Audience reviews
16 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Reticentaur
The simplest way for me to summarise my thoughts on Riding Bean is by utilising two comments made by Sanoda on the commentary track for this piece, paraphrasing: 'I was very particular about the timing of the grenades [detonating four seconds after ignition]', and 'many of the shots were an excuse to include things I had always wanted to do'. The point being: the staff involved may have been meticulous (as much as time and budget would allow), but the plot was a bit of a loosely constructed experiment that doesn't make for an extraordinary work, just a decent one.
Regarding the thought and details that went into certain areas: Lots of reference images were used from Chicago for the environments; models and images for the guns and vehicles; professional musicians from America recorded orig…
Read at the sourcefh1478
We Call Him The Nutcracker
Riding Bean Is a movie about, what if the Terminator was driving fast cars, and doing driver stuff with wickliss abandoned.
this OVA is more or less a love letter to 70s and 80s car movies, were lots of stunts, destruction and fun violence were supreme. It's just that kind of violent OVA, that could only be made in the 80s to 90s.
The characters are one dimensional but for this action It works fine, and the car scenes are really well animated, and fun to see the destructions of the vehicles. It also has an awesome focus on guns, and really love to show off their design.
It's trying so hard to sound American in its soundtrack, that it is glorious. you can almost feel the hamburger in your mouth.
It's fun, but it's hard to really get connected to it, with onl…
Read at the sourceTheCompletionist
Sometimes one of the cruelest things in the world of anime is when something has so much promise that you want it to see it be successful, but yet you have to endure the fact that you only get to enjoy just one episode of something that could of been so much more. This is pretty much the case of Riding Bean where the viewer only gets to enjoy one 45 minute ova episode of the adventures of Bean Bandit and his partner Rally Vincent. However, for as unsure as it may be - it's better to get something in the world of anime instead of nothing and thankfully what we did get is something incredibly enjoyable but it unfortunately leaves you wanting more.
The best way to sum it up is it's literally an animated episode of Miami Vice or Knight Rider that ignores the rules of syndicated television an…
Read at the sourceDISKOWN
Riding Bean is a fast paced OVA with a competent narrative and excellent animation. Only clocking in at 46 minutes, it is impressive how much was able to be crammed in. The OVA is mostly non stop action featuring car chases and shootouts but does spend some time to develop some character motivations. The animation is well done and does not feel dated. The music fits well within the setting and makes the overall experience more enjoyable. The only real detractor is that some of the characters are not as well fleshed out as the others but should be expected due to the runtime. Riding Bean is a good OVA that is enjoyable to watch.
Read at the sourcegio_lingad
The animation, the music, the voice acting and the action, this OVA has it all. Too bad Kenichi Sonoda and Toshiba EMI had a falling out so there were no more episodes.
Based on Bean's fast and smooth driving skills, it's obvious that they get away again in the end. His sunglasses flying off when he angrily ate those walnuts back at the mansion when his car was insulted was hilarious.
I never saw The Warriors but I loved the reference at the end.
The part where Rally throws her magazine while keeping one in the chamber to kill the henchman taking Chelsea hostage was badass.
I wonder if Bean knows how to use a gun and if he's the type to use one. I wonder if his car has guns and bombs.
I love the odd couple chemistry between Bean and Rally. Bean being the rough and short tempered yet…
Read at the sourceKamuiX1999
Sort of like an anime version of Walter Hill's The Driver, but with a set-up that involves a kidnapped kid. I actually remember renting this back in the day from Blockbuster, but upon watching it now, I remembered none of it! Overall, it' a fun little animated OVA with really awesome animation. It's by the same guys that went on to do Gunsmith Cats. Sadly though, this was supposed to turn into a series, and ownership rights went sort of haywire, the same way the original Bubblegum Crisis was cut short. Hell, the source manga was never even finished. But at least this is a self-contained story, and an easy way to burn 45 minutes.
Read at the sourceKamezuki
“Riding Bean” is, for the most part, an enjoyable watch. With a 46-minute runtime, it delivers an intriguing plot with a decent, yet open-ended conclusion, and doesn’t overstay its welcome or get stale. The character designs are nice to look at, the animation and voice acting are decent, and the all-English soundtrack is pleasant. It takes place in Chicago, which is kind of unusual for an anime, and that, paired with the music, gives this OVA a distinctly “American” feel that only a few other anime I’ve seen have managed to accomplish.
Similar plots have been done before, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to see it play out, with all of the colorful car chases and gunfights, the larger-than-life antihero protagonists, and wacky twists and turns. The villains are a bit “too” evil, though,…
Read at the sourceYamaGucci_g00n3y
This film aged extremely well, in my opinion. Try watching it in HD.
Don't watch it dubbed though. I listened to about 10 minutes of the dub, laughed, and switched to sub.
The story is really straightforward and easy to follow, and the premise is also really easy to pick up. The 80s action movie vibes in the film are very strong, but I think it was executed well -- nothing too cliche. It didn't feel contrived, even though you had over-the-top action sequences. Furthermore, I really liked the characters. I think it was a nice contrast to have the anti-hero being sensitive regarding children and the antagonist being the direct opposite. I found myself being reminded of Lupin the III, which also has the cliche of an anti-hero being endlessly chased by an officer of the law.
Despite having…
Read at the sourceAxeWorld
So here's the thing. Riding Bean is pretty mediocre. It's a little schlocky 80s action OVA that I only watched because it's attatched to Gunsmith Cats... and it's not that particularly exciting. But here's the thing, the crappy english dub elevates this to a whole another level of schlock. The protagonist sounds like a tool, the antagonists sound absolutely ridiculous, the side characters are all trying so hard. ''I'll have a stawbewy ice-cweam and miwk''. All of it, accidental brilliance, and I doubt I would've enjoyed this OVA nearly as much in its original form. So props to you dub team, you crazy bastards. You fucking did it.
Read at the sourceephemerry
Riding Bean is an awesome, awesome, awesome—oops, accidentally clicked the repeat button—OVA and my favorite adaptation from the Ken'ichi Sonoda répertoire. If you have ever experienced Gunsmith Cats, this is like that—ramped up to two-hundred! Half-naked girls, explosions, crazy car chases, the fetishization of rare guns, and much more! Since this is a forty-six minute OVA, there will be spoilers! You have been warned!
• Bean Bandit and his voluptuous friend, Rally, are professional getaway drivers. In the first scene we are already exposed to Bean’s badass nature as he chases a bunch of robbers down in his custom Porche chassis (with Corvette ‘Stingray’ machinery)! Bean is invincible—he gets caught in a hail of bullets, has a searing hot frying pan placed on his face, and even gets shot…
Read at the sourceherbeey
I love trashy 80s anime about hyper masculine crap such as cars. It's silly trashy fun. The dub in this is beautifully bad purely because the main character who has a very enjoyably tricked out car has zero charisma. The dubbing of Percy, his arch rival, is a riot though. Percy is the over the top police detective obsessed with catching our hero, The Road Buster!!! The Road Buster (aka - Bean Bandit) does criminal underworld driving jobs and trashes many police cars every time. This anime has a strong sense of fun to it. Percy is especially fun, but take time to enjoy the ridiculous things Bean does, like the taser bit, or the drinking coffee from the coffee machine (if my memory serves correctly). Express disbelief! That's all in the fun of this show.
The car chases and stuff are fun. Th…
Read at the sourceratchet573
What I initially thought would be an Ender’s Game porno turned out to be a ridiculous eighties action story with healthy doses of blood, cars, and pedophilia to appeal to every possible demographic. Riding Bean was the precursor to my last review, Gunsmith Cats, and even contains Rally Vincent as a secondary character. But unlike Gunsmith Cats, Riding Bean kind of sucks.
In what I assume is Chicago, Bean is a courier who, along with his partner Rally, get framed for kidnapping a young girl while the actual kidnappers take her father hostage and steal the ransom money. In a fit of testosterone laden action, Bean takes out his anger on the actual kidnappers, a woman and an eleven year old girl.
What’s instantly noticeable is the violence is a lot more graphic than Gunsmith Cats, somewhat p…
Read at the sourceangelsreview
As a person outside of having to review the show, this show is pretty awesome for vintage anime and I truly injoyed it. As a reviewer… I have to nit pick. The problem with that is that the story is really very good and I believe it has the workings of becoming a whole series is the Manga-ka Kenichi Sonoda had not had a falling out with the studio. After the OVA was created, Kenichi created the manga and the manga ‘Gunsmith Cats’ where Rally Vincent was the star though her design was altered.
Anyway, going back to the story, it’s pretty awesome in how it shows the action scenes and everything. It feels like an American made movie more then just an anime with how many guns and vilence is in the show. It starts out with Bean being the get away driver for a bunch of thieves and then ends him…
Read at the sourcekekekeKaj
Ever imagined an anime version of "The Fast and the Furious"? Well, me neither. But if there was one, it'd probably be something similar to "Riding Bean" (okay, I concede "Initial D" might be a more obvious choice, but I haven't seen that yet).
"Riding Bean" is about cars. Cars, gangsters, and more cars, to be exact. All the action centralises around fast and furious car chases down the highway, or the main character (nicknamed "Bean Bandit") doing some incredible things with his incredible sports car (named "Roadbuster" - you just know it's a badass car because it has a name) to get him out of what seem to be impossibly tight spots. The action is very satisfying for the most part, but does get a little *too* over the top - by the end, this Bean Bandit guy was dishing out carnage comparab…
Read at the sourceRobdeFR
Riding Bean is a prequel of Gunsmith Cats, featuring a character of Smith.
Bean is a hired driver for sly tasks, be it driving criminals after a bank robbery, or taking the little daughter of a millionaire back to his father. For those tasks he used his bullet proof modern sports car and performs his missions without fail.
The story was pretty entertaining, sometimes silly but in a positive way at that. And was good for this genre of anime. The animation was very good and you can see that it had a good financing backing the project. The character were all consistent, except a slight fail that remained unexplained that happened near the end and concerned Bean, other than that good work.
Unfortunately this OVA is one of those that leaves the impression of a first episode of a series. And…
Read at the sourceArchaeon
Riding Bean is one of Kenichi Sonoda's early works, and though it was originally planned as a series, only one episode was ever released.
The anime follows the exploits of the legendary courier "Bean Bandit" (a truly unfortunate moniker), and his partner Irene Vincent. They are framed for the kidnapping of a wealthy heiress, and are subsequently hunted by the police and various other parties.
The art and animation of Riding Bean is quite typical of it's time, and bears a resemblance in places to the style of Lupin and Giant Robo. Riding Bean does however have something that sets it aside - the chases. Very few animes are able to convey the feeling of a high speed pursuit, and Riding Bean is amongst the best.
The sound is of a very good quality, and all the gearheads (a.k.a. car fanatics…
Read at the source