Or “How To Fuck A Sequel”
Ok, it was no secret that I was looking forward to the next series of Gunslinger Girl. The first still remains one of the best I’ve seen. Animation was fantastic, plot was good, if a little slow, voice acting was excellent, and the show did a really, really damn good job of getting the general themes of the series across.
And now the first episode of the sequel has been released for those of us limited by our knowledge of only the English language, if you know where to look (I won’t post it after MFI made it clear that they’re a bunch of scumbags). So will someone please tell me, after the first series was so well done, how the hell did they manage to go so wrong.
The original series had kind of a gritty feel across the whole show, through the voice acting, animation and plot. Il Teatrino just feels, dare I say it, too cute. The voice actors don’t sound quite right. The character designs don’t look right either anymore. And the animation… well, I don’t think I can find a word to describe how fucking bad that is. I am not kidding here: the opening credits are a series of still photos put together. The ending credits are no better. For the rest of the episode, a good half of the frames are just a still frame being shaken around. The actual animation in the episode is poor at best. I can’t seem to think of anything else I’ve seen that is worse.
I think half of the problem is that one of Japan’s most experienced animation studios (Madhouse) handled the first season. For some God forsaken reason, they’ve gone to Artland for the animation production this time round. Their CV kind of speaks for itself.
To add insult to injury, the rest of the staff don’t have much experience either, and the choice of voice actors isn’t much better. Pretty much the only member of staff common with the original series is the series creator, Yu Aida.
I think Media Factory have come up with a new strategy in the War on Fansubbers: make shows so shit, that nobody will want to watch them. In my case anyway, it’s worked.
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