映画の概要とスタイル
Konnichiwa! I am your host Mayu for 2AM OTTACK! In this podcast, we talk all about anime, manga,
movies, music, and history through our distinct perspectives as a born-and-raised Japanese
non-otaku, that's me, and an American anime fan. That's me. Welcome! Today, we are going to talk
about live-action CITY HUNTER. It's been released last month on Netflix. Cisco, could you explain
briefly what the movie is about? Sure. So, I never saw the original CITY HUNTER, but the live-action
film is about a guy and his partner who are sort of like freelance detectives, I guess, in Shinjuku,
yeah? And the partner gets killed, so he teams up, I mean, spoiler alert, but it happens right
in the very beginning, so he teams up with the partner's younger sister to investigate a powerful
drug that's making people into sort of monsters. And the main guy is phenomenally strong and also
just really cool, and a very good shot. I hesitate to call him a sniper because I don't use a sniper
rifle very much of the time, but he's very accurate with shooting guns. So, in addition to
being strong and sexy and a huge pervert, he's also very good with a gun, and they solve a mystery
together. It's a little bit of like a buddy cop film, but it's such a throwback to the 1980s.
The story's actually set in the modern day, right? That was one of the things they did that
was interesting with the film? That was, yeah, that felt a little bit weird to me, because
the time is set in 2024, I think, but how the characters dressed or how the main character
behaved was way back, around the time we were born, like 40 years ago.
So, I felt a little bit, I couldn't decide which time they were trying to set it, because
they were using smartphones and everything, so it was a little bit confusing at the beginning.
But yeah, they brought both time periods, like a combination, to make it work.
Yeah, I mean, it struck me as weirdly similar to Extremely Inappropriate, which is another Netflix,
it's not a Netflix show, it's a Japanese TV show that Netflix acquired, about a guy time-traveling
from the 1980s to the 2020s. And this movie had the same kind of feeling, like somehow the plot
and characters had time-traveled, and the setting was in the 2020s, but everyone's behavior and
mannerisms were from the 1980s. And to me, it actually worked. Maybe I'd been primed to
appreciate 1980s culture by having just watched Extremely Inappropriate, but I enjoyed the way
that they sort of shamelessly took these 1980s sensibilities and just like plopped them into
a modern setting. And it made me nostalgic for the 1980s as a cultural time. I don't know,
I kind of grew up watching anime from that era, and even in the character design and the
sort of city as a main character, it reminded me of other anime from the 80s that I really liked.
So I think those elements of it really appealed to me. It definitely felt like a movie that was
made for people of my generation, who can be nostalgic about the 80s and be like,
oh, wasn't that such a great time? Yeah, it was definitely confusing for me,
right after watching Extremely Inappropriate, because it felt like the same setting, same thing,
but yeah, I was wondering, for people who didn't grow up in Japan,
how would people feel about main characters' characters?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think, I don't know. I mean, as an American,
there are plenty of sort of perverted chauvinist guys in America, too. And it's less socially
シティハンターのキャラクター分析
acceptable here than it was in Japan in the 80s. But I don't think that type of character is
unknown or not understood. It's just not. I think the juxtaposition between him being cool and him
being a pervert is more shocking to American viewers, whereas that doesn't seem like a huge
contradiction in the context of 1980s Japan. Those two things being true at the same time isn't
that hard to imagine in the 80s in Japan. But I think an American character would have gone to
greater lengths to embrace one or the other. I don't know. I'm saying that, but I'm not sure
I believe it. I think maybe it would have been natural if it was an American character, too.
It's easy to understand that. Interesting, yeah. Well, yeah, the actor who played the main
character was great. The actual actor really wanted to play the role for a long time,
and his dream came true. So he was very ready for his role and all the action and everything.
He struck me as a person who really understood the source material and therefore was able to
act it out in a really good way. Sort of the same vibes as Henry Cavill playing Geralt of Rivia.
You could just tell, oh man, this actor really gets this role and is really leaning hard into
what it's supposed to be about. And yeah, I think he was great. They nailed the casting with him.
Yeah, I think it's a great way to cast those characters because they already love
the material, and then they read the old comic series or did the whole video game. So they
have a great sense of what the character is like when they have to act.
Totally. Originally, it became manga first in 1985, and it was released as anime in 1987.
So between then and now, there are a couple of movies and stuff, and we've never,
we had never watched any of those. And this was our first ever City Hunter exposure.
And I was glad that I finally watched it because when I was a kid, there was no way I watched this
because of how the story works. It's too mature.
Not in this live action movie, but it seems like a lot of something about drugs or
映画のユーモアと文化的描写
like a little bit nude in anime and stuff. So there was no way I would have watched it, but
it was fun. It was funny in the movie. What did you think about the dance he did, Saebaryo did?
Oh god, I'm trying to remember. What part of the film did he do the dance?
When he was on the stage, it was like just underwear and then like saying mokkori.
Is this acceptable for worldwide?
Yeah, that felt like a really Japanese part. That's something that I don't think, if this
had been like an American remake of the movie, they would just cut that scene and be like,
or they would have made it more serious and less silly. If they really were like,
oh yeah, he's a Chippendales model, it would have been like a Magic Mike sequence or something.
But I don't think they would have had him with the props in the same way. It felt like it didn't fit.
I didn't understand why they had that sequence other than it must have been in the source
material. And so they were like, I guess we got to do this, guys. But yeah, that part was weird.
I thought the section later where he's got the costume on at the cosplay event and with the
giant horse head, that part to me had a similar sort of feeling to it, but I think it worked a
little bit better. And maybe the whole point of the earlier dance is to kind of prep you for that
scene to be like, oh, he's really used to this. I mean, I don't know. I really think it must be in
歌舞伎町の思い出
one of the comics or one of the shows. And it was just like such a touchstone, they couldn't get
rid of it or something. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I think a lot of stuff happened in Tokyo, Shinjuku,
and especially Kabukicho. Kabukicho is like in Shinjuku, which I've been maybe only once or twice
in my life, even though I lived in Tokyo. I didn't go there because this is like a bias for me, but
it's like a sketchy place to go. Like, it's not like a, you know, regular girl go on this, you know,
you need something, wanting something. But it's like, it's the kind of place I would have avoided.
Yeah. I've been to Kabukicho a bunch of times. I remember going there. I remember being there
like pretty young, maybe like 18, some time around then. Anyway, I remember walking through
Kabukicho and lots of people, you know, this must've been in the either the late 90s or the
early 2000s and lots of people being like massage, massage and having to be like, no, no, no, that's
not what I'm here for. And I think at that point, I must not have understood where I was or like
what type of a neighborhood it was. But I definitely remember that sort of first encounter
with Kabukicho. And I went back a couple of years ago after having played one of the Yakuza games.
I've been playing those since again, maybe like the 90s or the early 2000s, whenever they started
coming out, I remember playing the first one when it came out in America. And those games have
always made me really like Kabukicho. Like they bring it to life so wonderfully that
going there in real life and being like, oh, look, I'm at like this place in the game is a
lot of fun. Um, but the last time I went back, it had clearly been like very cleaned up. Um,
there's still a lot of, it was, it was a right, right before Tokyo Olympic games. Yeah,
this was maybe 2017, 18, some time around then. And 18, 19, yeah. So they had, they had clearly
like given it a makeover for the Olympics to try to be like, Japan is not a sketchy country. Please
don't think that. Um, and there were a lot of VR places. There were still a lot of host bars. Like
they seem to close a lot of the hostess bars, not all of them, but a lot. And then there,
but all the host clubs were still open. Um, and I guess there's just like less hanky-panky or
chome chome or whatever going on inside the host bars. So those were seen as like acceptable.
Whereas the hostess clubs and the Fuzoku and the other kind of like really shady stuff that,
that seems to have gotten kind of shut down. And what's replaced it seems to have been like
video games, which, you know, I'm down for, but I didn't go into any of the VR spots, but there
are now like a lot of those, or there were in, there were five years ago, the last time I was
there. Um, so it feels like the neighborhood has, has changed significantly than what it used to be
like. Um, and I don't know, I like having the nostalgia of reliving the old Kabukicho,
the bubble era Kabukicho via the Yakuza series of games and also through City Hunter.
Yeah. Um, yeah, you could, you could still see the old time Kabukicho in the film, I feel like.
Yeah. Which was weird because it was set in 2024. And yet
like a lot of these shots seemed like they were from yeah, 30, at least 30 years ago.
Yeah. And then like, other than like those scenes, like I noticed about, uh, uh, what do you call
Keiji-ban? Police? No, Keiji-ban is like, there's a board to tell other people the information.
90年代のアニメと音楽
This is the time that there was no cell phone. Right. The message board that's out in the city.
I mean, I don't know what to call it. It's like a, it's a chalkboard in the movie, right?
Chalkboard. I think people used to do it in like Tokyo and this stuff, but, and then
that's the one, like one thing, again, like confused me. It was like, what, who would use
this in 2024? But I think it's iconic thing in the like anime and the manga, and they couldn't get
rid of it. Yeah, it must be. I mean, they tried to make it seem like it had been abandoned or
other people weren't really using it, or it was like something somebody just forgot to take down.
Like it looked like it was really in the, like an out of the way corner of wherever, but yeah,
that was a huge anachronism where it was like, okay, I guess you have to keep this, but I'm sure
they struggled with that choice. And, uh, the ending theme song is the same as animation,
which is Get Wild by TM Network. What did you think about the song?
Well, so I had been aware that City Hunter was an anime from the nineties, or I guess in the
nineties, I'd been aware that it existed as an anime. I'd seen it, you know, in different,
I don't know, stores and stuff. Like I knew that it existed, but the only thing I knew about it
was the theme song. And ironically, the version of Get Wild that I know is one that I found on
a best of 1990 something like anime song CD that I bought, you know, deep in Reseda in the mid
nineties. And so I was familiar with the theme song, but not with the actual show or manga for
a long time. And the version I knew was a cover by a female singer. So when we got to the end of the
movie and they started playing the song, I was like, ugh, why is this version so bad? And you're
like, it's the original guy singing it. And I was like, oh, that's actually, that's cool.
But I'm so used to the version that I know from the nineties remake that I was like, that one's
better. I didn't know about the remake cover version. I only knew the original version.
And then like, it's, you know, it's a three guys member. And one of them became a big, big
music producer, producer later in his life. And he made so many hit songs in late nineties
to early twenties. Yeah. 20, 20,000. Yeah. So it was nostalgic a little bit for me, even though I
didn't know much about this anime and the manga, but I already knew the song.
アクションシーンの影響
I think interestingly, like the very, very first fight sequence that happens in the building at the
start of the movie is like kind of the best part of the whole film. I mean, the rest of it was
still good, but I, maybe it's because that's where there's the sort of most crossover with like the
Yakuza gameplay. He's in like a office building, just like beating people up with all of the
different furniture in the office building. And it made me realize watching that scene made me
realize I was like, oh, either this is inspired by the Yakuza series and they're intentionally
borrowing things from that, or the Yakuza series was intentionally borrowing from City Hunter.
And so thinking about the ways in which those two things have probably influenced each other
was really interesting. And I mean, maybe my knowledge of eighties action movies in Japan
is just too shallow. And actually like that was in all of them, but I think that's, that's, that's
probably the case. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. It was that, that fight sequence is great at the beginning.
It was that part really stood out to me as being like, especially awesome and fun.
It was to me, I don't watch much action movies, but to me, it was, it reminded of like Jackie
Chan kind of actions, like some like impossible, like move to like, you know, beat enemies and then
like funny at the same time. Yeah. I think it had a lot of sort of Jackie Chan style to it too.
I would agree with that. Right. Some comic in it. Yeah. Oh yeah. We wanted to do word of the day.
What shall we do today?
Ooh, I wasn't prepared. Um, you know, I don't think we're going to do an episode about extremely
inappropriate. So I think our word of the day should be futekisetsu. Oh, okay. I see. I saw.
You're going to say chomechome. I don't think they use chomechome at all in this movie.
No, I mean, nobody uses like, yeah, they should have.
I mean, chomechome is a good one too. That's a word I didn't know until we watched
futekisetsu ni wa hodogaru, or extremely inappropriate. Like I had never heard that
before. So maybe that's a good one to do also. Yeah, but nobody uses it anymore.
It's a pretty dead word. Yeah. All right. Well, let's start with futekisetsu and we'll add in
chomechome as a bonus. Okay. All right. Go ahead. Oh, I'm explaining it. Okay. So futekisetsu means
inappropriate. And I almost feel like that word itself kind of captures
this fascination with 1980s culture that seems to be happening maybe in Japan or maybe in America,
or maybe everywhere right now, that in the modern world, like propriety is,
God, I can't even remember saying this, but like our attention to not offending people is so high
that we're pretty careful about what we say and do. And I think there's some desire to like
return to a time when people were not as careful about those things and things that we currently
see as inappropriate, which like were also totally inappropriate in the eighties, but more socially
acceptable, were around. So I think that's why, I think both the main character in City Hunter and
the guys in Extremely Inappropriate are both futekisetsu at different points. And that being
不適切な言葉とその意味
part of their appeal in the modern day is interesting to me. Why don't you do chomechome?
Because obviously I don't really understand it. I mean, I didn't understand. I think, well, maybe not.
I didn't quite understand when I was a kid, but people on TV shows used to say chomechome a lot.
And I'm like, I figure like something like kissing or like being intimate or something, but
apparently it means like having sex. But like Japanese people don't want to say
having sex. So they replaced the word with like chomechome, which is like when you say it,
you make X letter with your two point fingers, chomechome. And I don't know why it's X.
Maybe it's from sex. I don't know. I doubt it. I think it's probably from like batsu, like no good.
It's not something. Well, then why do you get excited about it?
I don't know. I mean, to me, the English translation for chomechome is either,
I think in Extremely Inappropriate, they often translate it as either hanky-panky or rumpy-pumpy.
And I can't even say rumpy-pumpy without laughing. I've never even heard anyone say that.
It's immediately clear what it means, but it's like embarrassingly,
I don't know, out of style to try to talk that way. Like even hanky-panky really sounds like,
I don't know who would use that word. Like I was going to say, Oh, it sounds like a thing
80年代の日本文化の探求
people would say like a long time ago, like in like, but then I couldn't think of a decade,
like the fifties, like the twenties. Like when did people say hanky-panky? Like maybe never.
Cause it's just so like extremely uncool that no one ever said it. And then rumpy-pumpy is like,
if anything, even worse. Like, it sounds like, I don't know, like a grade schooler trying to
like describe what sex is like it, it just, it's like, it's like cringe to even think those words.
So in a sense, it's perfect. Perfect translation for that.
Well, like, yeah. But if you're saying everyone on TV in Japan in the eighties said chomechome
like all the time, I don't think I, I, I cannot picture celebrities in America saying the words
hanky-panky or rumpy-pumpy like frequently without just getting like canceled for like
serial, like, like just patheticness. I don't know.
Well, that's a, yeah. I don't know.
You know what, you know,
now, you know, I thought now I came up with a good word of the day.
Okay, great. We'll delete this other part. Yeah, I might. Yeah. Let's try.
Word of the day is, could be mokkori.
Oh, way to make it even more awkward. Yeah. No, that's a good one.
Because like, that's the first line he says in the live action movie, right?
I think so. Yeah. Something like, oh, he keeps talking about the girl in the sweater. Yeah.
He sings mokkori, mokkori, mokkori-chan or something like that.
Because he's like, he is supposed to be on watch.
But like, he's like, you know, using a spyglass and watching like girls in a bikini or something.
Yeah, which is totally unrealistic. They wouldn't be wearing bikinis if they were really in an onsen.
I don't know if onsen was a swimming place or something. I don't know.
Well, I mean, okay, irrelevant for sure. But yes.
But mokkori is not like a outdated word.
True. I don't know how often people use in Japan.
And definitely like girls don't use that often compared to guys, I think.
Yeah. I'm not totally sure I know the meaning of mokkori.
Mokkori means like a part, some part. It doesn't have to be the private part, but it kind of like...
Bulge?
Like, what do you call?
It definitely means bulge, huh?
Bulge? Okay.
Bulge. B-U-L-G-E.
Huh.
But unless there's another word for this, I'm pretty sure it means boner.
It doesn't have to be boner. Because like, okay, let's say there's a like a heel.
Heel. H-I-L-L, heel.
And if heel is like really like standing out a little bit, then you can say mokkori.
There was no English translation for that part.
Yeah, I think they didn't even bother. Or they just put it as mokkori.
They're the M-O-K-K-O-R-I.
And they're like, we're not going to tell you what this means.
Interesting. I mean, like, it would be so hard to translate.
Yeah, it would be really weird if they kept translating as bulge.
Yeah.
Especially because like, that's not, yeah, it's not like a...
It would have made it more confusing. Yeah.
I see. And I know this.
I learned this when I lived in Vancouver, like a long time ago.
Mokkori means necklace in Korean.
That's extremely unfortunate.
That's what I thought too. Really? I was like, mokkori?
Yeah. Different meaning, same sound.
Got it. So that's definitely not a loan word.
One of the words that existed before Japanese people came from Korea.
Yeah. How did it happen? Like, it was supposed to be necklace.
キャラクターの魅力を探る
And how, like, when the word came into Japan, like, people got it wrong way.
No, I feel like that's what I'm saying.
That's got to be like an Ainu word or something that they wrote from a different language.
Like, that can't have come from the same place.
I don't know. I have no idea.
But yeah, I think that's a very...
How can I say it? The word describes Haiba pretty well.
Yeah.
Why? What's the pause?
Yes, that word describes him pretty well. Boner.
That's like the whole movie in one word.
But that's how he is, right? Sugou?
Yeah, I think someone's getting lost in translation here.
Like, to me, he is a pervert.
But to be like, that's all there is to his character, really.
Just Boner. That's him in a nutshell.
Seems like a little bit of an oversimplification.
Okay, I have to say, even though he's a pervert,
like, he shows his, like, the other side, a cool side of him.
Right.
In anime, it's, like, very obvious.
Because the voice actor, he's a very famous voice actor.
Kamiya Akira, I think.
But, like, when he's, like, comic and the pervert,
he uses, like, really high tone voice.
But when he's serious, like, his voice gets really low
and it sounds very cool.
And the actor in the show did a great job doing the same thing.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that's what I was saying in the beginning,
is I don't think very many American shows
or just entertainment products in general
have characters who try to hit both of those notes at the same time.
Like, you're either just cool all the time
or you're just a comic relief pervert all the time.
But I don't think there are a lot of cases of people
being both at the same time.
Like, it's hard to imagine Dick Tracy
being, like, a serious private investigator
and then sometimes being just, like, a total weirdo pervert.
Like, that wouldn't work.
Or, like, James Bond is, like, a cool secret spy
except for he gets in the bedroom and then is, like, a teenage boy.
Like, it just wouldn't work.
Maybe it's for Japanese women.
I don't know.
A guy made this manga, so I'm not sure.
But it could be, like, an attractive aspect
to have two different faces.
Oh, I see.
Because it's such an omote and ura culture,
like, the idea of, like, the front and the back is, like, so important that...
Maybe.
Yeah.
Usually he's pervert, but when it comes to, like,
something important, he can do the job.
Got it.
So the ura is him being cool.
Yeah.
Because you can't tell which side is, like,
which side is, like, true himself.
Right, totally.
For me, it was, like, the opposite way around.
That, like, oh, like, you look cool on your face,
but you're actually a giant pervert on the inside.
Oh, I see.
And I was like, who would find that attractive?
But I get where you're coming from,
saying, like, if it's the other way around,
you, like, act silly all the time,
but then you actually are cool when it counts,
that that makes sense as, like, an attractive quality.
Yeah, someone, like, you kind of can't hate,
even though you try.
Because he's too cool.
Yeah.
Got it.
I should work on that.
Okay.
All right.
Anything you'd like to add?
Nope.
But if you watch City Hunter and you like it,
I can't recommend the Yakuza games enough.
Or Judgment, the, like, more the more updated version.
80年代の歌舞伎町の文化
Oh, Judgment, the Kimidoku one.
Yeah, the Kimidoku one.
But that one, he kind of doesn't have, like,
the silly side.
That one's a little bit more, like, he's serious.
Oh my god, he's too serious.
Yeah, he didn't allow himself to be, like, too funny.
Yeah.
Because he's too cool.
It's still a good game.
But it's, I think the best one far and away is Yakuza 0,
because it's set during the bubble era.
And that's, like, the most fun time to experience Kabukicho.
That's a very weird game.
In a time machine that takes you back to the late 80s.
And there's, like, lots of mini-games you have to do.
Yes.
Like, singing and, right?
Singing.
Yeah, oh, you know, I mean, if we're going on this topic,
then, like, yeah, the music in Yakuza 0,
the karaoke that you can sing is amazing and really fun.
And, like, a car racing, like, a toy car racing mini-game.
Yeah, that mini-game was also great.
That's a thing that doesn't exist in America.
So, I mean, maybe it does, and it's a subculture.
I just don't know.
But that is also a great part of that game.
Yes.
Yeah.
Talk about having, like, a child's side as your Ura.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So check those games, too, if you're interested in Shinjuku
or Kabuki culture back in, like, 80s, 90s.
Yeah, Kabuki culture.
エピソードの締めくくり
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