Burst Angel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Burst Angel
The four main characters. (Jo, Sei, Meg and Amy)
爆裂天使
(Bakuretsu Tenshi)
Genre Adventure, Comedy, Mecha
TV anime
Directed by Koichi Ohata
Studio Flag of JapanGONZO
Flag of United StatesFUNimation Entertainment
Network Flag of JapanTV Asahi
Original run 6 April 2004 – 14 September 2004
No. of episodes 24
OVA: Burst Angel Infinity
Directed by Koichi Ohata
Studio Flag of JapanGONZO
No. of episodes 3
Released July 2005, March 2007 (DVD Boxset)

Burst Angel (爆裂天使 <バクレツテンシ> Bakuretsu Tenshi) is an anime series produced by GONZO animation studio set in a world sometime after 2020. The Japanese name for the anime Bakuretsu Tenshi is loosely translated to "Exploding/Explosive Angel", shortened to Bakuten and is also known as Burst Angel and Crazy Burst Angel. Burst Angel features character designs by Ugetsu Hakua. Funimation licensed and released all 24 episodes of Burst Angel on six DVDs in North American from October 10th, 2005 through February 21st, 2006. A 3 episode OVA, called "Burst Angel Infinity" in English, or in Japanese "Tenshi Sairin", which is set to be released on DVD in March 2007 in Japan.

Contents

[edit] Setting

In the future, there are major crime issues in Tokyo. Mostly because it became legal to possess guns, and because of that it has reached the point where the police force (known as RAPT as an acronym for Recently Armed Police Task force) exterminates criminals rather than arrest them.

[edit] Synopsis

Main article: List of Burst Angel episodes

The story opens with Kyohei Tachibana, a student at a culinary arts school with dreams of someday becoming a patissier (pastry chef). Motorcycling down an inner city street and becoming caught up in a shoot out between a mysterious white haired woman and a couple of gangsters. Kyohei escapes unharmed and ends up cooking as a cook for a group of four girls named Jo, Meg, Amy, and Sei in an effort to gather up enough money to travel to France.

The girls, ranging in ages of eleven to nineteen, turn out to be pseudo mercenary agents for a larger international group known as Bai Lan. The anime focuses on the group as they investigate a series of mutated human monsters with odd glowing brains that cause various amount of mayhem mostly throughout the Tokyo, Japan, area. There are also a couple side characters. Namely the groups Mecha, Jango that is maintained by a man named Leo. Along with various third persons that occur throughout or in specific parts of the series. Such as a new Japanese Prime Minister that takes over via an assassination of an early just newly elected Prime Minister nearing the end of the series.

[edit] Characters

Name Description
Jo (17) Silver hair, red eyes, carries twin Desert Eagles and is known as "The Angel from Hell." She has superhuman abilities from her artificial creation, usually followed by the appearance of a glowing tattoo on her left arm and shoulder blade. They resemble wings and are often called "The Wings of the Devil" and will glow when Jo is put under a lot of stress when fighting. Jo also puts Meg over anything else, which she stated when telling Meg that she fights for her only. When she is not fighting, she enjoys watching TV.
Meg (15) Red-head, carries a small revolver, dresses like a cowgirl, and is usually being kidnapped. She is the very best of friends with Jo and is 100% loyal to her only. She first met Jo in NYC, a year before the beginning of the series. Meg and Jo teamed up since then and became bounty hunters until Sei hired them.
Sei (19) Sei is the leader of the group and was the one who hired Jo and Meg to become members of it alongside Kyohei. She wears a long blue jacket, has her black hair in a bun, but appears older than her stated age. Her grandfather runs Bai Lan and is coming from a very powerful family.
Amy (11) Complete Techno whiz. Argues with Meg a lot and also loves scarfing down Kyohei's various treats. She has a cult following in the cyberworld.
Tachibana Kyohei (18) Proficient in Chinese cooking, Italian cooking, and Japanese cooking. He wants to be a patissier in Europe.
Jango The mecha usually piloted by Jo. Employs twin pistols built by Leo.
Takane Katsu A police officer from Osaka who wields a Colt Python and a bokuto (wooden sword). Ex-Motorcycle gang leader. She dresses in a combination sailor school uniform/trench coat. Takane also has a short temper and is not very patient.
Leo Jinno Contractor who created Jango and fixes him whenever it's needed.
Maria A girl with a distinct resemblance to Jo who, like Jo, was artificially created.
Akio A middle school classmate of Kyohei's who underwent cybernetic enhancing. Was killed when fighting a cyberbot piloted by a human, but managed to kill it (him) too. His cybernetic enhancements resemble the Terminator.

[edit] Japanese Cast

[edit] English Cast

[edit] Theme songs

Opening

  • "Loosey" by The STRiPES

Ending

  • "Under the Sky" by cloudica

[edit] Manga

Burst Angel is also available as a 3 volume manga series, known as "Angel's Adolescence". However, it deviates from the main storyline of the anime because it deals with events that occur before Jo and Meg join Sei's team.

The manga itself is not available in English, having not been acquired for translation. Alongside the standard fare of action and general butt-kicking, it focuses primarily on Jo and Meg and the relationship that they share. Because of this, the manga does feature much more heavy shoujo-ai content than the anime, although it doesn't actually show kissing, etc (though there are a number of warm and fuzzy cuddling scenes). While the manga doesn't stray very far into the physical side of Jo and Meg's relationship, it does feature several 'fantasy scenes', where Meg often day dreams about events that she would like to occur between herself and Jo. Through these 'dream sequences', it can be determined that Meg has deep feelings of love for her partner, though these feelings do often stray into sexual desire (the most famous example of this would be of the day dream Meg has where she and Jo are naked, inches away from kissing and Jo mumbles something about "not letting her get any sleep tonight").

Contrary to the anime, Jo is often shown as having feelings towards Meg as well. While she maintains her cold and withdrawn persona, she will go out of her way to make Meg happy. One such example of this is where Meg is wondering over dinner if she and Jo will remain together forever, or if circumstance will drive them apart. The thought of losing her closest companion visibly upsets Meg so, to make her feel better, Jo feeds Meg a length of noodles from her bowl and explains that it represents the link between them and how long they will stay together. Scenes such as this show that, while Jo is still cold and callous, she also has the capacity to say kind, even romantic things to her friend in order to express her love.

Also, we see some character modifications made in the manga, most notably to Sei and Amy. The leader/computer geek duo are shown in more of a dark light, making them sort-of bad guys. Their primary goal in the story is to recruit Jo into their mercenary team. However, Sei believes that Meg will be of no use to her, so she spends her time devising ways to separate the red head from Jo. For example, she tries to bribe Meg with a considerable sum of money to leave Jo, which in turn causes Meg to become angry and proclaim that she will never leave her long time companion. However, it should be noted that this pair arent extreme bad guys. They never go so far as to order a direct attack upon Jo and Meg, and Sei even helps them out from time to time.

Understandibly, this sort of content couldn't be put into the anime under its M rating. This is to the disappointment of many fans, as Jo and Meg are indicated as having some sort of relationship in the anime, but it is never really confirmed.

[edit] Trivia

  • With the exception of Sei, the other main female characters in Burst Angel not only share the same first names as the main characters in Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women, but also share much of their "namesake's" personality.
  • Burst Angel’s stylistic action and series feel has often been compared to that of the Spaghetti Western. Jango and Jo are considered to symbolize the gunslingers from those westerns even Jango's shadow is seen as that of one of the old gunfighters with ten gallon hat. Some even argue that "Jango's theme" is also very reminiscent of music from Spaghetti Westerns.
  • One of the schoolgirls encountered at the St. Lucreitia School is named Nadesico, possibly in reference to the anime Martian Successor Nadesico. This is supported by the fact that Kyo's seiyuu is Yuji Ueda, who also played Akito Tenkawa of the aforementioned series. Both characters seem to share personality traits, and have aspirations to become cooks.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../b/u/r/Burst_Angel_6b6b.html"