It’s episode 3, and Pinocchio finally gets to meet his first Gunslinger Girl: Triela. Surely he can’t beat these indestructible cyborg girls, right? Right?
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Go Straight to the Screenshots | Go Straight to the Review
The highlights of this episode:
- Hilshire and Triela are tapped to go to Montalcino to investigate a Public Safety Division officer (I’m assuming that’s Section I) who has gone missing while investigating Pinocchio. Once in Montalcino, the two have lunch at a fancy restaurant. Triela asks why they’re out searching for someone, and Hilshire tells her he doesn’t know, but that he’ll be alright since he has a good ally nearby. Triela says he surely doesn’t mean her. Hilshire then tells her to relax because he’ll never betray her.
- The two then go to the hotel where the agent was saying at, and bribe the hotel attendant to give them a key. Once in his room, they find no one there. Hilshire is able to detect part of a note that was written on a pad, and goes to check it out. Meanwhile, Triela finds a copy of the book Pinocchio in the agent’s suitcase and reads it, but she tosses it aside as “stupid” after she’s done.
- The two then go to where the note that Hilshire found says. Triela sees Aurora, who is holding a basket, standing outside the building and asks if Massimo is there, but Aurora tells her that he’s hardly ever there, so he’s lending the apartment out to “Pino.” Triela talks to Aurora a little while longer in order to place a microphone in the basket, and then bids her farewell, returning to the neighboring building where Hilshire is observing.
- Aurora goes ahead and enters the apartment and makes her way to the living room where she finds a gun on a table. Being an expert in gun safety, Aurora picks up the gun and curiously looks at it. Suddenly Franca shows up and tells Aurora to drop the gun, fearing that she’s one of the rumored assassin girls. Franco then suddenly knocks the gun out of Aurora’s hand. Pinocchio then shows up and explains that Aurora is just a neighbor. Franca asks what they’re going to do with her, and Pinocchio says that he’ll kill her for finding out about them. However, both Franco and Franca object, and Pinocchio relents.
- Suddenly Triela shows up and tells Franco and Pinocchio to drop their weapons. The pair toss them aside, and then suddenly cross paths and dive back to their weapons. This confuses Triela long enough to miss her chance at getting a clear shot at them. Triela tries firing on Franco, but Pinocchio throws knives at Triela, knocking away the gun and hitting her in the hand.
- Pinocchio then chargers Triela, stabbing her in the arm, but Triela is able to kick him back and tries to pull out a handgun to shoot him. However, Pinocchio closes the gap too quickly for Triela to fire and gives Triela a strong upper-cut, knocking her out.
- Pinocchio picks up Triela’s gun and is about to shoot her in the head, until he remembers the girl he shot in the head before, and decides not to. Meanwhile, in the cellar, Hilshire catches Franca and demands that she hand him her gun. However, just as Hilshire is about to take it, she drops it, which distracts Hilshire long enough for her to knock his gun out of his hand. Franca is able to run to the next room, where Franco is waiting for her. Franco then repels Hilshire with gunfire and a cell phone bomb, allowing Pinocchio, Franca, and himself to get away.
- Hilshire finds Triela, who wakes up, with Hilshire telling her that she might have a concussion. Hilshire tells Triela that the Aurora is safe, but Triela sees that Hilshire has injured his hand and starts to break down crying. Hilshire tries to comfort her, but Triela just cries out about how Pinocchio was able to beat her bear-handed despite her being a cyborg, and wondering what the purpose of all the risk of becoming a cyborg is if she can’t beat him.
- Meanwhile, once the trio have escaped, Pinocchio realizes that he’s missing his boar pendant. However, Franca tells him that what’s inside the heart is more important than his pendant.
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This was a pretty action packed episode, I thought. There were some short cuts again (speed lines!), but other than things I’ve already complained about, the animation quality isn’t any worse. I just wish I could know what this would have looked like with the old animation, but that’s water under the bridge at this point.
The story is going strong, though, I think. One of the cyborgs is finally defeated, and unfortunately for Hilshire, the cyborgs are also part human, and thus they come with the same baggage humans carry - and that is Triela’s distress of complete and utter failure for not being able to win despite being a cyborg. I’m sure that Triela will be able to overcome this, and probably won’t lose to Pinocchio the next time, but it just shows one of the weaknesses of the girls in the Social Welfare Agency. I doubt Hilshire will be as accommodating next time either when facing Pinocchio, Franco, and Franca.
One interesting thing I noticed, though, was Triela’s seemingly strong negative reaction to the story of Pinocchio which, at it’s core, essentially deals with a “fake” or “artificial” boy turning into a real boy, which is of course essentially the opposite of what has happened to Triela and the other girls - something Triela is aware of, as she comments that “she’s fake in almost every possible way.” Perhaps Triela has a hidden bitterness or frustration with the fact that she’ll probably never be a “normal” girl again, and took out that frustration on the book?
Also, lines like Hilshire’s “I will never betray you” are also the type of lines that I like to file away in my head because I think they may have relevance later on in the series.
So, I guess the main question is: what comes next? I assume the Social Welfare Agency will continue to go after Pinocchio, but will they use another girl? Especially since Triela may still not be in the best Psychological state after this episode. Next episode title is “Angelica’s return” which could mean it’s a non-Pinocchio episode as well.
