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Plot Synopsis

The last of the Bubblegum Crisis OVA episodes opens with a slow camera pan across MegaTokyo, beginning at the Genom Tower and finishing at a building where a battle between the Knight Sabers and several Boomers is taking place. Both Linna and Priss are in melee combat and after a couple of seconds, all the Boomers are destroyed. Immediately after the last Boomer falls, a young blonde woman snaps a photograph of Priss in her hardsuit. Priss being Priss, she gets a little bit upset, leaps up into the building that the blonde was watching from, grabs the woman's arm and forces her to drop the camera, and then finally crushes the woman's camera.

As the opening credits roll, the individual Knight Sabers go through their respective morning routines. Linna is out enjoying the morning while she jogs, Sylia is reading her morning newspaper and drinking her coffee, Priss is sleeping in yet again next to her guitar and scattered sheet music, Mackie bursts in on Sylia in a successful attempt to see his sister in sexy lingerie as usual, and Nene is finally woken up by a red-headed friend. Somehow Nene gets dressed nearly instantly and she rushes out the door to work, riding a motorscooter to get there. In addition, Leon is working out with his barbells and Daley is stretching while rising off Leon's couch.

Upon her arrival, Nene is called into Chief Todo's office, where the blonde woman from the opening sequence is introduced as Lisa Vanette, Chief Todo's 18 year-old niece who is on winter break from high school. Not only that, but Lisa aspires to become a news photographer like her father. Todo orders Nene to escort Lisa around for the next week, and Nene, not exactly happily, follows her orders. The two of them head out in a AD Police car in search of something interesting for Lisa and some work for Nene, and Lisa reveals that her goal for the next week is to uncover the real identities of the Knight Sabers. Nene almost has an accident after hearing that from Lisa, and she gets immediately nervous. In an attempt to impress Lisa, Nene pulls over a speeding motorcycle whose rider just happens to be Priss. Needless to say, Priss is not at all amused.

Dr. Miriam, the cheif engineer/scientist for a Genom subsidiary responsible for manufacturing construction Boomers, shows up for work. His boss congratulates him on the performance booster he designed, since that booster is responsible for making the subsidiary the leading seller of Boomers in all of Genom. Miriam, however, harbors a huge resentment for his boss based in the fact that the boss is stealing all Miriam's credit, and so Dr. Miriam begins stealing several of the construction Boomers for his personal use and modification.

That evening at the AD Police cafeteria, Lisa and Nene are talking about Lisa and her interest in photography when Sylia pages Nene. Nene, with a guilty look on her face, makes up a quick excuse to escape what has just become a very uncomfortable situation. After Nene leaves, Lisa hears that there's a Boomer incident at a construction site and ignores both her uncle's and Daley's objections about going to the incident with Daley and the AD Police officers. When they arrive, the AD Police set up a perimeter around the building, and Lisa, with her trusty new camera, bluffs her way up an adjacent building. Once she reaches the roof, she carefully goes out on a ledge and starts taking photographs of the battle between the Boomers (which look a lot like the ones that Miriam's subsidiary manufactures) and the Knight Sabers. At one point in the battle, Nene's helmet visor by a Boomer, although the Knight Sabers easily win the battle. While battle is engaged, Dr. Miriam is analyzing the data which is coming in from the battle and the modified Boomers. Once the battle is over, Lisa goes home and downloads the images from her camera. One of the images appears to be a shot of Nene, although the angle isn't quite good enough to be certain.

Later, Sylia and Fargo meet at a drive-in to discuss the recent Boomer activities. Fargo, after some cajoling and a failed come-on to Sylia, tells her that the incidents all appear to be the work of a single man, but that they're not related to corporate Genom in any way he has been able to discover.

The next morning, Nene is barely on time to work, and her friend Naoato begins to suspect that Nene has been out with a boyfriend. Lisa eavesdrops and overhears that Nene has a cut on her cheek - a cut which would match what could have happened in the battle. This little peice of evidence, when linked with the photograph, gets Lisa suspecting Nene's involvement even more strongly. But when Lisa goes to a computer terminal to check Nene's story about schedules changing at the last minute, she sees the schedules change literally before her eyes, as Nene is altering them. Lisa then spends some time talking to the rest of the officers who know about Nene, and Leon does observe that Nene seems to disappear during Boomer incidents. Eventually, Lisa confronts Nene about the cut on her cheek, and Nene has to lie about not wearing her helmet for a while when she "fell off her scooter".

Once Nene goes off-duty, she takes off on her scooter, with Lisa on a bicycle trying very hard to keep up. Nene goes first to a Silky Doll lingerie shop, and then from there off to Raven's Garage. When she arrives, Linna is in a hologram training room being tested for her new suit and Priss is in a strength tester. Priss teases Nene about being so weak, but Nene responds with a jab at Priss for her speeding ticket. Linna successfully breaks her previous personal record, but when Nene goes in to test, she does even worse than she had on her previous test. After a series of other tests, Nene's scores have actually dropped some since her last suit was designed, and Priss and Linna tease her mercilessly about having gained weight and lost muscle mass. While the testing is going on, Lisa paces back and forth outside the garage, in a very blatent manner. After a while, Mackie notices Lisa and calls Sylia about her. Nene tells the rest of the team who Lisa is and why she's there. Once the training and testing sequence is finished, Nene manages to give Lisa the slip with a little help from her friends.

Upon arrival at work the next morning, Nene is given a huge amount of work to do because she's fallen behind in the process of helping Lisa. Lisa, taking advantage of Nene's distracted state, plants the photo she took of Nene getting her face cut in the battle, and Nene's reaction all but gives her away. After a couple of tense minutes and several terribly obvious lies, Lisa heads off to leave Nene alone. But Lisa doesn't go very far, stopping to watch Nene from the corridor. Leon comes up on Lisa and asks her what she's doing, and when she responds "trying to scare Nene", Leon decides to show Lisa how to properly scare someone and Nene, already distracted and nervous, nearly has a nervous breakdown when Leon scares her.

Later that day, Dr. Miriam is in his computer filled lab working on several new design Boomers. He needs just a little more data on the Knight Sabers hardsuits, though, and so he sends out a couple more modified construction Boomers to attract the attention of the Knight Sabers. That night, Nene is treating Lisa to an expensive dinner after work when she receives yet another call from Sylia. Nene rushes off, leaving Lisa to make the connection that Nene must be fighting Boomers again. After making that connectoin, Lisa leaves the restaurant and goes to Raven's Garage where she waits for Nene and the rest of the Knight Sabers to return. After the battle with the Boomers is over, Sylia meets Lisa and the two of them have a discussion about the Kight Sabres, why they fight Genom, thier expensive fees, etc. After telling Lisa her name, Sylia climbs into her Mercedes and drives off, taking Nene with her.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Miriam has completed his Boomers, and decides to test them in an attack on the AD Police headquarters itself. Most of the building is empty because it's night and both Daley and Leon are off investigating Boomer incidents in other parts of the city. When the Boomers attack, most of the people evacuate, but Nene and Lisa, who were discussing Nene's possible Knight Sabers connection at the time, are trapped inside. When the AD Police finally reorganize, Daley has returned and is in charge, an attempt at a forced landing on the roof ends with the Boomer on the roof shooting down two ADP choppers. After asking Daley to summon the Knight Sabers, Miriam orders his Boomers to destroy the building.

When one of the Boomers fused with the computer, it sealed off the building and trapped Lisa and Nene inside. After acquiring a pistol from a weapons locker, Nene attempts to determine what really happened to the building, only to run afoul of a Boomer. However, the three clips of ammo has no real effect on the armored Boomer and Nene is about to be killed when the exterior wall blows in and Priss pins the Boomer to the opposite wall. Following Priss in is Mackie, wearing his power suit and carrying a bazooka, who picks up Nene and blasts his way up a floor or two. Upon arrival, Mackie, Mackie, who is also carrying Nene's hardsuit in his backpack, updates Nene on the situation, and after Nene is wearing the hardsuit, they both head for an auxillary computer room in an attempt to stop the attacking Boomers.

On arrival, Nene interfaces with the computer and then remembers that she left Lisa alone in the building. Nene quickly begins working to get her out of the building safely, and until a damaged emergency staircase prevents descent, Nene's attempt nearly works. However, Nene's and Mackie's manipulations of the computer has drawn the attention of both Miriam and the computer Boomer who starts going head-to-head with Nene, the Boomer trying to kill Lisa, Nene trying to save her. The battle goes to the point of controlling computer-driven guns and nerve gas dispensers. While Nene is dealing with the computer Boomer, Linna and Sylia, both wearing the new suits they were testing and training to use at the beginning, are in melee combat with the Boomers that Miriam specifically designed to overcome the original hardsuits. Eventually, after a couple of tense moments for everyone, the Knight Sabers win out. But Lisa has found her way to the computer room where Mackie and Nene are combating the computer Boomer, confirming that Nene is in fact a Knight Saber.

Miriam, now really pissed off at being beaten, orders the surviving computer Boomer to destroy the building somehow, and the computer Boomer starts by ordering the overload of the power supply. The other Knight Sabers get Lisa out of the building while Mackie and Nene stay to try and stop the overloading power cells. Miriam's attempted escape is cut short by Leon, who is returning from an incident, and Nene tricks the computer Boomer into self-destructing, thereby saving the AD Police building.

The next morning, Lisa's pictures of Leon and Daley arresting Miriam make the front page of the MegaTokyo newpaper, and she credits the Knight Sabers with saving the AD Police, but without revelaing any of their identities. Lisa also gives Nene an envelope which contains the print of Nene herself in the first battle, and the data disk which has the negatives on it.

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Interesting and Fun Details

• In the opening sequence, when we see the morning activities of all the various important characters, Leon is working out with dumb-bells, with a strange look on his face. Behind him, though Daley is waking up on the couch. The possible number of interpretations of this scene are nearly infinite, and interesting to consider.
• When Lisa joins the ADP for the first Boomer incident, she leans out and shouts "Spa!", to which the cops respond. Just something I found to be funny.
• At the drive-in, Vision is the actress on the movie being shown, and it seems to be a romance between a woman in powered armor and police man.
• When Lisa tells Leon that she's trying to scare Nene, Leon moves quietly and sneaks up on Nene. I find his movement to be so unnaturally like a spider's that it's downright funny.
• Priss comments to the Boomer she's fighting that a Boomer once broke her arm. The only broken arm in the series I remember was caused by Kou in the Genki in Double Vision.
• This is the first episode where Leon and Daley aren't actively working together. It appears as if they have been assigned to head different units. It's probably a promotion for one or both of them.
• Maybe it's just me, but Nene seems to be a much better shot when shooting at a Boomer than she is shooting at a target, as in Red Eye's.

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Episode Review

This episode isn't Moonlight Rambler or even Revenge Road, but it's still a pretty good episode.

The thing I enjoyed most about this episode was that the character and personality of Nene was finally given the same amount of time for development that all the other characters (except Sylia) have been given. Up until this episode, Nene was explored only in fits and starts, scattered across the seven prior episodes. But somehow, even those bits and peices of scenes were enough to give a general idea of where Nene's character and personality began. This episode, while focusing on Nene and Lisa in particular, also showed how Nene's personality had changed some, and in some remarkable ways too. Scoop Chase also showed just what parts of Nene's personality hadn't changed, like her vanity.

In addition, this episode shows that Nene's affections are not undirected or undetermined, but rather very well directed at a particular character - Mackie Stingray. Up until now, Nene's affection has had no apparent targets. Unfortunately, while Mackie's reactions to Nene in this episode may indicate that he's attracted to her (and what healthy, lecherous teenaged boy wouldn't be attracted to Nene, or Linna, or even Priss for that matter?), it's difficult to say with any certainty whether his attraction is more than purely physical.

Finally, I really do like the exploration of Lisa's growing up as she encounters the occasionally dirty realities of police work and interpersonal relationships, specifically between her and Nene. Her idealism and certainty gets tempered by reality, pragmatism, and a new level of maturity by the end of the episode. Watching Lisa develop is as much a part of this episode as Nene's character development.

However, all is not golden in this episode. Scoop Chase shows that there is a hole somewhere in the series with regard to the Knight Sabers. If Lisa was able to determine Nene's identity as a member of the Knight Sabers, and Leon knows about Priss, how is it possible that the VIPs of the world don't know about them, with Quincy as the best example. With all the resources at his disposal, he should know who the Knight Sabers are, but if he does, then why doesn't he do anything about them? Of course, it may just be a plot inconsistancy, but if it's not, then this issue raises a lot of questions about Genom and Quincy that are never answered or even addressed well.

And finally, the music in this episode, while appropriate to most of the scenes, is again relatively forgetable and not overly interesting.

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Character Development

• Nene: The most important character, the one that this entire episode revolves around besides Lisa, is Nene. Finally, after 8 episodes, Nene finally gets a chance to be developed as she should have been earlier in the series.

  Nene reveals a lot about herself in this episode. First off, Nene shows that she has a lot of courage when she's in her element, specifically computers. When Nene is in combat with another Boomer physically, she's self-conscious and easily frightened. But when she's in combat with the computer Boomer at the end, she's willing to trust her abilities and has the courage to risk her life to save the AD Police headquarters building. Not only that, but she is essentially able to hack the mind of the computer Boomer itself, tricking it into self-destructing. To be able to do that means that she does add to the Knight Sabers with her "amazing brain", as she said testing at Raven's Garage.

  Secondly, Nene feels that maintaining appearances is important for her. When faced with a speeding motorcycle that she might otherwise let pass, Nene stops her car, pulls over the motorcycle, and gives a speeding ticket to Priss, all in an attempt to impress Lisa. Third, Nene is not particularly skilled at lying or at suppressing her reactions. Every time that there's a Boomer incident in this episode and Nene has to sneak away from Lisa, the look on her face and nervous laughs give her lies away almost instantly. That Lisa doesn't spot the obvious deceptions can only be dumb luck or inexperience. And whenever Lisa makes a comment about the Knight Sabers or hints at Nene's involvement, Nene gets obviously nervous, a reaction which Lisa catches on to a couple of times and which are very much responsible for Lisa discovering Nene's Knight Saber connections.

  Fourth, Nene has a change of heart in this episode. Specifically, Nene now feels that the AD Police serve an important purpose in the scheme of things. Originally, she felt that the AD Police were useless bunglers who couldn't possibly protect MegaTokyo from the occasional rampaging Boomer. Only the Knight Sabers could possibly do the job properly. But perhaps because of Leon's and Daley's successes in prior episodes, Nene has revised her opinion some. When Priss suggests leaving after the computer Boomer has set the power system on explosive overload, Nene comes right out and says "I don't want to lose the AD Police". Quite a change from the woman who thought MegaTokyo would be better off without the AD Police.

  Fifth, Nene has finally shown that she can handle herself in the friendly war of insults and teasing that the Knight Sabers seem to enjoy. When Priss teases Nene about being too weak to fight, Nene's response is that she adds to the Knight Sabers with her looks and amazing brain. Then she says that if Priss was so smart, then how come Nene caught her and gave her a speeding ticket. Priss' reaction to that comment is proof enough that Nene hit home, and Sylia's laughter confirms that Nene won the exchange, something that she never did before this episode.

  And finally, Nene shows that she has emotions for Mackie. In Revenge Road, Nene surprised the rest of the Knight Sabers by mentioning that she wanted a "passionate love" soon. Apparently, the fact that Nene might be interested in men and sex at that point was a shock. In Scoop Chase, Nene shows that she's very much in love with Mackie himself. This is most obvious after the computer Boomer starts overloading the fuel cells which power the AD Police building. After everyone else leaves, taking Lisa with them, Nene nearly starts crying when she realizes that Mackie stayed behind to help her. The look on her face and the tone in her voice makes her feelings for Mackie obvious.

• Mackie: Mackie gets his third chance to shine again in this episode, much as he did in Revenge Road and Red Eye's, but to a greater degree than the latter episode. Here, Mackie spots Lisa outside Raven's Garage. The fact that Lisa was making herself almost blatent in her pacing back and forth just made his spotting her easier. But the biggest change is Mackie himself coming in with the Knight Sabers, in his very large and bulky powersuit. The suit is nothing like a hardsuit, except perhaps that it's armored and armed, but Mackie isn't supposed to be a front-line combatant, either. His bazooka and the ability to carry various other support items in an exchangable backpack attachment to the armor makes him a supporting member. The addition of the suit, though, means that Mackie could play a far greater roll with the Knight Sabers than he could prior to this episode.

  In Born to Kill, we say Mackie working alongside Nene and accessing various databases while searching for information. This showed that he was probably a moderatly decent hacker as well as being a mechanical genius, as shown later. In Scoop Chase, Mackie connects to the computers as an assistant to Nene in her attempts to control and contain the computer-controlling Boomer. Not only that, but he actually does much of the behind-the-scenes work on the computer, such as devising ways to counter the Boomer's viruses while Nene does the more active, reaction-intensive work like finding out a way to get Lisa out of the building. Nene may not be a hacker of Nene's calibre, but he is still very proficient and he proves himself to be a valuable member of the team.

  And the fact that Mackie blushes around Nene a couple of times in this episode indicates that he might even have feelings for her.

• Sylia: One of the best scenes in Scoop Chase is when Sylia sits down outside Raven's Garage with Lisa to discuss the Knight Sabers. This conversation reveals more about the working of Sylia's mind than any other scene in the entire series. In response to Lisa's questioning, Sylia talks about how the Knight Sabers are a balance against the corruptions and excesses of Genom, and how the Knight Sabers couldn't exist if they only took the clean and neat jobs. Not only that, but Sylia indicates that the Knight Sabers exist within the shadows, the realm between right and wrong, fighting a corporation who actually creates useful products as well as the weapons that "make wars possible". The fact that Sylia is even willing to use her real name seems to indicate that she either trusts Lisa more than is perhaps warranted, or that she feels that she's untouchable even if Lisa were to suspect that the daughter of the creator of Boomers might be a Knight Saber too.

  Sylia shows us that she understands the moral and ethical ambiguity that is inherent in being a Knight Saber and the fact that she has stared long into Neitzche's abyss and that, in return, she must be careful not to become as monstrous as her enemy.

  Sylia also is the only person who expresses real confidence in Nene at the end of the episode. When Priss and Linna are concerned that Nene will not be able to shutdown the overloading fuel cells before the they explode and destroy the AD Police building, only Sylia says to have faith in Nene. Only Sylia seems to realize that Nene's strength is in computers and electronics. Sure, both Linna and Priss have to know it intellectually, but neither seems to be have real confidence in Nene. By the end of the episode, however, Sylia's faith in Nene has been justified.

• Leon: Leon shows himself to be the usual carefree and tactless character we all know him to be, and he seems to enjoy taking things to extremes on occasion, like when he goes out of his way to scare the hell out of Nene. On the other hand, though, Leon's answer to Lisa's questioning about Nene shows that he probably has all the facts necessary to determine, like Lisa does, that Nene is a Knight Saber herself. After all, he does know that she seems to disappear when there are Boomer incidents and that she's often late to work the morning after Boomer incidents. To me, this indicates that Leon is unwilling to see the connections. His skills as an AD Police detective have been shown repeatedly to be well honed, so he should be able to make the connections, unless he doesn't want to, or unless he already has but is unwilling to expose Nene. Regardless, this episode doesn't really focus on Leon in any truly significant way.

• Priss: Like most of the characters in this episode, Priss is left largely unexplored. Considering that the focus of the episode is on Nene, and the fact that Priss is probably the most well developed character in the series, this really isn't a bad thing.

  The only glimpses into Priss' character we really see are her getting annoyed a couple of time, as Priss is want to do. The first is in the opening sequence, when Lisa makes the mistake of taking a photograph of Priss, and the second is when Priss is pulled over by Nene and actually given a ticket. Another interesting scene that I personally like is the exchange between Nene and Priss in the training/testing center at Raven's Garage. It's funny because it shows that not Priss is a little bit sensetive about her intelligence. She doesn't like being told that, if she was so smart, she wouldn't have been caught speeding by Nene in the first place. At the end of the episode, Priss also appears to have gained some respect for Nene. Before then, Priss seemed to feel that Nene was an anchor on the Knight Sabers, holding them down. But when Nene almost singlehandedly stops the computer Boomer from destroying the AD Police building, Priss sounds impressed, an important change.

• Daley: In a change from the rest of the series, Daley is seen without his partner Leon. In fact, since both Leon and Daley are leading their seperate units in this episode, it's pretty safe to assume that both have beem promoted for thier previous accomplishments. In fact, thier arrest of Dr. McLaren in Double Vision could very easily have been the immediate cause of thier promotions. However, Daley has apparently shown himself to be deserving. A couple of other observations include the fact that Daley actually loses control of his temper in this episode, the first time he ever has. He was obviously frustrated a couple of times (like in Moonlight Rambler) before, but never actually loses his temper like he does after his conversation with Dr. Miriam after the AD Police headquarters has been taken over.

• Linna: Linna remains even less developed in this episode than Priss does. She teases Nene a little about her not being able to beat level 5 in training, and even more when Nene's measurements are shown to have grown. But besides Linna advancing beyond her prior record and abilities in melee combat, there really is no advancement of Linna's character.

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Episode Analysis

After watching this episode several times, I have not been able to determine just precisely what the depth of the meaning is. In fact, the more I watch Scoop Chase, the less I suspect that there really is much social or political commentary in the episode. Sure, it's very interesting that Dr. Miriam targets the AD Police, a blatent disregard for authority. And it's a comment on Japanese corporate culture that the thing which drives Miriam to strike out on his own is his manager stealing all the credit for the success of the power booster Miriam designed. I can even see observations on the ever-advancing edge known as the State of the Art. And there's the series wide cyberpunk theme which inherently carries with it certain issues. But I really can't find much beyond quick and dirty, and somewhat superficial, treatments of these issues in this episode. This episode seems to be almost exclusively character development and drama revoloving around from Nene. There is, however, one exception.

That exception is the issue of growing up, and it is totally tied to from Lisa. When the episode begins, Lisa is a high school student who, in a fit of pique, wants to expose the Knight Sabers' identities. The main reason is that Priss destroyed her camera, although the secondary reason is also important - revealing the identities of the Knight Sabers would guarantee Lisa's employment by a prestigious news service. As the episode progresses, and Lisa begins to become friendly with her target Nene, she begins to question her original certainty of purpose. Sylia's conversation with Lisa, and more importantly the philosophical questions that Lisa asks Sylia indicate that she's no longer as certain about her desire to expose the Knight Sabers as she was in the beginning. Finally, at the end of the episode, Lisa has witnessed the Knight Sabers saving the AD Police from Miriam's Boomers. She knows that Nene is a Knight Saber, but also that Nene saved her life repeatedly, and that even the Knight Sabers, as epitomized by Nene, want the AD Police to remain a serious force opposing Boomer crimes. Finally, Lisa gives Nene the proof that she had, essentially saying that she no longer wanted to expose the identities of the Knight Sabers. What this sequence shows is the development of a person from the certainties of youth through the process of mental awakening and questioning and then into the final understanding of a new, more complex reality than the person could understand or accept originally.

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Revised - September 21, 2000

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