Review: Gunsmith Cats: Volume 1

Gunsmith Cats: Volume 1 by Kenichi Sonoda
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Gunsmith Cats is not a manga I had ever heard of before. I know, shocking, especially considering it's age. Then again, if I'm totally honest, my anime/manga knowledge is quite lacking in comparison with other fans of the genre and while I am attempting to improve on that, it's still quite a slow moving process that requires a lot more free money/time than I actually have. This first volume of the revised edition was a birthday present from some lovely friends of mine who are fans of the story, and wanted me to check it out because of the cool action scenes, which they thought I would like.

They were right.

Gunsmith Cats follows two girls - Rally Vincent and Minnie-May - as they run a weapons shop in Chicago, with a side business of being bounty hunters. Well, you know, whatever helps to pay the bills. The story follows them as they interact with various criminals who have bounties on their heads, and the two girls somehow always end up in more trouble than they ever set out to be in. There's a lot of car chase scenes, and shoot outs, with references to various makes of guns and the needed care and maintenance of them. Honestly? It is pretty alright.

While the art style is very much a product of its time - as are the background references of Chicago - there's a sense of character to it that can feel missing from some modern titles. It feels as though there is life in the panels, and it helps the story flow that much better, keeping you gripped to see how Rally and Minnie manage to get out of this scrape that they've managed to get themselves into. The action is really well done, and you can tell the mangaka has a real interest in weaponry as his commitment to detail on the various firearms used in story is commendable.

The thing that brings my rating down, really, is the more fanservice-y aspects of the story. It's just not really my thing, and it can be a bit odd turning the page and seeing it there. It's not bad in terms of the narrative, as it does fit with the characters that it's assigned to, but personally I could have done without it. It's ... graphic, in a sense, and just, yeah, not really my thing, and I felt like it could have ultimately been cut from the story without any real loss to the overall impact of the thing.

Now, from what I know, this manga is largely out of print so you need to hunt it down on the secondary market. However, it's also been released on the Kindle, so I may just pick up the other volumes there. When I have some free money. I'd like to see how the story continues.

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