Kenichi Sonoda has had a distinguished career in animation and science-fiction manga. But in February 1991 he exploded onto the pages of the popular manga magazine Afternoon with Gunsmith Cats, a rollicking action story about a tough, woman bounty hunter and her dangerous buddies, fighting drug gangs and extortionists in the mean streets of Chicago. The series brought hungry readers two of the toughest women in Japanese comics, gun aficionado Rally Vincent and bomb freak Minnie-May, who have boosted sales of the Gunsmith Cats graphic novels past 200,000 copies each in Japan and spawned a series of original video animation (available in English from A.D. Vision). If there's a certain fanaticism to Sonoda's finely rendered firearms, it's no accident. He's been a total gun freak himself since elementary school. Dana Lewis of Studio Proteus recently had the opportunity to talk to Sonoda about the success of Gunsmith Cats. Here's their conversation.

Dana Lewis: How did a Tokyo-based manga artist wind up writing a story about women bounty hunters in Chicago?

Kenichi Sonoda: Actually, it started with a single illustration. I had done an illustration of two women with guns -- one tall, one tiny -- for an anthology of illustrations put out by a fanzine publisher friend. I'd been thinking of starting up a new manga series, but when I went to pitch some ideas to my editors, they pounced on that illustration instead and said, "Why don't you flesh out this idea?" And that's how it all started. I chose Chicago in part because so many action manga have been set in New York already, but also because of the reputation Chicago has, even all the way over in Japan -- you know, the city of Al Capone, prohibition gun battles, and tough cops.

Lewis: I'm fascinated by this. So you had this one drawing of two women with guns -- how much did you know about them already? Or did you have to start from scratch to come up with the story?

Sonoda: I find that when I draw someone's face, I get a sense of the whole personality behind the drawing. I think it's mostly in the eyes. With these two women, who later became Rally and Minnie-May, their eyes were very different, and I just kind of knew what they were like. Minnie-May has that etched look to her eyes, something very sharp and acid, and that's the kind of person she is. She's really much tougher in her own way than Rally.

For the story itself, you can largely thank your own Hollywood action films. I've always really enjoyed American action movies, films like The French Connection, or even on the comic side, The Blues Brothers. In fact, when I started Gunsmith Cats, I was way into the Blues Brothers and had seen it a bunch of times. So that was a big influence.

At that time, I still hadn't actually been to Chicago. I did book research, but I didn't get to Chicago until later. And as for the idea of bounty hunters and the police-procedural stuff, in the beginning I was flying by the seat of my pants. I knew you had bounty hunters in America, and I knew these two women were really good with guns and explosives, and the storyline created itself. Of course, I have an outline in my head for where the series is going to go, so Rally and Minnie don't just run off with the story, although they do have a life of their own.

Lewis: Anyone who reads Gunsmith Cats gets a real education in firearms. You put tremendous care into rendering the weapons Rally and her opponents use. How do you do your research?

Sonoda: Guns have been my biggest passion for years. But of course, in Japan it's almost totally against the law to own any kind of firearm. That makes it a lot harder. I've been buying air guns and model guns for years; I've got a big collection by now. And I read three different Japanese magazines on firearms every month. Guns Magazine is the most comprehensive. When I'm drawing a scene with a gun in it, I'll use the magazines, or if I have a model gun of that particular firearm, I'll keep it on my writing desk. I have assistants help me with the series too, so often I'll have to plunk a replica down in front of them and say, see, do it this way. But of course, air guns and model guns aren't exact replicas of the originals. So I'm careful to draw them true to the original, not to the reproductions.

Since you can't own weapons in Japan, it was a real handicap. I didn't get to actually live fire anything until I went to Animecon '91 in San Jose, which was sponsored by Gainax and Studio Proteus. We went to a firing range and blazed away with a whole bunch of different weapons. Since then I've had a chance to fire at ranges in the U.S. several more times.

Lewis: And those high-performance cars Rally loves?

Sonoda: It's the same (laughs). I don't even have a driver's license! I read a lot and study a lot. Right now I don't even have a bike, although I used to ride a Kawasaki GPZ and I had a Yamaha SRX for a while, too.

Lewis: Which character do you like better, Rally or Minnie-May?

Sonoda: Rally's my heroine, so she has to be really good at what she does. Rally's a tough case, she gets things done, and she holds things together. I like her. But at the same time she's sort of intimidating. So in that sense I guess I'm a little more fond of Minnie-May. She's a great character to draw; lots of fun. And while she's strong-willed like Rally, she has her weaknesses.

To be perfectly honest, though, I feel more comfortable creating stories in the Riding Bean world where I've got a leading man. [Bean Bandit is the star of the Riding Bean video, available from AnimEigo. He also appears in the Gunsmith Cats comics.] No matter how much I like Rally and Minnie, it's hard for me as a guy to get inside their heads. Bean Bandit is a guy I can identify with much more personally. No matter how much they say Japanese women have gotten tougher in recent years, you don't meet many people like Rally and Minnie in Japan, or anywhere else. They're a challenge!