Heat Guy J

Sorry this one's so late. I had to go out of town early last Friday morning for a wedding. I thought I'd have a laptop with me to get this done on time but it didn't work out that way. Here's Heat Guy J posted late. I plan to do another for this Friday and hopefully two again next week to make up for the screw up.

Quick & Dirty

Language: Japanese

Initial Interest: Low

Favorite Character: Daisuke…Boma

Opinion: Good

Likely to Finish: Yes

Synopsis

Android J was secretly built by the government to be the partner of special agent Daisuke Aurora and to combat crime in the oceanic city-nation of Judoh. While J initially appears to be human, the illusion quickly disappears in clouds of scorching steam when he fights… The most dangerous criminals will soon find themselves on the run from the underground legend known as the Heat Guy. (Source – Pioneer Animaton – DVD)

Pre-Viewing Thoughts

A friend recommended this series as she was heading off to Japan and pulled it right off the shelf for me to watch. It’s been sitting there for almost a year. I finally got around to reading the back of the box to see what exactly this series was about somewhere around a week ago.

I’m not really interested. The plot doesn’t sound wildly interesting to me.  All the same, I’ve said those words before and fallen completely in love with a series. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but I’m a character person. That means that for me good characters can carry a mediocre plot and bad characters can ruin a great plot. So if this series has good characters, which it has a reasonable chance at, then I may love it. Here goes nothing.

Favorite Character

Favorite character goes to Daisuke. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I really liked his character for some reason. Honestly I didn’t think I would but I do. He’s kind of fun to watch I guess.

I also liked Boma (Werewolf Boma or the “villain” from episode 4). He was just cool and he had an interesting backstory that drove his actions. I’d like to see him return in future episodes.

Overall Opinion

This is one of those series that comes at you like a sucker punch. You just don’t see it coming. I thought the description made it sound boring and I wasn’t crazy about the artwork so I wasn’t really looking forward to it; then all of a sudden I was watching this series and it was really good. As I said in my pre-viewing thoughts, I’m a character person and good characters can make the anime for me. That’s what we have here, good characters. Daisuke is gives off this air of not caring about anything really but little things he does show he really does care deeply for those around him. J at first just seems like a stiff robot, nothing new or special, but his unwavering dedication to Daisuke made me like him. Boma, a character who was in one of the first five episodes, as a villain, made me want to see more of him. And then we have our real villain, Clair/Vampire; this guy is a complete lunatic and he shows it in every action but he’s still interesting. Little snippets here and there hint that Clair has some serious daddy issues and you wonder what exactly they are. But even without caring about Clair’s background, he’s still going to be a fun bad guy to pit J and Daisuke up against. Really the characters here are amazing and they make what would otherwise be a mediocre plot seem like something worth watching.

I recommend giving this one a try. If you don’t like it then you don’t, but don’t count it out before you’ve watched a few episodes.

Next Official Review: Open to suggestions.
D-Gray Man if not otherwise suggested.