Gunsmith Cats

Girls and guns - a combination that can't go wrong! In the mean streets of Chicago, Illinois, Rally Vincent, a beautiful young woman with a mean aim, and "Minnie" May Hopkins, her streetwise explosives expert partner, do their best trying to keep the city clean by rounding-up bail jumpers. This anime, a good vision of Kenich Sonoda's manga, is unique because of the production team's eye for detail, making many trips from Japan to get accurate locale scenes - even going as far a visiting the Illinois Police Academy and an actual gunshop, a rarety in gun-controled Japan. The only sad thing about thisthat it's not a FAITHFUL version of the manga - no Misty Brown or Goldie Muso. But hopefully, with the release of the manga series 'Gunsmith Cats BURST', that might change.

Overview: Gunsmith cats is a good anime cop show. With bounty hunters, ATF, local cops and gunrunners, its hard to go wrong with this anime if your looking for a good action fix that is grounded in reality. Story: the story is great, at least as far as cop stories go. gun runners, a Russian assassin, and a dedicated ATF agent back up the two main characters in making this show both fun and intriguing to watch. Im not going to lie though, the story is simple and you will probably figure it before the end, but thats really not why yourwatching is it? Art: When you watch old anime you have to judge the art by its day and not overall. If you were to judge gunsmith cats art to modern shows like macross frontier your just being unfair. I give art a 9 because for its day, and compared to other shows (like AD police that some one mentioned earlier) gunsmith cats really blows other shows of its day out of the water. Its in the detail. I also live in Chicago and they did do a very accurate job. Sound: This show has a good music score along with appropriate sounds throughout the show. Its hard to judge sound, but suffice to say if you dont notice anything wrong they did a good job. Charecters: Theirs just something about old anime and stereotypes. That said they knew how to make them work. Every character in gunsmith cats is about as cliche as you can get, but they are worked into the story and with a cliche story the charterers fit right in. Enjoyment: You may be wondering why I rate it as highly as I do when iv already said its very predictable and cliche. The reason is that gunsmith cats knows what type of anime it is, and they know that there story is cookie cutter, and that there characters are very stereotypical. This all said, in our age its about presentation, not originality. Gunsmith cats is an excellent example of how to take a tried and true story and make you love the characters and engross yourself in there world if only for a little while. If this show cant at least entertain you, your standards are way to high. This show sets a standard for presenting old material in a fun way.

Gunsmith Cats is about the exploits of the owner of a Gun shop in Chicago, Illinois who moonlights as a bounty hunter with her friend and assistant. The owner of the shop is a gun maniac named Rally Vincent. Rally is incredibly skilled with a gun, but she’s not a superwomen. She’s vulnerable at times, isn’t very lady-like to her dismay, and sort of clumsy and awkward. Her partner is the cute as a button, explosives export “Minnie” May Hopkins. Minnie May is more feminine then Rally and also more experienced with men. While no one doubts her abilities with explosives (grenades and smoke bombsbeing her favorite), she is a bit dangerous and way to quick to resort to using them. Sure she’ll blow up the bad guys, but also half the house with them! Together they are the Gunsmith Cats! They rely on a stingy, greedy, and yet charmingly geeky information export for much of their work, named Becky. The series is based on Kenichi Sonoda’s famous manga of the same name. When the series starts off an ATF Agent named Bill Collins is using a little old fashioned extortion to get the Gunsmith Cats to assist him in a complicated case involving gun runners and a criminal, Jonathan Washington, who Rally and Minnie May just captured for a bounty. Bill Collins drags them down into this case, which leads to gun slinging action, adventure, explosions, and great car chases. The plot is well written involving a possible mole at the ATF (which is not entirely unrealistic considering their checkered history) and many other interesting elements at work at the same time. To get into the plot too deeply however would spoil the fun. This 1995 OVA, rather then start adapting the manga from page 1 or choosing the very best of Sonoda’s stories, decided to create an anime original plot. The characters, ideas, feel, look, and tone of the manga are all here, but with an all new story. This approach is one I like, as it gives fans of the original manga something new to enjoy, while also allowing people to go back and read the manga and not have to sit through the same stuff they just saw. The anime is a tad less risque then the manga, but I am fine with that. Much like the wonderful Riding Bean, this is much more a Hollywood movie/tv show with gunslinging action scenes, car chases, and traditional police elements, then an anime. And the fanservice here reflects that. The fanservice is actually the good kind: sensual, not creepy, doesn’t take away from the plot, and actually helps develop the cast. And this actually spices up the show. And the show has a sense of humor that works (at least for my tastes). Rally’s car is the famous 1967 Shelby GT 500, and it gets as much attention as any of the main characters do. It is a wonderful car, a joy to look at, and incredibly fast. Clearly this is a car Kenichi Sonoda likes, since it is also featured in Riding Bean. The anime has some excellently animated and well choreographed gun fights and car chases. These are action scenes done right, where we care about the results (and they just look cool to boot). I love the artwork style and presentation of it all. It has that high quality 90′s look that I just eat up. The backgrounds are photorealistic, and really help to bring the city of Chicago to life. Still to this day few series look as good as this (well maybe another gun-porn anime, Gunslinger Girl season one, looks as good). The character designs are a little cartoony, but not entirely unrealistic. There was a lot of attention put into their clothing. Not to mention the girls are easy to look at. The budget must have been through the roof on this series. The music is exciting, and has an American rock/jazz feel to it that wouldn’t seem out of place on an American cop show of the same era. The opening is easily one of the best of the 90′s. And I have to mention that the sound effects for Rally’s car are actually recordings of a real 1967 Shelby Cobra Gt500!! Blows the mind! The dub is another great ADV job done in Houston, Texas. The dub has brilliant casting, excellent acting, a perfect script, and divine directing. This is the kind of perfect storm of a dub that is rare, but ADV often manages to pull off. In this dub everything comes together to give you one hell of a show! This is one of the best dubs of the 1990′s by far. It showcases Matt Greenfield’s excellent ADR talents, more proof he is one of the best directors in the business, and is another reason why he needs to direct more dubs today. While the script is a little loose, it never changes the intended meanings, and in fact makes the show more authentic. It is made more American, more “ chicagoan” if you will. The slight changes in the phrases said or jokes being made make it more natural and more western. Amanda Winn-Lee plays Rally and gives out another stellar performance worthy of her reputation. She fits the character very well, and her acting is spot on. Kimberly Yates’s voice may be a little high pitched, but this is the only voice that would ever fit Minnie May. Tiffany Grant plays the greedy Becky, and this is not at all who I would expect in that role. But she gives a wonderful, if unconventional for her, performance here. The star of the dub however may very well be Rob Mungle as Bill, the sleazy, unsavory ATF Agent. He has an aspect to his voice that I can only describe as “middle aged grit”. So I don’t need to mention how perfect he is for this role. It’s a shame he’s been sidelined to background voices and smaller roles over the years, as he has a real talent and great voice for these types of characters who spring up in anime often enough. In Gunsmith Cats his performance often has a whine to it (“Buuut RALLLY!?”) that seems very genuine, and his acting is top rate. Many of the other characters are cops or tough middle aged guys but they all sound great. Oh and watch out for the Matt Greenfield cameo in episode one! What is interesting about this show is the girls are the stars and the villains. The guys take a back seat to the colorful female cast who do most of the work. And boy do the girls rule! For such a “manly” show that’s pretty much gun-porn and car-porn, we have a strong female cast of characters that make the show very original. The OVA is highly researched, with thanks given to the A.T.F. , The Chicago Police Department, Cook County Sherifs Office, the Chief of Police,2 homicide detectives, ordinary street cops, and plenty of others. The anime team made multiple trips to the United States to scout locations and photograph the city of Chicago and surrounding areas. They also became familiar with firearms while in Chicago, since guns are nearly outlawed completely in Japan (except for the police), this is their only real opportunity to get an up close experience with guns of all types. The anime crew did a lot of work before even starting on this show, and it all paid off completely. You can easily see the care Takeshi Mori and his team took to put this all together. The only problem with the show is it is too short! ADV Films put this out on DVD twice, originally in 2001 and then again in 2004 under their Anime Essentials product line. I have the original DVD release, since it was cheaper to buy new at the time. Both DVDs have the entire 3 episode OVA series, with dub and original Japanese audio with subtitles on it. This show is long out of print, and scalpers on Amazon seem to be asking a pretty penny for both releases, but used copies are more reasonable. I’m just glad I got this brand-new when I did. But it is really worth tracking down this classic. ADV’s DVDs tack on a 40 minute extra feature at the end of the show. The extra feature is about the making of the OVA, which is partially dubbed/narrated by Amanda Winn-Lee. This extra has interviews with the animation’s staff, the original mangaka, features their home video recording of the staff’s trips to Chicago, and plenty of other goodies. This is the kind of extra we rarely get anymore but is really interesting. Dark Horse Comics put out the manga and that’s worth looking into as well. (original review posted here: http://predederva.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/gunsmith-cats/ )

Oh what to say about Gunsmith Cats? One of the earliest anime I ever had the luxury to view, it was quite a fantastic experience as a teenager. Having recently re-watched the show I found that I enjoyed it even more, having noticed the little details that I disregarded when I was younger (such as the welded on 'S' on the Gunsmith Cats store, obviously indicating that the business was opened before Rally made contact with Minnie May) and understanding a bit more of the culture at hand. That is...Chicago. Yep, this anime takes place in the glorious U.S. of A, so if that isn'tyour thing then maybe you should avoid it. That said, let's proceed with the overall story. STORY: 9 The story, while not exactly the most in-depth one, is insanely enjoyable. It's not too simple but it's not too complicated--Rally Vincent, the owner of a gunsmith shop in Chicago, is requested to help with a case being investigated by the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) via the somewhat sleezy cop Bill Collins, and both her and her friend Minnie May end up in too deep. For only three episodes they make it through the entire story arc very smoothly--the first episode is getting involved with the overall case, the second is the rise of action and suspense, and the final episode is the peak. In general it never seems like there's too much going on due to lack of time despite there being only three episodes. The main reason I give the story a 9 instead of a 10, though, is because despite it being a smoothly executed story...it does run into a few hiccups. My main complaint is the final bad guy. The man behind the conflict, so to say. It just doesn't work as well as it probably should. He just comes off seeming super hammy and forced, which is a real shame considering how well the story builds up to it. It doesn't help that said bad guy isn't introduced until the final episode so we aren't really too assed to care about him, especially since he doesn't really reveal himself until the last ten minutes of episode three. The overall short run also does serve to leave some background characters underdeveloped. So that does weaken the score. ART: 8 I like this art. There's really not much for me to say about this besides that--I just like it. But I don't really LOVE it. It looks nice, and the faces have a pretty nice structure. These are based off designs from the manga made by Sonoda Kenichi, and in general his art is well done and well thought out. However, the women have a bad tendency to look alike. The male designs don't suffer from this, as each male character typically has a fairly unique facial structure, but the generic faces of the women does kinda hurt the art. The backgrounds looks fantastic, however. They've really captured the gritty look of Chicago here. SOUND: 8 To start, the opening to this is something that I could just listen to all day. The song is completely free of lyrics, and stands out from your typical anime intro by being more focused around a jazzy feel as opposed to a pop feel (which is understandable considering the focus of the show). Comparisons to this choice in music have been made to Cowboy Bebop's 'Tank', and it's a suitable comparison. Both are fantastic earworms. The rest is just kind of a hit and miss. The background music is more okay than it is fantastic. As for the voice work, the dub is surprisingly good for an ADV dub--most of the voices match the characters pretty well and overall they execute the lines pretty well. But it still has some typical early dub issues. Some lines don't match up to the lip movements, and while Rob Mungle does a pretty fantastic job on most of the sarcastic lines for Bill Collins...it's a little more hit and miss when it comes to the dramatic moments. He sounds just flat out kind of silly in dramatic scenes, and really tries to overplay it. Which is a shame, because the rest of the time his execution is perfect. CHARACTER: 9 There is nothing I can really criticize about the charac...okay, there is. Let's start from the good points: Rally Vincent is an amazing protagonist. She's smart, sassy, and well equipped to handle the problems that face her but has a cocky side that can lead her into trouble. Minnie May is admittedly kind of a brat, but in a far more endearing way than your typical anime 'little bratty girl' archetype. You can tell she wants to help, she just isn't a very good judge of what is helpful and what isn't so her actions can either lead to great success or great disaster. I've heard a lot of badmouthing towards Bill Collins, the ATF agent, on other sites but I personally think he's a great character and oppositional force to Rally. He's just as cocky as she is, but with a thicker layer of sarcasm and sleeze. That said, he's not a complete ass anyways, since he does show a need to protect Rally and Minnie May as well as crack the case. Personally I think it makes him a really fun character and a lot of good dialogue comes from him. Now let's get to the bad characters. Becky is obnoxious. I don't even know why she's in the show. She consistently serves absolutely no purpose besides balling out Rally and Minnie May. She just bitches and bitches and bitches and doesn't seem to have any helpful skills...I think she's supposed to be their accountant or something, but it's not too clear and it just makes her seem like an annoying space-filler. A lot of the side characters, like Roy and that one ATF chick who shows up in the third episode, don't really do much and probably could've been blessed to be expanded on more. Roy is built up as someone Rally has known for a while, but how? I guess there's only so much to be demanded out of a three episode anime, and they did really good with what they had. OVERALL: I'd give this one a 9/10. It's a REALLY good anime, and I mean REALLY good. I wouldn't go for it looking for any deep or complex plotline but in terms of fun factors...this one should leave the majority of viewers satisfied, if not by the story than at least by the major characters. I'd honestly sit down and pop it in any day.