Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
airenaishen
A long story of Brandon's bromantic devotion to Harry. This ultimate led to Harry murdering him, his benefactor, the woman who loved him, countless innocent and not so innocent people.
Even after Brandon is revived as an undead, he still ends up protecting the evil Harry, who was still seeking to murder the daughter of the woman who loved Brandon.
The story is probably written by someone with a twisted mind and necrolysed heart. You may enjoy this show if you have no sense of morality.
Story: 2
Art: 3
Music: 3
Voice: 4 Characters: 3
Protagonist: 1
Science: 1
Enjoyment: 2
If you're hoping to see any redemption towards the end of the show, you're probably not going to find it.
Read at the sourceBabineaux
IMPORTANT: Do NOT watch Episode 1, skip straight to Episode 2. Episode 1 is literally just a carbon copy of a later episode and it spoils basically everything, you're better off without it.
With that out of the way, Gungrave is an interesting anime that has a lot of strengths, but also a few weaknesses. This is because it has got two components to it:
1) A very watertight character-driven gangster story that takes up most of the anime, which is very much worth the price of admission.
2) While it's not quite correct to call it this, there is a point where I would describe the show as devolving into a Monster of the Week format involving fantastical elements that is unfortunately rather mediocre. However, as I say, this latter part is a minority of the anime's runtime, and the ending few…
Read at the sourcenegrut
A very unknown anime, but with his small fanbase it is the most overrated anime I have ever seen (just see the reviews in MAL itself), its community treats it as a classic cult, which it COULD have been but is FAR from being. (Now if you don’t have the patience to read this book, scroll down to the final considerations where I summarize my opinions)
Gungrave starts with a HORRIBLE first episode, where he wants to give some taste of what will happen in the future but ends up just being bad and giving heavy spoilers of what we will see later. I highly recommend skipping this episode, because episode 18 is the same thing as this first one. (They tried to foreshadowing the same way as Berserk 97 but they failed)
Then the anime goes to a big flashback, which is where the anime shines.
In short,…
Read at the sourceRoneSpeak
Gungrave is a lot like The Godfather 2 meets Trigun.
The story is fantastic. In the opening episodes, Brandon Heat is shown as an undead hitman with a score to settle with the city crime boss Harry McDowell. The first half is all about how two young boys finding work through the mafia. The characters introduced at the start are some of the best I've ever seen, especially Harry McDowell. The show follows Brandon and Harry growing up and becoming more brutal, while being pulled apart from each other and becoming quite different from when they were kids. You see why it is they need each other and the trust they have together. One finds love, the other finds power, and neither find happiness.
The second half of the show is a revenge thriller, where the two men now fight over everything they o…
Read at the sourceZephSilver
Trust, honor, family and above all else, loyalty.
Throughout the years, Gungrave has become a cult classic within the anime community. It's a title with so much mafioso stylistics, so much grit, so much bravado oozing in every scene, that a panel consisting of Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese would find themselves salivating at the mouth upon viewing it... well at least for the first 15-episodes that is. As for the rest of the show, it all depends on if a Terminator revenge/monster mashup movie hybrid sounds like a good idea to you (I wish I was kidding when I said that). But I implore you, don't let that deter you from watching this. If you're a fan of mobster flicks, Gungrave offers enough trademark elements of this niche genre to keep even the most jaded of audi…
Read at the source5camp
I saw the first episode of Gungrave a few years ago and thought it was shit. However a number of people told me that the first episode is not representative of the rest of the series at all and that IT GETS BETTER I SWEAR!!! For the most part they were right, you really are better off skipping the first episode altogether. It’s quite similar to the first episode of the Berserk TV series in that it spoils the entire plot with some dumb flash-forward that doesn’t work at all and you’d be better off starting on episode 2. However that first episode is maybe a little more representative of the nonsense that occurs later in Gungrave than people give it credit for.
Let me back up and start from episode 2. Gungrave is a gritty crime story about two lovers I mean friends, Brandon Heat and Harry M…
Read at the sourceSchrodingersMatt
Boy, this sure was made by the creator of Trigun. That was one of the first observations I made while watching this anime, and it held true to the end. Many creators have some recurring styles and motifs shared between their works, and comparing it to such a well-known and well-loved classic has the capacity to be both good and bad. It certainly doesn't help that this was also adapted from a video game; game adaptations in general rarely fare well, and from what I've heard the original game itself was mediocre at best (I haven't played it though, so take that with a grain of salt). With such a strange, potentially disastrous production history I honestly didn't know what to expect going into this series. It's still very much its own thing, but its creative background is definitely notable…
Read at the sourceIronBerserk
(PS: Originally posted on August 23, 2011)
Warning: this review contains copious amounts of sarcasm.
2nd Warning: the many sarcastic remarks done by the writer of this review does not detract from the fact that this anime is actually freaking horrible.
3rd Warning: I'm sorry but this review contains "SPOILERS". So if you want to watch it without being spoiled, then do not continue reading. However, let me just give you some advice and stay away from this god awful anime...PLEASE STAY AWAY!
I wanted to like this anime, I really did. But things started really going bad once I knew what this anime was trying to do. This anime was about friendship…AGAIN! But in Gungrave it simply does not work. Crime syndicates, friendship prevailing, and honor do not go well together. There is nothing hon…
Read at the sourceHazegurl
I just re-watched Gungrave recently and I just have to say that no matter what, this is just one of those stories I just love. I have a thing for those Scarface type of stories of poor people doing whatever they can to survive in the harsh slums and then finally moving up the world through totally illegal means. LOL! Gungrave does not disappoint in that area at all. The story begins with Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowel and their small group of poor young thugs all growing up and looking after one another. Here you get your usual dose of slum life, gang fights, scams, thievery and so on. I love how the anime takes its time and lets us see the friendship between these characters and especially between Harry and Brandon. What I love about the character development here and that no one is good…
Read at the sourceSallymancan
Anime Review #1 – Gungrave
I still think this anime should be ranked higher than what it is. But never mind about that, let’s continue with the review.
“After a tragic scene with the murder of his friends, Brandon Heat follows his only friend Harry McDowel into Millennion, the largest mafia syndicate. While Harry McDowel is striving for power, Brandon is only staying in Millennion to see the girl he loves whose custody was gained by the leader of Millennion, Big Daddy. But as the years pass and Brandon proves loyal to Millennion, Brandon learns the true purpose and passion of Millennion, and that's when true conflict arises.” – MAL
I think MAL’s synopsis sums it up and it’s what attracted me to watching the anime. But for those who still want to know more about the anime before you wat…
Read at the sourceHelsto
Story about fight over power in mafia organization and betrayal among best friends. Let me tell you my personal feelings about this anime. First of all it's highly overrated. The concept of the story is good but first episode spoil everything and you just wait 20 episodes for the obvious act of betrayal. Art is poor if not average ! dying creatures just disappear and the rest of effects just won't let you go wow! Characters were fine excluding their names as well names of the organizations: Beyond the Grave, Big Daddy, McDowell, Brandon, Vulcan, Lighting, O
oh come on, 5 years old kid could come up with better names. Shortly this anime is crap and looks like amateur work. Only thing I liked about it, was final episode wich was pretty touching.
Read at the sourcejmoriarty84
Based on the cult PS2 title by SEGA and Red Entertainment, this anime is an alternate retelling of that respective title which I own a copy of, and you can get it for like $5 at Game Stop. The anime tells the origin story of the main character, Brandon Heat, who is later re-named Beyond the Grave, and his best friend, Harry MacDowell. The organization of the presentation of the story feels as if it was perfectly structured as a 3-act play, each with its own unique theme and gimmick. Act 1 you can label as a story about rags to riches in which Harry and Brandon are teenage small timers just trying to survive. Act 2 is about how the duo is trying to establish themselves, and make it to the top of the mafia. And Act 3 is an epic conclusion about betrayal and redemption, which speaks for itsel…
Read at the sourceBishounen_Hunter
Main
Let me start out by saying this......I'm not into this type of show. I love shoujo anime [and now manga], I also like shounen-ai stuff and I'd say it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll watch just about anything with bishounen. So if someone were to tell me about this show, Gungrave and all I had was his word-of-mouth to go on then I wouldn't have bothered watching it. The only reason I watched it was because they used to play it on Tech TV [now G4] back when they used to be a cool TV station and they played anime on the weekends @ midnight. I remember they used to play Gad Guard and this other show, Gungrave. Frankly, I was mesmerized by this show...simply because this story was that good. It had me hooked and I watched it religiously every weekend but I never got to see the ending s…
Read at the sourceAphiel1
Of all the animes I have ever watched I call gungrave the most under appreciated. The reason why is because whenever I try to ask somebody about it they have no clue what it is which makes me angry because this is a really good anime I mean I seldom give out a nine and when the moon is blue I give a ten so as you can understand this is an exceptional anime. My advice don't knock this anime until you've watched the whole thing and whatever you do don't skip episodes each episode is a necessary key in understanding the end.
Story- The words to describe how I feel about the story don't exist yes it was that unbelievable. It is so absolutely perfect there are such few holes in the storyline as to why anything is happening or what caused a certain person to end up a certain way to the point whe…
Read at the sourcelowell
It took me a while to get into the show. It didn't pick up for me until at least halfway through. I kept on seeing it as a poor man's Cowboy Bebop. But there was a moment and even as my head started going, "Wtf, seriously?!? Seriously?!?" I started sitting up a little more and watching the screen more intently. I think if you can get past the slow start (which I thought lasted way longer than just the first episode), I think the end is a worthwhile payoff.
The story gets more interesting as the show goes on and the storytelling itself becomes better executed as well. The heart of the story here is really about loyalty and friendship and how those ideas actually manifest in real action and real practice in the gritty, dirty lives of people just trying to survive. In a odd way, I feel like…
Read at the sourceeternalmetal
Ill keep this short, but I just had to add my opinion about this masterpiece.
I agree with the other reviewers. Seriously, what were they thinking with the first episode? They just recap t later on, so you could probably skip it and still be able to follow the story. The rest of the episodes pick it up a notch so much that you wonder if the same people wrote the first episode.
This was an excellent anime dealing with mafia-like syndicates and brotherly friendship. I dont want to spoil it, but it is emotionally moving and really made me cry toward the end. Not many other anime capture the friendship of a best friend as well as Gungrave has done. Despite Brandon's almost excessively quiet character, I still thought he was one of the best characters ever. Do yourself a favor and watch this…
Read at the sourcevicious357
This is one of the few animes that I regard as a perfect work. Sadly, I almost missed it due to the first episode. I watched episode one and then got distracted because it seemed to be generic somehow but after some time I started watching from the second episode and everything changed. I honestly can't even begin to describe how awesome this series is, I can only say that you MUST NOT BE TURNED OFF BY THE FIRST EPISODE or you will be missing a legendary anime.
Read at the sourceukiuki
This anime is amazing!!
Important note: you MUST watch past the first episode, and if you do, you will be sucked in!!
The story is amazing. It focuses around the themes of betrayal, loyalty, and brotherhood. Minor themes include coming of age, and love. The fights are great. If the synopsis of the anime does not sound appealing, you still have to watch it because the story is SO much more and is impossible to put into a short paragraph. In short: what would you do if your best friend killed you?
The art is quite good. I really like anime art when it goes away from the conventional eyes and chibiness. The art fit the story well, and people were more realistic. The fight scenes were brilliantly animated.
The OST is great for the anime. The style is somewhat jazzy, and fits in with the int…
Read at the sourceKhandrak
For me this anime, with no exceptions, is the greatest of all time. If you haven't seen this, don't be put off by the fact that it was based on a video game, because this is a unique experience, and something you can't miss.
While the action in the show is plentiful and exhilarating, the action is not the be all and end all for this show. The story is deep and touching. Love, hate, greed, betrayal, it's all there. You will see the entirety of these men's lives from beginning to end. You watch as they go from nobody street thugs to top dogs. And let me tell you the ending is wonderful. When I say that, I don't mean it's a happy ending, because it isn't. It brings closure. No cliff-hanger. No ending that leaves you with nagging questions of "what just happened?" The ending was so good that…
Read at the sourceivorykeys
Gungrave is another fantastic anime to watch. It's a short one and is easy to follow. It's FILLED with action scenes and you'll absolutely love the characters. I only saw the entire series once (on G4 TV), but I would definitely watch it again given the chance. This is one show that you would want as part of your DVD collection. I also have the soundtrack to the show, and that is great as well. This show has action, romance, betrayal, an exciting plot, and some sad parts to it. It's a MUST see!!
Read at the source