, is a Japanese

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

television series animated by AIC A.S.T.A, written by

Hideyuki Kurata is a Japanese anime screenwriter, light novelist, and manga artist, noted for authoring the series composition of such works as '' Read or Die'', '' Now and Then, Here and There'', '' Kamichu!'', and '' Gun Sword''. He has been a member of Yōsuke ...

, and directed by

Gorō Taniguchi is a Japanese anime director, writer, producer and storyboard artist, who is among Sunrise (company), Sunrise's noted directors. He was born in Nisshin, Aichi, Japan. Works Anime television series *''Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh'' (storyboards, epi ...

Plot

The story is set on the "Planet of Endless Illusion", a place where rogues of all sorts gather. The protagonist, Van, travels the world searching for a man with a clawed right hand who killed his bride. He is joined by several other travelers along the way, each linked to the clawed man by a personal loss.

Production

''Gun X Sword'' was first announced by JVC in May 2005 through the reveal of its official website. Despite its aesthetics in the anime's premiere, director Goro Taniguchi claimed ''Gun Sword'' is not a Western series. He wanted to convey the series is not simple, that is why he decided to bring the mecha area already in the first episode. Kurata wanted to play homage to the mecha genre which had been highly popular during the making of the anime. Van was often compared with

Vash the Stampede is the protagonist of ''Trigun'', a manga series created by Yasuhiro Nightow in 1995. Set on the planet No Man's Land, Vash is the most feared outlaw who has earned a bounty of Fictional currency, $$60 billion ("double dollar") on his head and ...

from ''

Trigun is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yasuhiro Nightow. It was first serialized in Tokuma Shoten's manga magazine ''Monthly Shōnen Captain'' from March 1995 to December 1996, until the magazine ceased its publication; ...

'' due to how they avoid fights but Van was more written as a lazy character rather than the pacifist fighter from the other series. Still, the series is not only inspired by mecha such as ''

Voltron ''Voltron'' is an American animated television series franchise that features a team of space explorers who pilot a giant super robot known as "Voltron". Produced by Peter Keefe (executive producer) and Ted Koplar through his production comp ...

'', but also as Hollywood movies such as ''

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...

''. Taniguchi expressed difficulties on the team working together to produce their own title after several discussion about the trajectory of the narrative. Takahiro Kimura made the character designs with Van's design having several primilar looks in the making of the series which took about six months to finish. Wendy and Carmen instead led to faster results. Meanwhile, Kurata wanted the villains to look menacing as a result of the episodic style using ideas from ''

Read or Die is a Japanese light novel series written by Hideyuki Kurata, published under Shueisha's '' Super Dash Bunko'' imprint. ''Read or Die'' follows Yomiko Readman, codename "The Paper", an agent for the (fictional) Special Operations Division ...

''. His favorite villain was Lucky Roulette as he considers him an "epitome" of villains that commonly seen in B movies. As the first episode had a violent style, the next ones were instead given a more calm story, resulting in a change of villains into Baron Mayor. Kimura kept designing characters after reading the scripts. The thirteenth episode was specifically written as the midpoint of the story as the style would change and become more serious until the climax. Across the first half, the villains were written as hilarious until the introduction of the main antagonist, Claw. In order to make Claw stand out as a villain, he was given both a polite personality that contrasts his murderous intent. In the end, the staff believed Van's and Wendy's story were fully completed, making no need for a sequel. Several studios collaborated with Tangichu in the making of the anime, making it important for anime fans.

Release

The series aired on

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as is a Japanese television station that serves as the flagship of the TX Network.Kōtarō Nakagawa is a Japanese composer and arranger. He is noted for composing the soundtracks for several anime series, including the Gorō Taniguchi-directed productions '' s-CRY-ed'', '' Planetes'', '' Gun Sword'', and ''Code Geass''. He provided the music f ...

while the ending themes are "A Rising Tide" by Shuntarō Okino (episodes 1 to 8, 10, 12 to 16, 18 to 21, 23, 25), "Paradiso" by Hitomi (episodes 9 and 11), " S.O.S" by

Kikuko Inoue is a Japanese voice actress, singer and narrator. She has been part of the singing groups DoCo and Goddess Family Club. She is the founder and manager of her voice-acting company, Office Anemone. Inoue tends to play the " perfect girlfriend" ...

Houko Kuwashima is a Japanese voice actress and singer. She is capable of playing a variety of roles, ranging from young boys to feminine women. She is affiliated with Aoni Production. Her first major role was as Yurika Misumaru in '' Martian Successor Nadesi ...

Satsuki Yukino , better known by her stage name (previously , ), is a Japanese Voice acting in Japan, voice actress. She was a member of Ken Production until 2016. Filmography Anime series Movies and films OVA * ''Virgin Fleet'' (1998), Satsuki Yukimizawa ...

Saeko Chiba is a Japanese voice actress and singer. She grew up in Tokyo and married in 2007. She is contracted to the Space Craft Produce. Biography Chiba took up ballet at a young age with ambitions of becoming part of Takarazuka Revue. However, havi ...

(episode 17), "A Rising Tide" (acoustic version) by Shuntaro Okino (episode 22), "Calling You" by Shuntaro Okino (episode 24), and "GUNXSWORD" (starting again) by

Kotaro Nakagawa Kotaro, Kōtarō or Koutarou (written: , , , , , , , , , , or in katakana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese baseball player *, Japanese scientist and inventor *, Japanese photography critic an ...

and

Ondekoza ("demon drum group"), sometimes referred to as "''Za Ondekoza''", is a Japanese troupe specializing in ''taiko'' drumming. Founded in 1969 by Den Tagayasu, in Sado Island, Japan. Ondekoza was influential in the rise of the ''kumi-daiko'' (gr ...

(episode 26). The insert songs are "Niji no Kanata" by

(episode 3) and "La Speranza" by Hitomi (episodes 16, 25). Two official CD soundstracks were also released in Japan on September 22, 2005 and December 7, 2005. The series was licensed in June 2005 for North America by

Geneon Entertainment (abbreviated as NBCUEJ) is a Japanese music, anime, and home entertainment production and distribution enterprise that is a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, owned by American telecommunications/media company Comcast headquartered in Akasaka, Min ...

, who produced an English dub overseen by

New Generation Pictures New Generation Pictures, Inc. is a production company specializing in voice recording for anime and video games. Production list Anime ADR Production * '' 3×3 Eyes'' (Geneon) * '' Amazing Nurse Nanako'' (Geneon) * '' Angel Tales'' (Bandai Ent ...

. The dub is also available in Australia from

Madman Entertainment Madman Entertainment Pty. Ltd., also known as Madman Films, stylized as MADMAN, is an Australian film and television production, distribution, entertainment, and rights management company headquartered in East Melbourne, Victoria, specialising ...

and in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

MVM Films MVM Entertainment, also known as MVM and MVM Films, is a British licensor and distributor of Japanese animation. The company also sub-licenses anime titles from US anime companies such as Media Blasters, Geneon, Nozomi Entertainment, Urban V ...

. At

Anime Central Anime Central (ACen) is an annual three-day anime convention held during May at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare & Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. The convention is organized by the Midwest Animation Promotion Society (MAPS) ...

2010, North American anime distributor

Funimation Funimation was an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming service. Launched in 2016, the service was one of the leading distributors of anime ...

announced that they have rescued ''Gun X Sword'' and re-released the series in late 2010. In 2022,

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming service owned by Sony, Sony Group Corporation. The service primarily distributes fi ...

got access to the series and started streaming it both in Japanese and English. These are a series of 13

omake ''Omake'' (, usually written ) means ''extra'' in Japanese. Its primary meaning is general and widespread. It is used as an anime and manga term to mean "extra or bonus". In the United States and United Kingdom, anime fans generally use the ...

episodes of ''Gun Sword'' tied in very loosely to the plot with the characters as chibi puppets. The main characters are Wendy and her turtle, Kameo, the size of a human in this series and able to talk. Michael, Van and Carmen also appear voiced by their voice actors in the mainstream episodes. All the episodes seem to center around analyzing various events in ''Gun X Sword'' and mocking the themes displayed.

Other

A novelization of the anime by Hideyuki Kurata, was published by

Kadokawa Shoten , formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing based in Tokyo, Japan. It became an internal division of Kadokawa Corporation on October 1, 2013. Kadokawa publishes manga, light novels, manga anthology magazines ...

on January 1, 2006. The series is included in the 2009 ''

Super Robot Wars ''Super Robot Wars'', known in Japan as is a series of Japanese tactical role-playing video games produced by Bandai Namco Entertainment, formerly Banpresto. Starting out as a spinoff of the '' Compati Hero'' series, the main feature of the fr ...

'' game, ''Super Robot Wars K'', for the

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

, the 2019 game ''

Super Robot Wars T is a tactical role-playing game developed by B.B. Studio and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is the eleventh standalone entry to the ''Super Robot Wars'' series and the third installment of the "International Era" series, with the gam ...

'' for

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

and

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

and the 2021 game '' Super Robot Wars 30'' for

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Reception

The official Blu-ray of ''Gun Sword'' sold 4,818 units in Japan.

Notes

References

External links

TV Tokyo's ''Gun x Sword'' website

Gun X Sword - The Official Anime Website
from

FUNimation Funimation was an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming service. Launched in 2016, the service was one of the leading distributors of anime ...

* * {{AIC TV series Animax original programming Anime International Company Anime with original screenplays Crunchyroll anime Funimation Geneon USA Hideyuki Kurata Anime and manga about revenge TV Tokyo original programming Mecha anime and manga