#142: Gun x Sword (2005)

Director: Gorō Taniguchi

Screenplay: Hideyuki Kurata

Cast: Houko Kuwashima as Wendy Gallet; Kikuko Inoue as Carmen99; Takanori Hoshino as Van; Junko Noda as Joshua Langlen; Kenyuu Horiuchi as The Claws; Mami Kingetsu as Elena; Saeko Chiba as Priscilla; Satsuki Yukino as Yukiko Stevens; Sōichiro Hoshi as Michael Gallet; Takahiro Sakurai as Ray Langlen

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

The best way to describe Gun x Sword is a multi genre masala. A western frontier sci-fi story, set on a planet like ours described by the narrator as the "Endless Illusion"; it is a lawless world populated with major urban cities but also small hamlets and rampant gang problems. Add into this giant robots and a man with no name, actually called Van, who in his wedding suit is on the path of revenge for his slain bride, and Gun x Sword is a fascinating hodgepodge.

Notably, a few years later director Gorō Taniguchi would score a huge hite with Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (2006), a huge sci-fi space opera which ticked all the right boxes in terms of trends in the late 2000s. This was before however and Gun x Sword is distinct that it was indebted to Western culture just from the awesome opening credits music, a hybrid of a spaghetti western instrumental theme with Japanese instrumentation and manly choruses of shouting. In fact, whilst its not perfect, you are shown that this was made with some love and great creativity that, in the title credits alone, the show does something unique in that it obfuscates characters and images in just silhouette until the episode they are introduced, or blanks them when the story writes them off. From the get-go you have a show dangling great anticipation of what will transpire, where the project was cared for and wanting to try to stand out.

Van, as our drifter, is after a figure known as the Claw. At first, he encounters Wendy, a teenage girl from a Western film town who joins him as she tries to find her older brother Michael, last seen with the Claw. For the first half of this twenty six episode show, eventually figures that are more eccentric cross paths and join them as he accepts their existence, some enemies and others allies in the quest that becomes more than revenge. This'll be a spoiler to discuss in more detail, as the show will have to be discussed in more detail to explain what exactly it is, but I would recommend you the reader to track the show down first if you want at this point. It's a solid show, with one little plot mechanisation of the Claw which is confusing, but was utterly fascinating and fun, more so when it pulls a switch in pace in the second half of the series. That it's also a funny series as it plays itself seriously is something also to appreciate.

For everyone who wants to know more...SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.

Among the cast there's Carman 99, a Fujiko to Van's Lupin III, a heroic femme fatale. There's Ray Langlen, another man wanting to kill the Claw but a dark sided version of Van, alongside his good hearted if incredibly naive brother Joshua. There's a great character, sadly underused, named Priscilla, an energetic teen girl whose gymnastic abilities can be replicated by a cat faced robot she uses. There's the awesome team of aged robot pilots who are a tribute and parody to old seventies giant robot shows, of teams whose bots formed a giant one, leading to the logic and bittersweet idea of what happens when they get old, the sole female member passed on with her daughter by the side as these old men, usually drunk, still do their damndest to show they can be heroes. And thankfully, whilst the one episode would've been one of the best, these guys do appear later on, as this show even in cameos returns back to some of the episodic one-off characters in the ongoing plot.

The villains, whilst not as seen as much, as just as fascinating in the sense that, as is common in anime, they believe they have a good reason behind their cause. The Claw's reveal is startling when a mysterious and civil figure is actually the person we find the rumour, a cult leader whose questionable grasp of power is part of the plot later on. I will be blunt in saying that the show's one real flaw is how vague this villain's plot actually is, that it's not as well explained as it should be when a lot does work. His questionable sense of sanity is fascinating, as is the idea that he's surrounded by a cult, as idiosyncratic from the large staff he's acquired to characters like a former female sex worker whose unnervingly calm attitude stands out. That there is, as mentioned, one moment where even his own side questions him adds a layer of complexity much appreciated.

Aside from one flaw, Gun x Sword does work. Even Van is not a dull gruff male protagonist but an interesting loner character with funny aspects like not being able to remember peoples' names, one you come to like in one of the show's best virtues, giving everyone including the villains personalities. (Even if the running gag that Van covers his food with every condiment available is over the top.) Gun x Sword is also the type of show I grew up with in the early 2000s, when for me a twenty six episode show was more common and the standard structure of a show, the first ten the introduction, the episodes from ten to usually sixteen the tangents and build up, the and last ones the denouement. They juggled so many type of tone, comedy to seriousness, and if they were good, they were good. Even a show with flaws had charm and, barring potential issues of transition to digital animation that would make the first few years of the Millennium questionable, could stand out because of one great episode, a great character or two, or a quirky premise.

Nowadays there are more thirteen episode shows, and whilst I suspect if that's just nostalgia clouding my mind, I do find that not as many longer shows exist anyway. Certainly to Gun X Sword's advantage, you have a well made shown which wasn't padded out, that's also very well made for its production. (For giant robot fans, certainly the creations here are memorable, and personally even without nostalgia being involved, the characters also present the same colourfulness in design as in personality that came from that era). It helps there's the two act structure. The first half is many episodic stories building to the search of the Claw, including one of the best episodes at a seaside town where a young heterosexual couple torment Van with their transforming car trying to steal his robot. The second half, without fully losing the comedy completely, gets more serious as its built from after the moment of the Claw is revealed, a narrative drive now with apocalyptic issues as the gang builds up to take on the villains.

It is entirely playful as a show, with the added advantage that it's taken the giant robot trope but connected it to a journey tale, only grounded itself in one location for the final conflict when it's dynamically necessary to. Moments of idiosyncratic weirdness are peppered through alongside jokes, especially as Episode 2 already puts the bar high with a ground of macho evil men able to control their beards and moustaches as weapons. Even into the later half where the story gets serious, you get the episode about a matriarchal city led by a woman who demands all those women inside, even guests, have to wear skimpy and super strong bikinis. Maybe that episode is a bit too silly for this show, and it had to have a TV edit even if the uncensored version is tame, but it adds to the charm in its moment of silliness that still is necessary for the plot of the whole series. Any dangers of being crass, whilst still accusable, are contrasted with that conflict being resolved with a very suggestive mankini.

The sense of fun on display is also found in the comedic shorts, Gun x Sword-san, which I'll throw in as a mini review here. Another trope of the type of anime I grew up with, and is still found occasionally, is the "omake" (additional material) content that was made at the same time for the DVD releases and usually was for comedy. In obvious cheap CGI, in which Wendy and her pet tortoise (now able to talk and voiced like an old man) are played as hand puppets, it's a great way to break levity, as actress Houko Kuwashima in particularly takes one of the meekest and brave female characters in Wendy and turn her into an egocentric sociopath here. Most of the gags involve the tortoise being maimed (usually by Wendy), with Van reduced to an incompetent vagrant and some cameos, but they are funny. I might've found it funnier is characters like Pricilla, or the villainess with the calm voice, were included to take the piss and let other voice actors have fun, but in a few words they make a fun bonus to an already rewarding show.

Now for now for major spoilers.

Only the fact that the villain's plot is vague is, again, the real flaw. It's clearly meant to be a plan by the Claw to brainwash the entire planet into complacent "peaceful" figures, but it's the one case of some needed exposition rather than exposition being unnecessary, especially as its vague that his plot involves flowers with a toxic influence and hijacking the Moon. Thankfully, the show has built enough goodwill to the characters this isn't as much an issue. Even that there's only one tragic death doesn't take away from how dynamic the show is. All by way of tropes and structure that was common in anime I saw getting into it into the early to mid-2000s, titles usually released by the late ADV Films, even in terms of the post-credit stinger in the finale episode taking place or an epilogue where characters have aged. Here it happens with both in one, and it's just as fun and a perfect moment as so much else.

Here's the end of major spoilers.

Gun x Sword was sadly an obscurity, one that's been out-of-print in the United Kingdom in the 2010s after its release by MVM Films. Not helping was that, in the USA, it was first released by Geneon USA, a distributor who went out of business with the only virtue that, for every title of theirs that went into a purgatory of not being available, this title was license rescued by Fumination for one of their discount box sets.

Helping in the recent times was the surprise inclusion of characters in the Super Robot Wars franchise, a video game franchise who has been given an incredible amount of carte blanche in that, whilst most would be copyright hell to try to distribute in the West, those without original characters have been cast with anime licenses from titans like Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) to the surprise obscurities like Gun x Sword, which means that (for example) Super Robot Wars t, the game writers were allowed to have characters like Van butt heads with cast (and robots) from the Gundam franchise, Armored Trooper Votoms (1983-4), Gunbuster (1988), and even Cowboy Bebop (1998) in the ultimate licensed fan fiction. Deep cut choices like this help obscure anime find new fan bases, and hopefully this review would encourage people to try to track down Gun x Sword as, in terms of the run of mecha TV shows I've covered, even Gundam Reconguista in G (2014) in its unintentional weirdness, it's been a good batch with this the most eclectic title of the assortment.