Gungrave was originally a gun action video game released for PlayStation 2 in July 2002, with character design and original concept by Yasuhiro Nightow (creator of Trigun), mechanical design by Kosuke Fujishima, and illustrations by Hidenori Matsubara.

The game's design concept was to create something a tired person could play for just 10 minutes to relieve stress before going to sleep; its genre name 'Full Break Gun Action' emphasizes destroying enemies and environmental objects alike.

The anime shares several staff and stylistic traits with Nightow's other anime adaptation Trigun, including the same creator, composer, screenwriter, studio, broadcaster, poetic episode previews, and an instrumental opening theme; a dog-like creature called Tama that appears in Trigun also shows up in Gungrave.

Screenwriter Yōsuke Kuroda, who wrote Gungrave, also wrote the following series MADLAX, and reused the fictional currency unit 'Yule' from Gungrave in that show.

Because voice actress Tomoko Kawakami, who voiced Mika Asagi in the original games and Overdose, passed away in 2011, the role was taken over starting with Gungrave VR by Kumi Sakuma, who had already voiced Mika in the anime adaptation.

The package artwork for the first Gungrave game was reversible, with the back cover featuring a comical parody of the front illustration, a similar gimmick Nightow had also used on the inside covers of his Trigun manga volumes.

A live-action film and novelization of Gungrave were announced at Anime Expo 2010, but as of 2025 no further news or updates about this adaptation have surfaced.

IGN compared protagonist Brandon Heat/Beyond the Grave to the Terminator due to his deadly skills, while several critics such as Anime News Network and Mania Entertainment praised Tomokazu Seki's vocal performance playing both the character's living and undead personas.