Priscilla S. Asagiri

Priscilla "Priss" S. Asagiri is a fictional character from the Japanese anime series Bubblegum Crisis and its spin offs. She was portrayed in Japanese by Kinuko Oomori and in English by Sinda Nichols.

Background

Priss is a member of the Knight Sabers, fighting boomers with a passion in her predominantly dark blue hard suit, which features a rail gun in the left hand as well as a high-caliber machine gun in the original series and knuckle bombs in the 2040 series. She is a rock 'n roll singer in both versions as well as a motorcyclist with a love/hate relationship with AD Policeman Leon McNichol. Priss' band in the anime was "Priss and the Replicants" a reference to the movie "Blade Runner" and an homage to the movie "Streets of Fire". She was reportedly named after the Replicant Pris, played by Daryl Hannah, in "Blade Runner". Her family name means "morning mist", but interviews with the creators of the series have proven fruitless in determining the meaning of her middle initial, "S".

According to the Bubblegum Crash! based PC-Engine game, "Crime Wave!", Priss had the following statistics:

*Height: 168cm
*Age: 20

Original Series

According to the B-Club special, Priss lost her parents in the great Kanto earthquake in 2025 and was raised in an orphanage. However, she soon ran away and teamed up with a biker gang. When her boyfriend, the gang leader, was murdered and his death declared an accident by the police, she intended to hunt down the killers by herself, but was discovered and taken in by Sylia as the Knight Saber's assault specialist, as shown in the music video "Touchdown to Tomorrow".

In the original series, Priss is noted for her hair cut with a distinct cowlick and her fiery personality. She has an extremely bad temper and hates virtually all authority figures, especially the AD Police, in addition to boomers. Priss's bad temper often led her into trouble when someone, usually above her social status, offended her and she inevitably lashed out at them, with the offender often turning out to be a boomer.

Much to her initial frustration and annoyance, AD Policeman Leon McNichol would like to win her heart, but she grows to tolerate him as the series goes on; in an audio drama not released in the Western world, she finally confesses to him that she has grown to love him. She sang lead for a band called the Replicants, but in "Bubblegum Crash" she attempted to launch a solo career.

At the time, Priss was far and away the most popular character of the BGC anime, in part perhaps because of her voice actress, Kinuko Oomori, a real-life singer in the rock band "SILK". Oomori's outside singing contract eventually became an issue, though, and she never sang solo after the third episode ("Blow Up"). This led to song vocals being performed by a number of others, including, most notably, Yuiko Tsubokura and the voice actresses (including Oomori) themselves.

With Oomori unable to sing solo, the producers planned to kill Priss during the sixth episode, "Red Eyes", and replace her with a new character, Reika Chang, AKA: Vision (also a singer, played by singer Maiko Hashimoto). The producers finally realized, though, that Priss was just too popular to kill, and while Reika "did" appear in episode seven ("Double Vision"), Priss was saved. When Oomori was unavailable to reprise the part for Bubblegum Crash, BGC lost much of its staying power.

2040 Series

The Priss of 2040 is the polar opposite of her OAV counterpart. No longer rash and over emotional, the 2040 Priss is stoic and cold, with only subtle signs of a passionate temper brewing beneath her icy and distrustful exterior. She is easily identified by her mostly leather biker gear, pale skin, and long, ratty, stringy brown hair, and cat-like eyes. Much more of a mercenary than in the original series, she still functions as a Knight Saber combatant, a much more hardened and focused one. She sings for a band called Sekiria and lives in a trailer located in the slummy section of town. Initially, Priss appears to be romantically interested in Nigel Kirkland, the stoic, sullen mechanic who tends the hard suits, only to discover towards the end of the series that he is already involved with Sylia.

This new, mostly unemotional Priss is the streetwise polar opposite of her four teammates, the elegant Sylia, the idealistic Linna and the naïve Nene. Sylia sometimes teased Priss about her unattractive appearance and advises, mostly in jest, that she should clean herself up more often and dress in a manner that would be more flattering and complimentary to her, which Priss often ignores.

Priss's unfeminine appearance does not seem to bother her fans or her ardent admirer, the hulking, Herculean AD Policeman Leon McNichol, but her relationship with him is developed more here than in the original series; they do end up romantically involved, and even then Priss is the one who "wears the pants" in the relationship. While she does eventually warm up to her fellow Knight Sabers (she appears to be closer with Sylia than either Nene or Linna), she still prefers to distance herself from them, and is very protective of her privacy, whereas her OAV counterpart was much more sociable toward her teammates.

In the closing shot of the series, after Galatea has been defeated, Priss is left completely naked and alone in a desert, her hardsuit damaged beyond repair, she quietly sings to herself as she watches the sunset; her fate from there is unknown.