Recently I had a chance to attend Anime Boston, working as a volunteer and panelist. Staffing conventions is always educational at the least and can be fun sometimes. In this case, I gave two panels: Osamu Tezuka anime and The Best Anime Swordfights Period. Folks seemed to like them. But I still had my other work to do at the con. In return though my wonderful director made sure my time was structured to attend the one set of events I just HAD to go to as a classic anime fan. the U.S. premiere of City Hunter Shinjuku Private Eyes.
For those unfamiliar, City Hunter is a long-running franchise based on the manga created by Tsukasa Hojo. The title character is Saeba Ryo, a private investigator or “sweeper” known for getting rid of bad guys. He’s known in various circles for being the ultimate crack shot with his Colt .357 Magnum and protector of Shinjuku. His skill has been good enough to shoot through a moving train, deflect incoming bullets and disarm a nuclear bomb, among other crazy feats. He is contacted by clients walking into a particular train station where they can write the letters XYZ on the message board. His assistant is Makimura Kaori, the sister of his first partner who was killed by drug dealers. She has decent skills but is nowhere near City Hunter’s level. She often has a teased interest in him though, that is often obscured by her one constant task of keeping his pervy nature in check as Saeba is a total lecher.
Whenever he gets too out of control, Kaori unveils the ‘mokkori hammer’, a mallet that seemingly can be whipped out of nowhere. No one knows where these hammers are hidden, be it a flerkin or TARDIS, or infinite pocket, maybe. We just know she has them at all times, and Saeba is subdued. This comes really handy when dealing with their clients, who are often women needing his help. Saeba is willing to let the clients stay at his home… for their protection of course. He frequently works with Umibozu The Falcon, a big burly explosives expert who runs the Cat’s Eye coffee shop with his girlfriend Miki… while being deathly afraid of cats. Saeba also works with Saeko, daughter of the chief of police who is an incredibly capable officer in her own right. She usually offers him ‘mokkori payments’ in exchange for his services but manages to get out with her virtue intact.
Prior to this new movie, there had been 4 television anime, dating back to 1988. There have also been a few assorted TV specials and OAVs, the last one being ‘Emergency Live Broadcast: Death of Saeba Ryo’ in 1999. Most of these except the ’99 special were imported by ADV Films. There was also a mid-90s live action film starring Jackie Chan, which was most notable for having 5 minutes featuring (the only good) live-action adaptation of the Street Fighter II video game. So you can see it’s been a couple decades since any direct adaptation of City Hunter had been done. There was a spin-off series with an incredibly depressing premise in the mid-2000s entitled Agnel Heart, but this new movie ignores the events of that show entirely.
Shinjuku Private Eyes starts up in present day, with the city having evolved drastically over the decades with new technology. The characters themselves have seemingly remained exactly the same. (Hey if it can work for The Simpsons after 30 years… *shrug*) Through it all, we are re-introduced to City Hunter when he takes down a group of rocket-launching terrorists. They managed to get a shot off at the giant Godzilla statue there but Saeba and his trusty .357 manage to save the day. Later on, a young woman goes to see the police about her father who has recently been killed in a car wreck. She gets no help though as they consider the matter closed. So she nervously makes her way to a familiar looking train station and types out the letters XYZ…
The new movie was produced by Sunrise and Aniplex, who sent 4 distinguished guests to premiere it for North America. The hosts included Sunrise Producer Naohiro Ogata, Aniplex Produce Goh Wakabayashi, Screenwriter Yoichi Kato, and Director Kenji Kodama, whose presence was most notable of the 4 as he also directed not only this new feature but the 80s City Hunter anime shows and films, bringing a ton of experience to the panels. All of them had a good deal to say about this movie though via their interpreter Mari Morimoto. Producer Ogata notes some background scenes throughout Shinjuku are different but some stuff still the same, as are Ryo and Kaori, and that we should listen for familiar music cues. Producer Wakabayashi notes the movie merges comedic and serious sides to Ryo as he’s very lonely.
After the screening was over, the team was surprised to see the audience’s loud approval of the film. Director Kodama noted, “This was the biggest reaction we ever received, even more so than in Japan. Thank you.” Then the fans’ Q&A started.
How did the new City Hunter come about after 20 years on the shelf? Producer Ogata says fans were waiting desperately for new City Hunter so we gave it to them. Original TV producers pitched the idea to Aniplex people who grew up on City Hunter.
Why did they put City Hunter into a modern setting? Director Kodama: We wanted it to have more relevance with fans. Any changes from past adaptations? Director Kodama: It was always in the back of my consciousness to keep characters as they are, and thanks fans for supporting City Hunter all these years, noting this movie does take place after the TV shows. Scriptwriter Kato: It was very important to keep character same as 87 version. Sometimes the series has been more comedic than dramatic. Since this is a one-shot story, we wanted to bring the best aspects of both for this film.
Any fun behind the scenes stories? Producer Wakabayashi: Akira Kamiya was the oldest actor of cast, reprising the role of Saeba from the TV series. Kamiya says his voice changed but he’s a better actor now and did more takes to prove he could do better. Producer Ogata says Scriptwriter Kato and Producer Wakabayashi spent time as exchange students in Boston, near Lexington and Lincoln. It’s the reason they decided to premiere at Anime Boston. One scene of modern warfare may gave been inspired by M.I.T. Producer Wakabayashi says he went to high school in Boston and went to film school there afterward. Director Kodama talked about what it was like to make the original series noting that with thee being so many episodes and Saeba having ” So many beautiful women as clients and lovers through so many episodes. We ran through all our voice actresses twice.”
Favorite scene from the movie? Director Kodama loved using Saeko. She’s direct and straightforward. Most fun to create. Scriptwriter Kato’s favorite was creating Minibozu and making Umibozu cry at end. Producer Wakabayashi liked quiet scenes between Saeba and Kaori. Producer Ogata loved opening scene missile accidentally shot toward the Godzilla statue, for which they got Toho’s permission to use the infamous roar. Producer Ogata also noted. “It wasn’t difficult to put City Hunter into the present day. Very important not to change him after 20 years. Would he use a smartphone for example? Would he use a drone? So we wanted to keep him the same. We talked with creator Tsukasa Hojo about this. Also decided that the professor created the XYZ board.”
Have any of them fired a 357? Director Kodama said he had expert training for this movie but prior to this never seen a gun in real life.
I got to ask about the decision to utilize the Cat’ Eye thieves in this movie. Producer Wakabayashi said it was his idea to bring Cat’s Eye into this. “Before Aniplex, I used to work at Toei Animation and enjoyed doing Kamen Rider. I liked doing the all-star crossovers so I wanted to bring this into City Hunter as the script was originally very different. I asked Hojo about this and he gave his blessing and the backstory of the cafe.”
Was any special technique used to animate or rotoscope the fight scene for Umibozu? Director Kodama: None particularly but the director is a big wrestling fan and used some inspiration to heavily storyboard how he wanted the fights to play out (which probably explains why Saeba does a Stan Hansen “lariat” at one point.)
Did you consider international audiences when writing this movie? Producer Ogata: In terms of the story itself we initially considered setting it in Shang Hai China but got the axe pretty quickly. Director Kodama: The character types are based on non-Japanese people. When foreigners tell us they like them, it feels good and we’re especially happy to see cosplays. Director Kodama emphasized in closing “City Hunter is my everything to me. It is how I started in this industry. I love it.”
The creators also appeared the next day at a concert with the local band XYZ who did very good covers of the City Hunter opening themes. It was also announced that Discotek Media had acquired the distribution rights to all of City Hunter, including the new film and the ’99 special which had previously not been imported. The spinoff series Angel Heart is not part of this license, however. There will also be screenings across the U.S. in theaters throughout 2019.
