Burn-up Scramble: Angels Attack Assailants!

Review Date: 2005 April 20 18:12

Reviewed by: Spike

Released by: Geneon

Age Rating: 16+

Region: 1 - North America

Volume 1 of 3

Length: 100 minutes

Subtitles: English

Audio: English Dolby Digital Stereo
Japanese Dolby Digital Stereo

Summary

Tokyo, in the very near future is a city full of violent crime. To counter this increased threat, the city's police department is re-tooled and a secret unit called 'Warrior' is formed. The members that make up this crime fighting team are: Rio, a martial arts specialist; Maya, a highly skilled weapons expert and sniper; and Lilica, a paroled prisoner with supernatural powers.

Together the Warriors must face down a local biker gang intent on disturbing the peace, take on a mobile robbing machine that made the mistake of targeting Rio, disarm a bomb whos location is unknown and catch an extremely agile high-tech theif.

Review

Viewers familliar with the other incarnations of Burn-up, such as Warrior or Excess will also be familliar with the format of Scramble. In each episode there is some form of emergency, be it terrorist, criminal, or well, traffic. To counter this, the girls get dressed up in skin-tight body suits and get sent to sort out the problem. It's at this point, however, that most of the similarities end. Rio is still as unlucky in love as ever, though she has gone from being simply extremely athletic to a judo expert who can use her Matrix-esque skills to dodge bullets, and while she still a cash-strapped shopaholic she is slightly more interested in her job in this incarnation than in any of the others. Maya is still a weapons obsessed nutcase, though she's gone from being loud and boystrous to being quiet and squeaky, making her extremely creepy, this is reinforced throughout the episodes with moments such as her gleefuly shooting at criminals with a sniper rifle saying "I won't kill you, but I won't let you live either". This aside, she comes across as a realist, usually saying exactly what Rio doesn't want to hear, and usually recieving a violent punishment for it. Lilica has psychic powers this time around allowing her to read peoples thoughts and memories amoungst an array of other assorted abilities, she comes across as clumsy, appologetic and quiet, making a mess of things when it's usually not what she intended. Yuji is still a ladies man and a total pervert, though not as much of a looser, to quote one charachter he has "looks, status, family name, and academic background" and is quite charming. He's also the departments head chief, making it all the more awkward when he hits on Rio, and more awkward than that when she beats the living daylights out of him in response. Nanvel does not make an appearance in this series, though this can't be considered a great loss as she was never a major character in any of the other series.