Gunsmith Cats: Burst Vol. #01

By Greg Hackmann     June 15, 2007
Release Date: May 29, 2007



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Kenichi Sonoda
Translated by:N/A
Adapted by:N/A

What They Say
Rally Vincent and Minnie-May Hopkins are two regular American girls. Regular American girls who own a gun shop, and might have dabbled in prostitution, respectively. And who happen to be a crack shot and an explosives expert, respectively.

These might be odd skills for American girls, but these two happen to be Chicago's top bounty hunters. Rally can shoot the trigger off a gun from a good distance, and May generally wreaks havoc with explosions and cuteness. And together, with some very useful friends and associates, they make up the Gunsmith Cats.

"Burst" finds our ladies back at work, back in action, and . . . back in trouble. Now presented in the favored Japanese, right-to-left format, Gunsmith Cats: "Burst" aims to please.

The Review
With a title like Gunsmith Cats Burst, we expect three things: guns, girls, and stuff blowing up. And that's exactly what we get -- no more and no less.

Packaging:
Fans of the original series will be glad to hear that the cover art matches the style of the Gunsmith Cats Revised Edition books. The front cover gives us an eye-catching image of Rally posing with rifle in hand. The bright pastel color scheme adds a nice touch without being tacky. The back cover presents the standard marketing blurb alongside a smaller portrait of Minnie-May in cowboy gear.

Inside, the print quality is sharp and clean, with Sonoda's artwork retaining its fine lines and texture. In a handful of places, the text is too small to read without squinting; otherwise, the print quality is unobjectionable. Dark Horse doesn't advertise any extras for this volume, but we do get a two-page character profile and short descriptions of some of the real-world weaponry featured in the series.

Artwork:
If there's one phrase I'd use to describe the art style, it's "attention to detail". Real-world objects are meticulously reproduced, right down to the grooves on the bullets and serial numbers on the hundred-dollar bills. Perspective and shading are used to good effect to give objects and backdrops a real sense of depth.

The character designs are nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the notable 80s influence on Road Buster. But again, what we do get here is attractively drawn and detailed.

Text/SFX:
The text is clear, easy to read, and presented without any obvious typos or grammatical errors. The SFX are translated inline, alongside the original Japanese.

Contents: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Things kick off with a short digression, in the form of three small chapters unrelated to the main storyline. The first chapter follows Rally Vincent and Minnie-May Hopkins as they try to protect their bounty, now a police informant, from the men who she will testify against. In the "Mini Theater HP" chapter, Vincent gives a detailed lecture on the FN Browning Hi-Power pistol. In the last of these short chapters, Vincent crosses paths with the mafia while trying to bring in a coke mule.

The main storyline begins with the theft of Vincent's prized GT500 Shelby from the Gunsmith Cats shop. After Minnie-May discovers the theft, the scene shifts to a strip of desert highway, where we find Road Buster pushing a car containing Vincent and an unidentified man. The scenery soon shifts yet again, to a flashback of Vincent apprehending the man in the car, now identified as the mafia drug dealer Howard.

Unfortunately for Vincent, the mob track her down to the scene of the arrest, and aren't impressed by her detective skills. During the ensuing gunfight, Vincent runs into Road Buster, and takes the opportunity to hire him as a getaway driver. This brings us back to the desert highway, where the mafia trails Vincent and company to a run-down motel. Howard offers a multi-million dollar reward to anyone who can promise his safe escape, giving away the reason the mob are after him. We also learn how the theft of Vincent's GT500 fits into the mafia's plans to recover this money.

Comments
I should point out here that I've never gotten around to reading the original Gunsmith Cats series. Even though my only prior exposure to the series was catching the tail end of the OAV adaptation on VHS, I've always heard that the Gunsmith Cats manga represented a kind of high water mark in early anime fandom. With that in mind, I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. The good news is that Burst is easy for new readers like me to pick up. Before going headfirst into the main storyline, Sonoda includes a handful of short episodes that give the reader a feel for the characters and style. Dark Horse even throws in a couple of pages with character profiles and a short plot summary for good measure.

The bad news is that, apart from the elaborate artwork and copious fanservice, there's not a whole lot going on here that's all that interesting. After those short introductory episodes, the manga focuses almost exclusively on Vincent's and Road Buster's run-in with the mafia, with most of the Gunsmith Cats crew relegated to the sidelines. Even Vincent and Road Buster are never developed as characters much beyond the stereotypical hard-boiled bounty hunters, who are seemingly motivated only by cold, hard cash or (on rare occasion) their prized vintage cars. The mafia storyline is nothing to write home about, and suffers from one of my most-hated pet peeves: everyone solves their problems in the most contrived way possible, when just a few well-placed phone calls or bullets would do the trick. (To be fair, the characters do discuss retroactively why they can't take the easy way out; but their explanations feel grafted-on and unconvincing.) On the bright side, Sonoda infuses the otherwise-average plot with a good sense of humor; the standoff in the desert motel was especially good for some genuine laughs.

That said, I'm interested to see where Sonoda is going with this. With most of the characters still waiting to be called into action, there's a lot of potential to mix things up in future volumes. But as it stands, it's hard to recommend this volume on its own merits.