Gun Blaze West: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes
Added 2022-05-20 21:45:00 +0000 UTCManga Details
- Author: Watsuki, Nobuhiro (Wat-ski No-boo-he-ro)
- Author’s other works:
- Rurouni Kenshin, Buso Renkin
- Worked for Obata as an assistant
- Oda was his assistant
- Run dates: Dec 12, 2000 to Jul 31, 2001
- Chapters/Volumes: 3/28
About the Manga
- Plot
- Viu is a dumb kid in the old west who wins a gun belt. Marcus Homer is a huge fucking idiot who falls in love with Viu’s sister Cissy. Marcus tells Viu that there’s a place called Guns Blaze West he wants to visit so he can get a cool gun and Viu wants to do that too. They beat up some bandits and their leader comes to invade the town. He leads the Kenbrown gang and his name is the traditional American Name Bill Kenbrown.
- Marcus is fucking killed by Bill because he’s fucking useless but he basketball passes his gun to Viu who brutally murders Bill and desecrates his corpse before discovering that there’s a map inside the gun.
- Years pass and Viu is a dumb teen who’s going west. He winds up in a town with an evil restaurant that’s harassing the good guy restaurant across from it. Viu is attacked by a dumb bandit with the American Name Target Kevin.
- Viu and Target Kevin play a dumb game that I guess Viu wins and then he gives all his money to the good guy restaurant. Then Viu and a bouncer for the good guy restaurant named Will set off for Gun Blaze West with a stupid broken compass that only points west and sends them south because they’re idiots.
- Viu meets a Japanese samurai girl named Colice in the next town because Watsuki realized he knows nothing about old west America except for how it impacted people from Japan. She’s accompanied by Robert Rodriguez, director of the movie Desperado. I think he’s a ringleader in a circus but it doesn’t matter. He’s the only black character in the series and he barely talks, dresses like a butler, and takes care of children in a manga taking place 15 years after slavery ended don’t worry about it.
- Colice teaches Viu how to use hamaon and they defeat some culturally insensitive depictions of Mexicans lead by Gualarripa, and his two sons literally named fucking Uno and Dos. They have a grudge against Spy Kids 3D director Robert Rodriguez because… They… there was a town… it doesn’t matter.
- Some people are racist to Colice at a bar after fucking up a stock western joke about ordering milk. But thankfully a cool guy named JJ comes in to order milk, hits on Colice, and argues about how she’s totally old enough don’t worry about it, he’s a good guy. Then a straight up Arthurian fucking knight named Armor Baron walks into this awful old west manga and continues the stupid joke by ordering milk too.
- The Baron is actually from Gun Blaze West. I think? Anyway he literally runs a mini exam arc where he summons a bunch of medieval knights. They all have special armor that can resist bullets unless you shoot them extra good so Viu decides to try shooting extra good. This strategy allows him to defeat Armor Baron by shooting him right above the dick but oh no! He broke the gun Marcus gave him.
- :(
- Viu wakes up and he has a really cool new gun that he immediately throws away before being led on the trail to Gun Blaze West by a racist caricature of a Native American riding a giant Buffalo. Also Marcus might be alive or something?
- That’s it.
- Characters
- Viu Bannes
- Feels like Gon
- Fierce personality
- Has a time skip and is 14 when the series really starts
- Very focused on finding gun blaze west
- Cissy Bannes
- 21
- School teacher
- Sister
- Marcus Homer
- Badguy with heart of gold
- Dies lmao
- Will Johnston
- Batman where he won’t kill you but he will literally break your arms and legs
- Where the fuck did he go midway through the series
- Korisu Sato
- Japanese
- Circus performer
- Straightman
- Can fight
- Robert Rodrigez
- Super strong guy
- Blind I think?
- Mentor to Viu
- Armor Baron
- Knight
- Has a gun sack lmao
- Ally of justice
- Viu Bannes
Why it failed
- Art feels a bit generic very early 2000s
- Weird it never uses graytones but I guess that was harder to do in 2000
- This series uses real guns which 1. Is problematic in modern times but 2. It means that combat can’t be very robust as if you’re shot that’s kinda it
- First chapter really doesn’t set up much it doesn’t show how the protag is interesting or how the world is unique outside of being a manga about cowboys
- How fucking boring is this begining I swear
- Really a training arc at the start?
- How is getting a gun belt he won in a contest legit the motivation for 4 chapters
- All so padded out chapter 4 should have been the second chapter
- The fact no one can actually fight each other cause it uses guns adds huge issues
- How does it have two training arcs within 13 chapters
- I feel it’s hard to judge the series based on modern standards, even the first 4 arcs of OP are all kind of arbitrary
- The use of guns is a complete structural issue that really can’t be fixed
- There really isn’t a sense of worldbuilding I don’t feel like I understand the motivations of non main characters
- This pacing, for reference sanji first shows up in chapter 20
- Heavy armor doesn’t matter vs bullets as you still feel the kinetic force of it
- We really seeing colors matter in a bw medium again huh, guess pedophiles love doing that
What it did well
- A cowboy manga is an interesting idea
- I do like the use of blacktones as backgrounds
- I like the use of paneling like it’s not just square which was common in that era
- It has clean linework, good composition
- Vui and Marcus’ relationship was fun
- It has some good splash pages like the punch against the old man
- I appreciate that korisu is capable of fighting
- The knights are cool, well not amazing but it’s different
- The black tones really make things look good it reminds me of cop and dolphin
Where it could have gone
- Make the MC an adult so a child using a gun isn’t weird, he can still be gentle and naive
- What if MC couldn’t his his arms and that’s why he doesn’t use a gun
- Add some weird west elements, ya know what shit really be horror crazytime cowboy one piece, thriller bark sucked so no one’s gonna be upset
Misc Thoughts
- I misread gun belt as belt gun which sounded pretty badass
- The first chapter says an arkansas accent and I legit don’t know what that sounds like
- MC 100% would have died being kicked in the head by a horse in chapter 2
- Why does everyone wear gloves
Final Verdict
- Six Word summary
- Community
- Tucker: America through eyes of confused pedo
- OzyRat: I take no sass but sarsaparilla
- Twolfwood: Kiddie wild west is terribly boring
- ChemyChems: No not One Piece, Six Bullets!
- Duke: It’s Mid- Read Peace Maker Instead
- MaxyBee: Sex criminal dreams of lawless west
- Xylon: Rootin' Tootin', but mostly just tootin'.
- Peanut: Love, violence, and a horny monkey
- Thebbkingbbthe: dylan do the pew pew sound effect
- Albie: Gun Piece. That's all I've got
- Blahmoomoo: Journey to the Gun Bland West
- GenericMan: Tepid saddles and dancing with meh
- Resident Warhammer Nerd: Wild Least of the Wild East:
- Link: Yippee Kiyay, More like yippee okay
- David:
- As bland as St. Louis cuisine
- Jordan:
- Huh. So this is cultural appropriation.
- Oda does know what he’s doing
- Guest:
- Community
- Flop or not
- If flop, what they could read instead
- If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
- Flop
- The Adventures of Brisco County Jr
