2007.04.16
What Makes Gungrave Awesome
(The following was originally a journal entry)
There's so much more I noticed by watching this whole series over again. And another thing, its sad how much of the shit that goes on passes over people's heads just because its not what they expect it to be. Whether it being how the series actually is or the actions that the people in the show do. Random bullet format time.
Beginning/Ending: I just noticed that the series ends where the original gang started out, their shitty hangout where Jolice got killed. Its the equivalent and equally as fucking awesome as the ending in Suikoden 2 where Jowy and Riou meet up again where everything started. But I'd say its much more dramatic in GG because Brandon and Harry come back there in their 40's (they were 17-18 in the beginning of the story.) Damn. I love the attention to detail. Another thing I noticed, Brandon's childhood memory:
I remember...the blue sky
I remember...glowing clouds
I remember...my friend shouting
Brandon and Harry as Children: He and Harry get the shit beat out of them by the man that ran the orphanage. Harry yells about how he wants to be free someday.
Brandon and Harry as Adults: Harry eavesdrops on a conversation between Brandon and Big Daddy (stop laughing at that name.) Harry feels betrayed and believes that Brandon is more loyal to Big Daddy so he kills Brandon while shouting his name.
Grave and Harry: Grave/Brandon tells Harry that he could never kill his best friend (Harry) and Harry has since then regretted everything he's done. The two decided to shoot each other (if they didn't shoot each other they'd both eventually die anyway.) Once again Brandon is lying down and looking at the OMFG glowing clouds and blue sky.
Video game references: In episode 24 Grave is heading up to the top of Milleneon only to find Harry's office empty. Must be another reference to the game because you find and kill Harry at the top of his office. There's another reference in episode 25 where there's somewhat of a long pause before Brandon pulls the trigger on Harry only to find out his gun was out of ammo, but I always got that one.
Brandon rejects Maria: Now I'm sure this part flies over a lot of people's heads. It even flew over mine the first time I watched it. The part where Brandon rejects the love of his life Maria. I was like all the other people who thought "WTF IS WRONG WITH BRANDON!?" But realistically speaking, how the hell could a girl expect to be in a loving relationship with a hitman? You see that commonly in fanfiction and its all poorly written. The only way Brandon could continue on with the way he was, was to reject Maria.
Brandon and Mika: Its blatantly obvious that their relationship is father/daughter-like. Despite me not getting the above I knew right off the bat that Mika's "I love you" to Brandon weren't from a romantic sense, but just because she cared about him. Not to mention she's never had a dad before and everyone else she knew was dying left and right so know shit she didn't want him to leave. But big thanks to Brandon for punching her in the gut so the last three episodes could be as awesome as episodes 2-16 were.
Family Another theme that's repeated throughout the series. Sadly, even the goddamn theme passes over people's heads despite them repeating it who knows how many times over in the series. A lot of people expect GG to be the average series where the good guy beats the bad guy and gets the girl. None of that happens. Because first of all, there aren't any bad guys. (One of the main reasons why I love GG and RoV so much)
Another thing people miss out on is repeatedly comparing it to Berserk (well I elaborated more on that in a Berserk/GG comparison rant) In that link I ranted about the thing most people seem to not understand, why Brandon couldn't bring himself to kill Harry. I really can't believe the shit that comes out of people's mouths - "BRANDON IS A PANSY! HE DIDN'T KILL HIS BEST FRIEND HARRY! GUTS WAS READY TO EAT GRIFFITH ALIVE WHEN HE BETRAYED HIM!" The main point they're missing, Guts and Griffith were never best friends. But yeah, I won't get into that again.
Anyway the same point is brought up several times in the series, how the Milleneon members chose their own family members over Milleneon.
- Sid's son killed men that worked for Bear (unknowingly.) Sid then had to kill his son but he decided not to and forced him to run away and never come back. Then Bear was forced to kill his best friend Sid but couldn't bring himself to do it. So Brandon killed Sid for him.
- Bear knew that Harry was pulling strings behind the scenes when Randy was killed for being a traitor. Even though he knew that he chose to do nothing about it because his daughter Sherry was in love with Harry. He continued to betray Big Daddy's Milleneon by choosing not to do anything because of his daughter.
Brotherhood: As for Brotherhood, this theme is even more enforced than family. There's plenty of examples of brotherhood (though most of them aren't related, but y'know - best friends that are like brothers): Brandon/Harry, Big Daddy/Jester, Bear/Sid, Balladird Lee/Bob Poundmax, Blood War/Cannon Vulcan, Gary/Wedge, and then there's relationships like Brandon and Bunji where Brandon mostly serves as an older brother figure to Bunji.
Not too big on romance
Another thing that people seem to miss, romance is not a big issue in GG. Bear for one thing only thinks about his daughter and rarely talks of his dead wife. You only see her briefly in flashbacks although the main focus of his flashbacks before he dies is his daughter Sherry.
Often times I hear people criticize Brandon for rejecting Maria and how he died a virgin. Protecting the family was much more important to him than being in a romantic relationship with Maria. Not everyone is about butt-seXXorz, its pretty damn clear Brandon Heat was one of those kinds of people. Especially in comparison to his womanizing best friend Harry. Not only that, a lot of the characters in the show ended up being bachelors for the rest of their lives, mainly because romance wasn't important to them. (or in Gary's case he obviously couldn't get a woman =p)
No gimmicks/lack of female leads:
Another reason why I put this up to par with RoV, no gimmick characters. Sure the whole "girl dressing as boy" thing is an overdone gimmick, but Oscar actually played her part damn well. And for the most part, at least they didn't give her a huge ass and tits like all the other gimmicky "woman that can kick your ass" types. With Gungrave, there are pretty much no female leads. Mika is somewhat of a lead during the episodes that take after the game (1, 17-23) but after that she becomes minor again. (THANK GOD.) Well the lack of female leads is worth mentioning because normally when you add in a female shit becomes more overdramatic. Like look at Berserk where they spent an episode focusing on Casca's period. XDXDXD
Yes it's always amazing how they managed to make a good anime out of a shoot em' up game. Just as fucked up as how Jem and the Holograms managed to be a good cartoon despite it's only purpose to sell dolls.