Anime Pilgrimage RTT

City Hunter 2 – episodes 1 to 7

December 19, 2004 on 8:23 pm | In City Hunter | Comments Off on City Hunter 2 – episodes 1 to 7

City Hunter with a 2 on it is the same loveable City Hunter, but with new songs and sharper comedy.

The same deal of Saeba Ryo working as City Hunter, king of the underworld, remains. Because of his fondness for Kaori, he’s still too soft to land himself some real jobs. However, danger still finds him, so now he does all sorts of call things like shooting people’s fingers off! But only when they deserve it.

Ryo gets to do some more outlandish stuff, including one scene in which he sexually harrasses male punks in an alleyway, and Kamiya Akira truly makes this series. His performance in the pratfalling sequences is simply hilarious, and I suppose that he’s cool when he’s playing it smooth and straight. But that scarcely seems to matter. Of course, the truly great comedic moments are when he goes between the two in the space of a second. It seems hard to believe but Kamiya somehow manages to seriously accuse Kaori of “molesting men and stealing their underwear”. Sometimes this series is pure farcical genius.

Some of the themes are amazingly pertinent even to this day: the first episode of the series is about a model whose company wants to turn her into an idol. Problem is, she can’t sing. They record her anyway. Manufacturing idols is something even more controversial today, proof that some things never change and in fact are liable to get worse.
Ryo’s greatest grace is that he refuses to do lolicon, because rightly so it freaks him out. Ryo may well be a pervert, but he’s a very direct, unkinky pervert. That’s the sort of thing people should be looking for in a man.
The other big issue covered is that of what is called the jiageya – people who put pressure on home-owners to sell their houses against their will. This is not particularly hard hitting, but it was topical back in 1988. City Hunter 2 was with the times, which is one of its appeals – almost all of the story lines were based on trends or scandals of the eighties.

The music is almost exactly the same as the first series, but with less repetition and at least one more new, cool Japanese insert song. The OP is way romantic – because they want to show some sort of niceness between Kaori and Ryo. Everyone knows that the two of them can never be together, so witness the tragedy! The ED is one of the greatest ever, largely due to its excellent English (including such phrases as “Faye Dunawaye” and “Diet Food”). It makes one want to dance, and truly that is what one wants from the songs of City Hunter.

Finally, there was an M&M’s soft drink can featured prominently in a dramatic scene.
City Hunter is definitely back. With a 2. Watch it or you’ll get the hammer!