Space cowboy Van wanders into Evergreen looking for some food, but what he finds is a church full of thugs and dead people. After taking them out with his slick skillz, Van discovers that the girl, Wendy, was saved from death by her bulletproof necklace turtle. Apparently the town has been under siege the last two months by the Wild Bunch, and the mall is now the only place of refuge. Wendy’s brother, Michael, has been kidnapped, and she is carrying his gun in hopes of finding him. However, Van shows no interest in helping Wendy or Evergreen.
Before he skips town, Van has the misfortune to meet Lucky the Roulette, the crazy, engrish-lovin’ leader of the Wild Bunch. They play a game of chance, and Van loses, but then Lucky discovers that Van purposely lost. As Van leaves town, Wendy offers herself as a bride in a last ditch effort to convince Van. Since Van is not really into loli’s, he declines, but her story about being an orphan and waiting for her brother moves him. Suddenly Lucky ambushes Van, but amazingly Van is able to push the bullet out of his body, revealing some odd blue blood.
That night, Lucky’s Armor arrives, and the Wild Bunch rains down destruction on Evergreen. Van comes just in time, declaring that he hates Mist Ninja’s, and then proceeds to waste the Wild Bunch. In a completely surprising move, Van does a complex mahou cowboy routine, and summons his own Armor, Dann! Dann slices for the win, and then they question Lucky about Michael’s whereabouts. It seems Lucky handed Michael over to a man with claws on his right hand, and Van has a bitter flashback about lying with a woman together in a pool of blood, as the clawed man stands over them. Vicious!!! Wendy decides to tag along with Van since they are both after the same person, and Van dubs himself “Van of the Dawn” (a pun on “yoake no ban” or “the night before dawn”).
While Gun X Sword constantly feels like it it stealing from various sources, the execution in episode 1 was very slick. All bets were suddenly off, however, when Van actually summoned a mecha and began using some engrish of his own! I especially liked Dann’s expression, which reminds me of those strange ascii faces like so: （ ´Д｀）. I felt that episode 1 was very entertaining with a strange hero, and loads of unintentional comedy.
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
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I was watching the episode and I kept thinking of Trigun. Also, I was thinking that no one should abuse one word like Lucky throughout the episode.