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.
Simply put, Gunslinger Girl’s hasn’t done a great job of emotionally investing me in its story. Don’t get me wrong, the meta aspect of the Cyborgs and their Handlers is great. I find it really interesting how it uses each pair to critique it in a different light. To show a different form of the relationship, including both the good and bad of each approach. Of showing how each handler treats the girls or looks at them, whether as tools or actual people. All of that and how the girls are handling said situation is rather interesting. It’s why these often make for some of the most interesting episodes of the series. However what this doesn’t do is emotionally invest me in them as characters.
There are a myriad of reasons for this of course. One example are the girls themselves, and their rather flat presentation. There is an argument to be made that these girls are presented as purposefully flat. To really nail home what the surgeries and conditioning take from them, to really ride that line between human and machine. However while that works in theory, in practice it makes them come off as cold and difficult to empathize with. I feel bad for them as children, but not as people, not as characters. The closest I could come to forming an emotional attachment to one of the girls is no doubt Henrietta, because we have spent the most time with her. Her slow degradation, from the memory to her little show with Jose last episode were great and did their job well. But the rest of the cast? I don’t feel much.
Meanwhile the overall meta aspect of it, of child soldiers, of the government using evil means to forward a good goal. Gunslinger Girl doesn’t really tackle either of these very deeply. It takes a Skyrim approach so far, in that its very wide but very shallow. We get a lot of different looks at the agency of course. As I said before, each girl is a different form of relationship, with most of the approving of what happened. But Gunslinger Girl hasn’t really gone much deeper. The one time it did, with Elsa, was a fantastic sequence. It really broke down what the relationship means to the girls. But in introducing so many characters and so many plots in a single cour, I can’t but feel Gunslinger Girl is going to be all build up with no payoff. I hope it proves me wrong.
That said, the raid wasn’t all bad. It was kinda fun to see all the girls work together and for Claes to get out in the field again. Had we spent more time with her rather than her one episode it might mean more. But as it is, its just a nice little sequence. My only real complaint is how… tame it was. Nothing went right, but it didn’t go wrong enough to surprise me. Not positively at least, as I expected something to happen. But for Angelica to simply trip once, run off and get shot only to survive? It felt tame, and I was expecting far more than a simple hospital trip. I figured we would get something more akin to Elsa again, with a girl’s love for her Handler once again leading to their death, but unintentionally rather than suicide this time. Instead Gunslinger Girl held back.
So all in all, how was Gunslinger Girl? For me, the best way I can describe it is fine. Gunslinger Girl hasn’t done anything wrong, it hasn’t made any major missteps nor has it really bombed in any way. It just hasn’t wowed me. Everywhere I look I see ways it could be more, and perhaps they are ways it explores in the future. After all Gunslinger Girl is a full 15 volume manga, with a 2nd season after this one. Knowing that, it makes sense that it isn’t blowing everything it has in a single cour. Its the kind of show that builds and builds into a crescendo. However unlike other series like Monster, Gunslinger Girl’s hook just hasn’t been strong enough to carry it through this initial setup. Maybe that all changes with our finale next week. I would love to be proven wrong.
But I am not expecting I will be. Let me know what you think below, and I will see you next week for the finale!
