Gunsmith Cats (ガンスミス キャッツ, Gansumisu Kyattsu) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kenichi Sonoda.

It was published in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon from 1991 to 1997 and was followed between 2004 and 2008 by a sequel series Gunsmith Cats Burst which included the same characters and situations.

Nineteen-year-old Irene "Rally" Vincent operates the titular "Gunsmith Cats" gun shop but also works as a bounty hunter, which is the impetus behind many of the stories.

Teenage ex-burglar and lock-picker Misty Brown later joins the team and there is also Becky Farrah, a top, if expensive, source of information on underworld activity.

Bounty hunting has of course led Rally to make many enemies, most notably Gray, the leader of gangsters whose use of armaments, including bombs, has likened them to terrorists; and Goldie Musou, a leading figure in the Mafia who uses drugs to manipulate people to the point that they can be brainwashed into killing their nearest and dearest.

Bean Bandit, a man who specializes in delivering illegal goods, often features as an alternate ally or enemy—depending on the behavior of his clients, most of whom are being hunted by Rally.

After leaving anime production company Artmic to work as a comic artist, Kenichi Sonoda presented some of his story concepts and illustrations to Kodansha.

[3] Due to licensing issues, Sonoda was originally unable to use the Riding Bean concept or character around the time he was creating Gunsmith Cats.

[5] Although Sonoda was a fan of the Japanese police drama series Taiyō ni Hoero!, he decided the show did not fit his preferred Western style.

[8] Written and illustrated by Kenichi Sonoda, Gunsmith Cats began publication in the February 1991 issue of Afternoon, a monthly manga magazine published by Kodansha.

[28][29] On December 3, 2017, AnimEigo announced that they acquired the license for Gunsmith Cats, and that they would host a Kickstarter campaign to produce a Blu-ray edition for the series.

During production of the anime adaptation, members of the staff made several trips to Chicago to scout locations, including visits to a Gun Shop and a Police Academy.

[40] In Manga: The Complete Guide, Jason Thompson is critical of Sonoda's depiction of women as "thin-hipped plastic toys with pubic hair" and some "frankly pedophilic" plot elements.

[42] Comparing the manga and anime they noted that despite Sonoda's attention to the cars and weapons in the series, the setting feels more like a generic American town than Chicago.

[43] In The Anime Encyclopedia, Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy call the adaptation "good fun" and observed the lighthearted approach to the series in comparison to the manga.