The art of getting jank right

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The Gungrave pairing of third-person shooters that came to PS2 in its pomp seem like the epitome of all that; an anime aesthetic brimming with edgy swagger, with a growling no-nonsense attitude to back it all up. I remember playing them back-to-back in a friend’s living room one sunny Saturday afternoon in Brighton oh-so-many years ago, the curtains drawn and endless pots of green tea powering us through the action.

This was one of those clued-up, cooler friends that pushed me towards so many awesome things back then; a cult movie and anime obsessive, they introduced me to Cowboy Bebop that same summer, while pointing out the pointed similarities between Gungrave’s protagonist – the imaginatively monikered ‘Grave’ – and Spaghetti western hero Django, with both dragging their own coffins behind them into battle (I was then sent home with a handful of Django VHS tapes so I could continue my education in my own time).