Riding Bean

Summary: >

Bean Bandit, also known as the Road Buster is a courier. If you need transportation, Bean is where it's at. It may cost you tens of thousands of dollars, but if you want the best, you have to pay for the best. Typically those willing to pay thousands for "transportation" have something dangerous to hide, or a danger to escape.

For Bean it was just another day until the guys who hired him as a getaway car in a bank heist botched the job. Continuing the bad streak, his next seemingly simple job of transporting a little girl back home went very wrong. Bean is set up by the bank robbers to look like a kidnapper. You'd think a simple explanation would fix things, but with everyone shooting at you, trying to run you off the road, and the screaming girl in the back seat; who would listen? That's okay because Bean is the sort of guy who likes settling things with action anyway.

Thoughts: >

If you want a car chase anime: your title has arrived!

For quite some time all I ever heard of Riding Bean was how it sucked and was overrated. Talking with people, I realized when Riding Bean came out, it was hailed as one of the best anime titles ever. Ever? Yes ever. It certainly isn't that, but by the time I got into anime all I heard was the fallout from the hype.

Riding Bean isn't bad for an action title, but doesn't push any boundaries in the genre either. As a creation of Kenichi Sonada who is a self proclaimed gun and car nut, you tend to learn more details on those things than you'd normally care to know. Some villains are fairly twisted, and the hint of an underage love affair may be a hang up for some. Otherwise the characters serve their purpose. Bean however is the "always cool" bad-ass character I never liked much. It's hard to cheer for a hero that seems invincible. His car has some sort of wizmo to get him out of every problem, his jacket is bullet proof, etc. By the middle you're not really watching to see if he's going to make it out, only to see what device will allow him to - and you know he has one.

Animation is top quality for its day, and the superior attention to detail still shows after all of these years. Designs are nice as well, with accurately rendered cars / guns. Character designs are more reminiscent of the attractive 90s style compared to 80s. The soundtrack fits perfectly, with 80's hard rock backing the action scenes.

For a strait up action packed anime, it's a great watch. Not mind blowing by any stretch, but a lot of fun.

Screen Caps: >