Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens

This anime series based on light novels by Chiaki Kisaki focuses on Zenji Banba, owner of a detective agency in a high-crime district. Lin Xianming, a Chinese cross-dresser and expert knife fighter, is hired to kill Zenji, but somehow winds up working for the agency and is even recruited to play on Zenji’s baseball team. Zenji’s business incorporates input from a ragtag bunch of violent misfits, ranging from a ramen stall owner who moonlights as a hitman, to a professional torturer from the Dominican Republic, as well as a hacker and a masked samurai. The series tries to strike a balance between goofball comedy and Peckinpah-worthy volleys of artistic violence, but strains too hard to be cute while also going severely overboard in the blood and gore department. To its credit, the character of Lin is quite interesting, and it’s a shame that so much time is wasted on stock characters before an abrupt midway detour that offers details on how Lin wound up in the professional and personal situations that define his life. Compiling all 12 episodes from 2018 in a dual-language Blu-ray/DVD Combo set, rated TV-MA, this is an optional purchase. (P. Hall)