - Your favorite character taking an inordinate amount of punishment.

JJ - Japlish Japes - Problems or other strangeness with translation.

BUBBLE GUM CRISIS 1: TINSEL CITY

TSU: As the opening episode of the series, Tinsel City obviously has to go into greater depth than its successors to establish the "look and feel" of MegaTokyo 2032. All the same, it's surprising how quickly the grimy, sleazy, run-down and partly-demolished city set up in the first few minutes disappears in later episodes. Genom's reclamation projects must be working quite well.

DYN: Speaking of opening sequences, how come Nene doesn't get a look in? We get to see Sylia, Priss and Linna doing their day-to-day thangs, but Nene doesn't appear until several minutes later.

DYN: the music for the opening scenes as they pan across Mega-Tokyo follow nearly note for note the main theme of Blade Runner?

DYN: the word 'f*ck' on the wall in the tunnel where the vagrants live?

DYN: that Honda is a name on a building?

DYN: Leon, before the concert at Hot Legs, is eating a parfait (traditionally a dessert only women eat in Japan)?

DYN: that Priss' audience must be really devoted fans? None of them seem to mind that the Replicants (or, indeed, *Repricants*, as the poster says) only play one number before Priss rushes off to go boomer-bashing.

DYN: the old-style red British phone box in Hot Legs from which Leon makes his call to the ADP?

DYN: "Budweiser, King of Beers" reads in the Boomer's HUD?

DYN: Leon not wearing a crash helmet? Not much of an example for a cop to set.

IIC: How come *nobody* else in the ADP uses Leon's remarkably destructive guns? They might fare a bit better if everyone had this kind of firepower!

DYN: that other buildings read "Alien", "Winston", "AIC" and "Toshiba"

DYN: Boomers have perfect teeth?

TSU: We don't care how it looks on a slow-motion replay, we still don't believe there's enough material in Priss' bike for it to transform into the motoroid. (However, if the boomers can magically enlarge on transformation...)

CIB: that the female singer for "Angel of Loneliness" (the song played in the background while the KS fight the Boomer after they all fall off the end of the highway) is supposed to sound like Sylia?? The lyrics would certainly indicate that it tells her point of view...

TSU: Nene is heard speaking in the fight scene but is not physically present (perhaps she is speaking over the radio from ADP?)

DYN: Leon trying to impress Priss by saying he's in the ADP's boomer crimes division? Wait a minute. Isn't the ADP's raison d'etre pretty much to investigate boomer crimes? Leon's statement is a bit like saying he works in the food serving division of McDonalds.

DYN: there is a sign in the background as Priss and Leon talk that reads "MZ 23", the name of the first Artmic OAV?

DYN: that, among other things, the program that is sent to Sylia by her father reads "Game Over- Continue/Save" on one screen, "Now saving" on another, and "Please set disk B" on yet another? And that the whole program is written in BASIC?

DYN: Catty from Gall Force's picture was on the paper Sylia threw at Mackie?

DYN: Sylia and Nene go to USSD's headquarters by bus? By BUS? This seems a bit out of character for such a notoriously "shadowy band," to quote Lisa. Was Mackie out cruising for girls in the Silky Doll van at the time? Also, where did they keep the fare? The hardsuits don't seem exactly loaded with pockets. Maybe Nene has a purse she keeps tucked away inside her aerial pods.

TSU: The bus that Sylia and Nene take to USSD reads 12 as its route number on the front, but 16 on its side??

DYN: that it took five seconds for the security guard at USSD to draw his gun, by which time he would have been dead had it been anyone but the Knight Sabers?

TSU: Sylia's estimated count of the satellites in orbit in 2032 (200 plus) is conservative. Figures released in 1987 say there are currently 337 operational satellites in orbit, 165 of which are military in purpose. That's close to 50%. That number probably will double or even triple by 2032. (Source: Federation of American Scientists, 1987)

DYN: during another pan of the city, that Canon is on a building and that a television screen is showing shots from Thundercats? (Which Katsuhito Akiyama also directed)?

DYN: that Iraq has obviously re-entered the international scene? A street scene shows what looks like the Tokyo offices of the Iraqi Tourist Board. ["See the mother of all ruins!" TM]

DYN: Frederick, the evil Boomer, bears a close resemblance to Daley?

DYN: "It's New- Seiko" on yet another building as Sylia looks out over the city, trying to decide whether or not to go after Priss?

TSU: (Dub version only) - Has Priss developed a third leg? The sound of her footsteps as she runs around Aqua City seem to suggest this.

IIC: Aqua City is a big place - the aerial view in Double Vision and ADP Chief's wall map in Scoop Chase show it covers a fair bit of Tokyo Bay, which is some 20 miles across. But Priss finds Cynthia in just a few minutes!

IIC: Nene must be a compulsive doodler of rude faces while she's round at Sylia's place. Cynthia draws a copy of the face Nene burned into the pavement for the benefit of the watching satellite. Priss wasn't present when Nene committed this minor act of vandalism, but still recognises the drawing.

TSU: When Sylia, Linna and Nene head off in pursuit of Priss, they're all riding motorbikes, with Mackie providing support in the Silky Doll truck (more on this in a moment). Since the bikes serve a double function as the base for the motoroids, why didn't they use them in the fight? (Also, when we see the truck again later on, the motoroids/bikes are nowhere to be seen. Where are they parked?) [The Amazing Disappearing Motoroid Trick occurs in other episodes as well.]

TSU: Back on the subject of the truck, it's a bit of a giveaway on the secret identity front to have a vehicle with the name of the Knight Sabers' cover organisation painted on the side accompanying them on a mission! Presumably, this is why they switched to a larger, unmarked truck in later episodes.

IIC: Well, this point had to come up eventually. Frederick. He's some kind of advanced boomer, right? His ability to absorb bits of the other boomers as they get forcefully dismantled by the Knight Sabers is acceptable. But absorbing large parts of Aqua City? Which seems to be largely made from concrete? That heavy crunching sound is our disbelief becoming unsuspended. And how come no other boomer has Frederick's abilities? Largo, an even more powerful model, might want to take over the world, but not by literally becoming one with it. One of Miriam's boomers in Scoop Chase also goes a bit slurpy, but not to this extent.

IIC: Also, if Frederick can absorb machinery, why doesn't he just absorb the Knight Sabers' hardsuits? [Largo's 'clones' in Melt Down managed this, after all...]

DYN: Leon seems to be a bit casual about Frederick turning into the 21st century equivalent of King Kong? He even lights up a cigarette and leans back to watch the action!

DYN: Leon's cop car. Sure, it looks cool, but imagine the damage that would be done to the interior if you open that one-piece cockpit door when it's pissing it down with rain!

DYN: Sylia was grabbed by her right arm during the fight scene? (Something that as we will see happens more than once- the explanation seems to be that this is because the right arm of Sylia's Hard Suit is the sword-bearing arm, and she uses that a lot in battle)

IPT: #1 - Beaten up by boomers, involved in a car crash and then beaten up again. And barely a scratch! (Mackie says she's in a bad way, but she doesn't look it.)

TSU: Still on the subject of the motoroid, we see it transform twice during Tinsel City (once in the first battle when Priss rides off the end of the road, and again when she's riding toward the "Frederick- giant" in Aqua City) - but the way the machine transforms is *totally* different the second time! Watch what happens to the bike's front wheel if you don't believe us...

DYN: Priss' HUD telling her she's got a target lock on the boomer, despite the fact that her gun hand is pointing in the opposite direction?

CIB: that once the hardsuit has a target, it moves the occupant's arm rather than vice versa? It's hard to imagine Priss surrendering control to a machine, though.

DYN: this casualness is contagious? Only Priss seems remotely bothered by the mass destruction and loss of Cynthia. Nene yawns, Linna whinges about money, and Sylia is as enigmatic as usual. TSU: (Dub version only) - Back on the subject of Leon, he too contracts three leg disease as he runs from the blazing wreckage of Aqua City. Mind you, he's running to meet Priss, so maybe it's not a leg after all. ;)

DYN: many of the computers seen in the early episodes, such as the one by Sylia's bed, have the same keyboard and cursor pad layout as mid-80s MSX machines, an early and not especially successful, at least in the West, attempt by various Japanese manufacturers to introduce a standard hardware platform. (The program that appears on young Sylia's screen when she gets the data unit looks like it's written in MSX BASIC, BTW.)

DYN: Throughout Crisis and Crash, we see at least four completely different keyboard standards, from the usual QWERTY arrangement mentioned above to the very efficient, but training-intensive, limited key type Nene uses in Revenge Road. All these differing keyboard standards must make it a bugger to teach people to type.

BUBBLE GUM CRISIS 2: BORN TO KILL

JJ: #1 - AnimEigo's translations, and Adam Warren's BGC comic strip Grand Mal, say "boomer." Anime UK (or FX, or PDQ, or whatever it calls itself now), and a lot of a.f.bgc, says "buma." Manga Video's AD Police series says "voomer," for god's sake. But Sylia's monitor screen (and Miriam's computer in Scoop Chase) says "booma." Well, who do we believe?

DYN: that the scientist we see working on the Boomer in the opening pan-through (right in the foreground) is Irene's fiancee? (Found this out from the character designs in the BGC B-Club special.)

IIC: Linna's attitude in the early part of the episode suggests that she knows Irene only in passing, and gets to know her more closely through the rest of the story. This is inconsistent with Double Vision, which shows that Linna knew Irene well enough to attend her engagement party!

IIC: that Sylia's television phone is only one way? (It would have to be, or the head of USSD would know what Sylia looked like...)

DYN: Sylia is *not* going to be popular among the classic car fraternity, having gutted the dash of her (rare and expensive, even today) Mercedes 300SL Gullwing and replaced the instrumentation with various bits of computer gubbins.

DYN: that the computer screen shots of the 'black box' which Sylia shows to the other Knight Sabers was reused for the briefing about Adama in Crash! 2?

TSU: At lunch, Leon explains to Priss that a truck left Genom Tower for the Kawasaki Industrial Zone at the same time as the explosion that killed Irene's boyfriend. The truck driver obviously forgot to collect what he came for, as the superboomer is clearly in the lab when the explosion happens.

DYN: the passwords Mackie enters are all names of BGM songs from BGC 1?

DYN: Yui of Megazone 23 is participating in Linna's aerobics class?

DYN: the little AIC on top of the paper that the man in the foreground is reading as Linna and Irene have coffee?

DYN: Irene tells Linna her boyfriend was worried he'd be killed if he told anyone about the project he was working on? So what does he do? He goes and tells the police!

JJ: #2 - The female boomer tracking Irene needs to update its spellchecking software. Its HUD tells us that it's looking for the "Knight Seavers". Seavers? Wasn't he in The Fall Guy?

DYN: Linna's phone card has a picture of a singer, but that it is NOT Priss? (I can't tell WHO it is, actually...)

DYN: the second AIC on Priss' helmet?

DYN: Irene is gutted and dropped from the flyover to the accompaniment of a musical sting pinched from Aliens? Has James Cameron seen this?

TSU/DYN: Priss puts her Hard Suit helmet on without putting her hair up, yet you never see her hair after that? (she does this trick in several episodes, and this also counts as a TSU)

IIC: that Linna gets to fight and kill the same Boomer that killed Irene?

TSU: Another hardsuit design flaw - there's so much data flashing across the HUDs of the suits, it's amazing anyone can see out.

DYN: Priss and Linna have exactly the same HUD readouts in their hardsuits? This is unlikely, as Linna's weapons are very different to Priss'; she doesn't have a railgun, for a start.

DYN: the position of Priss' railgun muzzles change? When she wastes the female boomer, she has one between her thumb and forefinger and two on the "heel" of her hand, but when finishing off the superboomer, she now has two between thumb and forefinger.

IPT: #2 - Our red-eyed heroine gets her hand squished by one of Mason's boomer bodyguards, but fortunately it doesn't seem to affect her fighting skills. At all.

DYN: She's loveable, but dim - Nene solemnly informs the Knight Sabers that their quarries are "somewhere between the 3rd and 5th floors, but I can't figure out where." Try the 4th floor, Nene dear.

TSU: Incredibly, Nene actually contributes to a fight! She manages to get off a couple of laser and machine gun shots at one of the female boomers, although she then promptly gets chinned and knocked off the roadway. This raises a question about the hardsuits; the whole body is covered in power-assisted armour... except for the neck, which is protected only by the thin fabric of those figure-hugging catsuits the Knight Sabers wear under their hardsuits. Since there's nothing joining the helmet to the rest of the suit apart from Nene's pretty little neck, and boomers are considerably stronger than humans, wouldn't a punch to the head from a boomer have sent Nene's head bouncing away like a basketball?

IIC: What exactly is so 'super' about the superboomer? Its ability to link up with the laser satellite aside (which is all down to the "black box" half-inched from Cynthia, anyway), it doesn't seem that tough. The girls demolish it without breaking into a sweat!

TSU: On the other hand, perhaps the "super" part of the boomer's name comes from the incredible amount of destruction it causes after it's been blown to bits! Priss nails the headless superboomer with her railgun and it blows to smithereens, thus stopping another salvo from the laser satellite... then the entire industrial complex goes up in smoke! Why?

BUBBLE GUM CRISIS 3: BLOW UP

DYN: that the opening screen as the Boomer reads to Mason is plastered with the names of the characters and actors from Top Gun?

DYN: The manager of the Hot Legs club must either be soft of heart or empty of wallet. Even though he tells Priss she'll never play in his club again, by the time Moonlight Rambler comes around she's performing there once again. Guess her fans really are dedicated.

TSU: While speeding away from the pursuing boomer, Leon extends his car's rear wing, Knight Rider-fashion (in a bit of stock footage from Tinsel City, BTW). However, when the boomer slams into the back of the car, the wing is back in its lowered position.

DYN: NASA written on another downtown building?

CIB: that the Boomer attack so close to the Silky Doll was a warning shot from Mason to Sylia?

TSU: What exactly *is* Nene's job at the AD Police? In Tinsel City, and again in Revenge Road, she's working as a despatcher. Moonlight Rambler sees her acting as an assistant (practically a secretary) and driver to Leon, and in Double Vision she's busy on the computers. Scoop Chase has her in a record number of roles - PR person, computer operator (she's actually referred to as a "data operator" over the PA) and traffic cop! (If the ADP can issue speeding tickets, does this mean the Highway Patrol can shoot at boomers in their less busy moments?) Here, however, Nene is operating a roadblock. Is this what people mean by multiskilling?

JJ: #3 - Brian J *Meison*? Well, that's what it says on his boardroom nameplate, so it must be true.

TSU: Mason refers to the inhabitants of District Three as being concerned with crime and ready to sell their land, yet District Three is the metropolitan center of Mega-Tokyo where among other things Genom Tower and the ADP tower are located?

DYN: Sylia's wandering around her darkened apartment (dressed in a towel), turns on the TV, goes to the 'fridge to get a drink, then sits on her bed to watch the news. Watch carefully - the bed sheets slide on her and she almost falls off the side!

DYN: Sho's mother really should know better - anyone who makes a speech like hers about wanting to save money so as to move to the country where the air is clean is obviously doomed. Don't they have bad soap operas on Japanese TV? ;)

TSU: Priss in several shots during Sho's party has brown eyes, the same color as her hair. (This is a cel problem because it appears that way also in the BClub Special)

TSU: when Mason engages in a bit of strange virtual reality detective work, something is missing from his map - namely the British Isles? Is this the result of global warming, or the result of a defunct economy. You tell me.

CIB: that as Mason and Sylia review their information cybernetically, Mason is making the program for Largo? (Can anyone come up with a really logical explanation of what this scene is trying to say, and why Sylia is reviewing the satellite information?)

TSU: In the altercation with Mason's boomer outside Sho's block of flats, Priss complains to Leon that she's being evicted. How? She lives in the back of a van!

IPT: #3 - throttled with an iron bar, and seconds later she's running around after Sho's mother. Not bad going.

IIC: After Sho's mother is killed by a collapsing wall, Priss decides to take revenge on Mason, and the other Knight Sabers join her. It's just as well Sylia and Mason are on the same wavelength - the Knight Sabers would have felt a bit silly if they'd battled their way to the summit of Genom Tower, only to find that Mason had picked that night to go to the movies.

IIC: Why would Mason suddenly decide that the jig was up and he had to destroy the Knight Sabers to protect his career? The death of Sho's mother couldn't have been the cause, whatever Sylia might imply - Mason had no way of linking Sho's mother to Sylia, and it's not as if Mason hadn't been responsible for many other deaths. Dozens of ADP officers, for a start.

TSU: Nene puts in her last halfway-decent performance in a fight until Scoop Chase here, duking it out with Mason's boomer on the top of Genom Tower. One weird thing, though; Nene doesn't seem to be doing too well - in fact, she spends most of her time dodging the boomer's flying fists (maybe she's given some serious thought to the hardsuit's lack of neck protection) - but when Linna and Priss arrive, the boomer has completely vanished from the scene! If Nene's actually going to beat a bad guy in a fight, couldn't we at least see it?

DYN: Leon having a good chuckle when he sees Mason's corpse and the Knight Sabers' signature next to it? I doubt the ADP's bosses, who seem to be in Genom's pocket (one of the Genom executives in Red Eyes implies this), would be quite so jolly. Wouldn't the Knight Sabers now be wanted for Mason's murder?

BUBBLE GUM CRISIS 4: REVENGE ROAD

CIB: that "Gibson" is a deliberate reference to Mel Gibson, the Road Warrior? (The PLOT certainly is!)

IIC: When Leon and Daley are discussing the Griffon's earlier rampages, they say that nobody's been killed yet. Considering the amount of blood splattered around as Gibson crashes his way through the Outriders, either the Outriders have been spectacularly lucky, or Gibson's previous attempts at revenge have been a bit wimpy.

DYN: Leon referring to the Griffon as an "antique"? It was only built in 2021. I know technology is advancing at an accelerating pace, but 12 years hardly makes something antique.

CIB: that Priss, when she says "Sounds good as ever," is referring to the new singer and the opening theme and music for the video (as in, "The music's still good even without Kinuko doing the singing?")

DYN: that Raven's garage is built in rather an odd place - actually in the partly-flooded fault line that now divides MegaTokyo after the 2025 earthquake? Is this a way to get around Tokyo's notoriously expensive land prices?

DYN: Dr. Raven has "Nobel Prize for Science" written on the back of his coveralls?

TSU: If the HS-130 system that Mackie has installed in the Highway Star bike is so new, how come he found it in a junkyard?

DYN: Israeli weaponmeister Uziel Gal would probably be pleased to know that his eponymously-named Uzi submachine gun is still in use in the 21st century. Then again, he might not be quite so thrilled to find that it's been reduced to use in paintball games!

DYN: Linna, while following Priss through a window in Survival Shot, falling flat on her face? So much for her poise and balance as an aerobics tutor, close-combat martial arts specialist and dancer. No wonder she failed her audition.

DYN: Survival Shot must have iron-clad injury waivers for its clients to sign, or a team of extremely good lawyers? Not one of the girls are wearing protective goggles!

DYN: when Priss is chasing Gibson for the first time, a partial track listing for Madonna's True Blue album pops up on the rear-view screen?

DYN: that as the Gryphon targets Priss there appears "Madonna" next to the crosshair?

IPT: #4 - everyone's favourite rocker comes off her bike at over 100, then gets run over by it as she bounces down the road - but still manages to hobble away from the wreckage with only a few cuts and bruises. (Note: one of the list compliers fell off a motorbike at 85mph and was in the hospital for 2 days)

TSU: Trying to find out more about the Griffon, Priss browbeats Nene into using the AD Police computers to check on all such vehicles in Tokyo. When she reaches Gibson's accident report, Nene uses a recording of the ADP chief's voice to bypass a security lock. It's a cute trick... but why would a traffic accident report be restricted to the police chief? Also, does this mean Nene's been bugging the chief's office?

JJ: #4 - Ls and Rs are frequently transposed in Japanese-English translations... but Ws and Rs? Nene calls up an "Orners" list of Griffons!

DYN: that Ryuichi Sakamoto, big Japanese music composer, is listed as the second owner of a Gryphon in Mega-Tokyo?

DYN: the accident report's text? If you look closely, there seem to be some song lyrics in there on the right!

DYN: all the Griffon owners, other than Gibson, are listed as being Grand Prix drivers? What, even the 74 year old?

TSU: How, when Priss asks Nene to call up the names of Griffon owners from three years previously, can Gibson appear on the list? Nene says he only bought the car *two* years ago!

TSU: Where did Priss manage to hide so quickly when Leon comes into the computer room? One moment she's hovering over Nene's shoulder, the next she's completely vanished!

DYN: that Gibson still rides a motorbike even though Naomi, his girlfriend, is totally freaked out by them?

TSU: When Gibson leaves the garage after performing his final set of modifications on the Griffon, the rear of the car reverts in one shot to an earlier stage.

TSU: At one point, Gibson decides to do a bit of target practice on the wall of his apartment, blasting holes in it with a pistol. The first time we see the damaged wall, Gibson has fired five shots, but there are only three holes. By the time he's emptied his 13-shot clip, however, the wall has 12 holes! (And no, he doesn't shoot at the window - that's a spent shell casing bouncing off it.)

TSU: Why didn't Priss recognise Gibson from the picture in the accident file? She's already seen him twice - once in the photo at Raven's, and again at the hospital, but it's not until Gibson calls Dr. Raven before his final drive in the Griffon that she makes the connection.

DYN: Sony as a sign on another downtown building?

DYN: the legend "Max Headroom", a reference to the cyberpunk character, on a parking tunnel? (Although the English use this term, in America the term is "Maximum Clearance", so I assume this is a reference to the character, and not a generic background sign. The Japanese do seem to drive like the English though, with the driver's seat on the right hand side instead of the left.)

DYN: While Priss pursues the Griffon on her Highway Star, Sylia and Linna fly to intercept the speeding vehicle with their motoroids. Rather than take the logical (and direct) route through the skies over the city, they drop into a subway tunnel! Just as well there were no trains coming.

TSU: When the Gryphon takes over control of itself, it wraps heavy metal cables around Gibson. In the next scene (when Priss intervenes) those cables have vanished!

IIC: Amazing how the normally useless ADP managed to get that very large and rather knackered looking tank into position so quickly, isn't it?

DYN: the giant scrap ship the ADP use as a barricade (how DID they get that up there?) is called Lulubell?

BUBBLE GUM CRISIS 5: MOONLIGHT RAMBLER

TSU: The security forces aboard the Genaros space station are either very confident about their skill with weapons, or very, *very* confident about the station designers' pressure hull construction methods. Using explosive armaments aboard a pressurised structure like a space station is not a good idea.

IIC: Anri's injury in the car suggests that she's human - in fact, it's not until later in the episode that we discover she and Sylvie are boomers. The question is, how come the 33-S boomers are so much more human-like than any others we see throughout the series? (They bleed, they feel pain, and they don't display any of the usual penchants for popping out of their skin at the first sign of trouble.) And what exactly does 'sexaroid' mean? Nene's conversation with a blushing Sylia later on makes it sound like an almost mythical and distinctly pervy thing, but an exact definition of the term is never forthcoming.

TSU: How do the fleeing girls - even the already wounded Anri - manage to make an exit from the stolen police car at such a high speed without seeming to suffer any injuries? (Admittedly, Sylvie jumps from a high window, and gives it some Eddie Kidd from a flyover and survives later on, so maybe it's just typical boomer toughness. But if this is the case, how come the rest of the girls were wiped out so easily?)

DYN: the Doberman Boomers bear some resemblances to Aliens?

CIB: If this episode had been made a few years later, would the Dobermans have been called Rottweilers?

TSU: Since there's no evidence to suggest that the scientists of 2033 have developed any kind of gravity control, Genaros' gravity must be generated by centrifugal force caused by rotation, a la Babylon 5 - "down," if you're inside, always being away from the axis from your point of view. This being the case, there's something badly wrong with the gravity in the shuttle launch silo. We see an external shot showing the shuttle launching outwards from the centre of rotation, which means that all the action taking place in the launch bay - supposedly "below" the shuttle - is the wrong way up! From the point of view of anyone in the launch bay, the shuttle should drop "downwards," away from the station's axis, to reach open space. (Don't know how well we've explained that, but we're right. Really. Watch a Star Fury launch in B5 - that's what should happen.)

TSU: More on gravity, we're afraid - Genaros is established as being conical in shape, with the launch bays at the point of the cone. This would mean gravity in the silos would be extremely low. Convenient for loading cargo and launching from the station, but not so hot for, say, a group of desperate 33-S boomers trying to reach safety.

TSU: And, aaargh!, with gravity this low, there would be no need for the shuttle to have an enormous strap-on booster to take off.

IIC: that the shuttle the girls stole just *happened* to contain a top-secret superweapon that they could use to their benefit?

TSU: Leon, when he tells the driver to 'knock off the spiel', has his ADP badge on the LEFT (from our view) side of his jacket. However, in the next scene, it is back on the RIGHT side, where it has always been shown in the series.

DYN: the car stereo is an Alpine?

TSU: Wouldn't the large mechanical footprints (in solid tarmac, no less) and stonking great robotic fist marks in the car bonnet rather give away the fact that the 'vampire' terrorising MegaTokyo is, in fact, some kind of mobile suit? (Also, wouldn't the DD have left conspicuous tracks heading away from the crashed shuttle?)

TSU: It's often surprisingly hard to predict the future based on the (then) present. Does anybody these days believe that communism will still be around at all by 2033?

DYN: Sylia's data search following her talk with Nene produces some unusual information - the statistics for a Willys Jeep! Not exactly a superweapon...

TSU: the date on Sylia's computer is wrong? It says it's September 26th, 2032. Moonlight Rambler's title sequence gives the year as 2033.

DYN: the wall map in the ADP chief's office doesn't show any artificial islands in Tokyo Bay? Either it's out of date, or Genom are very fast workers - by the time Double Vision comes around, there's a huge testing ground out there!

DYN: the chopper pilot telling Leon that the Sylvie/boomer firefight is heading North-North-East? If the map we have is really from B-Club, then the location of Genom Corporate Research it shows is wrong! For the direction the pilot gives to be correct, GCR would have to be *south* of the fault line, but the map puts it a long way to the *north*.

DYN: the marker on the computer screen saying "Fail safe system down" just before the D-D takes over Sylvie?

IIC: a few examples of odd programming on the DD battlemover? If the death of the pilot triggers the J-1 full auto mode, why would Priss killing Sylvie shut down the machine? It already thinks she's dead! (Sylvie herself says this.) And if the suit is set to nuke itself (and anyone else in the vicinity) when it runs out of power, wouldn't it also make sense to set it to explode if it seemed on the verge of defeat? It'd make for the perfect weapon - as Parker said in Alien, "you don't dare kill it!"

TSU: When the DD grabs Linna by her ribbons (funny how its fingers didn't get sliced off, eh?) and throws her, she's pointing face down as she heads for the floor. When she lands, though, she's on her back.

DYN: that during the fight Sylia again gets her right arm squeezed?

TSU: When Sylia stabs the DD. she stabs it with her right arm, which the DD grabs. In the next shot sequence, there is a split screen of Sylia. On the right side is Sylia in her hardsuit, and the DD has her by her extended right arm. On the left side is Sylia in her softsuit, with her *left* arm extended! In the next shot sequence, we are back to Sylia in her hardsuit and the extended right arm.

BUBBLE GUM CRISIS 6: RED EYES

JJ: #5 - Red Eye's? Red Eye is what? What belongs to Red Eye? Do tell, do.

TSU: After all the trouble Largo goes to steal the container of combat boomers, and even though he lists them as a reason why Quincy won't be able to refuse his demand for a meeting, they're never seen or heard of again!

DYN: that the fake Knight Sabers have slightly altered Hard Suit designs?

TSU: If Genom supposedly halted development on combat suits "ages ago," as the meeting of the board states, where did Mason get his nifty outfit in Blow-Up?

DYN: that Deri's hair has changed color from reddish orange to blond? (I'm not sure whether this also counts as a TSU or not)

DYN: that Leon's gun is labeled "Earth Shaker"?

TSU: It's hard to get an accurate count, as she's firing so fast, but Nene's pistol on the firing range holds at least 40 bullets. Now that's a damn big gun!

DYN: Priss gives Nene a merciless ribbing in Scoop Chase about the fact she's put on a centimetre around her waist. However, in the scene where Sylia arrives at Priss' trailer, the Replicants' lead singer looks to have tubbed out so much she can't even fasten the top button on her jeans! ;)

TSU: Either Sylia's a bit deaf and has really cranked up the volume on her mobile, or Priss has the ears the size of satellite dishes - she manages to hear Nene's call over Sylia's phone from the other side of the room!

IIC: It's just as well for Priss that, of all the roads in MegaTokyo, she just *happens* to go for an aimless bike ride along the very road that Anri, Largo and Callahan are taking. (It's not so good for any of the occupants of the car, though...)

TSU: We all know that Priss has - hey! - red eyes, which could easily explain the episode's title (plus she does a fair bit of crying as well, which would help). But as she rides past Largo's car, check out her amazingly blue peepers! Admittedly they are seen through her helmet visor, which usually alters the colour, but even so.

CIB: that if Crisis had gone its original 13 episodes "OMS" - the "Overmind Control System," (O*C*S, surely?) which is clearly something of great power and importance - would have been explained.

DYN: that right after the scene where Sylia goes to Priss' trailer to talk to her, Sylia (in Hard Suit) stomps on the head of the fake Priss suit?

TSU: Why does the pilot of the ADP helicopter start freaking out *before* Largo gives him the evil eye and blasts him with the orbital laser?

DYN: the sound effect of the laser satellite has changed since Tinsel City?

DYN: that Largo ALWAYS uses his right hand when firing the satellite?

DYN: Largo's white socks with black shoes? How frighteningly unstylish! ;)

TSU: Priss must be one hell of a good shot. She's some way off, riding her motorbike, and Largo still takes a bullet right through his hand... the hand he's got wrapped tightly around Leon's throat! (The hole completely disappears in later shots, incidentally, but we can probably account that to the boomer ability for self repair. Probably.)

TSU: Largo's hand changes position between shots while he's holding Leon by the neck - in shots over Largo's shoulder, all four fingers are around Leon's throat, but in the reverse angle, Largo's forefinger is well up over Leon's chin.

TSU: When Priss fires at Largo to get him to release Leon, a hole is shown in Largo's RIGHT hand, which also happened to be around Leon's throat. So Priss hit Largo THROUGH LEON!

DYN: When Priss is thrown off her bike by the satellite beam, her faceplate explodes OUTWARDS. This also happens when she is struck later by the compression beam that Largo hits her with. (This is physically impossible, since it implies that the pressure inside is greater than the outside, and if so, Priss' head would explode...)

IIC: Following her encounter with Largo and Leon on the road, Priss manages to get her hardsuit and motoroid amazingly quickly. Even more amazing is the fact she does this while Mackie is apparently en route to the bank, with the equipment, in the VTOL! (Only two minutes of screen time separate her leaving Leon and Mackie's arrival at the bank.) Having done this, however, presumably she just stands around posing on the rooftops for a bit to give Largo a chance to outline his plans for world domination without interruption.

IIC: Another example of the weird way time seems to work in this episode - while it takes Priss no time at all to collect her suit, the fight atop the bank goes on for an awful long while. However, neither side seem to have sustained any damage!

TSU: Also, why didn't the girls just leg it from the bank as soon as they realised they were outclassed, lose their attackers, and come back with some heavier equipment? (Like the Typhoon-II motoroid, for a start - see below.) Now that everybody knows about the fake Knight Sabers, their reputation is intact, so they can devote some time to ensuring their bodies stay that way too!

TSU: When Largo asks Quincy to put the Genom Towers on the Multivision, the screens activate at least five panels horizontally. But in the next full shot, there are only six screens, three on top of three in a square shape.

TSU: Largo picks the Genom Tower in "Berlin, West Germany" as one of his targets. Aside from the fact that Germany has now been reunited, Berlin has *never* been in West Germany! Until reunification, West Germany's capital was Bonn, while Berlin was in East Germany (but run jointly by Britain, the US and the Soviet Union).

DYN: that while he might only be a double of the big man, "Quincy" still takes the destruction of a good chunk of Genom's real estate surprisingly well? The real Quincy, if anything, seems even less bothered! Genom must have a good insurance policy.

TSU: When "Quincy's" boomers set upon Largo, a blast from the orbital platform blows out the window. Wouldn't this have killed "Quincy," who was sitting right in front of it?

IIC: What exactly does Largo see that gives away the fact that "Quincy" isn't the real Genom boss, and how come he didn't spot it earlier?

IIC: that Largo has a pair of Bill Bixby trousers - the sort that don't rip and reveal one's genitals when you transform into something larger?

DYN: that Largo's "This is the TRUE look of the victor!" to Priss is the same line that Mason spoke to Sylia as they fought in episode 3?

TSU: Priss has been stabbed in the gut and impaled in the shoulder, so how come her body isn't covered in blood when she loses her hardsuit? In fact, there isn't even a trace of any wounds!

IIC: It's a good thing for Priss that Sylia happened to have a super- powerful motoroid and an upgrade for Priss' spare hardsuit knocking about, isn't it?

DYN: that the original Motoslave's head was stepped on by the Red Hyper Boomer, and when the NEW Motoslave appears, the first thing it does is step on the head of the Red Hyper Boomer?

TSU: Once Priss has jumped into her new hardsuit (amazing how her old one knew exactly when to break into little bits), the motoroid suddenly vanishes from the scene!

IIC: It's also pretty fortunate for our heroines that Sylia built, and had the foresight to bring along, an anti-satellite weapon and Linna's bloody huge motoroid to whack Largo's orbiting laser platform.

TSU: Since the orbital platforms have been established in earlier episodes as laser weapons, the beams from which - by definition - fire at the speed of light, the fastest that anything can travel, there is no way that Linna's shot could have taken out the satellite before its beam reached the top of Genom Tower.

DYN: that the satellite beam sound effect is made up of what sounds like an altered a train crash and a human scream?

DYN: that Largo's skin started to burn away as the satellite beam hit him?

IPT: #5 - blown off her speeding bike by a blast from the laser satellite, smacked against a wall by Largo hard enough to shatter her faceplate, stabbed by Anri, transfixed by one of her own railgun needles, forcibly defenestrated, beaten up by boomers to such an extent that most of her hardsuit falls to bits, zapped by one of her opponents' laser arrays... and still wins! This chick is *rock-hard*!

IIC: that Leon arrived from nowhere just in time to put a bullet between Largo's artificial eyes before he could zap Priss and Sylia! Red Eyes is a great story, but there is more than one deus ex machina too many.

TSU: When Leon shoots Largo from behind, there is only a tiny exit hole for the bullet, when the entire front of his head should have come off. (Hmm. Perhaps this is the JFK theory in action?)

TSU: Amongst Largo's many awesome powers, few could be more awesome than his ability to take a vertical fall from the top of a slope-sided building.

TSU: Largo *explodes* when he hits the round? What, has he stuffed his boxer shorts with sticks of nitro-glycerin or something?

TSU: Largo's eye colors change from scene to scene. Some shots they are both grey, some shots they are one grey and one yellow/gold.

BUBBLE GUM CRISIS 7: DOUBLE VISION

DYN: Assuming that none of the episodes overlap, the Knight Sabers must have had a busy three months - Revenge Road, Moonlight Rambler and Red Eyes would all have had to have taken place before Double Vision's start date of March 26th, as all are set in 2033?

CIB: that Vision's song "Say Yes" is directed toward Priss and is about her death (which was originally planned to happen at the end of number six)? The lyrics refer to "I hold on to your voice, saying you won't be beaten", which was a line Priss spoke as she went into combat against Largo, and the song also describes a very brutal death, "disappeared into the asphalt while being torn to pale ribbons." Since the decision to allow Priss to live came at the 11th hour, does it mean that this song is a remainder from the alternate storyline?

JJ: #6 - a roadsign in Houston gives directions to "Galbeston." Anyone taking that road would be in for a long drive, as there's no such place - *Galveston* is what you'd be after.

DYN: a building in Houston with "MCC" written on it? Cricket may be slowly gaining popularity in the States, but who would've thought it would ever become so popular that its headquarters would relocate to America! ;)

DYN: The service station Kou stops at has a big rotating sign that says "GUS OIL?" Do they mean "GAS"?

DYN: the push-buttons on the radio/computer in Kou's truck look rather dated? Very 1970s, in fact. Is this retro-styling in action?

DYN: the model of the Genaros space station, from Moonlight Rambler, in the G&B boardroom? Presumably they were involved in its construction - odd, as Moonlight Rambler implied it was Japanese, run by SDPC.

DYN: that the elevator is labeled "Toshiba"?

IIC: Why are Genom, developers of and world leaders in boomer technology, collaborating with another company to develop the next generation cyborg? Especially as Genom don't even seem to be designing the tricky bits, but just concentrating on the weapons? Are they having to go into partnership because of Largo's zapping of most of their offices in the previous episode?

TSU: Also, what exactly are Genom's partners called? During the battle outside their headquarters, the signs above the main entrance allow you to take your pick from "Gulf" or "Gulfe", and "Badrey," "Bradre" or "Bradrey"! "Gulf and Bradley" doesn't even enter into it!

DYN: that the truck which carries Vision's spider machine is labeled "live crab"?

DYN: While Linna, Nene and Priss discuss Vision at Sylia's apartment, Sylia herself is just standing stock-still in the background, apparently staring at a wall! Popular music's obviously not her thing?

DYN: that Batman is apparently still popular in the 21st century? DC and Warner Bros must be delighted at this news?

DYN: that as well as Batman, movie classics like The Third Man obviously still go down well? Sylia makes a reference to Harry Lime while talking to Fargo. Maybe this says something about Priss and Sylia - their preferred types of movie!

TSU: Irene's full name on her grave is "Irene Can". But she is spoken of in the dialogue as "Irene Chang". Reika's (Vision's) last name, as given on the letter, is Reika Chuaying. WHAT THE HELL IS THEIR CORRECT FAMILY NAME???

IIC: The new boomer is *huge*! How do Genom expect it to compete with the 55-C in sales if it can't even pass vaguely as human?

DYN: the great detective skills from Quincy, working out that their attackers must be connected to the Chang Group? Seeing as Reika and Kou were using Chang's GD-42 crab mecha for the attack, this deduction hardly required the mind of Sherlock Holmes.

TSU: Leon zooms his binoculars in on the testing range from his boat to spot Quincy... but the area he zooms in on contains nothing but sky! That's also one hell of a zoom lens, going from the width of the entire testing range to close enough to pick out individual hairs on Quincy's head.

TSU: Surely Tokyo Bay, now effectively surrounded by the city, is not the best place for a top-secret testing area for illegal combat boomers?

DYN: that McLaren's bodyguards' comments about his age hardly seem justified? McLaren was only born in 1990, according to Sylia's data, making him 43. Not exactly past it?

TSU: Following McLaren's kidnapping in the bogus ambulance, Daley develops a very strange walk while talking to Leon outside the hotel. You try walking while flinging your shoulders about that much! (On second thoughts, don't. You'll probably fall over.)

DYN: the sign "Instant Enemy" is right above the edge of the train station that Linna exits?

DYN: the rather feeble attempt made by Kou to handcuff Linna to a chair? She should easily be able to get her arms free from the chair's narrow back.

DYN: the fire warning sign on the back of the door of Linna's cell? The last three lines start "Dranker..." "Janky W..." and "Can't S..." What? Also, the sign changes size and shape between shots.

DYN: Having a homing device in a bra might seem, at first, to be a bit odd. When you think about it, though, how many people are going to search someone's underwear? Only leering pervs, probably. Kudos to Sylia!

IPT: #6 - our biker chanteuse has an arm broken by Kou's mecha, but just two days later she's sawing off the cast and duking it out with Genom's new boomer! Every chemist in Tokyo must have sold out of painkillers for weeks afterwards.

TSU: The cast also seems to be extremely bulky. You would have thought that over 30 years of high-tech medical advances would have come up with something a bit cooler than plaster-soaked bandages for fixing broken bones.

JJ: #7 - "Password is in the wrong"? Not entirely inaccurate, strictly speaking, but very, very formal and archaic. What's wrong with the good old "Access Denied"? And as for "An accurate solution"...

TSU: Once Nene, with Naoko's unwitting help (a definite IIC if ever there was one), cracks the password and gains access to Vision's files, what does she find? Not one word about Vision, that's for sure - more like a load of gibberish about car manufacturing.

IIC: Considering how shit-hot it was at getting rid of the hyperboomers in Red Eyes, you would have thought that the Typhoon II would from then on be accompanying the KS on any job more dangerous than visiting the supermarket! ;)

DYN: during the fight, Sylia is again grabbed by her right arm?

DYN: the boomer holding Reika down by her arm when she fires the ejector seat? By her *arm*? Ejector systems aren't particularly gentle - after that kind of treatment, Reika would have been wasting money buying gloves in pairs!

DYN: Let's see how Genom's spin doctors account for the massive series of explosions out in Tokyo Bay following the destruction of the boomer testing ground. They'll have nearly as hard a job as USSD's PR department trying to explain the wholesale zapping of large chunks of Tokyo in Red Eyes.

BUBBLE GUM CRISIS 8: SCOOP CHASE

TSU: Lisa's mouth moves as she backs off from the window after catching a glimpse of Priss, but there's no sound. (Perhaps she is praying?)

DYN: how Nene's been "cuted up" for her first shot at starring in an episode, to the point that she even out-cutes the seriously kawaii Lisa? How much of this is due to the change of animation directors and how much is a deliberate attempt to match the mood of what is effectively a comedic story is something to ponder.

TSU: When Nene's driving into work, one shot is (presumably) from her POV, looking up from the road at some skyscrapers. BGC has generally been very good when animating 3-D objects and buildings, but the ones in this shot are very wobbly.

TSU: There is a slight blur on one of the buildings as Nene drives by in her scooter.

TSU: The star-shaped logo between the "AD" and "Police" on the side of the ADP building has disappeared between this episode and Double Vision.

DYN: Lisa (and all the characters in BGC) gives her name first name first, Western style, rather than family name first as is traditional Japanese?

TSU: When Nene gets the report of a speeding bike, the computer screen says that the penalty for going 50kph over the limit is infinite (the 8-on-its-side symbol). Now that's one hell of a deterrent to speeders!

TSU: Having said that, it's not surprising that Priss would be tempted to break the speed limit. For such a highly populated city, MegaTokyo never seems to have any traffic on its roads!

TSU: As with Moonlight Rambler, this relates to the map we've got of MegaTokyo, which we aren't certain is actually from B-Club. If it is, we'd dispute the positioning of Ebisu; the high-altitude zoom-in before we see a closer shot of the factory implies that it is a lot closer to Genom Tower than the map shows.

TSU: In one shot in the Ebisu factory (one of the animation houses that worked on BGC, incidentally - in-jokes a-go-go), Miriam crosses a bridge over a boomer production line. In a rare *obvious* animation flaw, the boomers pop in and out of existence as they roll along the line.

DYN: the Vision movie was a Robocop parody?

CIB: that the Hard Suit Vision wears in that sequence was actually the suit design she would have worn if she had become a Knight Saber?

TSU: After Nene leaves Lisa and the ADP are called out on boomer duty, Lisa hitches a ride with Daley in his car. One shot, through the car's (clearly closed) window, shows Lisa talking to Daley. A moment later, she pops through the window to yell encouragement to the ADP team behind... without opening it! Ouch!

DYN: many of the characters are wearing fur collars (looks like the trend this season!)?

TSU: After Daley tells Lisa to stay in the car and closes his door, there is the sound of another car door opening a second BEFORE Lisa does so!

TSU: Lisa is climbing a high building and should have at LEAST lost her beret to the heavy winds once she removed her hand.

DYN: the red Boomers Miriam uses to collect data on the Knight Sabers look like Predators?

JJ: #8 - with a name like Miriam, it's no wonder this episode's villain is slightly bitter and twisted. ;)

IIC: that Sylia is doing a Hard Suit upgrade even as Miriam is designing Boomers that will beat their current Hard Suits?

DYN: In Revenge Road, we commented on the fact that there are buildings in the fault line. Check out the place now! It's practically an Enterprise Zone.

DYN: At Raven's, Priss chides Nene for getting clobbered "yesterday". Priss must have no sense of time, as the dates that appear throughout the episode (on computers, Lisa's camera, etc), show that the fight where Nene had her faceplate smashed took place two nights before. Did Priss lose another night while whooping it up out on the town? (She corrects herself later, incidentally.)

DYN: Nene's attitude toward the ADP (in Born To Kill, she referred to them as "clowns") has changed somewhat as she defends them against one of Priss' insults? Four years of working for them must have made Nene go native.

TSU: Linna's eyes, already established as a rather non-Japanese blue, change colour in one shot (as she takes out the hologram at the testing range) to green!

TSU: Nene's eyes, on the other hand, occasionally change from green to grey!

JJ: #9 - Lisa examines a readout of the ADP's "fist" (first) shift.

DYN: that the names of the ADP officers Lisa calls up on the computer screen are famous Western artists? (Frank Frazetta, Richard Corben, Berni Wrightson...)

DYN: that Nene is writing her report left to right in English?

DYN: It's hard to tell exactly what the text of Nene's report reads, but the second word is very definitely "pissed"!

DYN: that during the scene where Lisa encounters Leon at the shooting range, his left leg looks as though it is missing a foot?

TSU: In the first shot of Lisa waiting in the alley beside Raven's in the hope of running into Nene returning from a fight, look at the neon sign over the front of the garage (frame left). The letters are the wrong way round - if seen from the front of the building, they would be back-to-front as if seen in a mirror.

IIC: Miriam builds his advanced boomers bloody quickly. In a matter of days, he cobbles together some hardware that very nearly matches the Knight Sabers! No wonder he was peeved at not climbing the corporate ladder.

TSU: Metal blast shutters slam down over all the windows when the boomer takes control of the ADP computer, but at least one of the shots of the outside of the ADP building shows it with lights still shining brightly from every floor.

TSU: After Nene grabs the pistol and 2 clips from a storage locker... She fires 13 shots out of the first clip before reloading, (3 at the door, 10 at the boomer) 10 shots out of the second clip before reloading...and 12 shots out of the third before running out?? (This might not be a TSU. It appears that her gun can hold a bullet in the chamber as well as a full clip. There are 2 sizes of clips--one holds 12 shots, one holds 10 shots. When she fires the first clip, she fires the one bullet in the chamber, plus twelve from the first (large) clip. Her second clip IS smaller (you can see this when she gets armed up), and holds only 10 shots. The third clip is another 12-shot clip, only this time she doesn't have a shot in the chamber.)

TSU: There is a weird fold to Lisa's arm as she knocks on the barricade to get someone to let her out - it sticks out straight, and doesn't move even when she steps back.

TSU: How come the girls get state-of-the-art figure-hugging hardsuits for their boomer bashing, while Mackie gets something that looks like a JCB on legs? Nobody's asking him to squeeze into Nene's slimline suit, but couldn't Sylia have knocked together something a bit sleeker? Or did Mackie request this suit because he wanted the equivalent of a macho monster truck to wear in a fight?

JJ: #10 - Nene logs on to the ADP's main *flame* computer. Does it have blazing performance?

DYN: that Nene can type left handed?

TSU: How are Lisa and Nene communicating as Lisa moves through the building, even through ducts and tunnels? How is Nene hearing Lisa and keeping track of her when there are no security cameras shown at all?

DYN: The ADP mainframe spells "Defence" the proper English way, rather than the American "Defense." The Japanese usually use the Americanised spellings.

TSU: When Lisa is trying to escape the elevator, she manages to cram herself into an air shaft, head first. She is shown crawling towards the camera, head first. Then, she comes out of the shaft *backwards*, kicking out the vent. Is she a contortionist as well as a photographer??

TSU: Nerve gas? That seems a rather excessive way of defending a building. Also, since nerve gas is absorbed through the skin, Lisa holding her breath wouldn't have made the slightest difference. (Nene's monitor screen says it's "psycho gas," whatever that is. Perhaps it makes the victim dress up like their mother and stab people. Hey, Anri... been breathing in something you shouldn't?)

TSU: In fact, it actually says "Psycho Gus." Good to know that one of the characters from Drop The Dead Donkey is still around in the 21st century.

TSU: After Priss destroys her boomer, look at her left hand (this shot, flipped, is on the back of the video box (original AnimEigo dub) - if your spatial co-ordination isn't up to scratch, it's the hand without all the guns in it) - it's got some kind of white box over it. Where did this come from? The shot a few seconds before, where Priss rips the boomer's arm off, shows her left hand has the usual glove on it.

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