This may be a problematic title for all but NRA households, being a Japanese sports-action-dramedy series (derived from comics) that unapologetically idolizes guns and gunfights. The sport is Japan's “survival games,” a variant on paintball that uses startlingly realistic airsoft plastic-pellet guns (some here are truly pain-inflicting, repeat-fire weapons). Student Hotaru Tachibana is shanghaied into joining “Team Toy GunGun,” an airsoft-survival squad led by cocky cad Masamune, with whom Hotaru has a love-hate relationship. But Hotaru, in a genre cliché, is really a girl masquerading as a boy. And the team has a male gun culture, explicitly excluding females following a bad incident in the past. A third member is misfit classmate Toru, who has a secret career as a manga artist/writer specializing in S&M. The trio compete against bullying, unscrupulous rival teams, while Hotaru matures from gun-novice to combat teammate. Instead of the expected Hollywood (or even Japanimation) showdown finale against enemies, the 12-episode story arc refreshingly ends with an internal debate over comradeship and inclusion (a 13th OVA episode is a just-for-fun bonus with the trio fighting a gun battle in cosplay drag). With only minor racy undertones and raw language, this is a well-done series, albeit one that glorifies playing with firearms. Compiling all 13 episodes from 2015 in separate dual-language DVD and Blu-ray editions, rated TV-14, this is recommended with reservations. (C. Cassady)
Aoharu x Machinegun: Complete Collection
(2015) 325 min. DVD: 3 discs, $59.98; Blu-ray: 2 discs, $69.98. Sentai Filmworks (avail. from most distributors). Volume 32, Issue 1
Aoharu x Machinegun: Complete Collection
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