I just finished reading Gunsmith Cats Revised and you should start

I think it’s safe to say that Kenichi Sonoda should be a household name for anyone who got into japtoons and comics in the mid to late 90′s, but nowadays that does not seem to be the case.  Consider this a public service announcement.

Sonoda began his career at Artmic, the studio responsible for some of the most well known (at least in the US) OVAs of the 80′s and 90′s including Sonoda’s own Bubblegum Crisis, Gall Force, and Riding Bean, all of which saw US release.  In 1991, Sonada began working on Gunsmith Cats, which ran until 1997 in Japan.  That same year Dark Horse and Toren Smith’s Studio Proteus comics began printing Cats in single chapter comic book format, eventually collecting the single chapters into trade paperbacks in 2000.  Seven years later, Dark Horse revisited the original Gunsmith Cats in conjunction with their release of the sequel series Gunsmith Cats Burst by reprinting the original stories as a series of four omnibus editions (clocking in at over 350 pages each) in unaltered right to left format for the first time, as well as touching up the already stellar translation.

Sonoda, is an admitted gun fanatic, and it really shows.  Not only in this comic, but if you look back at some of the ARTMIC works he was involved in (Gall Force especially,) you can see an almost awkward lingering in any scene involving firearms, such that you can’t help but wonder if it’s reason for being is simply Sonoda’s involvement.  Cats goes so far as to include footnotes in the margins or extraneous dialog to describe the types of ammunition being used.  It doesn’t feel like a Tom Clancy level of obsession, due to the visual nature of the medium Sonoda doesn’t spend entire pages describing the gun, but it’s presence is definitely felt here.

The story of Gunsmith Cats centers on a pair of Chicago barely legals, Rally Vincent, a half Indian gun and car fanatic with daddy issues, and “Minnie” May Hopkins, a diminutive nymphomaniac ex prostitute with a penchant for explosives, who work together running a gun shop and bounty hunting on the side (or possibly the other way around depending on how you look at it.)  The bounty hunting is definitely the focus of the comic, introducing a cavalcade of eccentric villains who eventually drag the duo’s colorful pasts into the spotlight.

The most interesting of these villains is an Italian mafioso named “Iron” Goldie Musou.  Goldie is a ruthless psychopharmacology expert who is pushing a new drug called “kerasine” which has a powerful side effect of making its users susceptible to hypnotic suggestion.  This same drug is used by Goldie to program obedience into her lackeys, a harem of sex slaves which she brainwashed into patricide, and eventually even Rally herself.  Goldie appears in two of the longer arcs throughout the series, and acts as sort of the main antagonist in an otherwise episodic story.  After initially trying to bring Rally under her control using drugs and failing Goldie falls into obsession over “breaking” Rally and making her submit without them.

The Goldie stories are basically a microcosm of what makes Gunsmith Cats so appealing.  It has this perfect balance of humor, sex, and violence, along with an uncanny ability to portray over the top characters like Bean Bandit, a character who is pretty much the definition of completely ridiculous,  without seeming completely ridiculous in context.  The plotting smart and is fast paced, never lingering too long on a particular plot point or character hang up.  All of this is wrapped up in some absolutely wonderful artwork.

Sonoda’s characters have a very distinct look to them.  The designs are firmly rooted in that late eighties / early nineties aesthetic Sonada helped define.  The frequent action sequences are an absolute treat to read.  They are exciting, and they flow well from panel to panel.  The numerous car chases are particularly notable, and come together almost like reading super detailed storyboards for a cartoon.  The artwork is super clean and consistent, and the image quality on the revised edition is top notch.  For a medium where you can wind up paying twelve dollars for what basically amounts to professional scanlations, it’s absolutely refreshing to see these look so nice.

I honestly cannot recommend Gunsmith Cats enough to anyone who likes a good action comic.  It really is the total package, and the deal is sealed by a really high quality release from Dark Horse.  Pick this up as soon as you can.