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| Plot Synopsis | Interesting and Fun Details |
| Episode Review | Character Development |
| Episode Analysis | |
The episode opens with General Schwartz apologizing for the accidental discharge of the laser sattelite which destroyed Aqua City, followed by the recovery of Cynthia's body interspersed with the creation of a new, bright red Boomer. Unfortunately, that Boomer explodes when initially turned on, and the explosion kills the entire design team. The next morning, the ADP, specifically Leon and his partner and friend Daley, investigate the explosion only to be given the cold shoulder by various employees and official Genom party line. Out in front of the building, ghouth, a young woman from Linna's aerobics studio rushes Brian J. Mason and his three women bodyguards, screams about how one of them (presumably not Mason himself, but a Genom VIP) was responsible for the murder of her fiance. After she is slapped violently to the ground by one of Mason's bodyguards, Priss, who has been watching the scene, loses her temper and attacks the bodyguard only to hurt herself and nearly get her hand crushed by the Boomer woman bodyguard. Leon, just then returning from the investigation inside, intervenes before permanent damage is done. Unfortunately, later that day, Chief Todo informs Leon that the case has been closed by the suits upstairs. Needless to say, Leon is a bit pissed off by that and suspects, rightfully, that Genom has pressured the police to officially drop the case.
Next, Sylia contracts with General Schwartz of the USSD to recover Cynthia's sattelite control system, the "Black Box". After agreeing to payment on delivery, she and the rest of the Knight Sabers discuss the job at her penthouse apartment in the Lady633 building. Only Linna has reservations about the job, not being thrilled about payment on delivery, but the rest of the team begins working. Priss hits the streets for information and even convinces Leon to treat her to lunch while she's hitting him up for information too. Nene and Mackie both begin serching the Net and hacking databases for information, at least until Nene falls asleep on Mackie's shoulder.
Linna, after deciding to sit this job out, meets and talks with Irene, the woman who tried to slap Mason earlier. Linna learns that the man who Irene lost was her fiancee, and that he was killed in the explosion. Not only that, but Irene blames Mason for his death. The two become friends over a day of shopping, walking through Chinatown, and eating. Unfortunately, they have been being stalked by one of Mason's bodyguards, a Boomer woman who arranges to have Linna's car towed. Now on foot, the initial vehiclular assault on Linna destroys the phone booth she was calling for a ride from, and after a protracted chase through alleys and up stairs and highway ramps, the Boomer woman kills Irene with 8 inch long razor fingernails. Vengeance motivates Linna in a way that "payment on delivery" failed to, and she decides that she'll take the job to recover the Black Box.
After meeting at the Lady633 building and getting outfitted with hardsuits, motorslaves, and unmarked transportation, the Knight Sabers go after Mason in his secret laboratory in a large factory complex. Combat ensues between the highly maneuverable Boomer women and the Knight Sabers, and after a moderately prolonged sequence where Linna and Sylia show all the moves of martial artists, the Boomer women are destroyed. But it's at this point that the Knight Sabers encounter and Mason's new, bright red SuperBoomer. The SuperBoomer begins to access an control the laser sattelites at one point, and the Knight Sabers' weapons are revealed as less than omnipotent against Boomer armor before they can finally destroy the SuperBoomer with a concerted attack by knucklebombers and railguns.
The episode ends with Linna saying that it is better to have the Black Box destroyed than recovered, and then with Linna placing flowers on Irene's grave.
Interesting or Fun Details
- Linna and Priss both use thier motorslaves in the attack on the factory. But wasn't Priss' destroyed in the last episode? And doesn't this episode take place only a few days to a week or so before the final combat?
- Leon not only wears his shades at night, but he wears them indoors as well, specifically while he's polishing his pistol.
- Sylia's red Mercedes has a lot of "optional extras".
- Priss rushes out on Leon after the two of them seemed to be accidently(at least for Priss) getting a bit closer than intended. Priss was also blushing when she left.
- Priss is riding her second racing bike, and this one's blue. Is it the same as the one she "borrowed" in Tinsel City?
- Daley hits on Leon in the ADP headquarters, a sure indication that Daley is a homosexual.
- Linna removes Irene's engagement ring from her finger and takes it with her after Irene was dropped from the overpass.
Episode Review
Originally, I really didn't like this episode much. It seemed slow, uneventful, and generally of lower quality than most of the others. However, after spending a little more time watching it, I find that it has grown on me a little, mostly because this episode develops Linna much more than Tinsel City did. Some of the bits and peices I really do enjoy are Daley's homosexuality and Linna's complaints about payment on delivery. But that notwithstanding, I still feel that this episode is probably my least favorite out of all the episodes. The music isn't particularly exciting, with the exception of Mad Machine, and while there is a good amount of depth and character development to the episode, it seems that the quality of the plot was sacrificed some in order to develop Linna, Priss, and Leon.
This episode spends a lot of time developing Linna as a character. After she was left almost totally alone in the first episode, Linna needed to be developed more. In addition, Daley Wong and Chief Todo are introduced.
- Linna: In a continuation of the first episode, the first real characterization of Linna in Born to Kill is in Sylia's penthouse, where Linna turns down the job tracking down the sattelite control box Cynthia had built into her. This reveals and solidifies the materialism she showed in the end of Tinsel City. But immediately after that, Linna goes out of her way to befriend Irene and to help her. Linna shows that she's as much the "standard" woman as Irene is - a woman who enjoys eating out and shopping. In this way Linna is revealed to be the most "normal" of all the Knight Sabers.
When Irene is being chased down by her assassin, Linna also shows that she's pretty intelligent, for where Priss would rush right in without a care in the world, Linna calls Sylia for backup first. But after Irene's death, we also learn that Linna is not above seeking personal vengeance against the people responsible for the death of a friend. That her quest for vengeance happens to correspond with the Knight Sabers' job is just an added bonus, although whether Linna would have been able or inclined to use her hardsuit to attack Mason's factory is never said. By the end of the episode, Linna has said that it was better for the sattelite controller "Black Box" to be destroyed than for the Knight Sabers to collect thier pay, a departure from her original, nearly pure materialism.
- Priss: Again, Priss reveals and reinforces her hair-trigger temper, this time when she rushes a police line, racks the poor officer who happened to be in her way, and then proceeds to attack one of Mason's bodyguards, a bad move even if the bodyguard hadn't been a Boomer woman.
When Priss is out and about searching for information on what happened in Genom with the explosion, she calls Leon and lets him treat her to an expensive lunch. She attempts to manipulate Leon, and mostly succeeds, into revealing everything he knows about the now officially closed case. But while she gets her information, she get embarrassed by Leon's closeness to her and obvious come-on in the restaurant where she was angry at him for a only slightly more obvious come-on over the phone.
Priss's and Leon's restaurant encounter takes both characters a little further into each other's lives, a fact I personally find rather enjoyable.
- Nene: Nene is barely developed at all in this episode, only slightly more so than Sylia. However, considering the poor state of Nene's development in Tinsel City, there was nowhere to go but up, so much of what we see about Nene is new.
The development we see in Nene is mostly at the end of the episode, when the Knight Sabers are about to or in the process of assaulting the factory complex. First off, we learn that Nene is an intelligence and electronics person rather than a powerful combat character. Linna and Sylia are both strong melee fighters, Priss is excellent at ranged combat, but Nene is good at neither, prefering to stay well out of the way. She is shown in this episode to be the weakest fighter by far.
- Sylia: From the first episode, we already knew that Sylia was the organizer and leader of the Knight Sabers. We see yet more examples of this in Born to Kill, such as Sylia arranging with General Schwartz to recover the sattelite control system. Unfortunately, Sylia doesn't really develop much in this episode beyond the characterization we are left with at the end of Tinsel City.
- Mackie: Continuing in the same vein as the first episode, we see Mackie is definately a standard teenaged boy. We are again shown his rather letcherous side as he watches Sylia undress on the monitor from the cab of the transport truck. Of course, Sylia notices and yells at him, throwing her blouse over the camera.
- Leon: Leon is developed a decent amount in this episode. First off, his temper is revealed when he confronts Cheif Todo about the reasons why the investigation into the explosion at Genom was closed. In the same exchange, we learn that Leon is personally offended by politics within the AD Police, and feels, rightly, that the politics interferes with his job. Earlier, Leon showed his willingness to use the power of the police to bully people into doing what he wants them to do, specifically when he saves Priss from getting her hand crushed.
In the course of his meal with Priss, though, we see even more of Leon. Leon shows a slight paranoid streak when he wonders why Priss wants to know about the explosion. Leon is also pretty intelligent and has a quick and perceptive mind. Not only that, but Leon's attraction to Priss is made even more obvious - so obvious, in fact, that even Priss may have taken him seriously.
- Daley: The most interesting thing about Daley, and the most important, is that Daley is revealed to be a homosexual. Considering cultural inhibitions against homosexuality in general, the concept that a gay man could rise to the rank of Police Detective is nothing short of amazing and revolutionary.
Beyond his homosexuality, Daley also appears to have a good sense of humor, especially where Leon is involved. Daley openly proposition Daley in front of his coworkers, and Daley seems to feign surprise when Leon turns him down. It's pretty obvious after the first exchange between these two friends and partners that it's all a big joke between them, and that everyone else is privilaged to be a part of it.
- Chief Todo: We only meet Chief Todo for a minute or two, when Leon and he are arguing rather loudly about the explosion case having been closed. Leon obviously doesn't have a lot of respect for his superior, and that disdain appears to be returned by Todo. Todo is presented as a hard-ass and something of a toady for his superiors, the politically motivated and pressurable boys upstairs in the AD Police heirarchy. Beyond this, though, Todo remains undeveloped at this point.
Episode Analysis In addition to the character development, there are some interesting issues raised in this anime, issues which I may be able to make a little sense out of. The first and most blatent statement is Daley Wong's blatent, open homosexuality. In neither the US or Japan is being openly gay or bisexual generally accepted today, never mind 10 years ago when Bubblegum Crisis was originally released. Daley's homosexuality would keep him from acheiving any real level of authority in present-day Japan, as he would face subtle but ultimately unbreachable resistance from all fronts, yet here he is, a Police Detective. To place a gay man in such an important position in the series is a slap in the face to anyone who would hold anyone down for thier sexual orientation, or perhaps for any "disability".
The second statement is about the power of politics. In this episode, political manipulations of the heads of the AD Police brings about the closing of an investigation which obviously should not be closed. No conclusions have time to be drawn, no evidence time to be examined, and so the closing of the case can only be for one reason - a careful investigation would reveal illegalities by Genom. Since Genom cannot afford it, they pressure the AD Police to give up. No investigation means that the police can suspect all they want, but with no evidence, no proof of wrongdoing can ever be presented and Genom is ultimately safe from prosecution and bad press. This is a blatent abuse of corporate power not too dissimilar to the abuses shown in the movie Rising Sun, and this abuse has a similar message - corporations have too much power over public figures and institutions like the police, and that the corporations exercise that power regularly.
The last issue raised by this episode relates directly to the female Boomers that Mason uses as his bodyguards. We are shown conflicting images of them, from protectors to assassins. This is some dialoge about the potentials of any technology. Not only does Genom build combat and construction boomers, but sometimes even the exact same Boomer can be used for radically divergant things, such as protection and murder. It seems that this episode, like so much of Bubblegum Crisis, is telling us that technology isn't so much good or evil inherently, but rather that how that technology is used is what makes it good or evil.
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Revised - September 21, 2000
