Heat Guy J follows “J” and Daisuke Aurora and their sundry friends. J is an android built specifically to serve the Special Units in Judoh and the partner of Daisuke. Daisuke is the real main character of the series as he continues to try to solve the many problems the city faces. They both work the Special Units Division that is created and run by Daisuke’s brother Shun. Daisuke’s father was killed by a machine made and hired by Echigo and his Shop, and his mother is a Celestial (people who have the power to make machine’s work it seems) and left when he was at a young age. The series actually starts with the death of a mob boss named “Vampire” and the “Vampire” son, Claire, taking over. Claire and Daisuke quickly develop a rivalry and the rivalry burns deep through about half the series, when Clair ends up ousted as “Vampire”. The real story begins at that point as Echigo begins ramping up his plan for the rule of Judoh. However, there’s still one last plot twist to unveil and it will blow you away.
The series follows the extremely developed lives and past of the main and secondary characters of the series. Seriously, each character in this series could probably get away with having series of their own if they so desired with how much goes into their lives and histories. It’s a wonderful and beautiful thing to see in a series. It’s not often you see such richly developed characters as this.
Presentation
While, the animation tends to lend itself to the big eyes, small mouth type that we are used to, it fits the series fairly well. For the most part you won’t even notice the disproportions that are so common in anime nowadays. Instead your eyes will focus on the some of the breathtaking backgrounds and the attention to detail the artist put into each scene. The expression the artists draw on this series also tend to be subtler than most anime, relying instead on smaller movements to relay the mood of each scene. The fact that the main character is almost ALWAYS smiling gives the whole overall series an upbeat (almost Trigun) feel to it. The opening theme is done by Try Force and called Face. It has a pseudo techno-steam punk feel to it much like the opening theme to Trigun. It’s very catchy though, and definitely fits the series. Both of the ending themes are sad and almost whimsical, relating to much how the series itself is. The story within the show is very well executed though the ending does leave a little to desire. It still does a good job wrapping everything up at least. The story is very involved and has more than one plot twist that caught me off guard. In this line of work, that’s very hard to do to a veteran reviewer. The menu is very simple and easy to follow, much like most anime series. Both cast do a fairly decent job inside the series conveying the emotions, though there is something far more amusing about hearing Boma say Usagi instead of My Bunny.
Extras
The series of course has the standard group of trailers though it does lack any sort of “clean” opening or closing themes. For those that don’t know, Clean means without the credits running all over the place. It’s a standard thing that comes with most anime so it’s a bit surprising that Heat Guy J is lacking it. It does however have an interview with the two creators of Heat Guy J, and if you’re the type to take your anime seriously, it’s a good watch. Don’t expect a lot of humor though. These guys seemed pretty intense about their work.
Overall this series is a wonderful and great watch along the same lines of Trigun. The fact that they managed to pack so much story into such a short show (only 650 minutes worth of material) is absolutely amazing, and you’ll be dying to see the next episode up until the end. It’s well worth watching at least once.