LibGuides: Manga: Gunslinger Girl

Manga & Related Books

Gunslinger Girl is a shonen, political thriller manga written and illustrated by Yu Aida, consisting of 15 volumes. It tells the story of the Social Welfare Agency, an Italian government agency that converts damaged young girls into cybernetic killers. Given male handlers known as "fratello" (the Italian word for "brother"), these girls are forced to find purpose in a world that uses them as tools.

Gunslinger Girl, Vol. 1
Call Number: PN 6790 .J33 A45 [V. 1-6] 2003
ISBN: 9781413900200
Publication Date: 2003-11-18

Back Cover [Vol. 1]: 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?

Gunslinger Girl is, ultimately, a story about young girls being turned into killing machines. While cybernetic enhancements aren't currently practical in our world, there exist places in the world where children for one reason or another are forced into military service. This collection of essays, edited by Candice Mancini for the Global Viewpoints series, offers valuable real world context.

Global Viewpoints: Child Soldiers
Call Number: UB 416 .C478 2010
ISBN: 9780737748390
Publication Date: 2010-04-01

Back Cover: The Global Viewpoints series provides students and other readers with the information they need to explore global connections and think critically about the worldwide implications of global issues. Each volume focuses on a controversial topic of worldwide importance and offers a panoramic view of opinions selected from a diverse range of international sources, including journals, magazines, newspapers, nonfiction books, speeches, government documents, organization newsletters, and position papers. Each volume contains an annotated table of contents; a world map, to help readers locate countries or areas covered in the essays; "for further discussion" questions; a worldwide list of organizations to contact; bibliographies of books and periodicals; and a subject index. By illuminating the complexities and interrelations of the global community, this excellent resource helps students and other researchers enhance their global awareness.

Gunslinger Girl doesn't shy away from the effects of violence and warfare on its child characters. In this ebook, Kendra E. Dupuy and Krijn Peters discuss war's effects on children, whether simply witnessed or experienced first hand as a child soldier, drawing from history, philosophy, and psychology.

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War and Children: A Reference Handbook
ISBN (Ebook): 9780313362095
Publication Date: 2009-11-19

Ebook Description: A comprehensive, up-to-date presentation of how children and young people are affected by and respond to situations of armed conflict and postwar reconstruction. War and Children: A Reference Handbook looks at one of the most wrenching aspects of armed conflict, ranging across the globe to examine the different ways armed conflict and postwar reconstructions affect children and young people, and how they have responded to both war and efforts to alleviate war's destruction. While war has always affected children, the nature of that impact has changed in the last half-century. Civil conflicts break out in mostly poor, developing countries with large populations of young people, and combatants are less hesitant to turn civilian areas into battlegrounds. War and Children explores these phenomena by focusing primarily on recent conflicts worldwide, with case studies dramatizing important issues and controversies—including the considerable number of children soldiers throughout the world.

Gunslinger Girl's opening theme, "The Light Before We Land", was originally performed by The Delgados for the album Hate. Though the track was written and performed independently of the series, it was chosen to represent its themes of lost innocence and humanity, and establish the bittersweet tone that the series is known for.

LYRICS PROVIDED BY ANIMESONGLYRICS.COM

In cases such as these I'd like a hand
Don't wake me up without a master plan

With silence I'm becoming fragile
Don't you understand?
When things that once were beautiful
Are bland

And when I feel like I can feel once again
Let me stay awhile
Soak it in awhile
If we can hold on we can fix what is wrong
Buy a little time
For this head of mine
Haven for us

In truth there is no better place to be
Than falling out of darkness still to see

Without a premonition
Could you tell me where we stand?
I'd hate to lose this light
Before we land

And when I feel like I can feel once again
Let me stay awhile
Soak it in awhile
If we can hold on we can fix what is wrong
Buy a little time
For this head of mine
Haven for us

Before we let euphoria
Convince us we are free
Remind us how we used to feel
Before when life was real

And when I feel like I can feel once again
Let me stay awhile
Soak it in awhile
If we can hold on we can fix what is wrong
Buy a little time
For this head of mine
Haven for us

Gunslinger Girl has had a wide variety of adaptations ever since its original release back in 2002. This video, uploaded by The Bellman for his YouTube channel, examines the franchise as a whole, from its multiple anime adaptations, to its original manga and tie-in video games. It also explores the themes behind the work, including a few criticisms from the video's creator.

Gunslinger Girl: In Retrospect
Video Description: An extended overview of the Gunslinger Girl Franchise

Websites & Articles

Gunslinger Girl's story contains a wide variety of "tropes" (or "common story elements"), from Children Forced to Kill to Super-Soldier. TvTropes is a wiki dedicated to cataloging these tropes, providing notable examples from all kinds of media. It allows readers to browse these tropes by franchise and even find notable subversions where appropriate.

Gunslinger Girl (Manga)
Site Description: Gunslinger Girl is a manga created by Yu Aida, which also received two anime adaptations, telling the story of a group of young girl assassins.

In Italy, the Social Welfare Agency scours the country for little girls who have been traumatized or abandoned, ostensibly to give them a second shot at life. In reality, the Agency (as it is usually called) subjects the girls to cyberization, drugs, and brainwashing, and uses them to do the government's dirty work. Each girl in the Agency is partnered with a male handler to form a unit called a "fratello" due to their supposedly sibling-like relationship. The girl's handler oversees her training, determines the level of drugs and conditioning she receives, and is ultimately her controller when out on a mission.

Gunslinger Girl has been breaking the hearts of fans ever since 2002. When researching the series for the first time, Wikipedia can make for a good, quick overview, while offering links and citations to other sources. When using it for academia purposes, however, be careful to examine the sources to make sure that any information is relevant and accurate.

Gunslinger Girl
Site Description: Gunslinger Girl (stylized in small caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yu Aida. It was serialized in Dengeki Daioh magazine from May 2002 to September 2012. Its chapters were collected in 15 tankōbon volumes by ASCII Media Works. Set in modern Italy, the series focuses on young cybernetic girls and their adult male handlers who use them as assassins under the directions of a government organization.

Gunslinger Girl doesn't shy away from the emotional toll inflicted on girls who are converted into assassins. In this article from the Ohio Nurse, Laura K. Wood lists the various forms of human trafficking that affect children all over the world, from the perversions of sex slavery to their cruel use as child soldiers.

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Human Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery
Excerpt: Human trafficking is a domestic and global crime involving the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people using force, fraud, or deception. It is the second highest grossing crime around the world involving victims of any age, race, gender, or nationality. Also known as modern slavery, it affects an estimated 40.3 million people globally (Stop the Traffik, 2022). The financial upshot is an industry of $150 billion annually for trafficker's making it one of the world's most profitable crimes (World101, 2022). Human trafficking takes many forms such as sexual exploitation, forced labor, debt bondage, domestic servitude, organ removal, forced begging, child soldiers, and forced marriages. Nurse victim recognition, a trauma-informed and patient-centered approach, knowledge of state and federal laws, and continued education and training reduces the likelihood of victim re-traumatization occurrence during conversations both in and outside of clinical settings.