English Dub Review: No Guns Life “Turning Point”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Since we last checked in with Juzo and the gang, they had just solved a mystery of a pair of Extended hands haunting a young girl, which was actually a deception by guardian. As a reward for their work, Juzo’s team got to keep the data being kept secret by the girl and the walking hands decided to stick around the group. Juzo is still investigating the data, which turns out to be a recording of Tokisada Mega Armed, the publicly beloved Extended who turned out to be a terrible person, admitting to some past crimes. And it seems some already know about that recording, as the anti-Extended group Spitzbergen storms Juzo’s building and takes his landlord and Tetsuro hostage to lure him out with the data. Mary manages to escape and meet up with him, but the EMS and their new acting director, Avio Cobo, are unwilling to help without Juzo handing over the data. Also, Mary’s brother Victor, and Extended himself, is working with Spitzbergen as “the Dismantler”, known for his ability to tear Extendeds apart, which horrifies Mary.

OUR TAKE

It’s been a good SEVEN MONTHS since this site has checked in with No Guns Life, but with good reason. The second half of its first season got delayed a few months in Japan due to the pandemic and now Funimation is finally able to spare some energy to begin dubbing it. No word yet on if the releases will be bi-weekly like many of their other dub releases have been lately, but we’ll be covering them all as they come out. The announcement of them finally dubbing it was pretty sudden, so I didn’t have time to go back and rewatch all of the previous twelve episodes to refresh my memory, but I can just do that this coming week and be ready for whenever the next episode comes. No Guns Life isn’t gonna catch me UNARMED again! Eh? Eh?

So anyway, the episode in question. Aside from the warranted recap at the top of the show, things pretty much don’t skip a beat and carry on from the previous episode. Juzo’s looking into the data he got and that starts causing reverberations around him and putting him and his friends in danger. Which, while I don’t remember EXACTLY how the first dozen episodes went, does feel pretty much like business as usual around here. But that’s not to say things don’t feel like they’re not moving forward. Tetsuro has certainly grown from being that defenseless kid who couldn’t move any of his limbs but was constantly running away, though he still has a lot to learn. He’s eager to defend his friends from attackers who are after the Harmony program in his body (which, for those who don’t remember, allows him to control machines), though he doesn’t seem to grasp that this time, they’re not here for him AND he gets immediately captured. Two steps forward, one step back, I guess.

And Mary isn’t getting left out of the character development, as it seems her brother Victor has now entered the story proper and is working for the enemy. Again, vague recollections about the last batch of episodes, but when an anime character is only mentioned in passing as disappeared and dead (especially when it’s a family member of a main character), you can bet good money they’ll be back and probably as a bad guy. The group he’s working for, Spitzbergen, have also made appearances in the past, though now they seem to be getting more focus as they go after recorded proof of an Extended icon like Tokisada (who I guess is ONLY popular for being one of the first Extendeds) is actually a criminal, which speaks to how tenuous the tolerance for Extendeds is in the show’s world. But we’ve got eleven more episodes to find more stuff to talk about, so let’s see where this show takes that whenever it comes back.