The
Burn Up franchise is a set of four
Panty Fighter series revolving around an
Amazon Brigade quasi-SWAT team called "Team Warrior", and their fight against crime and
government conspiracies. The series are generally lighthearted at first, but develop a case of
Cerebus Syndrome near the end.
All four series were produced by AIC between 1991 (the original) and 2004 (
Scramble).
ADV Films actually helped co-produce the two middle entries in the franchise,
Burn Up W and
Burn Up Excess, after the success of their release of the original one-shot
OVA. The latest installment,
Burn Up Scramble was released in North America by
Geneon USA.
This series contains examples of:
- A Day at the Bizarro
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us (The last two episodes of W.)
- Alternate Continuity (None of the series is in exactly the same continuity of the others.)
- Art Shift (Between the OVA, W and Excess, and finally Scramble as part of the general shift in anime art style between the early and late 90s, and then the early 2000s.)
- Berserk Button (Don't damage Remi's gear. "Lead enema", anyone?)
- Brainwashed and Crazy
- Can't Hold Her Liquor (Lilika in Scramble. Even a little gets her plastered and accentuated her dojikko and Les Yay, below.)
- Cherry Blossoms (In Scramble, they fall while Maya informs Rio that she's leaving. They also fall on Lilika while she's sleeping it off.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience (The skinsuits in Scramble. Red for Rio, green for Maya, blue for Lilika, purple for The Commander.)
- Covert Pervert (For a supposed sheltered innocent, Scramble!Lilika has a kinky imagination!)
- Dark Action Girl (Ruby)
- Dark Skinned Redhead (Scramble!Lilika)
- Little Miss Snarker (Scramble!Maya)
- Does This Remind You of Anything? (Our first view of Rio in Excess is one of these, where she's enjoying a bowl of ramen. Really enjoying. The scenes we see before this is revealed...)
- Dojikko (Lilika in Scramble.)
- Gadgeteer Genius (Nanvel from W and Excess)
- Gainaxing (ADV Films had a "Jiggle Meter" as a special feature.)
- Hadaka Apron (Scramble!Lilika)
- Hand or Object Underwear (Scramble!Lilika, the "objects" being Rio and Maya)
- Handsome Lech (Yuji)
- I Call It Vera (Every version of Maya.)
- Ironic Echo: "It's showtime!"
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold (Rio)
- Law Enforcement, Inc. (Team Warrior is usually non-official, and always provides bounties for successfully completed missions.)
- Lethal Chef (Adding bullets and gunpowder to "punch up" stew? Yeah, sure thing, Lilika)
- Local Hangout (The ramen restaraunt in Excess, mostly because it's one of the places Rio can afford to eat at.)
- Mafia Princess (W/Excess!Maya was the daughter of a Yakuza boss.)
- Marshmallow Hell (In Scramble, The Warriors Commander uses this as an attack against Rio, before throwing her into a stack of junked cars.)
- Mars Needs Women (Henry, towards Rio.)
- Ms. Fanservice (Lots of it, but particularly Rio.)
- Non-Action Guy (Yuji, although he is technically an ace helicopter pilot.)
- Norio Wakamoto (McCoy in the original series)
- Omake (Excess usually had an epilogue to each episode, which eventually evolved into "Yuji's Omake Theater".)
- Omniscient Council Of Vagueness
- Perpetual Poverty (Rio, because of her spendthrift habits.)
- Playful Hacker (W/Excess!Lilica)
- Psychic Powers (Scramble!Lilica; they don't really work that well, though.)
- Not so much that they work poorly as too well, and Lilika had a tendency to spout off what she read in a Creepy Monotone without thought to how it may embarrass others (usually Rio).
- Scary Shiny Glasses (Excess!Maki, though she's a good guy)
- Screaming Warrior (In Scramble, Lilika, of all people. Also a pun.)
- Sempai Kohai (In Scramble, Lilika addresses Rio and Maya as "sempai".)
- Shout Out (Many, to Captain Scarlet, Ultraman, and oh-so-many to Neon Genesis Evangelion — such as a scene-for-scene remake of the fight with the Third Angel featuring Rio and a Camp Gay transvestite.)
- Shoot The Bullet (At the end of Scramble)
- Shower Scene
- Show Some Leg (Rio does this to get out of trouble at her job in W. She and the rest of Warrior also do this several other times in the line of duty.)
- Superpowered Robot Meter Maids
- Tank Goodness (Rio has to escort a robotic AI hovertank in Excess; it turns out to be controlled by a Kill Sat.)
- This Loser Is You (Yuji in W and Excess.)
- Token Mini-Moe (W/Excess!Lilica)
- Trigger Happy (Every version of Maya, but especially the W/Excess incarnation.)
- Tron Lines (The Commander's skinsuit in Scramble.)
- 12-Episode Anime (Excess, Scramble)
- Virtual Celebrity (Maria from the second episode of W.)