Hello everyone and welcome back to
President Dog Takes On... this time with a special retro anime
review!
Since I started on this journey of
writing and reviewing I've been wanting to go back and honor a few
underrated gems of the past that I've bonded with for one reason or
another. To lead things off here, there's not a bigger show that
comes to my mind than our subject today, Super GALS!
Now before I get into what the show's
all about, a little bit of backstory is in order, both for the
subject matter and what bonded me to this show. I first discovered
GALS! when I was in high school, somewhere either in 2004 or 2005, as
part of a collection of on-demand programming through my cable TV
subscription. For those unfamiliar, as part of most major digital
cable packages in the U.S. and other countries, cable companies will
often give their subscribers a small library of shows they can access
at any time, ranging recent episodes of popular shows to obscure, new
or unknown programming with a more dedicated focus than a typical
cable channel. The anime available through these services came mostly
from The Anime Network, though a few other collections existed from
Funimation and other companies, and rotated through series on a
week-to-week or month-to-month basis. Being the naive pup for anime
that I was at 16, I decided to basically spin the wheel of what was
available and try my luck. Fate happened to land on GALS!
(specifically episode 23, “Tear it Off! Rip Rip! Teacher's Golden
Image) and with its blend of action, drama and comedy with just a
touch of romance and heaping helping of solid characters, I was sold.
I quickly found the first half of the show on DVD and watched it all
the way through, only reluctant to the fact that after episode 26, it
previewed another episode that didn't exist on that set. It wasn't
until a few years later when I was just starting my first year of
college that the second half of the series was finally released,
albeit only in subtitled form as opposed to the sub and dub options
on the first half. Undeterred by that small fact, I gladly ate up the
rest of the series, especially as a way to pass the time in between
classes or when I would have to take public transportation to the
campus.
The series was one of my first looks
into more direct Japanese culture as GALS! is a slice-of-life show in
the sense that it looks at a specific subculture of teenagers, the
kogal, as well as the cultural center for fashion and said
subculture, the Shibuya ward of Tokyo. Like how otaku and
technologically-minded people flock to Akihabara, the fashion-minded
and (at least during the turn of the millennium and the time in which
GALS! takes place) the kogals flock to Shibuya. It's still a major
focal point for the fashion world in Tokyo, but as with any trend,
the kogal subculture passed and the female youth of Japan moved onto
other things. If anything, this show would just be an interesting
little media representation of a subculture and nothing more.
Fortunately for GALS!, it is much more substantial.
Our show centers around Ran Kotobuki,
the self-proclaimed 'World's Greatest Gal.' Now most people tend to
have a bit of a split in intelligence, either towards education
(a.k.a., book smarts) or learning facts of life and good morals
(a.k.a., street smarts). Ran seems to have a pretty lopsided split
towards street smarts. Usually lazy and absent-minded when it comes
to school (the only class she doesn't tend to fail is PE and she
often mooches homework answers off her more adept friends and
acquitances), Ran truly shines on the streets and when dealing
directly with people, always willing to dispense good advice about
friends, life, or when needed, a good swift kick in the rear or slap
in the face. Literally. It all comes from Ran's upbringing, living in
a family of police officers and instilling within her a deep-rooted
sense of justice. Unfortunately for her folks, she has no desire to
join up to the family calling and decides, at least for now, to keep
on being herself while dishing out a bit of vigilante butt-kicking on
the side. In between shopping, karaoke, parapara dancing, octopus
balls and other fun things in Shibuya, of course.
As we follow Ran, our cast naturally
builds around her, from her best friends, Miyu and Aya (a former
troubled teen saved from her delinquent ways by Ran's older brother,
Yamato, and a smart, yet sheltered girl that Ran helps to come out of
her shell and enjoy life as a gal, respectively) to a few guys from a
popular all-guys school, Rei and Yuya (An aloof, somewhat snarky guy
who Aya falls in love with and his upbeat partner-in-teen-idolness
who has eyes for Ran) and eventually grows to include rivals, other
boyfriends (including Tatsuki/Tatsukichi, Ran's energetic, silly and
very monkey-like squeeze) and many others. There's no shortage of
colorful, interesting and intriguing characters to be had here, which
keeps episodes fresh. Another aspect of GALS! that keeps the viewer
engaged is the variety and balance the stories provide in each
episode while maintaining an evolving state of relationships. Plots
can range from the serious, such as romance, finding jobs, or even
family issues, to the silly and absurd sometimes. No joking at all,
there are at least three episodes where Ran gets either hypnotized or
hit in the head and her personality changes completely. It even gets
lampshaded after the first time it happens in the episode previews.
The most gripping overall plotline of this show has to be the
relationship between Aya and Rei, as it's the longest-running and it
quickly gets the viewer invested emotionally. Several times
throughout I felt myself feeling so sad for Aya and getting
increasingly angry at frankly, how much of a stone cold jackass Rei
as acting towards her, but that's just my reaction and things do eventually grow towards the positive for both characters.
I do recommend checking out this series
in one form or another between the anime and the manga (of which I
also own a few volumes and gives its own spin on the show, but
includes many if not all of the same stories), but the anime itself
is an odd duck in the way of how it was licensed and translated, as I
alluded to in my introduction. The first half of the series was
distributed by the now-defunct ADV Films in both its original
Japanese and an English dub. As much as I highly enjoyed the dub,
which I can't say for very many anime in general, and its colorful
choice of slang and dialogue, I have to recommend that any
prospective viewers watch this series in its original Japanese
because that is the only way the second half of the series is
available, as the transfer of distribution rights to Right Stuf
International neglected to continue the dubbing. However, Super GALS!
is an ample length at 52 episodes, has enough going on to keep a
viewer invested and is an enjoyable, albeit not the most original
show. It does fall in line with some of the main character archetypes
of the early 2000s era of anime and usually sticks to their guns
about it; although characters do grow, not everyone truly does and
those who do tend to do so very slowly. Another small nitpick is that
the art style doesn't stand out all that much compared to its
contemporaries. All the girls tend to have the same thin, almost
twig-like body type just differentiated by their clothes and hair and
such and outside of some colorful choices of palette, a lot of the
set pieces are your typical cityscape of streets, shops and public
areas (location accurate hotspots such as the Hachiko statue and the
Shibuya 109 building are present and prominent, however, so points
for detail). Overall, as an objective review, I give Super GALS!
3.5/5, but with my sentimental value factored in, it's at least a 4
to me. An enjoyable show with an ample length and story, but may not
be something that sticks with you long after the final episode.
As a special bonus for anyone
interested in checking out the show, not only is the entire subtitled
version available on YouTube, I compiled all 52 episodes into a
playlist for your viewing pleasure. Just follow the link below and
see what it's all about.
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