Anime: Gun Smith Cats

Gunsmith Cats...or girls with guns in an overall decent OVA. Although short, GC manages to be everything an OVA should be and a little bit more just for flavor.
In 90 minutes it's almost impossible to create an intriguing story or to fully develop characters and attempts at this are usually met by unsatisfactory result. As such, GC shows saving grace in not attempting anything like this and instead focusing on a pleasant story and a lot of action (we'll just skip the fan-service part of this...I'm a male so how could I complain?). Some funny moments add to the overall feel of this anime and in the end it's a pretty nice way to spend an evening.

When we talk about 1995 (or '90s) animation we talk about character design and backgrounds unaided by digital effects and an overall greater sense of detail. GC looks beautiful for its years and I can say that I didn't hurt my eye-sight by watching this. For 1995 it's decent enough to watch.
Same goes for sound although here I must mention that the dub is pretty good as well and that it fits the characters well enough, unlike other "masterpieces".

As I've said, 90 minutes is just not enough for a full grown story. So what we are treated to is a fairly simple story, with a little mystery flavor added in. It's not unbearable to watch nor is it something to remember. It's just enough to give the anime enough drive to carry out its action.
There's one moment that actually seems jack-hammered into the anime: in episode 2, the heroines put together 2 and 2 in a most naive way and without enough information to do something like that. Other than that, everything just flows nicely...no complaints from me. The action is fluent and the jokes are well placed.
As for characters, again there is no development but the cast is enjoyable none-the-less. The 2 main protagonists are fun to watch in action (mind you, they're not original in any way, I assure you) and the villain that appears in episode 2 is quite interesting, although I had doubts about her gender when I first saw her...I thought she was a he.

In the end, all that's left for me to say is that this was an entertaining OVA to watch, based on police shows from the 80s or 90s even...it just sets out to be entertaining and in the end, that's what it accomplishes.

Gunsmith Cats is best watched after reading some of the Manga. It's very much like the sequel of a Hollywood buddy cop movie from the early 90's: There's some introduction of the main characters, but only in the previous installment do they get serious development, and many side characters are thrown in with the expectation that the viewer knows them already. Everything about the story in Gunsmith Cats is modeled after 80's and 90's action movies. The main villain is an ex-KGB, masculine, Russian woman. You would be hard pressed to find a more played out Hollywood Cliche of that era. Even the music feels like it was taken straight out of Beverly Hills Cop. The characters though, are unmistakably anime material. They're quirky and simple, with a brand of humor unique to this medium.

Gunsmith Cats follows a Chicago gun shop owner, Rally, and her partner, May (she looks 12 but she's 17). They need supplemental income apparently, and with their skills with guns and explosives, respectively, bounty hunting was a clear choice. The OVA focuses on one particular case that they get involved in. The problem with the story here is the same problem that plagues buddy cop movie sequels. The introduction is lackluster, and while the finale provides closure to the case itself, it doesn't provide much closure in the way of the characters. Gunsmith Cats feels like a randomly selected bounty hunting case that May and Rally took which didn't really affect their lives.

Like any decent Hollywood action movie, it is entertaining if nothing else. The character designs are a bit plain, and the character animations aren't anything to write home about (it's not explicitly bad), but in the 101 of Hollywood action, gunfights and car chases, this title shines through and through. Anything metallic has an incredible amount of detail, most notably, the guns, grenades, and cars. The choreography of the action is also high quality stuff that mimics big budget Hollywood action well.

Rally and May are simple, and underdeveloped characters, but they're not cliche'd out of whack and they're amusing enough to watch. I cannot quite explain how strange it is to watch a 17 year old who looks like she's still in her preteen years toss around rainbow and lipstick covered grenades.

Gunsmith Cats provides an almost childish lightness with its young and energetic anime stars that differentiates itself enough from the real B-movies, but treat Gunsmith cats as you would a B-movie, and you won't be disappointed. Do you really expect holistic character introductions and a definitive, impactful ending from one of the middle installments of lethal weapon? I didn't think so. The story and characters probably won't leave much of an impression, but I found myself wondering why more anime doesn't have such sublimely choreographed car chases and such beautifully animated firearms. They should get on that shouldn't they?

If someone could point me in the direction of an anime interpretation of an HK action movie that's as faithful as Gunsmith Cats is to Hollywood, I would be DEEPLY appreciative.

Milfeulle Strikes again! Bringing short, easy-to-understand, non-biased reviews to all!

GSC was a decent series, but it had some annoyances that made me keep it out of the "Segoi" category

ANIMATION:
While the Animation was pretty decent and done quite well for any anime series, offering visible camera angles and not too many shortcuts, the Art was fairly flat and basic. However, the detail in the series is simply incredible, which makes up largely for the lack of special visual effects. It's nice to look at, but it's not something I'd want to stare at for a 26-episode series.

SOUND:
Sound was alright. "Why dock it to a 6 then, milfey?" because the theme song is horrible and worse yet it drags on for like 5 minutes. Even though it was only a 3-episode OVA, I STILL found myself skipping the intro on more than one occasion. AKA, I only could sit though it once. And personally I usually LIKE watching the theme songs.

STORY:
There wasn't much they could do in the way of a story with only 3 episodes. What they did do was decent, About the status of one of the earlier episodes of NOIR but with more action and less french girls.

To be quite honest, the story seems more like something out of "CSI" than any Anime I've seen. I've never seen a more americanized Japanese show. Japan must think all we do here is detective work...

CHARACTER:
Once again, this may be due to the 3-episode issue but the characters are terrible underdeveloped, but nonetheless they do have something to them.

VALUE:
Another category that kind of sucked...The show focuses mainly on the violence and well there are some memorable scenes, there was little in the way of character interaction and the like. I mean, I love fast-paced action shows, but, I can't say it was that either as there was indeed downtime. The problem is they used this downtime for nothing but to convey "more guys with guns are coming!"

ENJOYMENT:
9. It was decent, and I'm glad I watched it. It's hardly an investment of time at 3 episodes, so if you get the chance it might be worth checking out. See if you can name all of the guns you see! ^^

Gunsmith Cats - An anime trying to be a non-anime. Doesn't really fail, but has not really succeeded either.

The animation of Gunsmith Cats is a bit older, but still enjoying. The animation is smooth, easy and the characters look appealing enough to watch. The cars, guns and all other stuff looks good enough to give this an above average rating, even for the older animation.

The sound is nice, the voiceacting is nice, but the music isn't. Starting from the OP-song, they don't seem to understand that the song is supposed to end at some time. Still they kept going on and on, even when the OP-song animation shows that it's already ending, so they continue redoing the same stuff over and over again in the OP-song already. The music in the 3 episodes isn't much to notice either. Just regular stuff.
The only thing which makes this section getting a bit higher than average are the voiceactors. Especially Minnie May deserves to have at least a higher than average value for her high pitched voice.

The story is Americanized, which would mean that it's just like all the American TV-shows like the A-team, Starsky and Hutch, and all other shows like that. Comedy, lots of overdone action and not really a story. They tried to add some hardcore action in it, but other than some bombings and killings (which should be gore, but never became gore), it never got anywhere explicit. The cars and guns are nice to see, but even those are hardly worth mentioning storywise. They're just there as if it's the most normal thing in the world, making us believe that the creators just wanted to make some anime in America - no thinking, just fun and lots of boom. Which results in quite some impossible actions, like setting up 30 traps within 10 seconds. There's also some ecchi in this 3 episodes ova. After all, sex sells. And if you have guns and cars and lots of explosions, you can also show some panties and bra's.

The characters are nice. Although they're pretty cliché, they do have some characteristics of their own. Becky, the newsreporter is one of the sidekicks who even has a little part in the story every now and then. But all characters except for the main 3 (Minnie, Rally, Becky) look as if they got casted from Chuck Norris movies: "Tough" guys.

This series is not really worth rewatching because it's more of the same thing you can see on tv - only this time it's anime'ish. So I don't think it'll be useful to rewatch a lot, and definitely not worth buying.
Is it entertaining then? Well, it is. It's not really a masterpiece and it's not something you'll be enthousiastic about, but at least it's good enough to watch when you are not in the mood for something with a deep plot or a lot of comedy.