Gunsmith Cats

A Parent's Guide to Anime
Rated: PG
Parental Guidance Advised

Review by C. J. Scott:

GUNSMITH CATS, a three-part OAV series from ADVision, is the anime version of a popular manga series by Kenichi Sonoda. The plot essentially involves the action-comedic Chicago-area adventures of Rally Vincent, a young lady bounty hunter and gunsmith, and her sidekick Minnie May Hopkins, a streetwise waif with a thing for explosives. This is a relatively harmless title, noted among fans mostly for its obsessive detail in regard to the guns and cars onscreen.

Strangely enough, the guns are portrayed with incredible accuracy, but the actual violence in the first episode is pure "A-Team"; that is to say, the bad guys get shot, but they are invariably only "wounded," and usually not too badly.* The violence becomes more intense and the comedy begins to fade in later episodes after a murderous KGB agent kills six ATF agents. From there, Rally and the Russian engage in a series of escalating shootouts and there are several more murders.

Parents may wish to know that Rally and May carry concealed weapons ALL THE TIME. Rally has a permit for her pistol, but May carries an assortment of blasting caps, plastique explosive, and grenades in an incredibly unsafe manner that would spread any real-life imitator over a couple of city blocks at the first bump in the road.

Parent's Guide Rating:

yellow (parental guidance advised)

Approach: Essentially mindless action-comedy.

Harsh Language: A fair amount, and Rally and Minnie give "the finger" to a character that irritates them.

Violence: As noted above, it starts by being pretty cartoony, but remember that lots of people do get shot. The violence becomes more "realistic" in the later episodes as Rally's duel with her Russian nemesis continues.

Sex: None in these videos. However, parents should know that the GSC manga on which the series is based occasionally contains graphic sexual content.

Nudity: Rally and May walk around in their scanties a bit, but it doesn't go any further.

* Note: This is partially due to Rally's almost supernatural ability to place her shots, as established in the GSC manga. Once, in order to incapacitate an armed man without hurting him, she shoots the hammer off his gun!