Summary
Anime series like City Hunter romanticize urban adventures with suave anti-heroes in bustling metropolises filled with crooks and secrets. City Hunter fans can explore spin-offs like Angel Heart for an alternate universe with new characters and motivations to enjoy. For a different twist, shows like Black Lagoon deliver gritty crime stories with gunplay action and cynical humor in settings like port cities.
Fans are celebrating the latest live-action adaptation of City Hunter, is drawing more attention to the classic crime adventure series portraying Ryo Saeba and Kaori Makimura. New audiences will likely check out the original anime and manga, but for those who want more, anime has no shortage of shows inspired by Tsukasa Hojo's most critically acclaimed work.
Anime often romanticizes its dense metropolises, filling its glittering nightlife with scammers, secrets, and suave villains. When the City Hunter duo isn't enough to satisfy one's desire for urban adventure, other anime can provide a worthy change.
Be it an alternate universe, a gritty port city, the far future or even an exaggerated version of the United States, there are more than enough shows to make the city a wild and harsh place.
10 angel hearts
The City Hunter Spin-Off brings more of the same to die-hard fans
For the pure City Hunter experience, Tsukasa Hojo's Angel Heart spin-off offers an alternate universe to his seminal work. While Ryo Saeba continues his cleaning job of Shinjuku, this time he is accompanied by Xiang-Ying, a former teenage assassin who was given Kaori's heart after Kaori's tragic death in this version. Xiang-Ying provides a unique alternative to Kaori, becoming a much more trained and formerly dangerous partner to Ryo, while shifting the dynamic towards a girl figure.
Hojo's Shinjuku is as beautiful as ever, dotted with bars and deserted alleys. Manga readers will be happy to know that they have a 17-year story to enjoyran from 2001 to 2017. For those who want a bit more abbreviation, TMS Entertainment produced a 50-episode anime series that aired in 2005.
9 black dresses
The crime series combines Gun-Fu, Black Comedy and Cynicism
Rei Hiroe's crime manga offers a gritty, cynical alternative to the shining city of City Hunter by taking the unlucky Rokuro Okajima to Roanapur – a dank, smelly port city – where he chooses to join his family. Enter the Lagoon Company, which straddles the line between mercenaries, couriers, and pirates. . The difficulty of the story allows it The jump from black comedy, complex action and tragic ending expertlywhether that means heroes running from a killer maid or grieving over a needless death.
The 2006 adaptation of Madhouse was many fans' first introduction to its brand of madness and is beloved by many, whether because it was another successful film from the famous studio or because it was Switch to international television. It helps that Studio Madhouse creates some of the best gunfights in the industry with this show, in which Revy, Lagoon's best gunman, boasts John Woo as she jumps and slides while wielding her two pistols. me.
8 The call of the night
Urban fantasy offers a new way of looking at the city
For a more supernatural look at nightlife, Liden Films' 2022 anime offers some creative visuals that bring to life both the city and the vampires who secretly inhabit it. The city is filled with neon colors and strong shadows that give the anime a lot of personality along with the curious main characters Ko and Nazuna.
However, this series combines many genres, including horror and even action. The beating heart of the show is the quick words of all the participating charactersand the surprisingly realistic antics they get up to, even before they start meeting other vampires. Focusing on comedy, drama, and romance, Call of the Night is perfect for those who don't mind having their city stories interrupted by gunfights and gangsters.
7 Case No. 221: Kabuki
Sherlock Pastiche brings laughter amid reinterpretations
The show is titled Kabukicho Sherlock in Japan, which makes its premise clear. The series cleverly transforms Doyle's stories into an exaggerated version of Kabukicho, representing England's once infamous East End, with its own versions of Sherlock and Watson. While Production IG's reinterpretation of the characters may displease some purists, it still provides a fun and strange adventure that tests audiences' abilities in recognizing which stories have been rewritten to fit modern Japanese aesthetics.
Due to Japan's preference for depicting Holmes in Victorian settings, fantasy or otherwise, Audiences looking for a big-city private detective may welcome a change of pace here. If the constant chasing of Ryo Saeba's skirt and Kaori's mallet aren't a problem, then Sherlock Holmes solving cases with a Rakugo performance won't get in the way of enjoying Kabukicho's various murder mysteries.
6 is darker than black
The complex plot provides plenty of mind-bending espionage
The original 2007 BONES anime series is often compared to dark superhero stories, although the superpowers are used in a fierce espionage setting where betrayal is common and plots The plot is often never fully explained. Amidst all this, the electricity manipulator Hei along with his team takes on work for the Syndicate while living two lives. Darker Than Black is a more somber alternative to City Hunter, it delivers instead a labyrinthine plot for the audience to try and discernwhile enjoying the role of spies trying to outwit each other with their bizarre abilities.
Although the anime has two seasons and an OVA, the first season is generally considered the best and has attracted the attention of City Hunter fans, as it keeps its spy plane neatly folded in Tokyo's concrete jungle, where Hei lurks in alleys and rooftops.
5 Demon City Shinjuku
Simple Adventure is a blast from the past
This classic '80s OVA takes a post-apocalyptic twist, with the titular city having been ravaged by a demonic invasion, sending Kyoya and Sayaka journeying through haunting landscapes like abandoned train tracks, gloomy hotels and isolated noodle shops. This is a classic fantasy story of good and evil through a modern lens, with a sword-wielding hero journeying to befriend and ultimately face a villainous wizard with the power of friendship.
While not as complex as other stories, it still has many interesting fight scenes that make it worth the time spent, with Fans consider it a classic of the decade. Running at 1 hour and 20 minutes, Shinjuku is a fun way to revisit anime films of the past. It also has its own meandering cyberpunk influence, as the anime can be seen in the context of the 1995 Johnny Mnemonic film.
4 Durarara!!
The long-running series offers an unforgettable cast
Ryogo Narita is best known for creating stories with large casts, and his talent reaches its full potential when transforming the madness of Durarara's Ikebukuro!! reality. Although at first it seems like the main character is the newly arrived Mikado or the amnesiac Dullahan Celty, they are just part of a large cast of characters clashing and interacting with each other, all of which have their own strange backstories.
The constant introduction of new faces and new arcs keeps the audience on their toes and never sure who to root for in any given situation, showing just how unpredictable this Japanese district is. With over 60 episodes produced by Brain's Base, Durarara!! there's plenty of material for viewers to be willing to dig into at length with its complex, interwoven plots and quirky characters.
3 gunsmith cats
The short and sweet OVA delivers non-stop action
Kenichi Sonada's manga, which has a three-episode OVA, is best described as City Hunter if the action moved to Chicago. Like Ryo Saeba, bounty hunter Rally Vincent dispatches enemies with precise gunfire and a weapon of choice that the series likes to eloquently proclaim as the ultimate weapon. The OVA itself tends to be remembered fondly, containing detailed and smooth animation that also includes one of the most remembered car chases in anime.
Gunsmith Cats captures the strange nostalgia of America as a nonstop Hollywood action movie replete with vignettes of guns and beautiful women, not unlike an OLM studio-drawn Lethal Weapon movie. For fans who want to step away from the Japanese aesthetic and get into the race seat of a Shelby GT500 on the highway, Gunsmith Cats is the perfect choice.
2 lives without guns
The ultimate cyberpunk adventure has a lot of spirit
Cities and cyberpunk elements naturally go hand in hand, with technologically advanced cities becoming a metaphor for machines suffocating human life. Tasuku Karasuma's manga pushed the concept to the point of parody, which ironically gave it its own identity. Sure, it's hard to forget main character Juzo Inui, a dark monologue villain who just happens to have a revolver on his head. It sounds like a joke, but Juzo is played so seriously that readers can't help but root for the lone, downtrodden tough guy that his prototype is..
Madhouse, once again, was responsible for bringing the story to life in a 2019 anime that introduced the basics of the setting in a single episode. While it didn't become a star in the Fall lineup, it's still a solid adventure story for those who want a sci-fi spin on their crimes and conspiracies.
1 odd taxi
Underrated mystery Definitely surprises with the quality
Sadly, this anime original hasn't caught on in 2021, not helped by the fact that its cast of anthropomorphic animals look like they belong in a children's edutainment show. However, those willing to give it a try will find a tightly crafted dark plot revolving around Odokawa, a walrus taxi driver, and his possible connection to the case of a missing woman. He makes it an unusual hero who relies on cunning and a little luck to survive encounters with crooked cops and vicious gangsters.
Alongside the 13-episode anime is a compilation film, subtitled Into the Woods that wraps up some lingering plot threads. Mystery fans should not ignore the cute visuals, as they conceal a dark plot worthy of any detective novel that slowly unfolds and manages to entice even the characters closest at every important moment.