A solid follow up in spite of its predecessor.
I came into this OVA thorougly worn down from my frustration with the plot of the first. I had a little more hope for this, due to hearing that it was more action oriented than "Bubblegum Crash", to the chagrin of series fans. It is further alienated from the fanbase by being accused of not only being an ill attempt to tie up the series, but straight up non cannon. How could this be?
That brings us to our first problem, why make a conclusion to the original series if you're going to retcon a massive portion of the plot? In this OVA, the robot "boomers" are portrayed as not being sentient or even human passing. This is directly contradictory of MANY characters in the original series. This decision is made even stranger by the fact that while it's a key plot point, it is not at all necessary to the stories conclusion.
Forgoing all of that and a weak first act, I quite enjoyed this. My suspicions were confirmed in shifting the focus to action: this was a justifiable shift in focus away from plot and character development. In my opinion, this was always the weakest part of the show. The writing ranged from bland and cliche to laughable. In the last two acts especially, I found myself enjoying the simplistic characters and story more because it wasn't trying to fumble a narrative and it just let itself be as fun as the best parts of the original run.
I generously rounded my score up to a seven, because I absolutely would conditionally recommend this to fans of the original 8-episode installment. Take my word with a grain of salt, though. Because people who liked the original for reasons that I didn't seemed to hate this one.
Still, this never really ascends past an adult Saturday morning cartoon with unusually fantastic art and style. Watch it with your breakfast and coffee.
That brings us to our first problem, why make a conclusion to the original series if you're going to retcon a massive portion of the plot? In this OVA, the robot "boomers" are portrayed as not being sentient or even human passing. This is directly contradictory of MANY characters in the original series. This decision is made even stranger by the fact that while it's a key plot point, it is not at all necessary to the stories conclusion.
Forgoing all of that and a weak first act, I quite enjoyed this. My suspicions were confirmed in shifting the focus to action: this was a justifiable shift in focus away from plot and character development. In my opinion, this was always the weakest part of the show. The writing ranged from bland and cliche to laughable. In the last two acts especially, I found myself enjoying the simplistic characters and story more because it wasn't trying to fumble a narrative and it just let itself be as fun as the best parts of the original run.
I generously rounded my score up to a seven, because I absolutely would conditionally recommend this to fans of the original 8-episode installment. Take my word with a grain of salt, though. Because people who liked the original for reasons that I didn't seemed to hate this one.
Still, this never really ascends past an adult Saturday morning cartoon with unusually fantastic art and style. Watch it with your breakfast and coffee.
- jcain1635
- Mar 3, 2019