Books: Gunsmith Cats: Burst Vol. #2

Now that I’ve finished with the second volume of the new adventures of Rally Vincent and Minnie-May Hopkins, I think I’ve finally worked out the filing category for Gunsmith Cats: Burst. “Manga that take place in the United States” was one possibility, and “Homage to American action movies” was another consistent one, but I think the best label so far has been “Manga I read with a crooked, silly grin all the way through.” Come on: What other comic shows us a seven-foot-tall mercenary driver with a bulletproof bandanna slicing through the wall of someone’s house with a hunting knife big enough to skin an elephant — and does all this with a straight face, because it’s allegedly set in the “real world?”

Burst #2 continues all the plot threads that were kicked off in Volume #1 — mainly, the mystery behind the theft of Rally’s prized Shelby GT 500 muscle car, her pride and joy. Now it’s been packed with explosives and about to be turned into a weapon of mass destruction. As in the earlier Cats adventures, Rally manages to stay a step ahead of her tormentors by outsmarting, outpacing (and occasionally outshooting) them — and by drawing on her friends, from Minnie-May the explosives expert to Miss Farrah the hacker-cum-researcher who will dig up any tidbit of information for a price, a percentage, or both. And I shouldn’t forget Bean Bandit, the any-time-any-place driver (I sometimes wonder if Jason Statham’s Transporter character was a polite nod to Bandit) who alternates between being a competitor, an ally, and a nemesis depending on the breaks.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.