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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Buy | 9 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:493#1552] |
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Heat Guy J was apparently under the radar for many anime fans when it was picked up for licensing by Pioneer years ago which is a shame considering this was an all-around great action series worth checking out. The series mixes around both ongoing plot and individual cases where Daisuke and his android partner J deal with the underworld of crime throughout the city of Judoh. One of the show's greatest strengths is the great deal of effort it lays out in laying out the world of the series and exploring its characters. Judoh is a city ridden with poverty, crime and corruption which the series isn't afraid to tackle, even with Daisuke's character being as calm and easygoing as he is. People with positions of authority abuse their power. Those in the slums of Judoh struggle to get by and live on the streets. Crime syndicates have enough influence on city activity to evade arrest. The series also mixes in elements in or out of Judoh that effect the city's activity and characters such as the Celestials, those living in the slum city in Judoh's sewers and a group of people who adapted to living without the conveniences of the city. While these elements seem irrelevant at first glance, they do hold a significance amount of influence on driving the show's plot and motivations of specific characters. Speaking of characters, Heat Guy J does enough at fleshing out many of its characters. The show explores the backgrounds, mentalities and personal beliefs of many of its prominent characters, including those among the crime syndicates of Judoh. Some characters even find their personal beliefs and mentalities challenged at points within the series when Heat Guy J chooses to address a major flaw or lingering story element that said character was dealing with throughout its run. From Boma's search for his lost sister to Claire handling the responsibilities of a mafia leader in his abusive father's footsteps, the series does enough to have you care for the challenges faced by many of its characters throughout the series. As I explained above, Heat Guy J's episodes are divided up into individual and ongoing plot focus. The individual episodes feature a self-contained case with many being used to explore and/ or develop its major and supporting cast. The 'ongoing plot' episodes slowly uncover a conspiracy concerning the city's power structure connected between crime syndicates and influential city leaders. These episodes take their time at slowly unveiling elements to the conspiracy and those responsible for it, as well as delivering some shocking plot twists that did enough to keep this reviewer interested. The only issue I have with the show is that the final episodes seemingly bring about the show's climax too quickly as the narrative wasn't as smoothly paced as much of the show had been running. In terms of presentation, Heat Guy J is visually impressive for a TV title featuring highly detailed and vast settings with vibrant color applied to them. This same detail and color also went into designing the characters, though their details do come across as a bit rough with a number of character designs. Animation in Heat Guy J is notable in that the show goes for a variety of different types of action sequences such as sword fights, hand to hand combat, fights between robots, gun action and even a land-to-sea battle involving a tank. Many of these scenes featured vehicles and characters moving about at a fluid pace and hardly any shortcuts were apparent with the animation. For music, the show's soundtrack consists of upbeat and haunting musical tracks featuring a variety of instruments such as electric guitars, woodwind and keyboard which blend together perfectly in the various scenes seen throughout Heat Guy J. Overall, Heat Guy J made for a surprisingly solid action anime with plenty of depth on its world and characters, as well as not being afraid to test out various types of action sequences with its animation and having a great soundtrack to listen to. This is a definite keeper if you are a fan of action anime and is one that needs more love from anime fans. Last updated Monday, November 28 2011. Created Monday, November 28 2011. | ||||||||
| Buy |
 Forbin
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[series:493#1573] | ||||||
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Drama : Med/High Comedy : Low/Med Action : High SciFi : High Ecchi : None/Low All Episodes Watched Robocop meets  Cowboy BebopWith such a unpretentious name like Heat Guy J (Or Habitat Ground Judo - Which is probably more appropriate). This little series hides a very good detective flick (Though not as good a Bebop). Daisuke is a slacker. He's a good cop but he hates doing reports. The city has a budget for a very expensive robot but not any budget for bullets. Hehe. The background animation is incredible. There is one scene where he visits an old military base and the mountain scene he walks alone must've taken a guy a month to paint. I do wish someone would tell the Japanese and names like Claire and Ruth (from Scrapped Princess) are GIRLS names and not guys. There was a funny scene where there was a police road block setup and the backgrounder put 'POLIZE'. I'll mark it a LOW BUY as the ending was a bit much and there is no way Daisuke could get that kind of information out the city yet the cops couldn't do crap. I do wish it had a more conclusive ending for Daisuke, it reeked of a reset. BTW All episodes are important, there is no filler. (Which is hard to believe but all episodes tie together near the end). My favorite episode had to be the military one when Daisuke goes to dinner. Last updated Wednesday, April 19 2006. Created Friday, April 14 2006. | ||||||||
| Buy | 8 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 9 |
 Jan-Chan
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[series:493#967] | |
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There are a total of 16 episodes (that I have been able to find) in this very futuristic law enforcement series. Diasuke is a rather care free and happy-go-lucky special crimes investigator, who with his robotic heavyweight partner, Heat Guy J, get assigned all weird and strange cases. They investigate a variety of different crimes and have confront assassins, genetic mutants, and a maniacal cappo of the local mafia. The animation is very good, the story line is fast, the characters are very canned and flat, but it works very well at being very entertaining!! . I might want to complain that each story is a stand-alone episode with almost no-carry through and there is no character developement. But the series is so much fun and violently entertaining, I did not mind. I have reviewed a subbed version, but it appears that Pioneer has picked up on this series, and it might even make it to MTV broadcast channel in 2004 (or so the news release reports.) Pioneer has put up web site with some clips of the series at http://www.heatguyj.com which is well worth visiting. Last updated Friday, January 30 2004. Created Saturday, October 04 2003. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Official Heat Guy J Website | http://www.heat-guy.com/ |
| Pioneer Advert | http://www.pioneeranimation.com/titles.php?id=478 |
| Heat Guy Footage | http://www.heatguyj.com/ |
