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In the near future the city of Judoh's twenty-five million
inhabitants are plagued by vice and crime. The authorities,
unable to cope with the crime wave, set up a Special Ops unit
consisting of Daisuke Aurora and an android called J. Budget
cuts not withstanding, the two do what they can to stem the
tide of Mafia crime...
This
box set of Heat Guy J represents volume two and covers
a very generous range of episodes, from nine to seventeen.
Disc one has episodes nine to thirteen, and disc two episodes
fourteen to seventeen. The show is a kind of cop buddy series,
which blends some excellent CGI with traditional animation.
Visually, the show is a real treat and features some cool
character and hardware design, though Diasuke's motorbike
bears a striking resemblance to the one in Akira.
Daisuke looks a little too young for his character and J spends
his time stealing bubblegum wisdom from Yoda and regurgitating
it to anyone whose eyes are not already bleeding with disinterest.
In
Trust we're thrown straight into the story, which is
initially disorientating if you haven't seen the previous
episodes. Daisuke and J are trying to track down the purveyors
of illegal passports. Daisuke is feeling all paternal towards
little Monica as he's aware that her mother, a drunk, is engaged
in crime. In the city of the future it is illegal to travel
without the government's permission.
Guns
sees the boys off to thwart a bomb threat to the city. Following
a bit of sleuthing they track the explosives to an old abandoned
military base. The base turns out not to be so abandoned and
Daisuke recruits the odd collection of military misfits to
thwart the attack. Not really sure what was going on with
the trumpet guy, with the Mickey Mouse ears, but I'm pretty
sure that the idea of giving him a gun was a dubious one.
In
Mirage D & J are asked to help out when it looks like
detective Edmundo's amnesiac ex-girlfriend may be an assassin.
Loads of violence in this episode, for those who like it,
and the plot twist is clever. Having set up Elisa, the ex-girlfriend,
as the killer we are then shown her clearly surviving a hail
of bullets, something that would be impossible for an ordinary
woman.
In
Visitor, the celestial ships arrive to a tumultuous welcome
and a carnival in their honour. At this point the show goes
off on a strange sci-fi twist. The Celestials control the
water and light for the city, but after they are attacked
and twelve of them are killed, the Celestials are threatening
to turn off the cities utilities. Daisuke is sent to find
the one lone Celestial roaming the city in the hope that disaster
can be averted. Ok, so I didn't review the first box set,
so it comes as a surprise to discover that for some inexplicable
reason humans are reliant on aliens for their water and electricity.
From the previous episodes we can presume that Judoh isn't
the only city left on earth, otherwise why did the thugs in
Trust require fake passports. Still, it gives another
nice layer to the show.
Encounter
follows directly on from Visitor, with the underground
denizens trying to get away from the fire which was started.
D & J are still on the trail of Ryan who turns out to be a
Celestial, which will come as a surprise to all those short-sighted
people who didn't spot that he was dressed as one in the previous
episode. This is a nice plot dense episode which explains
what happened to Daisuke's mother and why she left eighteen
years ago when the Celestials last visited. We also discover
that there are only seven cities left on the Earth, and that
Daisuke has a brother. Will the boys get to the Celestial
and put the power and water back on? Well of course they do
otherwise it would be the end of the show.
So on to disc two... Arrow is a story of death and
revenge. Daisuke is sent to the island of Siberbia to retrieve
a witness who has information regarding the murder of his
father. Before they can get there they run into a young Siberbian
girl who is looking for her grandfather who came to the city
seeking revenge for the killing of the girl's parents.
Now
we seem to be getting into a bit of a story arc with Angel.
Following on from the events in Encounter, the vampire
is out for revenge. Daisuke is still trying to get to Siberbia
when he and J are ambushed and J is blown into little pieces.
Once more, a good episode that advances the arc and adds some
more information regarding Daisuke's past.
Target,
and someone tries to take out Shun, Daisuke's brother (getting
the hang of who is who now). With Daisuke keeping vigil on
his brother, J and Edmundo trace the assassination attempt
to the vampire.
Survival
is the last story on the disc, and the guys finally get to
the island of Siberbia - took them long enough. This is a
good end to this box set with more information being provided
about the killing of Shun's and Diasuke's father.
The
disc comes with an impressive range of audio options, including
English and Japanese stereo, 5.1 and DTS plus subtitles. The
set contains nothing in the way of extras, but this is offset
by the nine episodes.
Charles
Packer
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