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				Review* Gunslinger Girl by Zachary Hardison (Kyo) Licensed by FUNimation Japanese Broadcaster: Fuji TV Official Site: here
			Genre: Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction Wow sweet anime. The story is this; school girls, close in age maybe junior high-ish, are part human, part mechanical, trained in holy-crap amazing ways of killing people. Hand-to-hand, sniper rifles, freaking automatic huge bullet firing guns, martial arts, knife skills, and so on. They are basically hired assassins that take care of governments problems, such as terrorists organizations and corrupt politicians and criminals. They each have someone called a ‘handler’ who the girls are sort of brainwashed to protect and serve at all costs, but it’s a love beyond something normal. Well watch it and you’ll know what I’m talking about. But the main girl we follow is Henrietta, who also has the best handler. Jose cares for her as a protective brother and his concerns are obviously shown which are somewhat frowned upon whereas the other handlers use the girls as tools. Henrietta was left for dead after her family was murdered, and Jose chose her from the hospital to be saved via mechanical body parts as all the girls are chosen to be in the Agency. Speaking of their mechanical bodies. They are impervious to bullets, well, they get damaged but they just get repaired. The only place one can die is a direct shot into their eye….ow. Jose and Henrietta have the best relationship of all the pairs. Another pair, Rico the girl, who seems to maintain a sunny disposition even when getting slapped by her handler (jerk) who is Jean. Jean is also the brother of Jose. They are way opposite. Jean totally sees Rico as just a tool and apparently due to the brainwashing Rico is fine with it. Rico was confined to a bed since birth and her family signed her over to the Agency. Triela is another girl, and happens to be my favorite. She has long blonde pigtails and has a soft spot for using sniper rifles…..wicked. Her handler, Hilshire is most similar to Jose, as in they both hate the use of ‘conditioning.’ Conditioning is the use of brainwashing to adjust the girls mentality to more of a tool than a human. We don’t really know how or when Triela came to the Agency but she plays the mentor role to the other girls and views the Agency in the most realistic point of view. Angelica came to the Agency after her father attempted to have her killed, yeah psycho. She was the first to undergo the augmentations, one side effect of which means her memory is erased of the previous life. The conditioning process leaves the girls with an overwhelming desire of approval of their handlers, but Angelica’s is higher than normal. Her handler, Marco, grows increasingly disgusted because Angelica is in the hospital frequently having to be ‘adjusted’ and such. Claes is another girl who we don’t know how or when she came to the Agency. She is confined to the Agency since her handler, Raparo met an untimely demise. Raparo spent time with Claes outside of the Agency and gave her books to read from his personal collection, and even though she doesn’t need them, he gave her glasses to wear. Before he died, Raparo made Claes promise that while she wore those glasses, she would be a normal, innocent and sweet girl. And so she is. Over all, this anime has an excellent story to it, however melancholic at times. It does end happily though, I can tell you that. And besides that, its really awesome to see short little school girls carrying around sniper rifles and SMG’s ready to kill you before you realize it. Later days school girl fa…er anime fans! -Kyo-