Gungrave 7/10

No spoilers here. These 26 episodes aired in 2003.

Having just watched the last 3 episodes I can pretty much pass judgement here. I really liked this show overall. Over 7 discs I don't feel too ripped off, the show looks great throughout, the animation quality doesn't dip much, and the soundtrack is great. I liked most of the voice acting except for old Harry. What the hell? Smoking sure took a toll in the years between the first and second halves of the series. Two crappy things.

1. The spines on the DVDs are this retarded beige colour, WTF. Grave's colours are red, black, and white. Where did beige come from?
2. The extras. No interviews with the creators which I always like.

Time to pile on the story a little.

The first episode is one of those classic big bang types, then the second episode takes us God knows how far into the past. This is almost always a good sign as the creators are giving us a taste of the good stuff later in the series BUT we can also expect a few boring establishment episodes. Of course the good stuff preview has to be GOOD. Which this is. Lucky me. Berserk was like this in this aspect BUT in Gungrave the first episode is actually, time-wise, in the middle of the series. It wasn't perfect though. I felt this preview episode introduced too many characters. I forgot them by the time I got to them in the rest of the episodes. Berserk did this better as it only introduced 2 characters. One of whom had an exposed enlarged brain which made him someone easy to spot later on.

We then spend a little over half the series watching, basically, a mobster anime. A very good mobster anime. Being a huge fan of the Sopranos, Goodfellas, Casino, etc... I really really liked this first half. Not too many characters to confuse me (unlike the Sopranos). I was concerned though because I had just watched Texhnolyze and Heat Guy J. I wasn't keen to watch the same show again. No fears dear readers, Gungrave's first half is different and better. Whew. The story is basically about two friends as they take different paths through the ranks of a criminal organization. The power-hungry violent guy and the quiet, submissive violent guy. These episodes span several years and are terrific viewing.

The second half of the series happens 15(?) years after Brandon Heat is turned into Beyond the Grave whom we saw in the first episode. Now the series takes a bit of a dive plot-wise. It's like Sailor Moon but replace the Sailor Senshi with Grave and the female monster-of-the-week with a male monster-of the-week. The fights are cool but these episodes are a letdown after the really great first half. The ending? Not bad but not great. A bit of a twist but a let-down.

Nothing really bad overall but the first half really sold me on this show and I can recommend it solely on that.