Burn Up Excess

Summary: >

Team Warrior is back! Crime has always been a problem in the city, but some of the latest terrorist incidents and jewelry heists have been increasingly sophisticated. Someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes. Who and for what purpose? As things come together, the reason behind jewelry thefts starts to make sense. Will they figure it out in time? Will team warrior be able to stop them? Will Rio be able to survive on cheap ramen until her next paycheck? These questions and lots of boob giggles await in Burn Up Excess.

Thoughts: >

Burn Up W is one of my favorite action fan service anime titles from the 90s. It's a simple idea, so it should be easy to succeed with this formula. Or so I thought.

Burn Up X starts strong with plenty of action, fun and nice animation. In typical 90s anime fashion, the format is an episode of the week, with small plot development in the background. It drops the ball because many of these episodes are boring, and the end plot is pretty weak. An early episode focuses on Maya returning to her hometown for a visit. This episode is all the fun and action I liked about Burn Up, and gives details on her character. I assumed the rest of the cast would get equal treatment, but only Nanvel gets a story and it's pretty lame. Rio is the focus, but she's a weak character that never goes anywhere. Actually no one goes anywhere. Each character is only as deep as their brief description on the DVD cover.

Judging from hints in the intro, I had anticipated that the brains behind team Warrior, Maki; would end up in a love triangle pitted against the ominous woman mastermind behind the scenes. That material should be pure gold that writes itself. Burn Up X tacks it on to the end as an afterthought, and it's a huge letdown. If it sounds like I'm really down on the stories, it's because I expected more. I did like around 50% of the story related stuff.

The DVD comes with an English dub which is pretty bad. I noticed a Spanish dub so I gave it a try. (can still use subtitles... the wonders of DVD!) Because I don't know what Spanish dubbing is supposed to sound like I couldn't tell you if it was good or bad. I couldn't take it after a few minutes. ADV added an interesting feature with the innovative (and somewhat notorious upon release) "jiggle counter". Yes, it actually tallies up boob jiggles for you. In fact there are so many boob jiggles, they had to break them out by character, it's not a total count. This would have been a cute novelty if it wern't for the extremely tacky breast graphic beside the number.

For a typical 90s TV anime fluff piece, Burn Up X isn't bad. Burn Up W was fun, well animated, and a decent action piece in the second half. Burn Up X tries the same formula, however with the longer length and lack of growth it becomes tired with the same antics repeated through the show. It's not a waste of time, but probably not worth the effort to dig up. If you're going to watch something in the Burn Up franchise, Burn Up W is the title.

Screen Caps: >