Sylia Stingray

Sylia Stingray is a fictional character from the Japanese anime series Bubblegum Crisis, its sequel Bubblegum Crash and its remake Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040. Her name is pronounced like Celia and her original OVA voice actress was Yoshiko Sakakibara. Her english voice actress was Jemila Ericson.

Background

In both the original OAV and the TV series remake, Sylia is the ring leader of the Knight Sabers, a four-woman group armed with high power combat armored suits to combat the monstrous cyborg boomers mass produced by GENOM. Sylia is the daughter of Dr. Katsuhito Stingray, the man who created the boomers. He was murdered by Genom executive Brian J. Mason and his death covered as an accident, but he managed to send Sylia a data unit which provided her with the technological means of creating the Knight Sabers' hardsuits.

Sylia is a brilliant scientist in her own right as well as a wealthy businesswoman whose business ventures finance her team, with her primary business being the fashion boutique she runs named "The Silky Doll", which also functions as the Knight Sabers base of operations. She also stands 179 cm in both series.

Several questions about Sylia and her origins are raised in the series, but never conclusively answered. The miniseries "Bubblegum Crisis: Grand Mal", by Western comic artist Adam Warren, revolves around his idea that Sylia has a nanotechnologically-enhanced brain. Suzuki Toshimichi of Artmic has been quoted as saying that Sylia has an augmented brain, and is said to have approved of Warren's comic. The same series, in keeping with its eastern European flavour in places, shows the name of Sylia and Mackie's father as being Dr. Vyacheslav Stengovich, 'carved' on a virtual grave headstone that she visits on the anniversary of his death - the same grave shows the name Dr Stingray in quote marks as if a nickname.

Original Series

In the original series Sylia had short black hair and brown eyes, a cool, enigmatic, almost stoic demeanor, and was known for her repressed, conservative business clothing in stark contrast to what she sells. Her background is not fully revealed, except that she is the daughter of Dr. Stingray and the older sister of whiz kid Mackey Stingray. There were numerous hints throughout the first series that Sylia herself may have been either a Boomer or a technologically enhanced human, but it was never made clear which one she might have been.

After her father was murdered by Genom while she was a child, she grew up to found the Knight Sabers. Under her leadership the Knight Sabers combat Genom's unethical secret projects that normal law enforcement is powerless to stop.

Sylia's hard suit resembles Linna's in design but differs in its mostly light blue coloring. Her primary weapons are two laser-edged swords that project from the forearm gauntlets. Its other weapons consisted of laser blasts from palm-mounted projecters that could also be used close-range, much like Priss' and Linna's knuckle bomber units. Sylia's suit was also capable of sustained flight through the jet units on its back.

2040 Series

Beautiful, intelligent, charismatic and slightly eccentric, the Sylia of 2040 is quite a different character from the original version. The 2040 version of Sylia was very emotional, in stark contrast to her original series counterpart, at times almost emotionally unstable, prone to violent mood swings when not in public, where she puts on a pleasant, cheerful, almost happy go lucky face for her customers.

Approximately 24 years old, this Sylia is also noted for her unusual hair, which is long, silvery white/blue/purple and her bluish/purple eyes, both of which vary depending on the light. And, unlike the original version of the series, where she had no love life to speak of, this Sylia had a romantic companion in the form of Nigel Kirkland, the stoic, sullen mechanic who worked with her father on the boomer project and helped her build the hard suits; Sylia is very protective of her relationship with Nigel and is visibly angered when Mackey mentions that Priss hangs out at Nigel's garage a lot and says that they "have a lot in common". She has another companion, Meisio/Henderson, a kindly butler who worries for her welfare, much like Alfred Pennyworth from the Batman universe. Despite this, some of her attitudes towards her female teamates can be considered as rather flirtatious; she remarks to Nigel on how beautiful and perfects she finds Linna upon meeting her, is very straightforward as she gives advice to her own customers, often tries to tease Priss into "cleaning" herself up, and when she explains the origin of the Knight Sabers to Nene, Linna and Priss, she teases Nene Romanova to the point of making her blush and stammer uncomfortably.

Her white hard suit more or less is the same, except for an alteration in color, redesigning of the swords to be longer and, on one occasion, displaying a cloaking device. However, Sylia did not take part in the combat during the early part of the series because of unspecified health issues.

This version of Sylia is a human being with a dysfunctional family as she was operated on and experimented on as a child by her father, who used both her and her mother as guinea pigs to help create his boomers. It also revealed that her younger brother, Mackey, is also a boomer, and that they are both directly connected to the super boomer creature, Galatea, AKA: The Sotai, for Galatea was created within Sylia. Sylia tries to destroy Galatea halfway through the series on her own, but she is unsuccessful, and Galatea escapes, causing death and destruction in her wake. Sylia later tries to destroy Galatea again but fails. This final failure starts a chain of events that culminates with Galatea hacking into Mackey's brain and destroying his AI. Sylia is so traumatized by Mackey's 'death' that all she can do is sit and watch over his inanimate body. As a result, she must leave the other Knight Sabers to fight the final battle alone.