Anime Neo-Westerns

I have little ability to enjoy actual proper Westerns and yet something about Neo-Westerns in Anime I’m able to enjoy quite a bit.

They have the ability to recreate what can be fun and entertaining about Westerns but while also feeling sufficiently divorced from what Westerns represent Socio-Politically in American Culture.  Westerns are generally loved by the right and loathed by the left for multiple different reasons.  And even the “Subversive” Westerns that some Breadtubeers seem to like reflect how what I want from left wing media is often the opposite of most of them.

There are native to the U.S. examples of Western Tropes being translated into Sci-Fi or Fantastical settings, but they usually bring the politics with them whether they want to or not.  I liked the recent Fallout series on Amazon Prime and The Mandalorian/Book of Boba Fett, but they aren’t the same as these Anime Westerns.

Spaghetti Westerns are the more well known example of the Western being taken on by another country.  However a lot of them still involve certain Hollywood figures like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.  And Italy is still part of the West.  

It’s not that I think these Anime westerns are “Apolitical”, they are always saying something about the internal politics of their own worlds at least.  But certain issues are so fundamentally different in Japan that an Anime couldn't do them the same way an American movie would, certainly not by accident, and if they tried I'd trust their external perspective to have some value.

This is a post I was thinking about writing at several points last year then semi-forgot about.  But I was inspired to return to the subject after watching Grimm Variations which recently went up on Netflix, where episode 5 the Town Musicians of Breman took this Neo-Western approach.  I'm not familiar with the original fairy tale so can’t judge it on that ground, but as a throwback to this niche Genre of Anime it was great.

And it is a throwback, the golden age of this particular Sub-Genre of Anime was the 2000s.  

El Cazador De La Bruja was my first exposure to it which I watched for its thematic connection to Noir and Madlax, and it was great, it still holds up to this day.

Burst Angel is another very fun mid 2000s Neo-Western that I recommend everyone check out.

Gun x Sword is a show I  haven’t finished yet but I like plenty of what I’ve seen so far.

Sands of Destruction has some western vibes going on at times but I wouldn’t necessarily say this is it’s main genre.  Same with Black Cat from 2005 but in a very different way.

I haven’t seen any of Gun Frontier yet but I plan to eventually, it’s annoying that it isn’t on any of the official streaming sites. (Most of the shows I just mentioned should be on Crunchyroll, but Sands is sadly one of those that was still only on Funimation when it died).

Now I know that many assume Cowboy Bebop should be one of the first shows mentioned when talking about Anime Neo-Westerns, but to me Bebop has little of the western in it, it is much more built on the Film Noir tropes.

Vampire Hunter D is a good example of an older Anime with Western influence, I like to describe it as a Sergio Leone film drenched in Goth.  The first movie is the only one I personally like, Bloodlust does some things with its Vampire lore that really grind my gears.

Update May 20th: I forgot to mention how this trend sometimes expanded outside of Anime itself, Pokémon Colosseum is also a good example.