Writers have a lot in common with parents. Even something simple like this review is a creation, a labor of love. When children, say, do something so dumb it could win awards, their parents look at them with a sad, yet caring expression as the agony of their own embarrassment reaches critical levels. The only possible way to save face is an utter denial of your place in the child's lineage. But at least a parent can pinpoint the other parent's genetics as the source of the problem. A writer has no such luxury. Sure, we could blame our own creation, but how pathetic would that sound?

I'm coming to a point. Honest.

When it's somebody else's creation that does the Nestea Plunge (TM, not mine) off the high dive, we retain that same sad expression out of sympathy, but the pain turns into a sort of sick amusement. This amusement is felt acutely when watching the early parts of Gungrave, the "Fried Green Tomatoes" of mobster TV series. The beginning of the series turned out to be a punch line, and after that, well, a joke.

Brandon doesn't want mayonaise on his sandwich. He told them.	It's important to look nice when threatening people with bodily harm.

The second volume of the series takes us fishing and to the "family" picnic, in a vain attempt to make us forget that we already know what's going on. The first episode of the show already told us about a betrayal, a romantic union that produces a child, at least two deaths, a resurrection, and revenge. And the family picnic is supposed to interest us?

This might come as a shocker, but sometimes, it really doesn't matter how the characters got to where they are. It's a given that anime writers are fond of the flashback, but gosh darnit, make it mean something! As it is, the series hasn't yet shown us anything about the main characters that we can't gather from the first episode.

Instead, it has to rely on relationships that aren't revealed in the first episode - i.e., the ones that aren't important to the plot - to hold our interest. This effort succeeds in part, even though it's an obvious red herring. The relationships of various characters with Brandon and Harry only serve to point out who the good guys and bad guys are, but the relationships of the support characters with each other are more interesting, thanks to the fact that we don't already know how they're going to pan out in the scheme of things.

I have to give props to Madhouse for the action in this series. The studio has proven time and again that they're very good at action scenes, and Gungrave does not disappoint in that area. In fact, these scenes seem to give viewers a break from the plot at appropriate times, and the show is almost entertaining as a result. I can't recommend the series for its plot, but if the action continues to be fun, my future reviews of the series will likely be less scathing.

Distributor: Geneon
Creator: Red Entertainment / Studio MADHOUSE
Released: 2004

Video Quality: A+
Audio Quality: A+
Presentation: A-
Content: C+
Overall: B