Forum - View topicGungrave (TV).
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MaxSouth
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Gungrave (TV) Genres: action, drama, magic, science fiction Themes: mafia, revenge, tragedy Plot Summary: Brandon Heat, a silent and passive man, is living a laid back life with his friends. He's got his eyes on Maria, but her uncle forbids their relationship. After the brutal murder of his friends and Maria's father, Brandon is on the run together with the only friend he has left—Harry McDowell. When he finds out custody over Maria has been taken by Millennion, the largest mafia syndicate in town, he and Harry decide to join the syndicate. He goes through many hardships after joining the syndicate but he is willing to risk everything as long as he can be close to Maria. Streaming is/was available on Crunchyroll (2017), FUNimation Entertainment ---------------------------------- STORYTELLING While formally the anime is a "science fiction", in reality, the genre is a "fantasy": the developments shown are purely magical, not feasible no matter how far in the future the actual science could go. And this whole fantasy aspect of the anime is not that necessary: it would be already great just as a mafia-like drama (this is not an actual mafia, which is structured/operates a bit differently). Even the spoiler[revenge] part could be written without magic/zombies. The beginning of the anime is useless since the viewers do not know who is who and what is happening, so the authors were forced to repeat it in the second half anyway. It is actually worse than useless, since it unnecessarily spoils the story to the viewers. It turns out that there was nothing special about the main spoiler[zombie] character in terms of destroying other spoiler[zombies] since the key was anti-spoiler[zombie] bullets. Anyone could use them and do the same thing. The only thing that the main bad-gone-good mad scientist should have done is to popularize the formula. It makes no sense that the main villain did not turn himself into a spoiler[mutant] once it has become known that the procedure is safe and reliable. In the middle of the anime, the mother of the main lass has spoiler[died] in vain: she should have joined her daughter and escaped. She did not play a role in securing the escape of her daughter, as the back door was spoiler[ambushed] anyway. Most explosions are realistic, even in "realistic" part of the anime, which tampers a bit with the submersion into the story. CHARACTERS The founding "father" of the "family" is shown to be a simpleton, even though in reality such people are cunning/shrewd. * * * Even though the main zombie was supposed to be never missing targets, towards the end he almost always misses, wasting lots of ammunition. * * * The main lass' daughter is written to say stupid things like that the old white-haired mass-murderer Mafioso assassin-boss, who has sided with the killers of all of her relatives and friends, is not a "bad person". She is also stupidly saying she does not want the main zombie guy to do the spoiler[revenge], but it makes no sense since his "life" time span would end anyway, so at least he would do something useful with his remaining time. She is even so stupid that she is outraged, does not understand that the spoiler[hunt] for her has ended due to a mafia leadership shift. * * * In the whole anime, the two lasses (the mother and her daughter) were basically the only characters of note unworthy of an electric chair or something like that. Yet, just as most crime dramas like that do, the viewers, of course, are manipulated into sympathizing with the mass murderers. A version of the inevitable "Stockholm syndrome", if you will. By the way, this is one of the reasons why the likes of CNN, BBC and other media have rules that ban showing terrorists speaking directly, they always put voice-overs to disrupt the "humanization" of them in the eyes of public. * * * The endless smoking is as disgusting as ever (for many reasons), though the anime is mostly placed in the last century, so it is realistic. VISUALS The character design is partially great (the main character's equipment/clothes in its [spoil]zombie[/spoil] form), but mostly poor: similarly to Escaflowne, ridiculously long, Pinocchio-like noses in profile, horrible huge hairstyles that come from the 1980s/early 1990s (even though the anime is from 2003). It is great to see an anime that is trying to depict ageing, but it is done poorly: for example, the main villain at 39 (43) looks like he is 60 or something. Both main lasses in the anime look much older than they were supposed to be. The rest of visual design is mostly poor, too: e.g. cars are drawn as if a five-year-old did it. RESUME Despite some obvious drawbacks, none of them are too drastic, so the anime seems to be above "Very good" and thus it might deserve its current "Excellent" rating. With no mentioned drawbacks, it could even be a "Masterpiece" of anime. |
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