Gunslinger Girl, Vol. 1 [Comic]

Yu Aida (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 2003

Innocence Lost.... Henrietta barely survived a brutal attack that killed her family. "Rescued" by the Social Welfare Agency, her injuries were repaired with robotic components and she was brainwashed - lost with the memory of her family's death was almost every trace of her own humanity. Today she is an extraordinarily lethal cyborg assassin, obediently working with her handler Giuseppe to carry out her deadly tasks. Despite her conditioning and programming, Henrietta still has the heart of a young girl; she has not completely forgotten how to love. Yet the very emotion is contrary to her training and programming. Can the Gunslinger Girl survive? Can she find peace in a struggle against her very nature?

Product Details

• Comic: 186 pages
• Publisher: ADV Manga (December 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1413900208
• ISBN-13: 978-1413900200
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #539,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous Little Girls, February 17, 2004

By 

Shanshad "shanachie_shadowfax" (Discworld) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Gunslinger Girl, Vol. 1 (Comic)

Girls with guns is not anything new in the Japanese story canon, and as one can expect, Yu Aida's manga has plenty of the conventional plotting elements. Dying girls are given a new chance at life, their memories wiped away, their bodies enhanced to create a unit of highly deadly assassins. The agency pairs a trainer/brother up with each cyborg girl and uses these pairs to deadly effect within a world of terrorists and warring political factions.

Despite the premise, it was a bit of a surprise to discover that the story within the pages was neither an action-packed fight fest with bullets constantly flying or full of scenes of high emotional outbursts. There's plenty of violent gunplay within the story's context, but this volume focuses primarily on psychological exploration of innocence and violence, and the unusual relationship between cyborg and trainer. This is not a comedy series, despite the indication on the cover jacket. In GUNSLINGER GIRL the emotional energy appears as controlled as the girls themselves. There are no exaggerated takes, no crying scenes. Small smiles and frowns dominate the emotional landscape, but become much more powerful for their restraint.

Since this is not set up as one smooth-flowing story, but rather broken into five chapters, the narrative does lose a bit of its action-adventure energy, and makes for a slower paced story. A sense of bittersweetness underscores this manga from beginning to end, the feeling that what has happened to these girls is terribly wrong, and yet unescapable. There is some concern about the young nature of the girls and their relationships with their brother/trainer but I found the overall relationships did not imply anything salacious. While the love attachment fostered may not be exactly proper, this is part of the poignancy of this story. There are no inadvertent panty flashes or seduction scenes to imply otherwise. It is possible that the story arc will gain momentum from this introductory volume to come up with an interesting storyline for our heroines--with so little in this story that's not conventional, it may be difficult to pull off this manga series, but it has potential.

To my mind, the artwork is one of the best parts of this particular manga. Beautifully drawn, the images consist of clean lines and borders, with little ornamentation, allowing the frames a clear and Spartan quality. The action scenes contrast nicely with the more static dialogue scenes, really evoking the sudden transition of these girls from innocent children to deadly killers. And while the violence is brief and refrains from being overtly gory, it is nevertheless effectively drawn. Yu Aida clearly knows his weaponry, and the attention to accuracy of the various guns the girls use will likely be appreciated by readers who are weapons enthusiasts.

This is a decent action/drama manga containing moderate violence, minimal sexual reference and no sexuality of a truly graphic nature. No chibi cuteness and plenty of realistic weaponry. But be aware that the psychological explorations certainly mean this manga is for a mature audience and may not be appropriate for the preteen reader. I'm looking forward to seeing where this series will go.
Happy reading! ^_^ shanshad

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling but good read..., February 1, 2004

By 

Randy Beamer (Kirkland, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gunslinger Girl, Vol. 1 (Comic)

Gunslinger Girl is set in Italy in the near future. Blah blah blah. If you want a summary read the back cover. What you want to know is, is it any good?

The answer is a resounding "Yes, but...." Gunslinger girl is not for the faint of heart. Though the graphic gore is minimal, the story definitely has the darkness that one would expect of a story about early adolescent girls brainwashed into deadly assassins.

Once one gets beyond the violence and the somewhat chilling premise Gunslinger Girl is an amazing work of graphic fiction. It maintains a perfect balance between the focus on two "main" characters (Guiseppe and Henrietta) and a very well developed cast of secondary (but not at all minot) characters. Two of these even have whole stories devoted to them.

The depth of emotion in this book is startling and unexpected, and in fact probably merits a second read-through once you've absorbed the rich and exciting storyline.

A final note: I've seen GG accused of being mildly paedophilic, either in that the plot has undertones of paedophilia or in that it caters to paedophiliac impulses. I disagree. On the second count, when compared with other contemporary anime and manga GG doesn't particularly portray the children as sex objects (I can think of a lot of other mainstream a+m that does so a lot more). On the first point, I think that this reflects a misinterpretation of what is going on in the story. What the story does so well is showing the conflict raised when a child develops a romantic attachment to an older person, and the effects of the varying responses from the targets of this affection (indifference, paternal love, etc.) This of course is not an unrealistic situation; who among us never had a crush on some camp counsellor, student teacher, or friend's older sibling? Gunslinger Girl lovingly and carefully explores this quintesential experience of frustrated youth.

This manga is definitely worth a buy if you can handle a few scenes of violence. The only downside I can think of is that ADV has given no indication of when we might get another volume, which you WILL be begging for immediately upon finishing volume one.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Noir, Bitter, Hopeful, March 5, 2005

By 

Timothy Perper (Philadelphia PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gunslinger Girl, Vol. 1 (Comic)

Orphaned, sick, or physically deeply damaged, the 10-12 year old girls of "Gunslinger Girl" are rescued by the Social Welfare Agency and turned into chemically and emotionally brainwashed, cyborg political assassins. They bond deeply with their older male handlers, and obey these men implicitly. And love them too - and therein lies the tense inner workings of these bitterly noir, nearly surreal stories. --- If you expect a shoot-`em-up with cute sexy little Lolita nymphets, forget it. The style is Italian film noir realism (the story is set in Italy) and everything centers on the *relationships* among the girls and between them and their handlers - quiet, withdrawn Henrietta and the genuinely loving Giuseppe, or Elsa de Sica, whose handler does *not* love her, as we find out in a grim two-part story. --- How do people fall in love? If we are all killers (one of the undertexts of "Gunslinger Girl"), then why do we even think that love is possible? These girls live in a Gulag created by nameless adults. Against the brainwashing, conditioning, chemicals, and loss of memory, how can anyone act with even a shred of humanity, let alone personality or rebellion? Against the radical and totalizing power of drugs, manipulations, and emotional pain, the girls simply don't give up. They're very proud of their abilities to assassinate terrorists and of the police services they provide. Dubious means; desirable end: and they become human, in poignant and very moving stories of endurance, resilience, and revenge. And if you say that *their* Gulag is not so different from *our* consensus reality, well, then you've got the point.