Summary:

Many years ago, a boy named Pinocchio was sent to kill someone, and although he succeeded, he was also forced to kill a young girl who had seen the immediate aftermath of what happened. Back in the present, an older Pinocchio sets out from his home in the town of Montalcino and briefly speaks with a young neighborhood girl named Aurora before boarding a bus headed towards Genova. There, he completes a hit job and, as he’s waiting for his contact, he recalls a scene from his past where a man lying on a car roof wanted him to repay a debt and had chided him for making excuses after Pinocchio had pointed out that he was still only a kid. When his contact arrives to trade cars and to take the dead body that Pinocchio has stashed in the trunk, the man lectures Pinocchio about being on top of the Mercedes due to how it’s a girl’s name – he should be respecting her. Pinocchio, however, admits that he’s not good with girls.

Sometime afterwards, Pinocchio meets with Cristiano and learns about more work that’s coming soon. Cristiano then gathers with the rest of the Milano Group to discuss what to do and to talk about a bombing plan with Franco and Franca. The pair are sent to meet up with Pinocchio in Montalcino, and while Pinocchio is showing Franca where to park the car, Franco heads inside to inspect Pinocchio’s house and hides a gun in the bathroom. Franca meanwhile reveals to Pinocchio that Franco is her partner, bodyguard, and bomb-making teacher, but they aren’t related by blood. She also comments on Pinocchio’s interesting name and compares Cristiano to Geppetto. While Franca showers, Franco tells Pinocchio about the bridge that’s their target, and in discussing Pinocchio’s specialty of using knives, Franco points a gun at him to test him. Pinocchio talks tough and backs it up by making the observation that Franco has an old wound on his left leg, so Franco backs off. On the way back from the store a little while later, Pinocchio runs into Aurora and asks her to stop following him around since it’s troublesome. He also thinks that her being with him won’t do any good because he’s the mischievous boy Pinocchio.

After eating, Franca and Franco show Pinocchio a CG rendered picture of their target – the Messina Bridge that has yet to be completed. This is something that the North is paying for it, but it’s certain people in the South who are the ones benefiting. Franca intends to plant the bomb herself because she doesn’t want unnecessary people to get involved, and when Pinocchio asks, she reveals that she doesn’t approve of killing any more than needed. This leads to Pinocchio commenting to Franco, as the two take out the Pinocchio’s hidden cache of weapons, about how nice Franca is compared to other terrorists. Franco feels that Franca isn’t a normal terrorist, and for him, she gives him the purpose he lost. Meanwhile, at an Agency shooting range, Hilshire and Marco talk about Angelica’s recovery and their upcoming mission that will take Marco and Angelica to Milan while Hilshire and Triela head to Montalcino.

 
 
 

Huh, the ED changed this week, but not the song itself – only the singer. Last week it was sung by Tada Aoi, but this week it was Lia. They match up surprisingly well when you play them together, but I much prefer Lia’s version.

Anyway, this episode had the beginning of the Pinocchio arc, so there was very little of the girls and a lot of, well, Pinocchio. They didn’t follow the manga exactly, but it was fairly close, covering all of chapter 13 and part of 14. In particular though, the anime appears to be establishing stronger relationships between Pinocchio and Cristiano and also between Franco and Franca. I see that as a good thing, but it remains to be seen if they add anything else.

Still, if you didn’t like the first episode, I doubt there’s anything in this episode that’ll change your mind. I think it’s pretty much assured that some of the production aspects won’t ever improve to as good as they were for the first series, and I’m personally just trying to view this as a separate entity so that I don’t have to draw comparisons all the time. In that sense, this hasn’t been a bad show so far, though it also hasn’t really shined yet. I’ve got my fingers crossed for the later episodes.

24 Comments

  1. no pues a mi me gusta mucho esta serie y la seguiré viendo y por cierto a Mikhei si vez esto te recuerdo que te vallas a chingar a tu madre putito y te lo digo en ingles ” you Will going to FYM”

    Jezreel
  2. Omni, you doesn’t seem very happy with this show. Is it cause you read the manga and know what’s going on, or don’t you like the series Gunlinger Girl as whole?
    Personaly I liked the 1st series a lot, but this new one’s style and music, no match to the first.
    Did you like the 1st series Omni, or is it as asked in my second point above?

  3. mmm, the first GSG was a masterpiece in all departments.
    The second one is well, lacking overall in presentation. It’s not that the plot is bad… it’s just that the visuals and audio have degraded quite a bit since the first season.

    Kaito
  4. For those of us who saw the first season, the second season is painful. Nevertheless, it is nice to see more of the manga being animated.

    Notable changes are moeification of the girls and significant loss of accuracy with respect to the guns. The voice actors for the girls are too “happy,” with the exception of Claes, which was actually pretty good.

    I saw the first episode yesterday, and the chase scene and music reminded me of Jackie Chan’s Police Story series…

    Dr. Joe Stan
  5. the first one is very awesome… it has very very dark atmosphere..(specially with triella and henrietta backround…oops i almost forgot elsa too)…more bloody and the animation is top notch..and don’t forget the op it’s very beautiful song and has deep lyric (the delgados).. actually i’m listening one right now… for Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino well ‘coz i’m a big fan of the first season … i try to watch it anyway…

    BAKABAKASHI
  6. This is Artland, not Madhouse, period. You can’t expect much from Artland, their portfolio includes basically eroge-anime convertions and they are a small studio. Marvelous Entertainment (MMV) must be suffering from low budget, because their recent productions have been animated by small, even new studios.
    Their last work, Myself;Yourself had a good animation by Dogakobo, they are a new studio and all of their workmanship was in one series.
    Some of Artland works include Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo, Umisho!, Gyagu Manga Biyori and Happiness; Konoao and Happiness were also produced by MMV. They had decent animation, but nothing too spectacular. Their work in Mushishi was very good, suffice to say the budget was way higher than the first series I mentioned. Just take a look at Mushishi’s staff: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=5923 and Konoao’s staff: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=7687.
    To me this is more of a budget problem than anything else, MMV didn’t had enough cash to hire Madhouse again, so they had to go with Artland.

    Reikalover
  7. This second episode was a LOT better than the first, probably because it was darker and the “cheerful” girls didn’t make much of an appearance. Something about the mood and the dialogue differed from the first episode and this episode felt a lot closer to the first series – if they keep on like this then there still might be hope yet.

    lost
  8. es cierto que en muchos aspectos no se compara a la primera serie, pero aun asi llevo mucho tiempo esperando una continuacion, prefiero verlo tranquilo y disfrutarlo que estar comparando cada minuto una serie con la otra.

    sorshiro
  9. I agree with Omni about the backlash. Judging by the two episodes that have aired it looks like everyone jumped out of a Italian GQ fashion spread. The first season had excellent character details and backgrounds but everything was Grey and dark. It was surprising when I saw the pre-production screens in December because it is so different from the first season and the manga. I must admit I like the way it looks the second season because to me Artland did a good job compared to the small budget they probably had to work with compared to the really big budget they had for the first season a couple of years ago. Now the music is kind of crappy compared to The Delgatos and a full orchestra they had in the first season. Another good part is that they seem they are sticking with the manga’s storyline and at a good pace to make a interesting thirteen episodes. Fifteen if you count the two DVD only episodes which I believe will also be as good as the filler from the first season. Lastly to me is seems that they pimped out Marco and Angelica the most compared to how depressed and dreary they looked the first season but if I were a handler in Italy and depending on the salary the handlers make I would only wear Armani drive a Ferrari which has enough room for my guns,fratello and after work room for a beautiful Italian woman even though I know it is not incognito for agency work but I might as well die looking good fighting terrorism.

    Roger
  10. let’s be honest..i mean the first series of gunslinger wasen’t really “ALL THAT” anyway. but it was better that this. shoulda stopped while they were ahead. aahhh well, get THAT MONEY PEOPLE!!! AND WHATS WITH THIS POLL!?!?! damn and i thought i was a otaku.. dat’s a lotta single people out there! L A D I E’ S!!!!!!!! HOLLA!!!!!!!!! sheet!! i gotta shorty but she don’t even like anime…looking to trade up! just kidding

    BROOKLYN otaku
  11. @BAKABAKASHI I don’t really hear a resemblance but I may be wrong.
    http://www.stage6.com/nyoroooon/video/1243707/GUNSLINGER-GIRL-OP

    http://www.stage6.com/Zhailors-Theatre/video/2043814/Led-Zeppelin—Kashmir-(1979)

    Offtopic: While I was looking up Zeppelin I also found a music video with Jimmy Paige from Godzilla that to me resembles what the movie Cloverfield looks like.

    http://www.stage6.com/user/kcir1955/video/2027527/puff-daddy-jimmy-page/come-with-me

    @Eld LOL Agent 47 has a contract to fiber wire all the robotic lolis starting with Angelica
    https://randomc.net/image/Gunslinger%20Girl/Gunslinger%20Girl%20-%20Il%20Teatrino%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2034.jpg

    Roger

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