Gun x Sword

Van, a lanky and apathetic swordsman, is on a journey to kill the murderer of his fiancé. The only characteristic he has to go by is that the murderer has a claw for an arm, hence the murderer being referred to as The Claw Man. During his travels, Van happens to pass through the city of Evergreen, which is defending itself from bandits who aim to rob the city of its treasury. It is in this city that Van meets Wendy Garret, a timid young girl who is looking for her kidnapped brother. When the city pleads for Van's assistance to defend it, he refuses, claiming it has nothing to do with him and thus leaves the city on its own to deal with the peril. Soon after, Van comes across the raiding bandits himself and they eventually tick off the swordsman to a degree where he takes action against them for his own personal vendetta. Surprisingly, Van learns that the bandits had ties with The Claw Man, and in kidnapping Wendy's brother for a reason they did not disclose. After the bandits are dealt with easily, Van and, much to his chagrin, Wendy continue the journey in search of The Claw Man. Little do they know, however, that The Claw Man is involved with something more atrocious than either could fathom.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Adaptation:	Gun x Sword
Side story:	Gun x Sword-san

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Characters & Voice Actors

Van

Main

Hoshino, Takanori
Japanese

Garret, Wendy

Main

Kuwashima, Houko
Japanese

Carmen 99

Supporting

Inoue, Kikuko
Japanese

Lundgren, Ray

Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro
Japanese

Fasalina

Supporting

Kurata, Masayo
Japanese

Pricilla

Supporting

Chiba, Saeko
Japanese

The Claw

Supporting

Horiuchi, Kenyuu
Japanese

Kaiji

Supporting

Onosaka, Masaya
Japanese

Carlos

Supporting

Taguchi, Takashi
Japanese

Nero

Supporting

Satou, Masaharu
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Yoshida, Norio

Producer

Ougi, Jiyuu

Producer

Taniguchi, Gorou

Director, Storyboard

Urakami, Yasuo

Sound Director

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Opening Theme

"GUNXSWORD" by Kotaro Nakagawa

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Ending Theme

	1: "A Rising Tide" by Shuntaro Okino (eps 1-8,10,12-16,18-21,23,25)
	2: "Paradiso" by Hitomi (eps 9,11)
	3: "S.O.S" by Kikuko Inoue, Houko Kuwashima, Satsuki Yukino & Saeko Chiba (eps 17)
	4: "A Rising Tide (Accoustic Version)" by Shuntaro Okino (eps 22)
	5: "Calling You" by Shuntaro Okino (Ep 24)
	6: "GUNXSWORD (Starting Again)" by Kotaro Nakagawa and Ondekoza (eps 26)

Reviews

Apr 25, 2024

Joe_Devaney

Recommended

Overview:
I'm not sure how many people have noticed this, but revenge tends to be viewed very unfavourably in Japan, especially when compared to the West. While people in America tend to favour "retributive justice" as they call it, Japan generally stick to the belief that seeking revenge on those who have wronged you will make you just as bad if not worse than they are. "Gun x Sword", while not innovating in many ways, is one of the few anime that actually favours revenge to an extent, but does it in a way that doesn't come off as being overly-edgy. How does it achieve this? ...

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Apr 1, 2015

shiroiyume

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (20/26 eps)

In a nutshell this anime doesn't stand the test of time. If I watched this 10 years back I might have given it a better rating. 10 years down the road, it feels dated and unoriginal. The pacing isn't good. Although each episode strings the story together and moves the plot ahead, it feels slow and draggy. The characters aren't that likeable and doesn't grow on you either. The mood and setting somewhat similar to Trigun or Cowboy Bebop but unfortunately the enjoyment isn't up to par.

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Jun 26, 2022

twopence

Not Recommended

Gun x Sword is an exercise in futility. I had high expectations for this series. When I learned that the plot centered around the protagonist attempting to avenge his dead wife, I was intrigued. Unfortunately, with each passing episode I felt more and more dread that this series would not live up to my initial expectations. I still had a faint sense of hope that the series would prove me wrong in the second half. My prayers were left unanswered and I am left with a 26 episode waste of time. It is soulless and formulaic in every way. It has no depth. It throws ... everything possible at the viewer in a vain hope that something will stick. The simplest way to describe it is that on the surface, it is a Trigun ripoff with elements of Cowboy Bebop mixed in and none of their depth. Once you start watching this trainwreck you will see it lacks the quality and deep writing of its predecessors. This is a style-over-substance series, and in that sense you can say it was a pioneer for what would become of the anime industry. For those of you that appreciate a deep, well-written story with developed characters and thought-provoking situations, steer well clear of Gun x Sword.

The story takes place on an Earth-like prison planet. Somehow, this prison planet was able to develop into a modern civilization with advanced technology, including mechas called Armor which are piloted by the characters in order to fight each other. The setting tends to vary, but for the most part it is similar to Trigun's futuristic wild west. Our protagonist is a tuxedo-wearing cowboy named Van. He is out to avenge the murder of his wife at the hands of someone named The Claw. He pilots an Armor called "Dann of Thursday" that is stored in a floating charging station in space. When Van turns his hat sideways, Dann shoots down from space to someplace near Van's current position. Along the way, we are introduced to a multitude of pointless characters with their own motivations for tagging along with Van. These characters are never developed any further than when we were first introduced to them. The first tagalong, Wendy, is a child who is searching for her brother who joined up with The Claw. Wendy is a defenseless, useless character who is completely out of place in this supposed story about vengeance. She exists to give the story the illusion of having layers and depth, but in reality her character is a hinderance to the core story because her own story does not align with Van's in a manner that develops either of their characters. Her search for her brother is a subplot that runs astray of the main goal. This is a repeat pattern you will notice all throughout this series and it is clear the studio thought throwing new character after new character at the viewer would be a substitute for having to develop the characters that have already been introduced.

The further into the series you get, the more pointless characters seem to fill up the runtime of each episode. A Faye Valentine ripoff, complete with unfinished business from her childhood, named "Carmen99" shows up and tags along with Van for some reason. Now, my first thought upon hearing this was that Carmen99 is an internet username that this character uses to find jobs or something similar. It doesn't sound like a normal name for a character in this series, since every other character has average sounding names like Wendy. I do not remember if it is ever explained why she has this name. However, I later found out that she is called Carmen99 because that is her bust measurement. I am sure the studio thought that was very clever, original, and well-thought-out. Let this set the precedent for things to come.

The two other major supporting characters that are introduced are a Vicious ripoff named Ray, another man whose wife was murdered by The Claw, and his little brother Joshua, who is searching for him. Ray and Van are often at each other's throats as they both want to be the one to kill The Claw but no development of this rivalry ever happens, the closest thing that comes to them reconciling is a brief discussion near the end where they maintain that they want to kill The Claw before the other and then part ways. The only memorable thing about Ray is his hilariously cold and angsty attitude. My favorite part in this entire series is during an Armor fight between the protagonists and two annoying children, a brother and a sister, that are working for The Claw. Ray pulls out a sniper rifle and assassinates the little girl. Rather than ponder to himself about how he just murdered a child, he immediately reloads and says something along the lines of "one down". Joshua is a contender for the most annoying character not just in this series but in anime history. He does not contribute to the story in any meaningful way above creating plot holes and being an all-around annoyance. He has no awareness of what is going on at any given time. He enjoys preaching about morality in a half-hearted, shallow fashion. In one episode, Wendy meets The Claw face to face. Ray then appears and just before he can kill The Claw, Joshua steps in front of him while preaching some nonsense about pacifism. Meanwhile, he has no issue with his brother murdering a child. Once again, this is a character that does not aid Van's quest for vengeance which is supposed to be the main story. This is a quality that is present in the entire cast of Gun x Sword.

The main antagonist, as mentioned before, is an old man named The Claw. True to his name, one of his hands is a claw. Despite being a murderer, he has somehow convinced other members of this show's mentally-incapacitated cast that he actually wants peace, happiness and rainbows and to believe in him despite having already murdered two innocent women. His henchmen acknowledge this inconvenient fact, yet they willingly fight for him anyway. The ramblings of this shallow, one-dimensional villain are somehow so influential that it can turn almost any member of this idiotic cast into his loyal servant. Even Wendy is intrigued by him and briefly leaves to have a conversation with him near the end of the series because she wants to understand his motivations. The writers seem to think that having other characters pick up the slack for a shallow, one-dimensional antagonist is good writing.

By now, you have noticed that I have stopped talking about the story and have spent three-and-a-half paragraphs discussing characters. This is because in Gun x Sword, the amount of characters thrown at you and the shallowly-written subplots they bring IS the story. Character development is non-existent in this series. Rather than deliver thought-provoking perspectives about grief, sorrow and loss, or put Van through interesting moral crises where his quest for vengeance would slowly turn him into a monster, the studio hopes that giving the viewer some shallow exposition will be enough to suffice. The plot is as basic as it gets and serves as a pretext for the nonsense that occurs in this series.

The first half of the series comprises of Van and Wendy wandering from town to town, meeting its inhabitants and assisting them, meeting another tagalong, or dealing with the villain of the week until the episode ends. As I was watching, I thought back to the way the episodes of Cowboy Bebop and Trigun were able to deliver interesting stories that kept my attention. Those series had a modest amount of established characters who grew as they went through their journey because it was about how the characters dealt with the people and situations they came across. No one grows or changes in Gun x Sword. The amount of time spent on the journey does not affect anything except for the amount of characters you will have to keep track of, and the amount of time wasted on this travesty.

It is later revealed via flashback that Van was one of an elite group of security guards for the prison planet and that Dann of Thursday is one of a set of Armor named after days of the week that these guards would use. His wife was a scientist that helped develop these Armor. At some point, The Claw showed up and decided to start a cult centered around him bringing about world peace by resetting the world End of Evangelion style. Because Van and his wife were the only ones to not go along with the ramblings of a one-dimensional murderer that justifies his killings with philosophy, one of the other security guards who was a friend of Van invites The Claw to Van's wedding where The Claw would attack Van and his wife. This doesn't immediately kill them however, and for some reason this "friend" is present in the hospital room with Van and his wife, who is in critical condition. This friend and Van's wife exchange words about healing Van by making his life depend on his Armor or something and then she dies. Then he and Van talk and despite arguably being the one to blame for the death of Van's wife, for some reason he agrees to give Van ownership of Dann of Thursday which is supposedly more powerful and advanced than any other Armor, effectively shooting himself in the foot. This is a completely nonsensical backstory that makes no sense if you assume the characters, and by extension the writers have any intelligence.

The second half of the series only gets worse. Every single minor character and their grandma decides to tag along with Van in what can only be described as "Super Friends" on crack. They live on a knockoff of the White Base and this is where character overload becomes a real problem because instead of dealing with 3 or 4 shallow, undeveloped characters at once now you are dealing with 10+, most of whom only appeared in one episode, for the remainder of the series. At this point I lost all hope of proper character development ever happening. By the time the episode about the woman-only bikini kingdom arrived I lost all hope of this series ever redeeming itself. The finale arrives not with a bang, but with a whimper as Van simply walks up to The Claw after thwarting his world reset and he is stuck in his seat. This angry, vengeful embodiment of wrath and sorrow brandishes his sword and quickly slashes him across the chest exactly once, with no blood or gore whatsoever. We see this from the back so that the animators could avoid having to animate a satisfying death scene for the villain. Afterward, the characters exchange pointless dialogue with each other and part ways. There is an epilogue scene where a slightly older Wendy, now operating a restaurant, is telling the events of the series to a reporter. Van walks in and asks for something to eat. The viewer is supposed to be happy to see them reunite. The only thing I was happy about is that this disaster finally ended.

The art style and animation were fine. Pleasing colors and hit-or-miss character designs. Van has the best and most memorable character design out of the entire cast, everyone else is forgettable or a ripoff of a character from another series, while others like Wendy's brother or the whore that works for The Claw have that weird, "big anime eyes" look that clashes with most of the other characters. The designs of the Armor, for the most part, are unmemorable. The movement of the animation isn't very fluid or intricate and while they did not go above and beyond, they at least gave the series its own style and it usually works.

The sound design was also fine, I did not care very much for the song used in the OP as it was clear they were trying too hard to make it sound epic or imposing. I think the best parts of the OP song were the flute and the choir. The ED has a melancholy song that would have fit well had this series decided to stay the course with its core plot, play it completely straight and develop it into something interesting. The majority of the insert songs were unmemorable. The sound effects weren't particularly memorable and there were no instances where I was amazed at their use.

I was sad and disappointed by how much of a disaster this series turned out to be. I was expecting something much greater than what it really was. Gun x Sword suffers from serious cases of clashing tones and character overload. You will not find character development or well-written, meaningful stories in any of its 26 episodes. It is a complete waste of time, and it is a shame because it could have been much better if they actually cared about telling a good story centered around the human condition instead of trying to appeal to casual audiences that tune in for nothing more than mecha fights and fanservice. If you value your time, stay far away from this trash.

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Poll: Gun X Sword Episode 26 Discussion formosan - Sep 4, 2008	27 replies	by Archean-Return »» Mar 19, 2:11 PM
Poll: Gun X Sword Episode 25 Discussion cantius - Jun 19, 2009	10 replies	by Archean-Return »» Mar 19, 1:05 PM
Poll: Gun X Sword Episode 24 Discussion cantius - Jun 19, 2009	12 replies	by Archean-Return »» Mar 19, 12:03 PM
Poll: Gun X Sword Episode 22 Discussion VARIAchan - Jul 15, 2010	10 replies	by Archean-Return »» Mar 19, 10:26 AM
Poll: Gun X Sword Episode 20 Discussion VARIAchan - Jul 15, 2010	12 replies	by Archean-Return »» Mar 19, 9:05 AM

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Van

Garret, Wendy

Carmen 99

Lundgren, Ray

Fasalina

Pricilla

The Claw

Kaiji

Carlos

Nero

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Gun x Sword

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