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      BASTARD!:  It was an age of lawlessness   
      Of disorder and Chaos   
      Blood and steel, flesh and bone   
      An age of Magic   
      The four kingdoms are under siege from the evil dark armies of   
   Chaos.  The only one who can save them is the evil wizard who nearly   
   conquered the world 15 years ago.   
      BASTARD!!   
      A tale of sorcery and combat, of scantily clad maidens and a more   
   scantily clad hero.  High Shonen Fantasy at its most extreme.  Enter a   
   world of action, excitement, danger, and ... laundry.   
      [Entry by "Akodo Bob"]   
      
      BATTLE ANGEL (a.k.a. GUNNM):  The Scrapyard is the name given to a   
   large decaying city that exists due to the garbage dumped from the   
   floating city above it, named Zalem.  Humans, androids and cyborgs   
   live in this dark and dirty place, all intermingling.  Living with   
   each other, trading with each other, sometime mugging each other.   
   Ido, A brilliant cyber-doctor, discovers the wreckage of an   
   extraordinary cyborg in one of the city's junk piles, and restores it   
   to full health with his skills.  She has no memory of her past, so he   
   names her Gally and raises her as his own daughter.  However, there is   
   more to her than meets the eye...  Good artwork and animation.  From   
   the much-acclaimed manga of the same name by Yukito Kishiro.  Contains   
   violence, gore, nudity.  Was dubbed and subbed from ADV Films, but is   
   no longer available in North America (possibly due to an expired   
   license).  However, BATTLE ANGEL is still listed in the Madman   
   catalog, so Australians can still obtain this anime.   
      [Entry by Ben Cantrick, edited by Rob Kelk]   
      
      BATTLE ATHLETES VICTORY:  BATTLE ATHLETES VICTORY chronicles the   
   trials of a 15 year old athlete, Akari Kanzaki.  Akari's dream is to   
   become the Cosmo Beauty, the title given each year to the greatest   
   athlete in the Solar System.  The title is fought for at the   
   University Satellite, a space station that orbits Earth.  Akari lives   
   in the shadow of her mother, Tomoe Midoh, who was widely regarded as   
   the greatest Cosmo Beauty ever.  Akari's journey begins at a training   
   school in Antarctica, but stretches past the University Satellite ...   
   Available on DVD and VHS from Geneon.   
      [Entry by Matt Huber]   
      
      BATTLE SKIPPER:  A new intake and the usual scrap for the best by   
   the school hobby clubs, but three young girls end up taking the fast   
   track into the secret world of one particular club, a cover for some   
   pretty heavyweight mecha in the usual clash of good bot meets bad   
   bot... apparently the folk who did PLASTIC LITTLE had much to do with   
   this title.  (CPM/USMC)   
      [Entry by Chika]   
      
      BIGWARS:  Man has colonised Mars and an alien race doesn't much   
   care for that.  This is a tale of Man's struggle against the odds as   
   the alien, who styles itself as a kind of god, uses awesome weapons to   
   beat back the expansionist humans.  It's now down to one last   
   chance...  (CPM/USMC)   
      [Entry by Chika]   
      
      BLACK MAGIC M66:  A side story to Masamune Shirow's manga BLACK   
   MAGIC, this movie tells the story of one of the first combat androids   
   ever built.  Unfortunately, the military scientist who designed it   
   used his daughter as the test subject for the android to target.  Even   
   more unfortunately, the android has escaped from the aircraft   
   transporting it from the test facility...  If you liked "The   
   Terminator", you'll probably like M66.  The anime is available from   
   Manga Video, and the collected comic is available from Dark Horse.   
      [Entry by Rob Kelk]   
      
      BLACKJACK:  He's called Blackjack, and he is a practitioner of   
   "underground surgery".  A Tezuka chara of old, in this story he is   
   caught up in a mystery concerning the appearance of "Super Humans",   
   and the lethal secret behind it.  Blackjack is based around a manga   
   where he is a chara that appears, performs surgery that no legitimate   
   surgeon would consider, charges high fees for it then vanishes.   
   Released by Manga in North America, and Madman in Australia.   
      [Entry by Chika]   
      
      BLUE SONNET:  There have been many stories about making a humanoid   
   "ultimate weapon".  This is one of those, in that Sonnet is a cyborg   
   that has awesome psychokinetic powers.  However it is known to her   
   creator that somewhere out there is an even greater power lying   
   dormant.  In fact the person in question becomes a classmate of   
   Sonnet's.  While this girl discovers her hidden power, Sonnet   
   discovers her lost humanity in a background of corporate domination.   
   (USMC)   
      [Entry by Chika]   
      
      BLUE SUBMARINE #6:  The world is at war with aliens.  Most of the   
   world is covered in water.  But not everything is as it seems.  There   
   is a lot of action in this series and some interesting twists.  It's a   
   combination of hand drawn and computer animation which in my opinion   
   worked nicely.  The episodes are short and only one episode per DVD.   
   Still cheaper than the old way of buying a dub and a sub version of   
   the VHS, but in today's DVD age it seems a bit expensive.  An single   
   disk is also available with the violence edited out.  Available from   
   Bandai in North America, and from Siren in Australia.   
      [Entry by Shawn Granger]   
      
      BOTTLE FAIRY:  Based on an as-yet unreleased game in Japan, this   
   thirteen episode TV series was fansubbed by the Hikari no Kiseki group.   
   It tells the month-by-month adventures of four tiny naive fairy girls,   
   Sarara, Kururu, Chiriri and Hororo who live in glass jars on the desk of   
   Sensei-san, a young college student.  Each show covers a month in   
   Japanese life with the fairies learning about what it is to be human,   
   assisted by Loose Cannon Tama-chan, their highly-opinionated   
   six-year-old neighbour who is *never* wrong.   
     In the wrong hands this could have been saccharine beyond belief but   
   the scripts and storylines bely the basic idea and make each episode   
   delightful as the girls use their imagination to try and figure out the   
   world.  The equally-delightful ending songs are sung by the fairy   
   seiyuus, with a different seiyuu and song for the three shows in each   
   "season".   
      [Entry by Robert Sneddon]   
      
      BROTHER, DEAR BROTHER:  see ONIISAMA E   
      
      BUBBLEGUM CRISIS:  A "cyberpunk" style anime that centers around   
   the mercenary (or perhaps vigilante) group, the "Knight Sabers".   
   These four women use powered armor to accomplish their missions.   
   There are eight OVAs in this series, and two major story arcs.  The   
   Genom megacorporation acts as the main villain in the series, but   
   there is serious question as to whether Genom is actually evil or not.   
   The humanoid robots, boomers, that Genom produces are used in combat,   
   and occasionally go rogue, but they also save lives and are   
   responsible for rebuilding Tokyo after the second Kanto quake.  The   
   plot is interesting and involving, if sometimes hard to follow.   
      The series owes a lot to the US movie BLADE RUNNER, and includes   
   several references to the movie.  For example, one of the Knight   
   Sabers, Priss, is the lead singer in a band called "The Replicants".   
   As in the movie BLADE RUNNER, one of the central issues in the series   
   is the question of what makes us people, and whether the created life   
   forms may be people.   
      The animation is somewhat dated, as is the music.  Still, the hard   
   80's rock sound is not at all painful to listen to, and the animation   
   holds up well over the years.  The characters and mecha were designed   
   by Kenichi Sonoda, of GUNSMITH CATS fame, and look good even after all   
   this time.  The dub is considered by many to be very bad, especially   
   the remakes of the songs.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)