The Legendary Crime Anime That Perfectly Captures The Greatest Decade
There has never been and never will be again, a decade quite like the 80s, and for as much as glitz, glamour, and excess were being celebrated in the United States, Japan was in the middle of a massive economic boom at the time as well. While we had Miami Vice, on the other side of the Pacific, it was the anime City Hunter that, in its way, captured the neon nightlife of Tokyo’s criminal underworld. It also, unlike the pastel-soaked South Florida classic, launched an entire franchise of spin-offs and movies.
The Iconic City Hunter
City Hunter takes place in 1980s Tokyo and follows the exploits of private detective Ryo Saeba, who accepts work-for-hire jobs that require his particular set of skills, namely, he’s an expert marksman, a skilled combatant, and a talented driver. He’s also a womanizer, despite his lack of luck with the women of Tokyo, and that usually gets him into trouble, especially with his assistant, Kaori Makimura, who resorts to whacking him with a hammer when he gets carried away.
The pair work as “sweepers,” and though normally they butt heads with criminals of all sorts, sometimes they go against other sweepers or people from Ryo’s mysterious past as a guerilla fighter.
The Anime Does Its Own Thing
Though it’s based on the acclaimed manga series, the City Hunter anime is mostly episodic, with only around 30 of the nearly 200 episodes pulling from the source material. I found the manga to be a little more violent as well, which is impressive, as even the anime includes plenty of bloody scenes, especially when Ryo takes out a target, but even when he’s trying to impress a woman and gets a little carried away, by say, shooting himself in the hand.
An 80s Procedural In Anime Form
The womanizing can be a little much, especially for a modern audience, but go back and watch Don Johnson in the 80s, and much like pastel suits, that was just the style of the time.
The slapstick humor of Ryo and Kaori’s interactions is offset by the serious nature of the cases that they investigate, which range from human trafficking to arranging a fake death or protecting the nurse of a rich old man about to receive his inheritance.
In this way, City Hunter is similar to an 80s procedural like Moonlighting or Remington Steele, and honestly, I am here for it. There’s something refreshing today about the 80s anime style paired with the episodic style that serves as a palette cleanser compared to the anime of today.
Started A Franchise
City Hunter ended up launching its own franchise, with the spin-off sequel, Angel Heart, which sees Ryo take over as the mentor for the former assassin, Glass Heart, as they both help each other heal from their past trauma. In addition, there have been multiple live-action adaptations, with the most recent arriving on Netflix in 2024.
Still, the strangest for an anime is the live-action French film from 2019 that inexplicably includes Pamela Anderson, as for some reason, City Hunter was a massive success in France, with even the original anime films earning millions of dollars.
The 80s Original Is Streaming Today
REVIEW SCORE
Today, you can find the original City Hunter anime on Crunchyroll alongside the live-action Angel Heart series. I think the original holds up today, but then again, I’m an old-school fan who loves the ’70s and ’80s anime aesthetic, of which City Hunter is one of the best possible examples. Like Golgo 13: The Professional, it’s not for everyone, but if you’ve never seen this classic, it’s well worth binging through the first dozen or so episodes.
