AD Police Files

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.

The Spin Off/Bubblegum Crisis Prequel is what you'd expect from a Cyberpunk themed Noir anime from the 90s. As the name suggests, they are separate files from the AD Police where each one tells its own story, stories that however much simple has its discussions well implanted in the work.

"Phantom Lady" focuses on sex dolls called Boomer that for mysterious reasons have become aggressive with human beings, especially with men who use them for sex, those who are not able to satisfy them end up being murdered for bringing them frustrations instead of pleasure for them, which ends up being a dilemma brought by the work itself, which satisfies a humanoid machine that shouldn't even have feelings? And how do these distinguish sensations without even possessing humanity?

"The Ripper" talks about femininity, social problems about equality in the labor market, and the extent to which bodily changes make us stop being human or even have an individuality. The positive point of this episode is that for a moment the work leaves the AD organization aside and focuses on the perspective of the newcomer to the city and the common police, Iris, who has an innocent look at the terrible city of MegaTokyo as for the how violent are the crimes committed by the Boomers, but thanks to this and the antagonist, a discussion is created about what makes us human.

"The Man Who Bites His Tongue" follows the premise of a soldier severely wounded in combat but still retaining his services through severe changes in his body, becoming almost completely a machine, with no emotions or memories of his past life, this he wonders if he still makes sense of continuing "alive" just to maintain his function as an officer of the law. The episode is also about criticizing human greed over what will bring them personal advantage without giving importance to those who might harm themselves with such actions.

AD Police Files despite bringing several themes and questions he doesn't take any steps out of his comfort zone, he never goes deep in his discussions beyond the casual, which in a way is positive since with a weak cast it's hard to go beyond what is shown on screen, leaving us viewers to discuss what little is delivered. As interesting as the main duo Gina and Leon seem to be, they are just that, the first is a tough and attractive policewoman who wears a mechanical prosthesis, but despite wondering if that makes her less human, we have no conclusions from her. In addition to a tear and an expression of doubt, the latter is a novice who despite his inexperience makes himself effective, and demonstrates a personal and traumatic reason for joining the task force facing the Boomer dolls, but nothing more so that make us at least have sympathy for the character.

Merits I have to give to the miniseries is the ability to not get stuck in good manners, talking and showing sexual scenes freely, as Gina for example makes it clear how much she likes sex, and even though these scenes sometimes seem to be just The author's personal fetishes somehow fit into the discussions brought up on screen. Highlight for the soundtrack that encompasses everything that these three episodes bring, with an entire album dedicated to each chapter, the songs are largely responsible for involving us in the shallow story.

Fortunately this little Spin Off of a series brought us a new version in the future, which I consider positive since this anime has a great proposal, which needs more time and care to be worked on, this is a curiosity for those who liked Bubblegum Crisis or for fanatics in Cyberpunk universes of the 90s.

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.

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 is a standard issue grim cyberpunk vision that spends much of its time ripping off earlier, better works such as Blade Runner and Robocop. Long story short, it focuses on a elite police squad dedicated to hunting down rogue androids or "skin jobs,"-I, err, mean "boomers." All of this is set in the future that looks like 1989, only with robots and cyborgs.

In only three episodes, it manages to rip off every major science fiction movie of the eighties. The first two episodes are effectively pervy versions of Blade Runner, while the third episode is essentially a plagiarism of the first two Robocop movies.

To make things worst, the animation is abysmal. Never mind Akira or Studio Ghibli, this won't even make you forget a typical episode of Pokemon! As with most early 90s anime, the subtitles are laugh-inducing, with hyper-melodramatic dialogue.

Just to top it all off, the first two episodes have a definite misogynistic feel to them. In the view of the series's writers, the essence of being a woman is apparently to die from multiple rapes. This is literally stated in the dialogue.

Rent it if you're in the mood for something comical or lurid; otherwise, don't waste your time.