Gundress

Original Title: ガンドレス
Romanized: Gundress
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

The time: 2100 AD. The place: Bayside City, a bustling metropolis that has recently become the scene of a great deal of terrorist activity and arms smuggling. The players: 6 women with a variety of pasts who now work as the team Angel Arms--a freelance anti-terrorist team for hire, formed to take care of the jobs too dirty for the police to handle. But when a ghost from one woman's past appears in town with some friends and some powerful military hardware, and the Angel Arms are hired by the cops to stop him from killing a captured arms dealer with extremely important information, it's not going to be just another mission.

Quick Review

Rating: 2 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2002-10-01

First of all, "Masamune Shirow's Gundress", as AnimeWorks is plugging it, is not--do not buy it because it has his name on it. Although he did have some input on the look and feel of the characters and mecha, the production crew did almost nothing to capitalize on the potential of the characters and concepts.

What this adds up to is the characters from Bubblegum Crisis in Appleseed Landmates, stuck in a cheesy action movie. The result is severely derivative, uncreative, thoroughly unintelligent, and uniformly mediocre. Although it's not bad by action movie standards, and it at least managed to keep me paying attention, it certainly never does anything to distinguish itself as good, either. Even the visuals, which could have been the movie's saving grace, are remarkably poor--it looks like a mid-budget OAV from the '80s despite being made at the end of the '90s.

Gundress isn't bad enough to be a particularly good target for heckling, and if you're a big fan of old-fashioned action movies, you might well enjoy it--there are certainly plenty of attractive girls in big mechs. Most people, though, will be better off spending their time or money elsewhere.

US DVD Review

The DVD is simple and solid. The video is letterboxed rather than anamorphic (if you don't know what that means, it won't affect you), though it's a clean enough transfer. The audio isn't bad either, though it didn't seem to make good use of strong bass sounds (that might not be the DVD's fault). There is a chapter index, and full credits are included in both languages (the originals intact), with full bilingual voice credits as well. The only extra feature is the long "making of" video mentioned in the notes, which was originally a promotion for the movie.

Content Guide

Rated 16-up by AnimeWorks on account of some not-so-graphic violence and a fair amount of nudity.

Violence: 2 - Quite a few people die, but it's surprisingly bloodless.

Nudity: 3 - One character spends quite a while naked, but it's mostly undetailed and not particularly erotic.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - Very little.

Language: 2 - Some profanity, particularly in the dub.

Notes and Trivia

This movie was apparently preceded by a comic series (not by Shirow) and some radio dramas (radio drama of a mecha-action story... interesting). There are some implications that this takes place at an earlier time in the world of Appleseed, though there are no tie-ins other than the similar mecha. The DVD includes a making-of video, in which you get to see the creative staff talk about a mediocre action movie as if it was actually going to be anything other than cheesy. It's very worth watching, though, just because you get to see some of Shirow's original versions of the characters, which are much nicer than those in the finished product. On second thought, the disappointment of finding out that his ideas didn't amount to anything might make it too depressing.

Random reference note: The comment about a "Roller" operation in "Bayside City" is no doubt a nod to the '70s pop band The Bay City Rollers; they were quite popular in Japan in their heyday.

Availability

Available in the US from AnimeWorks on bilingual DVD (buy from RightStuf or AnimeNation). Was previously also available on dubbed VHS.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store