City Hunter

"City Hunter" is a notorious contractor group with the call sign "XYZ." No matter the job, they will take it, cleaning up the scum on the streets of Tokyo. The key member of City Hunter is Ryou Saeba; armed with his trusty Colt Python and pinpoint accuracy, he works alongside willful tomboy Kaori Makimura.

Together they solve tough cases and tackle the numerous dangers that accompany their trade head-on. However, when he's not out hunting crooks and villains, Ryou finds pleasure in chasing beautiful ladies with only Kaori and her one hundred-ton hammer to keep him in check. From pickpockets and arms dealers to crime syndicates, nothing can stand in the way of Ryou Saeba when he takes aim at his next mission.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Saeba, Ryou Main

Kamiya, Akira Japanese

Makimura, Kaori Main

Ikura, Kazue Japanese

Nogami, Saeko Supporting

Ichiryuusai, Harumi Japanese

Ijuuin, Hayato Supporting

Genda, Tesshou Japanese

Makimura, Hideyuki Supporting

Tanaka, Hideyuki Japanese

Mohamed Supporting

Kamei, Saburou Japanese

Nogami, Reika Supporting

Takamori, Yoshino Japanese

Kouenji, Miho Supporting

Fukami, Rica Japanese

Kawada, Atsuko Supporting

Han, Keiko Japanese

Torakichi Supporting

Suzuki, Kiyonobu Japanese

Nakatani, Toshio Producer

Ueda, Masuo Producer

Kodama, Kenji Director

Urakami, Yasuo Sound Director

Reviews

Apr 28, 2008

4saken

Recommended

This large, classic series consists of the adventures of Saeba Ryo, a sweeper or hired gun and his partner Kaori. Throughout the 140 episodes that make up the 4 seasons there are mainly 1-3 episode stories that intertwine very nicely. Also 3 movies that came out during the series' release and 3 specials that aired later. This anime is considered Action/Comedy but it has a lot of the entertainment value that you get from a Super Power type anime due to Ryo's implausible skill.

Saeba Ryo is not only an absolutely perfect marksman but by nature will hit on every beautiful woman he sees, which is ... the origin of many of his jobs. Kaori, Ryo's female partner in business will often straighten him out with something heavy, like a 10 ton hammer to the head. He tries to keep a rule of only accepting female clients so this is often necessary. At whim he will go from a super marksman to hitting on any woman that comes within view. He uses a .357 magnum to get himself out of all the trouble these jobs lead him and his friends into. His skill with the gun is to the point of(but not limited to) shooting through the exact same hole in a target 12 times, in a duel with another professional drawing and reloading faster than they can even draw and shooting out 4 wheels on a car that's driving behind him all through the same hole in the rear windshield while only looking through the mirror. His marksmanship is quite literally super human.

The combination of action and comedy is perfect and very addicting. Throughout the anime he takes endless numbers of jobs, all original and without getting redundant. From catching a killer that uses hypnosis to make their target commit suicide to stopping a hacker from accessing missile silos. There are a lot of rocket launchers, grenades, plastic explosives and nitroglycerin in this anime =). There are quite a few side characters, around 7-8. All of which are very well done and significant.

The animation is very good for its time(1987-1991) in my opinion. The animation doesn't make this anime as much as the story, action and comedy, but the animation is good all the same.

As for music, is is overall very good, especially the opening, endings and theme song. I especially like the 1st opening and S2 2nd ending songs among others. The background music and sound effects are also very good.

I can say for sure that this anime does not degrade as you get to higher episodes, it only gets better, which is somewhat uncommon for a 100+ ep series. The Movies and OVAs don't lower in quality compared to the series itself either. They fit perfectly with the series at the points that you are supposed to watch them at and it just makes it that much better. Altogether this anime is a must watch, one of the best Shounen animes and very addictive.

If you like this anime I suggest watching Angel Heart, as it is a semi-continuation of many of the City Hunter characters.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Nov 4, 2021

zensurfer68

Mixed Feelings

Saeba Ryo is the second most lecherous man in the universe, beaten only by Moroboshi Ataru (Urusei Yatsura). Most of these episodes are more about Ryo perving on women, and being hit with hammers by his partner Makimura Kaori. It is light hearted fun, and there is some action. However the series started with Saeba being a 'sweeper' which seemed to mean something of an assassin/problem eliminator, he shot people and a couple of episodes were dark, but by about the 5th episode it turned into a comedy, with a bit of action. Ryo is an over the top human superhero, he has no ... powers but he has a heightened sixth sense and unbelievable accuracy with guns. His problem is he is always trying to get into women's pants, though he is never successful. It's pretty much the same joke over and over again, somehow it never wore thin. It's and OK watch but I wouldn't binge watch it unless you are a fan.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 11, 2022

CataOrShane

Not Recommended

Funny

City Hunter is considered a classic from the 80's but in my opinion is too overrated. I'll justify my opinion on this review.


Visuals:
1) classic visual style for the 80's; this is a great thing
2) there are several animation mistakes that are capable of breaking immersion
3) most male characters are copy paste, design-wise


Sound:
1) every single seiyuu is a legend in the japanese voice acting industry. The big majority of them had already worked together in many other titles like Lupin III, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, ... The chemistry between the seiyuus is very noticeable and their ... performances are incredibly solid. Despite this, Ryo is still an insuferable character. I'll explain why later.
2) The soundtrack is also very 80's and again this is a good thing, in my opinion. However, the 2nd OP is way worse than the 1st OP


Story and characters:
1) I really enjoyed the 1st episode. City Hunter made one heck of an impression on me. However, I did not enjoy any other episode afterwards. 1 enjoyable episode out of 51... yikes.
2) One of the big reasons why this was a chore to watch, has to do with the repetitiveness, predictability and pretty much copy and paste of previous episodes. Ryo goes mokkori (which is the sound effect for a boner, btw) mode for a woman that needs his help, Ryo sexually harasses and assaults the woman, stuff happens and Ryo finishes the job, woman falls in love with Ryo. This is City Hunter in a nutshell. Each episode is the materialization of a dumbass male fantasy where the more of a douchebag you are, the more girls you'll get.
3) sexual harassment was not, is not and will never be funny
4) Ryo is the main character and he is impossible to tolerate. He's a clear failed attempt at creating another lecherous, cool but kind hearted man like Lupin III. Lupin III has charisma, goes through character development and has charisma. Ryo from the 1st episode is the same exact annoying waste of space from episode 51. The only good thing about him is his voice actor.
5) Whenver the anime tries to be all serious and dramatic, it fails so hard at it. Everything gets rushed, not enough "content" to be emotional over, no sense of danger, ... terrible, awful writting. As an example and without spoiling things, I'll mention episode 5. There's a character that we would consider important that will leave the story. We're meant to feel shock and sadness. Instead, we feel confusion because they way it's handled feels like nothing more than a poor excuse to replace that character with another because Ryo needs a bigger female presence in his life. Unfortunately episode 5 isn't the only case of rubbish writting in City Hunter.
6) There's plenty of references throughout the episodes about other animes (Urusei Yatsura, Lupin III, etc), hollywood (Jaws, Arnold Schwarzenegger), literature (Jekyll and Hyde), etc.



Unfortunately for me, City Hunter was horrible to watch. Too repetitive, an annoying main character, uninteresting plot, ... as good as the old school visuals and soundtrack are and the phenomenal job that the seiyuus did, I didn't enjoy this at all.

It gets a 3/10 from me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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