Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino – First Impressions

I was excited when I heard this series was being subbed because I didn’t really expect a sequel from the first series. I did enjoy the first Gunslinger Girl but I also felt it could have had more. You really grow attached to the girls and there plight – the show did a nice job of showing the hell they had to go through while pulling on your heart-strings by making sure they showed them acting like normal girls after missions. The only problem was that it was slow at times – a little too much time on the characters when you expected a bit more action from a show about gun fights. The ending was kind of just there too – just like life goes on – ok but not great. So I am excited about this second season because I think the show has so much potential to be a great action-drama.

The first episode was actually a very good introduction to the gunslinger girl world. You see each girl all working on a mission and then back at the welfare society going about daily life. The mission was exciting with enough gunplay to see what the girls were capable of. Showing back home gave that parallel the series is soo good at – reminding you the girls are still normal in their mind after killing sprees. The comments of the girls really get to me sometimes – like Henrietta writing happily in her journal that she killed a man for Jose today. Makes me cry on the inside. We can see that the series is going to follow much the same formula – which is good.

One thing that was really different was the animation style. Its now kinda of colorful and pastel like – looks more hand-drawn – a big departure from the first series dark kind of realistic look. It shocking at first cause the style only serves to make the girls look more bright and cheerful at times – makes the difference between their normal and work lives more jarring. However it gave the effect of low quality at times. Sometimes – especially during the riot scenes it was painfully obvious they were using still backgrounds and moving pictures in front. I laughed at times when some actions scenes were just shaking a picture in front of a camera. It reminded me of videogame cut scenes where they use still images and show zoomed in frames of what people are looking at in the corner. Other scenes in the ep looked very nice though – its an interesting animation style.

I like it so far and I’m looking to see how this series differs from the first. So far a good entertaining show if you can be attached to the characters and enjoy the action.

~ by madphoenix on March 30, 2008.