Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Does Kenichi Sonoda's Riding Bean Hold Up?
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5823 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Anime series have a flavor. When it loses that flavor, it tends to lose its magic. So trying to sanitize Riding Bean and/or Gunsmith Cats for modern western audiences, kinda kills it for us that loved the originals. Which is who the KickStarter is aimed at anyway.
I started watching anime in the Eighties, with the early Robotech OVA, which I bought via mail order from an ad in the Star Log magazine of that time. Then by borrowing and buying Japanese laserdisc's. So Shirow, Sonoda, and Manabe are all my all time favorites. So I am kinda of locked into that era of anime and manga. But I like family friendly anime too, especially if it is good. I just don't believe in taking older properties and taming them down for modern audiences. I don't like toilet humor either (especially in Kick Ass 2), but it is a little price to pay to read and watch my favorite creator's works. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4370 Location: New York |
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Sonoda seems to be on the outs with the major studios at this point (let's face it, someone, presumably Netflix would have gone to him with money for Cannon God Exaxxion by now given its main themes of propaganda and media bias are exceptionally relevant right now if he wasn't) but the Bean Bandit Kickstarter began over four years ago, and there's no real updated news. Is it happening?
It's surely an interesting product given that the original OVA is a product of its time, but has a charm and style that make it stand out among many a one-shot OVA of that time period. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2944 Location: Email for assistance only |
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I'm a big Gunsmith Cats fan. I was kind of obsessed with Rally Vincent early into my anime fandom. I still think the drug-induced brainwashed underage lesbian sex slaves in the original manga are a lot. I think it's fine to acknowledge that Sonoda has predilections for certain types of stories and characters but those were never the major drawing point for me, anyway. It was how cool Rally was, the highly detailed cars and car chases, and the action sequences that made me a fan. The other elements were things I overlooked.
Those of us that backed it got a Blu-ray of the new 11-minute short. |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4370 Location: New York |
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Ah, thank you.
11 minute short, perfect as a pilot pitch. Let’s see if anyone is interested. |
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5823 Location: Virginia, United States |
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If the pilot ignites interest in a new TV series or movie, do you think they would go with the original character artwork, or would they update the character models for the 2020's. I would much rather have a Gunsmith Cats revival over a Riding Bean one, but from the pilot it looks like they are merging both series.
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thadec
Posts: 45 |
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Even though the creator of this work Sonada "has issues" I want to point out that Bean Bandit is a great example of a hypermasculine character that isn't toxic. There were a lot of those in the 1980s, less so in the 1990s (when sociopaths started being depicted as "antiheroes") but now the very idea seems fantastical in the modern discourse. And even more so because Bean Bandit is most definitely not a hero or good guy! Sure he is violent but he doesn't victimize innocent people. He isn't a misogynist. He isn't a brooding loner. He doesn't bottle up his emotions only to inevitably explode. He even has a self-styled moral code. The worst that you can accuse him of his choosing a profession and lifestyle that allows him to indulge his worst tendencies ... but the same is true of gun nut Rally Vincent.
It would be great if we could get more characters like that in a modern context. More adult male characters in anime would be great period but it seems that the few that we get are either jerks - which again despite his being a hypermasculine criminal Bean Bandit isn't ... he is perfectly fine and sociable to people who aren't trying to swindle or kill him - or bland inoffensive types. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5316 |
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Ushio
Posts: 630 |
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You mean the OVA? cause the manga was quite brutal. |
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MarshalBanana
Posts: 5316 |
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5823 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Rally Vincent, Minnie May, and the villain Goldie were all out there. The things Goldie did to Rally............ and I am sure there are a lot of anime watchers that wished Minnie May didn't even exist. Becky too had her problems as mentioned by the reviewer. Been quite awhile since I watched the anime and read the manga, so I could mix things up, but I don't think the manga and the anime were too far apart. |
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RR529
Posts: 46 |
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I hope this remake sees the light of day. Anime of this era is a bit before my time, but many years ago there was a YouTube channel long since gone that (probably illicitly, given that it changed names a few times back then) uploaded a bunch of old 80's/90's OVAs/Films such as this, Gunsmith Cats, Mad Bull, Dirty Pair Flash, Tekkaman Blade, Bubblegum Crisis, AD Police Files, Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, the Fatal Fury movies, etc., and I absolutely fell in love with them.
I loved the extra attention to detail paid to the vehicles & military weaponry/vehicles, the often real world setting or gritty/grounded focus, and the fact that they had some fan service, but with more realistic character designs (compared to the average fan service show today that pastes watermelons to every female character). Some of the anime I grew up with had some of this DNA still in it (Evangelion, InuYasha, Rurouni Kenshin, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell) and definitely played a part in my interest in the medium, so it's a shame that it's so out of fashion these days. I think the closest thing I've recently watched is the darker, A Woman Called Fujiko Mine, spinoff of the Lupin III franchise, but even then there was an episode clearly based on the Cuban Revolution (even shown a 100% geographically correct map of Cuba and the surrounding area, including the US & South America), but they wussed out and slightly renamed everything (Philadel Kest instead of Castro, United States of Yamerica, Karib instead of Cuba, slightly redesigned US/Soviet military insignias, etc.), which completely renders the point moot IMO, and is a game these older anime wouldn't play at. |
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MarshalBanana
Posts: 5316 |
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RR529
Posts: 46 |
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Okay, I thought I remember one of them had some particularly lewd designs, but I couldn't remember if it was that one or if I was misremembering Mai's scenes in the KoF stuff (it's probably been about 10 years since that summer I watched all of that stuff). Fair play. Now that I think of it, there was a gritty 90's version of Cutie Honey & something called Plastic Little (& the Legend of Lemlear, I think?) that were pretty lewd too. |
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I_Drive_DSM
 Posts: 217 |
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The only thing I would say to this is Sonoda has always seemingly focused on minor character such as May, with them often playing major plot points. He has a thing for drawing Minnie May -type characters that he then puts front and center, often over the actual 'heroine(s)' of the show. You see it as far back as Gall Force, in more obscured works of his such as Idol Janshi Suchie Pai (where there's a handful of 'Minnie May' characters), and in modern works such as Cannon God. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a Sonoda fetish but it's for sure an archetype he enjoys drawing. There's a "Minnie May" in the original Riding Bean with the Carrie character; she often overshadows Semmerling and gets put into various 'situations' and treatment. I'm also not surprised in the least about Rally's updated design. She was a more subdued character in the original Gunsmith Cats, and he basically has her close to the sort of females he was creating for Cannon God. If it's not the May archetype he's drawing women with the sort of features Rally now has. |
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jroa
Posts: 537 |
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Kenichi Sonoda is quite good at his character design work and action sequences, but yeah...I recently tried to read the Gunsmith Cats manga and certain creepy scenes more or less left me cold.
I have a fairly high tolerance and occasional appreciation for fanservice, for better or for worse, but there's a line...and what I saw in those manga panels seemed to be desperately trying to cross it. This article sure gives me the impression that aspect hasn't gotten any better with time. |
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