○ Appendix 1: Opening Theme

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Link to OP

Gunslinger Girl's OP is in the tradition of openings that, if one has the eyes to see it, gives away the series.  From first awareness to final wisdom, it is Henrietta's story.

A pair of feet walking on an invisible, reflective surface fade into view with the first notes.  This shadow and its reflection are going somewhere, but it knows not where.  With ripples appearing on the screen from falling rain, the image zooms out and it becomes apparent the version "down" in the water is not merely another silhouette but a real girl.  It is she who is led on, unawares, her purpose indistinct.


More subtly, it is a recursive symbol.  Not only is she produced by that elemental conditioning, that aspect that came first and spawned her other half as its reflection, but the entire image itself is a reflection.  As the droplets continue to fall it is apparent that both of these exist in a puddle, a small collection of water that is mirroring and occurring within a yet greater white reality.

As the percussion builds she comes to a halt.  The girl fades for now and the shadow merges with the tagline: "The girl has a mechanical body.  However, she is still an adolescent child."  The crux of the series, the confusing state that spawns her struggles and her quest.

"In truth there is no better place to be."

With the first lyrics, Henrietta's head comes up into the scene, her eyes opening as she rises.  It is as though she is emerging from that water, or waking from sleep; either one, a transition to awareness.  This is the beginning of her story; she is no longer just content to exist, to walk nowhere without meaning.  There must be a reason for why she is.

Eyes now open, Henrietta stares, seeing this world she has found herself in for the first time.  Her expression is one of wonder, peering out at this remarkable vista.  It is a truly striking place she has risen to consciousness in and she is not sure precisely what to think.  It is confusing in its beauty.  But as the song assures: there is no better place to be.

As the camera continues to move out, it becomes clear that she too stands in the rain.  The bright light of the beginning fades into the dull tans of the wall behind her.  No longer luminous, Henrietta is now exposed and she clutches her violin case close to her body protectively.  Even though she still gazes, the rain falling unimpeded on her, alone, has taken on a new apprehensive element.

"Than falling out of darkness still to see"

Now others are seen to be walking in front of a Venetian piazza, as evidenced by the winged lion sculptures.  Transparently they rush to and fro on errands, fading in and out with ephemerality.  Varied expressions and varied people, full of their own concerns and problems, gone all too soon while the background does not change.  It is transitory.

Unlike Henrietta, they all have umbrellas to shield them from the rain.  They are not bothered, exposed in the raw sense that Henrietta is to her world.  Yet because of this they fail to take in their surroundings, particularly the steps leading upward behind them.  Their umbrellas may be protective, but in a sense these people are also robbed, their avoidance of the rain also filtering out awareness of the place in which they exist.

"Without a premonition,
could you tell me where we stand?"

Returning to Henrietta, her surroundings are now fully visible and she is looking desperately vulnerable.  The people walk past without noticing, imparting an overwhelming sense of isolation surrounded by this busy crowd.  Their presence has made her exposure inexplicably worse, and even standing out as the only colored object in the scene she is overlooked.

There is, however, more going on here.  On the left is Bar Vivaldi, a poignant reference to the female orphans of the Venetian Ospedale della Pietà, trained and raised as virtuoso musicians.  This is what Henrietta should receive, standing abandoned with her violin.

But a closer view reveals an ominous reflection in the window: the Doge's Palace.  The seat of worldly control and politicking.  This is the true place to which Henrietta looks: the Social Welfare Agency, an organization that should have taken in the unwanted and given them a new life, but to which instead is devoted to the expedient pursuit of power.

On her other side is a poster depicting a woman holding her child.  It is evocative of that most basic form of love, and subsequently what Henrietta is also denied; she does not even seem to notice it.  Standing between this and her dream, ignored by those passing by, she receives neither, and her head drops in sadness.

"I'd hate to lose this light 

Before we land"

Now the violin case is shown up close, but the color has been drained, the actions returning to shadowy automaticity.  It unlocks without help, as though the gun that has been revealed is handing itself to her.  She did not reach for it, nor should this be what such a container holds; it is a hideous clash with her innate desires, yet this is what she has been given.  So armed, she moves across the screen firing.


However, there is a curious contrast.  There is no sound except the melancholy music, and no sense of impact from the bullets.  Henrietta's expression is not full of rage but a piercing intensity, her cheeks flushed with emotion of a different sort.  Engaged in this violence, she is yet curiously apart from it; a strange mixture of a girl who is completely sincere but does not contain any malice in her actions.

"And when I feel like I can feel once again..."

The rest of the cast follows.  Each exhibits the same gray focus on firing their weapon, doing their job, but is promptly contrasted with their true personality.  Rico's sniping gives way a girl looking wistfully at the sky, the dappled shadows of leaves on trees across her figure.  She appreciates what she is seeing on this beautiful day.  Then her shadow blurs behind her, indicating that like Henrietta she has this multiplicity of nature.

Triela is next, with a dynamic shot of her running and firing through the shadowed arches of the palace.  This is shortly overlaid by her real face, expressing the benevolent smile that exemplifies her personality.  There is no question here as to which aspect dominates: Triela is a loving older sister to whom the others can look for comfort.

But then as it zooms out, and she is seen to be sitting rebelliously backward in her chair, lounging with outstretched feet.  She playfully drops her chin to her crossed arms, the inviting smile morphing into a puckish grin.  Triela cares, but that doesn't mean she isn't an imp as well.  Like the others, her shadow blurs into plurality.

The final duo, Angelica and Claes, are introduced.  The background girls, the ones who are not in active operation.  Yet they too fire furiously, full of passion as well.  As their shadows separate, it is with assurance that these two contain no less the existence of the others.

"Let me stay awhile

Soak it in awhile"

A short sequence again while the people continue to walk, unperturbed by the images of the girls that were just shown.  After such intensity they seem ever more wraith-like.  They still do not notice the stairs.

"If we can hold on we can fix what is wrong

Buy a little time

For this head of mine"

At these lines, Henrietta is shown once again up close.  Drained of color, with the rain still falling on her, she stares at her hands with solemn concern.  All this desperate violence, her service and her actions, could not answer her properly: what is she?  What are these hands meant to do?

Without answers, confused and hurt, she cradles her head as a tear streams down her blushing cheek.  It is an exquisite expression, and the struggle of Henrietta's heart in a single image.  Full of so many conflicting emotions, both meaning and misery, she smiles to tell herself it is okay even as her sadness leaks out.  This rain just keeps falling and she doesn't know when it will stop.

And then, the light.


It pours over the scene without expectation, its shining brilliance dispelling the downpour without contest.  With it, color and reality returns and Henrietta looks up.  Her face appears to glow brightly itself, made luminous in reflection of the glory she is witnessing.  In its radiance her previous sorrows are forgotten and she recovers her earlier appreciation, now magnified by the splendor that is before her.  This truly is the best place to be.

Seen from behind, white birds fly past and upward as Henrietta's dark outline overlays the sky.  Curiously, despite being illuminated directly from the front there is no sun; this light comes from elsewhere to touch her.  Watching with rapt desire, she wants to go up to this empyrean as well, to join with the light as the birds appear to be doing.  But she is still darkened, earthbound.

The steps that have been so overlooked present a final time, but at the top of them, where they are leading, is that same vision.  Under its light the girls fade in, starting as sketches that become the full characters with their own distinct postures.  Due to their shared condition, they find themselves in this place that none paid attention to, but to which leads somewhere wondrous.  Unnoticed, a stuffed bear sits to the side; a reminder of these children, and of the love they so dearly desire.

Returning at last to Henrietta, she moves forward out of the shadow in which she was standing.  Having seen this reality before her she is not content to walk, but braces herself and leaps toward it with all her might, trying to follow the birds upward.  This would seem foolish and ignorant, for clearly she cannot fly like they can.

"Haven for us..."

Henrietta, however, does not agree.  The violin case and its contents forgotten, she ascends with her arm outstretched toward her goal.  We would expect her to fall back to earth... but time slows and she hovers, suspended in space as the background blurs into opalescence.  The canvas returns to white and the place that she strained to reach fills her outline.

It was not impossible, for she was the sky.