Gunslinger Girl II - Teatrino, RAAAAAAGE!
January 13th, 2008 by Shirukii
Rico?! What the hell have they done to you!?
I can’t believe how much the Gunslinger Girl sequel managed to fail, it was horrifyingly bad. The Gunslinger Girl series is one of my favourites, I watched the first series and loved it and then went out and bought all manga volumes available in English. The story is great, if only a little all over the place at times and the character interaction between the fratello pairs is awesome. You’d think that an established series would have MORE money to produce a sequel after a relatively successful start, but apparently not.
For the most part, the story in the sequel is kept intact, all the characters are there and the overlying plot line of the secret social welfare force that suppresses any uprisings against the government is still the main focus. They even kept the story of Jean buying Henrietta an antique kaleidoscope and Henrietta freaking when she saw the engraving. But the whole feel is destroyed by the second season where everyone is running around guns blazing in the middle of residential areas…so much for secrecy.
But the major factor that is making the sequel fail so hard is the animation, I usually don’t heed much attention to animation style, so for it to annoy me this much, you know they screwed up badly. If you watch the first season of Gunslinger Girl you’ll see that the animation has a darker and very sharp tone, all lines are well defined and special attention is given to weapon detail, the gunfights were also pretty well done. In contrast, the sequel has this washed out feel to it, like they turned up the contrast or something. The animation style is more reminiscent of something that I’d expect to see in a B-grade harem anime, not an action one such as this. And detail? Hah. The backgrounds went from having a noticeably European feel in the first season to generic anime town #2138 in the second. And oh god don’t get me started on the weapons, I barely recognized Henrietta’s FN-P90 or Triela’s Winchester Shotgun.
And of course, the character designs. There are just certain things that shouldn’t be given the moe treatment, and the Gunslinger Girl cast is one of them. Again, the designs seem like something out of a crappy harem or romance anime. The characters now sport your typical hueg moe eyes and a seemingly permanent blush. I’m not saying that there weren’t moments where the girls came off as cute in the first season, there were plenty, but they were all situational and the effect was subtle, not having Rico skipping on the sidewalk ledge like a stupid 5 year old kid. These girls are supposed to be stoic android loli assassins who have endeared the worst childhood traumas imaginable, brought back to life as tools for killing, assured by severe mental conditioning, not moeblobs.
The voice acting was also pretty crap, the new cast is passable, at best, I thought Claes was especially fitting. However, I found Henrietta and Triela’s voices in particular to be way off. Henrietta sounds waaay to preppy and happy and Triela just has too much emotion, she’s supposed to be the cool and composed leader with an all business attitude.
Anyways, I think I’ll end my rant here. I’m extremely disappointed at how this turned out. I’ll keep watching to see if it gets any better and because I’m extremely loyal to the series, but if the opener is any indication of what’s to come, things aren’t looking good at all.
~ Shirukii ~
22 Responses to “Gunslinger Girl II - Teatrino, RAAAAAAGE!”
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I thought very strange when I watched for the first time. I mean I thought that Joseph is Hilsher at first. Later when I saw the new look of Henrieta I instinctively grab my Henrietta action figure and point at the screen saying “Look how are you look like”(or something like it was a Bulgarian expression that is hard to translate). Well It’s true that Henrieta is not in place :D. About Rico am I the only one that thinks that her new impression in the second season is quite good. in the manga acutally she always act in such a way (like a 5 years old as you said) until Jean give her orders and she start to act like killing machine without hesitation (volume 3 and 4 of the manga have some focus on that). but let’s don’t get much into details atm let’s wait the series to move on :).
I also liked Claes look and voice. Triela I don’t fill much change in her that is good actually I wonder about angelica but it’s seems we have to wait some episodes ;). We only saw a brief look at Beatrice(Atleast here we won’t have stress for voice actor change) but I won’t talk more about it :D. nor giving manga anime comparison atm. Just hope it will be series that I will enjoy watching true that I don’t see the potential of surpassing the first seasson but that doesn’t mean that we have to look at the second as something bad because it’s not like the first (it reminds me of Heroes of Might and Magic III and IV they were totally different games and everybody said that IV sux because it’s not like III)
P.s. Yes the Blood is red :) since the start of the Black blood fashion in animes I was afraid not to get over with black blooded gunslinger girl :D.
P.s. hope these series to get involved with Petrushka at all so to leave her for next season and another studio (shaft :D)
Petrushka’s story NEEDS TO BE ANIMATED. I just recently the manga (after ADV finally started to release more of it).
Anyway I watched a bit of the first season. But I’ve kept up witht he manga more.
I’ll watch a bit of this. Because the studio is going to be doing the Pinochio introduction story next. And I really like that story (Yes. I find the terrorists sympathetic…That was probably the idea).
Anyway Gunslinger Girl probably has one of the most interesting political stories I’ve seen. And I really hope they flesh out the characters that give off the general themes of the manga.
My thought exactly like yours, Shirukii. I loved Gunslinger Girl first season alot and to see this horrible (well, just not as good as the first one) really pissed me off. I’ll probably put on hold and watch it when the whole thing come out. BTW, True Tears ep. 2 just came out and it looked pretty good. Now we have to see how Spicy and Wolf ep. 2 will turn out to be. Can’t wait to see which one you gonna pick to blog.
LOL I’m actually surprised that you still have the will to write about it XD
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I was so exhausted watching I didn’t even bother to rant. Well, now that you mentioned it I mite join in as well XD
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I totally agree that the CVs are WAY OFF, especially and ESPECIALLY the guys besides Jean, I mean GIVE ME BACK HILSHIRE OF MELANCHOLY!!! ORZ He was my favorite since the manga and first season = =; And Jose is a total wtf for me…… Forget about the girls, Henrietta’s cast is hopeless…… Everytime she opened her mouth I can feel a nasty current down my spine. I even suspect if the cast actually understood Henrietta’s character.
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Clare is okay for me. I haven’t heard from Angela yet so I’ll hold my grounds for that (Fine I’ll admit I gave high points towards Hanazawa Kana in Sketchbook, I wont say anything until I actually hear her performance.)
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Weapons… the weapons… ORZ
Look at Rico’s sniper rifle in first episode of the first season, then look at the weapon case in 2nd season… ORZ
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The dark mood is just… gone =.=
Is this really the depression yet classic streets of Italy in GSG!?
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@ Shirukii
Anyway though, Rico skipping on the sidewalk ledge is from the manga if remembered correctly. And besides I dont think its not normal for her, having Rico basically enjoys every bits in life, so its not surprising finding her acting like a 5 year old. But still the voice…… !!!!!
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Okay the only thing i really gave credit to the 2nd season is the OP/ED. I loved both KOKIA and Maeda’s songs, though I also think DOPO IL SOGNO has the better mood for GSG’s ED.
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Last word: at least the plot follows the manga closely. But but but…… !!!!! I’ll keep watching though because I’m a hopeless fan…… ORZ
@Nightingale it’s seems that we all here are hopeless gunslinger Girl Fans.
@Avisch
Yes Petrushka Needs to be animed but not in that season not by that staff.
(btw in the last ps in my first post I mean don’t get animated)
Haha, wow, I didn’t know that GsG had such a diverse fanbase.
@ PCgamer: I don’t think I would want SHAFT animating a Gunslinger Girl anime, can you imagine how much they would mess it up with their awkward styling?
@ Avisch: I really doubt we’ll see the level of character depth we saw in the manga, especially since this is only going to be 13 eps (or so ANN says)
@ kenshin514: You know, I actually might end up doing both if we don’t see some ARIA subs anytime soon.
@ Nightingale: Hmm, my mistake, yea Rico does act quite cheerful in the manga. It’s been over a year since I read it, I recently bought vols 4/5 but haven’t had the time to make my way through them yet. I’m too lazy to edit the post though, lol, my point in general remains the same anyways.
@Shirukii: actually I can’t image what mess it will be(that’s why I wish I could see it), but I just love that awkward styling as you call it. And wonder what if my favorite manga/first season series would be made with their style. but it’s my sick imagination :D so no need to worry about it won’t probably happened anyway :)
Shirukii:
*forehead slap*
DAMMMIT!
Faith for this went down another half.
I might aswell hear Pinochio’s voice and then drop this.
I guess I’m the only noob here that has not bothered to watch the first series, and after watching the first episode of this second series, which really encapsulates the weak winter season we have so far, it actually makes me want to watch the original series even less, I’m sorry to say. They had so much material to work with and they messed it up as bad as they did, what were they thinking? A quick buck?
@ ItAintEasy:
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Let’s say either Artland (2nd series producer) has waaaaaay too low budget or slacking off OR Madhouse (1st series producer) is too tough of an opponent for Artland. So far I see the two series as the difference between a plastic toy gun and a killer-looking, metallic P90.
*Slaps head, Kyon style*
Budget appears to be the biggest problem, and Marvelous Entertainment can be blamed for that. Even with the best studios and staff, there are limits to what animators can feasibly do.
And yeah, quick buck sounds like a reasonable theory. Nowadays, these types of shows rarely do well among Japanese consumers (maybe this explains the extra dose of moe?), and with the American DVD market shrinking fast (probably the most important audience for Gunslinger Girl), licensing revenue is also down. Doing GSG probably promises a better return than the average property, but evidently not enough to convince anyone to allocate much money.
Chalk this up as another victim of market conditions and risk averse companies. We’ll see many more of these as producers scramble to tighten budgets.
Its interesting that there is so much to complain about, considering this (courtesy of AnimeNewsNetwork):
Series Composition:
Tatsuhiko Urahata (assistance)
Yu Aida
Screenplay:
Tatsuhiko Urahata
Yu Aida
Original creator: Yu Aida
Supervision: Yu Aida
Yu Aida
@ Rahl
Exactly, which struck us the fans most because this whole “mess” is under the supervision of the original manga author Yu Aida. Unless that’s actually what he was seriously thinking? I can’t imagine that.
The involvement of an original creator doesn’t guarantee success. There’re so many factors at play (direction, budget, producer’s decisions, etc.), and one person can’t make or break a series.
Anyway, many series that were handled by original creators have drawn the ire of fans - Fate/Stay Night (while Kinoko Nasu wasn’t directly involved, he dictated what material to cover or leave out, which is precisely what many fans complain about), Polyphonica, Da Capo II……………
TV writing differs greatly from other media forms, so inexperience could well be an issue.
I personally enjoyed the first episode of this show. So much promising potential for development of love, really enjoyed it. The moe factor just adds up to the excitement of things. I am pretty sure that this will be one of the best shows for this year to come. Cannot blame the budget problems on the creators alone. They needed the money for their families, bills to pay, so do feel what they are going through to save some money.
Nightingale:
Don’t worry, maybe one of these days I’ll eventually get around to watching the (obviously superior) first series, but my enthusiasm is eroded if Teatrino is how the series is going to dovetail. but think about it. What if you watched a third series of, say, Black Lagoon with a deredere Revy using nondistinctive glocks animated by Gonzo. You wouldn’t see the previous series the same way again.
Skua:
Great, another reason to hate moetards >^|
@ PCgamer: SHAFT would probably take all the gunfights and make them into artistic representations of gunfights. And they’d take the most round about, metaphorical approach to developing key plot elements. It’d be great if you understood what was going on, but god help you if you get lost.
@ Avisch: I at least want to see the Pinocchio vs Triela fight animated.
@ ItAintEazy: I know it’s tough to build up the wil to do the first season after seing this, but it was much MUCH better, I’d recommend giving it a shot.
@ Skua: I don’t think we’re seeing a downward trend in animation, and there really wasn’t much of an excuse here in my opinion. Take a look at True Tears, it’s the first time PA Works has been head animation team and they’re doing an extremely good job at it, not to mention that the series doesn’t have anywhere near the following of GsG.
I sort of agree with your second point though, the two mediums are very different. But still, Yu Aida, as the original creator couldn’t have wanted his political action manga to come off like this.
@ Rahl: Yea, I can’t believe Yu Aida would let such an abomination to his creation be aired.
@ Nightingale: Pretty much sums up my thoughts, lol.
@ lolikit: ic wut u did there
I heartily agree with the complete article.
This is such a huge disappointment. But forutnately I haven’t read the mangas yet so there’s still something for me to look forward too.
I will miss Madhouse and the old staff very much.
But one point wasn’t covered, the music.
The music from Toshihiko Sahashi was wonderful, this orchestra-music really fitted the atmosphere of Italy in my opinion. The new music is kind of weird, well let’s see how it turns out in the other episodes.
Well, the biggest disappointment is the animation and the characters. The atmosphere is too bright, too cheerful and the melancholy of season 1 is nowhere to be found. And last but not least: The character behave weird. I cannot tell the difference for it is difficult for me to put it into words, but they are just not what I used to know from season 1.
They really should’ve waited until they could’ve hired Madhouse to do the animation and also the old staff. It’s too late.
I just saw ep2…
My reaction:
( ﾟдﾟ)
(つд⊂)ｺﾞｼｺﾞｼ
(；ﾟдﾟ)
???
?????
!!!!!!?????
Marco!!!!!! WHAT IN YU AIDA’S NAME HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU!!!!!!??? The voice!!! THE VOICE!!!1!
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Zetsuboushita……
I can feel the world’s malice and despair……
これ本当は 絶望した！！！！！｡･ﾟ･(ﾉД｀)･ﾟ･｡
P.S. Still didn’t get to hear Angelica’s voice though…
That is, and I’m saying it as politely as possible, the biggest piece of shit I have ever seen. Gunslinger Girl Series 1 was an animation marvel. This…this mockery of Gunslinger Girls makes me wish I was dead. I’m going to continue reading the manga, and pretend that this abomination never existed.
I’M IN DESPAIR! THE SECOND SEASON OF GUNSLINGER GIRL HAS LEFT ME IN DESPAIR!
Brb going to extend heights, etc.
THIS IS WHAT THEY DID TO THE ANIMATION
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/8800/1200308579853oo3.jpg
tangina nyu nga hyup que por favor…