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Nomad
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Mar 5, 2021

Legend of the Storm Sneezer
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Mar 5, 2021

53. How Can Christian Fans React When Fantasy Creators Get Cancelled? Part 1
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Mar 2, 2021

My Novel ‘The Mermaid’s Sister’ Arose from True Depths of Mourning
Articles | Carrie Anne Noble on Mar 1, 2021

The Icarus Aftermath
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Feb 26, 2021

My Screenwriter Mom Introduced Me to Fantastic Sci-Fi in the 1960s
Articles | Jason William Karpf on Feb 25, 2021

52. Do Christians Really Need Science Fiction? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 3
Podcast | Lorehaven on Feb 23, 2021

Join Our March 11 Livestream Exploring Christian Reactions to Fandom Cancel Culture
News | Lorehaven on Feb 22, 2021

The Hourglass and the Darkness
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Feb 19, 2021

Venus is More Than Just a Love Goddess
Articles | Shannon Stewart on Feb 18, 2021

Introducing Fantasy Enthusiast and New Lorehaven Writer Shannon Stewart
News | Lorehaven on Feb 17, 2021

Stories with Bad Ideas Can Still Help Us Grow
Articles | L.G. McCary on Feb 15, 2021

Gretchen and the Bear
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Feb 12, 2021

The Mandalorian is a Religious Fundamentalist, and Here’s Why That’s Awesome
Articles | Josiah DeGraaf on Feb 11, 2021

Introducing Fantasy Creator and New Lorehaven Writer Josiah DeGraaf
News | Lorehaven on Feb 10, 2021

51. Do Christians Really Need Fantasy? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 2
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Feb 9, 2021

The Death and Rebirth of Magic in Children’s Fantasy
Articles | R. J. Anderson on Feb 8, 2021

Torch
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Feb 5, 2021

Fictional Magic Systems Can Go Beyond Rules and Reveal Deeper Characters
Articles | Elijah David on Feb 4, 2021

How God Uses Story Villains for Our Good
Articles | Zackary Russell on Feb 3, 2021

Introducing Sci-Fi Creator and New Lorehaven Writer Zackary Russell
News | Lorehaven on Feb 2, 2021

50. Do Christians Really Need Fiction? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 1
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Feb 2, 2021

Frank E. Peretti to Give Keynote Address at Realm Makers Writers Conference This July
News | E. Stephen Burnett on Feb 1, 2021

Fugue for the Sacred Songbook: In Eb Minor
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Jan 29, 2021

How A Year Without Superhero Films Rebooted Our Universe
Articles | Jason Joyner on Jan 28, 2021

New Book ‘Reading Evangelicals’ Will Focus on Famous Christian Fiction
News | E. Stephen Burnett on Jan 27, 2021

Introducing Superhero Novelist and New Lorehaven Writer Jason C. Joyner
News | Lorehaven on Jan 27, 2021

49. How Can We ‘Terraform’ the Church to Enjoy Fantastic Fiction?
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Jan 26, 2021

Militant Secularism Could Force Christians to Create New Subcultures
Articles | Mike Duran on Jan 25, 2021

Flight of the Raven
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Jan 22, 2021

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The Mermaid's Sister, Carrie Anne Noble
Etania's Worth, M. H. Elrich
Cinderella Spell, Laurie Lee
When Desperate Measures Are All You Have Left, J. C. Morrows
Fractures, James C. Joyner
Torch, R. J. Anderson
The Terran Summit, Anna Zogg
The Xerxes Factor, Anna Zogg
The Paradise Protocol, Anna Zogg
The Awakened, Richard Spillman
The Ascension, Richard Spillman
Love's Sacrifice, Kelsey Norman
Unbroken Spirit, Kelsey Norman
Seed: Judgment, Joshua David
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Nomad
“R. J. Anderson’s fantasy Nomad is a rollicking read with fascinating conflicts and plot twists.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 5, 2021

Legend of the Storm Sneezer
“Teen readers fond of lengthy, lighthearted ghost-and-zombie tales will enjoy Legend of the Storm Sneezer by Kristiana Sfirlea.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 5, 2021

The Icarus Aftermath
“Arielle M. Bailey’s The Icarus Aftermath spins a golden yarn of vivid characters and gripping emotion, set in a world ripe for exploration.”
—Lorehaven on Feb 26, 2021

The Hourglass and the Darkness
“Kyle L. Elliott’s novel The Hourglass and the Darkness posits a world before the great Flood, starting a promising series.”
—Lorehaven on Feb 19, 2021

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53. How Can Christian Fans React When Fantasy Creators Get Cancelled? Part 1
Fantastical Truth, Mar 2, 2021

52. Do Christians Really Need Science Fiction? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 3
Fantastical Truth, Feb 23, 2021

51. Do Christians Really Need Fantasy? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 2
Fantastical Truth, Feb 9, 2021

50. Do Christians Really Need Fiction? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 1
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The Fantastical Elements of Romantic Fiction, part 2
Parker J. Cole, Mar 4

Settling the Solar System in Science Fiction, part 3: the Moon
Travis Perry, Feb 24

The Fantastical Elements of Romantic Fiction, part 1
Parker J. Cole, Feb 17

Settling the Solar System in Science Fiction, part 2: Venus
Travis Perry, Feb 11

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‘Gunslinger Girl’ Shows the Inevitable Tragedy When Man Tries to Play God

Manga artist Yu Aida fills “Gunslinger Girl” with well-developed characters as well as intriguing moral and ethical difficulties.
Audie Thacker | Jan 29, 2021 | 2 comments

Previously I’ve written reviews for anime series, and even a couple of comic book stories, but here’s something different: I’m reviewing the manga series Gunslinger Girl. This may also be the densest story I’ve reviewed, or at least up there with FMA: Brotherhood. That’s because Gunslinger Girl is filled with well-developed characters as well as intriguing moral and ethical difficulties. I hope I can do it justice—apparently unlike the anime series.1

Enter the world of Gunslinger Girl

Italy: a place filled with rich culture, great art, and phenomenal food. It’s also a land of great unrest. Political and economic conflicts aren’t just confined to words and debates. They’re also expressed in violent terrorist attacks.

From the outside, the Social Welfare Agency (SWA) looks like a government charity, designed to help children who had experienced severe mental and physical traumas. On the inside, the SWA is taking many of these children, mostly young girls, and creating soldiers to fight the terrorists. The agency enhances these children’s bodies with cybernetics, and reshapes their minds with a conditioning process involving drugs and hypnotherapy.

For two brothers, Jean and Jose Croce, the SWA offers an avenue toward a more personal goal. Years before, their parents had been targeted and killed in a massive car bombing, an attack that also killed their beloved little sister and Jean’s fiance. They now want to find the man who planned and carried out the attack, and when the do, they intend to use the cyborg soldiers as tools to get their revenge on him.

The name Gunslinger Girl actually doesn’t fit well

Unfortunately, the series’ English name doesn’t work in the series’ favor. It’s a rather cartoonish name for a story that has very few cartoonish elements.

The word “gunslinger” usually connotes the American Old West, where two men face each other on the dusty street of a small town of clapboard buildings, their hands hovering over their holstered six-shooters, while townsfolk hide behind doorways and windows whilst peeking out to see which gunfighter will outdraw the other. It’s awkward to apply that word to this story.

Even the singular word “girl” is not very accurate. Six of the cyborg girls take turns in the story’s main focus, and three of them could be considered the story’s main character. If I understand it right, the Japanese language does not have plural nouns in the same way that English does, so maybe the problem was with someone not understanding the story all that well before they had to come up with a translation of the name.

Who are the good guys in Gunslinger Girl?

It’s easy, and not unjustified, to paint the Social Welfare Agency as bad guys. At least it’s beyond questionable that no one should use children as assassins and murderers. But while the story does critique the SWA, it even more sharply critiques the “real world” through the SWA.

Two of the girls came to SWA after being brutalized and tortured almost to death. Another girl has been paralyzed from birth and abandoned by her family. A fourth girl’s own parents tried to stage an accident so they could collect life insurance money from her death. Only one main character has a more normal backstory. She’s a Russian/Ukrainian girl who is close to fulfilling her dream of becoming a ballet dancer. Then she learns her bone cancer (linked to the events of Chernobyl) means she’ll need to have one of her legs amputated, and tries to take her own life.

Otherwise in the SWA, outside of paramilitary training and killing bad guys, their lives are almost disturbingly normal. One girl grows a garden. Another owns a teddy bear collection. One night they go out to see a meteor shower and end up singing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

Even most of their handlers try to treat them well. Earlier I mentioned Jose, one of the Croce brothers. For most of the story, he seems to see his cyborg trainee, Henrietta, almost as if she were his little sister, perhaps as a replacement for the sister killed in the car bombing. He takes her stargazing, encourages her interest in photography, and even takes her to a performance of The Nutcracker. When Henrietta is not in take-down-bad-guys mode, he seems to want her to have as normal a life as possible. Yet her real value to him is revealed when the SWA learns information about the man who killed his family, and he must decide whether he wants to go into battle with a reliable weapon or an increasingly unreliable person.

Then there’s Hilshire and Triela. Their story goes back to even before they joined the SWA. They show humanity at its worst and most fallen. Hilshire helped rescue a young girl who began as a victim of child trafficking, and then was nearly murdered in a form of vile and depraved entertainment—but not before she had greatly suffered in mind and body. The SWA saved her life and restored her body with their cybernetics, but at the cost of dragging this girl into their crusade. Hilshire is the one handler most dedicated to his cyborg’s well-being.

Tell, don’t show

In fall 2020, the internet caught fire over the movie Cuties. Some articles explained how the movie set out with a good goal: to explore how our culture exploits young girls. But the movie failed in its message because the film ended up engaging in the same kinds of exploitation it sought to condemn, by exploiting its own child actors.

Gunslinger Girl looks at some very dark corners of humanity, but we can learn from how this story looks into these corners. As a manga, the story is told in visual format, but artist Yu Aida still doesn’t try to shock us with explicit details. For example, when Hilshire—as a Europol officer before he joins the SWA—wants to hunt down people involved in child trafficking, he is shown exactly what terrible things happen to these children and what he may encounter. The reader, however, is only told what he sees, and that is quite disturbing enough.

Aida usually shows just enough hints of evil, and does not revel or even wallow in the details like some shock-fest horror movie.

Gunslinger Girl’s tragic ending

Early on, Gunslinger Girl implies to readers that this story will not end well for the main characters. Perhaps it’s the references to Italian tragic opera, or the story’s jarring combination of childhood innocence with ruthless violence. Maybe readers just know that man cannot play God with people like this, reprogramming their minds and removing their memories, without such experiments coming back to harm them. At the risk of spoilers, that’s largely how Gunslinger Girl plays out, either loudly and discordantly, or with quieter and bittersweet tones.

We could explore more about Gunslinger Girl, such as the gut-wrenching storyline involving the Prince of Pasta. I could describe Pinocchio, who provides a kind of mirror image or photo negative of the cyborgs. We might find noteworthy the fact that an action/drama story set in Italy doesn’t focus much on that country’s two most famous (or infamous) institutions: the Catholic Church and the Mafia.

This is not a light, fun read, as is typical in some comic or manga fare. Instead, Gunslinger Girl shows that this graphic story form is capable of far more than another round of caped heroes bashing dastardly villains. This medium can add a pinch of sci-fi and give us a story that may rival classical literature by looking at the good and the bad in humanity. It’s not an easy read, but it’s a good read.

  1. You can find two anime series for Gunslinger Girl. The first anime series introduced me to the story. It was good, but it felt incomplete, as if the story was barely getting started by the time the last episode ended. The second series, Il Teatrino, was produced by a different animation company. I haven’t yet watched it. ↩
Audie Thacker
Audie Thacker likes to think of himself as a writer, and so far his word processor hasn't been able to convince him otherwise, though one can't fault its efforts. He is the author of the fantasy novels Shifters: Manipulations and Shifters: Judgments.
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  1. notleia says:
    January 29, 2021 at 7:44 pm

    I only watched the first anime. Everybody in the second season looked constantly off-model and I couldn’t put up with it for more than, like, 5 minutes.

    But basically the TL;DR version is that this is the pre-Violet Evergarden version of Violet Evergarden.

    Also I would argue that the themes would be more about human nature than about playing God. But I have no bandwidth for that serious stuff anymore. I’m rewatching/rereading the comedy Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle and it’s currently translated 13 volumes of manga.

    Reply
    • audie says:
      February 7, 2021 at 8:23 pm

      I feel a bit dense for not having seen the similarities with Violet Evergarden. Oh, well.

      Reply

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