Gunslinger Girl is an unsung and important show. The 2003 anime is a haunting rumination on the long term effects of government violence, told through a taut action thriller that features brainwashed child assassins. It's an equally exciting and heartrending show, and something that's sure to stick with you long after it's done.
What better way to commemorate it, then, than with a gacha game?
Girls' Frontline is a popular Chinese mobile game centered around T-Dolls - cybernetic anime girls that have been stripped of their memories and pitted against each other. Your roster of girls can be kitted out with all manner of weaponry, and like any good gacha game, new characters and approximately six million variants are regularly added to the game.
The latest addition? The child assassins from Gunslinger Girl. Announced on the game's English Twitter, Girls' Frontline will be localizing the recent crossover event with the property, bring Rico, Henrietta, and Co. to your smartphone. The event brings new art, which is some of the first original material out of this franchise in a while.
Unlike plenty of other crossovers, this one actually makes sense. Both properties are about the brainwashing of young women and the subsequent commodification of their bodies for institutionalized violence. Only... it's a bit strange, considering that Gunslinger Girl presented this as an unambiguously bad thing, while Girls' Frontline seems to revel in it.
In any case, the event is live now, so if you want to test your odds and try to roll for a traumatized child assassin... have fun, I guess? Honestly, I might give the game a whirl just to check it out.
In the meantime? Check out the original Gunslinger Girl opening - it's still a banger.
Source: Twitter