SUMMARY
Bean Bandit is
a courier. From robbing banks to transporting dangerous criminals, no
job is too small, if they can afford his $40,000 shipping fee. He is
the scourge of the Chicago PD, and Detective Percy, who has dedicated
his life to capturing the "Roadbuster" as he is sometimes
called.
On his latest job, he discovers
that he has been implicated in the kidnapping of a young girl. Now,
he has 24 hours to prove his innocence, return the girl to the cops,
and stop the bad guys from getting away with 2 million dollars.
DVD VISION TEST
VIDEO: AnimEigo has done
an excellent job with the restoration. While not on par with their Macross release
(hey, what is), the colors are solid, with no color bleeding, wrinkles, or pixels
to be seen. The image is sharp and the washed out look of the original video
is gone.
AUDIO: The Japanese 2.0
audio track is pretty sharp and clear. Despite it being a 12 year and counting
OVA, the it sound almost like new. There is a richness that is sorely lacking
on the English dub track. The English 2.0 track sounds muffled, and there is
not as much directionality as the Japanese.
EDITS: Not a single
frame has been edited. The original open and close are still there, with
optional subtitles during the closing segment.
EXTRAS: Pretty skimpy. A series of stills, and the original Japanese trailer
for the DVD release make up the extras. At least they didn't try to make
"animated scene selections" an extra feature.
WIDESCREEN REVIEW
STORY: Ken'Ichi
Sonoda is well know for his love of Chicago, fast cars, and guns. Riding
Bean has all three. Coming off as a cross between "The French Connection" and
"The Blues Brothers" it has action, hot babes, and plenty of general
mayhem. It is not a grand, dramatic piece.
ACTING: While AnimEigo
did a decent job on the technical side of things, the English dub on this is
horrible. None of the characters really seem to get into their parts, and they
deliver their lines in almost a dead pan fashion. The voice actor for Mr. Grimwood
sounds like he has flem in his vocal chords, and the voice actress who does
Semmerings voice makes me cringe with her halting delivery.
On the Japanese side of
the house, this is truly the best of 80's OVA voice acting. Tanaka Hideyuki
portrayal of Bean is superb. From being playful one minute to being a "devil"
the next, you can't help but get into his character. The rest of the cast does
a great job, but the spotlight belongs to Tanaka Hidyuki.
FAN SERVICE: Well, this would not be a Ken'Ichi Sonoda movie with out some fan
service. A nude hostage (complete with tan lines), a brief lesbian kiss, and
Rally Vincent in her panties all make for some nice shots.
CONCLUSION:
Riding Bean is an OVA with a lot of
history. It was one of the very first anime to be brought to the United States
in subtitled form. It helped to propel Kenichi Sonoda from a simple"Character
Designer" to an international superstar. With it's car chases, gunplay,
and comedy, Bean is constantly sited as "one of the best anime
ever". It
would seem that Bean has everything going for it.
Unfortunately, much like the "Roadbuster"
in this anime, "Riding Bean" looks great, but gets really crappy mileage.
Especially compared to the other anime in the same vein like "Noir"
or Sonoda's own "Gunsmith Cats".
There
is no denying that Bean looks great. With it's then high quality animation,
constant action, and broad physical comedy, you can not help but notice the
way it jumps off the screen. The colors are bright, the motion is fluid, and
it is full of detail. That along with AnimEigo's transfer makes this a good
looking anime.
Unfortunately, where "Riding Bean" falls short
with its characters. No one in this OVA really has anything in the way
of personality. You have Bean, who is either mad or happy. There is Rally, who
is very cold, despite her hot looking exterior. We have Detective
Percy, with his one-track neurotic obsession with catching the "Roadbuster".
Then we have a pair of low rent villains who couldn't outsmart
the entire cast of Burn Up W.
To be blunt, with all of
these lame characters, it's amazing that Bean is still a fan favorite.
To add fire to the flame, the English voice acting cast is not very
good. The stilted dialogue, poor timing, and goofy voices only serve to
make these one-dimensional characters even more shallow.
"Riding Bean"
is another one of those Catch 22 DVD's. If you don't get it, you won't
have the great video quality and the awesome Japanese voice acting. If
you do, you will have to put up with flat characters and a migraine inducing
dub.
The choice is yours.
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