GUN X SWORD

Information of Anime

Van is wandering around the desert.  His purpose: to revenge his bride, Helena, who was killed in front of his eyes during their wedding by a clawed man.  Around his waist is a sword that straightens out when pulled out.  It has an ability to summon an armor, which is a mecha, from space named Dann.  During his journey, he saves a town with Dann from a group of bandits.  Amazed by Van's armor in saving her town, Wendy Gallent decides to join him in his journey since their purpose is very much the same.  She wishes to find the clawed man who kidnapped her brother, Michael.  Together, they walk around the surface of the planet called "Endless Illusion".

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Throughout the show, we see Van & Wendy going around town asking people if they have seen a clawed man.  Along the way, Van summons Dann to save the towns they visit.  In their journeys, they meet Ray Langlen, a armor pilot who is also searching for the clawed man for revenge.  To that, Van & Wendy also meet Ray's brother, Jousha Langlen.  Jousha travels with them in order to meet his brother to stop him from getting his revenge.  Along with this trio, Carmen99, a friend of Van, helps gather info for Van to located the clawed man's whereabouts.  She appears earlier in the show before Jousha.

Van & Wendy at times run into some of the clawed man's henchmen, who tries to stop Van from his mission by questioning his purpose & gain for revenge.  About the midway point of the show, Wendy manages to find Michael at a train station.  She run off from the group to talk to him.  It turns out that Michael has decided to team up with the clawed man since his dream influenced him & Michael doesn't want to go back home.  When Wendy returns to Van & the others & explains that she found her brother, Van blew his top at Wendy when she told him that she let him go.  As a result, Wendy was confused on what to do next.  However, Van gave her an answer to go home since she no longer has to get her brother back home.  This upsets Carmen99 & Joshua because of his attitude.  Wendy, however, decides to leave.

With Wendy gone, Van bumps into an old friend, who saved his life back at his wedding day by connecting his body to Dann's life system.  Here we learn that Van's body depends on Dann to live & vice versa.  It was Helena's request to have Van hooked up with Dann.  Dann was designed to protect the planet from danger & is part of an group called Original Seven, which has been slowly dissolving through time.  Since Gadbed has managed to gather enough members to reform the group again, he asks Van to join him.  What shocks Van the most is that Gadbed is working for the clawed man.  Because of this, Van calls for Dann & Gadbed calls for his armour for battle.  Meanwhile, Wendy meets a man in a park who sees how troubled she is.  He talks to her & learns about her problems.  To it, he gives her advice about dreams & goals that she & Michael may have.  While this is happening, Carmen99 meets one of the members of the Original Seven & loses in a fight.  Also, we learn that Michael is a member of the Original Seven.  When Jousha finds Wendy & a woman appears to the mysterious man, Jousha & Wendy were shocked to discover that the man is the clawed man.  Suddenly, Ray comes crashing down the glass ceiling to assault the clawed man.  Even though the clawed man escapes, this fuels Van in regaining his purpose of his journey with a strong determination since he found him.

During his search for the clawed man, Van runs intoone1 of the Original Seven members who practically takes him to school.  For the first time, Van begins to fear for his life as he is defeated.  Given three days to stop pursuing the claw man, Van questions his motives as he fears for his life.  Doing so, he manages to slow the puzzle that he was given by Gadbed in the past.  From there, he understands how to control Dann through his love for Helena & defeats the Original Seven member with ease.  Thus, he & Wendy continue on their journey.  Later on, all their friends they met along the way will join them in defeating the clawed man.

As we get deep into the show, we learn the purpose of the clawed man's objectives as he tries to destroy the world & make a new one as he's about to die was well.  As his plan is underway with the moon starting to crash down to the planet, Van & the crew race against time to stop it with Van being the victory as he kills the clawed man.

The show ends with a celebration & everyone going their separate ways.  Years later, we see a grown up Wendy telling the whole incident to what seems to be a reporter about the events.  It seems the whole story was told from Wendy's point of view & the reporter's voice was the 1 that introduces the start of each episode.  It ends with Van appearing in Wendy's house as a wandering traveller asking for food.

My Personal Review

GUN X SWORD (pronounced Gun Sword; the X is part of the logo) has a interesting & deep storyline.  It's more of a drama than an action flick.  Because of it's setting & feel, it's almost similar to Trigun, but more dramatic.

Animation

The drawings are okay.  Some of the characters tend to have very large eyes & round faces with pointy chins.  The adult & older characters have long faces (mainly the males) & small eyes.  The younger males tend to look like female characters instead; particularly Joshua & Michael.  As for the designs of the characters, they aren't anything special or interesting to look at.  The clothing is quite plain, even though it matches the characters wearing them quite well.  At times, I could see some heavy lines on the character's faces.  The ending sponsor & credit scenes are very well done.  It really has that artistic painting feel to it.

The backgrounds aren't too bad.  They are dull to prevent them from clashing with the characters.  Detailing wise, it's not too sharp; which is a good thing actually.  Since the setting mainly dry lands & the desert, it gives the buildings & surrounding objects some age.

The animation movements are quite natural & smooth; especially the fight scenes with the armors.  They aren't 3D CGs, so the movements of the armors are smooth with little to no choppiness.  The running animation of human characters is pretty good.  They don't look like they are running & standing.

As bonus, episode 17 gets a little ecchi as it's a swimsuit edition.  For some reason, the show uses donkey heads to cover up parts of the swimsuits.  I don't really find them very revealing & I'm assuming the show is basically trying to add some humour here.  That episode seemed to be pretty popular since toy company Max Factory is releasing a set of trading figurines from that episode & named the set GUN X SWORD: Collect 600 Episode 17 Trading Figures.

Sound

The sound effect fit with their respective objects very well.  They sound like the things they are.  The volume is set at a good level, but there are times it might be a bit loud since it gets fuzzy at times.

The seiyuus here are a pretty good cast.  Van looks like a person that doesn't care mush & the seiyuu for the job performs it well.  Joshua's voice freaks me out at times.  It's sounds too girly for a guy at his age.  Aside from him, the voices are well done.

The music is mainly Western cowboy themes.  They fit the setting very well.  However, I didn't get the impact of them which would have stick to my head.  I remember only bits of the songs.

Story

The story is mainly about revenge from what I seen.  However, it's not too detailed.  What makes the show deep is about the clawed man's dream of making a world of peace.  Van's revenge isn't too exciting.  When he manages to get his revenge, what will Van do next?  That question has been asked to Van numerous times.  Although he thinks about it, his answers are the same & it's too simple: just to remove the burden of let Helena rest in peace.  When I finish watching the series, this revenge idea may change my perspective on things.

Another thing to mention about the series is the pace.  Initially, I thought it was going a little slow.  However, it's actually moving pretty well.  Maybe a bit too well.  Almost all the enemies have come out of hide at the midway point of the series & the fights against them seem like it's at the climax of the show.  Luckily, the show finds its way in filling in those episodes with some interesting plot elements where some of the clawed man's members having doubts on his plans which creates some internal conflicts.  The battles in the final arc is intense & pretty interesting to watch.  However, the fight between the clawed man & Van didn't look good near the end when Van somehow gain some energy in Dann.

The ending wasn't too good, but it was reasonable.  It seem Van didn't have a plan on what to do next after he killed the clawed man while the others did.  In terms of the story writing, this make senses as he really didn't seem to have anything planned ahead.  But to the viewers, it seems incomplete & empty as it was kill & that's it.

Overall Conclusion

GUN X SWORD is a pretty interesting series.  I would recommend watching it, but it's probably something that you would not put at the top of your "to watch" list.  But, it's not something you should ignore as well.  Aside from the action & heavy drama, it's got some comedic bits as well.  But, it's not something you will laugh hard with.  If you like Trigun or something with some action with a deep storyline, this anime shouldn't disappoint.

GUN X SWORD gets an eight out of ten from me.  The show is quite deep & catches my attention.  However, it was going a little too fast as all the enemies seem to have reveal themselves to the antagonists just a little before the halfway point.  But the writers found a way around it & made it interesting.  However, the ending wasn't too satisfactory for me as it was a bit simple.