City Hunter: Million Dollar Conspiracy

• Directed by Kenji Kodama
• August 25, 1990 (Japan)
• Based on the Japanese manga series City Hunter written and illustrated by Tsukasa Hojo

Voice Cast

• Joe Saeba-Martin Blacker
• Emily O’Hara-Amy L. Gamber as Amy Gamber
• Dick-David Jones
• Douglas-Steve Metz
• Micky-Amalia Stifter
• Falcon-Lou Perryman
• Kaori Makimune, Additional Voices-Pamela Ribon
• Sandra Nogami, Additional Voices-Jana Brockman
• Additional Voices-Charles C. Campbell as Charlie Campbell, Gary Lipkowitz as Gary Dehan

While trying to promote his firm, a man encounters a beautiful blonde in need of protection.

I flipped a (figurative) coin and landed on City Hunter: Million Dollar Conspiracy. I went in completely blind with no clue of what to expect and had quite an experience though not exactly a positive one. Billed as a comedy, I found more to be bothered by than laugh at.

The character of City Hunter (Joe Saeba) is a world’s-greatest-detective type. He has sharp observations which feel forced as well as a penchant for stealing and smelling women’s undergarments and a healthy dose of voyeurism that is so strong he in one scene scaled the exterior of a building to watch his most recent client take a shower.

This was intended for young men of the time given certain aspects but the clearly unsafe perversions of Joe make in wholly inappropriate. What is unintentionally telling about the character is Joe has zero interest in Kaori Makimune, his associate, who is the one woman that appears willing to sleep with him.

Joe’s characterization is all over the place. He is intelligent and observant but also impulsive and easily distracted. He’s a well-known investigator but has trouble staying on task. His wild swings are meant for comedy but if this were consistently in cartoonish territory it might be more acceptable but the story also gets into late Cold War politics and some spy stuff that was used in books and films at the time. That gets quite interesting and makes it almost a political thriller but it would’ve been much better played seriously.

His revelations are rather abrupt. They come as needed to get to the next beat of the story and at 47 minutes they come steadily enough. They’re not deep character analysis or clues that the audience might not notice. He just pulls them out of his backside in a poor effort to appear smarter than Columbo. He’s not portrayed as some kind of savant. He just knows and we’re supposed to accept it.

After watching Million Dollar Conspiracy I learned there were more films in the series so the moments that confused me probably had to do more with my ignorance than poor storytelling there. That does not excuse having enough context to understand a character’s purpose or who they are when name dropped and not present.

Animation is low effort. I’m left with a feeling this was the cheapest of the cheap they could produce without being substandard for their intended market. No interesting visuals or god-tier bits of animation in the days before computers could intervene. I have seen some OVA made BEFORE this that blows your mind, but this is no better than mid-80s syndication TV.

The movie mistakes personality quirks for entire personalities with one trait defining just about everything a character does. The toy guy is all about toys. The detective is all about sniffing women’s underwear and stealing it. The assistant is all about sticking around for a guy that will never have any interest in her.

My hook was to see how creepy Joe could be by today’s standards. I didn’t think it was intended as being that in the eyes of those making this. I just was fascinated by a look into a culture I was largely unfamiliar with. For that it’s kind of worth viewing. It made me an armchair psychologist or cultural analyst. You read about films from time to time that have been sanitized for American audiences but not here. 

Another element that may be simply cultural is the almost spiritual approach to shooting at something. Emily O’Hara, Joe’s client, works for the CIA and must shoot a remote plane controlled by an assassin with a penchant for toys. They treat it like a Zen moment of clearing their mind.

For Western audiences, this is an uncomfortable watch largely because of that weird underwear fetish. The swings between spy and comedy make for an uneven film that’s never funny or mildly amusing but teases some interesting spy-fi.

City Hunter: Million Dollar Conspiracy had the potential to be something enjoyable from the era but instead became an unsettling look into what was acceptable for those making it. Beyond that it’s a bit of a bore.