This post contains musings on the original/first/season one of the Gunslinger Girl TV series. Expect spoilers.
Second only to stories of the second world war- Gunslinger Girl is the most depressing thing I’ve seen to come out of Japan, and it wastes no time in making you feel awful; 21 seconds into the OP we hear the line:
“In truth, there is no better place to be…”
The “place” referred to in this line can be interpreted to mean the situation the five cyborg children find themselves in (working as assassins under an organisation of dubious morals); and there is “no better place to be” because the only alternative the children face is death.
Ouch.
The OP song “The Light before we land” is performed by English-speaking band “The Delgados”, and was released in 2002, a year before the TV series first aired. It’s a safe bet to say that the song was most likely picked rather than written for the series, but despite this- the song, and that first line more than anything- fits the show to a T. (What does that actually mean?)