Gunsmith Cats: Bulletproof

Rally Vincent and Minnie May Hopkins are the Gunsmith Cats whose day job running a gun shop in Chicago acts as cover for their real roles, fearsome bounty hunters who will take on any job for the right price. Rally is adept with guns and an exceptional driver whilst May is an explosives specialist and rarely do they have a case that doesn’t require use of all their skills.

Originally created as a manga series by Kenichi Sonoda (along with Bean Bandit) Gunsmith Cats pays a fanatical attention to the detail of the cars and firearms used in the show, and this coupled with the realistic Chicago settings helps give Gunsmith Cats an edge over the hordes of ‘girls with guns’ anime out there.
Bulletproof is made up of three 30 minute OVAs which form a mini series involving gun-runners, blackmail by government agents and a fearsome ex-KGB assassin, all three packed with action sequences to rival the best that live action blockbusters can offer, and a fair few flashes of humour to lighten the mood on the way to the dramatic conclusion of a grand conspiracy that holds the attention throughout.

Gunsmith Cats : Bulletproof is a worthy addition to the action genre, never trying to be a cerebral plot-heavy show but treating the audience with respect and intelligence rather than relying on explosions to keep you hooked.

The dub is okay, nothing out of the ordinary and not as effective as the original Japanese though there is an odd scene where a character speaks Russian with burnt-on Japanese subs, so when watching the English dub you need to turn the subtitles on to understand what is being said, though thankfully this instance is short lived and doesn’t affect the overall plot and so is a little annoyance rather than drastic problem.

There are a few extras adding value to the disc including ADV trailers, one of which is for a Slayers OVA called Dragon Slave which as far as I’m aware hasn’t been released in the UK which is odd. The clean opening animation is a welcome addition, a Cowboy Bebop-esque block colour montage set to a jazzy theme tune which no doubt influenced the famous series, though it seems a little redundant as it also appears in full as one of the three Bulletproof trailers and also at the end of the making of documentary.

Said documentary, called Gunsmith Cats : Chapter Zero, is a wonderful 40 minute long featurette exploring all aspects of the production including interviews with the creator Kenichi Sonoda, production artwork, action scene storyboards, voice actor interviews, the creation of the music and realistic sound effects and best of all the location scout that the production team took to Chicago, helping to provide the exemplary level of detail from visits to a gun shop, shooting range and police academy along with general settings around Chicago. It’s a great feature that really gives an insight into the effort gone into bringing Gunsmith Cats to our screens and is exactly the kind of thing welcome as extras on future releases.

In Summary

Gunsmith Cats : Bulletproof is a pounding little actioner with an astonishing level of detail that sets it above other gunplay shows. With extras included beyond the call of duty Gunsmith Cats aims to be a top action anime and is a crack shot.