n almost every one of the first seven episodes of Samurai Gun, white-haired, one-eyed, half-breed-Japanese protagonist Ichimatsu proclaims that he doesn't want his shadowy rebel organization to send him on any more missions that involve killing. Like the Council that gives him his orders, he's dedicated to justice, not necessarily to bringing down the Shogunate. But whether his latest mission involves assassinating three crazed, murderous brothers or something theoretically more benign, like rescuing a fellow rebel or investigating dangerous new steam-locomotive technology, he always seems to end up using his rare imported Western guns to mow down faceless enemies right and left. He's just worried that he kills too readily, and possibly even enjoys it too much.
As a "Samurai Gun," a sort of combination political insurgent and proto-superhero, complete with costume, mask and catchphrase ("Samurai Gun is here!"), Ichimatsu has plenty of company. Virtually everyone involved in running the tavern where he works seems to be a Samurai Gun operative. So is the mild-seeming local schoolteacher. It's an expansive organization, and a very successful one, thanks to its members' profound skills at everything from shooting enemies to catching arrows in midflight. Of course, the Shogunate has some high-powered operators of its own.
The Samurai Guns claim they aren't an entirely political organization. Nonetheless, they do seem to spend a lot of time fighting the Shogunate, possibly because it's preposterously prone to atrocities. For instance, murdering large-breasted young girls. Or torturing large-breasted young girls. Or testing new guns by using large-breasted young girls for target practice while one of their warriors belts out German opera. Weirdly enough, though, it seems when the Shogunate gets up to really objectionable hijinks, it's mostly just to draw out the Samurai Guns, who can't let such nonsense pass. One way or another, there's always a lot of shooting and a lot of grotesque bloody death.
A plot buried under prurience
In some ways, Samurai Gun is a solid alternate-history drama, with the twist that its starring "samurai" wear skin-tight bodysuits and use guns rather than swords. But its deep-seated prurience is a thorough distraction. Scarcely an episode passes without some wide-eyed, buxom, scantily clad and usually gagged girl getting tormented or slaughtered. And the guns are just as fetishized, with each new weapon getting special close-up attention, and each new enemy going down in a stylized fountain of blood. ADV further goes for raw juvenile appeal with an overwhelmingly obscene dub track; profanity for emphasis is understandable, but characters who sound like they're cussing their way through a checklist are just laughable.
Samurai Gun's visual design also seems distracted at times, with some characters looking like exaggerated Go Nagai designs, others like elegantly cartoony Monkey Punch characters and still others a bit like CLAMP girls. It's weird to see them all jostling for space, but it keeps the otherwise prosaic animation interesting. Gun battles often just aren't as visually invested as swordfights, sad to say, though Samurai Gun does throw in some kinetic weirdness as Ichimatsu faces his opposite number from the anti-Samurai Gun task force.
The series' most interesting facet is its music, which provides some entertaining side notes in the early episodes (particularly when tavern singer/Samurai Gun operative Kurenai is singing her bloody, depressing gunfight songs) but takes over in episode 6—as a Samurai Gun battles enemies in a dark field, and the action repeatedly cuts to a one-eyed pianist providing background music—and episode 7, when German opera comes into play. Neither episode ultimately takes its musical concept anywhere, but they're both elegant in a way that stands out from the series' overall mishmash of disparate elements. Samurai Gun has definite strengths, particularly in the complexity it tries to lay on Ichimatsu's motives and his feelings for his lost family and his good-hearted prostitute friend, but its overreliance on boobs and blood make it hard to take too seriously.
Speaking of music, the opening-credits theme song cracked me up with its lyrics about Japan: "Unique culture, the pride of an island nation / Mt. Fuji, samurai, etc., they were all a part of a considerable number of things which disappeared / And now those things make us nostalgic / Oh yeah!" The singer goes on to claim he "can't easily say 'I love you,'" which is the sign of "a passive nationality." Poor guy.
— Tasha
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