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.

I love trashy 80s anime about hyper masculine crap such as cars. It's silly trashy fun. The dub in this is beautifully bad purely because the main character who has a very enjoyably tricked out car has zero charisma. The dubbing of Percy, his arch rival, is a riot though. Percy is the over the top police detective obsessed with catching our hero, The Road Buster!!! The Road Buster (aka - Bean Bandit) does criminal underworld driving jobs and trashes many police cars every time. This anime has a strong sense of fun to it. Percy is especially fun, but take time to enjoy the ... ridiculous things Bean does, like the taser bit, or the drinking coffee from the coffee machine (if my memory serves correctly). Express disbelief! That's all in the fun of this show.

The car chases and stuff are fun. There's even a mission impossible vibe with one aspect of the anime, which is great fun because it's so ridiculous.

The plot is weak but it serves its purpose well. One link in it is especially difficult to go along with. But whatever. It's 45 minutes, so I'm happy they cut out the crap and go straight to the good stuff - the action! Come to think of it, there's one point at the end where a brand new baddie turns up declaring that they're 'desperate enough at this stage' and its like, who the hell are you?

This anime gets ridiculous at the end. Roll with it. Understand that this was meant to be the pilot for a series, so presumably it had justifications for the direction it goes in. Sit back and enjoy. Seriously, just roll with it. It is what it is.

There's a bit of partner abuse and lolita-ish stuff thrown in there. So, beware if these are things that put you off.

That aside, my recommendation is to watch this being aware that it sucks, but it very enjoyably sucks and actually on its own terms totally doesn't suck. HAVE MUCH FUN.

(please do let me know yours feelings about this review via private message!)

Ever imagined an anime version of "The Fast and the Furious"? Well, me neither. But if there was one, it'd probably be something similar to "Riding Bean" (okay, I concede "Initial D" might be a more obvious choice, but I haven't seen that yet).

"Riding Bean" is about cars. Cars, gangsters, and more cars, to be exact. All the action centralises around fast and furious car chases down the highway, or the main character (nicknamed "Bean Bandit") doing some incredible things with his incredible sports car (named "Roadbuster" - you just know it's a badass car because it has a name) to get him out of ... what seem to be impossibly tight spots. The action is very satisfying for the most part, but does get a little *too* over the top - by the end, this Bean Bandit guy was dishing out carnage comparable to Superman.

While "Riding Bean" is an action heavy OVA, the story is surprisingly clever, as it has more than its expected share of twists and turns that kept me guessing what was going to happen next. That said, the story is sometimes compromised by the OVA's appetite for over the top action. For example, I'd hardly think people who are attempting to get hold of a captive from a car would resort to shooting the car with anti-tank guns in order to try and stop it.

On the animation side of things, "Riding Bean" does well with its great action sequences. However on the negative side, there's something weird about some of the character designs that I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps it's that ginormous chin sported by the Bean Bandit... I just can't get over it.

I gathered from other reviews that "Riding Bean" is considered the prototype of "Gunsmith Cats", as the two share the same creator. I can certainly see the resemblence in the style and setting (as well the fanservice), and in fact, the two both feature the character Irene "Rally" Vincent (something that I didn't pick up at the time). The general consensus seems to be that "Gunsmith Cats" is superior to "Riding Bean", but I have to disagree. I thought that "Gunsmith Cats" feels a bit stale, and does not really standing out in anyway. On the other hand, while there are times when it seems like "Riding Bean" doesn't quite know what it wants to be (at one point I thought it was gonna go down the perverted path, but the moment passed without amounting to anything), it has a much more nifty plot and action that gets the adrenalin pumping a lot faster. Overall, it's a well spent hour I'd say.

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.

Riding Bean is a prequel of Gunsmith Cats, featuring a character of Smith.

Bean is a hired driver for sly tasks, be it driving criminals after a bank robbery, or taking the little daughter of a millionaire back to his father. For those tasks he used his bullet proof modern sports car and performs his missions without fail.

The story was pretty entertaining, sometimes silly but in a positive way at that. And was good for this genre of anime. The animation was very good and you can see that it had a good financing backing the project. The character were all consistent, except a slight fail ... that remained unexplained that happened near the end and concerned Bean, other than that good work.

Unfortunately this OVA is one of those that leaves the impression of a first episode of a series. And indeed upon reading some info on it, it was intended to be made as a series, but the plan was left for some reason unknown.

Rate: 7/10

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.

“Riding Bean” is, for the most part, an enjoyable watch. With a 46-minute runtime, it delivers an intriguing plot with a decent, yet open-ended conclusion, and doesn’t overstay its welcome or get stale. The character designs are nice to look at, the animation and voice acting are decent, and the all-English soundtrack is pleasant. It takes place in Chicago, which is kind of unusual for an anime, and that, paired with the music, gives this OVA a distinctly “American” feel that only a few other anime I’ve seen have managed to accomplish.

Similar plots have been done before, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to ... see it play out, with all of the colorful car chases and gunfights, the larger-than-life antihero protagonists, and wacky twists and turns. The villains are a bit “too” evil, though, which kind of tempers my enjoyment of the OVA and gives me tonal whiplash. The main villain, in particular, can be hard to watch; she is manipulative, and gaslights and abuses the young girl working with her.

There is also a fair amount of unnecessary fanservice that has nothing to do with the plot, and it seems kind of forced in there. And we also get a scene where the young girl working with the main villain offers to “help” a man they kidnapped use the bathroom, which is disturbing.

Since this is just a one-shot OVA, the characters’ backgrounds and motivations are barely explained, and I’m left with more questions than answers. For instance, why is Bean so strong that bullets bounce off of him? Why are he and Rally partners, and why exactly do they do what they do? Are they criminals? They live in a big city with such a distinctive car, so why do the police have trouble finding them? How do the villains’ disguises work so well? Why does Bean stuff a bunch of nuts into his mouth before he goes on a vehicular rampage? Things like that.

Overall, although the villains’ actions, meaningless fanservice and lack of background hamper this OVA, it’s a fun “America-in-an-alternate-universe”-style action romp that is worth a watch.

Riding Bean is an awesome, awesome, awesome—oops, accidentally clicked the repeat button—OVA and my favorite adaptation from the Ken'ichi Sonoda répertoire. If you have ever experienced Gunsmith Cats, this is like that—ramped up to two-hundred! Half-naked girls, explosions, crazy car chases, the fetishization of rare guns, and much more! Since this is a forty-six minute OVA, there will be spoilers! You have been warned!

• Bean Bandit and his voluptuous friend, Rally, are professional getaway drivers. In the first scene we are already exposed to Bean’s badass nature as he chases a bunch of robbers down in his custom Porche chassis (with Corvette ‘Stingray’ machinery)! Bean is ... invincible—he gets caught in a hail of bullets, has a searing hot frying pan placed on his face, and even gets shot in the head without much damage! The most that ever ails him is the shot to the skull gives him a cross-eyed, Looney Toons expression for a couple of minutes but, then, he’s perfectly fine!

• Bean is a bonafide, badass, manly man to an absurd degree. It’s never actually revealed why Bean is immortal—maybe he’s has a cyborg body, maybe he’s Frankenstein’s monster, but the OVA is so captivating that the audience doesn’t really care, he’s just Bean. Speaking of impossibilities, the car physics and functionality are absurd. In an interview, Ken'ichi Sonoda claims that all of the high tech gadgetries in Bean’s car were feasible at the time of the manga’s release (1988) but it would be a stretch to say that those car mechanics would be possible now, thirty years later!

• After being duped by a malicious master-of-disguise, Semmerling—it is revealed that the kidnapping of the child of the Grimwood estate, was actually just an excuse to abduct her father, Mr. Grimwood, and use him as a hostage. This leads to an intense, high-speed chase: Bean chases after Semmerling in her BMW 750iL, while Percy (the police chief, more or less a carbon copy of Zenigata from Lupin III) chases after Bean in his 1967 Shelby Cobra GT-500KR. At the beginning of the film, Percy brags, like a doofus, about his badass car but then it gets utterly destroyed in the car chase! His sensible sidekick, Dick, is just a passenger to Percy’s absurd shenanigans. Finally, Semmerling realizes that she can’t beat Bean (even if she runs him over with a car) and accidentally kills herself (via immolation). Mr. Grimwood and his daughter are reunited, Semmerling’s sex-trafficked sidekick is finally free, and it’s a happy ending.

• The level of coolness is intensified by the swooning blues soundtrack that the OVA breaks out during its intense moments; there are A LOT of them, Bean’s car is even shot with an anti-tank rifle! The animation is incredible for its time, the animation of the bullets hitting the cars, the POV shots of the highway, and dynamic tech tricks with Bean’s Porsche were out of this world! The pacing is great, every moment is exciting, especially in the last half!

• Overall, this OVA is a wild ride: thrilling, a visual spectacle that everyone should watch at least once. I think that Bean was stronger as a protagonist than, the other, Rally from Gunsmith Cats but Sonoda has admitted that Bean was ‘a guy [that he] could identify with much more personally.’ Fortunately, there was a ‘Bean Bandit Project’ officially announced on May 18th, 2018—that is purportedly going to be a sequel to Riding Bean! This OVA is definitely a gem, I rate it a 7.5/10.

• NOTE: I watched the Riding Bean with the original Japanese audio. I have seen a lot of negative comments about the English dub, so it’s probably best to avoid it.

So here's the thing. Riding Bean is pretty mediocre. It's a little schlocky 80s action OVA that I only watched because it's attatched to Gunsmith Cats... and it's not that particularly exciting. But here's the thing, the crappy english dub elevates this to a whole another level of schlock. The protagonist sounds like a tool, the antagonists sound absolutely ridiculous, the side characters are all trying so hard. ''I'll have a stawbewy ice-cweam and miwk''. All of it, accidental brilliance, and I doubt I would've enjoyed this OVA nearly as much in its original form. So props to you dub team, you crazy bastards. You ... fucking did it.

This film aged extremely well, in my opinion. Try watching it in HD.

Don't watch it dubbed though. I listened to about 10 minutes of the dub, laughed, and switched to sub.

The story is really straightforward and easy to follow, and the premise is also really easy to pick up. The 80s action movie vibes in the film are very strong, but I think it was executed well -- nothing too cliche. It didn't feel contrived, even though you had over-the-top action sequences. Furthermore, I really liked the characters. I think it was a nice contrast to have the anti-hero being sensitive regarding children and ... the antagonist being the direct opposite. I found myself being reminded of Lupin the III, which also has the cliche of an anti-hero being endlessly chased by an officer of the law.

Despite having over the top action, the animation wasn't hard to follow. I knew what was going on the entire time, which I can't say for animation I've seen in a lot of vague mecha shows

Overall, it's a very enjoyable film.

Riding Bean is a fast paced OVA with a competent narrative and excellent animation. Only clocking in at 46 minutes, it is impressive how much was able to be crammed in. The OVA is mostly non stop action featuring car chases and shootouts but does spend some time to develop some character motivations. The animation is well done and does not feel dated. The music fits well within the setting and makes the overall experience more enjoyable. The only real detractor is that some of the characters are not as well fleshed out as the others but should be expected ... due to the runtime. Riding Bean is a good OVA that is enjoyable to watch.

The animation, the music, the voice acting and the action, this OVA has it all. Too bad Kenichi Sonoda and Toshiba EMI had a falling out so there were no more episodes.

Based on Bean's fast and smooth driving skills, it's obvious that they get away again in the end. His sunglasses flying off when he angrily ate those walnuts back at the mansion when his car was insulted was hilarious.

I never saw The Warriors but I loved the reference at the end.

The part where Rally throws her magazine while keeping one in the chamber to kill the henchman taking Chelsea hostage was badass.

I wonder ... if Bean knows how to use a gun and if he's the type to use one. I wonder if his car has guns and bombs.

I love the odd couple chemistry between Bean and Rally. Bean being the rough and short tempered yet gentle guy and Rally as a nice and cool woman who isn't afraid to kick some ass. These 2 are basically married since they live together, they kinda act like parents towards Chelsea and they basically argue like an old married couple.

If by some miracle that this gets an anime, it can be basically Bean doing jobs and only going after clients and other people who are doing wrong while Percy is hot on his trails. Sometimes they clear their names if they're framed for something they didn't do. Maybe they can show Bean doing more knife fights or hand-to-hand combat. I'm cool with Percy being forced to team up with Bean while Bean is enjoying pushing Percy's buttons.

When kids are involved in the situation, both Bean and Rally do their best to care for the kids and make them happy which is one of the factors of bringing the 2 closer together. Maybe they can show more of their domestic life where they take turns cooking and doing chores.

They can also explain how Bean got his bulletproof jacket, his superhuman strength and maybe his bulletproof headband with how his head resisted Semmerling's bullet. They can also explain how Bean and Rally met, became partners and ended up living together.

Sort of like an anime version of Walter Hill's The Driver, but with a set-up that involves a kidnapped kid. I actually remember renting this back in the day from Blockbuster, but upon watching it now, I remembered none of it! Overall, it' a fun little animated OVA with really awesome animation. It's by the same guys that went on to do Gunsmith Cats. Sadly though, this was supposed to turn into a series, and ownership rights went sort of haywire, the same way the original Bubblegum Crisis was cut short. Hell, the source manga was never even finished. But at least this is a ... self-contained story, and an easy way to burn 45 minutes.