Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino Review - 90/100
Before I start with the usual review, I’d like to point out that this is the 250th review I’ve written for my blog. Yay!
In any case, if you’ve watched the original Gunslinger Girl and plan to watch Il Teatrino, there’s one thing that you need to take into account: a lot of changes have been made. The soundtrack has changed, but most importantly the character-designs have been redrawn completely in a totally different style and the animation-budget has suffered a great loss. The bad news: the fight scenes will look fake, and there will be speed-lines. The good news: this is about the only thing that’s wrong with this series.
The change in art style is something you’ll either love or hate with passion. Not considering this though, they do look gorgeous, and even though the animations in the fights looks fake, the animators have tried to make up for it with some awesome fight-choreography. With this, fights are much more than just brainless gunfights, and are much more based on tactics.
In addition, the storyline has developed into something amazing. The most notable thing is that there is NO main character whatsoever. Even though the girls are the centre of this series, do not make the mistake into thinking that they’re the one with the most screen-time. The creators have made sure not to give any character special attention, and because of this, this is one of the very few series where the “good guys” are just as developed and fleshed out as the “bad guys”. And yes, I put the quotations there on purpose, because sometimes it really feels that the girls are the bad guys. Especially Rico can be really scary at times.
Gunslinger Girl is also one of these series that delivers with every single episode. Introductions, climaxes and aftermaths follow each other in a rapid succession, and there’s so much going on in each episode. The cast of characters may be amazing, but it’s the storyline that pushes them forwards. This is one series that knows how to wrap up all of its storylines at the end, and provides a very satisfying climax.
It may be that I just don’t care about the changes that were made, but Gunslinger Girl has turned into one of the best series to air during the past winter-season, along with Porfy’s Long Journey and Hakaba Kitarou. At first sight, the characters may look “moe-ified”, but this series cleverly shows that the girls are much more than just a bunch of cute angels. Really, the adults end up stealing the show in this series much more than they do.
This is actually one of the shows I would hope that before it goes to DVD, the animators go back and re-design the characters. The look and animation is such a major turn off for me, it felt like the entire staff was a week behind, so they just scribbled something together and said “fuck it”.
Comment by robin — April 1, 2008 @ 5:05
yay,someone else who uses quotations for the “bad guys”,i think a more apropriate term would be “oponent”
glad you enjoyed it and understand why people like gunslinger girl so much.This must mean that despite what people say,the show managed to showcase all the themes of gunslinger girl very well.
anyone know when the DVDs come out?
Comment by totoum — April 1, 2008 @ 13:26
Hmm, the official site says that the first dvd is already out, and the second is scheduled to arrive on April 25th.
Comment by psgels — April 1, 2008 @ 14:06
Well, leaving aside the Character Design and the action scenes, I’m so glad that Gunslinger’s plot was so rich and ever better than the original, mostly focused on Henrietta. Isn’t about right or wrong, but a stereotyped future with a bilateral political dispute, more aggressive and sometimes cruel. For all that I don’t care about poor action scenes or the character design. I loved Il Teatrino.
Comment by Papilo — April 1, 2008 @ 15:08
I don’t really mind the changed look. I actually thought the first season’s character designs looked a bit wonky personally, and the plot not as fluid as the second season’s.
I’m glad to see someone other than me actually liking the show a lot. Now only if the fansub effort is there..
Comment by Shippoyasha — April 2, 2008 @ 21:33
The only thing keeping me on Il Teatrino is Pinocchio, which means it’s a step backward. That’s right, I disagree strongly. It sucks… every girl looks like an anime girl now, unlike in the original GG where they looked less like anime girls and more like European women.
Then there’s the soundtrack, which was changed.
That was the show stopper… it makes the series feel totally un-European. I loved the GG episode ‘Protection’ where you can hear gunshots in the background while some nice music goes on… but here we just have a weak bass and some stupid bomber culprit who runs away very conspicuously.
And just like Yoshiki doing the fake faint on stage since the 80s, I can’t believe they’re still going on about the Angelica/Marco thing. It just didn’t make sense after Marco sat next to Angelica for the finale of the last series.
Really, the only thing making this series worth it is Pinocchio. Oh, and the new OPs and EDs suck.
Comment by ritchan — April 11, 2008 @ 12:37
Yes, the fight scenes look REALLY fake! And given that this is an anime that’s all about girls with guns…
Comment by ritchan — April 11, 2008 @ 12:43
i thought it was a good anime i watched all of it^^~
Comment by spirit — April 27, 2008 @ 13:22
even though frame was a bit slow lol
Comment by spirit — April 27, 2008 @ 13:53
i like ep 13 best
Comment by spirit — April 27, 2008 @ 13:54
Can someone tells me where do you’ve all seen these videos because I realy dont know where to watch them! 0o”
Comment by Mr E — May 15, 2008 @ 3:30
It’s GAME OVER
The show was licensed, and the only English fansub, The Triad dropped it.
Hail to The Triad for their carelessness and let’s turn our faithful hearts to the Holy Lord…
Comment by Solaris — May 15, 2008 @ 11:52