AD Police Files

AD Police is a dark and hard edged prequel to the Bubblegum Crisis series and if you are a fan of 1980's/90's adult oriented anime then you will know exactly what to expect. There's gory action, nudity for no reason, a melodramatic story and a profanity laden English dub.

This is all good stuff by the way.

I read that this is the first 3 episodes of a cancelled TV series and it kind of makes sense as it isn't super long and none of the characters are fleshed out all that well. It also heavily influenced by Bladerunner and Robocop which is something the show never tries to hide (the third episode is basically a deranged version of the first Robocop movie).

Some parts of it are definitely kind of sexist and tone deaf but to be honest this doesn't bother me at all. This is a made up fantasy story, it isn't trying to teach you any lessons about life or what the real world is like so calm down.

The cyborg designs are cool, the action scenes feature some "Hell yeah!" moments and it all has a dark and nihilistic tone which i enjoy. It's nowhere near as awesome or polished as Ghost in the shell but what is?

It's a shame that the series ended here because i think if the characters had a chance to grow and the plot was more fleshed out then this could have been very cool.

If this is your thing then go check it out.

The first of a more "serious" set of stories set in the Bubblegum Crash/Crisis universe

Good animation and art overall, I was disappointed in the formulistic plotline. It felt like a rehash of a hollywood stalker flick, done as scifi.

First of all, I have to say I don't know Bubblegum Crisis and I'm definitely not interested in that series.

This one seemed to be more down my alley, but it was very disappointing.

Story wise it had some interesting aspects, with the premise of the cyborgs going rogue, there were some other bits that could have been worked out more, but not much was done with it.

I always like the cyberpunk setting, and this one had some good moments where the atmosphere was enjoyable for me.

But then, the characters are too bland, very little effort was put into the visual or writing design, with the last episode being a rip off of Robocop (as so many say), I thought it was the strongest character of the whole series, at least it has something going on.. The action was also very bland, I don't remember any of it being particularly interesting, the pace is boring and most of the dialog is cringe.

Of course there has to be misogyny, since is a Jap animation, but sometimes it goes too far or is unnecessary, and this is one of those cases.

The art is decent but nothing extraordinary. I was also attracted to the series by the advertising posters, which look amazing, but nothing on that style is on this series.

Something that particularly bothered me was the music. Terrible. Specially because they play music with lyrics during parts of the story when characters are explaining what's going on! I struggled to understand any of the dialog, and I thought it was such an amateurish thing to do, I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before. On the rest of the time, the music was completely out of mood and VERY off putting to the action. Unbelievably bad musicalization.

Overall a very mediocre and boring series, wouldn't recommend it.

A.D. POLICE FILES (1990) is a three-part Japanese OAV (Original Animation Video) prequel to BUBBLEGUM CRISIS (1987), an eight-part series set in Mega-Tokyo of 2032 about battles waged with "Boomers," androids run amok, by police and the costumed crime-fighters, the Knight Sabers. A.D. POLICE is set a few years earlier and focuses on members of the title unit whose job is to combat Boomer crimes at a time when humans and Boomers have become mutually interdependent. Unlike the earlier series, this one spotlights the issue of humans trading organs for cybernetic parts, a theme more fully explored in the later anime classic, GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995).

This series is much harder-edged than BUBBLEGUM CRISIS, with far greater amounts of bloodshed, dismemberment, and violent death. It's also more sexually fetishistic, with ample shots of beautiful, lingerie-clad women (always with garters), both human and Boomer, stalking the streets of Mega-Tokyo. In one jaw-dropping scene, a woman scientist strips down and straddles a hulking cyborg. Unfortunately, the beautiful women invariably suffer violent, bloody deaths. On the other hand, the main police protagonists in each episode are women. Gina Marceau, as tough and hard-as-nails a lady cop as you're likely to see in anime, is the lead officer in the first and third episodes, while the young and naïve Iris Cara, a member of the regular police, is the lead investigator in the second. (Interestingly, Gina's partner is rookie cop Leon Nichols, who figures prominently in CRISIS and its sequel, BUBBLEGUM CRASH.)

The first episode, "The Phantom Woman," is pretty complicated and has Gina investigating the illegal recycling of Boomer parts while partner Leon is stalked by a beautiful female Boomer who retains the memory of another female Boomer who'd once gone berserk and been shot by Leon. The second episode, "The Ripper," finds Iris investigating a series of Jack-the-Ripper-style murders of women, a case which takes her to the abandoned no-man's-land subway station where junkies, hookers and human dregs congregate. This episode has a quasi-feminist twist in its focus on a female chief executive who'd found biology getting in the way of her career so had cybernetic surgery to enable her to compete more effectively with male rivals, to disastrous results. The third episode, "The Man Who Bites His Tongue," focuses on Captain Billy, a member of the A.D. Police who is all cybernetic but for his tongue. When he becomes addicted to drugs and comes under the sway of a female scientist with surprising appetites, he starts to become unhinged and arouses the concern of Gina and the other members of her squad. Both "The Phantom Woman" and "The Ripper" were written by celebrated anime screenwriter Noboru Aikawa (PEACOCK KING, VAMPIRE PRINCESS MIYU, THE HAKKENDEN).

The animation style of these episodes is a far cry from the simpler, less detailed, and bolder graphics of the 1980s-style BUBBLEGUM CRISIS. There's far greater attention to detail, not only in the settings and cityscapes, but in the character design and animation. There's also more experimentation with style, from the use of single color schemes for some shots to the use of montage and the reliance on pen-and-ink illustrations in the place of flashbacks in one episode. While the action is expertly animated, there are far fewer of the intricate mecha battles that distinguished BUBBLEGUM CRISIS and more of the direct, one-on-one confrontations that mark a good police thriller. Even though the setting is the same as BGC, the whole style and overall tone are different, closer to the sci-fi noir of Yoshiaki Kawajiri (WICKED CITY, MIDNIGHT EYE GOKU, CYBER CITY OEDO 808) and looking forward to such similarly themed works as ARMITAGE III and GHOST IN THE SHELL.

AD Police Files 1-3 (1990): 8/10: Despite a third episode that is almost a scene for scene remake of Robocop this is one of the sharpest Anime's around.

Sexist and racist in that unconscious Japanese way with over the top violence and just a dash of nudity AD Police doesn't fail to entertain. The first two tales are gripping and inventive if a little hard to follow (Character development is minimalist at best) with great moral arks about the downfall of artificial parts and artificial people.

The third episode is a letdown and quite skippable. Tons of action keeps AD Police moving even when the story seems to stall. The plots of the first two episodes are also filled with surprise and that delightful "I always wished someone would do that" feeling.

The animation is very well done with different styles mixing it up to great effect. At only 3 episodes however it left me wanting more. That's usually a good sign.