Reviews Anime / Heat Guy J

Androids, detectives, and "Vampires", oh my!

Heat Guy J is an amazing anime series!

Brief Synopsis: A detective and his android work in the futuristic city-state of Judoh, seeking to prevent crime before it happens, and solve it when it does. With illegal androids around, psychotic teen Mafia leaders, genetically-modified "werewolves," and messy politics, they'll have their work cut out for them.

Animation: Superb! You'll recognize many of the character designs, if you've seen Escaflowne. That's because it was drawn by Nobuteru Yuki, the artist behind that series. The backgrounds are attractive, and very detailed. The animation flows well, though there is some use of CGI that threw this troper's friends off.

Characters: All very believable, and well-drawn. Clearly a lot of effort was put into them, and all the important characters get much development and clearly have well-fleshed-out personalities. This troper wonders if Kazuki Akane has a degree in psychology.

Plot: Was a little slow at first, being more episodic at the beginning to introduce the characters. There is also a filler arc, though it's not a horrible filler like Naruto. (Kind of odd for such a short series to have a filler, though.) Thankfully, the series does eventually tie together, and even the introductory episodes and filler eps are interesting enough to make you want to keep going. Your patience will be rewarded.

Music: A delight to listen to! You wouldn't think electric guitar and bagpipes go together, but they do. And the opening song, "Face" by Try Force is very cool, too. The closing song, "Hikari" is sung by the seiyuu of the female lead. Her voice is beautiful, which does get lampshaded in the series.

Voices: Well-cast, both in Japanese and English. The personalities and qualities of the characters are brought to life by the voiceovers. And the translation for the dub matched the sub's translation amazingly well.

All in all: **** (4 out of 5)