Gungrave is a show I heard about years ago, it did have a dedicated cult following over the years, but I would I never thought I would enjoy as much as I did, I consider the Gungrave anime to be the greatest adaptation on a game of all time. With so many games getting adaptations now and with me playing the Gungrave games themselves in recent years, I decided to watch the show again for the first time in over a decade and years later, I still think the show is geniunely fantastic.
Before I start describing what makes it so great, I might as well address the first episode, it's often said that you shouldn't watch the first episode but I argue on it's own, it really isn't that bad, the first episode sets up the flashback sections and the "genre shift" of sorts the story will take later down the line in a similar way Berserk 1997 does, the only difference is, Gungrave has an actual ending and a great one at that. The problem arises is that this episode eventually gets revisisted with not much changes later in the series, so then the question becomes do skip the first episode or the aforementioned later episode? I'd say watch them both and if you have the option to put the later episode on times 2 speed if you are getting annoyed by the deja vu. It wasn't really an issue for me since I found the show so engrossing but I consider doing this.
Now with that out of the way, after playing the Gungrave game particular the first game from 2002, the more I appreciate the anime more than I already do. The best way of describing Gungrave is that it's the aforementioned Berserk meets the Godfather with designs you might recognize from the Trigun series.
The thing with the Gungrave game is that it's primarily a third person shooter, where all you do is kill things until you fight a boss and you do this for 2 hour until the credits roll, a game like this might not even sound like it would make for a compelling crime drama but the flashback sections is where the show is elevated above many game adaptations back then and even now. Characters like Bear Walken, Ballad Bird Lee, Big Daddy, Bob Poundmax and Harry MacDowel were mostly just bosses you fight in the game, they had cool designs and you kill them. In the anime however, these characters are much more fleshed out especially Bear, Big Daddy and Harry, where they might seem one note in the game, in the anime, you know their relationships, struggles, values and morals. This is what a good game adaptation should do, expand on characters that didn't have much time to develop in the game and flesh them out in a medium where they are able to.
The character of Grave/Brandon Heat himself comes off as somewhat dull silent protagonist, in the anime however, Brandom is the kind of guy who speaks with his actions rather than words.
The flashback sections in the Gungrave anime to me rivals some of the best movies, the episode "Family" in particular is probably one of the greatest standalone episodes I have ever seen in anime if not ever even. The way it makes me sympathize with a respected mobster who chose his son is something I watch and experience media for to begin with, to make me consider and feel things I might not otherwise have felt.
These sections are widely praised and they are no doubt great but something that I hear from some is that the show goes "downhill" after they are done, I personally have to disagree with this, I personally think the 2nd half isn't all that different from the way Berserk changes post eclipse, a big reason for this is that the characters of Blood War and Dr. Tokioka especially the latter, he is the link that carries the sci fi elements of Gungrave together since he was there since the early episodes and is a reason why the "undead soldiers" even exist at all. These two characters is what prevents the transition from being overly sudden.
Here's the weird thing, the 2nd half is mostly faithful to the Gungrave game. Sure some scenes are expanded upon but the 2nd half mostly follows the same story beats as the game kind of like the Zack Snyder Watchmen movie, and much like that movie, the thing that the anime changes is the ending. In the game, Brandon climbs up a huge tower fighting enemies and then the final boss is Big Daddy's undead corpse. In the anime, the ending is similar to Cowboy Bebop's except much better executed than that since Harry MacDowel and Brandon Heat's dynamic is much more fleshed out than Spike and Vicious's. The ending of Gungrave to me might be one of the greatest ficitional endings ever in how much it wraps up the story in a nice and tidy bow, a very tragic bow.
This is however where this leads me to negatives, the character of Mika is pretty useless and a little on the grating side. The thing you could argue with the Gungrave game is that Grave and Mika's bond is the heart of the story and in the game, Grave lives at the end and Mika becomes a capable character in the sequel to the 2002 game, Overdose, since Grave dies in the anime, Mika kind of serves no purpose and doesn't really do much of anything outside of getting Grave in trouble, she ultimately never really drives the plot forward in any way.
Another issue is Dr. Tokoia who is vital to keeping Gungrave's 2nd half consistent with the 1st just isn't that great of a character in his own right, much of his dialogue consists of saying he doesn't deserve redemption and that he is horrible for what he did and that's about it, his character feels like he was missing a backstory into what lead him to want to experiment on dead people to begin with.
Also, I don't like complaining about "plot holes" per say, but how was Dr. Tokoia was able to procure Brandon's body even though he got shot from a high tower with so many people looking at his corpse? Not a big issue, but it's just weird.
Final issue is that the world building is kind of vague, it takes place in a fictional city yet there is refrences to things like the Iraq war or "orcmen" used in the middle east or how Blood War's backstory is connected to that. The city in Gungrave seems to be like a city in a superhero story at first but then it seems like there is more than just a city and there actually is a bigger world but the story is kind of ambigous about it. It's not a big issue but like the Tokoia plothole, but it's something that just gets me thinking for reasons I doubt the writers intended.
Overall, Gungrave is a great show and to me still the greatest video game adaptation of all time. I don't think anything from here on out will ever really top this series for me. I think the Gungrave game is just "okay" but the anime is one of my favorite anime and TV shows of all time and that is what a story based on any game or medium should do.
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