Actually, I have extremely vague memories of watching the first episode of this anime shortly after it was released. Back in those days, I was spending most of my free time on message boards, and on at least one of them, discussion of new anime was pretty common. I wasn’t a regular in that community, but it was how I was exposed to some of the very few anime series I’ve watched in the past. I think this was also when I watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and AIR, neither of which I remember that well.
When I watched it this time, absolutely nothing looked familiar, which I guess isn’t surprising considering this anime came out in 2005 when I was still in high school. On this belated second watch, I was tempted to classify Gun X Sword as mecha-adjacent, but the Armors become important pretty quickly in what is otherwise a pseudo-Western. Our hero is Van, a gangly cowboy type dressed in an ill-fitted tuxedo and large black hat with a ring dangling from the brim. Considering the dry, hot climate the anime’s setting suggests, I have to imagine Van is uncomfortable at literally all times.
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| He probably looks angry because he's too hot. |
Van passes through the town of Evergreen at the story’s outset, where it just so happens that a pigtailed young girl named Wendy is being accosted by a group of thugs. Van might have left things well enough alone, but since he was in the area, he swiftly dispatches Wendy’s would-be attackers with superhuman agility and a large sword before collapsing from exhaustion. Grateful to her savior, the young Wendy offers to be Van’s bride, which is played for humor but mostly just grossed me out. When this offer is declined, Wendy offers Van paid work to defend the town from the brigands who have been terrorizing the area for some time. Van’s not interested, though. He has other things on his mind
Van’s origin story is told in bits and pieces throughout the anime, but it’s made clear very early on that he’s on the trail of The Claw, a mysterious villain who senselessly took his wife’s life. Although Van’s an obstinate loner, he nonetheless assembles a team of allies along the way, including Wendy, who follows him from the very beginning. Wendy has a goal of her own since her brother has gone missing. She feels she’ll have a better chance of finding him if she tags along.
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| Wendy |
It’s worth noting that Van, reclusive anime hero as he is, is also a huge goofball. One recurring gag that frequently made me want to gag is Van’s relationship with food. It’s not clear why he finds food overwhelmingly bland, but because he does so, he drowns everything he eats in every condiment he can find. This means a steak becomes a river of mustard, ketchup, horseradish, mayonnaise, and whatever else he can find. It’s not that funny and it’s pretty gross, so it’s a trait I could have done without.
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| Van slathering his meal with mayo, probably. |
Many of the episodes in the first half of the series feel like self-contained stories as Van travels from one town to the next. Inevitably, there will be a threat in the area that results in Van needing to summon Dann of Thursday, his glimmering white Armor, from space. It’s not clear for a long time why Van has a magic sword that morphs and sprouts holes when he uses it to summon his mech. It’s equally unclear why he always grips the ring on the brim of his hat and shifts it to the other side. In fact, I’m not sure that the second part was ever explained, so I can only fall back on the Rule of Cool.
There are two episodes from early in the anime that stood out for me. One is the episode in which Pricilla is introduced. She’s an Armor Rider who uses her hilariously designed pink mech in an arena against other competitors. In a genre where a lot of these mechs look very similar to each other, seeing an agile machine that looks a lot like a bipedal rabbit is a lot of fun. Pricilla is also a fun, energetic character who is portrayed as quite skilled and capable, even when she ends up battling Van himself.
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| Pricilla (on the left, of course) |
Another standout for me is another set of early character introductions. Van runs into a group of loudmouthed old-timers in a bar who are boisterously congratulating him on taking out some renegade Armor Riders. In doing so, they reminisce about their own days as Armor Riders, perhaps embellishing some of their deeds. Most of the other bar patrons dismiss their stories as complete fabrications. Why not bring out the Armor now, some of them ask, as proof? Nero, the group’s grizzled de facto leader, dismisses this idea. There would be no need to pull their Armors out of retirement unless the need was grave. Of course, like clockwork, a giant tentacle Armor attacks the town, and the need suddenly becomes grave. A night of hard drinking has left Van out of commission, so the old-timers have no choice but to pilot the El-Dora V, an enormous Armor that very heavily resembles Super Robots from 1970s anime. I thought this was such a cool callback to anime of that era and also really enjoyed that these old guys are implied to have been a group of teens in just such an era. Equally interesting is that their fifth member, Chizuru, has long since passed. The four remaining members (or three, since Carlos is always asleep) prove they still have it, even hungover from a night of habitual drinking.
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| The El-Dora V |
Van also frequently crosses paths with the enigmatic Ray, an agile gunslinger with long, blond hair. It seems Ray’s path is similar to Van’s own since his wife was also inexplicably slain by The Claw. This doesn’t go very far in making them friendly with one another, however, as their meetings frequently amount to deadly duels. Even when Van runs into Ray’s little brother, there’s little that can be done to mend their relationship, at least at first. Like most important characters in this story, Ray also has an Armor called Volkein, a red monstrosity outfitted with some powerful cannons.
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| Ray |
The narrative thrust of the anime amounts to Van traveling from town to town, trying to get information from various baddies about the Claw and his whereabouts. Along the way, we learn more about Van, his Armor, and more about the planet of Endless Illusion, the desert world that our characters inhabit. Once the villain’s motivations became clear, I can’t say I felt particularly invested in the story. The latter half of the anime is mostly a series of battles against minions of increasing power, as we have all seen many times before in other anime and in many video games. This is yet another example of a story in which the journey is far more important than the destination because I did enjoy Van’s interactions with the characters he met along the way.
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