Gungrave

Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowel, two friends so close they could be called brothers, receive an abrupt and violent reminder one fateful day of how appallingly merciless the world around them can be. Their whole lives before then were simple and easygoing, consisting largely of local brawls, seducing women, and committing petty theft to make a living and pass the time. What they failed to realize is that in this cruel world, happiness is fleeting, and change is inevitable.

Enter Millennion, the largest and most infamous mafia syndicate in the area, which accepts Brandon and Harry into their ranks and starts them at the bottom of the food chain. Harry has ambitions to ascend the ranks and one day replace Big Daddy as the supreme leader of Millennion, while Brandon only wishes to support his friend and appease Big Daddy who has taken custody of the woman Brandon loves.

Based off the third-person shooter video game under the same name, Gungrave is an epic story of friendship, betrayal, and avarice that spans the course of several years, ultimately tying back to the gripping and foreboding first episode, all the while building up to the story's thrilling conclusion.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Heat, Brandon Main

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

MacDowel, Harry Main

Hamada, Kenji Japanese

Kugashira, Bunji Supporting

Tachiki, Fumihiko Japanese

Walken, Bear Supporting

Ootomo, Ryuuzaburou Japanese

Big Daddy Supporting

Kayumi, Iemasa Japanese

Poundmax, Bob Supporting

Chafurin Japanese

Asagi, Mika Supporting

Sakuma, Kumi Japanese

Lee, Balladbird Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Jolice Supporting

Kase, Yasuyuki Japanese

Burns, Widge Supporting

Houki, Katsuhisa Japanese

Kitayama, Shigeru Producer

Kubo, Tooru Producer

Tsuru, Toshiyuki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Araki, Tetsurou Episode Director, Storyboard, Assistant Director

Reviews

Feb 23, 2009

ParaParaJMo

Recommended

Based on the cult PS2 title by SEGA and Red Entertainment, this anime is an alternate retelling of that respective title which I own a copy of, and you can get it for like $5 at Game Stop. The anime tells the origin story of the main character, Brandon Heat, who is later re-named Beyond the Grave, and his best friend, Harry MacDowell. The organization of the presentation of the story feels as if it was perfectly structured as a 3-act play, each with its own unique theme and gimmick. Act 1 you can label as a story about rags to riches in which Harry ... and Brandon are teenage small timers just trying to survive. Act 2 is about how the duo is trying to establish themselves, and make it to the top of the mafia. And Act 3 is an epic conclusion about betrayal and redemption, which speaks for itself. But throughout the duration of the anime, the idea of family and loyalty will always be a consistent theme.

Even though it’s centered primarily around two characters, I felt a good majority of the characters had their own unique presence and contribution, and really made the themes and messages felt realistic and powerful.

What of course also stands out is Brandon’s characterization that comes across as cliché. In the original game, Brandon never speaks, and the anime is very true to this for the most part. Brandon is still quiet in nature, but with little words he says, it still gives a lot of what goes on inside his mind (of course through narration) and you truly see him start from being an innocent boy, to a contemplative man but yet still maintains his unique surface qualities of being quiet, but yet shows enough emotion to give the audience an idea of what goes on through his mind and find a way to relate to him.

And of course another feature with this whole mafia gig are the weird sci-fi elements. I felt it wasn’t really forced in a way that having sci-fi traits seemed out of place. But the nature of the sci-fi is what makes it bizarre, but yet unique and original. I don’t want to get into the details of that since I would also have to reveal spoilers, but it does add a unique kind of flavor that doesn’t turn you off from the series. The sci-fi part is properly introduced but I felt that the setting such as how far in the future it takes place which will be revealed which will conveniently make sense to make it work. Granted the anime will reveal what year in some parts it takes place in that will make it feel like it makes sense, but I think the anime should have established it from the start, and not 2/3 into it.

What also attracted me to Gungrave was the fact that Nightow Yasuhiro, the creator of Trigun, was the creator of this product as well. Obviously, some elements from Trigun are in this anime as well. Such as the design of Brandon’s guns are quite similar to Vash’s, and Brandon’s coffin gun is of course influenced by Wolfwood’s cross gun. But despite having the same creator, there are some distinguishing differences as well.

In Trigun, Nightow-sensei’s style was more kid friendly and generic, while in Gungrave, his style for the character designs are more edgy and mature which perfectly suits the nature of the story. For the most part, despite the time the anime takes place in, the architecture is quite modern. Though as the series progresses, there are vehicular designs that appropriately reflect the scientific and futuristic elements this anime has. And of course, I like how the anime approaches the aging of the characters throughout the duration of this anime, which I can’t ignore. It does it pretty effectively.

And before I get into the action, I’d like to talk about Brandon’s costume design. I must say it is pretty bizarre, but hey, in his situation by then, what the hell, huh? I think it’s still pretty cool, and really matches his artillery in a complimentary way in that sense, I guess. The action is pretty intense as well. For the most part, it’s just gun violence that does get pretty brutal, and does have some martial arts action as well that isn’t really exaggerated until things start to change into the sci-fi part. If you’ve seen Trigun, then you know what to somewhat expect, but this time, the main character will kill.

Even though I always associate Imahori Tsuneo’s name with his use of guitars, which was prevalent in Hajime no Ippo and Trigun, but hearing the way he composes this anime totally changed my opinion of his talent. The guy knows how to create an appropriate atmosphere with the elements this anime has with a sad blues and jazz kind of feel. Along with the presentation of the animation, I thought his music also brought a noir feature this anime has on all acts in this anime whether in the mafia or sci-fi moments so his presence brought an overall appropriate touch to virtually all scenes that had music.

The voice acting in the Japanese version I thought brought the noir feel to the anime as well, and utilizes most of the voice talent from the original game which was in Japanese. I tried watching the English dub, but it didn’t give me what I was feeling in the Japanese version. Personally, I feel overall the dub isn’t worth watching since there was no dub in the game to begin with to give me some expectation of how it could work. If you’re the kind of person that prefers dubs at whatever levels, I still say it’s good enough for you. But if you’re someone who prefers straight up Japanese no matter how good or bad a dub is, I felt the portrayals in Japanese were best. I felt watching it in English just didn’t have the same level of seriousness that the Japanese had and kind of felt more like a dark comedy, which I feel Gungrave isn’t. I really like how in the Japanese version, which was also done in the English version was how they did Harry’s voice throughout the duration it takes place in. In his younger years, he has a voice where he sound really easy going and sarcastic like Spike from Cowboy Bebop, but when he’s old, he’s as evil as Mori in Flame of Recca. And Brandon was appropriately played by a big favorite of mine as you all know, Seki Tomokazu, who is no stranger to playing quiet and somewhat isolated characters such as Miyata in Hajime no Ippo.

Well, all I can say is if I had to put this anime in a nut shell: try to mix Scarface, The Godfather, Versus, the Yakuza PS2 games, Skullman, Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, then you got this anime. Speaking of Versus, I can actually imagine Kitamura Ryuuhei doing a live action version of this movie, and I could imagine the leading role from that movie playing Brandon. I say anybody who likes those animes, games, or movies individually will certainly enjoy Gungrave and you don’t have to be a fan of all of them just to watch it. Heck, anime fans in general who have no experience with what I described or even the original game despite some significant changes will probably love it. As you can tell from this review, I think it tells an excellent story with characters and themes we can all relate to despite its edgy underworld setting.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 20, 2013

5camp

Mixed Feelings

I saw the first episode of Gungrave a few years ago and thought it was shit. However a number of people told me that the first episode is not representative of the rest of the series at all and that IT GETS BETTER I SWEAR!!! For the most part they were right, you really are better off skipping the first episode altogether. It’s quite similar to the first episode of the Berserk TV series in that it spoils the entire plot with some dumb flash-forward that doesn’t work at all and you’d be better off starting on episode 2. However that first episode is maybe ... a little more representative of the nonsense that occurs later in Gungrave than people give it credit for.

Let me back up and start from episode 2. Gungrave is a gritty crime story about two lovers I mean friends, Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowel, working their way up to the top of the crime syndicate Millennion (the N at the end is how it’s actually spelt, don’t ask). The story mostly follows Harry and his rise to power, making friends and enemies, tracking his tale from the height and back down again. You may have heard from other places that Brandon is the main character, and this is true only in the fact that the camera spends most of its time on Brandon. It’s not actually his story, because it’s hard to have a story about a person who has all the personality and speaking skills of a tub of lard who can shoot people.

It started to get really silly sometimes how utterly stoic Brandon was. It reminded me of silent video game protagonists. Other people would monologue at Brandon about how great he was and how much he must love Harry, then pause for a few seconds waiting for Brandon to respond before going “don’t talk much do you”. It got particularly bizarre when they started ascribing character traits to Brandon that I never saw him portray. All he does is shoot people and stand still. It felt like I was playing Half-Life 2 again where Gordon Freeman somehow becomes bearded Jesus without ever saying anything, except Brandon didn’t jump on tables while people were talking to him.

The story shares a few more similarities with Berserk with the how the burning ambition drives the two characters until things start to get strained (or at least that’s what drove Harry. Brandon was just dragged along like one of those cans on a string tied to a bumper of a Just Married car). I’m going to keep away from spoiling the big twist, although between the first episode and the fact characters keep going “GOSH I SURE HOPE X DOESN’T HAPPEN”, they did a mighty fine job of spoiling it themselves. There’s a fine line between foreshadowing and spoiling and Gungrave passes that line, then sprints away from that line, jumps inside a harrier jet and then flies several continents away from that line.

What’s strange is the thing the show doesn’t spoil is the completely ridiculous introduction of zombies. Out of nowhere, the show turns from gritty realistic crime story to nonsense sci-fi action. They are poorly explained, poorly justified, take up approximately half of the show, could have been removed from the show completely without harming anything, and make the whole thing difficult to take seriously when previously serious characters start sprouting helicopter blades out of their back. The entire arc is a nice 101 lesson in bad writing. What infuriates me the most is there was no effort to explain any of the zombie science. If you’re going to crowbar this nonsense plot thread, at least put some effort into it.

The writing in general is not very good. Between the crowbarred in zombies being terribly explained, characters monologuing at Brandon as though he’ll ever respond, a lots of general other clichés thrown in, it feels like a first draft rather than a finished product. My personal favourite font of bad writing was the scientist dude, whose every line was solid gold. What I loved was nobody seemed to pay any attention during his monologues, with even the chattiest characters turning to Brandon-levels of indifference whenever he started spouting his nonsense about how he must atone for his evil and how he’s going to hell. “I DO NOT DESERVE A NAME, CALL ME N FOR THERE ARE NO NAMES IN HELL”, an instruction I believe nobody ever listened to.

Equally bad but less funny was how the show completely rewrote the history of Big Daddy and Millennion towards the end of the show. Big Daddy was the boss of Millennion (I thought Big Daddy was a title, but even his wife called him that so I eventually figured that his name probably was Big Daddy, son of Mr and Mrs Daddy) and was generally all the things you would imagine the boss of a crime syndicate to be. By the end though he became this mythological figure who created Millennion for Good and Righteousness. Bear in mind that Millennion is a crime syndicate. Bribery, robbery, extortion, assassinations, threats, everything was run by Big Daddy. I started to agree with the character who was calling out that bullshit at the time when we were supposed to be the most against him, which undermined the entire story quite a lot.

At the core of Gungrave there is a fantastic story. At the key moments of Harry and Brandon’s arc…well, OK just Harry’s arc, it does a fantastic job of emphasising their relationship and how Harry got to the position he’s in. The ending in particular is so wonderfully done, far beyond what anything else in the show managed to achieve. A lot of people hold up Gungrave as some sort of beloved classic of the early 00′s, and if it has been over 5 years since you’ve seen it, I can see why you might think that. With enough time all you can remember is the core story of Harry and that ending left nice warm fuzzies. But if those people went back to it today, I can imagine there would be more than a few heartbroken anime fans realising that reality doesn’t live up to their nostalgia.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 1, 2010

Helsto

Not Recommended

Story about fight over power in mafia organization and betrayal among best friends. Let me tell you my personal feelings about this anime. First of all it's highly overrated. The concept of the story is good but first episode spoil everything and you just wait 20 episodes for the obvious act of betrayal. Art is poor if not average ! dying creatures just disappear and the rest of effects just won't let you go wow! Characters were fine excluding their names as well names of the organizations: Beyond the Grave, Big Daddy, McDowell, Brandon, Vulcan, Lighting, O
oh come on, 5 years old kid could ... come up with better names. Shortly this anime is crap and looks like amateur work. Only thing I liked about it, was final episode wich was pretty touching.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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