Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino

Some of you may remember my review of the first Gunslinger Girl anime by Madhouse. The final verdict ended up as a /10 for its excellent character elements, well constructed story and well done action. This week we're going to look at the second anime, Il Teatrino. Unlike the first series, this one was handled by Artland, a studio best known for doing support work in projects such as Darker than Black, School Rumble, Star Ocean EX and others. The only thing I've seen where they took the lead was the atrocious to the point of being almost unwatchable, Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Mao. Ofcourse, that isn't enough to judge their work as a whole. A lot of prolific studios will work on projects both good and bad. The only way to know is to take a look. This series has a different view of story than the first. The first one was, mostly, stand alone episodes about the girls going on missions. This one has a proper story. The focus is primarily on the girls facing a small cell from a large terrorist group. The missions that the girls embark on are all connected to this small cell and three particularly skilled operatives. There are a few consequences to the change. The first is that they can build up tension a lot more effectively than the first series allowed. Another is that they have proper antagonists in this rather than just random terrorists. This enables them to explore the moral ambiguity more effectively since you acually learn what the terrorists are after and their motivations. This isn't to say that there aren't still problems. Flashbacks get over-used in Il Teatrino. That isn't to say that they aren't effective. Most of them are very good for developing the characters. The problem is that they appear in virtually every episode and take up long segments. Which is really distracting and detracts from the main storyline a bit. The characters continue to be very well done, in fact, this season is an improvement in that regard since the antagonists get fleshed out as characters as well. The girls still have plenty of complexity, good interactions and the back stories get more fleshed out for some of them. Claes continues to be the most adorable killing machine ever. The girls having implied or stated crushes on their handlers continues to be the worst aspect. It's understandable since they are pretty young and these are the only men they spend a lot of time with, but it still gets grating and you'd think a familial bond would be more likely to develop. Although that is arguably the case for some of them. The crush element still takes up far too much focus. The art continues to be very well done, although not as strong in this series. The character designs are pretty much identical, and the same attention to detail went into rendering the various objects used and in the background. The problem lies in the flashbacks. Apparently, they didn't trust the viewers to figure out which moments were flashbacks without some indication, so they made them really grainy and gray. They also use a very strange effect during the final action sequence. An effect which doesn't contribute anything except to make the whole affair confusing to follow and kind of hard to look at. That aside, the action sequences are really good. The voice acting is still really good, with the same exception. There are still a lot of Italian names that the actors consistently mispronounce. I'm not sure if they just didn't bother with pronunciation guides or they decided that the correct pronunciations were too hard. Hearing Mizuno Risa sing Scarborough Fair is still amazing. One thing that is noticeable is that the actors changed between series. On the positive side, the acting team is roughly as good. The music is a bit better in this series. It was effective and well done in the first one, but this one has several moments that stand out musically while the first didn't. The yuri factor is a 3/10. This series has a few more scenes that read as homo-erotic than the first, but it still doesn't have many. My final rating for Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino is a 9/10. It's a worthy successor to the first, and roughly equal in quality. There are some factors that don't work as well, but there are others that are improved upon. I would certainly give this one a watch if you're a fan of the first. Next week, I'll be looking at Sekirei.

This second season has gotten quite a bit of hate for it's artwork, and it is unnecessary. I watch a series for the story, honestly the story could be told with stick figures for me, but if the plot was compelling, and the characters believable, then I am sold. On that note, I found the story was more powerful, if less subtle, in this second season, and the same could be said for the characters. This season seemed to focus a bit more on Triela (which I didn't mind, as she was my favourite character) and her personality. What sold me the most about this serieswas the amount of depth they went into with Pinocchio. They spend a lot of time developing his character and his past, not to build him up as a villain, but as a person. This is what sets this show apart from the rest. Its a good part of what made great series like Monster and LotGH great, the attention to detail. Having even side characters feel like people, not just props to decorate the background or monsters to be slain. I recommend this series for anyone who enjoys thoughtful storylines with a bit of action.

After watching the first season, I was excited, but now I'm rather sorry to see the second season. Story 1/10 - the worst Isn't it some fan-made sequel season? Art 1/10 - I've never seen anything so bad. Art is worse than in Berserk. The first season looked much better. All the characters in this season look like they were 19 years old. Why didn't they do the same as in the previous season? Sound - BaaadOP- Some pictures ... ED- Titles with highlights -_-. But the song is decent -_- The main soundtrack has no atmosphere. In the first season we had a great soundtrack, but this ... Character 1/10 Every character looks so awful. When I saw the first season and started this one ... it was a shock. The characters that looked between 30-45 years old now looked like 19-23 years old. They don't look like the first season. They do not behave like in the first season. Where did my beloved characters leave? Enjoyment 2/10 If you really want to follow this sequel, you'll go through hell. 1/10 One of the worst sequels I've ever seen.

OK so when I played episode 1 of Il Teatrino, my eyes widened in disbelief in the obvious downgrade in art, I thought I was reliving the “Saiyuki Debacle” all over again: the change in character designs, the animation was sub-par and the voice acting and the character portrayals were way different. If it weren't for the names of the characters and the continuation of the storyline, one would never guess the the two series were related....and that's probably what saved this series. The fact that visual differences between the part1 and part 2 of this series were so stark that you had no choicebut to break from any attachments you had from the first installment of Gunslinger Girl, and take in this second part for what it is. ~Art The art is really NOT THAT bad, right? Yes it IS a downgrade from the first season but I've tried looking at it for it's own merit [it was hard, considering I watch anime in marathon-like fashion and watched both parts back 2 back]. It was obvious with this second piece, no one had actually been to Italy, there was no great attention given to background scenery, of the cityscapes or the coastlines. No cobblestones, no marble surfaces, no fancy artwork reproductions or detailed sculptures. But there were some great backdrops like the vineyard scenes which was pretty nice to look at [....but that's not uniquely Italian, it could be France or California or more than likely from some textbook or postcard]. Actually most of the scenery could have been acquired from postcards, and such – at one point I'm pretty sure they put the Coliseum in the background [I think the riot scene] just random stereotypical Italian landmarks you can get from any picture from the web and reproduce. The animation wasn't too fabulous either, lots of the little usual shortcuts taken here and there: frozen image with sliding cell [this time they kinda shook the image around and played with the focus a little bit], A few unnecessary slo-mo shots and/or close ups which some might be fooled to think it for dramatic purposes....but it's really to economize on the animation [so they don't have to draw more frames or more than one character during a fight scene.] All of that being said, it's still in the middle as far as art style and animation goes, I've seen better and I've seen far worse. ~Sounds Here's it's were it's kind tricky for me, because I don't know if it's the voice cast's fault or the scripting or the direction they were given, but this time around the “girls” were a little too glib. Henrietta, Triela, Rico and all the rest. I think the first part of Gunslinger Girl got their personalities right, they should be FAR more somber and conflicted than they appear in the 2nd season [even though apparently some time has passed since then]. The 1st part really captured their essences and explored their true depths and complexities and it really showed in the entire work as a result. For example, Henrietta was far more timid and unsteady in the first one than she is portrayed in the second one or Rico who is undoubtedly the most “child-like” of all the assassins had a very clueless way about her [the kind of clueless you get from being sequestered for too long or from being on drugs or brainwashed] but by the time of the the second part...she just appears dumb, in the typical “anime airhead” style....does anyone else pick up on that? What I'm saying is the voice actors did well, but they ran through it like any other regular anime, but I'm sure if given a chance to act on CSI or one of those James Bond or Bourne Identity type of movies...they would have read the scripts quite differently [and that's how they should have read the scripts here for THIS anime]. The music for this series was on the generic side, perhaps even lackluster. I'm vaguely familiar with the first song used in the OP, so more than likely they've played it on the anime radios a few times, but really neither this song nor the ED theme song did much for me...and what was the point of using Scarborough Fair? IMHO, that was just to include it for the sake of boosting the value of the soundtrack and making it seem as meaningful and viable as the first one. ~Story The story was the strongest asset for Il Teatrino, considering that it's a continuation from the original Gunslinger Girl, but again you have to be the sort that's into political intrigue and warring factions otherwise it might just bore you. For me it wasn't boring at all, it still had a lot of the intelligence that the first part had...and again it reminded me of Ghost in the Shell in that way. It wasn't a particularly fast-paced story and just as with the first part it was basically 50/50; 50% action and 50% exposition. I think what can really help a person get into the story a little better would be to watch the OVAs before beginning the second part, because it was kind of rough for me to figure out what key political positions some people played, or what understand the various factions. For me, when someone says “right-wing” or “far-left” I kind of revert to American politics and try to use that as the political template, most of the time it works but sometimes I'm not sure if that's how they meant it. ~Characters A lot of the issues I mentioned with the characters, I've already stated in the [Sounds] section. I think that they kinda rounded off the main characters and chucked them to the side to focus on Franco, Flanca/Katerina and Pinocchio....which is nice but I would have liked to see that level of depth applied to all the characters, know what I mean? Like Katerina and Pinocchio behaved like REAL people with all their complexities and flawed glory, you kinda didn't get that vibe from , say, Rico [I mention Rico because from just part two, you might think she's an airhead, but if you watched the first part or the OVAs then you see that she very much struggles, like all the girls, having to adjust to being a child assassin or being regarded as just a machine accessory]. And Henrietta who's personal struggles seem to have evaporated and all she deals with now is this relentless crush on Josue...which could easily be translated into a shoujo-type storyline. Despite how the overall tone of my review might appear, I actually DID like the character designs, tho! I like the fact that they didn't try to mimic the character designs of the first Gunslinger Girl, they just worked a whole other look. Which was good. They looked very similar to the characters from Fate/Stay Night, Saber, Rin and Triela are very similar in appearance [naturally, look beyond the height and strip away the coloring. Very similar character design...probably done by the same person] ~Verdict It's still definitely worth watching and owning.

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