Brought back from the dead after being murdered, Brandon Heat’s mind is controlled by the few memories he has of his life -- memories which are slowly growing stronger. If desire for revenge drives the narrative of "Destroyer in the Dusk", the first episode of this anime series, then memory functions as a strong thematic cross-current. Characters live in the past, mourning the death of those they were once close to, and overflow with pain, loss and sorrow. A young girl living with the scientist who is reanimating Brandon’s corpse, cries over the murder of her mother at the hands of Mafioso and plans her revenge. This single-minded focus on revenge for past crimes, gives these characters’ lives a depleted feel in the present. They live for the past and the past alone, and we wonder what life will have to offer them once they achieve their goal of revenge, assuming that they’re not killed in the process. This binary of past and present, or more accurately, of happy past and sullen present, is accentuated throughout Gungrave. It is seen in the contrast between the pre-credit shootout, and the opening credit sequence. The initial moments of this series show an un-dead Brandon Heat, (who in his reanimated state receives the name ‘Beyond the Grave’), skillfully defeating bone-white monsters attacking him in a snow-swept landscape. He blasts away with his over-sized twin handguns (dubbed ‘Cerberus’ after the mythical monster-dog which guarded Hades, ensuring the dead did not leave and the living did not enter), and stands under a hail of falling bullet casings as the creatures disintegrate in the fury of his fire. The credit sequence that follows has home-video style footage of a young smiling Brandon next to his best friend Harry. They are clowning around and leading the life of itinerant street punks. The ‘pastness’ of these shots is emphasized by animated grain and signs of aging in the footage, and stresses the fact that what we are watching is a state of affairs that is never going to repeat itself, a state of happiness which is never going to recur, and a friendship which is forever lost. This series is told from Brandon’s point-of-view and these shots of his past life seen in the credit sequence are quite possibly the same fragmented memories which return to him beyond the grave. This raises the question of the meaning of Brandon’s new name, ‘Beyond the Grave’. Is it merely suggesting that ‘life’ continues for Brandon after death, (if his reanimation can be called ‘life’)? Does his new name hint at memories he carries within him from his past life? Does it point towards his single-minded pursuit of revenge, a revenge that death cannot halt, and which seems to be the single action he is capable of in his reanimated form? And then there is the possibility that the meaning of his name lies in something which will only be revealed later in this series.

The Gungrave series is based on the Playstation 2 videogame produced by Sega. Though the game wasn’t considered exceptional in any respects, its anime-style look, created by Kôsuke Fujishima and Yasuhiro Nightow, impressed may people at the time of its release. The game’s look made it an obvious choice for development into an anime series. The first episode, "Destroyer in the Dusk", which takes place after Brandon’s reanimation, is the most overtly stylized episode on this disc. Episodes two, three and four, entitled "Young Dogs", "Rain", and "Go" respectively, take us back to Brandon’s youth and begins to trace the series of events which will eventually lead to the state of affairs we are presented with in "Destroyer in the Dusk". These three episodes chart Brandon’s, and his best friend Harry’s, dangerous and violent run-ins with a never-ending array of toughs and mobsters. As they dispatch their enemies and slowly rise through the ranks of gangdom, eventually being inducted into the revered Millennion mafia, their friendships and relationships become increasingly strained. Gungrave’s animation charts this change of mood stylistically by opening with sunny days and ordinary settings and then shifting to an increasingly neo-noir world of sunglasses, ankle-length coats, guns, more guns, rain, looming buildings, narrow side-alleys, and sewer tunnels. This stylistic shift expresses the increasing closeness of death to characters, and particularly to Brandon. His voice-over constantly stresses this: "Death is always looking over your shoulder".

By making the first episode of this series a brief, mysterious and evocative snapshot of the reanimated Brandon, the makers of Gungrave imbue the episodes that follow with an intrinsic interest: the lives of the young, wayward street punks are interesting in themselves, but now that we now know the point towards which the series is heading, we strain to see it around every corner.

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