Art of Gunsmith Cats
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Gunsmith Cats is an OVA (Original Video Animation) produced by OLM and directed by Takeshi Mori and Kazuya Murata in 1995. The anime was based on the homonym manga series written and illustrated by Kenichi Sonoda. After leaving anime production company Artmic to work as a comic artist, Sonoda presented some of his story concepts and illustrations to Kodansha. These did not impress the editors but an illustration of two girls caught the attention of one of them, who suggested Sonoda develop a concept for it. Sonoda stated in an interview that the drawing was the genesis for the series. At the time Sonoda did not have any plans for the illustration but decided to expand his Riding Bean concept into a developed story. Due to licensing issues, Sonoda was originally unable to use the Riding Bean concept or character around the time he was creating Gunsmith Cats. However, during the run of the series the rights were returned to him and he added Bean Bandit into the series. Although Sonoda was a fan of the Japanese police drama series Taiyo ni Hoero!, he decided the show did not fit his preferred Western style. The story is influenced by American gun-action movies such as The French Connection and The Blues Brothers. Sonoda chose the Shelby Cobra GT500 as Rally's car after realising that the cars in driving movies from the 70s were often Ford Mustangs. He researched the various models and selected the GT500 because it was the most powerful rather than any attraction to the car itself. When drawing guns, Sonoda would use a combination of magazines and his own replicas. Character names were taken from American TV shows such as Bewitched and The Fugitive. The character of Minnie-May was the result of a compromise between Sonoda and the publisher. The pictures on this page are a collection of artworks created for this OVA.
THE STORY
19-year-old Irene "Rally" Vincent operates the titular "Gunsmith Cats" gun shop but also works as a bounty hunter which is the impetus behind many of the stories. She is assisted in both activities by her housemate, former prostitute "Minnie" May Hopkins. Rally is an expert combat shooter and marksman with just about every firearm in existence, as well as a brilliant driver. May is an explosives expert, knowing the inner workings of and many uses of all manner of explosive devices. Teenage ex-burglar and lock-picker Misty Brown later joins the team and there is also Becky Farrah, a top, if expensive, source of information on underworld activity…
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