Heat Guy J

By: Robert Murphy

In the post-apocalyptic city of Judoh, crime and poverty is an everyday occurrence and it is up to Special Services Division of the Bureau of Urban Safety to protect the citizens of Judoh and stop the crimes that occur there. Our story follows a young Special Services officer named Daisuke Aurora and his android partner known simply as "J,” the two work together to put an end to the crime family that recently come to power under a young girl known as Clair Leonelli and other more powerful enemies waiting to strike the city of Judoh.

Got the gentleman kind of swagger going on

As I watched this show I realized that I must have a enjoyment for animes that feature post-apocalyptic cities with mysterious backgrounds about them but I found that with each one of the animes, whether it was Trigun or Desert Punk, they are each unique and Heat Guy J was no different. The city of Judoh is actually beautifully designed and comes with certain mystery about it because it is powered and run by technology that the people do not know about and are forbidden from knowing. The city itself is run by a group known as the Celestials who appear in the city to check and make sure everything is running accordingly or to perform maintenance on anything that might be wrong with the system that runs Judoh. The fact that people aren’t allowed to know about this technology may have something to do with what happened to cause the global apocalypse in the first place, maybe it’s to prevent it from happening again, maybe it’s a power thing, we don’t really know. That’s the other thing, we don’t really know what happened to the world before this all happened, most likely it was a man made accident like war or economic downfall, who knows but the world that is left is quite an interesting one.

A view of Judoh

As for the story and characters, we receive and enjoyable assortment of characters throughout the series both supporting and main cast alike. First I suppose I should bring up our main two characters, Daisuke who is not what you’d call goal orientated when you first meet him and honestly when you first see him you’d question a lot about him. Daisuke is pretty much a blonde pretty boy who really doesn’t seem to put much passion into his job as a safety officer but as the story progresses he quickly caught my attention and my fears were dismissed. Now even though he is an android, I can’t forget to mention J who is often times more of an ironic joke as he walks around telling people what it is to be human, more specifically how to be a man in his case. This comedic idea could be hit or miss for some so can lay your hat on J being a super badass cyborg who fights the scum of Judoh and has a unique attribute for after his battles where he lets out some steam, literally, after J fights he expels steam from his body through pipes hidden under his skin, hence the title.

Eh I’m not much of a fan of pretty boys but Daisuke grows on you

But these two characters aren’t the whole show, there are a large assortment of other characters in the show that get there do justice throughout the entire series span. One such character is Monica who is a young child who sells photos of people back to them for money; the girl pulls at your heart strings as she tries to support herself and her drunken mother by doing so. She also offers helpful advice to Daisuke about the city since she works on the streets and develops a level of knowledge about the cities inner workings and dealings and this is where we see part of Daisuke’s true self shine through especially when he tries to adopt this young girl and take her away from her abusive mother. Another character that I feel is worth mentioning is Antonia, who is the creator of J and is responsible for his well-being and maintenance. She takes this job very seriously as well since she molded J’s image into that of her dead father who she morns still and we also get the impression that he somehow knew something about the Celestials who work on the city of Judoh. Many other character incorporate the show and make Heat Guy J the show that it is, whether they help Daisuke and J along the way or fight against them, they make the show a great one to watch.

Gotta have groupies

All in all I have to say that Heat Guy J brought with it quite the interesting tale and as I said it stands out from the other post-apocalyptic animes that I have seen before. Characters on all aspects, whether they are good or bad, supporting or main characters, all bring something to the table and show personal growth and development throughout the show. They also each have their own unique style and are well crafted alongside the city of Judoh that surrounds them in each episode. If I could make a negative comment it would be that sometimes the show will drag on with non-essential things but will pop back on track with a fight scene or new information comes a knocking to put things in the right direction. 

Good:

-A group of well-crafted characters all around

-The unique city of Judoh is great to look at and features an air of mystery to it

-Enjoyable humor and plot twists to the story along the way

Bad:

-Certain times the episode can drag but it doesn’t last long

Scully rating: 8.0 out of 10