Somehow the creators managed to desert the excellence & haunting pathos of the first "Gunslinger Girl" and drifted off into incompetence. The wonderful female characters are MOSTLY there, and as adorable & moving as ever, as is the great scenery, which is why I gave it a 6, but the story they try to create is mostly unrealistic. In the first series they created what are essentially super girls, 3 times faster, 5 times stronger than normal human beings, but in "...Teatrino" they managed to come up with a bunch of mere humans that can compete equally with and even beat them, absolutely destroying the very premise the series was based on, all the while telling us how strong and fast the cyborg girls are; can't have it both ways: Dumb!
The "teatrino" is a male assassin, Pinochio ("Pino" to friends). IF what they wanted was a super villain that could vie with the cyborgs on equal footing, they should have made him one, as in a robot or another cyborg - easy! - but they didn't, he is only a mere human who is good at his job. It's like creating Superman, the indestructible being from Krypton, and then having a bunch of Earth humans beat him up! Doesn't work! It is so unbelievable in the context of the story, that it is disastrous. This flaw was a combination of laziness, thoughtlessness, and lack of imagination, just to try to find an easy way to come up with some dramatic action for the girls - LAME! As a sci-fi author myself, I know there are MANY ways they could have accomplished their action without destroying the fundamental foundation of the story. It's truly disappointing and could have been done much better and more believably with a little more effort and creativity. Still, it is worthwhile to follow the girls & the fratella around as they continue their lives; it's just not quite as interesting as the original.
