Best Anime You Didn't Watch: Gunslinger Girl Review
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- ...or maybe you did, but I know for a fact that you didn't read the manga. In this analysis we'll be looking at the franchise, some of the real-world parallels (Years of Lead) and even the Girls' Frontline gacha collab, all while pretending to properly understand Italian culture. Minor spoiler alert as we're covering the manga content, which addresses for example the political framework more in-depth.
00:00 - Intro + Years of Lead
03:10 - Series overview
06:12 - Character introduction
06:40 - Controversial themes
09:26 - Girls with guns and genre commentary
13:51 - Anime, manga and the second season
17:15 - Collab with Girls' Frontline
17:55 - Conclusions
19:20 - Should you watch the series?
Some random clips used:
S1 and Il Teatrino
Lycoris Recoil
Noir
Sailor Suit and Machine Gun
Gunsmith Cats
Girls' Frontline
The one with the cgi dragon is gdgd Fairies, and yeah, you should watch it - Krátké a kreslené filmy
Gunslinger Girl is my absolute fave, both the manga and the anime. The characterizations are deep and complex, and the universe they inhabit is tragically realistic and dark. Not only do the characters develop and reveal themselves as the story progresses, but the reader finds his attitudes and perceptions changing as well. GsG may be long dead as a franchise, but its (small) following is fiercely devoted to it.
men protect your country and your city
men build your home
men built your tools
men grow food
men invented everything around you
men protected women and children since humans had appeared
men shaped history
men made our life comfortable
men made what we use for entertainment
men conquered
men dont need validation their achievements are around them
and now men play fucking girls frontline
The introduction to Triela made me smile. She's my favorite female anime character of all time and yes, she is best girl. I've been a GSG fan since 2006 and it's still my favorite anime/manga to this day. Thank you so much for this review!!!!
I concur about triela being the best girl
The girls Frontline x Gunslinger Girl collab worked really well
men are on the frontlines protecting the fucking women while they n one beach in fucking hawaii i wonder why
men protect your country and your city
men build your home
men built your tools
men grow food
men invented everything around you
men protected women and children since humans had appeared
men shaped history
men made our life comfortable
men made what we use for entertainment
men conquered
men dont need validation their achievements are around them
and now men play fucking girls frontline
I hope the zoom into that ship on street view was intentional. You did a good job on this review, you made your points and the humor was used well instead of being shoved at the viewer every other second.
My recommendation for people new to GSG is to 1) read the manga, 2) watch season 1 of the anime, 3) season 2 is entirely optional (I watched episode 1 years ago and put it off)
I found out about GSG from the Girls Frontline collab. I cried at "the pasta part" and at that moment this became my favorite series to read. Honestly, I'm glad that GSG was able to finish in a tidy and neat way when a lot of series are dragged to death. The only thing I would want would be anime adaptations of the remaining volumes (and a redo of season 2) by a competent studio.
Last note, Henrietta and Jose are my favorite fratello because I love tragedy.
This anime is could be literally part of Girls Frontline lore (aside from the collab they made with this anime), since girls in this anime are cyborgs which are precursors for the androids.
Great anime, Triella best girl, a beautiful sunshine in the pit of darkness that is the world of GSG.
I think I was a bit too late finding this video. I honestly think the Collab with Girls Frontline is basically the "Real true Epilogue" for the Gunslinger Girl manga ending and that the Gunslinger Girl is set in the same universe like Girls Frontline, in which they were hinted to be the prototype T-Dolls. Especially since the story event was penned by Yu Aida.
So in a way, after the event was finish, the girls consciousness survived in the future and lived in a peaceful life in the digital world who was created by Triela daughter 50 or 60 years ago.
Picked a Blu-ray of this up at a record store about half a year before they closed, had no clue what it was. Saw that it was produced by Marvelous a bit into watching it and was immediately intrigued, as I had been curious about their earlier catalog. Gunslinger Girl is extremely stylish and well-made, I couldn't even tell it was from 2003 for awhile.... I thought it was much newer. It's absolutely superb and quite beautiful. Not really one for violence or weapons myself, but this series really caught my attention. Everything has a purpose or reason, everything feels very grounded, whether it's happy or melancholy, it all feels very real.
Some details worth noting.
Nice solid overview. As someone who DID read the manga (in fact I had a pull of Dengeki Daiyo), yes the manga is the way to go (if occasionally a bit rocky in translation).
Another "Girls with Guns" show that Aida has clearly seen was “Desert Rose” (A contemporary of Gunsmith Cats, by the man who did Area 88, they even did a cross-over of GSC and DR). The building assault that Franco and Franca miss lifts a couple of shots directly from a late chapter of Desert Rose. I’d also add: VERY late Jean, is drawn to look like an existing Italian movie star detective. Hartmann is likely named for the man who was connected to the orphanage in “Monster” (the Hansel and Gretel arc in Black Lagoon is a mix of GSG and Monster bits). Triela is likely named for the city of Trier, given that Hartmann hails from the Upper Rhineland.
The essential structure of the “Plot” of GSG is much like Evangelion’s (another influence), a “pawn’s eye view”. Even the handlers are often in the dark, and of the girls, only Triela, Claes and Petruska have any real understanding of what is going on. The story (and most of the “arcs”) focuses on the “handlers” and how they relate to their (very doomed) charges. The core 5 girls each represent a different relationship.
Henrietta = little sister (with BUCKETS of guilt tied into it).
Rico = Attack dog (most dog handlers show more affection for their charge).
Triela = Precocious daughter, with a slight Electra overlay.
Claes = Widow (a teenage-age amnesiatic widow).
Angelica = Aging parent, with attached dementia.
It should also be added, Aida likely has had some part of a “classical” education. He tosses off references and quotes with an understated ease (quoting Biblical verse, without attribution, and Ecclesiastes at that, calling a chapter of Volume 7 “The Sheep and the Goats” In English). And his “pen name” kinda tips his hand as well.
It would take probably 2 more 12-cours to finish the series which isn’t going to happen. So I enjoy the episodes of the first season and the arcs of the second. Episode 4 is a dark horse for favorite anime-manga Christmas episode.
Now that Aida is back creating (The Valiant Must Fall), I am getting back on that pain train, trying not to get TOO attached, knowing what is coming, but having to see it carried through.
14:35 They did not spend the money badly. They spent it on the music. GG's musics are awesome, and Italian.
How dare you assume we didn't watch this underrated anime! xD
I love everyone, but I think Triela is the best! Addicting OP&ED too
Nice Review! The franchise is not dead just yet! At least as long as we talk about it. Also Yu Aidas new manga will be published in english next year in February I think, maybe one or the other person will find Gunslinger Girl that way.
In the German Manga Hillshire was called Hirscher (which makes a lot more sense, him being German was not a secret if I remember correctly), I wonder what the author had in mind originally.
Spoilers:
I personally kinda dislike the ending a bit because the villain was just very silly. As you mentioned, we at least knew we are not rooting for that guy, and I think that missed the tone of the rest of the series.
Also I unfortunately care for italian politics a little bit, I apologize :D I think a lot of important characters had no real goals or vague ones, like Franca or the end anarchist (forgot his name, jesus he was so silly). Except for the North south conflict, everything was potraied very vaguely, probably to not offend anybody or get too political, but leaving big politics out in favor of some last minute personal story for Jean and his brother feels like a vasted opportunity.
A few thoughts in regards to some characters:
Tbh I really wanted to see go Jean go down, he represented the fucked up nature of this whole story perfectly until this last minute nonesense with the sister. Instead he kinda got what he wanted.
I liked Joses ending, I think making him more twisted than he seemed was a good decision and his death was perfect, the sword of damokles dangling above his head finally killed him.
On Hirscher and Triela (best girl indeed) I am kinda torn. I really wanted Hirscher to die and Triela to live. Hirscher participating in this system is even with Trielas backstory pretty inexcusable, so I felt a heros death could have been his redemtion. Now he kinda tried but Triela died anyway... I imagined up until vol. 7, that Triela at some point will leave Hirscher behind, which is what he wished for, since he granted her more independence. Turns out it is more melodramatic, didn't like that so much. I feel if Hirscher had no personal stakes in this story except realizing Trielas potential as a human being, therefore trying his best to make her become independent would have fit the tone of Gunslinger Girl much better. Allthough I guess it would be a bit too similar to Claes Story then. Maybe Claes story with a happy end?
Did not care much for Pettrushka, I guess the author wanted to shake things up a bit with a cyborg who is older but I really could care less.
Marco is btw. my favorite handler, understandable but not overdramatic backstory, turned his anger toward Angelica until he just in time realized that he was an asshole and we all cried about pasta. Perfect. That kind of backstory and less superhero story I would have liked Hirscher to have.
Well Hilsher just try to make Triela livy by any means (in beginning he did this for dead doctor wish and with spending time with Triela - by his own will) . Triela was almost a corpse at the moment Hilsher find her. Only partycaption in cyborg program could save her live.
.
And then Hilsher face a choice - stand against Organization, refuse to turn Triela into child soldier terminator...and get kick in the butt and probably killed, while Triela would get mentor who did not care about her at all...or become a mentor to Triela and try to protect her as much as he could
I think Jean's ending is quite good actually. He's already "dead" when his family got killed, caring nothing but vengeance, dying with the culprit is literally the sweetest ending someone has nothing but hatred left can have. But turns out he's not as cold-hearted as he think he was, he chose to live and have to right the damage he had done during his self-destructive pursue of revenge, like Rico and Claes, and live with the consequences, the lost of his last family member and so many other comrades. His story shows even if you think you have nothing left, going for revenge is still devastating and can cost you even more, but it's still possible to dig out of this depressing situation, by accepting new connections, not giving up on hope and your own humanity.
Thumbnail is from GFL x GSG collab 👍👍
I joined GFL during that collab. Some of those fights I instantly knew who the commander was supposed to be at that time. And some of those terrified me. Nothing more terrifying then going "Oh triela. wait. Wait wait its night. and did she just call me pino? RUN." I managed to farm enough to get Triela and her bayonet. Still using her to this day.
@@stephenpex Rico is my fav GSG :) Glad you got Triela!
@@panther7584 I was torn between Rico and Triela, only had time to farm one of them. So I chose triela. If I had the team strength to properly farm I'd have gone for every one of them.
- Great video for a cup of tea with a magic cake! Damn, I haven’t been able to finish my retrospective article on Gunslinger Girl for almost two years, and after this video I won’t even have anything new to tell, it seems it will just be the same, or even worse, only in Russian. Thank you! I am insanely glad to see people who still remember this title.
- Where are the footage at 16:52 from? Some fan animation?
- There is the 20th Anniversary of original manga this year, but no one remembered it. And I still hope that someone there will remember that we have nine and a half volumes left without an anime adaptation. Perhaps someone like White Fox (Jormungand) or even the Kyoto Animation (Violet Evergarden).
Thanks for the kind words. And regarding the clip, I've been under the impression that it's a fan animation. I tried to check for a source but couldn't sadly find any.
"I don't care if she's a PsyOp, I can fix her" Italian edition
mussolini's grandaughter music kinda slaps, she should have had a music career instead of being a politician
thank you for remembering the Gunslinger Girl.
+ love your sense of humour
+ agree with the incentive to read the manga
I like that your conclusion to the ghost thing was not "ghosts are not actually real", but "ghosts can't be trusted". Also I recommend that you watch Sound of the Sky because it's one of those "obscure" animes that are actually very good and thought provoking, and I would enjoy watching a video similar to yours about it.
It's actually one of my favorites, I'll definitely consider making some Sora no Woto stuff in the future
@@soapbyby K-ON! Goes to War!!! :D
Aldo Moro was a centre-left politician, and by the Italian political accounts, he was consider a "communist" by the hardcore conservatives, including the Sicilian Mafia at the time, times were changing, and the Parlemitanos were losing power and the Corleonese were on the rise, by the Italian themselves they believe that the assassination of Moro was a combination of CIA cooperating with the mafia, really strange considering Moro politics, sure, he was a reformer, but I wouldn't call it a radical, so the idea that "radical lefty" group kill him is ludicrious.
having watch both the anime and read the manga i'd say both media are worthy of theyr own existence, Yu Aida himself praised the anime for it qualities and the music alone is a good enough justification for it even tho for the sake of knowing the end of the story you NEED to read the manga, just be aware of the PTSD that you'll have afterward.
i hate you for what you said about Rico but i realy like the fact that unlike other review i saw, you didn't just bashed the second season and hinted that the art style may have a tie both with the manga art change AND with the fact that the season focus on a specific narative arc of the manga that to me was a good explanation for a softer lighter touch on the whole story
"Right and wrong are ultimately subjective if you have guns"
Don't exceed basedness thresholds there, buddy
Don't know who said it but I know there is a quote that goes like "God is on the side of whoever has the most firepower"
One of my favorite Anime series. So underrated. Watching from London UK. ❤
great review man thank you.
Triella s backstory was one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever read.
- The whole Triela's story is one big pile of ash and glass. The most heartbreaking thing about Hilshire and Triela that this is not their war, but they did not have another choice but walk through it.
All of them had a tragic story. It's like Bernardo said.... Italians are mad for drama and death.
GSG is good shit and been serious, the arc in the manga with the young manager and the older girl is the best, and except for Jean, none of the managers seems to me like assholes, more like very hardened men
Really love the manga too, wish they would do a reprint of the Omnibus's
7:00 Where did you get this pic? I want the full ver. :p
Love this series and I’m glad there are others that do too
Question, i have watched the 3 anime seasons they made (2seasons 3ova episodes) and want to read the manga, can i skip to the part where the anime ends or will i miss important stuff that the anime didnt introduce?
- Mostly you can continue reading manga from chapter 30, but there are some interesting differences between manga and anime, so I recommend reread the whole manga. For example, in the manga Triela push Hilshire to assault Pino's hideout to save Aurora.
It's a shame what season two did to the animation.
- Happy 20th Gunslinger Girl Anniversary!
I picked up my first copy at a Suncoast Video, an ADV version, and was hooked immediately by the plot and dark intonation of the whole thing. We all know that government will do all kinds of dark projects for political purposes, but this one took the cake. unfortunately ADV only released the first six volumes and it was many years before anyone would take it back up (Seven Seas, Thank you!) In the mean time we had Cyborg Central, a dedicated group of amateur scanlators on there, and a few metric ass-tons of fan fictions (guilty of writing one myself). The first season was good, but didn't follow much of the manga, which is why the closer-following second season can be forgiven at least some of the artwork and production. I would personally like to draw and quarter the person who thought taking shaky-panned narrow shots of grainy stills was a good idea to convey chaos.God that got old fast.
Aida's vision was well planned and it really shows in various levels of continuity of both plot and character. Jose's relationship with Henrietta as a substitute for the regret he feels about his lost sister is well played, and Jean's vendetta is a thing of beauty in its relentlessness. The minor cast is also well fleshed out with all of them having some personal grudge to grind away at in Section 2. Except Sandro. He and Petrushka get a lot of hate even from fans due to the limelight they get later on, but they really are remarkable characters in relation to the rest of Section 2. Triela is DEFINITELY the star, which kind of plays itself out in an interesting context if you think a bit about the actual ending. No spoiler, but if you think of the whole of the manga as being a well-researched and detailed movie....
For context on the choice of little girls, there is an explanation of why they were chosen for the program, largely being because the cyborg implants and brainwashing would work better on kids as a set of tests for the next two generations, as more developed minds require more refined methods. The gen twos are all teens, with a presumed gen three being full-on adults, and eah generation would produce better longevity and results. Loli though it may be in anime/manga styling, there really is method behind the madness.
I definitely agree with starting with the manga if you can, though the English Seven Seas releases are fetching high dollars these days. The anime is pretty good though and is worth a watch.
One of the greatest anime’s/manga ever created I wish they would animate the final arc..
It also introduced me to the greatest band, to ever exist the Delgados
Wonder what anime studios look like IRL.
Are they just doodling until one morning a random employee just burst through the door and says stuff like "Tactical, loli assasin, cyborg death squad!" and everyone is like "Looks like that's what we are doing now."
Or do they have some kind of raffle "Let's see... this year we will be working on a *picks paper slips* cute girls... action... gun porn and cyborgs. The raffle has spoken, make it happen."
Did watch the series during my college days lmao I did enjoy the series.
would be really great with Italian, along with German dub for Monster
i love this review. its honest. kekw.
Watch the series if you are ready for a kicking. Like the ending of shera, but all the way through. :o)
I saw this . Great anime and awesome manga
The very first anime series I ever bought.
If you think Gunslinger Girl's premise is questionable or messed up, consider instead 1 of it's more well known predecessors, Kite: A child assassin story with sexual scenes thrown in. And there was an even more x-rated anime (can't remember the name) with the same little girl assassin theme where the handlers also used the girls as sex slaves that was out around the same time as Kite.
Wow, that's a deep dive, most either have never heard of (or thankfully forgotten) _KitE._ That had good character design; hot action, and a perfectly tragic story. Only marred by the creepy (but realistic to the situation) sexual parts.
@@dphalanx7465
Good to know I'm not the only 1 who remembers this stuff. Still don't remember the name of that other 1. All I remember is the ending: The girl kills her "handler" & starts trying to live her own life when some random kid who's been trained by some other handler, shoots her in the head & runs off. I wish I could remember the name. I saw it before I saw Kite though Kite came out 1st. In this anime, there were a bunch of guys who trained little girl assassins and used them to make hits either as a form of vigilante justice or to solve vendettas or rivalries, but each handler worked on his own & they also used their charges for sex.
@@19Pyrus70 That almost sounds like the ending of _KitE:_ the girl (after she's discovered her "handler's" secret; killed them, and quit the biz) meets a guy (who was also in the biz), but he's killed by some random kid (who was implied to be one of them), and she's left sitting in his apt.; waiting forlornly for his return.
I wonder if _KitE_ was one of those OVAs that had *2 versions:* _Rated_ & _Unrated?_ 🤔
@@dphalanx7465 It did have a censored & uncensored version.
Like I said, the Kite came out before the 1 I'm thinking of, so it's no surprise Kite's theme & ending gets used in a different way. Unless, of course, I really am mistaking the uncensored version of Kite for a different anime. I saw this stuff before the crackdown on anime piracy & bootlegging businesses, so the anime shops that I had rented & brought so many anime from (and lost over the years) no longer exist.
@@19Pyrus70 Hah! Good days, man! I remember Japanese dept. stores & groceries that taped TV anime in Japan (Wrestling too!) for _rental viewing in the US._ (WtF?!? Semi-official bootlegging! 🤭🤫🤑) I saw a lot of mid-80s to early-90's anime that way.
Damn you, how dare you put a picture of a nuclear power plant?
You got me real upset. I'll cool down with this book about pasta while overseeing that gorgeous campanile out of the window.
Oh. "It's the tears again..."
I bought and read the manga maybe 10 years ago. It's still one of my favorites.
claes is my Favorite character
The only thing I dont like about this anime is it end too soon, right before my favorite girl was introduced, Petra
cyborg anime... this is reminds me of girls frontline series
Well, to be honest, even Lord Yuzhong himself admit, that Gunslinger Girl is the Manga Series that inspired him to created Girls Frontline. That's why he was really happy, when finally Girls Frontline can did Collab with Gunslinger Girl before.
Was a bit surprised to know it's a shonen manga. Shonen is a demographic afterall.
really recommend people to read the manga, it's a masterpiece
But I did watch all of the anime, pure 10000% kino. I love it.
If they were in GirlsUndPanzer... There wouldn't be a happy friendly match, but only bloody mess of schoolgirls.
This is the one of the saddest goddam anime i ever watched. I then (for reasons I dont really understand myself) read the last couple volumes of the manga to see what the true conclusion was---and I felt even worse. Jesus. It's one of those shows/manga that I acknowledge is quality...but I would *never* watch or read ever again.
Didn't? What do you think i am, Some kind of shounentard? ofc i watched gunslinger girl
And if you have not seen this anime is no doubt you've been deceived and indirectly mistreated by the world and you are special so the world hides many truths form you
More FN P90 content is good content!
I'm a fan of the second season 2 too.
t. poo poo pee pee brain
the second reason really sucked to me due to many reasons,so i kinda stopped trying to invest into the franchise in other media
Should've mentioned that SWA picked young girls near death to do the cyborg process on. Season two was okay. Triela is the best girl and I would 10000% die for my cyborg assassin cop daughters.
Do you think the Italians will permit greenlighting a paedophilic animu about little girls with guns and their adult handlers? Especially speaking when this animu is political?
Sì
they had the uncut version of Violence Jack
Not sure where the "paedophillic" part came in, as _Gunslinger Girl_ seemed to me to be the most unsexual show with a cast of all teen girls i'd ever seen at the time. You want _GG_ with a creepy sex side story? As *@Pyrus Torel* said (about a dozen posts up)...go watch _KitE._
@@kloa4219 Jack Nicholson said it best, "they would rather show an *axe* buried in someone's breast---than show a hand caressing it."
robot voice = downvote