Winter 2022 First Impressions – Girls’ Frontline

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Game

Episode Summary: After the horrors of World War III, Earth civilization is on the brink of collapse. Due to low population and the resultant labor shortages, much of the work has since been taken up by artificial android life forms called “dolls.” These dolls have found an important place within the military sphere, with Tactical Dolls or “T-Dolls” using their superior physical strength and other heightened abilities to fight battles that humans wouldn’t dare.

When the AI of an entire fleet of T-Dolls owned by the Sangvis Ferri company rebels against their human masters, a group of elite T-Dolls owned by Griffin and Kryuger investigates. What they find when traveling to a remote location to obtain some classified data from an old computer is a dangerous, extremely violent, and intelligent group of T-Dolls who give them a run for their money. After defeating a trio of heavy artillery models, T-Doll M4 is tasked with taking the retrieved data to safety. Meanwhile, back at their base, a new commander joins the organization.

Impressions: It should come as no surprise that I’m not a gun nut. I work with a few people who have current and former connections to the military, and when they begin to describe different weaponry in my vicinity I’m sure they notice my eyes start to glaze over. This is partly because I just have a soft heart, and don’t like hearing about violence or military tactics or what-not. But even setting that aside, while I’m a geek for many things, guns isn’t one of them. Thus, the appeal of Girls’ Frontline‘s personification of various guns as AI android girls is somewhat lost on someone like me.

Setting aside that connection (which took me a while to make due to my lack of knowledge of the subject) this episode is what I’d usually describe as “pretty okay.” The whole “AI turned evil” premise isn’t unique in the slightest, but that’s fine; as much as I prefer stories about AI that are more nuanced about its potential evolution, I understand the anxieties that lead us to tell stories about being usurped by our own creations. The focal characters of this episode are interesting to me, because their mentality exists in some state between complete pragmatism and something approaching empathy toward their brethren. They’re not quite as human as the show might claim (“indistinguishable” from humans, they are not), but as M4 struggles with the choice to employ a group of older T-Dolls cut loose from their original mission, I got the sense that they were more than just the emotionless drones one might expect.

And that in itself is somewhat unique. I find that series like this are often constructed in pursuit of some fantasy – the fantasy of beautiful women who also represent a connection to a traditionally male interest, and who are devoid of pesky things like their own needs and desires. They’re allowed a sort of physical power, but without transgressing too much against a very narrow ideal of what’s considered physically attractive. The characters in this series, however, get to be empathetic; they’re allowed to care about one-another. And while this is just a small part of the episode and perhaps some aspect of the story that isn’t that important in the larger scale of the narrative, it does mean that there are some aspects of their existences, their internal feelings, that aren’t 100% constructed to make them a blank slate, wholly available to the viewer. I kind of appreciate that.

But that’s a very deep dive duct-taped together from some pretty dubious evidence; at its surface and most obvious level, this is an episode about gun girls using military tactics and shooting at one-another while wearing outfits that don’t make a lot of sense. It has its own sort of appeal, but not really in a way that appeals to me.

Pros: What this episode lacks in animation quality, it almost makes up for in visual style and its soundtrack. A lot of the action takes place in the shadows and within the dark of night, but there are some really gorgeous still shots as the sun rises. The action scenes are mostly serviceable, but there’s some interesting choreography sprinkled throughout.

The soundtrack definitely won’t appeal to everyone; it’s a lot of electric guitars and electronic music during action scenes, but I liked it and felt it added a little extra something to the show. Also, I thought the OP was really good! It reminds me a little bit of the Freedom OP, which I also really liked.

Cons: Just as an effect of what this series is about, there’s some really weird fetishism of the characters. It’s probably a little disingenuous to criticize an anime like this for being “unrealistic” due to its character designs; they exist to serve a purpose, none of which are based around the general logic of what’s going on in the plot. At the same time, I find myself dwelling on the question – why create androids for battle that have the appearance of young women? It seems like a real waste of time to beautify something that’s meant to give and receive violence. Even the Sangvis drones are dressed in skimpy body suits. The answer, of course, is external to the show – there’s an audience who likes watching pretty girls fight wars, and this premise allows that while providing some nominal internal explanation for why it’s all come to this.

But seriously, maids who have to pull up their skirts and flash their undies to utilize their weaponry? Hmm.

Content Warnings: Military violence, including use of weaponry. Androids being injured and destroyed. Mild fanservice (brief panty shots, some frontal nudity in the OP).

Would I Watch More? – Of the several series that are “kind of like this” (meaning, a mostly female cast fighting tech-heavy or otherwise futuristic wars) this is the one that I’ve been most interested in as of late. That said, I find gun fetishism to be unappealing and I’m not that into watching characters kill each-other for fun, so I probably won’t follow-up with this one.