Priscilla S. Asagiri
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Priscilla "Priss" S. Asagiri is a fictional character from the Japanese anime series Bubblegum Crisis and its spin offs. She is a member of the Knight Sabers vigilante team, fighting boomers with a passion in her predominantly dark blue hard suit, which features a rail gun in the fist in the original series and knuckle bombs in the 2040 series. She is a rock 'n roll singer in both versions as well as a motorcyclist with a love/hate relationship with AD Policeman Leon McNichol. She was reportedly named after the Replicant Pris, played by Daryl Hannah, in Blade Runner.
[edit] Original Series
In the original series Priss is noted for her hair cut with a distinct cowlick and her fiery personality. She has an extremely bad temper and hates virtually all authority figures, namely the AD Police, in addition to boomers. Priss's bad temper often led her into trouble when someone, usually above her social status, offended her and she inevitably lashed out at them, with the offender often turning out to be a boomer. Much to her frustration and annoyance, AD Policeman Leon McNichol would like to win her heart, but she grows to tolerate him as the series goes on. She sang lead for a band called the Replicants. The origin of her anger towards the AD Police was that her boyfriend was killed by corporate agents and the ADP closed the investigation as an accident. Sylia found her when she started her revenge campaign and recruited her as a Knight Saber after that.
At the time, Priss was far and away the most popular character of the BGC anime, in part perhaps because of her voice actress, Oomoru Kinuke. When Kinuke was unavailable to reprise the part for Bubblegum Crash, BGC lost much of its staying power. Priss was originally slated to die in the sixth episode, Red Eyes, and to be replaced by another character, Reika Chang, AKA: Vision, but a fan backlash changed this to keep Priss alive.
While the original Priss remains a popular and important figure in the world of anime, there has been some backlash against the original Priss herself, as some fans felt that too much of the series was devoted to her at the expense of the other characters' development and storylines, and that Priss's storylines were generally very banal and repetitive as they tended to revolve around her seeking revenge for a friend of hers outside the Knight Sabers. Some fans have even gone so far as to accuse the Priss character of being a selfish, unsympathetic character as well as a fairly unintelligent one, in light of her inability to control her temper, her frequent attempts to attack bigger, stronger opponents, i.e. boomers without her hard suits, and other subtle signs that suggested a lack of common sense, and that her sense of "honor" was very shallow, and that she wasn't even a particularly good fighter.
[edit] 2040 Series
The Priss of 2040 is the polar opposite of her OAV counterpart. No longer rash and over emotional, the 2040 Priss is stoic and cold, with only subtle signs of a passionate temper brewing beneath her icy exterior. She is easily identified by her mostly leather biker gear, pale skin, and long, ratty, stringy brown hair, and cat like eyes. Much more of a mercenary than in the original series, she still functions as a Knight Saber combatant, a much more hardened and focused one. She sings for a band called Sekira. Initially, Priss appears to be romantically interested in Nigel Kirkland, the stoic, sullen mechanic who tends the hard suits, only to discover towards the end of the series that he is already involved with Sylia.
This new, mostly unemotional Priss is the polar opposite of her four teammates, the elegant Sylia, the idealistic Linna and the naive Nene. Sylia sometimes teased Priss about her unattractive appearance and advises, mostly in jest, that she should clean herself up more often and dress in a manner that would be more flattering and complimentary to her, which Priss often ignores.
Priss's unattractive appearance doesn't seem to bother her fans or her ardent admirer, the hulking, Herculean AD Policeman Leon McNichol, but her relationship with him is developed more here than in the original series; they do end up romantically involved, and even then Priss is the one who "wears the pants" in the relationship. While she does eventually warm up to her fellow Knight Sabers (she appears to be closer with Sylia than either Nene or Linna), she still prefers to distance herself from them, and is very protective of her privacy. She more or less saves the world in the final episode from Galatea.
| Bubblegum Crisis |
| Bubblegum Crisis - Bubblegum Crash - Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 |
| AD Police |
|---|
| AD Police Files - AD Police: To Serve and Protect |
| Similar setting |
| Parasite Dolls |
| Characters |
| Knight Sabers: Sylia Stingray - Priss Asagiri - Linna Yamazaki - Nene Romanova AD Police: Leon McNichol - Daley Wong - Chief Todo - Jeena Malso GENOM: Brian J Mason - Quincy Rosencroitz Other characters: Mackie Stingray - Fargo - Nigel Kirkland - Galatea - Boomers |
