PROS
Thanks to Madhouse, the art of this anime is top notch. Everything in the anime, including cities and humans, looks very realistic. This is, unfortunately, all taken away in the second season of Gunslinger Girl. I don't want to get too far into it, but I just really hated the turn of visuals that the second season took (which wasn't made by Madhouse).
Now, I would say that the character development is great here, but I can't completely go that far. The thing is that the character development for the girls are all great. Each one of them has a personality that differs from the other, which makes all of their stories very interesting. The males, on the other hand, don't really have much personality or likeability. Besides Jose, the trainer of Henrietta, everyone else is pretty stale. That's not really a bad thing since the characters that are the center of most of the stories are the girls, but it does, at times, feel a bit odd.
The story here is really complex and unique. It touches to the human heart in ways that many anime shows cannot express. By the end, you really feel like you've been on a long Journey with all the girls and understand them better than you did at the start.
CONS
Although I loved the sounds used in Gunslinger Girl, the shooting of guns seemed a bit loud at times. Perhaps this was the fault of my t.v., but I felt that the guns were way too loud in certain episodes. I would regularly have to change my volume up or down whenever shoot occurred or stopped.
OVERALL
Gunslinger Girl is a must see for anime lovers. The story lines of each girl are very intriguing and you learn more and more about the characters as the story goes along. Beware though, the second season is atrocious and should be avoided at all costs.
