Beauties with bright, burning lights

Burn Up! Anime series

By Avi Green

Here’s another bunch of anime productions that are quite enjoyable in their own way, and I’m going to write about all four produced.

Burn Up! – 1991

Director: Yasunori Ide
Script: Jun Kanzaki
Music: Kenji Kawai
Original story:
Jun Kanzaki
Yasunori Ide
Character Design: Kenjin Miyazaki
Art Director: Kenji Kamiyama
Animation Director:
Hideyuki Motohashi
Kenjin Mizazaki
Kunihiro Abe
Masahiro Tanaka

It all began with this simple OVA, which depicts a few adorable policewomen of a special vice team trying to bust up a sex-slavery racket. Three ladies, Maki, Reimi and Yuka, investigate this shadowy ring in a semi-futuristic city, and when the third of them gets captured, her other two partners launch an all out assault to rescue her and the other women who were captured by the slavers.

It’s an enjoyable story that begins with neat car chase scene (the villains’ car, ideally, is a BMW), and even has a sexy shower scene with Maki. While the characters here are unrelated to the ones that would follow, more on which anon, it’s easy to see how they influenced them.

Burn Up W – 1996

Director: Hiroshi Negishi
Screenplay:
Katsuhiko Kochiba
Sumio Uetake
Storyboard: Kyuuzou Gondawara
Music: Hiroyuki Nanba
Character Design: Toshinari Yamashita
Art Director: Satoru Kuwabara
Animation Director:
Hideo Shimosaka
Toshinari Yamashita
Mechanical design:
Atsuhiko Sugita
Gorou Murata
Masakatsu Saitou
Tatsumi Minegishi

This was also an OVA, but expands its story to 4 parts. The story here this time features a busty, sexy policewoman named Rio Kinezono who’s habitually broke, and makes some extra wages by working as a troubleshooter for Team Warrior, which consists of a commander named Maki Kawasaki, Maya, a rifle-toting police officer who hungers for actions, Lilica, a computer whiz, and Yuji, the only male member of the team, who pilots helicopters for them and is in love with Rio. Their adversaries here are a terrorist group who’re terrorizing Tokyo.

The humor here is pretty good, including the display of Rio’s martial arts skills, done in surreal fashion as are many Japanese stories of this sort. It was successful, and led to the following 13-part miniseries coming afterwards.

Burn Up Excess – 1997-98

Director: Shinichiro Kimura
Music:
Koichi Namiki
Shinobu Uchida
Character Design: Yuji Ikeda
Animation Director: Yuji Ikeda
Mechanical design:
Hideki Takahashi
Kazunori Iwakura
Executive producer:
Haruaki Inoue
Osamu Fujimori
Producer:
Kinya Watanabe
Takeshi Akabane
Yoshiyuki Matsuzaki
Planning: Toru Miura
Series Planning: Kazumi Koide

This expands on the story of Rio Kinezono and her bunch of eccentric colleagues in the Warrior unit of Tokyo’s Police Town (that’s what they call the precinct here). It also tells of Maki’s painful past that led her to become a policewoman and the leader of Team Warrior, and how Rio came to be part of the team. Their main fight is against a mysterious villainess named Ruby, who’s coordinating a lot of the crimes they’re facing off against.

Some of the jokes here are quite amusing, including the parts where we see the ladies’ boobs jiggle. There's also some impressive - and comedic - mechas featured. And the the main cast is a lot of fun.

Burn Up Scramble – 2004

Director: Hiroki Hayashi
Series Composition: Sumio Uetake
Script:
Jukki Hanada (eps 5, 7, 9, 12)
Sumio Uetake
Storyboard:
Fumihiro Ueno (ep 9)
Hideki Tonokatsu (ep 10)
Hiroki Hayashi (ep 1)
Katsuyoshi Yatabe (ep 3)
Masayuki Iimura (eps 2, 6)
Mondo Nakamura (ep 7)
Shinichi Watanabe (ED)
Shinji Ishihira (ep 3)
Takashi Iwama (ep 5)
Yasuhiro Minami (eps 8, 12)
Episode Director:
Fumihiro Ueno (eps 4, 9)
Katsuyoshi Yatabe (eps 3, 7, 11)
Masayuki Iimura (ep 2)
Mitsutaka Noshitani (ep 6)
Naoyasu Hanyu (eps 1, 5)
Yasuhiro Minami (eps 8, 12)
Yuu Nobuta (ep 10)
Music:
Kazuo Nobuta
Toshihiko Sahashi
Character Design: Toshiharu Murata
Art Director: Toshihisa Koyama
Animation Director: Toshiharu Murata (ED)
Mechanical design:
Gorou Murata
Hiroshi Ogawa
Koichi Iwahata

A couple years after the prior rendition of Burn Up, along came a reworking: Rio Kinezono is still the star, and just as busty as before (as an added bonus, she’s drawn wearing more makeup, or fuller lips, something the prior renditions didn’t really try), but this time, the rest of the cast has still been altered considerably. For example, Yuji is now a commander at the precinct, and Lilica has been changed into some kind of an ESP character, who can emit special powers as seen later on. Maki appears to be relegated to a glimpsed cameo here, while the commander in charge of Team Warrior is quite a surprise.

I’ll be honest, it’s not as funny as the previous take on the characters was, but it succeeds in entertaining nevertheless. So would I recommend this too? Yes, but the previous incarnations are still much better.

And there we have some reviews of an interesting anime collection starring hot babes.

Copyright 2010 Avi Green. All rights reserved.

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