Riding Bean

This is a movie that is almost all action from start to finish. Our unlikely hero Bean Bandit and his sexy partner Rally Vincent keep us entertained all through the movie with non stop thrills and chases. Kenichi Sonoda, the creator is a big fan of American action movies, and incorporated that style into the movie. The scene when the chase goes under the elevated railroad tracks is taken almost frame for frame from the Blues Brothers. (NOTE: watch the licence plates of the cars and you may fins some gags on them. )

I had never heard of this OVA, but when I saw the trailer I was immediately interested. This is a fast paced action comedy that is entertaining all the way through. Once the film gets going it doesn't slow down.

The director Kenichi Sonoda got a lot of his influence for "Riding Bean" from American action films and American action movie heroes, which explains Bean's over the top character.

I really enjoyed the hand drawn animation. It's some of the best I've seen for this era. The music in this movie is also great. The director traveled to USA specifically to produce music for this OVA project to fit the American setting of the film.

If you're a fan of 80s and 90s action films or hand drawn anime I highly recommend this OVA movie. You will not be disappointed.

Your typical Anime with cars, action, women, crazy policemen, and invulnerable hero. The main hero, Bean Bandit, is a bit too powerful ( is he supposed to be a robot ?) His car is crazy in a good way and basically this film exists on its car chase scenes.

The main character needs more than a stun gun to the neck to wake up in the morning, and I thought that was a nice and efficient way of making him instantly relatable.

Riding Bean is a fun blend of comedy and action that gets pretty bloody at times. Its plot revolves around a duo that's set up to take the fall for a kidnapping scheme, only they catch onto it and try to make their way out of the whole scenario, preferably with a large sum of cash that's also tied to it all.

It's an excuse to have lots of car chases and over-the-top characters; I guess when the runtime clocks in at well under an hour, you kind of need everyone to be pretty simple character-wise, but it mostly works. It's a good way to spend some time, and never takes itself too seriously while never slowing down; it's pretty fun.

Based on the manga created by Kenichi Sonoda (who did the mechanical designs for the original Bubblegum Crisis and later created Gunsmith Cats in response to Riding Bean being canceled), this one shot OAV chronicles the antics, shenanigans and misadventures of the title character, [Riding] Bean Bandit.

Bean Bandit, AKA: the Road Buster, is a superhuman outlaw courier who transports pretty much anyone/everyone and anything/everything for the right price (except drugs). His partner in crime is Rally Vincent, a woman with a big gun and a sharp eye on their bank account. Naturally, they're not really villains, they're just good hearted people on the wrong side of the law. When Bean is asked to transport the daughter of a millionaire, he and Rally get framed for kidnapping by a child molester named Semmerling and her little girl slave Carrie. This begins a high speed conspiracy chase with Bean determined to settle the score and reunite the girl with her father. Relentlessly pursuing Bean is Percy, a deranged police officer who's obsessed with either capturing Bean any which way he can or killing him.

Good mindless testosterone fun. Bean's such a lovable goof-ball that it really breaks your heart that his antics were discontinued. A redesigned Rally later became the heroine of "Gunsmith Cats" and a slightly different looking Bean made a few appearances in her alternate universe books.

"My my my, all those nice men pointing guns at us. I wonder what they all do when they're not so busy." - Rally Vincent

"Eat, drink, smoke, watch TV and gamble. It's a tradition." - Bean Bandit