Raballo

Voiced by: Kenyū Horiuchi (Japanese), Bill Flynn (English)

Also spelled in some translations as Raparo, Rapallo, Ravalo, or even Lavarro. He was an agent of Section 2, Claes's handler and a former member of the Carabinieri. After forced retirement due to a leg injury, Captain Raballo was approached by Jean, who offered Raballo a chance to join Section 2 as a handler for a child assassin. In turn, Raballo would be able to return to the Military Police within three years. During his period with Section 2, Raballo spent a great deal of time with Claes outside the SWA, showing her a normal life, especially fishing.

He also taught Claes the value of patience and encouraged her prior love of reading. Ultimately, however, he was unable to deal with what had been done to the girls of the SWA and of what was expected of him and Claes as a fratello, so Raballo left. Due to the strong bond developed between a girl and her handler, this act made Claes useless as an assassin, since it was effectively impossible to assign a new handler once a fratello have bonded. Before his departure, Raballo gave Claes her old glasses from a previous life with the promise that she'll be good whenever she wears them. A few days after he left the SWA to talk to a friend (who was a reporter by profession), Claes was informed that Raballo died in a hit-and-run incident, possibly at the hands of the Italian government or even the Political Warfare Section.


credit:wikipedia

Pass.

the 1st sentence is not necessary, the english dub and the japanese dub and all the other language dubs are bound to say some name differently

Triela= Torrela
Hilshire= Hirshir

That would depend. I have seen some mispellings in the offical English version of the mangas.

raballo is just like another marco. just say that he is the unlucky version of marco, while marco is unlucky himself.

destroyer wrote:raballo is just like another marco. just say that he is the unlucky version of marco, while marco is unlucky himself.

A crytal clear explanation!!!

:iia:

Definately, explain that!

Raballo is an Italian surname.
Rapallo is an Italian province http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapallo
Raparo is a town http://en.comuni-italiani.it/076/074/index.html
Ravalo is also a surname
Lavarro is also a surname

I bet all the handlers feel just a little bit crummy when they pass Raballo's old room, if they let themselves think about it. Raballo did what some of the more altruistic handlers have surely considered, and he's an example of the decisiveness most of the handlers lack. The other handlers, besides Jean, treat their girls as people on the one hand, and use them as weapons on the other. Their beliefs aren't unified. Raballo actually tried to do something with his feeling that the Agency was wrong. Well, that and the fact that he used to be alive and now he's dead. Still, being killed because he didn't like the Agency is alot different than being killed because he drove his cyborg to murder-suicide.

I'm still waiting for someone to write that epic fic in which it's revealed that Raballo actually escaped being killed, and is now plotting to bring the Agency down from within with Claes' help.

Nachtsider wrote:I'm still waiting for someone to write that epic fic in which it's revealed that Raballo actually escaped being killed, and is now plotting to bring the Agency down from within with Claes' help.

Ah, but Claes' memory has been wiped of anything to do with Raballo. Why would she help him if she doesn't know who he is?

Simple. He reminds her. The vestigial memories of him she's shown to possess indicate this might not be too hard to achive.

I still believe that Claes is still a viable killer cyborg (despite the screw up Yu made her out to be in V7 C34; anime #12 says otherwise...).

I also believe that Claes' promise to Raballo, along with her training was something that the Cyborg medical tech could not erase but otherwise screwed up. Thus she goes through things in her mind that she can not clearly point to where they came from. I'm expecting her to do an Angie soon- remembering everything as she gets older and things start to fall apart. And when she does- what will happen to her? What will the SWA do to her?

Remember- The Doors- This Is The End...

You know...it doesn't look like the SWA bothered clearing out Raballo's old room. He had an album of Claes's previous life there, and Claes likes to borrow books from that place. I wonder what would happen if Claes found the photo album Raballo had of her. It probably has her real name written in it at some point. It would be interesting to see what knowledge of and curiosity about her past would inspire her to do. (Something besides saying that she just goes on with her life like nothing has changed would be nice. I don't think her not changing is implausible, but it's boring. Spend some time getting creative.)

It's odd; Claes has a demonstrated tie to her pre-cyborg state. The glasses. Her books. Her middle name. Maybe she can use those things to fight the conditioning process or, as someone else stated somewhere, help her compatriots escape. Yeah, as others have noted (again), the whole rebel against the people who created you to be a living weapon thing is far from original, but if the story was well-written, chronicling each girl's battle to find a set of values and desires beyond what the Agency could offer them, then I would love to see such a thing written.

Talented fic-writers, your presence is needed.

J the Drafter wrote:You know...it doesn't look like the SWA bothered clearing out Raballo's old room. He had an album of Claes's previous life there, and Claes likes to borrow books from that place. I wonder what would happen if Claes found the photo album Raballo had of her. It probably has her real name written in it at some point. It would be interesting to see what knowledge of and curiosity about her past would inspire her to do. (Something besides saying that she just goes on with her life like nothing has changed would be nice. I don't think her not changing is implausible, but it's boring. Spend some time getting creative.)

somehow, I don't think Claes would have completely exclusive access to that room, and I'm pretty sure it was... sanitized... while she was being reconditioned. Jean, and the SWA in general, are nothing if not thorough.

J the Drafter wrote:It's odd; Claes has a demonstrated tie to her pre-cyborg state. The glasses. Her books. Her middle name. Maybe she can use those things to fight the conditioning process or, as someone else stated somewhere, help her compatriots escape.

or maybe it's just part of the psychological experiments she's being put through... like her viewing of A River Runs Through It, and the mission she went on with Petra in Vol.7.

J the Drafter wrote:Yeah, as others have noted (again), the whole rebel against the people who created you to be a living weapon thing is far from original, but if the story was well-written, chronicling each girl's battle to find a set of values and desires beyond what the Agency could offer them, then I would love to see such a thing written.

I'd like to see that as well, actually...

the girls will rebel? no, they won't!!! the one who must rebel is the handler, since SWA has made a grave mistakes. the cyborg listen more to their handler than to the agency.

how can i so sure? well, pricilia is SWA member, but ange didn't listen to her unless marco ordered her to. for her, marco's order is absolute, while SWA's...... it can be reconsidered. and one more thing, claes NEVER object raballo order, while she felt uneasy when receiving orders from SWA that she don't like.
there is one more, one of petra's first thoughs once she was awaken..
"he is all i've got" (well this is what it will be in english, if i translated it from my native language to english)


so if all of the handler rebel, SWA will be torn. but some of them will reconsidered it.

1. jean, he love SWA, so he can kill lots of padania
2. Giose and hartman will think several times about it. if SWA gone, what will they do when their cyborg need tha drugs?
3. the other........ uncertain

if there is rebellion, there will be fight among the girls. one thing is thought by me, why there is no boys? because of the title?

and i think there will be change in the end. i'm pretty sure it'll end up just like you're thinking. see the sentence just above the title?

destroyer wrote:one thing is thought by me, why there is no boys? because of the title?

There's no real reason why there shouldn't be any boys, actually. The one requirement for cyborgs was that they be young, not solely be girls. My theory is that there is a boys' dorm somewhere in the Agency, but we're just not shown it due to Yu's personal preferences. Take note that we did have what appeared to be a boy cyborg make an appearance in Volume Five.

Page twenty. Bottom right frame. That's a boy if I ever saw one.

I've always assumed the kid on pg.20 (Leonardo Conti's photograph) wasn't from the SWA, but that he connected a mafia hit-kid with the wrong rumor... which got him killed, once SWA Intel caught wind of it.

I agree with Loc.

i never saw him. i've check the book and can't find any. strange.
well, suppose the girls give a better off guard change than boys.
pino will be a great asset if he were recruit into 2gen, with a chance of betraying SWA of cource.

ElfenMagix wrote:Page twenty. Bottom right frame. That's a boy if I ever saw one.

In the anime, they specifically say that it’s a girl, not a boy. So like it or not, it’s now canon.

As I've said before, it's obivious that there is a specific reason why boys are not used. All of these cyborgs and not a boy in the bunch? Are you telling me that's sheer coincidence? And yes, there’s also the blatant title: Gunslinger Girl. Not Gunslinger kids. In my opinion, the reason it’s a girls only club is the conditioning process. It just doesn’t work on boys the way it does on girls. If it did, I get the feeling that section 2 would be all boys. Hopefully someday, Yu will let us know why Girl-boys are excluded.

Nachtsider wrote:My theory is that there is a boys' dorm somewhere in the Agency, but we're just not shown it due to Yu's personal preferences.

Theories usually have a little canon to back them up, don’t they Nacht? This one’s got absolutely nothing.

Oh, what the hell.

If the manga has a boy, then its canon. If the anime has a girl, then its also canon, but which is right?

What the hell, it was an old Picture of Pia in Boy's dress... only way to answer that one!

ElfenMagix wrote:If the manga has a boy, then its canon. If the anime has a girl, then its also canon, but which is right?

Where in the manga does it say that’s a boy Elfen? I’m not reading that anywhere. As far as I’m concerned, the only positive identification we have is the anime, which says that person is a girl. And yes, the anime has the same picture.

On a different matter...

Do we know what Carabinieri battalion Raballo was with? I need it for OC reasons, but if there is a canon reference, I want to use it.

Evidently Jean served in the same battalion Marco did in the Carabinieri, so if we know where Jean was, that would tell us here Raballo was, as well.

Since he gave Claes a GIS hat, being in the GIS himself seems logical.

Another option is perhaps part of the 8th Carabinieri Battalion of the 1st Mobile Brigade in Lazio/Rome or the 3rd Carabinieri Battalion located in Lombardy/Milan (since he knows the northern lakes region).

Per the Carabinieri website, the Mobile Unit Divisions are tasked with assisting in emergencies, defend Italian soil and participate in military operations abroad, support the maintenance of public order in the cities and contribute to the operations of the civil authorities. This sounds like it would create well-rounded officers who would appeal to Section 2 as instructors/handlers.

Another option could be one of the Provincial commands - IMO either Lazio or Lombardy province, but I can't find how they are organized (as in do they have a battalion level?) nor a whole lot about what they do (it seems primarily administrative support).

Consider that Marco wanted to be the best so he must be within the top ones.
Also consider that Marco has a Law Degree (as shown in the Pasta Prince episode of the first season).

Sorry, I wrote Marco, but meant Raballo.

We know Marco's background from the manga - he was in the Direzione centrale della polizia di prevenzione of the Poliza de Stato.

Nachtsider wrote:I'm still waiting for someone to write that epic fic in which it's revealed that Raballo actually escaped being killed, and is now plotting to bring the Agency down from within with Claes' help.

I'm planning on using such a thesis in the 'Alamo' scenario.

However, despite my fanship/dom/whatever of Claes, my version of such will be quite cruel.

Boomer do it.
My version of Claes as a big momma hen and queen bee to the girls in the dorm and cant stand Rachel for hogging up all the attention from her fratello (Fernando). If Claes bonded to Fernando, as Triela speculated early on in S'sR, Claes is not (yet) saying a word.

Claes was informed that Raballo died in a hit-and-run incident, possibly at the hands of the Italian government or even the Political Warfare Section.

Political Warfare Section?

Is this the other name of Section 2?

Since we don't know who killed Raballo, we should probably consider editing that sentence out.

I think the implication's pretty obvious there.

Nachtsider wrote:I think the implication's pretty obvious there.

I agree the implication is Section 2 had him killed, so if we're going to include that, then we should at least be specific and note that it was Special Operations, Section 2 and not "the political warfare department", whatever that is.

I agree the implication is Section 2 had him killed

Feel free to cut this if you like, as it's merely a hypothesis...

I find it entirely believable that Jean capped Raballo personally.

Given the seriousness he brings to his 'work', and the threats made to Hillshire in volume 10 when forcing him to join, I can really believe that he would do it if Raballo was going to the press. To an operator like Jean, secrecy is paramount, especially in the early days of the agency when they were structurally and politically vulnerable. Any leak would screw the program royally.
It also explains the personal charge he takes of Claes, informing her of Raballo's death, as well as his interests in her tasks. Jean is cold and calculating, but he's not entirely heartless.

Just some thoughts.

I have never been comfortable with Jean and/or Rico carrying out the hit on Raballo.

First, Jean and Raballo have a history, so Raballo is likely perfectly aware of what Jean is capable of. As such, I tend to think he'd be on the lookout for Jean or Rico following him.

Second, Jean and Rico benefit more from being in a position to show that they had nothing to do with it. Why? Because I think the other handlers also know what Jean is capable of and if they didn't know he couldn't have done it, they'd likely be of the opinion he could have done it - if not outright did it. That is not going to be something that engenders trust.

Third, if Jean or Rico did it, they'd want to keep it secret. Yet there is always a risk that one of them could slip or it could be found out during the medical examinations the staff do of the girls (like we saw with Petrushka in Chapter 42 - Rico, Henrietta and Angelica were all present for the same treatment).

I can probably think of some more reasons, as well.

Far better to have him killed by a third party who can then easily and quickly be eliminated to tie up all the loose ends.

I don't really think Rico was in on it, and if she were, how could she go against Jean's word not to? Then again, what's to say she wasn't wiped to forget it.

Rico is exactly the reason I think Jean would go it alone, and any history he may have had with Raballo makes it more personal. Jean's not afraid to kill and doesn't let Rico do all of it herself. And thinking that Jean can't sneak up on Raballo is not giving him enough credit.

Raballo is good, but doing something you know you're not supposed to tends to cloud the senses a bit. His actions before leaving Claes lend themselves to parting words from someone who knows they're at their end. He probably knew they were on to him and he had to make a figurative break for it. The only hope is to get the info out before being taken down. Better to die with a clear conscience than die as part of something that goes against your grain.

Like I said, I'm thinking aloud and I think Jean killed Mr. Boddy.

I believe Raballo believed he would live. He said goodbye to Claes because after he blew Section 2's cover in the press, he would never see her again.

It is because Jean is such a cold and calculating man that I believe he didn't kill him. He could easily have someone else kill him and then take that other person out, making it clean.

I believe Raballo was killed in a contracted hit-and-run. Rome traffic is insane and H&Rs are a normal occurrence. And with the Prime Minister owning 70% of the Italian media, there were only so many places he could go to where the story would not be buried. So all the person had to do was identify which newspaper he was meeting with (and the anime showed us) and then wait for him when Jean tipped him off he was on the way and kill him. Jean then likely killed the contractor when he went to deliver the rest of the payment.

My theory is that Jean was ordered to cap Raballo but balked, and Lorenzo then got someone else to do it. I know that most of you don't really agree with the idea that a fratello team did the deed, but I have written Elsa and Lauro as responsible in my fanfiction - Lauro, being the unscrupulous type, would not have shyed away from such an underhanded job, IMO.

Simple. He reminds her. The vestigial memories of him she's shown to possess indicate this might not be too hard to achive.

That, and the fact that she doesn't have a current handler makes her unique among the girls. Clearly the early imprinting was very strong, and she clearly carried much away from it that the agency couldn't delete.

The fact that her conditioning and the drugs are not used to create that artificial sense of affinity that the other girls get means that her chatacter developement will be interesting to read.

My theory is that Jean was ordered to cap Raballo but balked, and Lorenzo then got someone else to do it.

Mmm, whether or not Jean actually delivered the killing blow is another matter, but I see him as definitely being involved in the commission of Raballo's assassination. Let's not forget that it was Jean who invited Raballo into the Agency - and that the two had a long-standing association before that. Raballo's ratting was more than an administrative burden - professionally it cast questions on Jean's judgement, and personally it was a wounding betrayal. Jean surely would demand redress.

You could interpret it as being that way, Robert. But I feel there's an equally valid case for Jean's friendship with Raballo as making him hesitant.

Robert Frazer wrote:Mmm, whether or not Jean actually delivered the killing blow is another matter, but I see him as definitely being involved in the commission of Raballo's assassination.

On that I agree. I can't see Jean having any real qualms about taking Raballo out - Section 2 is more important then anything else in Jean's life - everything else is secondary to his vengeance against the PRF.

I believe he didn't do it out of a need of being able to deny he had anything to do with it, not because he was unwilling to see it done.

On that I agree. I can't see Jean having any real qualms about
taking Raballo out - Section 2 is more important then anything else in
Jean's life - everything else is secondary to his vengeance against the
PRF.

Heck, he is so obsessed that I could see him taking out his own borther if it were necissary.

Ok, since we’ve started to learn a good bit more about the girls and their handlers in recent chapters and episodes, I thought it might not be a bad time to revise their sections in the wiki. I also took the liberty of trimming them a bit, since in many cases they were more plot summaries than character summaries. Let me know what you think, please.




A former Captain in the Carabinieri, discharged due to a leg injury, he is approached by Jean Croce to serve as Claes's handler. In return, Jean would ensure Raballo’s reinstatement to the Carabinieri after three years. During his time in Section 2, Raballo and Claes partook of activities outside the SWA, especially fishing. He also taught Claes the value of patience and rekindled her prior love of reading. However, he came to have questions about how the girls were being used and started speaking to a newspaper reporter. He left the compound to meet "a friend", but was killed in a vehicular hit-and-run.

That last sentence is a tricky one. I prefer 'Killed' over 'Died' because it implicates a more sinister motive to what happened. Secondly, we do not know if Rabello actually met the reporter or not during this incident.

A former Captain in the Carabinieri, discharged due to a leg injury, he is approached by Jean Croce to serve as Claes's handler. In return, Jean would ensure Raballo’s reinstatement to the Carabinieri after three years. During his time in Section 2, Raballo and Claes partook of activities outside the SWA, especially fishing. He also taught Claes the value of patience and rekindled her prior love of reading. However, he came to have questions about how the girls were being used and started speaking to a newspaper reporter. He left the compound to meet "a friend", but was killed in a vehicular hit-and-run.

Good

Guest wrote: the whole rebel against the people who created you to be a living weapon thing is far from original, but if the story was well-written, chronicling each girl's battle to find a set of values and desires beyond what the Agency could offer them, then I would love to see such a thing written.

I also find this idea interesting. I might consider something in the future.

I was looking the Raballo/Claes episode on youtube the other day and two things came to mind. When Raballo first spoke to Jean it seemed to me like Raballo already did not like the organization and Jean's involvement there. His expressions, when first looking at Rico, seemed upset.
Raballo: (looking at Jean) "After you left the squadron, I heard this rumor... that you seemed to have gotten involved with some suspicious company."
Jean: (looking away) "To me, it is a job that I was well suited for." Speaking to Claes, Raballo pointed out that the damage to his leg was due to friendly fire. That's what took him down as well. Lauro cared nothing and was shot by his 'weapon'. Raballo cared too much (apparently) and was shot by his superiors.

After Henrietta and Claes were wiped again a few 'pages' of their mind, Raballo spoke to Jose briefly. In the course of the conversation, Raballo acts curiously to me. He mumbles: 'A good soldier should read a book, my ass.' Then goes, 'oh'. as if he said something wrong. Jose and Raballo look at each other momentarily then Raballo says: 'Please keep the fact that I've grumbled a secret from Jean to yourself.' Afterward Claes informed Raballo that she heard rumors from Henrietta that he wanted to leave the organization. I guess his dissatisfaction was not a secret.
'I dunno, I guess I'm reading too much into that part of the conversation but it seems curious. Lastly when Jean informs Cales of Raballo's passing, Triela yells Claes's name, while Jean says recover her. Triela calls out to her again, apparently Claes took off where who knows.