"The Girl Has a Mechanical Body. However, She is Still an Adolescent Child."
Features: DVD
Officially, the Social Welfare Agency is a government sponsors corporation that's in the business of saving lives. In reality, it's an agency on the fringe of technology.The Agency is actually a secret military force comprised of orphans who were near death or severely disabled that have been saved by undergoing a cybernetic augmentation of their bodies where they become more machine than flesh. These delicate cyborgs are then reprogrammed to erase memories of their tortured past and trained to be elite assassins. Although the girls still retain what seem to be normal personalities for their age, they are well aware that they are programmed to kill. This conditioning process shapes them into an efficient force for handling all of the government's dirty work. But every weapon has its flaws... Contains all 13 episodes!
"...one of those series that I immediately enjoyed on several levels..." Don Houston, DVD Talk
"...a gritty, tragic drama." DVD Outsider
"...amongst the most affecting programs I have had the pleasure to encounter...well made and a melancholy pleasure to watch." Keith Allen, MovieRapture
Editor's Note
Despite its girls-with-guns storyline and doe-eyed characters dressed in schoolgirl outfits, the action anime series GUNSLINGER GIRL eschews its genre's typically breezy comedy style for a dark and brooding exploration of female childhood. Set in Italy, the series centers on a little girl named Henrietta, who is taken in by a seemingly benevolent social welfare agency after her entire family is murdered in a massacre. But the organization is really a front for a secret government program that adopts terminally ill or orphaned girls, erases their memories, and endows them with implanted cybernetic devices that transform them into perfectly conscience-free assassins. As part of the reconditioning process, the girls are partnered with older male agents who not only provide them with professional instruction but act as their surrogate older brothers. Moody, stylish, and violent, the series chronicles Henrietta's training with her partner Jose with equal parts high-octane action sequences and poignant character studies of the pair's evolving relationship. The anime series is presented in its entirety with this collection of episodes.
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