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A.D. Police - To Protect and Serve (Complete Series)

A.D. Police - To Protect and Serve (Complete Series)

List Price: $34.98
Your Price: $31.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great series! Was sad to see it end!
Review: A.D. Police is an episodic near-future police story. In fact some of the episodes seem like a cross between Terminator, N.Y.P.D. Blue and Alley McBeal. This is not a bad thing though inasmuch as the development of the male/female characters (good and bad) is relatively quick, and the plot compounds concurrently.

Just imagine the bad guy as a manipulated tentacled robotic killer, very very smart, with one weak spot, and the good guy as a potential victim with a big gun and a good aim, and a license to use both...then mutiply. There is sufficient action and plotline-twists to hold your attention and make the storyline challenging, entertaining and eventually cohesive. This action also puts you on notice early-on in the series, that main characters can die and that the bad guys may be smarter than the good guys..."tomorrow is the weekend"...

After all the explosions and gunplay, the scenes always return to headquarters with the team going thru debriefing, revelation and reassignment. In fact, the most amusing character revelations come in an episode that resembles CHEERS and has no relevant "action" at all. This DVD is an understated bargain. It is good entertainment in an American-evening-TV-police/detective-series format. I liked it..."tomorrow is the weekend"...

One other thing is the mesmerizing..."tomorrow is the weekend"...title song which alternates from English vocals with Japanese subtitles to Japanese vocals with English subtitles every episode..."tomorrow is the weekend"... It just stays with you.....like a...like a..sharp knife stabBING AT THE BACK OF YOUR BRAIN...INCREASING IN VOLUME AND INTENSITY...REPEATING ITSELF OVER AND OVER AND......"tomorrow is the weekend"...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: That tune...THAT TUNE!
Review: A.D. Police is an episodic near-future police story. In fact some of the episodes seem like a cross between Terminator, N.Y.P.D. Blue and Alley McBeal. This is not a bad thing though inasmuch as the development of the male/female characters (good and bad) is relatively quick, and the plot compounds concurrently.

Just imagine the bad guy as a manipulated tentacled robotic killer, very very smart, with one weak spot, and the good guy as a potential victim with a big gun and a good aim, and a license to use both...then mutiply. There is sufficient action and plotline-twists to hold your attention and make the storyline challenging, entertaining and eventually cohesive. This action also puts you on notice early-on in the series, that main characters can die and that the bad guys may be smarter than the good guys..."tomorrow is the weekend"...

After all the explosions and gunplay, the scenes always return to headquarters with the team going thru debriefing, revelation and reassignment. In fact, the most amusing character revelations come in an episode that resembles CHEERS and has no relevant "action" at all. This DVD is an understated bargain. It is good entertainment in an American-evening-TV-police/detective-series format. I liked it..."tomorrow is the weekend"...

One other thing is the mesmerizing..."tomorrow is the weekend"...title song which alternates from English vocals with Japanese subtitles to Japanese vocals with English subtitles every episode..."tomorrow is the weekend"... It just stays with you.....like a...like a..sharp knife stabBING AT THE BACK OF YOUR BRAIN...INCREASING IN VOLUME AND INTENSITY...REPEATING ITSELF OVER AND OVER AND......"tomorrow is the weekend"...

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: "Just how much worse can things get"
Review: AD (Advanced) Police started out as a take-off from Bubblegum Crisis, the 1990 story of a private squad whose purpose was to stop the spread of evil robots engineered by Genom Tech. Somewhat darker than it's inspiration, the original AD Police only lasted three episodes and then disappeared. But, when Bubblegum Crisis 2040 appeared in 1999, Director Hidehito Ueda retried the spin off idea with this 12-part TV series.

The new series has much less depth than its ancestor, and focuses primarily on the 'buddy' relationship between Kenji Sasaki and his new partner Hans Klief. Set in Genom City (a Tokyo revival) the AD team is dedicated to fighting rogue robots. Genom Corporation plays an anomalous role, sometimes villain and sometimes support. One of the grey areas of the story is whether all the mad robots are accidents or intentional. The underlying technical story arc is the creation of engineered cyber-humanoids and the inevitable question of where humanity starts and ends.

Essentially the series is a shoot out between the AD Police and escalating levels of robots. The phrase I used as the title is a regular refrain on the show, because the team does not fare very well. Liam Fletcher, who is a ringleader behind a long string of robot-nappings, generally runs rings around the police, causing a lot of blood and gear popping. Hans and Kenji are the cowboy heroes, breaking all the rules and occasionally actually saving the day. This isn't a comedy, though, and the two stars have serious troubles of their own.

If you are a logician you are going to find a couple things that don't make sense, but I wouldn't worry about it, the point of the series is a lot of action, and a bit of dialog, not an intellectual exercise. What is odd is that, while done in 1999 the art and animation is very retro - straight out of 1990. This didn't bother me, but I think a snappier production might have earned this series a longer run. But we're just viewers, ours not to reason why. The series is quite watchable, but is just a little too formulaic for my tastes.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Exhibits traces of qualtiy
Review: I am actually in the process of watching it, the movie is still playing (got through 3 episodes, partly on search mode) and what I got and am still getting from it is that the director had something really great in mind, but was just unable to express it to its full glory (I'd say somewhere between .01-1% there). First thing I noticed is the awkward animation, things are slow and not deliberate (if they were, than it's just plain bad). In the first episode, the characters with their heads turned side ways and viewed from slightly higher level, you can tell the lips are too slanted and it looks as if the artists involved were not too keen on anatomy and its morphology (being a learning artist my self, I should know). Plus, in the first scene of many, a sequence of Sarachi firing at the dynamite hurled in to the air is really depressing. It looks like an utter rip off from The Matrix, and horribly failing at the attempt.

Besides the poor quality of animation and visual in general, the music is just another punk rock-esque background trying to pump your adrenaline, and characterization is stereotypical and, well, done too many times already. Plus there is not much of any theme I picked up, and the plot is utterly predictable.

Final advice: don't buy this, get Cowboy Bebop, all of it, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, both of which offers compeling animation, storyline, characterization, and music. Yoko Kanno did an exuberant job for Bebop. And if you're in for provocative themes and heavy symbolic elements with your anime, Evangelion is a must.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It Grows On You
Review: I bought the AD Police remake after watching BGC 2040. This piece is drastically different. I found once I abandoned the question "where does this fit into the 2040 storyline?" I enjoyed the DVD much more. The style of animation is definitely influenced by film noir. The shots are well composed and the dialogue well paced. The storyline had some weak spots and it could have been a better series if they made it longer and fleshed out the story.

I recommend this series to anyone who believes anime is art. It's also a great series to show a newbie who thinks anime is just for kids.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It Grows On You
Review: I bought the AD Police remake after watching BGC 2040. This piece is drastically different. I found once I abandoned the question "where does this fit into the 2040 storyline?" I enjoyed the DVD much more. The style of animation is definitely influenced by film noir. The shots are well composed and the dialogue well paced. The storyline had some weak spots and it could have been a better series if they made it longer and fleshed out the story.

I recommend this series to anyone who believes anime is art. It's also a great series to show a newbie who thinks anime is just for kids.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It Grows On You
Review: I bought the AD Police remake after watching BGC 2040. This piece is drastically different. I found once I abandoned the question "where does this fit into the 2040 storyline?" I enjoyed the DVD much more. The style of animation is definitely influenced by film noir. The shots are well composed and the dialogue well paced. The storyline had some weak spots and it could have been a better series if they made it longer and fleshed out the story.

I recommend this series to anyone who believes anime is art. It's also a great series to show a newbie who thinks anime is just for kids.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Well Done!
Review: I initially picked up A.D. Police, because I was bored, and wanted an anime series that was reasonablly priced. I was'nt sure what to expect. After the second episode, however, I was hooked.

A.D. Police has a drawing quality, which makes you want to see it through to the end. The two main characters, Kenji, and Klaif, have their share of differneces, which effects their role as partners. Kenji is a loaner cold as ice type of guy. WHile Klaif is a freindly type, who cna't remember his past.

THe sereis takes some interesting twists and turns, as the two partners hunt Voomers (rouge robots) in the city of Genom. THe setting is the near future, so don't expect a futuristic mech type anime. The series works well as is though.

While the ending may not be a total surprise, you'll still want to see how everything turns out for the characters.

A.D. Police is also a good value for a five hour anime. If you're looking for a short, but good anime series at a resonable price, give A.D. Police a try. You won't be disappointed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Well Done!
Review: I initially picked up A.D. Police, because I was bored, and wanted an anime series that was reasonablly priced. I was'nt sure what to expect. After the second episode, however, I was hooked.

A.D. Police has a drawing quality, which makes you want to see it through to the end. The two main characters, Kenji, and Klaif, have their share of differneces, which effects their role as partners. Kenji is a loaner cold as ice type of guy. WHile Klaif is a freindly type, who cna't remember his past.

THe sereis takes some interesting twists and turns, as the two partners hunt Voomers (rouge robots) in the city of Genom. THe setting is the near future, so don't expect a futuristic mech type anime. The series works well as is though.

While the ending may not be a total surprise, you'll still want to see how everything turns out for the characters.

A.D. Police is also a good value for a five hour anime. If you're looking for a short, but good anime series at a resonable price, give A.D. Police a try. You won't be disappointed.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: actually, 2 1/2 stars.. AT BEST!!!
Review: I know for fact this anime was overrated for the fact how climatic ending grasped every viewer in a dramatic fashion.. but take out the ending, this is average at BEST anime series.

Story is too un-original, typical men VS out of control robots in futuristic era, BubbleGum Crisis Spin Off (and no, THIS IS NOT prequel, it's a freeking spin-off!). At least you'd expect good quality artwork and music?? NOPE! Art is mediocre at best (to save budget) while music gets soooo tidious, especially when that girl plays same o'same depressing violin music over and over and over and over.. AHHH!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!. BUT AT LEAST, AT LEAST make the fighting scenes more exciting?? Make it into some action packed adrenaline pumping anime like "Spriggan"??? HELLLLL-NO! Fighting scenes are probably the WORST features of this anime series. You have this supposedly HIGHLY DANGEROUS BOOMERS (Voomers (VOodoo Organic Metal Extension Resource) produced by Genom City, but when it turns into a violent out control freak, they called it a B-oomers - GEE-Whiz, how creative!), that needs highly trained AD Police squad to contain them, you'd expect these so-called, "BOOMERS" to be some tough cookies eh? Eh.. no.. if you call one bullet pop and explode type a tough challenge to this highly trained AD Police squad, be VERY dissapointed. Makes you wonder why do they even need these highly trained "AD POLICE"??

I don't know how I got through the first disk (1-6 episodes). It was one of those rare anime series that I didn't even bother to pause if I had to get something or do something.. but after 6th episode, AD Police and its characters kinda grows on you and the story&drama kicks into another notch/gear.

You have this gung-ho, heart of ice as a hero named Kenji Sasaki, who is a total A-hole (one of the few main characters you'll REALLY hate in first couple episodes), keeps losing his partners because he acts alone in scene of action... until he meets the mysterious Hans Kleif, guy with little or no memory of himself. They make a very odd-couple, but after sixth episode, they form sort of an odd friendship which Hans brings out the kindness and care from Kenji that no one knew he had (along with few humorous scenes here and there), to which it makes the climatic ending more dramatic and heartfelt..

Overall, you get what you pay for.. five full hours of, "Great series! Was sad to see it end!"

"Well Done!"

"Great!"

...then you start to wonder.. what the HECK were they watching???


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