How did you first get interested in GSG?

Let me think... I've been a fan of Gunslinger Girl for 3 years now.

One night I was home alone and I decided to watch some FullMetal Alchemist. I watched a few episodes and then I checked out the trailers. The title Gunslinger Girl caught my attention imediatly. I wasn't sure what to expect and I pressed play. I was suprised to see such an anime but I watched the trailer... again... and again... and again. Every time it made me want to watch it even more. I was so intriged and hyped up over this anime that looked so amazing!!

Of corse wherever I went they didn't have the first disk, or I didn't have any money. I was shocked to see that a manga was out so I got the first book and LOVED it. One day my sister was going out and I asked her to pick up the Gunslinger Girl DVD if she saw it. She came back and she got it for me. I was soooo happy! ^_^

And to this day I still love it as much as I did the first time I saw the trailer. What about you guys?

I can't remember what anime I saw the trailer from I think it was Full Metal Panic. After seeing the trailer, I decide to rent the series off of netflix. After watching the first episode, I was shocked at how good the animation was because the movements were so fluent and there was a lot of detail that I've never seen in any other anime. Also the music was great too because it added to the mood of the series. You can say I was hooked from watching the first episode and from the first episode to the last I was still amazed, but sad because it was only 13 episodes long, so from there i bought the manga and than I ended up here.

Downloaded episode 1 expecting girls with guns.

Got what I wanted + more.

Forgot about downloading the rest.

Saw DVD + Box + poster 2 years later and bought it.

... History...

It was late 2004 when I dropped by my local video retailer and was astonished to see a DVD with a little girl wielding a Herstal P-90 on the cover. The sight was just so darn unusual that I found myself extremely curious to know just what it was all about - it didn't help that all the storekeeper knew about his wares was that he could make money off them, and the DVD lacked a summary about its contents. So, I bought the video, took it home and popped it into the player while I knocked back a can of Rainer.

When the entire series came to an end several hours later, I was still holding the beer can that I had drained ages ago - completely mesmerized. The uniqueness of the concept, the maturity of the storytelling and the sheer thought-provoking depth of it all had left me stunned. So much so that I instantly started out on my quest to obtain more material on this fantastic program, and even decided to take a shot at writing fanfiction based on it. The rest, as Sin and all the rest say, is history.

I noticed the series on a tracker I frequented. The name was interesting enough that I downloaded the first couple episodes. I was blown away, animation, music, story. All of it was so good. I kept up, and downloaded the entire thing. When I was done watching it, I was sad it was over, but though my journey with it was over.

Then I thought to myself about an RPG that would pit players against some GSG. The bug bite me again in a strange, and wonderful way. I bought the dvd, and manga. The later was a real delight, as I discovered there was more story. At the same time I started cruising the web, and end up at the old forum.

i was sitting in front of a computer in school. when a pair of completely anonymous students (lower batch) were talking about guns. i was already a gun fanatic by then so i could not help but eave's drop. then one of them started talking about Gunslinger Girl and showed his classmate the wiki page. when i got home, for somereason i had nothing to do so i checked the wiki page out myself. i found the concept interesting and so i went to youtube and watched the trailer.... it was love at first sight! i looked for more episodes in youtube but non were available so i had to go and buy my own original DVD in jap with eng sub. i watched half of it on a saturday and finished in the on that sunday. i was heart broken... it only had 13 episodes???? i wracked my DVD player and DVD for more but it wouldn't give me more! so i asked around, but everyone kept telling me that there is no season 2 and that there won't be one. but i couldn't accept it so i searched the web, low and behold season 2 in 5 months! then with a couple more clicks i was able to download the manga series till vol 6. i was back on track. 5 months and a hundred repeats of season 1 later, here i am right now... still obsessed with Gunslinger Girl. and that is why the world is round i mean that is how i found Gunslinger Girl.

sometime in 2004, shortly after completing my US Army Initial Entry Training and arriving in Germany, I saw this on a friend's anime disc (can't remember which one). I found the concept so intriguing, and the art was so realistically compelling, that I scoured the internet for more... and then I stumbled upon the triad's fansubs. after downloading 13 episodes (over the course of several months), and watching them repeatedly, I decided to see if anything had been released in English... at which point I ordered the volume 1 anime starter box, preordered volume 2 and 3, and ordered the manga volumes 1-3. It's funny, I don't think my friends and I would've made that short trip to Italy in '05 if it hadn't been for dicovering GSG. I was, of course, the biggest fanboy among us, but after sitting each of them down to watch it, we all arrived on the decision that we had to visit that gorgeous country at least once.
...a short while later, I was introduced to fanfiction.net by a friend of mine who's a bit of a Ranma 1/2 fanboy... so I decided to see if there was a Gunslinger Girl section.
lo and behold...

Actually I first heard of it via a discussion at a gun board, the topic of anime/manga came up and so too did GSG and Gunsmith Cats.
I briefly investigated GSG, but seeing the girls ages and being used to the usual tripe of either a ridiculously overcomplex made up on the fly storyline, or one that's barely phoned in, with generous heaps of fanservice and lolixploitation, I recoiled in horror and gave it a miss.
I went and read Gunsmith Cats instead, but dropped it at the end of Omni 3 due to the author pushing a few of the buttons mentioned above, and the clear completion of all the useful plot ends that didn't involve dark and unrealistic weirdness.
Most of the Anime/Manga reccommended to me by friends and associates up to this point has been total unadultered crap, so I didn't really have high expectations.
One of the Fremgirls friends, however, made a few reccommendations (Tramps like us, Fruits Basket) that were stunning in their quality, and so when HE then reccommended GSG, I gave it a shot, having a russian friend send me some longish german dubbed clips of the anime - I don't speak either language at all, but the animation quality, soundtrack, and dark melancholy, combined with a lack of the usual fanservice garbage hooked me in, and I now possess all six available books and the viridian box set.
Of course, admittedly I did pitch book six across the room in outrage, but that was for some pretty obvious reasons, and having caught some looksee at undubbed clips of season 2, they're gonna have to seriously step up their game if they want any more of my money.
It's ironic, since as a fan of Firefly, Space Above and Beyond, and a couple other things cancelled before their time, I'm kinda used to not having a lot of material for my fandom to work with by now.
Although I've never been mentally ambushed by a subconsciously written fan-fic before, that's new, and strange... but in a strange way gratifying.
-F

Like many others, I came across the series in 2004 when Funi started putting out the series. I can't remember all too well where I learned of it, but the moment I saw the trailer, I knew I had to have this show. I could tell that it was going to be one of those things that makes you think (I'm a sucker for that kinda stuff) so when I had enough money saved up (about a week after it's release) I bought the starter set. Needless-to-say (like you all) I was blown away. It quickly became one of my favorite serieses, and to this day is still high on the list. And after receiving my preorders of volumes 2 and 3, it was even higher on the list. In fact, when I received both volumes, I watched the previous volumes before going on to the new stuff. When I learned that the manga had more story to it, I decided that I needed to get it (and was crushed when I learned ADV had dropped it at volume 3, later to be excited when ADV repicked it up). After finally thinking up a screenname for fanfiction.net (oh geez, that took me a good 3 years... at least), I posted my first story and ended up here.

LoC978 wrote:sometime in 2004, shortly after completing my US Army Initial Entry Training and arriving in Germany, I saw this on a friend's anime disc (can't remember which one). I found the concept so intriguing, and the art was so realistically compelling, that I scoured the internet for more... and then I stumbled upon the triad's fansubs. after downloading 13 episodes (over the course of several months), and watching them repeatedly, I decided to see if anything had been released in English... at which point I ordered the volume 1 anime starter box, preordered volume 2 and 3, and ordered the manga volumes 1-3. It's funny, I don't think my friends and I would've made that short trip to Italy in '05 if it hadn't been for dicovering GSG. I was, of course, the biggest fanboy among us, but after sitting each of them down to watch it, we all arrived on the decision that we had to visit that gorgeous country at least once.
...a short while later, I was introduced to fanfiction.net by a friend of mine who's a bit of a Ranma 1/2 fanboy... so I decided to see if there was a Gunslinger Girl section.
lo and behold...

And i could guess the thing that was on top of your agende when you reached Italy. It was "eat Gelatto on the Piaza de Spanglia" was it?

Ive just seen around 200+ anime series and movies so GSG just happened to be one of them. Nothing else to it. I got it from a friendo of mine when I was in high school.

West Nile wrote:And i could guess the thing that was on top of your agende when you reached Italy. It was "eat Gelatto on the Piaza de Spanglia" was it?

nope. never even made it to the spanish steps. the Coliseum was pretty cool, though... Pompeii and Capri were gorgeous, but waaay too hot (and I was there in September!).
as you can see, I didn't spend long in any one city... I wish I could've stayed longer in Firenze, though... I don't even have any good pictures from it (never got to see the Uffizi, either), just practical souveniers that I use daily (leather jacket, wallet, and belt)

darn.

eat Gelatto on the Piaza de Spanglia
see the Uffizi
go to Sicilli and Naples

these are stuff in my list of "stuff to do before i die"

West Nile wrote:darn.

eat Gelatto on the Piaza de Spanglia
see the Uffizi
go to Sicilli and Naples

these are stuff in my list of "stuff to do before i die"

Mine too! I basicly want to do everything special they do in GSG and go almost anywhere they went in Italy. ^_^ (Of corse I'll be listening to my GSG soundtrack the entire time I'm there!!) ^___^

I got interested because a friend of mine suggested it to me.

I fell in love with it right away.

So there IS a soundtrack CD ?
Where might I find it ?

-F

I could send it to you!! I have all the tracks! I can send them to you if you give me your e-mail adress! ^_^

I found it by accident and been a fan since.

I remember it just came out and well I was looking for some episode of Gundam SEED to download and underneath was Gunslinger Girl. It kind of piqued my interest so I downloaded and soon after watched. Like it a lot since i'm already a fan of mecha's and action kind of anime's. Few years later and on and off google searching I wind up here. XDD :iia:

That's a real nice Rico avatar you have there, Utsurokuri. A fellow soul living in Canada, huh? Where are you studying (if it's ok to ask)?

Haruhi was the first anime I ever got interested in, so when I saw a magazine with a big picture of Haruhi on the cover, I mustered up the balls to buy an anime magazine, and went home with it. When I was flipping through it, I found this ad for it*. I had seen images for Gunslinger Girl around the internet, like that one Wallpaper of Henrietta with the p90 (that seems to really get around). I decided "how bad could it be?" and I downloaded fansubs off of Tokyotosho. I was surprised and enjoyed it, and it just took off from there.

*Since I couldn't get the hyperlink to work, here's a direct link: https://2img.net/h/i76.photobucket.com/albums/j10/campweed/0222081914.jpg

back in the day when i2hub was still legal...found GSG in someone's computer. Etta-went-berserk scene sold me right away, then I got a little dissappinted by how slow and uneventful it got from there on. Only 2 Noir-esque parts that I really liked: the Jose introduction, gun/dynamic range, flash-forward back to berserk scene, and the tower-sniping scene.

However, as time passed by and life went both uphill and downhill, those very slow, solemn, yet reflective scenes were the ones that kept drawing me back. Rico and Claes episodes especially (+the glorious ending with Angie)

Then I completely forgot about the anime for years and one day just came across the manga. Hillshire and Treila's harrowing past, which results in their unbreakable bond, brought me back to GSG and I've been their faithful fan ever since.

Uhh lets see... oh yeah i remember it was about 2 years ago now I think, and I was just getting into anime at the instruction of my cousin, and yes I was told to get into anime, but now its voluntary. Anyway I found good old www.muffindomain.com and decided to check out a few of the interesting sounding series they had on there.

After looking at one or two I spotted Gunslinger Girl. The blurb sounded... different... At that time I had no interest in guns or modern warfare, but it sounded intriguing so I downloaded the first episode and was hauunted by the whole thing straight away. So then I went on and watched the whole thing in 1 day I got so into it, even though I didn't quite understand it all at the time.

Needless to say I was sad when it finished but kept the plot going in my head for weeks and weeks afterwards... eventually Fate/Stay Night came along and swept me away. Other animes came and went but now I've come back to Gunslinger Girl and I intend to stay.

I'm curently looking for copies of the first series and the manga here in the UK but such things are hard to come by sadly...

HK-Fan wrote:I'm curently looking for copies of the first series and the manga here in the UK but such things are hard to come by sadly...

Amazon is everywhere!
though it may be a little tricky for you, considering your age... I'd suggest begging the nearest person with a credit card

Thats precicely the point... :( My overcautious mother WILL NOT buy anything over the internet because apparently everyone on the net wants her card details... I guess I'm just gonna have to wait a few years... *Sigh*... I'm bored of being 16 already...

You can try going out to a convenience store and getting one of those gift cards that you can use anywhere.

You can get such things? I didn't know. Thanks I might have a look for them.

HK-Fan wrote:You can get such things? I didn't know. Thanks I might have a look for them.

Yeah, I don't know about the things in the UK, but in the US you can buy pre-paid credit cards. Works the same way as a regular credit card without all that messy paper work.

@3klicks: Thanks yours it very nice too. I found this avatar when browsing the GSG livejournal community.

No problem just a small little college doing some upgrading to get into a better one.

I rather not get offtopic but it seems like it always happens...what about you?

Oh I live on the West Coast of Canada. XD

Ah, West coast. *dreemy look* That must be nice. (In Vancouver they've even got palm trees. ) I'm freezing my ass off in Ottawa.

Ah yes it is winter season still over there?

It's clearing up over here with bits of sunshine but I think it's moving into Spring season now.

Palm trees? I thought those were down south in LA.

I guess I'll bring this back on topic (though over here we have plenty of palm trees no matter what the weather is)

I've been a fan of various anime/manga for quite a while (like a decade?), but it was my dad that introduced me to Gunslinger Girls a year ago. My dad watches only a handful of dubbed anime on TV and on one of the channels they were showing episodes of Gunslinger Girls late at night. I never really paid attention, but when I went to Anime Expo last July the ADV booths was selling the first 3 volumes of the Gunslinger girl manga for cheap. Since my dad liked the series (since he rarely ever shows interest in anime), I figured I'd get it for him. While waiting in long lines for concerts at the convention, I started reading the first volume and thought 'Hey this is pretty good'. I also saw a cool AMV there and it sparked even more interest. And so, that's how I got interested in Gunslinger Girls.

It's pretty cool that you're dad watches anime... why can't be all parents like that.

*flashback* *1st time my dad saw gunslinger girl*

*enter room* Dad: West what are you watching there.
West Nile: Some anime it's about...
Dad: you don't have to explain. i can see two girls huddled together playing the violin, are you gay or something West?
West Nile: 0_0...
*Rico's ep 3 massacre scene*
Dad: 0_0 well at least i know my son ain't gay now...

O o;

I remember first watching GSG I was like cool! Showed it to my little sister and she was like =O in a good way. XDD

West Nile wrote:Dad: you don't have to explain. i can see two girls huddled together playing the violin, are you gay or something West?

:lollol:

That argument holds no water - gay people would be more likely to look at boys.

Sintendo wrote:

HK-Fan wrote:You can get such things? I didn't know. Thanks I might have a look for them.

Yeah, I don't know about the things in the UK, but in the US you can buy pre-paid credit cards. Works the same way as a regular credit card without all that messy paper work.

Just don't buy any of the American Express gift cards. They put an extra number on them on purpose so they can't be used online.

Okay, so now for my story.

I discovered Gunslinger Girl through the second volume of the Fullmetal Alchemist DVD. Unlike some anime fans I know, I like seeing trailers because they refer me to titles I might like(Big Wars, Iria, Bubblegum Crisis, MD Geist) and keep me from ones that everybody seems to like but I think suck(Naruto, Patlabor, Armored Trooper Votoms, the 4Kids dub of One Piece).

It wasn't the trailer itself that hooked me though, it was the little(now famous) line at the end.

The girl has a mechanical body, though she is still an adolescent child.

Bought the first DVD the next week and I've loved it since.

Funny story:
During my first run through of the third DVD, the first two episodes skipped like all hell. This was unnacceptable and I refused to watch the last two eps. So I returned the DVD to what was then the local Disc Jockey. Disc Jockey had this pretty cool(and lenient) policy about special ordering stuff for their clients. Even things that you aren't supposed to be able to get in the States. However, I kept going back week after week and still no Vol. 3. After three months of waiting I asked what the holdup was. Mind you the longest I waited on a previous order was 8 days.

During this time the Disc Jockey brand had been bought-out by F.Y.E. and it seems my previous order went lost. They answered my query with something like they could order it for me, but the policy had changed. Now it had to be in their 'current' catalog and I had to put down a deposit. Long story short; I slammed fifteen bux (literally, no kidding)down on the counter and five days later finally completed the series.

West Nile wrote:It's pretty cool that you're dad watches anime... why can't be all parents like that.

Most of my family watches anime so that helps. After my siblings and I bought the Gunslinger Girl DVDs, we spent a Saturday doing a Gunslinger Girls marathon, stopping half way to go out for dinner and then come back to watch the rest. We had to watch it dubbed since my Dad hates subtitles, but the day after we re-watched them with subtitles. XP

Nachtsider wrote:That argument holds no water - gay people would be more likely to look at boys.

I think his Dad thought he liked 'girly things' since he saw his son watch two little girls play on a violin. Some gay people tend to give off a feminine side to counter the mascuiline side of their partner.

boomer_gonz wrote:Just don't buy any of the American Express gift cards. They put an extra number on them on purpose so they can't be used online.

Those are such a hassle to use. Avoid getting and using when possible.

Nachtsider wrote:That argument holds no water - gay people would be more likely to look at boys.

he felt bothered, the same way you would be bothered if your son is watching barbie the movie

As long as he ain't fapping to child porn, I wouldn't give a darn.

You seriously won't mind your son wanting to be a cheerleader or having his room painted pink and trimmed with lace? or preferring tea parties over sports.... or collecting dolls instead of collecting trading cards??

I dislike sports. And it all really depends on what kind of trading cards. Also, tea parties are my kinda thing.

Seriously, though - it's his life, and I can't live it for him. All that really matters is that he not turn out a failure.

I know straight guys like that. Metrosexual, they're usually called.
It's slightly disturbing to me, but I understand that's just my social predjudices coming to the fore.

oh, and I've never liked sports or trading cards... I've substituted combat practice and weaponry.

I keep soft cuddly toys and airsoft guns in my closet. Go figure.

These things are influenced by the media and the people around them. telling them that "acting gay is not really normal" once in a while should be healthy

My personal stuff range from daggers to plush toys, i think that's understandable

Why would "acting gay" not be normal?

Totalitarianism isn't something I'm fond of. Nor is a majority perspective on what is considered "normal".

in addition, I really don't think it's 'healthy' to be told how to act socially... it's tantamount to being told what to think, which is only healthy for keeping slaves in line. Since slavery itself is horribly unhealthy...

Slavery is despicable. When it comes to role-playing it in the bedroom, however...

@ General discusssion:

"Normal" is not a standardised term. It means something different in every culture and for every person. If you accept the definition that normal is whatever is most popular and most accepted then most of it would be complete bull-shit and really not worth going after. Everything that's really good is by definition above-average and hence also abnormal. So there are two sides to it.

Anywya, in Canada (with it's openess to just about anything) I've gotten lost in all the possoble sexualities. I find a good deal of the options just plain weird or downright disturbing, but I agree with you guys that as long as they don;'t actively bother me or hurt peoplel it's thier life and I really don;t care what they do.

@LoC: Yeah, peer pressure and the need to conform to society is already choking a lot of people.

@Nacht: That's right. I mean, who hasn't dreamt of his own cute personal slave...

The reality of modern slavery is very disturbing, though. Thinking that even now women are regularly kidnapped and sold like objects really shakes my belief in humanity.