Adventures from my Netflix queue: Gunslinger Girl
Gunslinger Girl is an anime DVD set in Italy with these little girls who’ve lost their previous lives and have been given cybernetic bodies and lethal skills. They are killing cyborgs. And yet they are still little girls with guns.
This anime maintains the theme that the father of all, Blade Runner, anime keeps, “Can replicants have feelings, too?” The girls have been trained and conditioned to be lethal killing machines, but they are still little girls. The cybernetic implants are slowly killing them and will they understand that their lives have a meaning outside of guns and assassinations. It is a rather sad theme. Melancholy.
The girls are teamed with an adult in a “fratello.” That is their handler. Some handlers are mean. Some are indifferent. Others are saddened by the fate the girls have been placed in. Yet they do not show love to their younger “sister” afraid at what the attachment might mean to their relationship. Will it weaken the girls’s killer instincts and place both their lives in jeopardy?
I went in thinking that this was going to be a rock ’em shoot out with little girls with guns, but it was a more moving story. I originally rated it 4 after the first disc, but the second disc dropped it to a 3 because it had too much action. I am giving it a 4 overall, because the last disc made me sad. Beethoven’s 9th and shooting stars will not be the same.
There was some action, but the languid pacing of each episode was appropriate for the theme. Do not think that this is a shoot ’em up anime or you will be disappointed. But then again, you may find the story beautiful and appreciate it for the tale it tells. I wonder what happens to them.
4 of 5 stars.
