I ranked every episode of OG BGC. And ADP Files. And BGCrash. And two other OVA's.

[Labster]

A: I always thought it was the other way around with BGC fanfiction - as per the standards of nineties pop culture in the west, every thing was darker n' edgier and also kind of took agency from the less angsty four Sabers in exchange for OC's with little going for them. Heck, that's my main criticism of Grand Mal. Bob's stuff is less grimdark than the main series, but Drunkard's Walk is the exception not the rule.

B: Crash's episodes 1 and 2 actually are okay in the storytelling department - far sillier and super-sentai than the original series, and yes the animation quality isn't so great, but there are good ideas for plot and character in there, plus some good mecha design (Nene gets functional weapons! NENE GETS FUNCTIONAL COMBAT ABILITIES!). I would actually recommend watching them, but skipping Melt Down.

C: Rambler as more memorable than Vision... huh. You're not wrong, I guess, people talked about Sylvie in fic more than they ever did with Reika. But I think you get the sense of why I put Double Vision up at the top, right? Because it's the most consistently paced and well put-together episode, the one which expresses Crisis as a whole at its best (It may not have as memorable of an opening as Tinsel City, but Tinsel City also has Nene and Sylia ride the bus in hardsuits, a move which took me out of the episode pretty early on pretty hardcore). And to top it all off Masami Obari's mech designs in 5&6 are just too fabulous for words, the HyperBoomers in Red Eyes look like goddamn Pillar Men whereas Reika's GD-42 feels more consistent with established machinery like the Combat and Battle Boomers... yeah. I see what you're getting at, though. I think.

A. Well, there's the classic, indispensable fic, Bubblegum Pink: Raging Fires, which isn't darker and edgier, but I think we can safely say it's much danker and edging-ier. (NSFW obvs) I was also thinking of The Dance of Shiva.  It includes Sailor Moon, so it's naturally a lot brighter and in the dark places substantially darker.  But it's good, and much like DW2 it takes disparate stories and weaves them together.

Some of the existential bleakness of canon BGC comes from the fact that the OVAs aren't all that linked together; it's just one fight after another.  Because we never got to see where they were going, it can either lead a writer off in the direction of Sisyphean tragedy, or towards an resolution, or maybe just an improvement.  Or, uh, to sex, because this is fanfic.

B. OK will do.

C. Rankings are going to be arbitrary; you like what you like.  Sci-fi in particular, the writing doesn't always have to be as good so long as the story asks interesting questions.  Star Trek TOS's most memorable moment was probably the interracial kiss, but "The City on the Edge of Forever" had all the writing going for it, along with an interesting question.

I had been thinking of writing a slice-of-life BGC crossover.  Based on the character birthdates of stories set in the near future, all of these would be about the same age:
Koiwai Yotsuba
Sylia Stingray (only 3yo, but child prodigy)
Akagi Shunsuke (canonically 25 in 2030; 5-6 yo)
Takaya Noriko (b. 2006-09-12 in Osaka, Japan, 4-5yo)
Togusa [unknown] (27 in 2030, 30 in 2034 - roughly 4 yo)
So why not put them in a preschool class together around 2010, taught by Osaka from Azumanga Daioh?

Or maybe I'm the one on crack.