This is a manga with a very silly premise, but it addresses that silly premise so earnestly, in a way that only manga really does. Troubling implications are taken seriously, and disturbing aspects evolve towards their natural conclusions. Violence is never shown as uncritically "good". It's a bit of a stretch to imagine how Italy got to the point of using cybernetically modified little girls as assassins, but aside from that—and a few other details—this is a realistic story about something that could actually happen (and in some ways, something that really did happen in Italy in the 1970s, and in many other places continuing to this day).

At some point in this manga, a character quotes the poem Horatius at the Bridge. Here's part of it: "And how can man die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods". All of them, terrorists and secret police alike, believe they are defending something sacred from the barbaric horde at the gates. And many of them are willing to commit any atrocity that they think would aid their cause. To me, that encapsulates this story. It's a story about violence, escalation, and how morality falls away in conflict. But it's also a story about the reasons why people fight. The girls fight because they are programmed to love, protect, and obey their handlers. The way the handlers treat the girls in their charge shows their own ambivalence, and how they cope with the dehumanization of their violent lives. Ultimately, the escalation of violence is driven by the tit-for-tat desire for vengeance, but many of the characters are shown fighting for some of the same reasons as the girls, out of love or loyalty for their comrades. Some of them could even be considered brainwashed themselves.

In a different story, quoting that poem would come across as laughable or passe, but here, it actually made me cry.