Category: Gunslinger Girl

Here we are everyone, the finale, the end of Gunslinger Girl Season 1. This post isn’t going to be terribly long, I am saving most of my thoughts for the final review to come out soon. Thanks for stickin me through the series and remember to vote on the next Throwback Thursday poll at the end of the post! Without further ado, lets dive in.

Right off the bat I want to be clear: This was a good episode. But it felt more like a good middle episode, rather than a finale. Gunslinger Girl tries its hardest to make this a more definitive ending of course. It references all the girls, their short lifespans, etc. It focuses in on how they feel about their situation. How they could have been real girls, how they don’t regret it but the handlers might, etc. All of this is good stuff. However… none of it is particularly new. Gunslinger Girls fails to wrap it all up in any meaningful way, it fails to really end any greater story. There is Angelica of course, and we will get to her. But as a whole it feels like we just finished the prologue. And in a way, we did, since there is a 2nd season after this. But not meaningfully.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 13 [Stella Cadente (Shooting Star)] – Throwback Thursday” →

You know, its still technically Thursday for me when I send up this Gunslinger Girl post, so i’m not really late. My own poor scheduling aside, considering how much more consistent it is than the other writers snap, lets dive into some cyborg children! Damn that sounds weird to say.

Getting into the episode, right off the bat I am going to say I wasn’t a big fan. Once again Gunslinger Girl is cutting back to the terrorist/politics plot, following up on Filippo’s information from prior episodes. They made a plan, used Claes as bait, things went wrong, etc. Everything you would expect from an episode about espionage. But my issue is that Gunslinger Girl is neither enough of an action show nor enough of a drama to make this work. Action wise, Gunslinger Girl occasionally has some good scenes, decent fights. But we didn’t get anything spectacular enough to really hold our attention this week. Meanwhile on the drama side, which can often carry lackluster action like in Re:Zero, there is very little emotional investment or catharsis. What do I mean by that? Well follow me after the break and i’ll talk about it.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 12 [Simbiosi (Symbiosis)] – Throwback Thursday” →

Another week another late post of Gunslinger Girl! I can only blame the pandemic so many times before it stops working as an excuse, but here we are. So without further ado lets dive into the episode and see what Henrietta and Jose are doing on vacation!

Overall, this episode was basically just a follow up to the last, unraveling what all happened. For the slower members of the audience it outright stated what happened with Elsa, while for the rest of us it followed up on Fermi’s side of things. Following Henrietta and Jose to Sicily, chatting with each other and discussing the philosophies of the Agency etc. There really wasn’t much new here. Rather, Gunslinger Girl seemingly took the opportunity to reframe things, to make us look at it from another angle. As up until now we have primarily seen the story from the perspective of the Cyborgs, from Henrietta and co. This episode seems to want to zoom out and explore it a bit from the Fratello’s side though. Letting Jose discuss it with Fermi while showing us just how close Henrietta is to ending up like Elsa herself.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 11 [Febbre Alta (High Fever)] – Throwback Thursday” →

A day late on this weeks Gunslinger Girl, I know. Personally, I blame the pandemic because I have lost all sense of time, stuck at home all day. Enough about my excuses though, lets talk child assassins!

This weeks episode of Gunslinger Girl was a weird. Narratively it was all rather straight forward, and we will get to that in a bit. But in terms of direction I can’t help but think it was a mess. It felt like we were watching 3 separate timelines that were cut together without any real indication of which one we were currently watching. Is the Sicily trip the present? The murder investigation? Where does Henrietta getting a present fit into all of that, or Triela calling the investigators? All of these scenes look the same, so its impossible to tell when one occurs compared to the others chronologically. I get what they were going for, trying to run these threads in parallel so they can reveal information pertinent to another thread at the same time. But without any kind of indication, it just comes off as a mess.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 10 [Amare (To Love)] – Throwback Thursday” →

You all know the drill at this point, its another episode of Gunslinger Girl! We got guns, we got depression, and both are delivered by this weeks new girl Elsa. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, quick call out as Gunslinger Girl brought back its animation chops this week. Elsa’s opening firefight in the hotel was chef kiss, great. I will always love how fluid the series can be with the girls movements or the bullet casings falling to the ground. It makes the rest of the series seem stilted in comparison at times. Moving on though, this episode introduces us to another sort of “bad” Handler/Assassin relationship. Until now the primary example of that was Jean and Rico, with a very “Tool/Master” relationship. It was very professional in nature, with Rico knowing and being completely OK with this arrangement. Here though with Elsa and Lauro, we are shown a relationship of extremes. One of obsession and utter disinterest, both taking elements of prior relationships to terrible extremes. To be frank? It’s pretty damn interesting.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 9 [Lycoris Radiata Herb (Cluster Amaryllis)] – Throwback Thursday” →

Another week another slightly late Throwback Thursday post of Gunslinger Girl! I really need to get my schedule figured out, but for now lets talk about child soldiers. This week we get another standalone episode, and for all the issues that brings it was an interesting look at the Brother Sister relationship. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, this was another weird week for Gunslinger Girl. Once again we are given a standalone episode that has absolutely nothing to with the greater terrorist plot. It could have slotted in anywhere in the story and done the exact same thing, it feels disjointed from the series primary plot. That said though, it was a really good episode. In fact I would go so far as to say that these one-off stories are Gunslinger Girl’s best episodes. The focus on the Brother/Sister relationship and look at its overall life cycle was great. I loved in particular how it started us with Henrietta. Showing us her concerns on the subject before switching over to Angelica, who is nearly at the end of her cybernetic lifespan. Its a good look into the final fate that awaits our cast, even if it doesn’t slot neatly into the overall story.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 8 [Il Principe del Regno Della Pasta (The Prince of the Pasta Kingdom)] – Throwback Thursday” →

Welcome all to the halfway point of Gunslinger Girls! This week we go to Florence, appreciate some art and shoot some bad guys. All in a days work for a child soldier really. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Start off I want to talk about Gunslinger Girls production a bit, because I think it looked pretty good. For instance just like last week Gunslinger Girls opened dramatically, with a beautiful shot of Florence. Having been there myself, the opening on the Duomo made it immediately obvious where we were. The Fountain of Neptune only adding to that, setting the scene/location really well. On top of the setting though Gunslinger Girls also nailed the gunfights this episode. Every shot felt crispy and clean, managing to really bring you into the scene. The only real complaint I have about the episode production wise would have to be the cars. I understand that cars can be hard, what with the rapidly moving backgrounds and portraying momentum. At times however they felt like still 2D images sliding into one another and it really took me out of the moment.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 7 [Protezione (Protection)] – Throwback Thursday” →

This week on Gunslinger Girl we finally dive into some plot, kill some terrorists and Henrietta gets some ice cream. What more could you ask for in a week? So without further ado lets dive in, and apologies for the delay, busy day.

Starting off I want to bring up Gunslinger Girls production again, as that was a big selling point initially. The animation in the first episode was fantastic, from the falling bullets to Henrietta’s movements. Sadly that hasn’t really carried through the rest of the episodes. It’s not terrible, but most of the time Gunslinger Girl lacks the same… oomph it had early on. However as if to offset that, this episode really upped the cinematography. The opening segment with the trains in particular caught my attention. Without a word, Gunslinger Girl managed to setup the bomb and the two trains fantastically. Heightening the tension, letting one pass but the bomb tick on before throwing another train coming from the opposite direction. Will this one pass? What about another? When will the bomb blow? It was a fantastic introduction to the episode and its plot.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 6 [Gelato (Ice Cream)] – Throwback Thursday” →

Another week, another episode of Gunslinger Girl, and another new cast member is introduced. This week we get another Brother/Sister pair, a deeper look into the Agency and just a bit of tragedy. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off I want to explain where I am at with Gunslinger Girl. Because you see, I think I’ve had the wrong idea of what exactly this show is. After the first episode I was expecting a crime thriller of some kind, a character driven pew pew shootemup with morally questionable children. And so as we worked through these last 4 episodes I ended each one thinking “Great, when does the plot start?”. As many of you have told me, this was clearly a mistake. That isn’t what Gunslinger Girl is about, shooting guns is just a consequence of the setting. Rather Gunslinger Girl is about… well, the girls and those watching over them. About their relationships and how they interact with each other. I want to say its almost episodic in nature, but who knows where it will go. As for me, I’m just along for the ride now.

Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl – 5 [Promessa (Promise)] – Throwback Thursday” →