First Impressions: Gun X Sword

Yes, you read that right. First impressions. I must say it's rather ironic that I've known about Gun X Sword (or Gun Sword, if you must) for the better part of a year now. I know it's story...I've more or less read about the characters, I've got it in my blog's header, and I've even got a Carmen figurine on a pre-order, supposedly due this month. But I've only ever watched 1 episode of this show, way back in September last year, I think.

Being in my first year of uni and all, 2005 was not a good time for my anime-watching' habit. Stranded in another country, with assignments to do, and an internet bandwidth cap of 3GB a month is NOT the ideal setting to obtain new anime liberally. Well...it's not much different now, but a better internet plan and the holidays do help. So, here I am, trying to catch up on stuff I missed.

Wendy Garret, 12 year old with a big-ass revolver.

I've tried to abstain from reading reviews or forum topics on this show, just so I could 'feel' it myself. And 3 episodes in, it's not all downhill. It starts off well enough, with some character intro, and Van eventually meeting Wendy and saving her village. The way Van summonned his 'armor' (Note: armor = mecha) was quite cool, something a bit different. However, I must say, definite shades of Trigun, and some Kannazuki no Miko for flavour. And Wendy offering to marry Van, hehe, a hint of loli there? ^^

"I'm Van, I can bend like gum".

Carmen99. She has 2 bazookas, but you never get to see them. ^^

Then we meet Carmen (no, not Electra), with her seiyuu Inoue Kikoku (I was definitely surprised) sounding rather different to what I'm used to. Definitely no Mizuho or Belldandy here, more like I-No of Guilty Gear. Episode 2 had some really stupid excuse for a battle, with some Baron thinking to rule the world from his puny metal city and with his crappy 'armor'. And of course Van kicks his ass. Nothing special there. I found it somewhat cute how Wendy seems jealous of Carmen, seeing she's like..12 years old and all. =) The third show was rather touching though, but the play on Voltron/'any other show with combining robots' was really lame, but funny. I actually felt rather sad knowing that the bunch of old heroes had lost their partner Chizuru, and nobody respected them. Good play on the empathy part there, I thought.

Van's armor, Dan.

Go Voltron!

Well, it's only 3 shows, but I do hope it doesn't become a pointless Bakuretsu Tenshi sort of story. There's SOME direction now, with Van searching for the clawed man and Wendy her brother. But I dislike the fact that 3 episodes in a row has been, 'find bad guy, whup bad guy's ass'. The least they could do is connect the fights somehow. Animation is not superb, but better than normal. But the opening and ending songs just blow big time. Can it get suckier than that? Well, I'll be having myself a little marathon of Gun X Sword today, and hope to review it when I'm through.

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Tags: Animation, Anime, Japanese Animation, Manga, Gun Sword, Gun X Sword, Van, Tenjou