First Movement: 2013

I’ve just finish reading Gunslinger Girl manga, truth to be told I don’t really understand exactly the main plot because the complexity of it, but I did get the overall problem.

Let me tell the story in short; this story was take place in Italia, there was an organization called Social Walfare Agency that was created by the government to (mengurus) the terrorist. This Agency remodeled the kid victims that was not curable or in the brink of death with some prosthetics body part, making this kids (mainly girls) a cyborg with strong physical and flexibility. These cyborgs were paired with a grown up man (also called ‘handler’), mostly those who had some military or police experience, which was called fratello, Italian for siblings. As the story progressed, the main enemy of the government was known as Padania.

The story centered on how these handler-cyborg’s relationship and their reason to join the Agency while they were trying to fight the Padania’s guys.

So, about the genre, action for sure, sci-fiction of course, and beside of all that gruesome scene, the story was very good. The relationship of each handler and cyborg (I don’t what to call the girls) had its own specialities. The main characters were Henrietta-Jose, Triela-Victor, Rico-Jean, Angelica-Marco, Claes-Raballo, and on latter chapter there would be Petrushka-Alessandro.

Clockwise: Rico, Henrieta, Angelica, Triela, Claes (Appearance in the first season Anime)

With their respective weapon

From all of these pairing, I love Triela and Victor pairing the most, I think it was because the way Triela acted and how Victor’a action toward her. From all of the cyborgs there, I think Triela was the most not affected by her conditioning, since she said whatever she liked to Victor, though she wasn’t disrespecting him. Oh, conditioning was some ‘upgrade’ to the cyborg, but whenever the conditioning was done, it would affect to the cyborg’s life span and could cause memory disoriented. This conditioning caused the cyborg to ‘love’ their handler unconditionally, though the way they express their ‘love’ ware different with each other.

Back to Triela and Victor, I don’t know what their relationship exactly was, I guessed it was guilt that turned to care. Hmmm, I can’t really put a word to their relationship, but I guess Victor saw ‘hope’ in Triela’s life and he wanted to protect it.

Triela with Victor

Triela was seldom shown using this shotgun-sort of like weapon

About their personality, Triela was like a big sister for other cyborgs in the Agency, the other seemed to confide in her and Triela liked to care for the other cyborgs too, like visiting Angelica when she was in the hospital, taking care the problem when they wanted to watch a meteors shower, and some else. She was considered mature despite her age in the story, and like I said before, she seemed not too affected by the conditioning, she liked to argue with Victor (a little rebelling him I guess), sort of sarcastic, and liked to do what she liked. I guess she was the most ‘normal’ among the other looking by her action towards her life as a cyborg, and I think because of this aspect that I first fall for this couple.

Volume 10 Manga Cover

Victor’s full name was Victor Hilshire, he changed his last name from Hartman after joining the Aggency. He was carringfor Triela, though I really don’t know if that was from guilt or heart, but I think it was from heart since he had disobeyed orders twice to save Triela, when on the ambush in Bell Tower in Vanice and when on the ambush of Giacomo Dante in final story. He even went on a mission alone because he afraid of Triela’s condition since she showed the effect of conditioning. He had no sense for kid since he bought Triela man clothes and always gave her teddy bear as present (though the teddy bears became some sort of collection for Triela), but he was a really kind man and couldn’t really express himself through words.

Their dynamic was great, before I said it could be guilt leading their actions, Victor for making her into a cyborg, and Triela because of her he had to join the Agency. But I think after their episode when their past was revealed, they reach some sort of understanding and they came to care for each other.

I get it from Googling, such a nice duo

Overall, Gunslinger Girl was a really good, heart-warming story. Actually I watched the anime first before reading the whole manga. I heard about this manga, seen the manga sold, but had no desire to read it. I stumbled with the anime one day and decided to watch it. I guess I was hooked from the very first episode, haha. I wished I bought those manga when it was sold, because when I searched for it now it was so damn hard to be found and I ended up reading the soft copy. I realized the more I read this story, the more I wished these cyborg children had a normal life. They deserve it with the hardship they had gone through, but that was just not possible and they had to life being an assassins for the Agency. I guessed it was really fitting with the slogan: “The girl has a mechanical body. However, she is still an adolescence child.” A bit chesy, but fit in.

From left to right: Petrushka, Henrieta, Rico, Angelica, Triela, Claes (Appearance in the manga)

Really like to rant more, but I guess it's enough for today...

Just finished a drawing from my favourite couple, Usagi and Mamoru (or Serena and Darien in English version). Done in two days, completed with a stiff shoulders and neck -probably because of the position of my chair and table, thinking about need a new one. The main characters are not that hard to draw actually, deciding the background is what took the time, since I'm not so good with that thing. I decided to use a simple background, using pastel as the base and brown for the word. Kinda pathetic actually, spending 3 hours in photoshop just to create the background, then decide that it was not good and toss it, again and again. Where I finally just choose for a simple one like this... I really need a practice for drawing background...

First Movement

writing and drawing for fun...

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