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| Riding Bean | |
 | |
| ライディング・ビーン | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Action,comedy |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Kenichi Sonoda |
| Magazine | Monthly Comics Noisy |
| Original run | September 1988 –February 1989 |
| Original video animation | |
| Directed by | Yasuo Hasegawa |
| Produced by |
|
| Written by | Kenichi Sonoda |
| Music by | David Garfield |
| Studio | AIC,Artmic |
| Licensed by | AnimEigo |
| Released | February 22, 1989 |
| Runtime | 48 minutes |
Riding Bean (ライディング・ビーン) is a 1989animeoriginal video animation following the exploits of courier-for-hire Bean Bandit and his partner, gunwoman and ace investigator Rally Vincent.
A manga was also published in the Japanese magazineMonthly Comic Noizy (月刊コミックノイズィ,Gekkan Komikku Noizui) that was left unfinished (due to the closure of the magazine) after its fourth chapter. The manga is included in the final volume of the Revised Edition of theGunsmith Cats manga.
The anime follows one day in the life of Bean Bandit and Rally Vincent, as they find that they have been framed for the kidnapping of Chelsea Grimwood, the daughter of Mr. Grimwood, President of the Grimwood Company/Grimwood Conglomerate. However, it is Bean's longtimenemesis, criminal mastermind Semmerling, by way of various disguises, tricks, and manipulations, who is the real kidnapper — and the real target is Mr. Grimwood himself.
While the police are in hot pursuit of Bean and Rally, along with Chelsea in tow, Semmerling and her teenage helper Carrie plan to make a secret getaway with Mr. Grimwood as hostage.
| Role | Japanese[1] | English[1] |
|---|---|---|
| Southwynde Studios (1994) | ||
| Bean Bandit | Hideyuki Tanaka | J. Patrick Lawlor |
| Irene "Rally" Vincent | Naoko Matsui | Brennan MacKenzie |
| Semmerling | Mami Koyama | Barbara Lewis |
| Percy Bacharach | Kei Tomiyama | David Kraus |
| Carrie | Megumi Hayashibara | Susan McQueen |
| George Grimwood | Jun Hazumi | J. David Arnold |
| Police Chief | Yusaku Yara | Timothy J. Walsh |
| Dick | Nobuo Tobita | Adam Guzman |
| Chelsea Grimwood | Chieko Honda | Mary Boucher |
| Morris Grey | Michitaka Kobayashi | Marc Garber |
| Rick | John C. Stuart | |
| Robber | Michitaka Kobayashi | Marc Garber |
| Guards |
| John Peckham |
| Waitress | Tomoko Maruo | Jean Hrdlicka |
Only one episode ofRiding Bean was produced and the planned series was never made, due, it is said,[by whom?] to a falling out between writerKenichi Sonoda andToshiba EMI.
Sonoda then went on to create themanga comic seriesGunsmith Cats. In this series Rally Vincent was the star, but she was now dark-haired (as opposed to blond in the anime), ofAsian Indian descent and abounty hunter. Bean Bandit was a regular character, again as a freelance mob driver. Sonoda stated that the character was a "guy I can identify with much more personally" as compared to the female heroines.[2] He and Rally were not partners, and in fact their relationship varied from ally to enemy depending on the circumstances. Rally's signature car inGunsmith Cats was the 1967Shelby Mustang GT500 used by Percy in the anime.
Percy himself appeared in the seriesGunsmith Cats Burst, depicted as being in obsessive pursuit of Bean Bandit, with his aim being not to arrest but to actually kill the rogue driver.
Goldie Musou, a character psychologically similar to Semmerling (albeit drawn as a taller woman with a more butch demeanor), also appeared inGunsmith Cats as a powerfulMafia queen and Rally Vincent's nemesis.
AnimEigo originally released theRiding Bean OVA on VHS in 1990 in Japanese with Englishsubtitles. It was also one of their first releases along withMetal Skin Panic MADOX-01. AnimEigo later produced an English dub of the OVA in 1993, and was released to VHS and Laserdisc early that year. AnimEigo also released the OVA on DVD on March 26, 2002, in a single disc release with Japanese and English language tracks and English subtitles.Bandai Visual released the OVA onBlu-ray on November 21, 2008, in Japan. The principal characters also made cameo appearances in the super-deformed ARTMIC special titledScramble Wars.
A CD soundtrack was released by Artmic records featuring BGMs (background music tracks) and vocal tracks from the OVA. Songs included "Runnin' the Road", "King of the Road", and "Road Buster" byPhil Perry and "Bad Girl" byAndrea Robinson.
Robert Woodhead, founder of AnimEigo, ran aKickstarter campaign that ended on April 5, 2016, and raised in excess of US$130,000 (the initial goal was US$30,000) for the 2017 limited-edition Blu-ray release called a "High Octane Edition".[3] They used the same uncompressed HD transfer as the Japanese BD release, but using a BD50 instead of BD25 for a higher bitrate. It contains both the original Japanese soundtrack and the English dub, plus English subtitles in multicolor, greyscale and SDH variants. The disc is not region-coded.[3]
