Gunslinger Girl – 1 [Fratello] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all to the new season of Throwback Thursday, this time featuring Gunslinger Girl! Anime is well known for it’s loli’s, and well known for gratuitous violence, but what about gratuitous loli violence? That is a sentence I never thought I would write, but here we are, so without further ado lets jump in!

Starting off, lets talk visuals, because I am a bit mixed on Gunslinger Girl. Animation wise, it’s great. Once everything starts moving, guns start shooting and characters get running, everything is smooth. The big standout here was of course Henrietta’s gunfight near the end of the episode. Firing, shells hitting the ground, bullets hitting the environment, reloading, it all looked great. I also like the expressiveness on characters such as Giuse, I understood his emotions throughout the episode just from his face. But that brings me to the character designs, which I’m less enthused about. They aren’t bad, they just felt sort of.. flat? Washed out? I can’t tell if it’s the emotionless eyes or perhaps I just need to dial back after the colorful nature of Princess Tutu. Because it reminds me a lot of anime like Monster, which I love dearly. I suppose we will see moving forward.

Moving on to the basic premise, there is only one question on my mind: Is this a mafia, or a legitimate government organization? I couldn’t tell, because they say they are the government, but I also don’t really believe them. Either way though, they are using child soldiers as assassins. Now as far as anime goes, watching children fight to the death isn’t all that uncommon. Just look at literally any Shounen series in existence. However Gunslinger Girl is trying very hard, both in aesthetic and in it’s story, to take the subject seriously. I have no idea where it will go, how or even if it will comment on the subject, but I have my suspicions. I’ll get into those later though, for now, it’s little girls kicking ass and shooting guns. And if nothing else, that’s kinda cool, and the mystery around it all definitely has my attention.

Thing brings me to our lead characters, Giuse and Henrietta. I mentioned them a little before, but in the context of the story, neither seem to fit in well. Not that they are bad characters, rather that they both have reservations about their place in it. Henrietta for instance is clearly more loyal to Giuse than the organization. She only cares about the mission because he does, and cares more about keeping him safe. Meanwhile Giuse is clearly uncomfortable with using child soldiers. We can see it in his expression through the entire episode, especially when talking to Henrietta. I can’t tell if he truly cares for her yet, or just doesn’t like using children. But the fact remains that what is happening doesn’t sit well with him. Especially at the end, where the Boss suggests they modify Henrietta more, knowing it will curb what little humanity she has left.

This is pretty important, because it means there is a clear lose state for both of them. Giuse wants Henrietta to live a, maybe not happy, but better life after her trauma. Combine that with Henrietta’s loyalty to him and I have a guess as to where the series is going to go. I think that at some point, they are going to try and leave their organization. That Giuse will attempt to get Henrietta out, but she won’t go without him, and thus they are on the run from the other child soldiers and their handlers. Because their relationship, from what little we have seen, seems very different from any other pair. Even at the very start of the episode, they are introduced as “Fratello”, or siblings. Not partners, or handler and soldier, but siblings. Maybe I’m way off base, but I think it’d be a fun story.

Getting back to the setting, it looks like this whole “child assassin” thing goes deep. As the boss calls them “cyborgs” and mentions different levels of modification. Based on Guise’s reaction to it, I can only assume that the heavier the modification the more humanity these children lose. It does make me wonder if there is a bit of a sci-fi element to Gunslinger Girls, but I don’t expect it to come up all that much. This primarily seems like flavor, something thrown in to explain the different skill levels of otherwise brainwashed children. So I fully expect our leads to have to fight some at some point, since the other mooks we met this week don’t present much of a threat. That said, Henrietta did get hurt, so Gunslinger Girl made it very clear they are not invincible.

Finally, lets talk about the rest of our cast. As at the end of the episode we meet a few other girls, such as Triela and Claes. We don’t know much about them yet, but I think ending on this scene was actually pretty important for the show. As it gives Henrietta and the other girls a level of humanity we haven’t otherwise seen. It shows us that they hang out, the eat together, they have friends and that they aren’t alone. We learn that Henrietta likes sweet stuff, if only by the amount of sugar she puts in her tea. These are small things, but they go a long way to painting her as an actual character rather than a mindless killer. If Gunslinger Girl can continue to ride this line, I expect the cast will be OK. If not… well, at least it will have guns for entertainment.

So all in all, how was the first episode of Gunslinger Girl? Well I am not sold yet, the designs are going to take some getting used to after our last show for instance. Overall though, I am positive about it. We have some intrigue, multiple ways the show can go, conflicting character motivations, etc. Everything is in place for either a Crime or Spy series, but this time with little girls and guns. It’s still to early to call anything of course, but if the 2nd episode can keep this up I expect this will be a good time. What do you all think though? Is Gunslinger Girl starting off well? Leave a comment below to let me know, and I will see you all next week! And remember, if you want a show watched, submit it below! I can put it on the poll at the end.