Gunsmith Cats

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Gunsmith Cats
DVD cover for Gunsmith Cats.
ガンスミス キャッツ
(Gunsmith Cats)
Genre Action
Manga
Authored by Kenichi Sonoda
Publisher Kodansha
Serialized in Afternoon
Original run –
No. of volumes
OVA: Gunsmith Cats
Directed by Takeshi Mori
Studio Kodansha
Vap
TBS
ADV Films
No. of episodes 3
Released 1 November 1995
Runtime


Gunsmith Cats (ガンスミス キャッツ) is a series of manga and anime work by Kenichi Sonoda. The story centers on two young women, 19-year old Irene "Rally" Vincent and her partner, 17-year old "Minnie" May Hopkins.

Rally and May operate the Gunsmith Cats gunshop in Chicago, Illinois. Rally also works as a bounty hunter, assisted by May, which is the impetus behind many of the stories. Rally characterizes bounty hunting as her "hobby" though it is in fact her main source of income.

Rally is an expert combat shooter and markswoman with just about every firearm in existence, as well as an expert driver. May is an explosives expert, knowing the inner workings of and many uses of all manner of explosive devices.

In 2004, the author created an extension to the original nine volume series entitled Gunsmith Cats BURST. Like the original, this manga centers on the exploits of Rally and May and is serialized in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine. That series has been recenly picked up by Dark Horse Comics for North American distribution, as well as re-releasing the original Gunsmith Cats manga in an 'unflipped' version - read right-to-left, as in Japan.

Contents

[edit] Characters

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Irene "Rally" Vincent
A gunshop owner by trade, she dabbles in bounty hunting to pay the bills. Her father was an Olympic champion marksman, taught Rally a great deal about firearms, and ran a gun store in Chicago. Her mother opposed everything to do with guns and eventually was murdered at the store by robbers when trying to file divorce papers on her husband. After Rally's father disappeared to searching for her mother's murderers, she took over Gunsmith Cat as her own entrepreneurial venture, and recruited Minnie May to help her run the store. Upon making May a partner, the shop became known as "Gunsmith Cats".
A bit reserved when it comes to men, she feels most natural among the cold steel of firearms. While all her ID states that she is 21 (necessary to sell firearms), her actual age is 19 (18 in the original Japanese version). Her weapon of choice is the CZ-75 first version, a 9mm Parabellum handgun made in the former nation of Czechoslovakia. She drives a blue 1967 model Shelby Mustang Cobra GT500 with white racing stripes, which she cherishes. The CZ-75 and the Cobra are signatures of the series. When quarrelling with Rally, Minnie May implied that guns and cars were sex substitutes for the virginal Rally. There is indeed a distinct erotic undertone to her fondness of guns and cars.
Rally's father is Pakistani and her mother was English. As a result, she has dark blue eyes, dusky skin, and dark hair. She is highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat, with great speed and physical agility, and is an expert but reckless driver. Although she does not always respect the letter of the law, she has a strong moral sense of right and wrong and is reluctant to kill unless absolutely necessary. Her marksmanship ability is unsurpassed, and she often targets her opponents' trigger fingers or crucial components of their guns in combat rather than going for a lethal shot. As a result, she has sometimes been hunted by angry enemies mutilated at her hands.
The reason for her choice of the first version CZ-75 over all other handguns is its superb workmanship, combined with a quality of steel used in its manufacture that is rarely seen in firearms, which combine to make it reliable and superbly accurate. Only the first version of the CZ-75 was made with this high-quality steel, as it proved too expensive and overly wearing on the machine tools; this is nowadays a very rare and expensive gun. Due to the CZ-75's superior strength, she loads it with +P (overpressure) rounds for higher velocity, making it roughly equivalent to a .40 calibre S&W gun. She has been known to add a laser sight or a flashlight to the CZ-75, depending on circumstances. Rally also usually carries a .25 Czech DuO with the trigger guard removed, mounted on a spring-loaded frame strapped to her arm for quick access in a tight spot. When her CZ-75 has been unavailable, she relies on a SIG P210, another very high quality weapon, and sometimes carries a Kel-Tec P11 in an ankle holster. She keeps a precision rifle and shotgun in the boot of her Shelby; these have included a Walther WA2000 and a SIG 550. Her first gun, given to her by her father, was a Safari Arms AR-7, a small .22LR rifle that can be disassembled and the components stored inside the buttstock; she uses this from time to time. Other guns Rally owns and cherishes are a 1960 Colt .25 pocket model, a Beretta 84f, a Walther P-38, a Parabellum P'08 (Luger), a Colt Lawman mk.3 and a Browning HP. She has occasionally used other weapons, including GLOCK 19 and a Saturday night special pistol when she was completely devoid of other weapons, and she is an expert shot with any firearm she has been shown using.
A prototypical version of Rally Vincent also co-stars in the OAV Riding Bean, but the character is named Rally Cheyenne. As Riding Bean was made before the Gunsmith Cats series, there Rally Cheyenne is a blonde Caucasian.
(It is not clear from the Japanese whether Rally's name is intended to be "Irene" or "Eileen" but the official English translation uses Irene. In the anime, the A.T.F. file on her is listed as "Larry", possibly because of the interchangeability of the "L" and "R" sounds in the Japanese language.)


"Minnie" May Hopkins
A "bomb specialist," as she refers to herself, May learned the trade from her boyfriend, Ken Takizawa. While only being 18 (17 in the original Japanese version; her age was raised for international translation because she performs explicit sexual acts), she is considerably more mature than the average 18-year old girl. She ran away from home at 13 for undisclosed reasons and was found and cared for by Ken. When Ken had to go underground for several years, she worked as a prostitute at a brothel in Chinatown - even advancing into teaching other newcomers - before leaving and joining up with Rally to run the gun shop.
When action is called for, May carries a wide range of explosive weapons with her. She typically uses a self-modified grenade called a "May Special," an impact-only grenade with no shrapnel. However, she is not averse to using high explosive grenades when necessary. Perhaps even more impressive is her talent for disguises and acting, particularly considering that she has no formal training as an actress. During the stories she performs some impressive feats of acting and disguise such as: fooling Ken Taki that she is boy and maintaining that charade for months, blushing on command, imitating the police chief's voice on the phone so well she fools one of his officers, weeping on command (really hard, ask any actor) and imitating a child star so well she even fools an entire film crew.
May is tiny and young-appearing for her age, having taken growth-stunting drugs in an effort to stay attractive to her possibly pedophiliac boyfriend Ken Takizawa (this plot element was modified in the English translation). She can pass for a child of ten or twelve and often takes advantage of this. She is very cute - "like Minnie Mouse", hence her nickname - with blonde hair and blue-green eyes.
She is generally cheerful and possesses a great "joi de vivre". She does have a temper though, particularly if someone comes down hard on her lover and mentor Ken Takizawa. If you do that, even with the best of intentions, you can expect well-aimed, hard words or hard objects to come flying in your direction.


Bean Bandit
A tough-as-nails driver for hire known for his steel-padded Kevlar-lined wardrobe, he is typically seen wearing a bulletproof leather jacket, blue jeans and an armored headband.
Overall, he is an even better driver than Rally, capable of movie stunt driver level feats. He prefers American muscle cars of the 1970s; a couple of his personal favorites being a modified Ford Boss 302 and a 1971 supercharged Mach One. However, he owns a whole garage full of famous muscle-car models and is often seen driving a 1968 LS-7 Corvette. Later in the series he acquires The Buff, a monster custom-designed car with armor plating and bulletproof glass. It can drive sideways and has special air brakes and wheel spikes to aid in sudden stops.
Bean insists on following his strict rules of engagement in all circumstances, and sticks to his word (and he expects his business partners to do the same). Although he doesn't shy away from violence, he prefers to remain neutral when he can and collect his hefty driving fees for almost any kind of job. He will work for criminals and legitimate interests alike as long as he is paid as agreed, although after a competition against Rally about a Kerosine delivery (see Goldie's entry) he has agreed not to deliver any more drugs. His only Achilles heel is a protective instinct towards children and noncombatants.
Bean is huge and muscular, towering over most people. He can perform amazing feats of strength - like ripping the door off a car with one hand; and his jacket alone would break the back of any ordinary person trying to wear it - and shrug off most injuries. Even a pistol shot to his armored headband will barely slow him down. He prefers knives to guns, and can throw a knife straight through a car windscreen with deadly accuracy. He has long black hair, darkish skin and brown eyes, and his race is not determined. However, in interviews, Sonoda has implied that Bean's amazing traits are a result of him being a mix of the strongest characteristics from many different races.
Bean Bandit is also the star of an OAV also written by Sonoda, called Riding Bean. Riding Bean is more of a prototype to Gunsmith Cats. In it, Bean and Rally are partners, and have a close, but professional friendship.


Becky Farrah
"Becky the Nose" is Rally's main source of information on all the goings on in the Chicago underworld. While her fees are high and she can come across as money-grubbing, most if not all of her information is legitimate; she is also known for working in finding missing persons. When she is not chasing after Rally for her payment, the two share a friendship that crosses business lines.
Becky wears glasses with a ponytail and is usually businesslike in appearance. She can be seen driving a BMW 2002 Turbo.


Ken Takizawa
An explosives expert by trade, he learned his craft through a combination of his connections to the Chicago underworld and on the set of Hollywood movies. In addition to being Minnie May's on-again off-again boyfriend, he taught her everything he knows. Ken is Japanese-American and about 20 years older than May. He also suffers from multiple sclerosis, which affects his ability to handle sensitive explosives.
As a personal joke, he uses the nickname "Ken Taki", which is the Japanese pronunciation of the state Kentucky.


Misty Brown
An expert sneak thief, cat-burglar and lockpick, she joins up with Rally and Minnie-May after having been caught by them and serving time for various criminal activities. She is prone to becoming a damsel in distress, and subsequently has to be bailed out by her friends.
Misty doesn't carry any guns but is quite adept in the use of knives (wielded and thrown). She also has a crush on Rally, although at the end of the series she also expresses an interest in Bean Bandit.


Roy Coleman
A detective of the Chicago Police, Roy is Rally's main contact with the force. Acting as more of an older brother at times, he watches out for Rally when she's in trouble. While considerably older than Rally, he still enjoys spending time with her, as it gives him a sense of belonging to the younger generation, and a contact of his own in the same generation.


Riff-Raff
A wild female courier driver, much like Bean Bandit. While working on the wrong side of the law, she has deep within herself a sense of honour which does not let her betray anyone she has taken sympathy to, and becomes a sort-of friend of Bandit, Rally and company. She can be seen driving an AC Cobra 428; because of her skill with it, she has adopted the name "Snake Charmer".
(Note: her appearance was modeled after the character Luffy from the anime series Gall Force, to which Kenichi Sonoda also provided the character designs while he worked for ARTMIC.)

[edit] Villains

In Gunsmith Cats, Chicago has many large-scale villains, each crossing paths with Rally & company over the course of the series.

Bonnie & Clyde
A fictional take on a factual pair, they go on a crime spree throughout Chicago. Bonnie harbors a particular ill will toward Rally.


Grey
A drug lord and gang leader, Grey runs a large cocaine distribution ring in Chicago. During a fateful encounter with Rally, she relieved him of one of his hands by means of a shotgun; henceforth, he sports a prosthetic hook hand. He is eventually caught and imprisoned, though he continues to run his drug ring from his cell. Through his many connections, he is eventually released and swears vengeance on Rally (and eventually gets killed in his pursuit, right after confessing his love for Rally.).


Jones
A small-time drug dealer, first seen with his driver, Riff-Raff.


Borgnine
A mysterious figure involved in the Mr. V arc.


Goldie Musou
Arguably the most ruthless of Rally's opponents. Of Italian ancestry, "Iron Goldie" is a high-ranking member of a mob family in Sicily. Many call her a Mafia Queen. She is an incredible hand-to-hand combatant, and is quite skilled at creating complex plans, which, though often successful, often make plain her cavalier attitude towards her subordinates.
She is a pathological personality, the textbook definition of a "control freak." She is obsessed with controlling everything and everyone around her. People who resist her successfully, such as Rally, become even more attractive to her. She is a lesbian, though she tends to express it as a form of sadistic pedophilia. She keeps a trademark harem of young girls who have murdered their parents while under the influence of her drugs.
She and Rally crossed paths many times, and the bounty hunter is usually quite lucky to escape with her life and the lives of her friends. However, this is far better than any of Goldie's previous opponents have done, and repeated escapes quickly turn the mobster's appreciation for her skills into a dedicated sexual obsession. Finally, Goldie decides that she will make Rally her masterpiece, a slave broken to her will through sheer psychological torture without the aid of drugs.
As stated above, the linchpin of her power base is psychopharmacology, or the use of hallucinogenic drugs similar to LSD. Over the years she has developed an incredibly effective method of mind control. The first thing she does after she gains chemical control of someone she considers a worthy "pet" is order him or her to kill his or her loved ones. The alternative to the chemically induced fantasy world she had built for her puppets is a reality where they have murdered everyone who cared for them, she has yet to lose control of a subject whom she has completely enslaved.
Her current empire is based on a powerful designer drug called Kerasine, which is also a major plot device of the series. It is a compound that she knows how to produce cheaply but has yet to be reverse-engineered by chemists outside of her organization. Its popularity is due to both its low cost and its ability to produce the effects of several different drugs: a small amount is a stimulant like cocaine, a larger amount is a euphoric similar to heroin, and the entire contents of a vial combines both with a powerful hallucinogenic effect similar to lysergic acid diethylamide.
All this comes with a nasty side effect - a user of the drug can be given hypnotic commands while he or she is under its influence. Currently, it is the most popular drug in the world of the manga. Several storylines detail Rally's efforts to prevent Goldie from flooding Chicago with this mind-bending substance, including one which involves using Rally's father, through Kerasine inducement, in which he becomes Goldie's personal assassin.

[edit] Anime

The anime version of Gunsmith Cats, released 1995 by Kodansha/VAP/Tokyo Broadcasting and a year later in North America by ADV Films, is a separate story from the manga. Many major characters, such as Misty Brown and Bean Bandit, do not appear. It was also one of the most researched animes in regards to locale and feel, as the production team made several trips to Chicago, which included visits to the Illinois Police Academy, and an actual gun shop, which is rare in gun-controlled Japan.

Also, several new characters appear in the three Original Video Animation (OVA) episodes:

William "Bill" Collins
An agent in the Chicago office of the A.T.F., Bill Collins comes across as a sleazy, nosy government agent who fancies himself as Eliot Ness. He is investigating a gun-running operation, but he is running into a lot of dead leads... and a few dead agents as well. Desperate for help, he 'enlists' Rally and May's help (by holding up the gun shop's licence as insurance).
Although they had success at first by shutting down a distribution point in Chicago, Jonathan Washington, the lone witness, along with five A.T.F. agents, are murdered in a safehouse, the assassin, Natasha Radinov, using Collins' cardkey and access code to gain entry. Now the investigation is due to be closed and Collins soon discovers a conspiracy within the A.T.F., which involves his superior George Black and mayoral candidate Edward Haints... who has Rally as a target.
George Black
Collins' superior in the A.T.F. Chicago office, George Black is, in fact, part of a gun-running operation which he co-ran with Edward Haints, an Illinois assemblyman running for mayor in Chicago under a gun-control platform. It was Black who had contracted Natasha Radinov to kill Jonathan Washington, the only witness to the operation, for which he provided her with a cardkey with Collins' ID, as well as Rally and May for helping Collins. He also supplied Radinov with the use of a supposily shut-down A.T.F. safehouse for her to stay in.
Natasha Radinov
Also known as "Bloody Pierce", Natasha Radinov was originally an agent for the K.G.B. and Spetsnaz, but when the Soviet Union fell, she contracted her services out as a free-lance assassin. She is proficient in almost every deadly hand weapon in the world, but prefers to work with silent weapons, especially a Welrod silenced pistol and a spring-loaded shooting knife designed for Spetsnaz, which she often retrieves after use. She also wears a long coat lined with ballistic nylon and Kevlar, the inside lining holding a vast arsenal of weapons.
As payment for her services, Radinov prefers to be paid in heroin, which she sells in Russia; she personally stays away from the drug herself. Recently, she had accepted an assignment to kill Rally and May, because the two had interfered in a gun-running operation run by Edward Haints, an Illinois assemblyman running for mayor under a gun-control platform. However, when the first attempt went wrong, and Radinov was injured because of it (Rally shot off her earring and part of her earlobe), she took it as "a matter of pride" and went after Rally personally.
Edward Haints
A senator in the Illinois State Assembly, Edward Haints is running for mayor of Chicago. His campaign style has him wrapping himself in a "All American" theme, which favors heavily on protecting the city's citizens by instituting stricter gun-access laws.
The truth of the matter is that Haints is also running one of the biggest gun-running operations in the state, and the strict gun laws he plans to enact will enable him to raise the prices of his own illicit operations. But when Bill Collins gets a little too close with his investigations, he asks his friend and partner George Black to hire Natasha Radinov to kill the witnesses and derail the investigation. However, Haints also hires Radinov to kill Black as well, mostly to keep the profits of his gun-running to himself.
Jonathan Washington
At the beginning of the series, Jonathan Washington had just skipped bail for drug smuggling charges, only to be captured by Rally Vincent. Actually, Washington was working for Edward Haints' gun-running ring and operated an entire warehouse filled with ilicit firearms... firearms that Rally, with a little "help" from Bill Collins, were able to prevent hitting the streets.
However, since Washington was now a vital witness to the gun ring, he was taken to an A.T.F. safehouse outside Chicago. He had tried to persuade Rally to help him escape the safehouse because he now feared for his life... he knew that George Black, the head of the A.T.F.'s Chicago office, was also a partner of Haints and had now sent a hitman after him. When Rally refused to help him escape, he was able to leave a fake Rolex watch and a scrap a paper with the address of his "daughter" on it with May. In fact, the paper held an Internet address and the watch had an access code to the shipping dates of the gun ring.
True to his warning, Washington did meet his end... along with the five A.T.F. agents guarding him when Natasha Radinov, using a copy of Collins' cardkey and access code, entered the safehouse, then proceeded to slaughter the agents and murder Washington.

[edit] Anime Voices

[edit] Riding Bean

Riding Bean was a short OVA that was released in 1989, some time before Gunsmith Cats, and in many ways is like a prototype of the series, with Gunsmith Cats and Riding Bean sharing overall design elements. Riding Bean, it is rumored, was to have been the first in an anime series by of same name. However, Sonoda had a fallout with Toshiba EMI over the series (rumored to have been mostly due to Toshiba EMI), and thus the series ended with only one "episode". Toshiba EMI retained the rights to the series and Sonoda was forced to abandon a direct port of the franchise to what became Gunsmith Cats. Again, as is self evident, characters and concepts were ported over and a new plot was devised. Bean Bandit is the signature star, all but identical to his manga incarnation save for three big differences.

Unlike his manga counterpart, a dedicated loner, he has a partner who shares Rally's name and skill with firearms, though she does not particularly resemble the protagonist of Gunsmith Cats. She is a fair-skinned, blue-eyed blonde, and more immoral than the manga version of Rally, being a career criminal who shares Bean's ethics.

He also is far more well known than his secretive counterpart with his cabinet full of license plates from every state, bearing a nickname, 'Roadbuster' (later changed to 'Rolling Bean' in Gunsmith Cats). This was obviously given to him due to his 'offensive' driving technique, which tends to tender a heavy toll on his adversaries' vehicles-particularly the Chicago police department.

This has directly produced the third major difference from the manga. Whereas the Bean Bandit of Gunsmith Cats has no urge to draw attention to himself, the animated Bandit has an Inspector Zenigata-like nemesis: a Chicago police sergeant named Percy. Sergeant Percy has an obsession with shutting Bean down that is bordering on the psychotic, as shown by his willingness to wildly fire shotgun slugs on city streets, as well as purchasing a Shelby Mustang with which to chase his quarry, most probably from his personal funds.

Bean drives his custom car, 'The Buff'. Although it is never referred to by name, it demonstrates every single one of its unusual capabilities throughout the anime, with the addition of a passenger-side gun port for Rally.

The anime follows one day in the life of Bean and Rally, as they find that they have been framed for the kidnapping of Chelsea Grimwood, who is daughter of Mr. Grimwood, President of the Grimwood Company/Grimwood Conglomerant. However, it is Semmerling, by way of various disguises, tricks, and manipulations, that is the real kidnapper. And the real target is Mr. Grimwood himself. While the police are in hot pursuit of Bean and Rally, along with Chelsea in tow, Semmerling and her helper/lover Carrie plan to make a secret getaway with Mr. Grimwood as hostage. This is a tour-de-force involving a purposefully-blundered bank heist, voice alterations, disguises, and an unusual job offer to transport the kidnapped girl to her home, all orchestrated by the criminal mastermind Semmerling (her name comes from the gun she carries).

Semmerling seems to be the prototype of Rally's manga arch-nemesis, Goldie Musou, and shares many traits with the sociopathic Mafia queen: a high degree of combat ability, an aptitude for complex planning, a cavalier attitude towards her subordinates, and is a homosexual with a tendency toward sadistic pedophillia. Lacking her manga counterpart's resources, she only has one sex slave, Carrie, as opposed to the mobster's Kerasine harem.

Carrie is a prepubescent girl with fluorescent pink hair and a slavish devotion to her 'lover', although 'Semmer' mainly sees the child as an accomplice as best, and a pawn at worst.

The car chases in "Riding Bean" are closely based on "The Blues Brothers", which was also set in Chicago.

[edit] External links

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