Jul 9, 2022
City Hunter tells the adventures and stories of sweeper Ryo Saeba and his partner Kaori Makimura, who form City Hunter and are hired as bodyguards or private investigators. The manga is of an episodic type, but obviously there are also some main and more important stories than the episodic ones, such as flashbacks, which form the interpersonal relationships of the characters and the main core of the story. This manga I can say with great pleasure that it has become one of my favorites and that I will carry forever in a special place of the heart.
Tsukasa Hojo (author of the famous
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"Cat's Eye", known in Italy as "Cat's Eyes") has been able to amaze me not only through his innovative style, but also through the continuous development and change of events, designs, characterization of the characters and much more like the gags. I loved the drawings not only for their evolution (which can be glimpsed not only within "City Hunter" but also within "Cats'Eye", whose style is even more immature and very different compared to the latter) but also for their precision and clarity. These characteristics can also be glimpsed in the arrangement of the cartoons and balloons, which also possess a sort of experimentalism. In fact, we see that Hojo in addition to knowing how to manage, in an exceptional way 9 cartoons on a single page, without giving a sense of disorder and chaos, is also capable of making the balloons become, when needed, something material and physical capable of interacting. and get in touch with the characters of his story.
Sometimes there is also a sort of "breaking of the scenic illusion" (if we can call it that), that is when the characters of the manga all of a sudden start talking about the manga itself and even about the author, who very often leaves between the cartoons commentary notes on the events in progress.
During its serialization "City Hunter" has changed a lot: we have parts in which the detective genre is the most consistent, in others the melodramatic one and in others still that of the story of the past. Furthermore, the manga from the beginning to the end is characterized by a correct alternation between action and narration. Despite this, the gags have always been a fixed point of the story, sometimes present to a lesser extent, others instead in which they follow each other effectively. The author goes from a funny moment to a serious one with a disarming ease without ruining the continuity of the narrative. This is evidenced by a change in the drawing style, without resorting to particular techniques such as the deformed one, and by the fact that the "gag wounds" are different from the real ones, as well as the expressions.
Reading City Hunter I realized how unique and crazy Tsukasa Hojo is through his experimentalism and innovative style of yesteryear. He will definitely recover "Cat's Eye" but also his artbooks as his drawing style has become one of my favorites. I hope that through this review you have encouraged you to read a unique and inimitable work of its kind.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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