Heroine Spotlight - Rally Vincent from Gunsmith Cats.

Rally or Larry Vincent is the main protagonist of the anime and manga known as Gunsmith Cats, created by Ken'ichi Sonoda. She's a skilled gunslinger, with normal physical strength but more than makes up for it with her accuracy and knowledge in firearms, these being one of her main obsessions along with cars. 

The 19 year old works as a bounty hunter and has a gun store. Rally lives with her best friend and partner, Minnie May Hopkins. Both gals have a strong but sometimes troublesome friendship, as Rally’s mature and calmed personality often clashes with May’s more outgoing and edgy character.  She often carries a CZ-75 handgun and drives a Shelby Mustang Cobra GT500. 

She comes from indian descendance, her father was also a very talented gunman, her mother was a blonde british lady and expert musician who disliked weapons and often discouraged her husband from working in such a dangerous area. Right before the two of them got a divorce, Rally’s mother was murdered and her father went away in order to look for the killer but he never came back, leaving Rally alone. 

Not long after that, Rally meets a former prostitute, the young and brave May, the manga series follows the two of them as they manage the store and collect bounties from dangerous criminals who are after them. There was also an OVA with a continuing storyline involving a tough Russian female agent who becomes one of Rally’s more fierce antagonists, aside from Goldie from the manga.

Rally is some sort of self insert for the main author, as she shares a lot of his interests quite explicitly, almost to the point of being fetishistic but for the most part this makes for an interesting and more rounded character. 

Her unconventional interests and her relationship with men make her a very curious and realistic character, even groundbreaking. Usually, female characters aren't only damsels in distress but they also display a very prominent “femininity” that becomes stereotypical and restrictive when it comes to women in media, giving Rally these “masculine” interests and stripping away any romantic interest in men, not only does it give the writer more time to focus on the action and plot but also makes Vincent a very transgressive female in media. 

One of the best main female characters to ever exist and one of my favorites.  

King of Fighters (2010) Female fight scenes

Based on the popular video game, this was a rather hated movie ever since it was released. It's about a bunch of fighters who enter an interdimensional tournament. It's far from the perfect action flick but I thought there were some redeemable fighting sequences, from the girls at least. One of them being a protagonist and the other two interesting ones being a secondary duo. 

The two Mais. Not very similar.

Mai Shiranui (played by Maggie Q) is one of the main characters and the first one to have a fight scene. A rather tepid and restrained personality but very competent agent. Decent heroine with enough screen time.

We also have the lesbian couple of Vice (Bernice Liu) and Mature (Monique Ganderton). Two deadly killers, but their relationship falls a little bit into the "male gaze" area, regardless, it is cool seeing them together and in good sequences. 

Vice and Mature ready to fight.

The two lovers.

It features about 15 minutes of girl action and a lot of it its pretty good. Not a bad entry in the genre but far from an ideal one. The lesbian couple become the servants of a villain and they are mostly there for eye candy but Mai is mostly treated with respect. Here are the best parts: They are in spanish, by the way: