It's because its blocky shape makes it easier to embrace than other guns.

I guess this is a follow up to my recent post, "In praise of the oldest star in Gunslinger Girl." There, I linked to a couple pictures of anime characters hugging their FN P90 submachine guns (Iriya from Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu, and LLENN from Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online). Naturally, Henrietta also does this in the first episode of Gunslinger Girl, as depicted above, after going aggro with it against some chumps who totally had it coming, probably.

Rounds in the translucent magazine make a 90-degree turn before entering the chamber.

I believe Henrietta's P90 is the most modern firearm to appear in Gunslinger Girl. It was only about 10 years old when the manga began in 2002, and is quite a contrast to Triela's 19th-century shotgun. Its distinctive appearance probably also accounts for its popularity in various anime, Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online being a notable example. I can't rule out the possibility that some LLENN fan bought herself an FN PS90, cut down the barrel after getting an NFA tax stamp, and painted it pink for questionable cosplay purposes.

This was a pretty good deal for both parties.

Incidentally, I was somewhat surprised a minor character in SAO GGO carried an AR57, which is basically an AR-15 upper designed to accept P90 magazines on top and eject out what is usually the magazine well of the lower receiver. But I'm most impressed that Kirito never showed up in GGO for some bullshit ammo exchange contrivance, since Kirito's FN Five-seveN is pretty much the only other firearm that shares ammo with LLENN's dear P-chan. Kirito's total absence definitely improved Gun Gale Online as an anime.

I'm impressed Triela didn't get any blood on her.

I've written a fair amount about Gunslinger Girl, but haven't mentioned much about the firearms themselves. The first gun to appear in the show (outside of the OP) is Triela's shotgun, a Winchester Model 1897 Trench Gun with its big ass 17-inch M1917 bayonet fixed. I believe this is also the oldest firearm to appear in the anime. As its name suggests, this is literally a 19th-century design which Winchester started selling in 1897 (although it remained in production until 1957). In contrast, the primary weapon of the show's ostensible lead, Henrietta, is an ever popular FN P90, which was barely more than 10 years old when the manga began publication in 2002. Triela's M1897 is also the only shotgun in the first cours, but I don't remember it featuring in particularly many scenes. The old Winchester gets a lot more attention in the sequel, Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-. (And occasionally appears in fanart.)

The action can git ya if you're careless while racking the slide back.

Prices of the World War I-era M1897 Trench Guns have risen quite a bit as of late, probably at least partially because of The Great War's centennial and maybe because of the shotgun's inclusion in popular media such as Gunslinger Girl itself and the Battlefield video games. For example, a "very fine" Model 1897 sold for $8625 in December 2018. I am somewhat amused that Gunslinger Girl features a firearm from the 19th century when basically every other gun in the series is from the Cold War or newer. I have to assume the original mangaka, Aida Yu, just really liked it. That's totally understandable, at least.

Airborne mahou shoujo, airborne mahou shoujo, where have you been?

Unfortunately, Mahou Shoujo Tokushusen Asuka (Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka) is not a great anime, and quite a bit less interesting than it probably ought to be. Part of the problem is "magikal girls except adult and/or dark!" is by no means a novel idea anymore. However, I think a substantial part of the issues affecting Spec-Ops Asuka are probably intrinsic to its core concept to begin with. The anime (which I'm only assuming is at least reasonably faithful to its source manga—I've not read it) makes an effort to imagine how armed forces might integrate mahou shoujo (and dour, sadistic mages, for that matter) into their combined arms doctrine and what sorts of missions they might perform. It sort of works, but it also sort of invites more questions. When the core concept is not especially grounded in reality, maybe it's best to simply handwave away practical problems and adopt the approach used by mecha anime.

War Nurse is a great codename, though.

My other issue with Mahou Shoujo Tokushusen Asuka is that I don't find it especially engaging. There hasn't been any particular hook to the show that grabs me, and I'm sort of simply watching it perfunctorily. It doesn't help that the animation has a somewhat unenthusiastic look to it, and I'm not a fan of the character designs either. I'm not even sure what the issue is. Perhaps everything looks too normal? I'm glad the show at least does not have a "grimdark" visual appearance, but I wonder if making it look more like an actual mahou shoujo anime might have been better. The music works at least. Digressing a bit, I don't have a good place to mention this, but Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka does have more actual torture in the show than I'm used to seeing in anime. For comparison, the torture in Overlord occurs off-screen. I'm not suggesting you should count that as a positive necessarily, but it is noteworthy, at least. P.S. Spoilers.

This queen's bed looks smaller than queen-sized.

Egao no Daika (The Price of Smiles) caught my attention because it is an original anime featuring mecha. But then the initial responses to the first episode suggested it was more about a silly country's 12-year-old monarch trying her best with the assistance of her loyal childhood friend, Potato-kun. Based on those reports alone, I wrote the show off. But then I heard about what happens in episode two and decided to give it a try out of curiosity. Yeah, I am totally on board. Yes, the show still stars a naïve awkward-age girl, but it's actually about a war that Smilestan's Deep State kept hidden from her. Moreover, it's clear from the OP and the ED that Egao no Daika also stars a soldier fighting for the opposing side. Indeed, Ittōheisō Shining has had a more prominent role in the show through its first four episodes than Queen Princess Yuuki.

I like Hayami Saori in this role, but I'd rather have Dark Mamiko.

Thankfully, Egao no Daika is also not one of those shows where Potato-kun spends half the series wiping out enemy mecha on easy mode before suddenly realizing people die when they are killed. I can at least guarantee this is not going to happen in The Price of Smiles. Rather, soldiers in this show display no hesitation killing their opponents even when they can see the whites of their eyes. There is still some question as to how Yuuki is going to react to the war now that she's getting a crash course in reality. It's more likely than not that she'll continue to oppose it, but other possibilities remain on the table since this is an original anime. Personally, I'm hoping for at least two cours of gripping war melodrama, but we're probably only going to get the 12 episodes scheduled thus far, alas.

A ghost with legs? Inconceivable.

The main reason why I started watching Shichisei no Subaru (Seven Senses of the Re'Union) and Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san (Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs) was because both shows featured ghost girlfriends and thus gave me an excuse to pad the Ghost Girlfriends tag on my blog. Besides, Tasogare Otome x Amnesia and Nanana's Buried Treasure were both good, even if Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? was, uh, not.

Bionic-JK. pic.twitter.com/pelo332G3G

— 深井涼介 (@fpworks) December 2, 2017

There's this artist on the Twitter and the Pixiv who, over the span of several years, has published numerous illustrations of "Girls with Guns" doing fan-friendly type things. The artist does draw other things as well, including a fair amount of TYPE-MOON stuff, but the "Bionic Joshi Kosei" seems to be one of the more successful original characters in FP Works' ARMS NOTE portfolio. So much so that there's already a Figma of the character, and now pre-orders are available for a 1/7th scale figurine scheduled for release later in October 2018.

Nice shoes.

The Bionic JK figurine is listing for ¥17,900 (something like $170), which seems sort of incredible to me, but possibly (probably) I'm just completely out of touch when it comes to how much these sort of things cost in general. In any case, I'm all in favor of supporting artists who promote their original works, particularly when they're delivering GAME-BREAKING HOME RUNS, so I encourage all y'all to get in on this if girls with guns and collecting anime figures both intersect with your particular interests. It's only $170. What else were you gonna do with that money anyway?

The FN P90 is pretty cute.

I'm much less critical of Sword Art Online than you might assume, considering how long I've been blogging about anime, so I can understand if readers who loathe SAO are skeptical when I claim Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online is a fine series which stands on its own and doesn't have any of the Sword Art Online baggage that inspires the most criticism. For example, there's no Kirito in SAO ALT: GGO. (SAOALTGGO? SAOALT:GGO? Whatever.) In fact, there are no returning characters as far as I can see (there was a Zekken namedrop in the most recent episode, but with no context or elaboration).

Most people don't realize Pink Camouflage Pattern was a
leading contender before narrowly losing to UCP in 2004.

Instead, Gun Gale Online is a reasonably fun low-stakes anime about girls being goofballs at a gun-themed video game with characters who all clearly understand it's just a video game. Well, at least through six episodes. I've probably jinxed it now. In any case, I think the first episode provides a good indication as to what the show is like so far, and is at least worth checking out if you're still on the fence about it. It's different enough that anime fans who hate Sword Art Online can probably enjoy GGO for what it is. On the other hand, I suppose this means I'm not sure anime fans who love SAO will also enjoy GGO—maybe if the rest of the anime suddenly flips from "video game guns don't kill people" to "nutjobs who play video games kill people" or something like that. Since this is an anime adaption of light novels (written by the Kino's Journey author, not the Sword Art Online author), spoilers are obviously available for the harvesting, but I'd rather discover the answer to this question in due time the slow way.

Seriously, though, this is great hair.

I'm going to depart from my typical spoiler-free policy for this bit. Avert your eyes if you care about Juuni Taisen spoilers at all. Juuni Taisen (also Juni Taisen: Zodiac War) is an anime adaptation of a NisiOisiN light novel about 12 psychos (loosely based on the Chinese zodiac) killing each other in an urban ghost town. Their reasons for doing so aren't particularly important, as the main draw of the series simply happens to be the homicide carnival. After three episodes, I'm mostly unimpressed with the menagerie of murderers who mostly seem sort of uninteresting, even the ones intentionally designed to be weirdos. That is, except for Chicken, who is already dead now. This is some bullshit. P.S. Spoilers.

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