Gunsmith Cats (Japan 1995)

Rating: ***

Divided into three installments

A.D. Vision's tag line "Girls, Guns, Grenades" says it all. Rally Vincent (from "Riding Bean" (1989) ) returns as a gun toting, Shelby driving bounty hunter, and this time she's backed up by a young and feisty bomb expert, Minnie May. The animation and design are superb, and Kenichi Sonoda's characters are very cute and full of charm (except what's up with Rally's hair?). Obviously a fair amount of research went into rendering the American locales, and it shows (the story takes place in Chicago). Sadly, most of the pay-offs happen early in the story, so the ending is kind of a letdown.