Ranked #2069

Gunsmith Cats

Gunsmith Cats. The original Cowboy Bebop. Almost. There's a jazzy OP with simple 70's style split-screen graphics madness, bounty hunters, western sensibilities. The prototype for Shinichiro Watanabe's version which maxed out everything this franchise has. Unfortunately it doesn’t have Watanabe.

What it has is Rally Vincent and Minnie-May causing havoc in Chicago in their Mustang GT500 via their trusty guns and bombs.

Watching this OVA after reading the manga is preferable as if you dig the manga then watching it animated after 9 volumes of guncrazy magic, is nice. Another reason is that 9 volumes doesn’t translate into 3 episodes, so you're only getting a small percentage of the glorious fun that is Gunsmith Cats.

The OVA feels like its set either during or after the manga and doesn’t bother following anything in the source material or setting up character relationships. It just jumps right into the lives of Rally and Minnie-May, so casual viewers will either fall on board or check out swiftly, and manga readers will begin enjoying it immediately, just to keep Gunsmith Cats alive for a bit longer.

Unfortunately there is a noticeable lack of certain characters in the manga, such as Roy the friendly cop who is relegated to a cameo, Misty the thief who is absent, and there's a gaping black hole where Bean Bandit should be. Becky's way too nice and Minnie-May appears much younger here also, like a ten year old which makes her hijinks with bounty hunter Rally even more ludicrous, and with absolutely no hint of sexual deviancy that was so rampant in the manga.

So yeah, this is filler but like the manga it has an attention to detail with the city of Chicago as a backdrop and other miscellaneous aspects that at least keep the anime somewhat in reality, when every scene with Minnie-May threatens to blow it into fantasy. The OVA is also full of call-backs to the manga that uber fans will recognise and grin at (prosthetic guns anyone?) so the OVA is going to be an acquired taste.

The animation is pretty average but the design is good, cars, guns, gorgeous Rally herself, it’s all watchable so don’t let the year of release put you off. The music is nothing to shout about unfortunately, as is the direction, editing, writing, ok so other than the brand name this is just standard entertainment.

But then the OVA at least does something that the manga did excellently. That is to say: have an awesome car chase! A definite highlight of the OVA and one of the best in anime, with kinetic visuals, edge-of-your-seat thrills and all based in reality, with no physics-breaking stunts.

And finally the story. Oh yeah, story? Bunch of generic bad guys shooting and blowing crap up, what else? If you're going to watch this, watch it because you're a completist, and watch it for that car chase. They say cats have nine lives, well the gunsmith cats just lost one with this OVA; time to reload. read more

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 your watching 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. read more

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 this that 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. read more

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 bombs being 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/ )
read more

"Gunsmith Cats" is one of those anime that tries to emulate the style of those retro 70's/80's american day time TV shows. It's set in Chicago, and tells the adventures of a pair of girls who, on the surface, are just the owners of a firearm store... except they actually earn a secret living as bounty hunters.

It features all the things that are common for the genre: flamboyant gunfights, high speed car chases, and even the villain, an ex-KGB Russian woman (why is it that all the Russian villains that appear in these things are ex-KGB??), is ripped straight from some Hollywood list of cliches. Everything is done well enough for the OVA to be fairly entertaining, which is the whole point of it. The story, like the anime itself, is nothing special, but is good enough to keep me vaguely interested.

Compared to other stylish gunslinging action anime like "Mezzo Forte" however, "Gunsmith Cats" feels a little lacklustre. Not only that, it doesn't fully adopt the style either. And unlike anime such as "Cowboy Bebop" that manage to combine western and eastern styles perfectly, the fusion in "Gunsmith Cats" feels a bit jarring. The Gunsmith Cats themselves (as in the main characters) look like they belong in a different anime from the rest of the characters - they look so much more... kiddy-ish with their large eyed, cartoonish cuteness. The fanservice also seems kinda out of place.

"Gunsmith Cats" may not be the best thing since slice bread (though slice bread itself is rather overrated in my opinion), but it's pretty decent. And since it comprises just 3 episodes, it's worth checking out as you won't be wasting away too much of your life even if you don't like it. Plus, seeing Hollywood cliches in anime makes a refreshing change from just seeing anime cliches in anime. read more

This is rather tame compared to Cyber City or Goku. The city backdrop of Chicago is beautifully done and the only reason I watched it as long as I did. I work in downtown Chicago alot and they did an accurate job, but aside from that, this was boring. Cheap, generic violence with little or no gore. Annoying lead characters. A.D Police Files blows this out of the water. Someone recommended this cause I liked A.D Police Files and man were they WRONG. If you like Akira, Golgo 13, or any others I mentioned here, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ON THIS ONE !!!

The series is very good. The 3 episodes are very well researched by the team that made the series. There is stuff such as Amoco signs, which for those that don't know, it was a gas company based in Chicago which started in Whiting Indiana(right over the border). The guns in the show are amazingly accurate which is great for a gun nut like myself. I've watched the show multiple times, the plot, the characters, and the research and realism behind it make me come back. The Japanese versions is very great and I prefer it, while I also recommend the team behind the dub if you would like to. The team behind the dub was also a local Chicago team, meaning that when Rally messes with May by stealing her "Soda"(for all you non-Midwesterners) May responds by saying "Give me back my Pop" which is what we call it in Chicago. Overall it is amazing such as plot and all that jazz, but the research of the city and guns is what makes it truly a great series. read more