I will abbreviate Ginga Nagareboshi Gin as simply GNG in this review.
I will keep this review as spoiler-free as possible and, hopefully, not too long, so don't worry about any major plot reveal.
Story 6/10:
The story is a very basic revenge-centered plot (with a touch of betrayal and inner conflicts), nothing too deep and fairly predictable. It starts off with our main dog protagonist and hero, Gin the Akita bear-dog, being born. He quickly gets separated from his mother and becomes grandfather Gohei Takeda's next hunting dog – an old man who's a hunter with a grudge for a very certain bear, Akakabuto. Gohei starts training Gin with abusive methods to make him the ultimate bear-dog and, even though his ways to teach are cruel, they do pay off later.
Shortly after being born Gin gets taken on a hunting trip and watches his father Riki, Gohei's former dog, fighting against Akakabuto and getting thrown off a cliff and, presumably, dying. This memory serves as the main driving force for Gin to go on a journey to gather dogs from all over Japan to fight and take down the monster bear Akakabuto, for the sake of revenge.
The show takes on a very episodic "new recruit of the week" formula, for most of the episodes, while Gin and his gang encounter new dogs that they have to win over to their growing bear-slaying team; often by showing who's the greater male.
But while most of the episodes are fairly predictable they are genuinely enjoyable to watch, even though the subs are horrible and the whole show is resting heavily on manhood and stereotypical ideals and perception of masculinity – mainly when recruiting the dogs and fighting. To give you an idea of how male-centered this show is the hundreds of dogs gathered by Gin are all exclusively males, with the only exception being Cross, who plays the role of the "lone girl but badass-enough-to-be-taken-into-the-guys-group-anyway" – basically Cross is the butch who, at the same time, is a mother figure. Actually, if I recall right you only see two female dogs during the duration of the whole show and that's Gin's mom Fuji and Cross. So yeah, the gender balance is really skewed on this one.
There's a lot of "gather the strongest men!" and "men are like this and like that [insert typically admired masculine quality here], everywhere; you even get the "real men don't cry" cliché and other similarly cringy standards our society has come up with. :) This might be offputting for some watchers and honestly, even though I'm a dude myself, I found it to be too much at times; I just don't like fueling and pressing on gendered stereotypes and expectations – it hurts everyone. But yeah, since GNG is a shounen show from the late 80's you kinda have to cut it some slack. (I just don't really see why female dogs couldn't be good fighters as well? Cross proved several times that she's just as capable as the rest... until she [SPOILER WARNING] got puppies and was tossed aside for the remainder of the show. [SPOILER ENDS])
Art 6/10:
First of all, this is an old show and it's really visible in the animation quality. The dogs are animated fairly well but the humans aren't as detailed. You can tell just by watching that this show hasn't aged all that well but, despite that, it has its old-school charms intact. What bothered me was that there was a lot of reused frames, sometimes flipped, which means that especially during the later episodes, you see the same dogs getting killed over and over again and the same running scenes reused until you get sick of them.
Sound 8/10:
I'm bad at judging voice acting quality but I thought this show was decent, at least considering the time it was made. I watched it with the original Japanese voices and so I can't compare with the dubbed versions out there. I want to say though that the soundtrack was really catchy and memorable and, even though it's just a few distinct songs with different remixes, I really liked them all. I felt pumped up when the "victory theme" started playing and I felt sad when a dog died and the sad song was on. The opening theme also gets stuck in your head.
The sound effects are nothing extraordinary, they sound like old-school sound effects in good as well as in bad.
Characters 8/10:
What makes this series different from your average shounen show is that the main cast are dogs and they fight against evil bears. The bears are not really intriguing because they are simply evil for the sake of being evil and the main antagonist, Akakabuto, is no exception. There isn't much reason given for Akakabuto's rage against both Gohei and Gin, except that because of his blinded eye he got some nerve damage that prevents him from going into hibernation and made him especially aggressive towards any intruders in his territory. But yeah, the bears are really simple, boring, ghastly-looking bears with constant drool on their faces... but the dogs do all have different personalities. Actually, around episode 7 or so, when Gin leaves his owners, that's when the focus shifts and suddenly all the dogs talk and that's when you get to see their true personalities.
Gin is your typical shounen hero and gets the most fleshed out; most of the other cast members (at least the ones getting names) stay pretty one-dimensional. There is everything from the typical honorable ninja dog to the badass, second-in-command, traitorous Dobermann who wants nothing else than to take over the leader post feat. his cowardly servant. There's everything from silly, faithful to serious in the cast and they're all generally likable and you feel for the canines – especially if you're a dog lover like me. It's kinda hard to watch some of them getting killed off...
Enjoyment 9/10:
When I started watching this show I honestly thought I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much as I did. It starts off a bit slow but changes pace as soon as the show shifts to focus on the dogs' point of view. Just be mindful that even though it's often considered a "children's show" GNG is one with a darker theme (read: revenge) and there's a lot of blood, decapitations, eyes popping out of a bear's head, mindless slaughter etc. The blood is animated really cartoony (sometimes a bright semi-transparent neon red/pink!) so it's nothing realistic but yeah, if you can't handle a lot of bloody and whimpering dogs you might want to pass on this show... or perhaps look for the censored version.
Overall 8/10:
It's a surprisingly enjoyable classic show and I found myself with watery eyes more than once. Sure that some things were annoying (bad dubs, abundance of gender clichés, reused frames etc) but the overall feeling I got after finishing GNG was pleasant and satisfied. Even though it's an old show it's still worth the watch!
(please note though that most of my grades are higher than what I would have given GNG had I rated/compared it with the current anime standards; I chose to give it mercy because it was made in the 80's and although it is mediocre in today's standards it's a solid 1980's show)
