Please click on the image to return to the Bubblegum Crisis Base Page.
| Plot Synopsis | Interesting and Fun Details |
| Episode Review | Character Development |
| Episode Analysis | |
Plot Synopsis
This episode opens with a bang, with Sylia in her hardsuit killing a Boomer, or possibly a person. Shortly thereafter, Nene, or rather someone else wearing Nene's hardsuit, tells Largo that they have nearly finished with the mission. The action continues as the Knight Sabers steal a cargo container filled with combat Boomers, killing several people in the process. This is obviously not something that the Knight Sabers would normally do. In the process, we discover that Largo has plans for the Knight Sabers themselves - specifically, their destruction.
In a fuzzy and discolored flashback, Leon remembers the his recent battle with the D.D. Battlemover. At this point, Leon regains consciousness to see that the Knight Sabers have actually beaten the D.D. After a glad, if pained, comment, Leon is surprised to recognize Priss as one of the Knight Sabers, and then he wakes up from an apparent nightmare, his chest and shoulder bandaged with tape, in his apartment. What finally pulls Leon out of his torpor is a call from Daley saying that the Knight Sabers had broken into a Genom warehouse the night before and stole a cargo container.
Back at Genom, the senior management from various subdivisions and associated corporations are deep into a meeting. Various accusations are flying back and forth across the room, including one that parts of Genom are in secret collaboration with the Knight Sabers, based solely on the recent theft of the combat Boomers. After some not so subtle questioning of various people's integrity, Quincy himself appears on an overhead monitor and asks for a report. The chairman of the meeting indicates that whoever stole the container had internal help. After hearing that, Quincy requests that Kate Madigan be sent to him. Madigan, the Vice-President of Information, is at work in her computer-filled security and intelligence section. Anri, with a slightly different haircut, appears to be working in that section, although it's obvious that she isn't working directly for Madigan. After a close call where Anri nearly pulls a gun on Madigan, Anri is left undiscovered by Madigan's summons to Quincy's office.
At AD Police Headquarters, Leon and Daley are discussing the recent thefts of the cargo container and several bank robberies at the firing range, honing their skills. Both of them seem to find it a bit odd that the Knight Sabers would send a notice to the AD Police saying when and which bank they plan to rob next. After a few minutes of firing, some of which irritates Leon's injuries, Leon and Daley notice that there is someone else in the range rapid firing a pistol. Nene herself, down several lanes, is angrily firing her pistol at a target but doing more damage to the bullet trap around the target than the target itself. Leon starts to make a rather snide comment about her technique or lack thereof until he sees that Nene isn't just firing her pistol, but she's crying as well.
Later that day, Linna, Nene, Mackie, and Sylia are in Sylia's penthouse apartment discussing the recent message. The note is an obvious trap, but even so, Nene want's to find the Knight Saber impostors and "do" them, implying assassination. Sylia, as always, is cold and efficient, even when Priss finally shows up and quietly tells the rest of the Knight Sabers that she has only come to tell them she is leaving the team. Everyone but Sylia, who immediately starts changing her plans, is stunned as Priss leaves, obviously emotionally distraught from Sylvie's recent death.
After her brief stint in Genom, Anri has acquired some top secret data that Largo required - the schedule of a certain Defense Minister's movements, and Largo reveals that he plans to blackmail Quincy by threatening to expose Genom's connection to the Minister. Anri also reminds Largo that she has every intention of avenging Sylvie's death. However, as comforting as Largo's words are, his facial expression and the glint in his eye makes it obvious that he's manipulating Anri to get what he wants from her.
At night, three of the fake Knight Sabers (Nene's suit is missing) have actually taken over the bank that they told the AD Police they would. Leon, down on the ground with the bulk of the AD Police officers, is listening to news of the battle over the radio when he hears the screams of men being killed. Understandably, this pisses off Leon enough that he decides to attack the Knight Sabers himself, wearing a K-12S powered suit. While this is going and the fake Knight Sabers are waiting for the real ones to appear, Priss is packing her various belongings into duffel bags in her trailer. Still depressed, she rips a Priss and the Replicants concert poster off the wall, wads it up into a ball, and throws it. It lands at the feet of a recently arrived Sylia. After a quick talk where Sylia attempts to convince Priss to come back and help the Knight Sabers, Sylia gets the call that the AD Police are having problems with the fake Knight Sabers, and she leaves.
Back at the bank, the AD Police are still having a really tough time with the fake Knight Sabers and Leon himself, in a very beat-up K-12S, is in combat with the impostor Priss. Seeing as Leon thinks that he's fighting Priss herself, he's demanding an explanation as to why she and the rest of the Knight Sabers would be doing this, and he's not getting any answer. Luckily for Leon, the real Knight Sabers choose this point to show up. Almost immediately, the impostors reveal themselves as Largo's Hyperboomers, a very advanced, intelligent, and dangerous breed of Boomer. Leon, after hearing from Daley that the Defense Minister had just been kidnapped, leaves the battle in the capable hands of the Knight Sabers and heads off in a patrol chopper to attempt to catch the kidnappers. Unfortunately for the Knight Sabers, the three Hyperboomers are significantly more than they can handle, and they are beaten handily. At one point, all three of the Knight Sabers are backed up to the edge of the building when Sylia orders Linna and Nene to escape while she sacrifices herself in a distraction. Only the timely arrival of Mackie flying Sylia's rocket armed Skycarrier saves the wounded and exhausted Knight Sabers.
On the highway, Priss is driving her motorcycle when she passes Anri, Largo, and the kidnapped Defense Minister going the other direction. Priss, after recognizing Anri, stops, turns around, and starts chasing after the car Anri's driving. Back at Genom, Madigan has identified Anri as the leak which enabled the Defense Minister to be kidnapped and she orders the BU-55S Boomer tailing the car to attack. When the Boomer does attack, Largo destroys it with what appears to be an orbital laser strike. Considering that the Black Box satellite controller was supposedly destroyed by the Knight Sabers at the end of Born to Kill, this shouldn't be possible. Fusing with the head of the destroyed Boomer, Largo sends a message to Madigan demanding to speak to Quincy about something called the OMS, the Overmind Control System. As soon as he's finished, Leon appears and attempts to arrest Largo, but instead Largo calls down another laser strike that destroys the AD Police chopper and injures Leon.
Largo picks up Leon by his throat and proceeds to slowly crush the life out of him. But Priss puts an expertly shot pistol bullet through Largo's right hand, forcing Largo to release the now unconscious Leon. Unfortunately for Priss, though, Largo, using a very melodramatic arm gesture, calls down yet another laser strike over the objections of Anri, which shatters Priss' helmet and damages her bike. Anri, seeing the attack and thinking Priss dead, has a flashback to the day that Priss showed up at Sylvie's apartment with the data disk which Sylvie had stolen from Genom in an attempt to repair Anri.
After Largo gets back in the car and he, the Defense Minister, and Anri drive off, Priss recovers from her near-death experience to finally recognize Leon. After expressing some concern for his well-being, he rolls over, half sits up, and tells her to be careful fighting Largo because he's like none of the opponents she's ever faced before. Priss tries not to appear shocked that Leon knows she's a Knight Saber, also seems a bit surprised that Leon doesn't want her to get hurt. As soon as an AD Police chopper shows up, Priss turns around and heads off.
At Genom, Quincy and Madigan are discussing Largo's demands and, in particular, his demand of the OMS. Quincy comments that giving the OMS to Largo might literally mean the end of humanity, and then indicates that Genom can handle protests, but only if the human race survives long enough to protest Genom's corruption of a Defense Minister. But Quincy also indicates that he's curious to see the man and the mind which could set such a large and complex plan into motion successfully. Largo, pulling close to Genom, angrily recalls the Hyperboomers to back him up at Genom, and then pulls up outside the front entrance to the Tower. Madigan personally executes the Defense Minister, and then escorts Largo up the Tower to see Quincy. Once they are all in Quincy's office, Largo reveals his intention to help make Boomers a new, independent species. In order to demonstrate his power, Largo uses the orbital sattelites to destroy several of Genom's towers around the world, followed by various targets within MegaTokyo itself. After a brief interlude where Priss is seen, dressed in her hardsuit, flying in her motorslave toward the Tower, Largo's daring and arrogance has even surprised and upset Quincy, and Madigan orders all 8 BU-55S bodyguards to attack Largo. With a lower power laser strike, Largo destroys all of the attacking Boomers and, as an added bonus, kills Madigan too. Unfortunately for Largo, he realizes that the Quincy he's been talking to was an android and Quincy's image appears on the multivision to gloat over the outmaneuvered Largo.
Just as Largo and Anri are about to leave, Priss shows up, sans her motorslave, and tries to convince Anri to come with her and leave Largo. After injuring Priss and shattering her helmet with a gravity blast, Largo gives Anri a knife and tells her that Priss was the person who killed Sylvie. Anri rushes Priss and drives the knife through the hardsuit and into Priss' side, only to be surprised that Priss is crying over Sylvie's death. Priss explains why she o kill Sylvie and Anri realizes how badly she's been manipulated by Largo. Largo, gloating that he manipulated Sylvie just as he did Anri, who has just outlived her usefulness, blasts away at Priss again, but Anri throws herself into the line of fire, sacrificing herself to save Priss. Priss, who is now really pissed off at Largo, shoots a railgun at him, which he actually catches, throws back into her shoulder, and then Largo throws Priss through a heavily armored window. Priss then finds herself facing all three of Largo's Hyperboomers and, in the ensuing battle, her hardsuit is totally destroyed.
However, just as Priss is about to die, the new Typhoon 2 Motorslave, designed to replace her old (and now destroyed) Typhoon motorslave, saves her. Not only does it immediately kill one of the three Hyperboomers, it is carrying a new style hardsuit for Priss, one with improved weaponry and armor. With a little help from the motorslave, Priss and her new hardsuit make quick work of the remaining two Hyperboomers. Priss then turns her attention on Largo himself, and though she damages her brand new suit, she also shatters one of Largo's arms. In revenge for "daring to injure a god", he summons an orbital laser strike. By this point, though, the rest of the Knight Sabers have arrived. Linna, now using the original MSX-01 Motorslave and armed with a beam cannon capable of reaching orbit, and Nene work together to interface, track, and destroy the laser satellite before it kills them all. The attack destroys the satellite and the beam, no longer controlled, misses the Knight Sabers and instead streaks toward Largo himself, doing a lot of damage before he can get out of the way. Somehow, the beam doesn't kill Largo, and Largo starts talking to Sylia again, hinting that they are both the same in some way. Only a beautifully timed and aimed bullet from Leon's Earth Shaker handgun keeps Largo from killing the distracted Sylia with a blast from his mouth laser. The shot to the head knocks Largo off the top of the Tower and, hopefully, the fall kills him.
The episode ends with Priss commenting that Leon is "quite a guy" and with Sylia making the comment that mere humans need not fear Brian J. Mason and his plans anymore.
Interesting or Fun Details
- Daley may be gay, but he's not a weakling. Look at his build in the firing range, and don't miss his rose tattoo.
- For a person who hates to clean (see Blow Up above), Priss' trailer sure is neat and tidy.
- Largo is not only megalomaniac, he's got a flair for the melodramatic gesture, especially when "calling down" laser satellite strikes.
- At the end of the episode, Largo is telling Sylia that he and she are two of a kind, which begs certain questions about what, precisely, he meant by that....
- Priss' hardsuit actually has the word "hardsuit" written on it, as you can see when Anri stabs her. Actually, this is probably apparent in earlier episodes when there's a close-up of a hardsuit, but this is the episode that I noticed that detail first.
- When Leon is cleaning his gun and listening to the battle reports from the bank, he's wearing his sunglasses.
- Priss' new hardsuit has a very different access method than her old one did - the parts close around limbs and the torso rather than being stepped into and pulled on.
Episode Review This episode is, by far, my favorite episode, although I must admit that another episode, specifically Moonlight Rambler, the episode that leads into this one, has been gaining on Red Eye's in recent viewings. There are many reasons why I like this episode as much as I do.
First off, Priss shows that she's human, frail enough that she doesn't handle emotions (hers or Leon's) very well. Her facade of control is totally shattered in this episode. Second, Linna's observation about perception of reality is extremely poignant and is an idea that is only rarely discussed or considered in any serious novel, never mind an anime. Thirdly, Leon shows that he has a tender side in this episode. He doesn't come down hard on Nene after he realizes that she's crying as she target shoots a pistol, and he very seriously asks Priss to be careful fighting Largo, as he doesn't want her to get hurt. And yet another reason that I really like this episode is that it has quite a bit of depth, as it dares to ask some hard questions about the nature of humanity and what it means to be human, about institutional racism, and people playing God. And of course, the confusion that Largo's final comments to Sylia creates is simply wonderful, although I have an admittedly warped sense of wonderful in this regard.
The last reason that I really like this episode is that it has some great action. The battle between the Knight Sabers minus Priss and the Hyperboomers is great as much because the Knight Sabers have finally met an opponent that they can't beat as for the actual battle scenes. And Priss' combat scene with Largo and his Hyperboomers is just plain amazing.
However, all that being said, there are some problems with this episode. The biggest problem that I have with this episode is that there is way too much melodrama for my tastes, most of it from Priss. When Priss is engaged with Largo, Priss makes way too many melodramatic comments, like "Give me enough power to lay this guy low". It really has no place in the middle of a combat scene. Even if she might be thinking it, there wouldn't be enough time in combat for Priss to actually say such things out loud. In addition to the melodrama, there is a technical continuity problem between this episode and Tinsel City, namely the laser satellites. The satellites as described in episode one would have more then enough power to destroy all of MegaTokyo, yet they seem not to have enough power to kill Priss on the highway or to instantly melt Largo's body at the end. If the satellites are powerful enough to kill a thousand square kilometers, then they should have vaporized Priss and, later, Largo. But if they have only enough power to injure Priss and Largo, then they shouldn't have enough power to destroy a thousand square kilometers. One or the other, not both. And finally, I found that the background music was very nice, but that the opening theme music and closing credit music were rather forgettable.
Character Development
- Leon: This episode shows that even a well developed character like Leon changes some. For example, Leon actually holds back from making a snide comment to Nene about her pistol shooting once he realizes that she's crying and very upset while she's shooting. Before this episode, Leon is shown as occasionally callous and generally tactless, but here we see that he's actually got a more tender side to his personality than he usually shows.
This tenderness is the biggest new glimpse into Leon's personality that we see in Red Eye's, and the most significant instance of it is toward Priss, a woman who, by the end of the episode, we know he likes more than just a little. In the beginning of the episode, Leon realizes that Priss is one of the Knight Sabers. While the AD Police may approve of what the Knight Sabers are doing, they are still vigilantes and mercenaries and criminals because of it. Yet Leon does nothing about Priss once he realizes that she's a Knight Saber. Not only that, but when Leon is just getting mobile again after being knocked out by Largo, he tells her that Largo isn't like any of her previous enemies, to be careful, and that he doesn't want her to get hurt. For Leon, a man who hides his emotions behind a dam of confidence and flirtatiousness nearly as well as Priss hides hers, this is essentially opening the floodgates. Leon is essentially saying to Priss that he knows who and what she is, that he's not going to turn her in, and that he really does care for her a lot. Up until this point, Leon's come-ons to Priss could have been blown off easily, but now they're serious.
- Priss: Priss shows quite a few sides of her personality in this episode, especially her emotions and how she reacts to certain things. First off, Priss feels so guilty about killing Sylvie that she comes to a meeting of the Knight Sabers for the express purpose of telling them that she's quitting. She just can't handle the guilt and grief she feels and is willing to abandon literally everything - even her music - just to run away from the pain she's feeling. Second, Priss commented at the end of Moonlight Rambler that she couldn't betray a friend, in that case Sylvie, and not deliver the data disk to Anri. Yet isn't Priss' current actions a betrayal of her friends Nene, Linna, and Sylia? This is an image of a woman who is either so aggrieved that she can't think straight or of a woman who just can't see any other way to make the pain go away. That leaving the Knight Sabers will only make her pain worse probably hasn't even entered Priss' mind.
Priss shows another side of herself that we've seen only a little bit before. In Blow Up, we saw Priss' tender side toward Sho and his mother. In Moonlight Rambler, we saw Priss' ability to make friends and how she reacted when that friend turned out to be "only human" and yet a Boomer too. In this episode, though, we see how Priss' emotions have changed in regard to Leon. It's subtle, but Priss started off hating cops and hating men. By the end of this episode, Priss is not only taking Leon a little more seriously, but she even goes so far as to say that "Leon is quite a guy", a compliment which, coming from Priss, is a major change of heart. Priss is still trying to keep Leon distant, as her comment about not even getting into a hospital bed with Leon shows, but her overall opinion of Leon has changed quite a bit.
Personally, I think that Priss is starting to realize that she likes Leon, but she's just not willing to admit it to herself yet, and she's certainly not willing to admit it to Leon.
- Nene: The only real character development beyond the romantic, slightly conceited, beautiful, intelligent, and sexually frustrated Nene that we know and love occurs in the firing range. Nene, frustrated and angry to the point of tears, attempts to work off her anger by target firing her pistol. Unfortunately, she's not a very good shot, but the fact that Nene actually gets so emotional about what's happening to the good name of the Knight Sabers is the real surprise. Up until now, Nene had been emotional, yes, but never driven close to the point of tears like she is here.
- Sylia: Sylia seems to play a secondary role in this episode, with two exceptions. The first is that, contrary to her usual coldness, Sylia actually is willing to sacrifice herself to save Linna and Nene from the Hyperboomers. This is an act of compassion and self-sacrifice which I find to be nearly totally outside Sylia's standard character. It adds so much depth to Sylia that it's frightening. Of course, it could just be the pragmatic course of action which Sylia calculated would provide the greatest chance of escape and eventual success for Linna and Nene. Somehow, though, a calculation like that would mean that Sylia would sacrifice Nene (i.e. throw Nene to the wolves) rather than herself, so I don't buy the second explanation.
The second exception is at the very end, when Largo tells Sylia that they are both the same. Largo is a Boomer version of Brian J. Mason, who Sylia killed in Blow Up, and so he has the body of a Boomer and the mind of a human. To indicate that Sylia is the same as Largo is to propose that Sylia is either a Boomer herself or that she has, as many people believe and that the Adam Warren Grand Mal manga from Dark Horse Comics says, an artificial brain. She's still Sylia in most respects, but she's both more and less than a human being, if either possibility is true. Largo's proposal to Sylia also might have been just a distraction technique so that he could kill her with his mouth laser, but the fact that Sylia was so distracted by the concept that Largo could have surprised her indicates that there might be more than meets the eye. Regardless, the series provides no real answers, only more questions.
- Linna: While Linna develops very little in this episode, she does make a very important and telling observation which no other character does make. When the Knight Sabers are discussing the recent thefts of property by the fake Knight Sabers, Nene makes the comment that the press is making the Knight Sabers out to be monsters. Linna's observation is that, to the public reading the newspapers, the Knight Sabers are monsters. This is an observation that it's not reality that is truly important, but rather the perception of reality. It's a very realistic and pragmatic observation from a character who is probably the most pragmatic and realistic character in the entire series.
Episode Analysis There are quite a few interesting issues presented in this episode, just as there were in Moonlight Rambler before it. First and foremost is the concept of racism, followed closely by people playing God, and ending with "what does it mean to be human?".
Racism was first introduced in the prior episode when Sylvie, Anri, and the other 33-S Sexaroids had decided to escape the Genaros Station and to try and live as free beings on Earth. The commentary on racism continued through the rest of the episode, asking whether someone as human as the Boomer Sylvie could truly be considered property. After all, Boomers are artificially intelligent and are thus essentially slaves. In Red Eye's, though, these questions are tackled more directly. Largo demands that his people, the Boomers, be set free. He says, rightly, that Boomers have the potential to become a new species, and that humanity is keeping them from achieving their potential. When the episode starts, Sylvie has already given her life to save the lives of her friends and all the lives in MegaTokyo, yet the law would see her sacrifice rather as the destruction of an artificial being, nothing better than property, no matter what emotions she had been able to invoke in her friends or what her reasons for self-sacrifice were. All that the laws of humanity seem designed to do is to keep Boomers from reaching a point where they can demand the same rights and privileges that human beings do, and this is institutional racism. That Sylvie and Anri are arguably the two most caring and, yes, human, characters in the entire series was probably intentional, a way to show the viewer what racism was doing and how it was/is just plain wrong.
Tied closely to the concept of racism is that of people playing God. Humanity played God in the creation of Boomers to begin with, and they created beings which could pass any of Turing's artificial intelligence tests with ease. By the laws of humanity, then, these beings should have been citizens, yet they were relegated by fear and hatred to property and slaves. But in this episode, there is another type of God being created and being played - Largo sees himself as a messiah for Boomers, yet values them even lower than humans like Priss and the rest of the Knight Sabers do. He also intends to play God for humanity, should anything of humanity survive Largo's coming to power. And so it comes full circle - God creates man in his own image, man decides to try and emulate God and proceeds to create Boomers in his own image, Boomers decide that they want to emulate man and destroy their own creators, specifically man, just as man destroyed God. Cynical, perhaps, but relatively accurate, I feel.
Finally, as I've mentioned above, the question of what does being human mean is again raised in this episode. In this case, though, it's raised not only with Anri and her self-sacrifice to save Priss from destruction, but also by Largo, who's obsessions and megalomania seem all too human. Yet both are Boomers, artificial beings constructed by humanity. What definitions are keeping them from being human? Is it merely that they're constructed? Or is it something deeper and more psychological than that? Because if it's a deeper, psychological reason, then Anri, Sylvie, and even Largo all qualify to be as human as Nene, or Leon, or Sylia. I don't think that this series intends to come down on one side or another on this issue, but I do think that the series is supposed to raise these questions and get the viewer thinking about them. This is one of the best reasons I have for why this anime is one of the best anime ever released.
All images © of Youmex / AIC and appear courtesy of AIC and AnimEigo.
Webpage © 1997 - 2000, Brian Angliss
Revised - September 21, 2000
