Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino OVA Anime Review
Gunslinger Girl
Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino OVA
Written by Yu Aida 相田 裕 Aida Yutaka
Published by Funimation
Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino OVAガンスリンガー·ガール Gansuringā Gāru
Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino OVA is a continuation of season 2 of the Gunslinger Girl anime. This OVA seems to be something of an apology for the the lackluster animation of the second season of the anime. It is not the best I have ever seen, but it is definitely better than Il Teatrino. This OVA is still personally supervised by Yu Aida, so it hews closely to the manga.
If you have come here without reading my review of the first two seasons of Gunslinger Girl, go do so now. You are not going to find anything new in this OVA that wasn't discussed in that review. I have not yet reviewed the manga separately, but one thing that is notably different is the editor's notes that appear in some volumes of the US release. These notes explain a great deal of the intrigues of Italy and fun facts about the locales of the series. The anime lacks these, but the OVA did have a scene early on that explained just what Padiana is and the wealth disparity between the north and south of Italy that is fueling the terrorism with which the Social Welfare Agency deals.
I checked Volume 6 of the manga, and I did not see this bit of exposition, but it is good background information. The OVA itself is very short. I watched this on Netflix, so the fact that only two episodes were on the disc was tolerable, but I would have been pissed if I had paid money for it. Two episodes is not worth $15-$20. I know damn good and well that OVAs such as this retail for $60 in Japan, but that is ridiculous.
There was a nice bit of character development in this OVA, but it comprised about a third of Volume 6 of the manga, so you could get the same story a lot cheaper that way. Fanboys will probably buy it just the same, but I'm more than happy to rent.
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