Gungrave

I never took this anime seriously, first time I heard name" Brandon Heat" I laughed for 30 min. 30 sec name pronounciation also didn t help , and in the end it was the first anime I dropped.... I know I m terrible
 
na not terrible ..i only watched it cause it was on tv and i could do other stuff....i felt it was just so much bs...
 
Gungrave: His name is Brandon Heat. But then he's dead and they name him Beyond the Grave because that sounds a little less ridiculous. And the mafia has vampire monster things fighting for it? And our edge-lord protag is yelling for Maria like Shadow the Hedgehog? What the hell even is this show? Will it even know what it is by the time I finish it?
 
RotisserieChicken said:
Gungrave: His name is Brandon Heat. But then he's dead and they name him Beyond the Grave because that sounds a little less ridiculous. And the mafia has vampire monster things fighting for it? And our edge-lord protag is yelling for Maria like Shadow the Hedgehog? What the hell even is this show? Will it even know what it is by the time I finish it?
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Just forget about the first episode for now. Starting with episode 2 it's like watching a completely different much better show. Then you'll have to remember the first episode after episode 18, which will suck, but there is a fat flying helicopter man in those last few episodes, so that's a thing.
 
RotisserieChicken said:
Gungrave: His name is Brandon Heat. But then he's dead and they name him Beyond the Grave because that sounds a little less ridiculous. And the mafia has vampire monster things fighting for it? And our edge-lord protag is yelling for Maria like Shadow the Hedgehog? What the hell even is this show? Will it even know what it is by the time I finish it?
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It's a great crime drama that had to be saddled with the fact that it loosely adapts an early PS2 era game no one cares about. The 1st episode is flash-forward to the least interesting part of the series with no context.

It still has a good emotional through-line between it's lead duo right up until the end so it was more than worth sticking it out through the boring, one-sided zombie genocide.
 
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Yeah, the first episode was pretty much what I'd expect from a mid-tier early 2000's MA-rated anime. It's well animated but aside from that I don't know what the show is getting at.

Episode two makes me even more confused though. How is this going to go from a rising-up-the-ranks mob anime into a guy in a cowboy hat fighting against albino Resident Evil bosses? I mean, at least episode two was pretty good. It reminded me a bit of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom.
 
Episodes 2-15 (give or take) were pretty much this show's golden age and most of the reason why I gave it a 4/5 in the end. The "present" stuff with the sci-fi elements and such honestly doesn't hold a candle to what came before. The finale was good, though, so it's not like I was left with a sour taste in my mouth or anything.
 
I watched it after playing the game, so I thought the first episodes were kind of weird xD I stuck around and never regretted it. If you can, play the PS2 game, not the best ever, but fun as hell, for me at least =P
 
So this show has hit the stupid point for me. I mean, the episodes 2-8 were very good character drama with a neat mafia plot. The names were terrible, but that aside I was enjoying it for what it was. But now at episode 9 we have a guy named Blood War and the zombie thing. And I was anticipating the zombie thing but...God this show is dumb. Why did Blood War kill all his subordinates to make them zombies instead of using them when they were alive first and then resurrecting them after they had been expended as humans? What the fuck is the point in any of this? If you can make zombies, why not just dig up a goddam graveyard, why kill your friends? WHY IS YOUR NAME BLOOD WAR?
 
I finished it and have to say: Meh. I mean, I know they had to tie this into a game so they needed the zombies but had they just decided to put Brandon in a coma then have him wake up fifteen years later to fight Harry and protect Mika it would have been a lot more emotional and probably a classic. The gangster stuff was great but that midpoint where they introduce the zombie stuff ruined it. It's such a terrible mash-up of two genres and tones that it's hard to understand what the writers were thinking. How can I be emotionally invested in the battle between two former friends when one friend sends out a fat dude who flies around on helicopter rotors? Like...this show is a mess and squanders so much potential. Also, the animation toward the end was falling apart. So many tiny heads on massive goddam bodies.
 
Man, if there's one thing this anime taught me, it's that there's no better romance than the one a man shares with his gun.

2SHPT.jpg


I'm tired, I want to sleep already, but I thought I should get this little thing out of the way first.

Things I liked:
- Kugashira Bunji. Fuck, man, this guy fucking rules. My brother heard I'd started watching this and the first thing he said to me was, "there's a guy there they call Mad Dog or something, I think you'll like him." Bunji's actually nicknamed Madness, but details shmetails. My bro was right. This man fucking rules.

- The OP is boring as balls (I really tried to like it, I promise, but I ended up skipping it every time), but that ED is just sublime. Makes me feel so tired and so worn out, and shit, have I ever told you how much I liked it when a certain thing makes me feel that specific type of way?

- The Godfather-type flashbacks were some top-tier shit. The show kinda lost its way with the weird sci-fi stuff - I almost knocked this down to a 3.5 because of that - but that last episode knocked it all out of the park. I especially loved the constant call-backs to the past, because shit, I am such a sucker for old men looking back on their lives and regretting-not-regretting everything. Even better if there's some drinking, cigar smoking, and dramatic back-to-back shootouts involved.

- Balladbird Lee's a campy-ass mofo, but I like him. I appreciate him, even if he likes to scream a lot when pressed.

- Really loved how perversely twisted the whole concept of loyalty was here: while it starts out as a good thing, it becomes so horribly disfigured at the hands of Bloody Harry, that the Code of Iron, meant to protect all Family members, becomes something suffocating and begins to resemble a prison more than a safehouse.

- Kugashira fucking Bunji. This man's a man's man, and I absolutely love him for it.



Things I disliked:
- They really could have written their female characters better - Maria was okay, but her daughter, I could not fucking stand. I found myself hoping she'd actually do me a favor and die already, but I realized that would have complicated the plot further, so I decided to drop that thought and repent.

- The sci-fi shit is just so wack. You gotta respect how they were able to make such a kickass story for that stupid-as-shit premise, but that's nearly not enough to make me forget all about those stupid Orgmen.

- The slow burn to end all slow burns. There's slow-moving with a purpose, and then there's this. It's not that nothing of real value happened here, I think it's just that the lack of background music in key scenes hurt the show more than it helped. Most of this show's just men standing around to stare at each other before popping some caps, and even if that can pass for poignancy, it sometimes crept over to dull territory here.

Not a bad watch overall. I'm glad I finally got around to watching this, given I'm such a huge fan of this mafia gang shit. May the Bloody Harry/Brandon Heat bromance never die and all that, but if you're anything like me and have even a lick of good taste, then you'll know Madness Bunji's the only Absolute Fucking Man worthy of respect up in this joint.

4/5
 
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Episode 26 and final thoughts:
I feel like this anime has given me more thoughts on what expectations mean when anyone gets into anime. Am I going to like the story, the characters, the ideas being present in the anime. And I think that's the problem, I was expecting to like Gungrave based on what everyone was saying about it. But the thing is that I found myself comparing Gungrave to Berserk with the similarities they do have, minus the sci-fi and the modern setting. And seeing how much I love Berserk I was hoping to find the same love with Gungrave.

But that never happened sadly, cause I just couldn't get attached to the characters. I don't know if it had to do with the adaption from the videogame material, or the amount of screen-time the characters were given. I can definitely say that the sci-fi elements could have been executed better. Hard to take an anime seriously when you're seeing the undead come into a mafia anime like its Resident Evil. Plus I really wish the female characters could have been handled better, just that was enough to annoy me a lot.

And the more I think about it, the more I think that Brandon and Harry's relationship wasn't quite at the level of Guts and Griffith's relationship. I guess I can use the excuse that I had seen other series that I like more overall. Honestly, I did pick this for my game anime genre for anime bingo, if it weren't for that I may never have gotten to seen it. Can't really say I love the anime even if I wanted to, and its sad cause I usually like Madhouse anime, well the older ones anyway, plus a few of the newer ones.

So if anybody asked, I did not like the genre shift. 2/5.
 
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there's something about watching these characters grow up from basically teenagers and become more twisted and fucked up as time goes on until they become unhinged resident evil horror creatures, that really messes with my head.

it's a great way to incorperate what everyone loved about the games into the plot, but really disturbing.
 
Thanks for tagging me, Okami!

Episode 1
Interesting way to start the episode. Im guessung the MC was part of some sort of science experiment

Those are some weird creepy crawlers with high-pitched screams

The MC's name is ...Brandon. The name feels like a letdown to me

Love the look of the OP


What's even surrounding him? That machine looks a little weird.

Grave has like a six or seven pack.



For some reason, my mind thought 'Brandon Heat like Miami Heat.'

Anyways, those white creepy crawlers look a mix of the Evangelion while things and spiders. Basically something spawned from Hell.

Off to a good start. Really digging the vibes of the anime.
OkamiHime95 said:
Confusing for me so far, but interesting nonetheless. I like the Hellsing similarities, and the music is a total bop.
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Definitely has Hellsing vibes. Saying that makes me wanna watch it lol
 
howtoprocrastinate said:
Thanks for tagging me, Okami!
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You're welcome. :3 Was a little hard finding the thread at first, but I managed. xD

howtoprocrastinate said:
Episode 1
Grave has like a six or seven pack.

For some reason, my mind thought 'Brandon Heat like Miami Heat.'
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Ngl, I thought of 'Miami Heat' too. xD

I'm definitely digging Grave's abs lol. :lenny: :love::frustrat:

On another note, for some reason the Creepy Crawlers remind me of Incognito from the original Hellsing.
 
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