25)
Bubblegum Crisis (1987-1991)
Essentially a series of 8 direct to video movies/shorts (some are 50 minutes long others are only 25 minutes and each kinda works like self contained episodes unlike a more serial narrative). Featuring vintage late 80's rock soundtrack and usually excellent animation (though some parts are not as good as others).
After the late 1990's the anime industry shifted from direct to video animation to TV late night stuff. One of the effects was the substitution of movies to longer TV series whose animation quality was substantially lower. Some OVAs featured some incredible animation quality and Bubblegum Crisis is a classic of the OVA world, not quite on the same level as gunbuster which is perhaps the greatest direct to video animation of all time, but Bubblegum Crisis is excellent entertainment of the type that is rarely made these days.
It feels very much like a Masamune Shirow manga, more so than adaptations of his manga in fact. One good thing as well is the more organic look of the designs and the colors if compared to contemporary computed colored stuff which has extremely straight lines and feels excessively angular and overproduced.
More organic looking 1980's animation:
Also, this OVA eachoes the atmosphere of 1980's cyberpunk science fiction better than any movies except Blade Runner (which is an obviously enormous influence on Bubblegum Crisis).
The characters are very memorable band of 4 female cyber mercenaries who work by taking out rogue robots that the police cannot deal by themselves. Though their equipment design is quite tacky I guess: such thin armor wasn't apparently stronger than much larger robots they fight against though they have bigger "suits" when the need arises:
As the OVA series progressed they also changed/upgraded their suits several time though design changes are a bit subtle to the eye. And overall is an highly entertaining and excellently executed piece of late 1980's cyber punk science fiction, even better indeed than movies like RoboCop.
9/10