Gun Frontier
Captain Harlock in an alternative timeline. Harlock is seeking revenge for the destruction of his sailing ship. The trail has led him to the Wild West.
Notes
Genre: Western
Reviews - First episode Subtitled
crazyleo
"It's Captain Harlock in the wild west."
Pat
"Harlock in the old west? Doo Vay?!"
Kenneth
"A hilarious example of a 'Sushi Western' with transplanted Captain Harlock characters."
Barb
"Without having seen any Harlock series before I can't really compare this series with the previous concepts. Although I found the style of animation quite strange for an anime. I liked the development of dialogue between Harlock and Tochiro and the bizarre parody of Vash's 'love and peace'motto among the villagers, though I'm not sure if it was deliberate ... So despite the deformed character design, I think I liked this opening overall."
MsJadey
"Though the presentation was very Japanese, the art was very American. The cartoonish charicatures, thick, uneven outline, excessive details -- it was disturbing, though. I won't say I really hated it. I didn't feel any connection with the story however. It was sterile watching TV."
humanbean
"poorly written: contrived and incoherant. the use of characters from Captain Harlock is questionable choice."
Minako
"It's Harlock the cowboy! Whoo! the animation's weird, but it always is in these series. The plot is cute and the subs are amusing. I rather like it."
Nekoko
"Heehee! Slashy slashy! But why are the characters from Esmeraldas in a Western?"
Michael Eh?
"The style and charactization of this reincarnation of Harlock trio is totally different. Harlock is clueless gunslinger with Tochiro as his sidekick with slightly better IQ. Martel character instead of being the heroine as lackey for some yet to be disclosed villian.
The old Western film cliches run DEEP, very deep making Gun Frontier a great parody of the Spaghetti Westerns of the 50s. However it still doesn't feel right with Japanese dialogue and subtitles. A western needs to be in english for my tastes so for ONE anime, I asy this one is better dubbed."
Reviews - Second episode dubbed
Nekoko "And then they killed the main character -- thus ending the series ... or not. No such luck, it seems. Painful dub, but at least it's still slashy. PAIN! Icky 'art' too."
crazyleo
"It's very hilarious how the Japanese think how Westerns should be."
MsJadey
"They killed the pretty chick with the annoying voice. That's a new one for anime though I do not consider this anime. I wish the voice actor for the tall guy hadn't had the same voice as Spike, though I understand why he was. I was offended use of 'fag' and 'queer' as insults and disturbed by the number of callous, bloodless, meaningless deaths disturbed me."
Kenneth
"Anothe hilarious Sushi Western with an intriguing sexy female character and rip roaring action."
Pat
"That was scarey!"
barb
"Right away, I'm having a big problem with the Indians... I think the key to this anime is to remember not to take anything seriously. As far as the dubbing goes, I keep having delusions that Spike Spigel is trapped in this anime -- who was that voice actor -- not Chris Sabat? Actually the dub's not that bad. Take this one with a big grain of salt. It its not a parody, this is the saddest example of crosscultural communication I have ever seen."
pulcherius
"Gun Frontier, flashing blades, thundering guns. Oh it's got everything plus really aweful dialogue. Just pile on the salt and choke it down."
humanbean
"I'm astonished that this is not a parody. Badly written dialogue. A story that is both preditable and aimless and blantant ignorance of Western culture. It's so bad it's funny... almost."
Michael Eh?
"A western should be in English ... so I thought. The voice parts were good to fair. The dialogue? Well, you have to keep in mind that 50s western weren't the most 'politially correct' filmography. Even in Hollywood's standards. Clearly, Leiji Matsumoto watched these films which most of the crowd reviewing may have only seen films like 'Dancing with Wolves'. Other anime's like Trigun which loosely based on Western TV shows which were more sanitized for general populace of the 50s and 60s. The character reincarnations aren't perfect like previous Harlock incarnations of Space Pirate to WWII german pilot. One thing stood out that Indians and Tachiro, who they allude to being Japanese, was kind touch that both respected each other for being outsiders in white man's world."
Club Notes
Year Reviewed: 2003
We were given this DVD at convention to review by a person. Since the mood after the first episode was terrible I made the mistake of doing a review of the dubbed. I personally feel bad in doing so since no one in the club other than Ultra Rob liked the show. It is one of the reasons why we will never review a commercial release of a show again.
External Links
Official Website: Japanese
AniDB
AnimeNfo
Anime News Network
[Wikipedia]
No infringement is intended and this article is purely for informational purposes.