AnimeVision

From the director of Escaflowne (and the same character designer as well, judging by the noses), Heat Guy J takes us to a future SF setting, although it's a 'crime fighting superhero' story at heart...

Guy
The Don of the Leonelli family, also known as Vampire, has died, leaving his position to his 19-year-old son Claire - who is a few sticks short of a bundle, if we're being generous. Meanwhile, Daisuke & J are assigned to look into some illegal immigrants - turns out they may have smuggled an android in with them...

War
The new Vampire consolidates his position by taking on a rival faction - Daisuke & J become involved when they discover a plan to produce napalm bombs, to be used by Vampire against his rivals. The things you can track down based on a few 'what's that smell?' complaints.

Bomb
A serial bomber is at work - having started with a few small targets like postboxes and billboards, he's moved on to bigger things, and is now demolishing buildings. Meanwhile, the latest craze around Judoh is the Beauty Card - collector's cards of the city's most attractive women, the photos having been taken in true stalker fashion. Ryoko's getting quite upset that she hasn't featured on one yet, despite her best efforts to be seen...

Chaos
There's a werewolf, answering to the name of Boma, who's looking for his Usagi, and killing anyone who won't help him find her. Realising his strength, Vampire hires him to take down J, using calls to Daisuke as bait to lure J to where Boma can attack him.

The stories in Heat Guy J are simplistic enough that it's easy to write a synopsis for them, at least. :) That's not simplistic in a bad way, either - on the basis of this first disc, it would seem that this show falls into the low-maintenance eye-candy department - you can have fun watching it without taking your brain.

The characters are likeable - there's some nice interplay between Daisuke and Ryoko, and J seems to have quite a philosophical outlook on life that can't all be the result of his programming. Claire Leonelli seems to be Dilandau from Escaflowne reincarnated - similar looks & flipped personality - and looks set to be the show's recurring bad guy, although more in a scheme-of-the-week way than through any over-arching plot. With a fairly large supporting cast, including street-urchin photographer Monica and the shadowy Shogun, there's plenty here to build stories on.

As far as production values go - in general it's very good. Judoh's a bright city, so most of the scenes are very colourful & well presented. Some problems with iffy CGI & stock footage, but nothing too serious. And I love the soundtrack (it's the bagpipe fan in me...).

Overall, quite enjoyable - it'll be interesting to see if an ongoing plot develops as the series goes on, but so far it's just a bunch of very enjoyable, standalone episodes. Recommended.