City Hunter

Revision as of 02:00, 15 August 2007

City Hunter is a manga that was written by Tsukasa Hojo. Hojo is most well-known for City Hunter, although he does have other manga that has been released. His latest series, Angel Heart, is believed by many of his fans to be a sequel to City Hunter. The manga was first released in 1985 in the popular manga magazine, Shonen Jump. In 1987 it was turned into an anime, and in 1993, a live-action movie was created from the series.

Synopsis

City Hunter is about Ryo Saeba. Ryo is called a sweeper due to the fact that he "sweeps" crime out of the streets. There are two members to the City Hunter team. One is Ryo and the other is Kaori Makimura. Kaori is a young girl who deals with the paperwork side of the business. Their business, City Hunter, is a group for hire. They can be hired to do private investigator work or to guard someone. Most of the time, people get their attention by writing "XYZ" on the blackboard of the train station in Tokyo. There are other characters that reappear frequently, such as Saeko Nogami, the police detective, and the brawler mibozu.

The Manga

The manga ran for a total of eight years in Shonen Jump, ending up with 35 graphic novels. The manga is only available up to volume 5. The American distributers, Raijin, stopped printing the manga after volume 5, and it is unknown who has the license to distribute in American now.

The manga has been distributed in numerous countries, but in Indonesia it was actually banned. The government believed that it was of a controversial and pornographic nature, due to the nudity and sexual acts that were in the books. It became available through the black market and, due to high demand, the government lifted the ban from the books and allowed it to be sold once again. They did insist, however, that it have a warning on the front cover of every book. When the series ended, the Indonesian publisher took it upon themselves to get a local artist to make additional scenes. The artwork, however, was not the same, and the story did not seem to go with the rest of the books. The government once again, banned the manga from the bookstores.

Live Action Movie

City Hunter was turned into a live action movie in 1993. The well-known martial artist and stunt man, Jackie Chan, starred as Ryo Saeba. It was directed by Wong Jing and was produced by Golden Harvest and Paragon Films. In the movie, Ryo and Kaori have been hired by a wealthy businessman to find his runaway daughter, Shizuko. She ends up jumping on board a cruise ship and is followed by Ryo, Kaori and Saeko. Shortly after they get on board, the ship is hijacked, and the three detectives need to foil the hijacker’s plans and take back the ship.

It has been said that the movie does not follow close to the storyline of the manga. There is even a scene where a Street Fighter II machine goes haywire and the two people fighting end up dressing like Street Fighter characters.