Miami Guns Vol-3 (2000)
Animation Production: Kodansha/Toho
Released by: AN Entertainment
Official Website: Miami Guns
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

Time to revisit Miami Guns as volume 3 makes its way through the Japan Hero anime labs for a close up inspection of episodes eight through ten. So far I’ve loved this series for everything that it is, hopefully volume three keeps the momentum going and building up to even more fun stories and situations.

Story

"The crazy adventures of Miami's most notorious cops continue as Yao and Lu face a seemingly supernatural psycho killer, an army of assassins, a robot with a gambling problem, and even a giant octopus that loves striping ladies out of their bathing suits! The Miami Guns will have to contend with Yao's bitter rival, the jealous Nagisa Tojo, and uncover the true identity of the mysterious Julio Peacemaker while investigating a haunted island resort, participating in a survival beauty pageant, and crashing a crooked casino run by The Organization." -- Official Miami Guns Website

Review

Volume three of AN Entertainment’s release of Miami Guns contains episodes 8 through 10 in the series. These include:

Episode 8: The Sea! Bikinis! Ghosts!
On a small island that was made off-limits many years ago, after a number of murders took place, people are taking advantage of its seclusion and trespassing. When a detective is sent to investigate the people who are making their way into the island ends up dead, our heroic duo of Yao and Lu along with Kaken (Miami Police Science and Research) are dispatched to uncover what is happening on this remote location. Will they discover a terrible plot by the Organization or will they end up hunting down ghosts!?

Episode 9: Ten Million Miami Dollar Woman
Yao’s rival, Nagisa Tojo has had enough of her arch-nemesis’ antics! When all else fails she decides to put a ten million Miami Dollars bounty on Yao’s head for the first person who can take her out. Since this offer is printed on the local paper as a full page ad, a large number of the world’s leading bounty hunters and assassins assemble in the city for their shot at Yao and the large reward being offered. Taking it in stride Yao decides that the only way to convince everyone of her greatness is to take part in the Miss Miami pageant!?

Episode 10: Zenigeba Deka R
After destroying an entire train in order to apprehend one low-level thief Yao is forced to team up with a new experimental detective robot. With her allowance cut off by her dad for wrecking the train and a very greedy and calculating robot as a new partner, Yao ends up at a local casino, where she hopes to make up for her lost allowance. As it turns out Lu is also in the casino as is Julio Peacemaker, but they are working undercover to thwart a plot in the casino to defraud players through different methods of cheating. Will Yao and her new partner ruin their plans!?

After watching this DVD late last night I am happy to report that Miami Guns continues its streak of solid and entertaining episodes mixed in with loads of humor and parodies of other anime works and pop culture in general. As before the stories seemed to be mostly stand alone ones, but again there is a hint of an underlying connecting thread between them. This connection is mostly hinted at through the re-appearance of several characters as well as the continuing phone calls between each episodes’ evil villain and an unseen party from the Organization.

Of the three stories in this DVD I would have to say that by far episode nine was the best oneas it had quite possibly the craziest story yet. I think it also worked well because of its focus on Yao and her reaction to a large bounty being put on her head, which is essentially to put herself in even greater danger by taking center stage at a beauty pageant, unaware of anything that’s going on around her. There were a lot of laugh out moments in this episode and seeing Yao go through the obstacle course that has been set up for this “beauty pageant” is something else.

With episode nine being the best of the bunch, episode 10 comes in at second place with a parody of the slasher/horror movie genre that throws our heroines into great danger as they must face a Jason-like masked killer. The strength of the comedy in this story comes from the play of personalities between the three main characters as Yao and Kaken take this mission on more as a vacation than an assignment, often playing their more eccentric personalities off of Lu’s straight edge, serious persona. There are also some great moments between the main cast and the secondary players as they all run around trying to stay safe from the supposed killer and ghosts that inhabit the island.

Episode ten was a lot of fun too, with a great reference to one of Tokusatsu’s classic heroes, Robot Keiji K, who is parodied to one degree or another through the introduction of the selfishly calculating robot detective Yao is teamed up with after she destroys a train to catch one single criminal. The high stakes game at the end was pretty funny to watch as the stakes rise to levele that are difficult to imagine with each player putting their entire fortune on the table over one hand of poker.

Overall, volume three of Miami Guns was exactly what I was hoping for based on the previous two releases for the series. Character development wasn’t central to any one episode here, but they did explore the characters a bit further through a number of situations and dialogues. Seeing Julio Peacemaker appear in two of these episodes also added to the sense that there is more than is apparent with each situation our police duo is confronted with. Hopefully his purpose will be revealed in the next DVD, which also happens to be the final volume.

Production quality was similar to the previous installments, with better than average TV animation production values, smooth animation, and a varied color palette. Special effects were limited mostly to neon light signs and weapon effects. The audio track was up to par with the visuals, featuring a healthy mix of music styles for the BGM and a good performance by all the voice actors (in both the English and Japanese dubbed tracks).

The DVD is in a class of its own as with the previous two releases from AN Entertainment for this series. The DVD cases features artwork of Yao and Lu inside the casino and the back cover includes information on the episodes contained within as well as a number of photos from some of the episodes. Extras include character bio’s, translations notes and reference guide with handy links to scenes being referred to, an image gallery, clean versions of the opening & closing themes, and trailers for other releases from the company.

The quality of the video transfer is perfect with no real noticeable issues spotted anywhere. Colors are vibrant and everything comes in nice and sharp on the screen. The audio was crystal clear on both the Japanese and English soundtracks, with no noticeable issues making themselves noticeable.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been following the series up to this point then this is a must-buy for you as it continues the type of situations and mayhem that we’ve come to love this series for. Very highly recommended to all anime fans, although preferably you should start with volume one and build your way up to this one.

Look forward to the final Miami Guns release with volume four! In fact I can’t wait to see it!

Jeffrey Couto