Review of Gunslinger Girl: Vol. 2

Introduction

Anime is a medium that I am particularly fond of. It often seems that anything is possible, and the sheer variety in shows is astounding. I have very broad expectations of what the medium can accomplish, and experience has taught me not to be too surprised by what may cross my DVD player. Yet occasionally there comes a show that takes my breath away, that so exceeds my expectations that I have to redefine my frame of reference. Last month`s release of Gunslinger Girl: Volume 1 did just that, taking the rather tacky and seedy premise of little girls with guns and treating it with a seriousness and emotional maturity that made for an utterly gripping story. To say that I have been awaiting the next volume with the eagerness that a puppy shows for its master would be an understatement of cosmic proportions.

The Social Welfare Agency is an Italian government organisation that takes critically ill young girls and turns them into cyborgs, trained in assassination. They are paired up with handlers who guide them through their missions, and are set forth to do the government`s dirty work. Gunslinger Girl is a thirteen-episode anime series that is being released by MVM on three discs. Volume 2 contains four further episodes in the series.

Ep 6. Reward
A bomb threat on the Rome Metro is thwarted, but it points to a larger conspiracy. The city`s anti-terrorist agency gets some un-welcome help from the Social Welfare Agency. Giuse and Henrietta are assigned to the case, and shadowing a suspect named Enrico they learn of a larger atrocity in the offing. It`s a complex operation, and capturing Enrico won`t be enough, they`ll need to get the organisation responsible for supplying him with explosives too. Henrietta will need help on this case.

Ep 7. Protection
Jean and Rico are in Florence, a vacation to take in the city`s fine art and glorious architecture. They meet an accountant named Filippo Adani, who is also on vacation and is quite knowledgeable about the city. Initially reluctant, he agrees to guide them around the city when they hit it off. But as usual no one is exactly as they seem, and the three are being watched.

Ep 8. Fairy Tale
Angelica was the first girl recruited by the Social Welfare Agency. Originally named Angelina, she was critically injured when her hard up parents ran her down with the family car to claim the insurance. She was the prototype, and had a particularly warm relationship with her handler Marco. He even used to tell her a story about a Pasta Prince and his Pizza Princess. But like all prototypes, there was an unanticipated flaw.

Ep 9. Cluster Amaryllis
Elsa is newer cyborg who tends to remain aloof of the others. She`s lethal and brutal when delivering a warning to a corrupt police chief, and her zeal comes from her desire to please her handler Lauro. Lauro on the other hand looks on Elsa as a commodity, a tool with which to accomplish missions. When the Police Chief fails to heed the warning, Elsa has to work with Henrietta to eliminate the corruption. But the mission is jeopardised when Elsa sees how warm Henrietta`s relationship with Giuse is, and compares it to the non-existent relationship she has with Lauro.

Video

Gunslinger Girl gets a nice 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, the image is clear and sharp, and the colours are consistent throughout. I saw no problems with artefacts, and aside from the inevitable NTSC to PAL telltales, the image was immaculate. The animation is stunningly accomplished, with the action scenes brilliant designed and orchestrated, all of this contrasted with the quieter but atmospheric character moments. Here the attention to detail is notable, with the lavish designs of the weapons attesting to the care taken with the anime.

Audio

You get a choice of DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 Japanese. You should be able to guess which track I chose by now. The stereo is pretty well accomplished, with the track making the most of the Dolby Surround when it comes to action and ambience. Naturally the 5.1 track trumps this, and from what little I sampled of the English dub, I think it is one of the better and more natural efforts. The music for Gunslinger Girl is excellent, with some appropriate songs for the credit sequences, as well as a classical string score for the show itself. You also have a choice between dubtitles for the English track, or translated English subtitles for the Japanese track. The songs are only subtitled on the dubtitle track.

Features

An MVM disc means a jacket picture that your player displays when the disc isn`t spinning, as well as multi-angle credit sequences for the show, depending on which language you select to watch it in. You get the usual textless credit sequences to look at, as well as trailers for Yu Yu Hakusho and Fruits Basket. There is also a brief, minute long featurette, where you can see the creation of Rico from line sketch to final character by means of a time-lapse film.

Also on this disc are a series of five featurettes entitled Meet the Real Gunslinger Girls. The English language voice actors speak about their characters as they comment over relevant clips from the anime. Monica Rial (Angelica) lasts 5 minutes, Alese Watson (Claes) - 3 minutes, Laura Bailey (Henrietta) - 5 minutes, Luci Christian (Rico) - 5 minutes, and Caitlin Glass (Triela) lasts 4 minutes). There aren`t any subtitles for this section.

Conclusion

Wouldn`t you know it? I expended my store of superlatives and lavish praise on the first volume, and I have little left for this second one, without simply cutting and pasting the conclusion to the previous review. I may as well do so, as this brilliant series continues in fine form with these four episodes, once again taking a rather bizarre premise and investing it with contemplation and emotion, to deliver a show that is utterly gripping, entertaining and thought provoking. That isn`t to say that the episodes on this disc are just more of the same. Indeed, the first two episodes change tack, and are even a little unappealing initially. One of the reasons that I waxed lyrical about Gunslinger Girl was that it was a character piece, one that evoked sympathy and feeling despite the unlikely story about child assassins.

The focus on character takes back seat for Reward and Protection, in favour of something equally as important, the overreaching story. While the exploration of these characters is what makes Gunslinger Girl so strong, there also needs to be direction to the show beyond that, and these two episodes establish that direction. On the surface they appear relatively mundane. They recount two missions for the Social Welfare Agency, with Henrietta instrumental in stopping a bomb plot, and Rico helping protect an important witness. There is less of an emphasis on the assassins and their handlers, but this is displaced by the introduction of the Republican Faction, a terrorist group that begins to feature heavily in the subsequent episodes. It seems at this point that the Social Welfare Agency will have to confront this far-reaching and powerful group head on, and these episodes seem essential in setting that up.

Fairy Tale takes us back in time and reintroduces the character study, with the story of Angelica, the first assassin recruited by the fledgling Social Welfare Agency. But this time the focus is less on the girl as it is the handler. The conditioning process damages Angelica, the cybernetic implants have an adverse effect on her, and her memory begins to suffer. That serves to demonstrate the risks the other girls face in this line of work, beyond those normally associated with Government sanctioned assassination. Marco is her handler, the first handler and as such his relationship with Angelica is an unusually deep and warm one. After she is injured, he helps her through the recovery, telling her the Fairy Tale referred to in the episode title. When the conditioning starts to affect her, we see his reaction to it, and his difficulty in handling the situation. This is the other side of the coin to the earlier episodes, which were more often than not told from the girls` point of view, and it makes for an interesting contrast.

The final episode Cluster Amaryllis has as its backdrop another mission involving the Republican Faction, here taking advantage of a corrupt police chief, but the focus is on the girls once more, as Elsa remains aloof from the others, working only to make her handler Lauro happy. Because she doesn`t socialise, she has no idea of how the other girls relate to their own handlers, and when she sees Henrietta`s warm relationship with Giuse, her own cold treatment by Lauro becomes starkly obvious. It leads to a pivotal moment, and as is usual, it is the last moment on this disc, leaving an agonising wait to see how the situation will develop on the final disc.

Gunslinger Girl is a brilliant series, one that I recommend unreservedly. It`s good storytelling of the highest order, and a show that is daring and different. I`d better get a thesaurus ready for the final disc.