In an article entitled 'Mean Girls' in the Arts & Leisures section of Sunday's New York Times, Charles Solomon examines a new wave of big-eyed, big-breasted anime heroines and 'anime's strangest new trend in which these often hyper-sexualized moppets are being turned into killing machines.'  Although he could have mentioned a number of older series such as Noir, which have already been released here in the States, Solomon focuses on three current series, Saikano from Viz, Gunslinger Girl from FUNimation Productions and Elfen Lied from ADV Films.

Saikano is basically a tragic take on the high school romance -- what if your girlfriend is actually a secret weapon of mass destruction programmed by government scientists to defend the homeland? 

Gunslinger Girl, which Solomon likens to Annie remade by Sam Peckinpah, is a saga of orphaned girls who are brainwashed and turned into assassins by the Italian government. 

Solomon's description of ADV's Elfen Lied, which is also given a half-page graphic, should make one of the hottest anime releases of 2005 even hotter.  After discussing the brutality of the schizoid heroine and the lingering image of a severed hand that opens the series, Solomon points out that Lucy, the central character who is the product of 'sinister biomedical experiments... spends much of the show's opening episode completely naked.'