By Alison L. Roberts

Nene, Sylia, Linna and Priss ready themselves for combat.

As Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 (BGC2040) made its late-night television debut on TV Tokyo in October 1998, it was immediately apparent that the series was not the same old BGC.

Pounding, techno-grunge influenced rock, composed by guitarist Kouichi Korenaga and performed by Akira Sudou (the singing voice of Priss), replaced the 1980s j-pop.

Upon her arrival, Linna is in awe of the rebuilt Tokyo.

Without access to the original Kenichi Sonoda designs, Masaki Yamada created updated characterizations of the Knight Sabers and the personalities inhabiting their world, and Shinji Aramaki built upon the original hardsuit designs and created mechanical designs more suited to the role technology now holds in "real life" and in the series.

The Knight Sabers pause during battle.

The new visual sensibility behind the world of BGC2040 plays upon today's general cynicism and our increased tendency to look for flaws in what is seemingly perfect. (Think: the town in the movie The Truman Show.) These attributes combine to reinforce the alternate reality setting, making the Tokyo of BGC2040 a very different world from the MegaTokyo of the original series.

The storyline, scripted by Chiaki Konaka and Sadayuki Murai, takes full advantage of the series' weekly television format and the time it affords plot and character development over 24 televised episodes and two, concluding OAV episodes. By expanding upon what the original OAVs could have been, while at the same time mining the characters' personalities, Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 became something beyond a simple remake.