Gunslinger Girl

Publisher
FUNimation / MVM
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
13 episodes / 25 minutes
Year
2003

Gunslinger Girl Volume 2: Life, Happiness, And The Gun

By otaku_kei
15th May 06

I hope I am not the only person to notice the romanticised view that Japanese animators seem to have of Europe. I'm sure everyone most have noticed at some time or another the fact that each European city in anime seems to consist only of winding little streets, picturesque chateaus, forest everywhere, a particularly large amount of canals. It as if all the best bits of London, Paris, Rome and countless other cities have been amalgamated into one. It's not like we see anime blighted with the horrific new build tower blocks of the 60's or the sprawling estates from the 50's. It looks as if the art directors in Japan have simply forgotten that most cities in Europe had to be thoroughly rebuilt in the reconstruction period after the Second World War. Gunslinger Girl is one of many shows that operates within this European ideal city with the beauty of the architecture shockingly juxtaposed against the brutality and innocence of these child assassins!

Well I certainly showered the opening volume of this show with praise, but can the follow up volume continue to deliver the high quality entertainment that I have already come to expect from this show. Gunslinger Girls' tale of innocence lost and manipulated by a cold government agency is a morality tale that has captivated me. The action scenes are certainly animated very well but it is the use of these girls who are still trying to come to terms with their growing maturity being exploited for political control that leaves me coming back for more. Really there are several stories going on in this show. There are the missions that take up very little of the screen time, the personal stories of the girls, as well as the flashbacks to how they ended up with the Social Welfare Agency, and then there is also the story for each of the handlers and the Agency as a whole.

The opening volume spent a lot of time introducing Henrietta, who has quickly become one of the Agency's best operatives. With this second volume we spend more time on some of the other girls, the girl's who are not taking to their combat conditioning quite as well as Henrietta, Rico or Triela. This offers this show the opportunity to really flesh out the darker side of the Agency, to see how the girls are mistreated by the same system in which some of the girls flourish. Of course their is always the general condemnation of using children in this method at all, the tragedy for Angelica is how she is being withheld another chance at life just so that the Agency can continue the testing and experimentation of their control methods on the child.

As I am sure many of you will already know, I like my anime to actually make the audience think about what is going on. The Patlabor movies; GITS: SAC; Wings Of Honnaemise; much of the Ghibli back catalogue; all of these give the viewer something to think about and Gunslinger Girl also gets your grey matter working. Sure this may be a 'girls with guns' series, and may stylistically share many similarities with a show such as Noir, but Gunslinger Girl is fundamentally a story of several young girls and their coming of age. The relationships that they form, and how they are starting to make their way in the world. All of this is of course undermined by the knowledge that this government agency will never allow these girls freedom, and will probably terminate any attempt to start a normal life. As I said earlier, this is a tragedy, but a tragedy that leaves the audience hungering for more. Highly recommended.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English Language 5.1; Japanese Language 2.0; English Language Subtitles; Building Rico (Art Gallery); Textless Opening & Closing; Meet The Real Gunslinger Girls (Interviews with the VA's); MVM Trailers

Release information: OUT NOW

Notes: This release is gloriously presented. The A/V quality is top notch, proving yet again MVM's wisdom when partnering with Madman for the DVD authoring work. Most of the extras here are nothing special, but I have to say that special note needs to be made of Meet The Real Gunslinger Girls feature. Each of the VA's gets their opportunity to give their own little insights into the characters that they play.

-- otaku_kei 15th May 06

Gunslinger Girl Images