GUNSMITH CATS BURST VOLUME 4

"THE POST-BALL STORIES" | "CHATTING AWAY"
"A FAMILIAR FACE FROM THE PAST" | "GOLDY" | "THE SCAR'S MEMORY"
"GUARD GOLDY!" | "ONE-HANDED" | "THE WOUNDED ONES"
"A SHOOTOUT IN THE SMOKE" | "FLASHBACK?"
"LOST MEMORY, RECOVERED MEMORY" | "AFTER THE HOUSE PARTY"
Presented by Kenichi Sonoda
Translation and Lettering: Studio Cutie

Before we get started, I should make a general note about the translation of GUNSMITH CATS and GUNSMITH CATS BURST, and a specific note regarding the spelling of Goldie's name. Dark Horse's original run of GUNSMITH CATS in the nineties was credited as being translated by Dana Lewis and Toren Smith (collectively known as "Studio Proteus"). The pair handled the entire series from start to finish. I commented a bit on some of their scripting when I looked at those volumes last year. Mostly everything read fine, but there were some tics here and there that I didn't like. But the main thing to note about the Lewis/Smith work is that they adapted their script for a pretty natural and flowing English language experience.

BURST, on the other hand, is translated by a group called Studio Cutie -- and they seem to take a much more literal approach with their script. Obviously I don't know what Sonoda's original Japanese script looked like (and I can't read Japanese so it wouldn't matter if I ever saw it), but Studio Cutie's work feels like a straight translation with no liberties taken to adjust the words and phrasing for an English-speaking audience. More or less, it reads like some of the "scanlations" of manga I've seen on the web now and then -- somewhat stilted in places, with occasional weirdly archaic words thrown in (such as Roy, in this very volume's opening chapter, asking Rally if she considers Bean Bandit a "comrade").

Overall, I think I like the script from Lewis and Smith, which, while occasionally mired in tics I disliked, had a more naturalistic style to it, over the BURST script from Studio Cutie.

But! I promised some hot talk about the spelling of returning villainess Goldie's name, so here we go: Lewis and Smith called her "Goldie Musou". Goldie is, of course, the absolutely unquestioned correct spelling of the word. But for some reason, Studio Cutie calls her "Goldy Musso". "Goldy" is not a spelling any normal English-speaking human being has ever used in the history of written language. Thus, while including the incorrect spelling in the chapter titles above, since that's how they're presented in the book, I'll continue to call the character Goldie in my posts.

(Also, note the last name, which the two sets of translators got wrong in reverse! Lewis and Smith's "Musou" looks like the Romanized translation of a Japanese word. Meanwhile, Studio Cutie's "Musso" is actually an Italian name, and Goldie is, in fact, Italian. I think the definitive spelling of her name should actually be Goldie Musso.)

And, with all of that out of the way, let's move along into the actual story! Things kick off with a pair of "downtime" chapters, in which we learn that the embezzled mob money being held by Rally's bounty, Howard, in BURST's earliest chapters, has finally been freed up -- and everyone has gotten their share. May and Ken leave for a honeymoon in Japan, while Rally considers moving out of her gun shop to a condo downtown. Misty wants to become Rally's new partner, under the assumption May will return to the U.S. pregnant -- but the quiet time doesn't last long, for Rally and Misty soon find themselves captured by Goldie and her right-hand man, Dennis.

Only things don't quite run the way they used to. Goldie is amnesiac following her last encounter with Rally, and Dennis is more or less running the show. But he wants Rally to help her get her memory back, and he holds Misty hostage to convince her to do it. But Misty escapes, and at the same time, an assassin on "loan" to Goldie's group from a rival mob is given the go-ahead from his employers to take Goldie out. A firefight begins in her mansion, and eventually the assassin is killed by Goldie -- but not before he brutally murders several of her men. (And I'm not joking -- the violence in this sequence, while not gruesome, is easily the most graphic Sonoda has ever depicted in GUNSMITH CATS).

Conveniently, the fight ends with Rally and Goldie in nearly the exact same positions they were in during their last confrontation, and Rally uses the opportunity to job Goldie's memory after extracting a promise from Dennis to let her and Misty go. But while Goldie's memories mostly come back, her fixation on Rally does not -- thus, with Dennis's assistance, Goldie is persuaded to let Rally go. The only problem is, Misty is nowhere to be found -- until, after Rally's departure, we readers learn that she's being held once again as one of Goldie's "girls" elsewhere in the mansion.

Timeline weirdness arises again near the end of this book. Last week I mentioned that in volume 3, Rally said she'd only been a bounty hunter for two years, which seemed to fly in the face of the timeline established in the original series. Here, Dennis says that it's been two years since Rally and Goldie had their last showdown, which occurred at the very end of the original GUNSMITH CATS! Clearly, either Sonoda is playing fast and loose with his own internal chronology, or the translations have screwed something up. I have to admit, I hope it's latter, only because authors being unaware of their own timelines drives me nuts. I mean, I know I'm pretty anal-retentive about this stuff, but if I was a writer of fiction, I would have a timeline drawn up, probably right down to the day, stating exactly what happened when to my characters.

Lastly, let's talk for a moment about Rally's dad. Remember him? He was the eponymous "Mister V" in the original series' final story arc. Rally had become a bounty hunter in part to find him after he'd disappeared from her life years earlier. It turned out he'd been on a vengeance mission against the mob, and had eventually come to serve Goldie as a drug-controlled hitman. Rally saved him, brought him back to his old self, and GUNSMITH CATS ended on a fairly happy note, with daughter and father reunited at last.

You may have noticed there's been no mention of Mister V on my part since I started reading BURST, and the reason is because, until the last chapter in this book, none of the character mentioned him either. He's never been seen and nobody, not even Rally herself, as so much as name-dropped him in passing. I'm not sure I would have expected the guy to become a major character in the series, but you'd think our protagonist's father might rate a mention or even a cameo appearance now and then. However it's only here, as Goldie's memory returns, that anybody says anything about "Mister V" -- and when it happens, it's Dennis who drops the name, and only in describing the moment when Rally shot Goldie during their last encounter.

I must admit, it's been years now since the last time I read BURST (which was also the first time I read it), so I don't recall if Mister V comes up at all in volume 5 -- but it just seems bizarre to me that Sonoda would basically ignore the character for nearly four straight volumes after making such a big deal about him in the final days of the original series.

Anyway -- next week we'll cover the final GUNSMITH CATS BURST book, and I'll give my thoughts on the series as a whole.