Slightly Remarkable

Over this weekend, I managed to stay up until 5-6 a.m. each night watching all 26 episodes of Gun X Sword, an anime show centered around two characters — Van, a lowly traveler that wields great combative skills in addition to an “armor,” and Windy, a young orange-headed pigtailed girl on a quest to find her older brother, who disappeared when her hometown of Evergreen was attacked by bandits. These two characters face several trials to test their strength and eventual friendship before the plot thickens, and their chance meeting throws the story into a swirling frenzy of excitement and uncertainty.

Before I get ahead of myself, I don’t want to give any spoilers, but be advised that I may include a lot of hints in this entry, so continue reading at your own risk. Now where was I?

Oh yes, I mentioned an armor earlier. The Gun X Sword anime is centered around the most powerful people on the planet: those in possession of their own armor. In this show, an armor is essentially a very large mechanized assault vehicle that can take any shape or form — but most frequently, an armor looks like a very large person made of metal and, in the case of “the original seven,” blue goo (something akin to human blood, but for an armor).

The entire show is based on the planet Endless Illusion. It’s mostly a desert planet, filled with bandits, crime, and smaller towns. From what I gather, the planet is where criminals were sent to (something of a penal colony). Originally, seven executioners (the original seven, one for each day of the week) were placed in armors, located in satellite orbit of Endless Illusion. I don’t think I need to explain anything beyond the fact that these executioners were in place to maintain order with an iron fist. Of course, eventually corruption got to the original seven, and their purpose was forgotten. If you’re wondering, “mother earth” as it’s known, was destroyed, undoubtedly by humanity’s greed or some such nonsense.

The story starts with Van, our hardened, tuxedo-wearing protagonist, moping through the desert in search of food and water. He stumbles upon the town of Evergreen and, by chance, finds a girl (Windy) in a church whilst it’s being robbed. Having walked into the middle of it, his first course of action was to tell the bandits he didn’t want any trouble and exit promptly; of course, the bandits wouldn’t settle for that and told him to give them his weapons, money, etc. Naturally, Van has had enough and proceeds to save Windy by disposing of the bandits. This is their by-chance meeting, and although Van again denies to help the town by ridding them of the bandits, he is forced into a situation where he must deal with them — it gets personal. His opponent has an armor, but Van quickly puts an end to it by calling on his own armor — named Dann (of Thursday) — from orbit. From this fateful day forward, Windy follows (and eventually befriends) Van on his quest for the man with the claw — the opponent who killed Ellena, Van’s fiancé.

Along the way, many new friends (and enemies) are made, including a group of four drunken old men who ride armor together (in a very Power Ranger-esque fashion, which was not necessarily to my liking), a girl named Priscilla who takes an immediate liking to Van, a young boy named Joshua, younger brother to a gunslinger named Ray that Van battles several times and who ultimately works to the benefit of Van and his friends, and an information broker named Carule who prefers to be called Carmen 99. By the end of the story, all of these characters come together in order to take down the man with the claw and his evil purpose. To add to the flavor and dynamics of the characters, they each have their own purpose for working together or against each other, their own pasts which they must come to terms with, and many other facets that make the story continually interesting; for when there is no action going on, discovering more about the characters is a welcomed break from the heat of battle. Van, for example, requests the condiments — all of them — for each and every meal he eats (most likely because his bodily reconstruction has rendered his taste buds nigh useless, but that’s a guess), and he prefers milk and sobriety over alcohol.

Overall, the Gun X Sword was a fantastic anime, and although there were a few aspects that were less than interesting, all 26 episodes had something to offer and kept me acutely intrigued throughout the series. If you haven’t seen it, then I would highly recommend it; alternatively, if you are looking for something similar, my first recommendation goes to Trigun — my personal favorite anime — and my second recommendation goes to Cowboy Bebop. All of these anime are special in their own way, but Trigun is based on a desert planet full of bandits and lunatics because earth was destroyed many years ago, and Cowboy Bebop is about a group of bounty hunters that visit many different planets in space, seeking their own goals. I would highly recommend all three of these anime shows, so if you haven’t seen any of them yet, go check them out!