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When i first came across this OVA, it sounded way too good to be true. An action thriller with clear terminator inspirations based on a manga by Masamune Shirow? I was ready to cum all over myself, but it turns out that it really was too good to be true.
In concept this anime has all i ever wanted, loads of inspirations from holywood blockbusters alongside Shirow's classic sociopolitical commentary and dystopian themes, but what ultimately happened is that they took all of those great concepts and tried to cram them into a 50 minute OVA. The pacing is way too fast, and the moment to ... moment plot get's reduced to basically acknowledging something important to the plot for a few seconds before quickly moving on to the next thing. There is no set up to anything, nothing get's properly established, and worst of all, nothing get's time to breathe.
It's hard to care about the story, when your understanding of all the going on's is so minimal. All you really get to know is that the robot's want to kill a girl, and our main heroine decide's to save her, queue some action scenes and bam roll credits. The little context they give us is just a set of excuses for everyone to be where they are.
With that said, this OVA still has some value in it. The animation is certainly a highlight, many scenes are very nicely done, and there is even some very impressive motion shots that you didn't really see much in the hand drawn era. The aesthetics and design of everything is also very appealing, even tho you can see some corners cut in a few places.
And also the composition of some key scenes is very good, they are just undercut by the general lack of context or care when it comes to the story.

This OVA is not really bad, it has good art, and decent enough concept, but it just fails because of sloppy execution. I assume that if the studio had more time and money, their ambitions could come to fruition and we would have ended up with something truly special, but as it is, it's just an interesting piece of animation that fails in many regards.
I would still recommend it if you are a fan of Shirow's works, but if you really want to get into the Black magic series, just read the manga.

Look call me a weenie or whatever but i just cannot recommend this movie, and here is why.
This movie is what's called a recap movie, it hopes to condense the whole series into this 2 hour package, in order to make it easier for people to get into the series, but that's where it ultimately fails. You see, this movie is structured like one of those youtube "best of" video's, it's a constant barrage of event's that feel barely connected, if you haven't seen the series before you will get lost real fucking fast, and that kinda defeat's the purpose of a recap movie. ... If you are a fan of the series you have no reason to watch this, since you already know what's gonna happen, and if you are not a fan, you will be better off just watching the original series, since you are not gonna understand shit. There isn't much they could do to improve this really, maybe they could produce multiple movies, but with the animation budget they had, i can't really see that happening.
Here is the TL;DR if you wanna watch Ken, watch the original series, if you already watched Ken, don't bother with this.

I've seen fucking Hokuto no Ken handle recaps better, and that show had the budget of a half eaten turkey sandwich. This movie is literally the entire first season, with obligatory fanservice that literally serves no purpose other than breaking up the scenes taken from the anime itself. I really fucking hate this, they were so lazy that they even left the ED music playing while the scenes played out. This movie has no purpose, if you really want to see the story play out than just rewatch the original, and if you want something new SAO related just watch the new movie, or some ... of the OVA's. I'm done, 1 and a half hour of my life wasted on something i literally already saw.

This anime is really offensive, it portrays a male being objectified by all the women present, he is just a tool to satisfy their power supply needs. THESE WOMAN ARE ABUSING HIM, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING, HE SHOULD HAVE A RIGHT TO MAKE HIS OWN DECISION, I AM HIGHLY TRIGGERED, THIS ANIME SHOULD BE TAKEN OFF AIR RIGHT NOW! Oh and by the way, it´s a really generic show with boobs being the only highlight. I guess it has the borderline hentai scenes going for it, but even that is not really explored, since they want to keep it´s rating under 18+. The overwhelming amount ... of CG doesn´t help either.

Before you enter this review thinking that I am one of those people who just hates stuff for the sake of hating, I would like to assure you, that I actually really liked the first season of Gunslinger Girl.
I would also like to point out that I dropped it after 4 episodes, so some of the details might be off.
So where to begin, well first of all the story is a bore. It constantly tries to add layers of development across all these different factions and tries to tie it's story together like it's a Deus Ex game. But none of the plots that go ... down at the same time is fleshed out, they are all really transparent and just plain boring to watch.
The art get's a lot of hate, and I can understand that. The first season had that distinct Madhouse look to it, and despite being just flat out cheap in some places, it managed to be somewhat appealing. But what Marvelous Entertainment brought to the table can be explained simply by using the words Anime standard. What kind of pissed me off was how they completely changed the feel of some characters, specifically Hilshire. In the first season, he looked like a man in his late 30's maybe early 40's, now he just looks like a 20yo anime guy. The other thing that really get's on my nerves is some of their "subtle animation", like when there is a flashback, the screen zooms in, and turns sepia. The last thing I managed to notice is their use of still imagery, with the bunch of effects layered on top, to save cost. It's not that big of a deal, and I can understand why they used it, but it still managed to add to my annoyment.
The characters. Well, nothing much changed about the original cast. But they actually introduced few new ones just for the sake of it, and my god, they are flatter than
paper.
Well, how do I wrap this shitstain of a review up? The first season was by no means a masterpiece, but it had few interesting concepts, and it managed to explore some of them fairly well, even tho the overall package was bit underwhelming, it was interesting and entertaining enough to keep me going. This season, on the other hand, was stock standard. It wasn't offensive, but it was painfully boring and it dragged on so much I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Some people got a kick out of it just for the simple reason of "girlz wit gunz"
but not me.