Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino is apparently over at 13 episodes. Which is really news to me because I’ve only got subs for up to episode five. Whats more I’ve not heard anything about why, for all I know there’s a license out for it already. None of my information places have anything on that. All I know is it apparently ended yesterday. Maybe it’s slow, maybe everyone who was working on it turned into big babies because it’s not as good as season one and dropped it. I really have no idea.
Onward and… well, forward anyway, not so sure about upward.
A while back, before I started doing this, I was watching something called Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran, yes I’m aware at how huge the name is. The base premise of the show is the main character is a samurai, and a woman, you see the appeal now don’t you. I’m not sure exactly how I got referred to this but all I know is it was via the internets and some sort of ‘if you liked this you might like this’ thing. Which were hard to find until I found MAL which has reviews and reccomendations by other users, anyway off the site pitch. Ran’s episodes are pretty much random. So far I’ve seen her and her partner in aimless wandering Meow, let’s see. Wander into a town where sake is evil, fight pirates, find a baby, undergo a case of mistaken identity, join a cult… Well… Meow joined a cult, Ran drank sake and showed up to kick some ass later on. And that’s how they go for the most part, on occasion someone manages to make Ran mad, maybe not mad, mildly annoyed. She likes to act all cool and reserved but she does get interested in things, and we’ve seen her get indignant a few times. Not to mention laughing at people getting electrocuted.
Half the draw to the show, in my opinion, is the art style. The show is from 2000, but manages to pull off off an older feel. It’s not that it’s drawn super, a good deal of the random male characters have heads shaped like potatoes after all. Another part of it is they don’t bother with most of the character archetypes. Sure, Ran is a couple of them, and Meow is quite obviously the stupid/happy go lucky character… but there’s nothing else. There’s no tsuntsun there’s no loli there’s… heck there’s not even a moe character, with the exception of a couple single episode characters, because I can think of one loli, but she didn’t do much aside from argue with Meow when she wasn’t trying to be a reverse trap. The Op is great too, very old school, and I do mean old school.
Rosario + Vampire Episode three was… well as I mentioned last time I was expecting a loli in the next three episodes, and apparently I got one. Not only is this a magic loli with an awesome hat… it’s apparently of the bisexual type. We first meet Yukari while she’s busy stalking… Moka… yes that’s right.The little witch causes some trouble with a group of very unpleasant looking people,one of which is apparently her class rep. Moka dives in headfirst to save the kid, who’s about four years younger than everybody else due to her being as smart as she is. Yukari is pleased, very pleased… and while in the cafeteria proceeds to jump over the table and take Moka to a grope fest… and Tsukune just watches.
Yukari is apparently reluctant to stop groping Moka as we see her dragging the loli witch around and.. well yeah. Tsukune gets a bit beat up when he tries to complain about the mass amounts of yuri taking place, he’s allowed a) he’s human b) she attacked him with sentient mops, brooms and whatever else happened to be int he storage closet… So he takes a trip to the infirmary and guess who apparently works there… that’s right Kurumu the blue haired succubus. As if that wasn’t already a problem waiting to happen Yukari’s camped outside the window with a voodoo doll.Which effectivley leads to another nosebleed and a showdown with a trio of lizardmen bent on having some witch for dinner.
In Gunslinger girl Il Teatrino’s episode two stuff happens. Who’d have thought stuff would happen… but today isn’t about the people of the child welfare association. It’s about a guy named Pinocchio… who’s also int he buisness of blastingthings eventhough he’s only nine or so when the episode starts. Some old guy sends him to carry out a hit on some other guy. Pinnocchio intended to give him a couple silenced rounds but the guy ws waiting for him and he had to introduce him to mister knifey. Turns out that this guy had a daughter and she saw Pinocchio do it so he points his knife at her… and then decides to fill the loli so full of lead he could use her as a pencil later.
That was just a flashback though as the next time we see Pinocchio he’s a lot older. The episode pretty much shows us what the opposition is doing, Pinocchio just happens to be a terrorist. So far the hsows overall storyline is slow to set in but that’s nto always a bad thing… it’s just that season one did it a lot quicker. Anyway apparently Pinocchio has a fan of the loli variety named Aurora… she has her mother cook food for him and in general, follows him around. Apparently he’s not amused becasue he tells her to stop, but that could be the fact that he’s got two freelance terrorists crashing at his place for the next couple days… or it could be she reminds him of the other little girl he shot four or five times… The storyline points out that a Mercedes (the car) must be female because it’s a girls name… which should have been obvious since all cars are female. anyway, the episode does end with some of our gunslinger girls. Apparently angelica is recovering from her massive memory issues. (If you haven’t seen season one Angelica’s been conditioned a little too much and at one point you could walk in and talk to her for five minutes and all of a sudden she’s going ‘oh when did you get here?’ She’s also the first one of… whatever they’re called. We don’t see Henrietta but we do see Rico looking far too amused by a rocket launcher and Triela has a scene that’s a flashback to yesterday but she also has one where she’s standing in the parking lot looking nervous and all kinds of moe. In case you can’t tell Triela’s my favourite.
Well I was fully intending to post about this today with just a commercial and a copy of the OP. But luckily I found a subbed version of it up on TT this morning. Even if I’m not fond of the subs, for aesthetic reasons. They’re half transparent, and clear int he middle so you only see ther letters outline. they’re very faint. You’ll see what I mean in one of the screens I’m sticking in this, and yes I am giving preferential treatment to Triela… Three t’s in a row, five if you count those. (Two of the screens are of her) Anyway… first I’m going to give you the OP theme.
I didn’t think it was bad but it was pretty slow, not that the first season didn’t do the same with The Light Before We Land. First thing anyone’s going to notice if they’ve seen the first season is the animation style changed. Originally it was drawn a little more realistically and now it’s in the same style as pretty much everything else. But still, that’s not a drawback or anything because it still looks good. Storyline is the same as ever, which would have been a drawback if it changed. Only now Triela carries around a guitar case… I’m pretty sure she never had that in the first season. Again, big deal she still has her shotgun and bayonet so I’m happy. We start off with Jose and Hilshire (Henrietta and Triela’s handlers, respectively) in an antique shop in France looking for souvenirs for their loli… I mean… “sisters”. Hilshire of course got Triela a teddy bear and Jose’s indecisive because Henrietta will like anything he gets her, probably even if it’s a dead puppy. The dealer makes a proposition for something for someone named Henrietta and we snap to a train so Jose can have a flashback. Screenshot time.
Okay now I suppose I should mention, if you haven’t seen the first Gunslinger Girl I advise you to, the storyline is so far rather unrelated but you’ll know who the characters are that way and you’ll get some of the jokes the show makes. Plus it’s a great show, see Triela Rico and Henrietta (as well as Claes and… Angelina I think the other one’s named, those two don’t do anything) are well they were terminally ill at one point. The ‘Child Welfare Agency’ took them in, and fixed them better than they were before. We’re talking cybernetic enhancements here. Each girl is sent through some conditioning that turns her into a cute little assassin and effectively makes her forget everything prior to this. She’s then assigned a Handler, so far always an adult male… Angelina was the first and well she was conditioned too much. Claes on the other hand is only used in tests as her Handler bailed and it’s very difficult to imprint another one. A bit of trivia you’d know if you saw the first one, Rico and Henrietta have had their uterus’…(uteri?) removed Triela on the other hand hasn’t as she predates those two… so she’s the only one who… uh… yeah… I shouldn’t have brought that up. >_> Anyway… The handler and his… “sister” are called a Fratello which is apparently italian for siblings… it’s based in Italy by the way.
So… Rico, her handler (I forget his name), Hilshire, Triela, Jose and Henrietta wind up in Rome to deal with a riot that’s probably going to be used by terrorists. Bomb goes off and Henrietta whips out her little gun that I forgot she carried. Fast forward a bit,Triela busts out the bayonet and knocks manhole cover flying and Henrietta gets her P90 out, yay oh and a Vespa. we then get shot gunny goodness and well I guess everyone else uses their respective weaponry. Except Hilshire and Jose… I don’t think they even *have* guns… Rico’s handler does… Wait Jose has a gun… I just recalled the eye episode of season one. Now… a bit more happens but I do need to leave reason to watch the episode now don’t I? So without anymore blabbing on my part. The ED theme.
I am so far liking this show, which is understandable I’ve been wishing for it for the last… well sinc eI saw the last episode of the first one. Hopefully though the current group does different uh typesetting I believe is who does the way the font looks. I really dislike the way it looks now, far too difficult to read. Thanks to AEN I guess for subbing it though, at least they did it.
Posted by uthek 
Posted by uthek 
Posted by uthek 
