AMV Of The Week (Sort Of): Agent T

This week’s AMV is me cheating and wanting to share this incredibly well-done Gunslinger Girl fanmade movie, set around an original character who is also a member of the Social Welfare Agency. I can only hope they make more Gunslinger Girl videos; we can all wish for a whole series of these, can't we?

AMV: Agent T: Gunslinger Girl
Author: UnderRedAlert
Music: N/A
Warnings: Very much NSFW. Contains cursing, violence, drugs, blood; all the elements of Gunslinger Girl in live action form.

AMV Of The Week: Mad World

This week’s AMV is . . . a day late, yes, but also the swan song for Nagareboshi Review’s week dedicated to the anime series Gunslinger Girl. It’s been fun but it’s time to say goodbye to our girls at the Agency and move on to different things. But don’t worry! This doesn’t mean I won’t post about GG later, just not with the same frequency as before. Here, our last Gunslinger Girl week post, is an AMV that underlines the true nature of this emotionally stirring series, set to a song that just seems perfectly tailored to this story.

AMV: Mad World 

Author: icharus15
Music: “Mad World” by Gary Jules; originally sung by Tears For Fears
Warnings: Spoilers for the first season of Gunslinger Girl; contains various moments of violence, shooting, and bloodshed.

Anime Review: Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino OVA

Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino: The OVA
Studio: Artland
FUNimation Entertainment
48 minutes/1 disc

Spoiler warning: For both parts of Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino.

The girls of the Social Welfare Agency are no ordinary children. They are the grizzly remains of human wreckage pieced back together with cybernetic implants and trained to kill by the government. The oldest, Triela, pursues her targets with a ferocious enthusiasm - unwilling to settle for less than total annihilation.

Her mirror in this bloody stalemate is Pinocchio, a shell of a boy raised as an assassin by the FRF - a terrorist faction at war with the SWA. Cold and cruelly efficient, he wields sharpened steel as though it were his own hand. Once human, these shattered souls have become murderous machines with only vague recollections of what it meant to be real - and a brutal compulsion to be the last killer standing.

Gunslinger Girl: The Misinterpretation of 'Lolicon'

 Lolicon, also romanised as lolikon or rorikon, is a Japanese portmanteau of the phrase "Lolita complex". In Japan, the term describes an attraction to underage girls (whether prepubescent, pubescent, or post-pubescent) or an individual with such an attraction. It is also commonly used when referring to lolicon manga or lolicon anime, a genre of manga and anime wherein childlike female characters are often depicted in an erotic manner, in an art style reminiscent of the shōjo manga (girls' comics) style. (Source: Wikipedia)

I have seen people who, in the process of criticizing the Gunslinger Girl series, call it certified lolicon material. Now, this is not to say that anyone who talks less than sweetly about GG are wrong; I can see plainly why people would have issues with the fratello relationships and the basic set-up of the Agency as well as seeing these young girls turn into assassins just to live. But calling it lolicon? It does not seem based in much factual evidence beyond a rather shallow reading of the series.

Read the rest of the post and join the discussion after the jump!

Gunslinger Girl: The Weapon and Her Handler

Spoiler warning: Major spoilers for the first season.

“What would happen if you loved someone? Loved them with all your heart like you never thought you could? But you realized one day that they would never ever feel that way for you?” – Henrietta, Gunslinger Girl episode 1.11 “Febbre Alta (High Fever)”.

From the moment a young girl, abandoned by society and left to die, is taken in by the Social Welfare Agency and given a new life, there is no other person more important in her life than her handler, an older male trained to make a weapon out of her. The brother to her sister, they form a fratello team that work together hand-in-hand to cut down anti-state activity and stop terrorist attacks while they are still just attempts, all in the cloak of secrecy lest the Italian people see who is really protecting their national security. Wait – an older man and a younger girl? Let’s discuss.

Anime Review: Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino

Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino: The Complete Series
Studio: Artland
FUNimation Entertainment
325 minutes/2 discs

Spoiler warning: For both seasons of Gunslinger Girl.

The girls of the Social Welfare Agency are no ordinary children. They are the grizzly remains of human wreckage pieced back together with cybernetic implants and trained to kill by the government. The oldest, Triela, pursues her targets with a ferocious enthusiasm - unwilling to settle for less than total annihilation. Her mirror in this bloody stalemate is Pinocchio, a shell of a boy raised as an assassin by the FRF - a terrorist faction at war with the SWA. Cold and cruelly efficient, he wields sharpened steel as though it were his own hand. Once human, these shattered souls have become murderous machines with only vague recollections of what it meant to be real - and a brutal compulsion to be the last killer standing.

Gunslinger Girl Week: A Brief Intro

Since I started this blog, the notion of doing 'themed weeks' - seven days of posting mostly about one series - has greatly appealed to me. Ergo, for the next seven days, most of the posts on Nagareboshi Reviews will be about one series, an anime series of heartbreaking human drama: Gunslinger Girl. This anime, based on the manga of the same name by Yu Aida, is a very absorbing series about young girls made into weapons and the agency that turns them into these killing agents. It is dark, it is violent, and it is the subject of Nagareboshi Reviews' first themed week. But I assure you, it's gonna be totally awesome.

So if you haven't seen even the first season and want to stay spoiler free until then, avoid the rest of this post. For those who know the story, read on after the jump!