Burst Angel (Bakuretsu Tenshi) lives up to the hype that preceded it. Granted, the hype was "sci-fi spaghetti western with giant robots and hot chicks," so it's not like the goal was set real high in the first place. I can only imagine the planning meetings for this show. It probably went something like this:

Producer: Alright, we need a show that will appeal to teenage boys. What have you got for me?

Staff Person: Well, teenagers like beautiful women in skimpy outfits, right?

Producer: True. That'll work.

Second Staff Person: And everyone likes giant robots, so let's throw in some of that.

Producer: OK, that sounds fine. But scantily-clad women piloting giant robots is a pretty played-out genre by this point, isn't it? We need an angle!

Third Staff Person: Oooooh! How about we make it a Western!

Everyone else: Whaaaaat!?

Third Staff Person: No, seriously, like make the robot a giant cowboy, and the girls can be like modern day cowgirls and stuff. The girls can even have cowboy hats and chaps and cool holsters and stuff.

Producer: Huh. Why not? Alright, let's run with it.

And there you have it. Over-arching plot? Who cares? We've got hot chicks with big guns and cool explosions. Personalities? Ah, let's just pick the standard ones: moody, sullen girl; angry-but-a-sweetheart girl; serious leader girl; and a perky little kid. Golden! Setting? Why, Tokyo, of course. Where else would we put it? Oh, but since we have robots, put it somewhere in the future. And make sure everyone has guns, so we can have lots of explosions.

Jo is pretty much the star of the show, and is usually in the middle of the action, guns blazing.	The character of Meg is pretty much pure sex appeal, and she accomplishes her job very, very well.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it, Burst Angel in a nutshell. However, as illogical as the show sometimes is, as annoying as the characters are initially, and as predictable as things are, the show actually kind of works. I don't know how, but it does. It will never win any awards as a deep and meaningful piece of cinema, but it will probably make FUNimation a good bit of money.

Now that I'm done poking fun at the show, let me tell you about the first disc. The first two episodes introduce the main characters: Jo, Meg, Sei, and Amy. Jo seems to be the main character. She is a superb killer, and is awfully protective of Meg, the red-haired bombshell who seems to always get captured by the bad guys and needs rescuing by Jo. Sei is the leader of our little mercenary group, and as such she drives the vehicles and deals with clients. Rounding out the group is Amy, a young kid who is also a computer whiz, so she handles satellite uplinks, ferreting out information on the Web, and launching Django, the group's giant robot. Oh, the first two episodes also feature a guy from a cooking school, Kyohei, who is hired to cook for the girls, because they live like slobs and don't eat right. No, it doesn't make sense to me, either.

The first two episodes form the first story, involving Kyohei joining the group and the attempt to relieve some gangsters of a data disc. This, naturally, goes awry, causing Jo to yell a lot and Meg to wail like the damsel in distress she is. Meg also yells at Kyohei quite a bit, and Jo threatens to kill him. Quite a lovely first day on the job, I must say. The remaining two episodes on the disc once again focus on Jo and Meg, as they try to kidnap a guy, only to have the cops nab him first. Surprise, Meg gets captured, and once again Jo rides to the rescue. I can see a trend developing here, which could potentially be a problem down the road, as these kinds of formulaic stories will get old pretty fast. For this first disc, however, the action is mostly fast and furious, and you don't have too much time to get bored.

Visually, the show is stunning. Outside of the fact that the girls' outfits are fairly slutty, the character designs are actually pretty good, with good differentiation between the characters. The girls even walk differently from each other, which is a nice touch. In addition, the stunning camera angles I have come to associate with GONZO shows are here, with solid use of close-ups and wide-angle at mostly-appropriate moments. I really didn't need that close-up of Jo's crotch, for example. The mechanical designs are pretty good, too, though I'm not sure that the look for the girls' robot, Django, is that great. That is one weird-looking robot. The other mecha (called "cybots" in the show) look pretty good, and have a lot of variety to them. All of the cybots are animated in full CG. The CG itself looks great, and most of the time when the CG is mixed with cel-animated characters it works well, much better than a lot of other shows I've seen that have tried the same thing.

On the audio front, both the Japanese and English language tracks are presented in Dolby 5.1. Both sound great and the acting performances seem about equal between the two tracks. I ended up leaning towards the English dub, but the Japanese audio is just as good. One surprising thing on the audio track is the fact that for the English dub, they actually re-recorded the ending song in English. I'm not used to this being done, so I was pretty surprised by it. It is a nice touch, and makes me wonder if Funimation has plans for getting this show on cable TV at some point. Also, the DVD uses multiple angles to allow you to have the credits and some other on-screen text presented in either Japanese or English, which is a good way to appease both the people who want the "authentic" Japanese viewing experience, and those who actually want to be able to read the credits.

The disc itself has a pretty good selection of bonuses. The opening and ending animation sequences are presented without text, there is a decent selection of outtakes from the English recording process, and there is a selection of Japanese radio drama for your listening pleasure, which is a first in my admittedly limited experience. Rounding things out, there is also a commentary track, by the producer of the English dub, for the fourth episode.

Bottom line, Burst Angel is a fairly stupid show that is way more entertaining than it has any right to be. Great story-telling it isn't, but it sure is a fun ride, at least on this first volume. Let's hope they don't keep re-hashing the "Meg is in trouble!" idea every time, though, or this show could get old pretty fast.

Distributor: FUNimation
Creator: GONZO Digimation
Released: 2005

Video Quality: A
Audio Quality: A+
Presentation: B
Content: C
Overall: B