Revisiting old series: Gun x Sword

Van on Dann – Vengence will be his…or not? A journey with an epic conclusion, one of the few well done endings for mecha anime, a taste that my fellow bloggers might not have acquired for =p

Title: Gun X Sword
Genre: action, western, fantasy, mecha, comedy
Released date: July 4, 2005 – December 26, 2005
Episode: 26
Director: Goro Taniguchi
Animated by: Studio AIC A.S.T.A

Reason for revisiting this old series, I had the sudden urge to rewatch this after realising bandai is releasing the main mecha for this series in their robot damashii lineup and soooo, with appropriate resources, the series was reacquired ahem.

I remembered being pretty impressed after watching the first episode back in 2005. The animations were beautiful, mecha movements fluid and the characters decently interesting enough. The initial plot isn’t new but it eventually grows on you not only because of the eventual grand scale of things (oops spoiler). The characters also grew over time in their own capacity to have new perspectives and new realisation that life aka reality uh, sucks but! that doesn’t mean to give up (ok, shounen style).  A few parodies also appear, references I’m not too clear of, basically gatai mecha and a VERY OBVIOUS reference to Gundam Seed’s freedom gundam but that will appear quite late in the show. I hesitate to put up more screenshots because every ‘new’ appearance of character or mecha will be a lasting impression (well, except for some).

The pacing is not too bad either, there will be episodes where you wonder: what the heck has this got to do with…the whole damn story but trust me, nothing is wasted, they had been or will be connected in some way or another and that’s the beauty of this, a journey of discovery and realisations that something really BADASS is going on and the main character’s ‘problem’ is minute in comparison but of course, he been ‘emotionally’ strained is hell bent on taking revenge on ‘the claw’ as revealed in episode 1 =)

Watch this if you :

1) are a Mecha lover (duh)

2) Want something other than a obviously futuristic setting.

3) Want something more than just mecha fights after another, in other words, well fleshed out characters with their quirks, hilarity and awesomeness.

4) look forward to an epic development of plot.

5) Don’t mind cheesy minor plots like…a female only kingdom where the self declared queen, a former scientist strives to develop a swimming suit to be the de facto all purpose clothing (based on a special metallic fabric).

There might be some similarities to Code geass (which is developed after gun x sword) but that’s only to be expected because the director Gorō Taniguchi is the one and same for both series! So enjoy this light hearted, not to be taken too seriously(most of the time) series =p

P.S. Exiled destiny is your friend

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