Review of Gunsmith Cats

Number of Episodes: 3 (about 30 minutes an episode) Plot: C *Rally Vincent is a bounty hunter from Chicago who owns just about every gun you can think of. She is roommates with May Hopkins, an explosives expert and they are best friends with Becky Farah, an expert hacker/whatever else the plot needs her to be. The duo gets blackmailed by a government ATF agent who wants them to track down an illegal guns dealer which leads to a bunch of shootouts, car chases, and a bunch of mindless fun. This isn't a show you watch for the plot. It's rather basic and at times islaughably bad, but it's a lot of fun.

Visuals: A+ *The reason I watched this in the first place. My roommate was on his Xbox watching a YouTube video that was talking about this show and just from glimpsing at the panels, I fell in love with the show's aesthetic! The character designs are adorable, the animation style is super cute, and the fight sequences and car chases look awesome!

Voice Acting: B- *I started with the sub and was not impressed. So I switched to the dub and was both surprised and delighted to find out how many voices from this show would later voice on the dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Anna Winn Lee, (Rei Ayanami) the voice actress for Rally, apparently talked her friend Allison Keith (Misato) to play a couple side characters in this. Kimberly Yates (Hikari) voices May Hopkins. And Tiffany Grant (Asuka) voices the girl's friend Becky Farah. Plus, Aaron Krohn (Kaji) voices a corrupt senator named Edward Haints. Much like the Eva dub, there are quite a few laughably bad side character voices, but I was enjoying the recognizing the Eva voices too much to care. And I still can't believe that Rally Vincent is Rei!

Film Score/Soundtrack: A *Bebop before Cowboy Bebop. Super fun jazz to go along with the car chases and shootouts.

***My favorite track: Big City
(Probably the catchiest and most fun song on the soundtrack)

Characters: B- *In three episodes there isn't a lot of time to get super invested in any of the characters, but I still can't help but enjoy what they were building up to. Rally Vincent is the badass protagonist that can't do anything wrong... except for cooking and doing anything that is considered girly. Her roommate May Hopkins was a former prostitute so she knows all about making herself look good for dates but also has an insatiable love of excitement. And explosions in particular. And even though she is really little and is nowhere near as deadly up close as Rally is, May is tenacious and is aways eager to help out and make things go BOOM lol! Becky needs the most explanation as to what the hell she is and how she can do all that she does, but she is the voice of reason amongst the trio and is the " girl in the chair" of the group. And lastly, William Collins, (voiced by Rob Mungle aka the voice of the Cat in the Ghost Stories dub) the ATF agent had a cute flirty-thing going on with Rally that I would have liked to see develop if the show had more episodes.

Cringeworthy Anime Moments: This entire show is fanservice. There's no point complaining about it. For the most part, I don't mind it at all. The only scene that made me roll my eyes was when a giant crane hook nearly impaled Rally Vincent, but instead, all it did was rip open her first layer of clothing which left her in a bra and panties to do a backflip off of the platform to incapacitate the last few baddies. It was a "are you serious" moment that I couldn't help but laugh at and say "Oh Japan, never change you horny bastards."

Opening Titles: B *Cute and fun just like the show.

Final Verdict: 7/10 *Not a show that needs to be analyzed too much. It's a super fun three-episode OVA series about two gorgeous bounty hunter anime girls kicking butt. It's got a gorgeous aesthetic, awesome action, shameless fanservice that fits in the themes of this show, catchy music, and just enough plot to keep me interested and genuinely wanting more.