Anime Profile: City Hunter

City Hunter was a highly popular and long running TV series in Japan, as is evident from the number of episodes that were made. It also spun off no less than five "movies" (actually a mix of TV movies, OVAs, etc) that are available in the US (there was even a live-action City Hunter movie starring Jackie Chan!).

City Hunter is a real-world action-comedy series that deals with the adventures of Ryo Saeba and his partner Kaori Makimura. Together they comprise the small but renowned City Hunter company. Ryo is a "Sweeper", a professional bodyguard who actively seeks out the sources of his client's troubles and deals with them. Kaori analyses offers to employ City Hunter (and is often in danger herself) but Ryo seldom accepts clients who are not beautiful young women.

The comedy comes from the difficulty he has maintaining his ultra-cool, fearless persona while around these attractive clients--a good part of Kaori's time is spent "persuading" Ryo to behave responsibly. The show is largely episodic, each episode generally dealing with how a particular case is solved. As far as I know, it is only available in subtitled form. Still, an often hilarious show that has not gotten the recognition it deserves in the West.