Thankfully, there isn't a shortage of girls with guns in animation. Unfortunately, this trend has been changing recently due to the increased market interest in animated porn. Naturally, Japan is the leader for creating femme fatale animation because once again, they understand the genre and care about their product.
Check out my movie reviews
page for a full list of films and reviews.
Return to hot picks index
Aeon Flux (US) - The undisputed queen of firearms. The original "Aeon Flux" animated shorts were amazingly bizarre pieces of surreal violence, but the material lost some of its edge when it became a regular series and got its own thirty minute time slot.
Armitage III (Japan) - A sci-fi adventure about a loose cannon female cyborg who's tracking down a dangerous cyborg killer. Unfortunately, the attitude is too tough and doesn't quite stick, but it's still a lot of fun.
Bakuen Campus Guardress (Japan 1994) - My favorite anime series, ever. Hazumi Jinno is a high school girl with a big sword who has the sacred duty of protecting the man she loves from a race of terrible monsters that want him dead. This series has it all, and crosses nearly every genre that's out there.
Battle Angel (Japan 1993) - A dark and gritty tale of a female cyborg without a past. In searching for her identity, she becomes a bounty hunter and falls in love with a young boy.
Bubblegum Crisis (Japan 1987-1990) - The series that started it all for me. A group of female vigilantes with high tech hardware battle cyborg crimes in the "Blade Runner" like future city of MegaTokyo. It takes a couple of episodes to get in gear, but then it really takes off.
Bubblegum Crash (Japan 1991) - This sequel to "Bubblegum Crisis" is inferior in quality and the violence is toned down quite a bit. It's nice however, to see the girls back in action again.
Devil Hunter Yohko (Japan 1990) - Another tale of a girl with super powers who just wants to be a normal teenager. It's Yohko's sacred duty to keep demons from spilling out into the material world. A little on the raunchy side, but it manages to stay fun.
Devil Hunter Yohko 5: The Death Of Yohko (Japan 1994) - Easily the best of the series. More violence and mayhem as Yohko and Asuza face their most terrible adversary yet.
The Dirty Pair: Affair On Nolandia (Japan 1985) - The original bad girls of animation. Kei and Yuri (The Dirty Pair) take on another case that ends in global destruction. Campy voyueristic fun.
The Dirty Pair: Flight 005 Conspiracy (Japan 1990) - The best of the Dirty Pair series. An engaging story, good character design, slick animation, and non-stop mayhem make this a winner.
Ghost In The Shell (Japan 1996) - Mamoru Oshii's masterful adaptation of Masamune Shirow's cyperpunk manga. A dark and violent journey of self discovery that's extremely well animated. My only complaint is that the female character designs are too androgenous and differ radically from Shirow's original work.
Gunsmith Cats (Japan 1995) - Kenichi Sonoda's girls with guns masterpiece. Bounty hunter Rally Vincent and her bomb expert sidekick Minnie May take on the tough streets of Chicago. Cute character design and slick animation.
Heavy Metal (US 1981) - Here's an adolescent wet dream that manages to be both respectful and exploitive at the same time. Taarna The Defender is one of the baddest babes in cinematic history.
Iria: Zeiram The Animation (Japan 1994) - The animated prequel to the two live action "Zeiram" films, featuring Iria as an apprentice bounty hunter. Great character designs and awesome combat sequences.
Mulan (US 1998) - Walt Disney Productions delivers a fantastic tale of a young girl going to war to aid her ailing father. The martial arts sequences and battle footage are breath-taking, and my only complaint is that the character design is a bit weak.
Natsuki Crisis (Japan) - A guilty pleasure. Natsuki is a teenage girl who loves to fight, and each episode focuses on a hand-to-hand brawl between her and some other girl who bears her ill will. They naturally become friends at the end through the touching female bonding aspects of physical combat.
Nausicaä Of The Valley Of Wind a.k.a. Warriors Of The Wind (Japan) - A breath-taking masterpiece from Hiyao Miyazaki about an ecological holocaust and the young girl who can save humanity. Excellent work on every level - see the original uncut Japanese version if you can. I would even recommend Miyazaki's "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "Laputa: The Castle In The Sky" because they also meet my criteria for strong female characters, but both of those films are far from the femme fatale genre. (you should still watch them anyway!)
Project A-ko (Japan 1986) - What would you get if Superman and Wonder Woman had a baby? A cute little red-haired super gal named A-ko, that's what. This movie is an insane parody of the giant robot genre and may be too much to handle for viewers new to the anime scene. It's a hell of a lot of fun, though.
Sailor Moon (Japan) - Huh?!? Even though this is a kiddy animation targeted at pre-adolescent girls, it meets all of my requirements for a tough chick show. The girls are all very strong, assertive, independent, and fight with fierce conviction. So what if they vanquish monsters with magic wands full of hearts and rainbows? I sure wouldn't want to mess with them...
Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (Japan 1994) - This is mostly a film about guys beating each other up, but the best sequence in the movie is a killer showdown between femme fighter Chun Li and the villainous Vega. Amazing stuff.
Tenchi Muyo OAV Series (Japan 1992-1995) - No guns, but the girls of Tenchi Muyo don't need them. A fun sci-fi romantic comedy featuring a bunch of tough alien babes who get stranded on Earth. They naturally get into a lot of fights with disastrous results.
The X-Men (US 1992-) - Saban Entertainment managed to create an incredible animated version of this popular comic book title, and it's definitely not suitable for younger audiences. Not surprisingly, the X-Women are far more interesting than the X-Men, and Storm, Rogue, Jean, and Jubilee kick some serious ass.