Ah, of course. Triela and Hirsher were the only ones who still weren’t fleshed out enough, and this episode takes care of that. Now all that’s left is for the three final episodes to conclude the story, now that the cast is fully developed. It’s interesting how Triela gets to be the final character that gets her background, even though the entire Pinocchio-arc is centred on her. Usually anime would give characters like her some extra development, when compared to the others, but the creators for Gunslinger Girl made sure that each of the characters received an equal amount of development and background. I’m not sure about others, but I always like it when a series does this. It just shows that the show doesn’t just revolve around its main characters. Call it a personal preference.
In any case, it turns out that Hirsher is a false name. His real name is Heartman, and he apparently worked at a detective agency, and this episode among others tells the story of how he met Triela, and ended up along with her as a Fratello. It turns out that Triela was a victim of human trade, and who knows what kinds of experiments were performed on her. Hirsher and a female colleague of his tried to rescue her, and they just barely were able to save her life.
At the same time, the episode shows how Triela meets the daughter of one of the people that Triela saved one day. it seems that he needs Triela and Hirsher’s help once more. In any case, this daughter (Mimi) and Triela form an interesting couple. They both like to collect teddy-bears, and yet Mimi is a normal girl, who has a boyfriend and likes to play soccer. She really succeeds into lifting Triela’s mood a bit, because she’s still feeling down from Pinocchio.
I also like how the captain of the regular soldiers was able to teach Triela a bit about what went wrong in her fight against Pinocchio, and how she isn’t as invincible as she believed she was.
In any case, the creators have done a wonderful job so far. Let’s hope they won’t screw up for the ending.
actually, Triela wasn’t “experimentent” on per se. she was involved in child porn and snuff films, right? anyway, i’ve only read the manga – not sure if they changed the circumstances in this anime adaptation.
thanks for blogging about this overlooked series!
I feel that the realtionship between Triella and Hirsher is almost like an adolescence and a father of busy salary man
Hillshire (Hartmann) was a part of Europol. If you recall the first season, he was let go from Europol because he let a mob boss (Mario Bossi) go in exchange for information on where the children were. This resulted in Triela’s rescue.
Decent job in staying with the manga, but that’s just like complimenting a child for using tracing paper to copy a beautiful portrait exactly.
From the first season:mimi’s dad (mario bossi) was actualy running the organisation that she was rescued from,kind of ironic that she helps him and his daughter once she’s turned into a cyborg.
“that’s just like complimenting a child for using tracing paper to copy a beautiful portrait exactly.”
true,but just like i know quite a few children who can’t trace,i know a few animes that can’t follow the manga properly 🙂
Don’t worry Psgels, it’s impossible to screw up a story like that of Gunslinger’s if they just continue to copy from the manga.
There’s nothing more to screw up that they didn’t care to screw before 😛
Just don’t hope to find out what it will be after Pinocchio arc unless they make a third serie. And given the wonderful work they did, i feel that way rather pessimistic 🙁
Solaris: Actually, a third season would be quite interesting. But yeah, seeing the overall reaction to this series the chance for one is indeed very low.
a 3rd season would interest me because as much as simply copying the manga works for il teatrino,the same can’t be said about a potential 3rd season imo…the main reason being that psgel pinpointed what i think is the reason why the pino arc is so great ” the creators for Gunslinger Girl made sure that each of the characters received an equal amount of development and background” and vol 6-8 are really centered around one fratelo:petra and sandro (not yet introduced so far in il teatrino) so you’d have to probably adapt it quite a bit so that the other girls continue to be developed.
I’m secretly hoping that the 2 dvd only episodes are from vol 9 which is brillant,but that’s probably not going to be the case.
ANIME AND MANGA SPOILERS
The anime did tone down on the severity of Triela’s condition from the manga. In the manga, Triela was left nearly nude, had the tips of her fingernails cut, and had a leg hacked off as a result of the snuff film the Mafia put her through. The anime had her covered up in a sheet, so you couldn’t really see the severity of her condition.