Each of the snazzy 25-minute installments from the most popular Japanese
animated TV series of 1998 is a satisfying adventure tale about a futuristic
hipster bounty hunter. This is an elegant action-comedy anime, with
smoothly integrated CGI space-flight elements, gorgeous graphics, blues
harmonica and sax riffs on the soundtrack, and a no-sweat post-Tarantino
attitude. Despite occasional eruptions of gun-fu Asian-action violence, and
some intimations of heavy-duty drug use (in the first of 26 episodes, one
especially noxious narcotic is administered as an aerosol spray straight onto
the user's eyeballs), the tone is surprisingly convivial. None of the generic
tough elements are grim or mean-spirited. Lanky antihero Spike Spiegel is a
planet-hopping freelance hunter with an ex-cop sidekick named Jet, a loopy
fellow hunter named Faye, a teenage computer hack, and a genetically
enhanced Welsh corgi assistant in tow. The emphasis is on clever twists of
plot in an episodic short-story format with as many wisecracks as punches
being thrown.