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[Burst Angel box art]
AKA: 爆裂天使 <バクレツテンシ> (Bakuretsu Tenshi), Bakuten
Genre: Girls with guns / action
Length: Television series, 24 episodes, 24 minutes each
Distributor: Licensed by FUNimation
Content Rating: 16+ (violence, language, boing)
Related Series: N/A
Also Recommended: Samurai 7, Last Exile
Notes:
Rating:

Burst Angel

Synopsis

In order to pay for classes at a culinary institute abroad, a young man (who for all intents and purposes is made of cardboard) answers a help wanted ad and ends up working for a strange group of mercenaries (who, in quite the twist, are all skanky girls). However will he pay for his schooling? Will he ever do anything? Will this series answer these questions? Hells no, so onto the review.


Review

What we have here is a show which shows two things: one is that scantily clad girls will propel anything to success, and two is that Gonzo can animate well (but we knew that already).

I guess I'll talk about the music first. The OP is a horror, and is best not discussed, trust me on that. The rest of the music is actually quite good, especially the Clint Eastwood-western style stuff that plays on occasion. The ED is tolerable, and is made better by virtue of not being the OP.

Visually, it's very well done for the most part, but the CG implementation seems a bit odd, which, given how well done Samurai 7's (another recent Gonzo production) CG was done, puzzles me greatly. Characters, while they remain consistent throughout, and move -fairly- naturally, are dressed in some of the stupidest clothing I've yet seen in an anime. I had hoped that they'd at least employ a variety of apparel, but that was not to be. If you're into mutant future/old west bondage gear than you might like the clothing(costumes, really, as no one in their right minds would ever walk around like that).

The characters are about as interesting as snot is a delicacy. The characters have no depth to speak of thus far, and if by thirteen episodes a kiddy pool is still deeper, than you've got problems. And to top that off one of the girls, Meg, begins talking like a petulant teenager after a few episodes (that's judging by how she sounds, by the subs she outright morphed into a valley girl). I was also slightly perturbed with the redhead being both loud and brash while the white-haired girl all but comatose, but I marked that up to Eva-emulation and tried to ignore it.

The story is a train wreck. There are all sorts of allusions to complex matters, but they are never touched on directly, and even the one thread which continues throughout all of the episodes I viewed failed to be mentioned beyond the same, bloody sentence every time it was brought up. And thrown in just to mix things up more, there is some mystical babble involving the Chinese syndicate, as well as a corrupt state police organization, but nothing is ever followed through.

In finishing, I advise you to not waste your time on this train wreck (especially since Gonzo has made far better offerings). I hate to see something that obviously had a lot of work put into the technical aspects have such a rotted core, but them's the breaks, I suppose.

I cannot bring myself to give it more, but the animators deserve at least this much, I suppose. Feel free to add a star if you like futuristic use of leather chaps. And stay away from me. Samuel Arbogast

Recommended Audience: While not a whole lot of blood is present, this is a fairly violent series. Also, there's plenty of fan service and language, so I'll brand this one older teens and up.



Version(s) Viewed: digital source
Review Status: Partial (13/24)
Burst Angel © 2004 Gonzo Digimation
 
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