Burn Up W

Publisher
ADV
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
4 eps / 35 min
Year
1996

Burn up Warrior aka Burn Up W

By noghri
5th Jun 05

Burn Up Warrior AKA Burn Up W
Collection On the Case & in Your Face

ADV wrote

Team Warrior is no laughing matter for the criminals of Neo-Tokyo. Led by the fearless Rio, this top-secret counter-terrorist force will stop at nothing to preserve their version of the peace. From assault by bungee jump to giant mecha destruction, Rio, Yugi, Maki and Lilica spare no extreme in the forging of their own brand of justice. Plagued by kidnapped virtual idols, financial woes and marginally restrained violent proclivities, the members of Team Warrior skate the edge of comic insanity to bring you Burn-Up W.

RUNNING TIME: APPROX. 120 MINS
EPISODE # 1-4
RATING: 15
VIDEO FORMAT: DVD Region 2 (4:3)
AUDIO FORMAT: English 2.0, Japanese 2.0
SUBTITLES: English
STUDIO: A.D. Vision, Inc.
RELEASE DATE: 27/01/2003 OUT NOW
MADE IN: 1996

This is my first review for this site so please be gentle.

For those of you who don’t know burn up warrior is a prequel for the great fan service show: burn up excess reviewed extensively by Huxley. It was one of ADV’s very first DVD releases.

The Background
Warrior Team is a secret anti terrorism team for Neo-Tokyo that is called upon regularly despite budgetary restrictions to sort things out.
The team comprises of:
Maki - Team Leader
Rio - Elite close quarters Hand to hand combatant who is constantly in desperate money troubles, but usually blonde and bubbly.
Maya – Excellent marks woman who is barely controllable when she is near a weapon, as she loves to shoot everyone and everything she can. She also appears to have no sort of self-control or patience, which begs the question “why on earth did she become a sniper/ sharp shooter?”
Lilica – A very girly computer genius who is a little too innocent and naïve.
Yuji – The only male member of the team and an excellent driver in every form of transport imaginable. He is also an expert in surveillance. He is completely obsessed with Rio, and frequently finds himself in uncomfortable circumstances as she uses this against him and leads him around with whimsical promised of romance and relationships.
Nanvel – She is a weapons researcher and mechanical genius, the only thing she likes more than her creations is dressing them up like dolls.
Overall the DVD has a very good storyline which is dispersed with comedic genius, violence (especially against Yuji), guns and nudity. All of which spells out the insanity which is just another day in the life of warrior team, sounds crazy and it is but the story line usually comes through this ok.

Read on for more depth into the episodes but this is the first spoiler warning, I will try to leave as much out as possible, but I have to reveal some things to whet your appetite.

The packaging
Artwork for the collection is very nicely done; showing the girls (Rio, Maya and Lilica) dressed in their battle gear. They appear in a moody scene displaying a distant police car, no sign of Yuji I can only guess that being the only male in the team he doesn’t warrant being shown, unless he is the driver of the distant police car, however unlikely that is. The reverse of the box displays the blurb, pictures from the episodes and the normal babble we have come to expect from every DVD release in the UK.

The DVD
To be honest interaction leaves a lot to be desired. The main menu displays cases on the left and case notes, dispatch lingo and line up. It took me a little while to determine what these were and why on earth they decided to rename the options I will never know. Cases are the episodes; case notes are the extra features; dispatch lingo is the language and subtitle settings and line up is the scene selections. They if we navigate to the extra features, I mean case notes, we find accomplices evidence and rap sheet. These again bare little resemblance to what your looking for and so are a little annoying accomplices is the ADV previews; evidence is the photos and a link to the ADV website and rap sheet is the credits for the DVD.

The Sound track
Although limited it is very good and the opening “burn up my heart” is one of my favourite opening themes for a while. The closing track is also very good and infact on the first episode the closing track is “burn up my heart” again.

Episodes

MILD SPOILER WARNING

Case 1 Skin Dive

Straight into a serious story line, it kicks off with an entire hotel being hijacked and all the occupants being held hostage. The locked down hotel is then put under siege by what appears to be the entire Neo–Tokyo police department. Inside the hotel a boardroom is full of government officials who are all at gunpoint. This is the more serious storyline and its about this time that the more entertaining humorous front line of entertainment takes over.
We find ourselves being introduced to “MIGHTY FALCON CLAW” terrorist group who continues to list their demands. They are interesting demands to say the least, and the most interesting of which is that an idol singer must bungee jump naked outside the hotel window.
I’m not sure at this point who appears to be the most excited the crooks or the police at the chance of seeing the idol naked.
Meanwhile in the boardroom we find ourselves witnessing an unusual sinister act taking place. The government officials are not in some kind of kinky scandalous scenario, but rather being exposed to a new virtual reality drug in order to gain the mastermind’s aims to distribute the drug into the community.
This is apparently forgotten when the police say they will meet the demands of the “mighty Falcon Claw” what the crooks don’t know if that the police had to find a substitute for the idol as she refused to do the jump.

Case 2 the Case of the Virtual Idol

The help of warrior team is enlisted one more time when Rio is asked to find the missing idol Maria, but when she starts investigating she realises that Maria is a Virtual Idol. What is a virtual idol you ask, well ill tell you. A virtual idol is an Internet based virtual girl who can be personalised by visitors, she remembers conversations with the visitors and becomes more like the person they are looking for. Many different types of people use these virtual idols, but Maria is one of the most popular and is also used by non other than Yuji, he recognises the name instantly and the case is personal for him. But it is found that Maria admitted that she was going to visit the outside world and leave the Internet.
The interactions of themembers of warrior team in this episode are brilliant and some of the comedic exchanges are genius.
Back to the more sinister virtual drug story line and to a meeting between two groups of shady characters. Discussions take place with regards to distribution of the virtual drug, and one party demands complete control of supply and profits. When this happens all hell breaks loose and before you know it a killer cyborg bodyguard called Axia makes short work of the hired goons.

The story line then takes another plot twist when we find that Maria was kidnapped by the same group with the killer cyborg and that she too has her own new body. But she escapes them, as her new body isn’t cute enough and she doesn’t want to be left cooped up waiting for her new body, she then proceeds to ransom herself to the police.
We are now introduced to Nanvel for the first time and she releases her new prototype cyborg killer to sort out the problem. This is my favourite part of the anime as the cyborg killer looks like a bobble head Eva unit 1.

Cases 3 and 4 Police Town Assault 1 & 2

Some light relief is to be found when Rio discovers she needs some money quickly. She visits a panty shop dressed as a schoolgirl with a fake ID to try and sell her unmentionables. She is interrupted in the process when Yuji walks in to the store and starts looking around. A fun scene follows where Yuji stands up against some debt collectors for Rio in the vein hope of becoming her boyfriend and she just leaves her to it.
Continuing the plot from the last case things get a lot darker. Police town is under attack and within hours the police for is rendered incapacitated without much resistance (you will find out why)
I’m really trying not to reveal too much and so ill leave it there without the main plot spoiled. I will say however that the ending leave a few questions unanswered and the storyline wide open for a sequel. Although it appears to be lacking something it does have a nice final scene which gives the series some closure.

Generally speaking it is a funny show and well worth watching, it is faintly reminiscent of you’re under arrest but more humorous. Parents of younger viewers may not appreciate the language or the panty selling, but then again it does have a 15 rating and so they shouldn’t be letting them watch it anyway, other than that I cant see them having many complaints really.
The ending may disappoint some fans, as it does not go all your own way.
Overall I was quite impressed and gave it a 7/10 but then I remembered the Eva parody and gave it an extra bonus point, so fans of Evangelion.

8/10

-- noghri 5th Jun 05

Burn Up W Images