CITY HUNTER

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ComedyCity Hunter 2
MANGA ActionCity Hunter
OVA ActionCity Hunter: Ryo no Propose
MOVIE ActionCity Hunter: Angel Dust

REVIEWS

• 

  DrowZgam3r

  90/100
  City Hunter is the best classic you've never heard of

  City Hunter is a underrated classic that not many people are even aware exists. But this hidden gem is filled with 80's charm that makes it purely fun to watch.

  Plot:(7/10)
  City Hunter is a episodic show that follows Japans premier hired gun, Ryo Saeba. There is no real overarching plot to City Hunter which is both its greatest strength and downfall. The episodic nature helps keep the show from feeling bogged down with filler, drawn out fights, or just general slow sections. However since most episodes follow a general formula it can start to feel repetitive. Overall, the plot is entertaining but nothing groundbreaking.

  Characters:(9/10)
  One of City Hunter's greatest strengths lies within its characters.The two main characters, Ryo and Kaori, take the majority of screen time. And despite the episodic nature of the show, City Hunter manages to subtly develop the main characters as individuals and their interactions with each other.

  Ryo is a lazy,carefree,jovial, and perverted man who also happens to be the most gifted marksman to ever exist. But underneath Ryo's perverted and lighthearted exterior is a man with a intriguing past and strong sense of justice. Alternating freely between trying to bang anything that moves to a unstoppable bad ass with a gun, Ryo is one of the most enjoyable characters to watch in all of anime.

  Kaori is Ryo's partner in business who keeps his perverted side in check with a 10 ton hammer. Kaori is a very love or hate character. She mostly serves as a counter balance to Ryo to make sure he never takes things too far. So due to this role, her character can be seen as shallow. However, due to her being a counterbalance, her interactions and chemistry with Ryo are fantastic.

  Visuals:(10/10)
  City Hunter can be described in one word, Retro. The old art style and animation techniques fit the aesthetic of this show perfectly. Normally old art styles might be a bit of a turnoff, however the art in city hunter is so fitting that it instead enhances the enjoyment.

  Audio:(9/10)
  Similarly to the visuals, the music in City Hunter is extremely retro. The music fits the show quite well with many quality pieces of music, however very few tracks in the anime really stand out besides the opening. And the voice actors are absolutely brilliant when it come to bringing their character to life. Every emotion feels truly genuine and the personalities of the characters can be heard in their voices.

  Enjoyment:(10/10)
  Simply put, City Hunter is an entertaining show to watch. The plot may not be overly complex but it doesn't have to be, the characters are fun to watch, and the Audio/Visuals fits the show perfectly. All this combines to make City Hunter the perfect anime to sit back and enjoy late at night.

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• 

  BriForABri

  84/100
  Gotta Get Wild and Tough Until You Hear Those Footsteps in the Night

  30+ years after this show's release, and the great Shinjuku Sweeper is still teaching people like me how to Get Wild and Tough!

  My first exposure to City Hunter came in perhaps one of the most fitting ways possible - by stumbling across it while channel surfing in my then Tokyo residency with Shinjuku a short train ride away. I have always possessed a great interest in pop-culture such as music, television, video games, anime, etc. from the 1970's and 80's, so seeing a show as old as City Hunter appear in the TV guide came as quite the pleasant surprise. Needless to say, my curiousity led to watching the entire 1st season on Blu-Ray.

  I will be the first to admit that my love for 70's and 80's pop-culture - especially from that of Japan - often leaves me looking at stuff like City Hunter in the deepest of rose-tinted glasses, but after watching the entire 1st season, I can safely say that this show has something for every fan of action TV - not just anime.

  Perhaps the biggest aspect of the show that came as a pleasant refresher was the age range of the main cast of characters. City Hunter does an incredible job of marketing itself as a show to which adults can relate, understand, and appreciate. Nearly every main character is over the age of 20 while a host of the antagonists are middle-aged and even older. The cast of characters, and even the soundtrack, humor, and satirical undertones paint a picture of Shinjuku's criminal underworld - something that fans of crime/law TV shows can appreciate.

  Despite City Hunter's mature themes, it does a wonderful job of implementing comic relief on an episodic basis. Ryo Saeba is this incredibly tough, hardened, and talented hitman who gets the dirty work done, but his constant lecherous behavior towards the women of Shinjuku shows the duality of his character - an ace shot who defies the laws of physics but often becomes the butt of all the jokes. His relationship to his partner-in-crime, Kaori Makimura, is one of the most enjoyable man-woman duos I have ever seen in television. Seeing them lock heads on a regular basis always seemed to make me smile no matter what they were doing (or whose skirt Ryo was chasing).

  Even if you aren't a fan of 80's music, there is at least one song from City Hunter's discography that you will want to hear on repeat. For me, that song would be "Footsteps" or "Want Your Love" by Momoko Kitadai - two all-English songs with some truly groovy lyrics. For others, it may be the show's OP 愛よ消えないで ("Love, Don't Leave Me!") by Kahoru Kohiruimaki or the ending "Get Wild" by TM Network. It's an incredible OST that matches the action-packed, urbanized life of Ryo's wild lifestyle.

  __Personal Ratings__

  1. Music: 95/100 - There are very few songs from City Hunter that fail to get your feet tapping and your head bopping. It's an 80's soundtrack that matches the fast-paced, bright lifestyle of 1980's urban Japan perfectly - there's nothing more to be said.

  2. Plot: 66/100 - You could probably watch the first five episodes of City Hunter's 1st season and then jump around to any other episode. It establishes its plot very early on and repeats it for the entire season - a factor that can get stale, especially if you have little patience. With that being said, the concept may remain the same, but the specific themes and side characters do differ across each episode. The plot itself is incredibly fun and enjoyable, but very little changes across all 50+ episodes - if you don't like the story, well, it ain't gonna change that much.

  3. Characters: 90/100 - In my opinion, City Hunter does a great job of establishing a set number of main characters and giving them the most time in the spotlight. Ryo and Kaori are both incredibly enjoyable characters that form one of the best partnerships in television that I've ever seen, while characters like Umibozu and Saeko make multiple appearances to support Ryo. Ryo and Kaori are enjoyable enough by themselves, but by adding other great supporting characters, the cast gets that much better.

  4. Art & Animations: 88/100 - City Hunter is a classic personification of how incredible anime from the 1980's looked. When you see anime like City Hunter, you immediately know when it was made - a factor that, I believe, is attributed to how well the art style has aged. In terms of this classic style of animation, few anime of the time capture it as well as City Hunter.

  __Conclusions__

  City Hunter first tapped into my love for Japanese pop-culture from the 1980's and did not disappoint. While the plot did eventually get a bit repetitive, I always found each episode to have something unique to it, whether it was a new side-character or whatever new antics Ryo got himself into. The music and animations gave me the most enjoyment and I would highly recommend anyone give them a quick Google search.

  Or better yet, watch the 1st season for yourself! Who knows, maybe in the process of learning how to Get Wild and Tough, you'll learn a thing or two about marksmanship from Mr. Saeba (just don't follow his example when trying to pick up women)!

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• 

  nonbinarypirate

  90/100
  Problematic af but... it somehow became a favorite of mine

  (I am only going to do one review for the entirety of the actual show since the anime is broken into different shows technically but they all follow the same format and ultimately do not require an individual review in my opinion. But I may review the movies.)
  I want to start this off by saying yes, this anime is problematic and very of the time with some of its jokes. I started watching this anime because for some reason Youtube started recommending me clips of this show from RetroCrush and I was curious about the character Kaori (who was presented somewhat masculine) since she seemed cute (not even I can resist watching something because of a cute character). So I decided to watch and first few epsiodes in I was on the verge of dropping this show. Why? Because of the main character Ryo. Ryo is so wilding of the time with his constant women chasing sexist ways. It made it hard to watch at first because even though he is the literal worst he somehow dates the girl anyway. It reminds me of Johnny Bravo but if Johnny somehow earned the heart of the women despite being shitty. Did not vibe with it. But for some reason I decided to stick with it. Maybe because of pride? Or simply wanting to see how this show continues. Either way I kept watching and somehow along the way I became hooked on it. I think it's because eventually you get familiar with the jokes of the show and characters and you can apprecite the silly weirdness of this show. It's a "turn your brain off," and if you can get over the of the time jokes, one you can enjoy yourself. That doesn't mean I would recommend it necessarily (despite my review score) just that if you like watching older anime you can find at least one thing to appreciate about this anime.
  I think what made me keep watching was ultimately the cast of consistent characters we meet as the story progresses, Karori, Saeko, Umibōzu, and Miki. These are such a fun cast of characters that made watching the show fun for me once we got to see them later in the show. Especially Umibōzu and Miki's relationship, I loved watching that develop as we went further in. Besides the rare few couples we see in the show, we don't get too many romantic relationships shown and I appreciated the dynamic they brought to the table. Oh and I loved the action shots from this show. Sometimes it would be your standard cartoon villian getting beaten up and sometimes they will have Ryo do a really cool trick gunshot that was thrilling to watch! And I liked that eventually we got to see more layers to Ryo, like when he gets actually serious, no more zany persona. Or his serious protectiveness to Kaori and making sure she is safe.
  And have I mentioned how much I LOVE Kaori, because if not, I am obsessed with her. Kaori is so cute and once she was introduced it made the show more watchable for me. Going back to the Johnny Bravo comparison, she adds the needed foil to Ryo's womanizing that the show desperately needed. Not to mention I just love her personality and outfits haha. I enjoyed seeing Ryo's and Kaori's relationship evolve as the show progresses, how much they grow to care about each other. And while I won't do a review of the movies here, we get to see it even more in single plotlines with more content (which is important since this show is very episodic when a few exceptions). They deeply care and trust each other by the end of the show and last few movies and it's really cute to see these two rely on the other. (Though my one complaint of the show with Kaori specifically is that I wished they made her more competent when it comes to the action stuff too. We get some cool badass women but Kaori still gets kidnapped constantly.)
  Anyway, is this the best show out there, no, its not. But it's a show that has a good charm to it if you can stand to get by the flaws of the time. It's weird, it's silly, and it doesn't take itself too seriously for the most part. Like I said, if you like watching older animes and can get past 80s jokes that don't always age well, then maybe give this a try. At the very least, skip to when Kaori enters the show because she's the only reason why I continued anyway.

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