Forum - View topicThe Misunderstood Anime - Burst Angel/Bakuretsu Tenshi
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Preston
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*A W.I.P. - I Would Wait To Edit, But Having So Many Windows Open Eats My RAM*
Last edit: Main section addition: The Soundtrack + 1 Screen Cap, Cook Character Bio And Pics Burst Angel/Bakuretsu Tenshi The Misunderstood (and underrated) Anime I thought the topic title described Burst Angel (which I will refer to the series as from here on for simplicity’s sake, but it can be called Burst Angel, Bakuretsu Tenshi or BakuTen) perfectly, the misunderstood and lonely child of Gonzo Studios. Common opinion is that it is complete glorified fan service with a complete lack of any significant story and no character development – this is a misconception. The point of this post is to encourage people to give it a try, so if your going to flame me or it, you might as well quote me now. I hope to submit a review (not asking any favors or anything) of the first DVD to ANN sometime soon, or rather when I can be bothered to finish it, and so this will not be a review as such, but a sum up of the apparent errors in the series and my opinion on them. I’ll sum up the series right now for those people who haven’t encountered it before: Fan Service, Action, Mecha in 3d, Comedy (episode 9 sustained a constant smile on my face, and that is no easy feat), Deceptively simple story line. I must say that I am biased, because of finding a new favorite character on any entertainment medium; Jo, but I will, for the sake of fairness, write this in as an un-biased way as I can manage. 
Jo during the Burst Angel opening --------- --------- --------- --------- The Fan Service Well, since it’s what most people are put off by, I shall start with the undeniable presence of fan service in the series. Yes, the normal clothes for most of the female characters show at least half of their breasts. Yes, there are situations which are so ridiculous because of the clothes that you feel embarrassed you are watching. Yes, there is the occasional odd conversation that would raise a few eyebrows (a particular classic is sometime in episode 6 between Jo and Meg). 
Jo reaches pure physcotic stage during a fight (I took the libertry of blurring out a particular word, just in case) However, when I first watched this series it was on a mere plot summary, it did not mention character designs or anything such as that, and it wasn’t something I was going deliberately looking for, but I decided to try it, as that was how I originally got into anime. While the clothes can be irritating at times, and the poses some characters get into are annoying because it just woudln't happen in 'real-life', Gonzo obviously realized there error some time near the beginning and so you get one or two episodes now and then where characters dress differently. 
Leo explains to Sei why Jo can't hear her radio messages To point a few out, there are two episodes where Meg dresses in school uniform, one where Jo dresses in school uniform (which is hilarious, at least to me it was, it really doesn’t suit her) and one where Jo dresses in a particularly stylish track suit top and pants (or trousers) which makes her look a bit like a senior cleric from the film Equilibrium (which is no bad thing as that is my favorite film, or one of them). To sum this section up, fan service is there, hard to ignore and blatant at some times, but really doesn’t interfere to much with the rest of what there is to experience. 
Jango VS Giant Crow round 2 attop Tokyo Tower EDIT: If you would like an example of the characters go to the bottom of the post where I have assembled a collection of images to allow you to judge the fan service for yourself as well as writing a (hopefully) spoiler free bio of them for you to read Character Development Another common complaint about the series is character development. It really depends on what you think character development is. If you think character development is discovering more into the past and personalities of the characters then you have plenty to look at. However, if you expect quick changes of character then you are out of luck, things happen slowly in Burst Angel, friendships (or in some cases tolerance levels, particularly in the case of Jo) grow slowly, and there are no significant love interests to provide amusement (or anything else). 
Jo kicks the sh*t out of a mutant during an insight into her and Meg's past However existing friendships are plentiful, with much turbulence between characters in certain episodes. Getting back onto the past of characters, the series starts with four girls of varying ages that you know pretty much nothing about, apart from the fact one plans, one kills, one gets captured and one runs survailance. In particular one mysterious friendship between Jo and Meg is constantly revisited and explained in flashbacks and visions, epsiode 14 unveiling quite a lot about them (I will say no more, I intend to keep this spoiler free). 
Sei and Jo get back on talking terms after a long disagreement Above I managed to point out one of the outstanding faults in the series; characters positions hardly change, and Meg is constantly captured in a never ending variety of ways and is saved by Jo time and time again. This does drag on a bit, but there are episodes when Meg manages to do something useful, usually saving Jo (when she gets a bit carried away). Characters do have personality traits which are obvious. To finish this section off, yes, this does appear a particularly generic set of characters but what they say and joke about makes them seem alive. 
Amy and Meg with a medic after getting out of a dangerous situation The Plot And It's Development The last major complaint is that of Burst Angel rather (apparently) weak story line. While it can in no way stand against the stories of classics, it is by no means shallow, though how some episodes join together is definitively debatable. Unexpected things happen, though the story is somewhat diluted with filler episodes which provide some amusement but more of an impatience to get back to the proper story line. If you discount some episodes you get a entertaining and understandable story, though I wouldn’t go as far to say it was any more than that, one of the series genres is comedy, after all. To sum it up, if your looking for the most fantastic story around then give this a skip (or some of the episodes), but if your satisfied with a B+ story, you really have nothing to lose. 
The girls transport, home And kitchen Rip-Offs I must address one last thing, though this isn’t a main error of the series, it does rip the best bits out of some other outstanding anime series and films and compact into its world, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just don’t hope for the most original thing around. Some things that appeared to have been ‘borrowed’ from other series that I could think of were: the way cybots (the Burst Angel form of mecha) were piloted seemed very close to the way they are piloted in Appleseed, the charactes Jo and Meg are very similar to the Evangelion characters Rei and Asuka. 
Jo piloting Jango (inside the mech) The Soundtrack Hmm. Now that’s a tricky one. Lets address the opening song first. Let me put it this way: you’ll either love it or hate it first time you hear it. If you hate it chances are it’ll grow on you as you come to know the series better, it is still is happening to me. The rest of the soundtrack is, in my opinion, surprisingly good. No doubt not everyone’s cup of tea (or whatever) you can’t deny that it fits the series and makes you sit up as a particular piece of music fades in, telling you its time for a fight. There is good range in it as well, some pieces are depressing, mainly when you listen to it off the OST. 
This guy is about to take on a cybot with a sword - place your bets people Dennou Saimin, for example, is not a remarkable piece of music, but when associated with certain happenings in the series you feel inclined to re-live those happenings again. First off it will seem a little weak, but as you become to know the ques for certain types of music on the soundtrack you will find yourself willing a certain one to play, and the music definitely improves the overall atmosphere. To finish off I shall cover the closing song. It is one of those more depressing pieces that draws you in, and to start off you will be ‘WTF? How does this have anything to do with this light hearted series?’ but as you watch further into the series you will begin to see a connection. At any rate, the soundtrack certainly shouldn’t put you off trying the series. --------- --------- --------- --------- Right, I’m tired of this post already, so I think I’ll sum it up here: give Burst Angel a try, don’t buy it, I’m not asking that, rent it or aquire it by some other means and then watch the first four episodes (the epsiodes on DVD 1 of the series). See if you like it, and if so watch epsiodes 5 and 6, they give you a break from the fan service. Well.. I thought enough of the series and didn’t like how it was treated so I spent the time writing this post, and yes, there are much more fun things I could have been doing. 
Jango holsters his two oversized desert eagles with style (must be seen to be believed) Character 'Showcase' EDIT: Here is an assembled collection of images to allow you to judge the fan service for itself, to cut down no the time this post takes to load I will leave them mainly as links. I have also written a paragraph telling you about each character. Of course all images remain property of Funi and Gonzo. I have not included all the costumes, only the main ones and two others (except in certain cases). 
Jo is an enigma. She does not fully remeber her past and feels she owes a lot to Meg for helping her when she was washed onto the bank under a freeway. Jo is the fighter of the four girls and takes care of 'buisiness' on most occasions. When she gets mad (looks more like physcotic some times), which is usualy when Meg is in danger, she becomes an unstoppable force. This change in character can be easily spotted by her flared pupils and an elaborate purple tatoo that appears down her left arm and back. When in this state she never fears letting out the odd line of abuse at the 'enemy', however, when not fighting Jo is a quiet teenager that appears to never be totally aware of what is going on and only gets real entertainment from watching horror films. Main Clothes (Fan Service): http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/2125/jomc13bz.jpg Alternate Main Clothes (Fan Service): http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/8203/jocm24pm.jpg 2nd Costume: http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/5088/joc20vc.jpg 3rd Costume: http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/7236/joc35xe.jpg 
Meg is the girl that manages to gets taken hostage on many occasions and has to be rescued by Jo, however, the positions are reveresed sometimes when Jo gets carried away and gets into a position she couldn't get herself out of and Meg comes to the rescue. Meg is picked on occasions to take part in survailance because of her ability to fit in and become part of a crowd, until she says something particularly abnormal and gets herself noticed. Meg has a very strong friendship with Jo after helping her and is granted a much higher tolerance level than other characters by Jo. Main Clothes (Fan Service): http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/2049/megmc17uf.jpg 2nd Costume: http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/2166/megc23lo.jpg 3rd Costume (Fan Service): http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/8503/megc30zm.jpg 
Sei is the oldest girl in the group of four, more a young woman. She controls and organizes the group (to some degree at least, Jo doesn't like being ordered around and goes against Sei's decisions on some occasions). She is really what is holding the group together and utilizes the other three girl's skills and uses them to better the situation on most occasions. Sei is also a bit of a mystery, her grandfather head of the syndicate that Sei can control on some occasions. Though Sei doesn't really do any fighting, she interprets the intel given to her by Amy and relays it in a useful form to usually Jo and Meg. Main Clothes (Fan Service): http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/6979/seimc18el.jpg 
Amy is the girl that may as well be part of a computer because of all the time she spends on it. As an 11 year old Amy often finds it hard to choose a side in disagreements between the other girls, and as their intel, must take a side to find the other. Amy may be little and not the fighting type, but she does take things into her own hands in an attempt to seem more grown up, but then ruins in all by dissolving into tears in Sei's arms. She has a strong spirit and has no shame into getting the cook to take her to places on his scooter (when she was told to stay in the trailer) and other similar stuff. She makes amusing comments from now and again (one that can be found in a screen cap below). Main Clothes (Fan Service - If Thats What You Can Really Call It In The Case Of An 11 Year Old, Thankfully It Is Not Revealing): http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/9569/amymc10xb.jpg 
Kyouhei is the girl's cook. His services are aquired during the first episode where Sei is looking for someone to make the other girls decent food (apparently they'll eat junk food if they don't get any). As guy who is aiming to become a pastry chef, and to do that he wants to go to the 'heart of the pastry world' but cannot afford it, when he is handed the girl's advert by a friend he leaps at the opportunity. When he first starts being their cook he knows nothing of what they really do, but is involved in a mission that the girls take on he is taken hostage and finds out what they are really - 'mercenaries'. Though he may a bit of a fool at times, he does his fair share of significant deeds on occasions, one in which I don't doubt he saved Jo's life (if left on her own should wouldn't have made sensible decisions - which is what the cook is best at). Main Clothes: http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/882/cookmc14sc.jpg Future Post Edits Main section addition: Cheapness? [Rip-Off Section Development] Main section addition: The Cook (and other co-main characters) ...and some more screen caps to make it more colourful 
Amy makes fun of Meg's not wanting Jo to go alone with the cook.. and gets a slap on the head Last edited by Preston on Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:27 am; edited 19 times in total |
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joel_s95387
Posts: 1804 Location: California... The Village Hidden In The Porn |
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man i just read the first couple sentences and the last cause thats too much to read your crazy man. anyway i havnt seen it but i have seen the trailer and i kinda dont wanna watch it. the mecha's seem to be slow and clunky, but maybe its just the animation. i dont know, i like anime from GONZO but their CG just doesnt look right to me for some reason. in Hellsing the CG bullets have animation but the backgrounds are stills. i'll try to rent it or borrow it from a friend (haha i dont think any of my friends picked this up we all bought gunslinger girl though).
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Preston
Posts: 48 |
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Its not so much writing, took 15 minutes, you should try it. Mecha anime clunky? Perhpas I should make my own trailer and disguise it as a music video (I have Adobe Premiere after all), Gonzo seem to have done pretty bad with their advertisments, I must admit if I had seen the trailers before I watched it (and heard the opening music) I wouldn't have bothered it. Look, there is a seamless fight during the fall from Tokyo tower between two cybots, and the animation doesn't stall once. Hand on hand mecha battles in it are slow if the two cybots grab on another, but Jango (the girl's cybot/mecha) had two giant over sized desert eagles the have full auto on them, so theres plenty of long range combat (it has some pretty cool holstering styles as well, you only have to watch the first episode for about 30 seconds to see that. Yep, first thing you see is a fully 3d rendered cybot battle, it impressed me and got me through the opening theme song (why, god why?) and I'm glad for trying it. (Surprizingly the rest of the theme music definetely does grow on you, I got myself the sound track eventually). But, uh, the bias is showing through.. I'll edit my previous and put in some pictures to break up the writing and do a sum up of my opinions and points at the end for those that don't want to read all of it (I was on two pages on MS Word before I knew it). But, you really would be doing yourself a favour trying it, I'm not asking you to like it, I'm asking you to give it a go. |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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You should have spent another five or ten minutes editing it for clarity, and yet another five or ten minutes proofing it for spelling and grammar errors (I stopped counting after the first 20). If one hopes to write a review, one must first be able to write in legible English (or whatever other language one writes in). And yes, I think BakuTen is a somewhat underrated anime. - abunai |
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Preston
Posts: 48 |
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The MS Word spell checker wouldn't agree with you there, but I'm bored as hell and photoshop keeps freezing so I'll edit it and do up the spelling and grammar, I wrote it at like 11PM last night and my head was throbbing 'cause I walked into a wall (don't ask why or how) so forgive me the mistakes, I'll format it better as well. Thanks for your agreement, the reason I wrote this was because under the rather rough coating Burst Angel is quite a fun experience, and is not given the benefit of the doubt. EDIT: I hope that's less sore on the eyes now, I'll add some screen caps to stop it looking less like a giant block of text (which is what it really is). EDIT 2: Uh.. I really need a break, I'll add some more later today. |
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Gauss
 Posts: 519 Location: Finland |
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The MS Word spelling and grammar check is hardly perfect. If you misspell a word so that it turns into another (e.g. plower instead of flower) the checker won't catch it unless the spelling error also triggers the grammar check. The grammar check in turn is notoriously unreliable, and often suggests the wrong correction. Both work best when backed up with your own sense of language. That does require you to review the whole text, which is all for the good as you are also likely to spot errors in argumentation and presentation. In addition, try not to post when upset (or hurt for that matter  ). Take a deep breath and ask yourself if it really has to be posted now. When you have calmed down a bit you can go over the text again.
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Preston
Posts: 48 |
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Lol, your post made me laugh. I wasn't upset lol, I was hurt with quite possibly a mild concussion and it might have encouraged me to post it before it was ready. Don't worry, I won't be walking into any walls before making signifiant posts. I hope its ok now, I went through it and corrected the outstanding spelling and grammar mistakes. I'll be making a few additions this evening (GMT+1) and adding a few screen captures and changing the formatting. Oh, and about MS Word spelling and gramar, I have some hilarious stories, if only this were the place to talk about them. Anyway.. |
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Preston
Posts: 48 |
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I got this reply on the Funimation forums to a post I made regarding future developments of the series from the Burst Angel Brand manager and thought people might want to see it. Giving it it's own topic would be a little OTT so I'll just add it to this thread:
'And now a word from your humble Burst Angel Brand Manager: As you may know from www.burstangel.com, the Burst Angel series is a 24-episode series with a prequel OVA. FUNimation has the rights to the Burst Angel series. There are a number of options for future development being currently discussed both on the American side and the Japanese side for this brand. If you attended the Anime Expo panel this year, you would have also learned that the character designer for Burst angel is thinking of creating his own 5 minute epilog for the series. This is definitely something we are looking forward to, but approval and production details have not yet been finalized for that project. Merchandising is going great. You should soon see a small variety of official U.S. Burst angel product online and in a few of your favorite shops. When more information is available, it will be posted on the site. Thank you for all your interest. Keep checking the Burst Angel site. September is going to be a great month filled with fun updates, content and information.' |
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Joe anime
 Posts: 259 Location: Brooklyn,NY |
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Burst Angel looks good.i'll see how it is when i get Vol. 1.
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IchigoK90
 Posts: 1634 Location: Scarborough, Ontario |
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I agree that Burst Angel is an underated anime. I've only checked out the first six episodes and was impressed with the first episode. My main complaint about the series so far is the lack of involvement of whats his name................the cook for the four. It seems he is so insignifacant that you couldn't mention him in your review. And one of your links to an outfit of Jo is just Jo's fanservice outfit with a red coat. I still don't know why people don't kike the opening song.
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Iemander
 Posts: 443 |
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1) What's fanservice?
2) It looks incredibly cheap, the almost nude girls, the FMP alike mechs, etc. I guesse Japan really loves cheap thrills, but this is overdoing it. |
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IchigoK90
Posts: 1634 Location: Scarborough, Ontario |
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Uhhhhh..............you answered your own question "almost nude girls" |
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Advent_Nebula
Posts: 932 Location: Colorado |
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I like the opening song, and it dose fit the series rather well. |
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Preston
Posts: 48 |
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You won't regret it. Though some of my favourite episodes are on DVD 2, I can still say episode 1 will impress you, the trailers don't do the series any justice what-so-ever. I can't remeber what happens in episodes 3 and 4, at least, I think I'm getting them confused with episodes 5 and 6. I better re-watch them now lol. EDIT: I remember them now, episodes 3 and 4 are also very good, you get quite a spectacular fight during episode 4 (lasts almost the entire episode).
The reason I wrote the post because I didn't think Burst Angel got the ratings and views it deserved. About the cook, I have not included him yet (because I have other things to do, I'm adding him to the bottom of the post after the girls hopefully tonight) but he does play some major parts in certain episodes. Particularly episdoes 7 and 8 where he plays the main role alongside Jo, where he starts as he hostage but becomes her 'friend' by the end of the episode (this new found tolerance is included in future episodes, for example, Jo offers him chips during the 9 episode which is quite a major step for Jo lol). The cook also plays a central role in some future episodes as well, and he meets some of his friends which become a main player in the stories of some episodes, but in others he does take a more layed back role. And as for the opening song, it is growing on me, I actually wished I hadn't deleted it from my hard drive when I ripped the OST from my disk for easy access. It is nostalgic, just like the rest of the soundtrack after you watch a little way into the series. I constantly find myself listening to the music that is played just as a battle is about to begin (Kurutta Kajutsu (Name of music)). EDIT: About Jo's alternate main costume, I included it because the other character didn't have anything like this, and Jo usually wears it when not fighting and it gets discarded half-way through most fights.
1) Fan service was originally eye-candy, purely to make the scene look good for fans, but it has become known as characters wearing very little clothes. 2) The series is cheap? News to me. How do the character designs resemble anything to do with the series being cheap? Clothes change during the series, like I said earlier, Jo wears a very stylish tracksuit top and pants/trousers which go perfectly with her long grey hair (only for the insight into her and Meg's past). The mechs all a rip-off eh? Like me to screen cap every one and send them to you? Trust me, not all the mechs walk and fight on two legs, theres a crow in there for example. Not all the enemies are mech by the way, unless the squid was a half and half sort of thing. Yes, the series does rip some bits off from other anime (as seen in my section in the post above_, but its usually the best bits, which is not really a bad thing.
My opinion of it has gone from 'Complete Cr*p.. Is This A Joke' to 'Uh.. Ok.. If I Have Too, Let's Just Keep It To A Minimum Of 3 Times A Day'. It's all the Loosey cr*p and the way its sung that makes it seem like a joke, that stuff about charisma is OK though, and the bit where it goes 'Tap It' at the beginning and the music suits the series, I agree. Last edited by Preston on Sat Aug 27, 2005 3:09 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Preston
Posts: 48 |
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This double posted for some reason, ignore please. Sorry.
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