City Hunter

When it comes to classic shounen series, City Hunter is rarely brought up. When it comes to 80s manga, City Hunter is still rarely brought up. It almost feels like City Hunter has been forgotten about if not ignored entirely. Honestly, i can see why for some aspects of it, but giving it a real shot only proves that this manga holds up way better than you could ever expect.

I'm gonna immediately undermine my previous sentence and say that this manga is very 80s. It has a different view for gender roles, and even if it does break them on some occasions, its standings are clear. I'm not gonna say the specifics because i trust you already know what i mean. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's begin. City Hunter is an episodic comedy, romance, and action manga. In that order. Usually, when a series gets labeled these 3 genres, the order of importance for action and comedy is first, and romance is dead last. Romance is so far last in most of these types that you may even think of it as shoehorned in. Thankfully, this isn't the case with City Hunter. Comedy comes first, of course, but gag manga, this isn't. The comedy of this series relies almost entirely on 1 joke. A joke that, for me, never once got old, but i can only assume that for some, it may become tiring, especially with the next subject in line of importance. The romance of this series is much more complicated to actually talk about and will get its own section later. Then the action. The action of this series is usually not much to write home about. There's cool scenes, and interesting things happen with the action, but usually, fights either happen off-screen or are total 1-sided beatdowns. The action of this series is more about the catharsis of beating up the bad guy spectacularly than struggling to win against them.

Now you may be wondering: What is a "City Hunter?" In short, it's a moniker for a sweeper. What's a sweeper? Someone who "cleans up" whatever city or country they live in. By any means necessary. Assassination, bodyguarding, courier service, any job that a cop can't do out in the open, a sweeper can make disappear discreetly. Yakuza going out of control? Send in a sweeper to shut them up. A foreign minister is being targeted? Have a skilled sweeper protect them. You get the idea. So, "City Hunter" is the name of the best sweeper in japan. Put XYZ and your contact info at the shinjuku message board, and he'll appear. A man so dangerous and so skilled that nobody can match him. Feared by anybody who has ever crossed his path. A man named Ryo Saeba.

Now, let's talk about the characters, specifically 2. Let's begin with Kaori Makimura. Kaori actually isn't the main character, but i can't talk about him without first talking about Kaori. Kaori's role in the story is mostly as the straight man. She's there to keep the main character from going wild, in more ways than 1. She's the assistant and partner of the titular City Hunter, but she didn't start this way. Before she became partner to the most dangerous man in japan, she was just an ordinary student. Having just left high school and going to college at 19 years old. To say she doesn't belong in the underground world with City Hunter would be an understatement. To be with City Hunter is a job more dangerous than being in the yakuza. Kaori has no practical skills. No ties to this world. Yet she's in it. So the obvious question becomes: how? The answer is simple, her brother was a former partner to City Hunter, and his last wish was for her to be protected at all costs. Kaori also knew of City Hunter because of her brother and wants to help him out by carrying on her brother's work of cleaning the city. Kaori is a very straightforward character. She says what she's thinking most of the time, and even the bits she keeps to herself are obvious to know what she feels. To keep up with Ryo, she dresses more like a man at times. Jeans and short hair, instead of skirts and longer hair. She's also beholden to the mangas repeated joke. A giant hammer for a certain mokkori man. She's brash and aggressive, but is where most of the emotional heart of this manga resides. Her story with Ryo is the story of City Hunter the manga. How she truly takes on the moniker of being his partner. How she melted down a dead man's protective walls and made him want to live again. When you think of City Hunter, you think of Kaori and Ryo. Not one or the other. Ryo may shoot the guns, but she makes sure they hit the right mark.

Now for the main character. Ryo Saeba. To be honest, I'm conflicted. Ryo is the stoic type. He will never say what he truly feels and often finishes jobs by himself or makes plans without saying anything. He's always 1 step ahead of whoever he's fighting that week but will always play the fool to keep everyone off guard. Including the people close to him. Like Kaori. The reason i talked about Kaori first is because Ryo doesn't really have a character for a good bit of the manga. City Hunter is a story that didn't really find its footing for a while and therefore didn't have much of a story to really tell. More on that later. Ryo is 1 of 2 things at any given time. He's either beating up the bad guys or chasing skirts. Ryo is a massive comedic pervert. This is where my conflict comes in. To those who know me know that my favorite character in all media is Kaname Date from somnium files, who is also a massive comedic pervert. To me, Date is the ideal of this character type. Date is serious when needed and never jokes around at times of stress. I mention Date because he and Ryo are, on the surface, extremely similar characters.

They're both perverted, both keep their true feelings inside, and both are reliable when needed. Basically, they're both total tsunderes. The difference lies in the details. Ryo offsets his feelings by making jokes. His jokes are usually chasing skirts, and sometimes, it doesn't seem like a joke at all. Date, on the other hand, never does this. Date also never goes too far with his perverted nature. Ryo does, very frequently. Obviously, these 2 characters exist in very different circumstances. So while non spoilers analysis makes them seem mostly similar like this, i can assure you they couldn't be more different. Any excuse to talk about Somnium Files out of the way, back to Ryo. I still like Ryo for the most part. His perverted nature is more on the annoying side than the funny side, and it's 99% of what he's doing. That 1% that peeks through personally allows me to see slightly past it. Ryo's backstory comes piecemeal throughout the manga. Little chunks here and there about how he became so skilled and his circumstances as a sweeper. Ryo is generally not a bad guy when he isn't chasing skirts. He'll help people in dangerous scenarios for free most of the time and watches the streets for anything he can help with. He doesn't patrol and doesn't look for anything in particular at any time, but he's not the type to walk away from someone whose life is in danger if he can help it. Ryo knows what he does is dangerous and that he lives in the underground world alongside the most dangerous people. He's slow to make important decisions, unable to determine what's right for those who live above. Usually choosing to chase them away one way or another. He'd rather not think about dragging someone he loves down to his level. Instead, he'd try even harder to keep them clean and safe. Ryo cares a lot about those around him. He would never say it outright, rather letting his actions do all of the talking. Ryo is Japan's most dangerous mokkori man, and he knows it.

The story of City Hunter is structured episodically. Ryo and Kaori are complaining about not having any jobs when someone comes in something for them to do. Usually bodyguarding. The client 8 times out of 10 is a beautiful woman who causes Ryo to drool and Kaori to smash his heads in. Sometimes, the client will have something to do with Ryo's past, or they see something special in Ryo and Kaori's relationship. The advancements in character development are slow. The main focus is this relationship between Kaori and Ryo. The slow development of this relationship and how it shapes out is the focus. When looking at the story from the outside, it's clear at the beginning that there wasn't a direction that this was going. In fact, you could make an argument for that for most of the manga. City hunter follows the "and then something else happens" writing method. This means that things just sort of happen that may or may not have any correlation with each other. A side character, Saeko, inexplicably has 5 younger sisters revealed over the course of the manga. This is despite the fact that timeline wise, all 5 would be born when she's introduced, and somehow, they were never mentioned. A lot of information is convenient or follows a thread that happened recently. It never really feels connected because of both the episodic nature of this story as well as the sheer randomness of what sometimes happens. For the bits connected to Ryo an argument can be made since he never talks about himself, but early on is a character that knows 99% of the information we learn about him, and he also never talks about these things until they're relevant in the moment. It's not that a clear picture for Ryo wasn't made or that the structure may not have been planned, but its execution felt stiff and bizarre.

When it comes to the relationship between Ryo and Kaori, it's always going forward, but forever at a snails pace. They'll always bicker and nag at each other. Always be at each others throats and working to keep the sweeper business alive. Ryo, being the way he is towards women and Kaori being a self-respecting woman, means that Ryo has a lot to prove and Kaori a lot to learn.

I very much enjoyed City Hunter. It has plenty of flaws in almost every category you can think of, but it also has a relationship that i was invested in, and a character that made me reflect on why i love my favorite character in media. For that alone, i can look past these abundant flaws and say that this was a fun read. Forever in my heart, City Hunter.