The plot of Gunslinger girl revolves around the social welfare agency in Italy. Although appearing to be a charity organization that looks after orphaned girls who have survived near death experiences, however the social welfare agency (also called the agency) takes these girls and turns them into the ultimate assassins through the use of cybernetic implants and brain washing referred to as “condisisoning”. Each one of the girls are given a “handler” a man tasked with overseeing training, performance and wellbeing of the girl, each handler goes about his responsibilities in a different manner, some choosing to use the girls as tools and others being a father like figure to his girl. The social welfare agency uses the girl and her handler, called “fatello” for anti-terrorism missions.
Audio wise the show is very enjoyable. The show’s opening is amazing, the title song “the light before we land” almost brings me to tears, normally I skip anime intros but I watched it nearly every time. The rest of the music in the show was good as well, all of the other songs on the sound track comprised of classical instrumentals that helps establish the somber mood of the show and fit the European setting. The soundtrack is so good that I would recommend listening to it outside of the show overall Gunslinger girl has an amazing score. The voice acting is pretty good both is sub and dub, I watched it in dub because it’s how I prefer to watch anime unless the dubbing is just flat out terrible (* cough cough Akira.)
The show looks good. Not bad not amazing. The whole show uses light pastel colors and the characters are detailed. The handlers and girls look different enough so that you can tell them apart (barley). The guns look awesome, the way they fire, the way they reload their weapons is just outstanding. However most of the show isn’t in motion, there’s not many missions or combat scenes and when the combat pops up it’s a bit underwhelming for a show with such a premise of 12 year-old cyborg assassin girls. But the show isn’t really about cyborg assassin girls, it’s about cyborg assassins that are still 12 year old girls.
See Gunslinger girl really isn’t about the girls fighting terrorist, although they do fight terrorist. The show is about the relationships that the girls have with their handlers. There isn’t a main goal to reach the girls just strive to please their handlers in any ways that they can, not only are the handlers responsible for their girls performance and training they are also the girl’s only source of affection. This dynamic to love the girl or to treat them like a tool is the main focus of gunslinger girl, and it reminds me how different trainers chose to train their Pokémon in the anime. Some trainers chose to love and care for the happiness of their given Pokémon, while others (normally the main rival) value the battle performance among all. The same is true with gunslinger girl. This focus of the emotional and mental wellbeing of the girls is why I can’t recommend this show to just everyone for any situation. The show can be a bit of a drag and the whole show rest on its own ability to make you care about the characters if you don’t care about the characters you’ll simply lose interest and get bored.
Over all Gunslinger girl is an interesting and unique anime although it’s not for everyone it’s still great in its own right. It’s not the fast pacing action show but a somber look into the complex emotions of young girls who just happen to be unstoppable killing machines.
