Riding Bean

Riding Bean is one of Kenichi Sonoda's early works, and though it was originally planned as a series, only one episode was ever released.

The anime follows the exploits of the legendary courier "Bean Bandit" (a truly unfortunate moniker), and his partner Irene Vincent. They are framed for the kidnapping of a wealthy heiress, and are subsequently hunted by the police and various other parties.

The art and animation of Riding Bean is quite typical of it's time, and bears a resemblance in places to the style of Lupin and Giant Robo. Riding Bean does however have something that sets it aside - the chases. Very few ... animes are able to convey the feeling of a high speed pursuit, and Riding Bean is amongst the best.

The sound is of a very good quality, and all the gearheads (a.k.a. car fanatics) out there will love the roar of the engines in the anime.

Riding Bean has some memorable characters, and ironically enough, the most memorable is not Bean Bandit. It is in fact, the cars. The Bean Bandit drives a customised sports car called "The Roadbuster", and if you're like me (in other words, you like cars and racing), then you'll understand me when I say I WANT THAT CAR! If you watch the show, you'll understand why. I watched the showed at the young and impressionable age of 14, and The Roadbuster has been flitting around in my head ever since.

On the flip side, the police also have a car with which to hunt Bean Bandit - the Shelby Cobra GT500 **drools**

One other thing that needs mentioning is the character of Irene Vincent. I hope the name sounds familiar because Kenichi Sonoda later evolved her character into the famous Rally Vincent from Gunsmith Cats.

This is an enjoyable romp through the streets of Chicago, and the chases are truly memorable. If you're a fan of classic anime, or better yet, a fan of Gunsmith Cats, then this is a must watch. If you like action and adrenalin, then Riding Bean is well worth viewing.

If you're after romantic comedies, slice of life, etc, then this may not be to your tastes, but it never hurts to give it a try :)

Riding Bean is effectively a prequel (and dare I say - a pilot), of the legendary Gunsmith Cats, but it is just as enjoyable as GC. The chemistry between Bean Bandit and Irene Vincent is marvellous, and Inspector Percy is a hoot.

I found Riding Bean to be fast paced and highly enjoyable. The mixture of action and comedy is just about right for me, and I've rarely seen chases that match the ones in this show.

As a person outside of having to review the show, this show is pretty awesome for vintage anime and I truly injoyed it. As a reviewer… I have to nit pick. The problem with that is that the story is really very good and I believe it has the workings of becoming a whole series is the Manga-ka Kenichi Sonoda had not had a falling out with the studio. After the OVA was created, Kenichi created the manga and the manga ‘Gunsmith Cats’ where Rally Vincent was the star though her design was altered.

Anyway, going back to the story, it’s pretty awesome in how ... it shows the action scenes and everything. It feels like an American made movie more then just an anime with how many guns and vilence is in the show. It starts out with Bean being the get away driver for a bunch of thieves and then ends him being the hero of the show. It’s not making him an anti hero and has him as a regular guy getting money. He actually is rather strong, almost like Superman strong as he had picked up the front end of a car and also rammed his fingers into the metal door of the car to rip the door right off its hinges. Rally on the other hand doesn’t really do much in the show although she is a quick shot. The only thing I really noticed her doing when she didn’t have a gun in her hand was tell Bean to keep cool or try and take care of the little girl.

Going onto the cops side, the cops are damn idiots and Detective Percy should be placed into a mental hospital. Seriously, Percy is infatuated with trying to catch Bean at all cost and goes crazy when he thinks he can. He is the definition of a bumbling detective who gets into a hell of a lot of trouble but I guess I have to give him being smart enough to actually not get fired from his job. The cops don’t help the matter, always crashing into things or sounding like complete idiots or children as in the the small chant they do close to the end of ‘Bean, come out and play’ thing. And yet, in that all that’s said and done, it seemed to sort of fit to me.

The animation becomes really sloppy at some points, using many speedlines and odd movements that feel a bit stiff. The times that it doesn’t have these problems though, they are ether still shots or some very detailed action scenes. The eating habits are rather laughable though. It’s very exaggerated as though the animators had no clue how to show them eating so they slowed them down and made rather huge mouths. It becomes almost discusting at how they did it. Bean was designed rather interestingly with a little to large of canines making him look rather beastly.

The English voices are laughable at most, feeling mostly stale at the most intence times. It’s as though they were reading a script rather then playing the part. The words really don’t feel like they fit the mouth movements and sometimes the characters move their mouths when no one is talking. The only one that seems alright is Percy and he shouts almost every other sentence. The little children also seem to shout as though they can’t be heard any other way. Dispite that, the people that were picked to play the parts were actually what I would see for the type of voices coming from the characters. If they acted a bit more then shouted, it would have been even better.

I think everyone should at least watch this one once. Even with the flaws, the show is rather action pact and won’t leave you bored. Because of the flaws, the times that it does go into a slow pace, they feel a bit comedic and the script can be rather tounge and cheek at points.

What I initially thought would be an Ender’s Game porno turned out to be a ridiculous eighties action story with healthy doses of blood, cars, and pedophilia to appeal to every possible demographic. Riding Bean was the precursor to my last review, Gunsmith Cats, and even contains Rally Vincent as a secondary character. But unlike Gunsmith Cats, Riding Bean kind of sucks.

In what I assume is Chicago, Bean is a courier who, along with his partner Rally, get framed for kidnapping a young girl while the actual kidnappers take her father hostage and steal the ransom money. In a fit of testosterone laden action, Bean ... takes out his anger on the actual kidnappers, a woman and an eleven year old girl.

What’s instantly noticeable is the violence is a lot more graphic than Gunsmith Cats, somewhat pointlessly too. We’re given to believe that this is going to be a show focusing on shoot-outs but by the end of the forty-five minute episode, Bean is basically using sheer strength to lift cars and wears bulletproof everything to keep him invincible. As usual, the godliness of the main character means the action has no drama to it and instead comes across as silly. So the earlier, realistic violence is cast aside for the cartoonishness of Superman.

But it’s not just the action that’s silly. The music is pure eighties cheese, the kind of background noise you’d expect in Commando. Then there’s the dialogue, which is pretty awful, and the voice acting, which is bad too.

A moment of terrible dialogue comes with the maid service from the loli who gives the kidnapped father a hamburger and asks if he takes mustard with it. American maids are cool! But then she decides to suck his dick which he doesn’t take too kindly to. He slaps her away and she takes a knife threatening to cut his dick off. To which he responds that a little girl shouldn’t do that! If the anime had just been this forty-five second scene, it would have been a perfect ten for giving me a good laugh.

Bean himself is like a Schwarzenegger character. He’s ultra-strong, can’t be defeated, and has the speech capacity of Austria’s favorite son. As for Rally, she’s not at all like her counterpart in Gunsmith Cats and suffers from being too one-dimensional.The bad guys and other characters are not even slightly memorable.

What this adds up to is an unintentionally funny show that’s God-awful in nearly every regard aside from the animation. Riding Bean is stupid, underwhelming, and you won’t benefit from a viewing.