City Hunter

One of the quintessential 1980s manga, Hojo’s bold action classic transports readers to a seedy Tokyo of handsome rogues, tough dames, and street fights. Ryo Saeba is a “sweeper,” a private eye who will stoop to anything, including murder, to close a case. Yet this dangerous dude turns into a goony letch around women, groping his beautiful clients and usually getting beaten up in return. The manga hits its stride when he teams up with Kaori Makimura, a plucky young woman who values Ryo’s lessons on navigating the mean streets, but refuses to take his nonsense. Together they battle human traffickers, busjackers, PCP-numbed assassins (“This angel dust will turn you into a super soldier!!”), and other over-the-top criminals. Hojo draws in a gritty seinen manga style, but the characters’ faces erupt into cartoon exaggeration to sell a gag and dial the energy up to 11. It’s an adrenaline-spiked cocktail of hard-boiled action, slapstick comedy, cheesecake, melodrama, and raunchy jokes (“mokkori,” the sound effect indicating arousal that accompanies Ryo’s “small soldier standing to attention,” per the translator’s notes, is the manga’s catchphrase). The translation plays up the tough-guy one-liners: “Old wounds start aching on days like this,” Ryo reflects, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Readers jonesing for retro ’80s thrills will be blown away. (Sept.)