A major advantage Anime has over live action is not having to worry about shutting down streets for massive car chases. When I had a chance to hang with John Landis, he spoke about all the nightmares of setting up the massive car stunts in The Blues Brothers. There were a lot of palms greased for when Jake and Elwood came racing into downtown Chicago. Shutting down streets for major car wrecks has a time limit and price. Not to mention the cost of bringing in an army of stunt men with a fleet of cars for a demolition derby. If you want to have an over-the-top car chase in animation, you only have to worry about having enough paint and cells. Riding Bean tears up the Second City without having to rent a single pylon from the police to keep the public out of the way.
Two gunmen rob a vault at a mall. As they race out of the place with a hostage, the bullets are flying all over the place. Luckily they won’t have to worry about their escape since they’ve hired Bean Bandit to be their getaway driver. The cops might be on their trail, but Bean’s uses a few tricks in his car to avoid a semi-truck blocking the road. He drops off his criminal passengers that include a man and a small woman and heads back to his apartment. Irene “Rally” Vincent (Naoko Matsui/Brennan MacKenzie) wakes up and finds Bean still sleeping on the sofa. She wakes him up in a heated way even though there’s no need for him to open his eyes. They don’t have any clients lined up for the day or the foreseeable future. While he’s the best in the area, his price tag is rather steep. There does come a knock on the door. A bodyguard has rescued the kidnapped daughter of an industrialist. He needs Bean help to get them back to her rich father. Before they can finalize the deal, Bean’s apartment is ripped apart by gunfire. The bodyguard is dead. Bean and Rally grab the kid and race to her dad’s mansion. What should be a simple drop off gets nasty because the police have visual proof that Beans kidnapped the girl in the first place. Thus we get a citywide chase as Bean attempts to clear his name as Detective Percy Bacharach (Kei Tomiyama, David Kraus) wants to bust him.
Riding Bean was released in Japan as an OVA which stands for Original Video Animation. This was a project created to be sold on home video first instead of broadcast TV or theatrical. This was a rather lucrative business in the golden age of VHS. Anime creators could use language and visuals that wouldn’t be permissible on TV. The OVA ran a bit shorter than a feature film so the budgets didn’t have to be as high. The money generated by the sale of the VHS tapes would be used for the budget on the next installment. The creators could deliver quality work since they didn’t have to spread the money so thin. Riding Bean is barely 40 minutes long without the credits. The idea was there would be another two episodes so eventually they could be spliced together into a feature film. Many OVA projects accomplished this long form goal. Why didn’t it happen to Riding Bean? Kenichi Sonoda had a falling out with the studio. This is why we only have a single episode. But what an episode.
Director Yasuo Hasegawa and creator Kenichi Sonoda really put a lot into Riding Bean. The animated car chases are as thrilling as one done with real cars. There’s a Chicago feel to the streets instead of just generic cityscapes. Cars get smashed under the “L” line as speed and weave around traffic. There’s quite a bit of twists involving not only the kidnapping, but the identity of the kidnappers. Bean Bandit is a badass character whether behind the wheel or dodging bullets that renovate his apartment. His relationship with Rally feels realistic. Even after its release in 1989, the action feels fresh. Riding Bean feels like a full movie.
The Video is 1.33:1 full frame. The 1080p transfer is sharp so you see all the details in the drawing. This really comes out in the police chases around Chicago. The Audio is English 2.0 LPCM Stereo, Japanese 2.0 LPCM Stereo, German 2.0 LPCM Stereo and Catalan 2.0 LPCM stereo. The tracks let you hear the tires squeal and the bullets fly. The subtitles are in English and German.
Kenichi Sonoda Interview (12:50) has the creator, writer and designer talk about how much he enjoyed American shows like Starsky and Hutch and movies like Dirty Harry and The Blues Brothers. They influenced his work. He talk about a chase scene in Running Scared having an impact. He even mentions Wacky Races when it came to designing Bean’s car. He gets into how they gave the city a Chicago feel. He’s happy the film caught on in America.
Blu-ray Trailer (1:04) gives us the action.
Japanese DVD Trailer (1:15) promotes how Kenichi Sonoda’s first OVA is coming to DVD.
Japanese DVD Trailer (1:21) is the English Remaster with the emphasis that this story takes place in Chicago.
Art Gallery contains over 110 images of the artwork, character studies, car designs and location studies.
AnimEigo presents Riding Bean. Directed by Yasuo Hasegawa. Screenplay by Kenichi Sonoda. Starring the Voices of Hideyuki Tanaka, J. Patrick Lawlor, Naoko Matsui, Brennan MacKenzie, Mami Koyama, Barbara Lewis, Kei Tomiyama, David Kraus, Megumi Hayashibara, Susan McQueen, Jun Hazumi, J. David Arnold, Yusaku Yara, Timothy J. Walsh & Nobuo Tobita. Running Time: 50 minutes. Rating: Not Rated. Release Date: September 10, 2024.
