YMMV / Gunsmith Cats

• Complete Monster: OVA trilogy:
  • Natasha "Bloody Pierce" Radinov is a vicious ex-Spetsnaz who makes her living as an assassin and mercenary, who only accepts payment in heroin so she can sell it for higher prices in Russia. Introducing herself in a routine murder, Radinov accepts a hit for a gunrunner. Radinov proceeds to storm a police safe house, massacring every officer inside before killing her target. Later kidnapping the heroine Rally Vincent's partner Minnie May, Radinov forms a deeply personal grudge when Rally manages to injure her. Killing several innocent civilians who were just in a spot she wanted to relax in, Radinov sadistically kills one of her employers when the operation's chief judges him a loose end. When the chief, mayoral candidate Eddie Haints, tries to lure Rally into a trap for Radinov, Radinov simply sprays the area with machine gun fire, not caring if she kills Haints as well while killing several of his guards. When pursued by Rally, Radinov kills several more innocent people in her way and expresses her wish to torment Rally slowly to death, gloating she'll show the young Bounty Hunter "all she knows about pain".
  • Edward Haints is a corrupt senator running for the office of Chicago Mayor as a means to bolster his secret criminal empire. Responsible for drug and gun trafficking that actively worsens the city, Haints tries to "test" a new recruit by forcing her to execute an ATF agent. When the ATF closes in on his operations, Haints hires the bloodthirsty Radinov to murder anyone in her way to cover up his crimes, resulting in security guards and an entire safe house of police being slaughtered to silence one of Haints' minions who knows too much, as well as Rally and her allies being targeted. A treacherous snake whose sole concern is his greed, Haints has his own ally George Black killed by Radinov, then tries to betray and murder Radinov herself to secure his election and enable him to broaden his gun trafficking to greater heights.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans do not like Burst for how unnecessarily cynical it gets and its Downer Ending. Unsurprisingly, fans opt to just ignore it entirely.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The OVA's plot is about a mayoral candidate running on a tough gun control campaign platform while secretly selling guns under the table to line his own pockets. In March 2014, California state legislature senator Leland Yee was arrested for firearms trafficking while also being known as an outspoken gun control advocate.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The opening sequence is very similar to the much later Cowboy Bebop, right down to the music.
• Moral Event Horizon: Goldie seems to cross a new one with every appearance. Bonnie practically leaps across it in her first scene just in case you had any doubts that she was Ax-Crazy.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: One of the biggest criticisms of Burst was the increasing cynicism of the story, ultimately culminating in a Downer Ending with nothing good happening to the main characters (such as Rally retiring from shooting due to her injuries adversely affecting her marksmanship and the gun shop on the verge of closing down) while the main villain Goldie becomes a massive Karma Houdini (with a rather flimsy Vetinari Job Security justification). The reception from the audience is not lost either, as the universally abysmal reception of the ending would torpedo Sonoda's career.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The series is clearly a product of The '90s, not only because of the fashions, hairstyles, and the ex-Soviet villain...but also because the anime's backgrounds are taken from real places in Chicago with incredible accuracy, to the point many fans of the series who are Chicago natives can identify the specific time period the anime was made by certain key features, most notably the construction scaffolding that surrounded the Museum of Science and Industry during that building's renovation.

---