Reviewed by Kenae Category: TV Series
Genre(s): Action / Mecha / SciFi
Released: 1999
Studio:AIC Publisher:ADV Films
I think that everyone has done this at least once in their lifetime, and so the first part of my review is just my experience with ignorance. About a year ago I went down to the local anime store and I just happened to pick up a seemingly good deal on a DVD set, you see at the time I believed that anything spawned from greatness will also be greatness, I was terribly, terribly wrong. AD Police was nothing like its predecessor Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040.
Let my mistake be a warning to all who read this, if a movie is a lot cheaper than others around, there is probably a good reason, it most likely sucks. In this review I'll give a brief synopsis, a description on all the important characters and of course a review on the two DVD extras.
Synopsis
Kenji Sasaki is an AD police officer with a track record for losing all the partners ever assigned to him; and in the first episode, (of course), he loses yet another one to a rogue VOOMER (Voodoo Organic Metal Extension Resources) attack. To grieve his partner's death, he goes to his partner's hangout, the local bar. There he tries to relax over a nice drink, but not very long after taking a sip of his drink he gets into fight with an out-of-town ruffian. The next day, Kenji arrives late for work with a hangover, but to make matters worse it seems that his boss has assigned him another partner, (guess who?) at it happens to be the exact same guy he knocked out at the bar the night before (you see where this is going don’t you? It has crappy cop drama written all over it).
For the most part, the series is comprised of filler episodes usually dealing with the relationship between Kenji and his new partner, Hans Kleif, but also there are a few episodes involving other not so important characters. But all the episodes somehow tie in to a (not so surprising) surprise ending, I can sum up the entire ending in one word, "BAD."
For the rest of this section I'll bring into light the differences and some similarities between AD Police and its predecessor BGC: Tokyo 2040. Even though both share the same universe, there are key differences, BGC is set in Tokyo, ADP is set in Genom City, in truth both are actually the same city or have the same landmarks (i.e. Genom Tower, and Tokyo Bay). There is only one character which exists in ADP and BGCT2040, Neyson Mason, but even though they have the same name, their roles are quite different.
Main Characters
Kenji Sasaki The AD Police’s resident loose cannon, originally he came from the regular police but due to his exceptional skill he was transferred to the ADP. He is noted for excellent marksmanship and awesome motorcycling skills. Kenji seems to dislike orders from superiors and tends to follow his own sense of justice, but this sometimes leads to rough situations.
Hans Kleif Formerly from the normal police in Germany he was transferred to the AD Police in Genom City. He was once called the "zombie of the force" by his fellow officers in Germany, he suffered from a shot wound to the head but somehow he survived. Due to this injury he lost all of his past memories and the bullet fragment is still lodged in his brain. But there might be something from Hans's past that even he doesn’t know about...
Liam Fletcher He is the main enemy throughout the first part of the series. He is the leader of a criminal organization specializing in acquiring, producing, and selling illegal VOOMERs, the Backers Syndicate. He's good at what he does and manipulates the ADP to his benefit. He is a criminal genius who is second to none than Neyson Mason, the Vice President of Genom. But there is something quite strange about Fletcher...
Opinions
Since ADP was from the same universe as the highly acclaimed (or at least by me) Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 I expected much more. My hopes for a successful spin-off were quickly torn down as I watched this horrible excuse for an anime. But just to say that an anime has no good points wouldn't be very uncharacteristic of me, so I'll try and tell you the good (the few that do exist) and the bad points of this anime. I must commend ADP's great vehicle and weapons designs; I was impressed with the level of detail the creator went to. AD Police's music wasn't half bad; it had a nice 70's and 80's mix of songs, with a bit of techno as well.
And now it's time for my list of dislikes, though they may not be that long they do strike out at the worst points of the series. The plot was very plain and obvious, I could see through the ending almost as soon as I watched the first few episodes. Even though ADP was released (1999) a year after BGC (1998) I have trouble seeing which one is older due to dated animation, and very little CG. The series lacked character development, even though a character or two may have died it had no lasting effects on the main characters, it was just forgotten by the next episode.
Extras Review (4 Out of 5)
Kenae-sama, if you hate the series so much why did you re-watch and review it? To save all other anime fans the misfortune of buying it... yeah right, the real reason is simple: the extras. I believe that since ADVfilms sold this poor excuse for an anime, they felt pity on the buyers and put in several extras to make the DVDs have at least a few redeeming values. On the first DVD it contained six awesome previews (since ADVfilms did the previews, they are also music videos), DVD 2 had more extras than the first, it had a clean opening/closing animations, detailed sketches on all the vehicles/VOOMERs/weapons in the series, series artwork which was mostly fan-service (you have to love fan-service), and series notes which were slightly wrong about some areas of the show but otherwise very informative. The extras were probably the only reason I didn't end up "losing" the two DVDs at a friend's house but it really wasn't enough to save the series from being
total crap.
-- Kenae
Buy A.D. Police - Vol. 1 at the FA Store >
