Thanks to barnesandnoble.com for the above cover image.

Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”

In the Old West, only the strong survive, and 9-year-old Viu Bannes not only wants to be strong, he also wants to be the best gunfighter in the West.  It was the vagabond gunslinger Marcus Homer who gave Viu the impetus to be even stronger.  It is also Marcus who points young Viu to Gun Blaze West, where only the toughest gunfighters dare set foot.

Gun Blaze West, Vol. 3 is the final volume of the series.  With his friends, Will Johnston, the rope master, and Colice Satoh, a young Asian woman with a talent for throwing knives, Viu heads to Fort Smith, Arkansas where they meet the toughest guy of all – an armored titan who knows the secret path to Gun Blaze West.  They are not, however, the only seekers.

THE LOWDOWN:  In his epilogue for the end of Gun Blaze West, creator Nobuhiro Watsuki discusses his failure at creating what he thought should be a manga for young boys “the way it should be done.”  When Gun Blaze West was originally published in Japan in 2001, I was unaware of both its existence and the reasons behind its cancellation.  On the other hand, I think it’s just fine – not great, but certainly fine as a shounen manga (boys’ comics).  I love Nobuhiro’s peculiar cartoony, clean line drawing style.  It’s like mixing Dave Cockrum’s ability to create unique looking comic book characters with a Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny or Road Runner cartoon.

As for the story, characters, and plot, it’s weird and kind of hard to describe exactly.  Gun Blaze West set in the fictionalized Old West of film and prose fiction, but is more like a Saturday morning cartoon version of those weird Jonah Hex comic books that writer Joe R. Lansdale and artist Tim Truman produced for DC Comics in the 1990s.  Those Jonah Hex comic books had too much adult subject matter for the typical young shounen readers, but those readers sure would have loved all the weird stuff.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  With its peculiar concept and bizarre characters, Gun Blaze West will appeal to fans who find comfort in the strangeness of the magazine, Shonen Jump.

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