Gun Sword

Gun X Sword (ガン × ソード), is a Japanese anime television series animated by AIC A.S.T.A, written by Hideyuki Kurata, and directed by Gorō Taniguchi.

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.[1] 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 from Trigun 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

Release

The series aired on TV Tokyo from July 4 to December 26, 2005, totaling 26 episodes. It was collected in a total of thirteen DVD volumes by Victor between October 21, 2005 and October 25, 2023.[3][4] A Blu-ray box was released on April 26, 2017.[5] In the DVD volumes of Gun X Sword, there are 2 episodes tied into each volume in the extras with episode 13 on its own in the final one. The opening theme is "GUNXSWORD" by Kōtarō Nakagawa 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, Houko Kuwashima, Satsuki Yukino & Saeko Chiba (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 and Ondekoza (episode 26). The insert songs are "Niji no Kanata" by Satsuki Yukino (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.[6][7]

The series was licensed in June 2005 for North America by Geneon Entertainment, who produced an English dub overseen by New Generation Pictures.[8] The dub is also available in Australia from Madman Entertainment[9] and in the United Kingdom by MVM Films. At Anime Central 2010, North American anime distributor Funimation announced that they have rescued Gun X Sword and re-released the series in late 2010.[10] In 2022, Crunchyroll got access to the series and started streaming it both in Japanese and English.[11]

These are a series of 13 omake 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.

type	tv series
director	Gorō Taniguchi
producer	Hiroyuki Birukawa Hiroyuki Saeki
writer	Hideyuki Kurata
music	Kōtarō Nakagawa
studio	AIC ASTA
licensee	Crunchyroll
network	TV Tokyo
first	July 4, 2005
last	December 26, 2005
episodes	26
episode list	List of Gun Sword episodes

Plot

Production

Release

Other

Reception

External links

References