This was good, but not really as good as I wanted it to be.

At first sight of the cool and stylish OP I thought whoa - this walked so Cowboy Bebop could run! Like Bebop, Gunsmith Cats takes a western influence and has main characters that operate alongside yet just outside the law. Episode 2 even has the concept of an action sequence driven by music. But with generic music and good-but-not-great editing, this didn't quite pull it off, whereas it became Bebop's signature.

Regarding the western influence, this was quite a faithful recreation of the crime/freelance investigator/internal affairs corruption that I've seen A LOT from Hollywood at this point. I think something would really have to work hard for me to find it distinctive and interesting. For example, scifi series like Bebop, The Big O and Bubblegum Crisis do very well to take those American/Hollywood influences and transform them into an interesting direction with a unique setting. But Gunsmith Cats is tied to the real world and a real America, by choice. Perhaps it's a sense of realism that doesn't really appeal to me.

I was hoping for more kickass girls-with-guns and this did deliver with likeable leads, stylish and playful character design, attention to detail with several chic outfits and a great supporting cast of women characters... elements that I love and look for from the 'girls-with-guns' subgenre. But something was a bit off. I think the writing wasn't quite there; May was cute but needed a character arc of her own and Rally was a bit too sensible and mostly irritable about the incompetence around her. There was also a bit too much male gaze with our leads in various states of undress/humiliation at least once an episode. Bubblegum Crisis and Dirty Pair are better examples of depicting heroines with more depth and dignity. To note, Kenichi Sonodo, that character designer of Bubblegum Crisis is the original creator of Gunsmith Cats, which I think is what lead me to want to watch this originally. And he definitely didn't disappoint with the character design.

Because of the American setting I tried the English dub, which was fine but I really didn't like May's voice actor so I switched back the the Japanese dub. But after hearing the English dub I realised just how young May's character was meant to be... she wasn't just petite, she's juvenile!

On a more personal note the depiction of gun culture, especially in ep 1, made me a bit uncomfortable which surprised me as I hadn't really felt that way about guns on screen before. Maybe it was the sense of realism, the uncritical, casual tone and depiction of guns as a source of independence for the female leads, through their gunsmith expertise and business.

Overall this is a very stylish, well-executed series that delivers a fun tale of crime and corruption but ultimately, its a lesser entry in the girls-with-guns subgenre.