The World of Bubblegum Crisis
Bubblegum Crisis (BGC) is a science fiction series based in a near future Tokyo, a Tokyo that represents the future of conglomerate corporation. BGC brings awareness to a possible desolate human social condition by specifically recognizing the dangers of allowing a monoply based economic system. By exploring future applications of technology, and it's roll in replacing human labour, BGC presents a world revealing the consequences of technology exploitation.
The antagonist of this series is Genom Corporation, a conglomerate corporation, and world wide leader in all fields of technology. In the year 2032, Genom has rebuilt Tokyo after the second Great Kanto Quake with it's boomers, renameing the city Mega Tokyo. Boomers are fully synthetic beings that were originally developed by Dr. Katsuhito Stingray with the intent to relieve man of physical and monotonous labour. Boomers are created using synthetic muscle tissue and metal skeletal structure, but never having an organic brain or organs, are neither robot or cyborg. In Genom's search for further applications of their boomer technology, their expansion seemed a logical one: weapons.
Twenty-eight years after the first heralds of the continuing Polar War, Genom turns to urban Mega Tokyo as it's testing ground for new combat boomer designs. Wreaking unpreceeded havok in boomer rampages, the A.D. Police (ADP), an independent anti-boomer police organization, can no longer cope with the advanced boomers. To the disdain of the ADP a new organization emerges, using what appears to be boomer related technology. These "Knight Sabers" (KS) systematically remove boomer incidents with such efficiency, as to make the ADP look like refugees of the twentieth century. Lead by Sylia Stingray, these four women use an adaptation of Sylia's father's early boomer research to create "hardsuits," a human operated hi-tech lightweight combat suit. These hardsuits amplify the wearer's strength and agility. Each hardsuit is customized towards the wearer's specific skills, providing them with specialized weaponry, armour and tools.
In addition to their hardsuit arsenal, the KS use advanced motorcycles, called motoroids or affectionately referred to as "motoslaves," for there portability and speed. Normally they look like custom motorcycles that often have a large caliber gun mounted on the side, but they have two alternate modes of operation. One mode is where the motoroid converts into a power armor exo frame that attaches to the hardsuit, to compliment the hardsuit with greater protection and firepower. The second mode is where it converts to a semi autonomous combat robot that can be sent to fight on it's own or fight alongside its operator. It is with these weapons that the KS fight for the protection of the peoples rights and freedoms, against that of an oppressing Genom Corporation.
BGC's theme and appearance is similar to "Blade Runner," in which social and economic gains must be balanced delicately with technology, and what it means to be human. Everyday, science fiction is becoming more science fact, and as our technology continues to advance today's science fiction presents a quite achievable future. BGC takes a less catastrophic, but no less hardened look into that future, where man's research into artificial beings may symbolize our real quest for immortality.
