Irresponsible Captain Tylor Review

Irresponsible Captain Tylor

    Anime in the 90’s is an odd time. Animation was still mostly hand drawn. Voice acting  in American was a laughable career choice. It was impossible for American anime fans to get the newest stuff without having to wait for the badly done, incredibly expensive, poorly fan subbed, VHS tapes. But it was also the time were incredible anime were released. Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Slayers, and tons of other classics came out during this time. You could see the heart in every show, the time and effort put into its creation. It was a time when classics were being invented with every turn. And today’s fair is no exception. With its classic art style, great voice acting, and its uncanny ability to draw you in, bur I might be getting a bit ahead of myself. This is Irresponsible Captain Tylor.

   
       Irresponsible Captain Tylor follows the titular character, Justy Ueki Tylor (age 20), or just Tylor for short. Tylor has a plan, a grand plan, a plan to live an easy life the way he wants to live. He joins the military to get a job, any job, serve his time, and then retire on a nice fat military pension. Instead, he becomes captain of an old star cruiser called the Soyokaze. The Soyokaze is a dumping ground of the worse members of the military, filled with trigger happy marines, antisocial pilots, and a doctor who can only operate when drunk, among others. But Tylor takes it all in stride, living his life the way he wants to, being relaxed, flying through space, and treating his crew like actual people.
  

      Irresponsible Captain Tylor visually is very reminiscent of older space opera anime, like Space Battleship Yamato and Captain Harlock. But that is only to create a wider disperse between the traditional seriousness of a space opera anime like this one is thematically, and the comedy that this show really is. And it really works. If you have seen any of those old, classic space opera anime, you expect the characters to act a certain way, and instead of fighting to the death like in every other show, Tylor will just look up, and recommend complete and unceremonious surrender. And it is great every time.
    What makes the show interesting is partly the space opera comedy mishmash that works perfectly. But the other half of the equation is the characters. Every character, from the smart and sassy Yuiko Star, to the stoic and cool pilot Harold Katori, to the random minor character marine Jason(reminiscent of the ax murderer variety), are all more then just characters. Sometimes when watching something, even if it is something that is incredibly well done, you can tell that the characters are fake, they are just actors playing parts. Irresponsible Captain Tylor is different. Every character just has so much personality and hear that I can really see them just being real people. That added edge completely changes the immersion factor. I remember that I had to stop watching this show for a couple of weeks because of finals and school and other stuff. I finally had a chance to sat down and I started the show up again, and in less then an episode I was completely immersed again. This is just one of those shows that can just draw you in and completely hold you.

    The music to this show is another plus. The music is perfect for every scene, but that is only part of it. It is best when it goes classical. Irresponsible Captain Tylor uses classical music perfectly, enhancing every scene it takes part in. There is this one hugely climatic scene towards the end of the series which I don’t want to spoil for you, where if any other music was playing it would completely detract form the scene, and make it just so much less.  A bit of a negative though is the editing. There just seems to be scenes missing once in a while. It usually doesn’t cause too many problems, but at times it can be jarring. It is like it needed a better transitional vehicle. But this is a small detraction from a great anime on the whole.

Holiday Party Time!

    This show is fantastic, and I highly recommend it to anyone. If you just can’t stand older anime, anime from the 90’s, and anything sci-fi, then this is not the show for you, and that is really too bad because this is just such a fun anime. It is a fun show, a smart show, and you can really sink your teeth into it. Also, Captain Tylor wore Gurren Lagann glasses before it was cool. So, until next time, happy holidays, and have fun watching. 

My space battleship is the space battleship that pierces the heavens!

Kamen Rider Ryuki Review

Kamen Rider Ryuki

Kamen Rider is an odd beast. It started in 1971 as an odd but completely enjoyable show. It followed the adventures of a motor biker who was turned into a cyborg for an evil organization bent on destroying the world. He broke out before they could finish the brain washing and decided to fight against the evil origination, known as Shocker, and their legion of monsters. This was the basic consensus for about every rider until 1989, where every rider was mechanically changed somehow, ever villain was part of some sort of organization (mostly), and all the riders existed within the same continuity. Then Kamen Rider went into a type of hiatus, where they stopped making new Kamen Rider series until 1999, not counting the three movies they made in the 90’s. The new series was Kuuga, a new take on the age old battles as it were. Kuuga wasn’t some half-robot freak, he was all human, with a strange and ancient belt that allowed him to transform and fight monsters. From Kuuga on we were given a new Kamen Rider series every year, making this years entry the 13th Kamen Rider series of the new age. One of those series is the topic of today’s talk, a strange and surprisingly dark series that deconstructs the rider genre, and really takes you for a twist with every episode. But I might be getting a bit ahead of myself. This is Kamen Rider Ryuki.

Say Cheese!

 Kamen Rider Ryuki, shortened to Ryuki for obvious purposes, is the third entry of the Heisei era of Kamen Rider. (Heisei era is every series post Kamen Rider Black RX, and Showa era is every series pre Black RX.) Ryuki follows the story of Kido Shinji, also known as Kamen Rider Ryuki,  a reporter for a small time paper that is investigating a string of disappearances when he stumbles his way into the Rider War. All of a sudden Shinji is fighting monsters, and other Riders, inside of a strange parallel universe called Mirror World, where he must fight to survive. Shinji wants to stop the fighting between the riders, and defend the unknowing populace from the growing monster threat. But that’s not completely right. Ryuki is really about a dark and serious badass who is called Ren Akiyama, also known as Kamen Rider Knight. He fights the monsters, but he wants to be the winner of the Rider War. You see, the winner gets a special prize, one wish. By defeating all the other Riders, the winner will be able to get his hearts desire. And Ren wants that prize. He has some to save. But that’s not the right answer either. Ryuki is REALLY about a lawyer named Kitaoka Shuichi, a man who calls himself super lawyer. He fights to win the prize also, wishing for immortality to enjoy all the delights in the world. But even that’s not fully right.

What I'm saying is that there are a lot of characters.

Ryuki is the one Rider series that has the most individual riders in it, not counting Kamen Rider Decade, because Decade only has more on account of it crossing over with all the previous series.  Counting the movies, because they are continuity in the oddest way possible, there are a total of 15 individual riders going around and kicking things in the face.  Each of these riders have their own story and are characterized very well, though there were a few hit or miss ones in the mess.  Because of all these riders and all of the non transforming characters that Ryuki has, it is won of the more story oriented rider series. Now this isn’t saying all the other rider series are lacking in plot. Quite the contrary, each series has its own story with its own nuances and intricacies, Ryuki just has more. And this is actually one of the faults of this series.

So. Many. Riders.

Ryuki has too much story. Each character is going on a personal journey, and having to fight for what they believe in. and when I say every character, I mean every single character has some sort of character growth, or a story involving solely them, or something. It makes the series feel cramped, and actually detracts form the shows main hero. Shinji, the titular rider, is never really given the spotlight I feel he deserves. I think Shinji should have gotten more growth as a character. This isn’t saying he became a stagnated character who didn’t learn anything through his own personal journey, but I feel if the show focused more on him, and less on the 14 other riders populating the show, the character would have turned out better. Really, when I was saying how the story is really about X character, I was being completely honest.

The show is also old. When watching older Kamen Rider series, you really get a sense of how far technology has advanced, especially in filming. While I think the series looks perfectly fine, it does look just a bit dated, if only because of film quality. I don’t think they perfected how to film people in vehicles until Kamen Rider Kabuto, and that was at least 4 years later. While someone like me thinks it looks fine, I can understand others not liking  the series based solely on the film quality. What is done very well are the fight scenes. Kamen Rider’s specialty is fight scenes, and Ryuki does not disappoint. Every rider is given an individual fighting style, individual weapons and original special abilities. The fght scenes are interesting and very fluid. And it has something everyone should love. Rider on rider battle action. A six person rider on rider brawl is something that should put a smile on anyone’s face. And I would be remised if I did not mention this, Ryuki is the first rider season with both an evil rider, and technically the first female rider. I say technically because the first female rider to me will always be Tackle from Kamen Rider Stronger, but it really is a matter of opinion.

Epic pose time.

Kamen rider Ryuki is a good series all in all. It is much darker then other rider series, but that is one of the reasons I like it so much. I would recommend it for anyone who likes involving story lines, interesting characters, and really good fighting. If it is too old for you, that’s cool, you may still like some of the other rider series out there. Ryuki is not my favorite Kamen Rider series, that honor goes to Kamen Rider Faiz currently, but Ryuki is very good, and I hope you like it too. So, until next time, have fun watching.

Tokusatsu and Other Stuff

Tokusatsu and stuff

I’ve decided to expand what I review to include Tokusatsu. Tokusatsu is Japanese live action special effects stuff. Different series like Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Ultraman, and movies like anything from the Godzilla franchise and any other type of big monster film are considered tokusatsu.  Tokusatsu is usually characterized by men in rubber suits that look like monsters, and big explosions. Almost all of the special effects are done live, as in there is no computer generated effects… at least that was the case years ago. As technology advances and all that tokusatsu series have been able to make more realistic, or in the very least better done, special effects then their classic counterparts. But most of what they had in older series is still true today, men in costumes, stuntmen fighting each other, and explosions whenever anyone poses.

I got into tokusatsu recently, actually. A good friend of mine introduced me to Kamen Rider just last year, and since then I have been eating this stuff up. I’ve watched mostly Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, but I plan on broadening my horizons to other series. In truth, many of us have been watching tokusatsu for years without even realizing it. Other then classic monster movies form the past, there has been one series that has been running close to 20 years now. Power Rangers, the American series that uses footage from Super Sentai, is a classic series that is quintessential American tokusatsu.

That is a lot of rangers. We're boned.

I plan on doing some Kamen Rider reviews in the future, and look forward to my Kamen Rider Ryuki review, coming soon.

Fall 2011 Anime Season: First Impressions.

Fall 2011 Anime Season First Impressions

New anime!! Woohoo!! Alright everybody, its that time for all the new stuff to be talked about. This is my first impressions of all the new first episodes this season. I admit though, I have seen the second episode of a few because one particular show took forever to come out. But I might be getting a bit ahead of myself. Lets look at the new stuff!

Hunter X Hunter: I love the manga to Hunter X Hunter. It is funny, tragic, dark and light, and just creates a world that seems to real, yet so fictional at the same time. It might be one of my favorite manga of all time. The anime, so far, seems to be sticking incredibly close to the manga, and that looks like it will be a good thing. I have high hopes for Hunter X Hunter, and I think that it will be at least as good as Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood was. Though it will most likely never end.

Chihayafuru: This looks like it will be interesting. It is actually using a traditional game for its card game, instead of making a whole new game to profit on. The characters look interesting, and the story itself looks promising. My only complaint is that the first episode was mostly flashback. It makes me worry that half this story is going to be told in flashback, and even then, if it is done right, then there is no problem. I look forward to more episodes of this show.

Kyoukai Senjou  no Horizon: Dear lord, this series. I have no clue what happened in the first episode. This show is a combination of everything otaku and nerds love. It has mecha, random bits of religious randomness, huge ass weapons wielded by people who shouldn’t be able to wield them, a system of magic and fighting completely non-explained in the first episode, and fan service. Dear lord the fan service. At least half the women look like they have bowling balls taped to their chests, and would eventually have severe back problems later on in life. This looked like what someone’s idea of a table top RPG would be, if they haven’t balanced one yet. Everything thrown in to some random fantasy world. This show is insane. I plan on watching at least the first few episodes, but god is this show crazy, I might just have to drop it.

Kimi to Boku: Every anime season it seems I find a show that I shouldn’t like at all, and end up adoring. It is usually a moe-moe fest type of show, but this season, it is Kimi to Boku. This show looks like it is the male version of shows like Yuru Yuri and K-ON!. It is just four dudes, soon to be five, hanging out and doing nothing. And I just know I will watch every one of these episodes. If it gets too boring, I will drop it, but as of right now, I will be sticking to this show.

Maken-Ki!: This show is a combination of Mai-Hime and Ikki Tousen. And I hate it. Ok, that is unfair. I don’t completely hate it, but I am not going to be a fan of this show. It is a fan service fest, with disproportioned women fighting each other, most likely for the affection of one male character. I will not be watching this show. I think this show has had more panty shots in it then the entirety of this season combined. Just so much gratuitous fan service. It has been dropped.

Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle: Of all things, I actually got a weird Yugioh GX vibe from this show. But not in a bad way, oddly enough. This show looks like it will be, at the very least, interesting. But the episode itself had no staying power in my mind. It became part of the background of my mind. I can’t tell if this show will the insane genius puzzle solving show I hope it will be, or a show that replaces card games with puzzles. I will keep watching it for a bit, I have no plans on dropping it yet.

C3: Oh C3. This is one of the shows that I saw the second episode to, and I admit, it changed my opinion of the show. From the first episode, I thought it was going to be a generic harem show with a mystical subtext about inanimate objects becoming sentient because of various reasons. Comedy would ensue. The second episode changed that initial idea. Now I think that it is a rip off of Toaru Majutsu no Index. Now, I love index, I think it is a cool story with an awesome religious versus science subtext. C3 seems to be all the action of Index, but none of the heart or story. I just doesn’t look good. I think I will stick to this show for a few more episodes, but I might ultimately drop it.

Ben-To: Ben-To  looks like it will be my anime of the season. It sounds like my anime of the season. It is about people beating the crap out of each other for cheap, half price food. And I pray that it doesn’t get any deeper then that. I don’t want them to start talking about some spiritual powers, or having to save the world, or anything like that. I want this show to be only about people beating the crap out of each other for half price bento boxes. I think I love this show. It is so over the top, and so cool, that it will be just a fun ride from start to finish.

Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!: I couldn’t even make it past the first episode. It bored me. About half way through I just couldn’t watch it. This might be a good series for some, but for me, it was just nothing.

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai: A show about people who do not have friends. This show is a quintessential harem anime. This show literally has one of every type of harem fetish you could ask for. It has the maid, the loli, the nun, the tsundere, possibly the older sister type, the teacher/scientist type, and possibly more. I shouldn’t like this show. But I honestly think that this show is honest about what it is trying to portray. It is a show about a group of people who have trouble making friends in some shape or form. It is the classic rag tag group and how they will over come their problems and find friends. And I like it. I will be keeping with this show for a while, I don’t plan on dropping it in the very least.

So those are my thought about the new season. It looks like it is going to be a good season, with a good list of very different shows. I hope you enjoy. Until next time, have fun watching

Final Thoughts: Summer 2011

Final Thoughts: 2011 Summer Anime Season

Hey peoples! Well, it is that time again. A new anime season has started, and with that, the old one has finished. So I want to give some quick thoughts on what I watched last season. I’ll have the list of what I’m watching for the Fall 2011 anime season up soon, but for now, enjoy what has come to pass.

Double-J: Double-J was…weird. But an enjoyable weird. The art style was different, the jokes were hit or miss, but over all I enjoyed it. But I can defiantly see why others would not. I am someone who loves to see the more experimental stuff, the show that might not fit into what everyone was expecting, but is still enjoyable. Whether or not the experiment was a success is up to you, but I think I wouldn’t mind seeing more of that frog manga that Ichirou was drawing.

Yuru Yuri: This was the random moe-moe anime they show just about every season. But you know what? I liked it, and I really shouldn’t. It was pandering to an otaku audience. It was jokes about girls likening girls, and cute moe-moe blobs of characters I have seen done better in K-ON!. But for some reason I loved this show. It always made me laugh, the characters were bright, colorful, and most importantly, fun to watch, and it was just a nice show. I dislike the concept of moe, but god damn it, I keep falling for shows that are nothing but moe. *sigh* Next anime please,

Kamisama Dolls: When I first saw this show, my first thought was that it was a darker spiritual successor of Shingu Secret of the Stellar Wars. And I can still see that comparison, but it is, at least, different from that. This show had a lot of great characters, and an interesting concept, but I felt that it was still lacking something. The pacing was a bit off, the fan service was awkward and random, and timing of the comedy or dramatic bits could give a person whip lash. But it was solid, and I think it will become a better show in its second season, whenever that will be.

Morita-san wa Mukuchi: This show was three minute ray of sunlight once a week. It is a small simple show that is just nice to watch. The key is that it doesn’t overstay its welcome. A show like this would become annoying and dull if it was the length of a regular show. But because it is only three minutes, it is able to keep me interested, yet still wanting more. There is now a second season of this show, and I am incredibly happy because of that.

Nyanpire the Animation: Nyanpire got annoying. It was another short anime series, episodes only lasting a few minutes, but after a while it became grating. It wasn’t anything bad, it just lost what made it good.
I would recommend watching the first few episodes of the series, but it might get annoying after a while. But there was one thing that always made me happy, the ending theme. Dear god that ending theme was amazing in its insanity. Also, Double-J’s ending was good too. Just thought I would bring that up,

Usagi Drop: This might be a bit of a spoiler, so go ahead with caution. While watching Usagi Drop, I had heard a spoiler that the show would have an incredibly depressing and just cruel ending. I heard that the manga ended that way, and that this was staying awfully close to the manga. (I have yet to read the manga, so I have no clue if that has an incredibly depressing and cruel ending.) So when I watched the last episode, all I could do was try and figure out how they were going to hurt the small family that I had been watching grow and change over the past three or so months. And you know what? It didn’t happen. It had a sweet ending, the ending I was expecting. A happy ending. And I felt trolled. But I loved this show. It was nice, and normal. I felt as if these characters could really exist. The stress of that ending did not detract from  the show at all, I completely recommend this show.

Dantalian no Shoka: If this show had come out a season or two later, I would have called it a clone of Kami-sama no Memo-chou, just with more magic stuff. But it isn’t, so I can’t. what I can say is that this show was not fun to watch. It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it was dull and the main characters were just annoying. Ok, I admit that Huey was a good nice guy character, but he had no personality, he was just there to do pull out the books. But god I hated Dalian. She was annoying and greedy and was the type of tsundere I just end up hating in a show. And the ending, dear lord the ending. One of the shows saving graces was its supporting cast. They were at least interesting. If they were to make a second season of this show, I would hope that they would follow the other people with book princesses, like the book police, or the mad scientist. At least then they might be able to make a lick of sense of that ending. Dear god that ending.


Kami-Sama no Memo-chou: This was a good detective show. It was the complete opposite of Dantalian. The characters were interesting, the stories were deep and realistic, and you really felt for the characters. This is one of the few series that made me tear up at the ending in a long time. I think it was one of the best series of the season. This was a show about broken and hurting people coming together to try and do something, anything good, even if it is only a little. It is a show about people, not characters. I loved this show.


Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni!: The first season of this show was great. And the second season was able to keep up with it. I liked the advancement of the relationships, the lessened focus on Akihisa’s sister, and the bits of back story they put in. This is one of the few shows that can make me cheer and root for the main characters doing something horrible, like peeping on the girls in the hot springs. They made it seem like some deep battle for justice against an immovable enemy, and it made you cheer. I am looking forward to  the next season.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee: This was another simple series. It was very slice of life, with interesting characters and just nice stories. But it didn’t seem to have any staying power. Towards the end I just got bored with the series. I still liked it, I just wasn’t into it anymore. Which is really unfortunate, because I genuinely  liked it. It was just boring.

So that was the 2011 summer anime season. Had some good and some bad. Look forward to my fall 2011 season first impressions coming soon. Maybe even later today. Until next time, have fun watching.

Cromartie High SChool Review

Wow, two posts so close to one another? It must be the end of the world! Or boredom!Or.. something else! I don;t know, just read the review.

Cromartie High School

In life, I have a few rules. One is that you should always take time to relax, no matter how busy are. Another is you should always have a flash drive on you, just in case. And my biggest rule? No matter what it is, nothing that has Queen’s Freddie Mercury in it is bad, and is usually something amazing. This show sees that rule, and proves it 100 fold. But I might be getting a head of myself. This is Cromartie High School.

What is Freddie Mercury doing here?

 Cromartie High School is about a school for delinquents, all bad-asses who smoke, fight at the drop of a hat, and have no concept of simple mathematics. They have more teeth then brain cells, as it were. All except for the main character that is. The main is a “normal” guy, by the name of Takashi Kamiyama. I put quotation marks because even though he might be one of the smarter members of the school, he is still dumber then a brick, and twice as gullible. Also in the cast is Hayashida, a pink mohawk individual with a strange leader streak, who is dumber then the rest of the school. Then there is Maeda, a strong punk, who isn’t completely dumb as he has to play the straight man to the others funny man. He has little presence and is captured a lot by other delinquents schools. Then there is Mechazawa. He is a robot, no one but the main cast seems to notice, and no one in the whole show cares. There is a gorilla, who is just there, and Hokuto and his lacky, who are trying to take over Cromartie High School. And finally, there is Freddie. Freddie Mercury. There is not much to say other the that an anime has FREDDIE MERCURY in it. It creates win all around itself.

Bad-ass line up. Except they are all idiots.

 The show itself is animated very limitedly, with many still images and reused images over the course of the series. But the cheap quality works with the show. The images look like they were taken right out of the manga, but again, this works. The ascetic makes it look individual and easily recognizable. The show is pure comedy, no real over driving plot, no dramatic moment, no real character development, just pure comedy. It does reuse many skits though, so if you didn’t like, say, the joke that Yutaka Takenouchi, the strongest guy at Cromartie High School, is incredibly susceptible to motion sickness, well then you are out of luck, because that will show up again at least 20 more times. But the show has no specific order to it, so you never know what you are getting next. If you don’t like the skit, wait 2-3 minutes, its going to change.

As I was watching the show, I got a distinct feeling I had seen this before. It was a scene where the characters were having a discussion about the mundanely of everyday life, and how it was the norm around the world, intercut with random scenes where Freddie is riding a horse dramatically and awesomely. And then it struck me. This was a Calvin and Hobbes comic. Not literally, but the comparison was just, right there. And the whole show feels like that.  It has the whimsical world that only a child could imagine, except real, the at times deep conversations that might even seem unimportant to the outsider, and the characters all thinking that this is normal, instead of fracking weird. And I like that part of Cromartie. It is funny, enjoyable, but just plain weird.  It is a show I fully recommend if you want a good laugh. If you don’t like lolrandom humor, or you want something with more of a plot, then this is not for you. But for everyone else, enjoy. Also it has Freddie Mercury in it. You are obligated to watch for his awesomeness alone.

Happy Freddie is Happy

Oh, by the way, there is alive action movie of Cromartie. It is even more insane then the anime, if you can believe it. but it is just an average day for the students at that school

Until next time, have fun watching.

Super Gals Review

Super Gals Review

I first watched Super Gals way back when I was in high school still, and all my anime viewing came from Anime On-Demand. From first look, I remember thinking that this was going to be a random high school girl comedy/drama. And I was right, it had all those elements. But as I watched the show became something much more, especially for me. As I watched it, I realized that the characters grew as the show went on. And I realized that I was growing with them. You see, this show is 52 episodes long. 52, that magical number, the number of universe in the DCU, the number of weeks in a year, the number that Super Gals ended on. On-Demand only showed one episode a week. So it took me a complete year to finish watching this show. I remember, coming home from school, working on my homework, and then, tuning to On-Demand, finding what was new, and the first thing I watched was Super Gals. This show is my go to good anime, but I might be getting ahead of myself. Lets start.

Super Gals is the story of ran Kotobuki the number one gal in all of Shibuya. She is hot headed, always hungry, always out of cash, a bit shallow, and a bit of an idiot. But she also ahs a strong sense of justice and fair play, and lives by the code she sets out for herself, her “Iron Clad Rules for Gals.” Now when I say that the story is about Ran, that isn’t exactly true. It is more of a slice of life, and we follow all of Ran’s friends, all the drama and fun they have, and the life of ran herself. There is no central plot, no over arching goal, and no real central conflict. There are a myriad of subplots though, and it is through those that the “story” moves, you could say.

So many characters, but where Second Place?

Most of the “plots” seem to focus on the people that surround Ran. There are stories about the budding relationship drama that Ran’s friends Aya and Otohata go through. There is the comedic stories about Yuya, the man in love with Ran, yet destined to never be with her, until someone better finds him that is. There are the stories about Ran’s best friend Miyu, and how she has to deal with her dark past. There are stories about Ran’s idiot boyfriend, her detective obsessed little sister, her arch enemies, and even a TV detective, The Odaiba Shark.

The Odaiba Shark never sleeps!

The show has a huge cast, it seems ever expanding usually. But it works for the show. It is not uncommon to know a large amount of people. Through friends, friends of friends, and just the random guy you meet on the bus, just by living a normal life you know a ton of people. Super Gals mixes realism and complete fantasy for comedic effect quite well in my opinion. The problems of the world just seem like real problems, from the subsidized dating, AKA prostitution, to seeing how rumors get quickly out of hand. But then it has just stuff that is over the top, like Ran’s signature attack the “Double Platform Boomerang”, which is her kicking her shoes at someone, and having them return to, catching them by putting them on again. It gets pretty intense.

There is Second Place! Poor poor lucky Second Place.

The art style of the show is very…noodle like. The tall skinny characters all look like they could be from a CLAMP story, or even an old style American cartoon. But it is a plus. There is no moe-moe pandering, and very little fan service, which is impressive for a show that has a beach episode or a beach episode equivalent every ten episodes. The music is very pop-ish and light, but always managed to change to fit the scene. There is a good amount of repeated music though, you will hear the same music that they use for the para-para dancing about a million times before the show is over. Also there is an intense genre shift from the opening and closing music. The opening is light and happy, and is fun to listen to. The opening is one of the most depressing things I have ever heard, and I skipped it nine times out of ten.

Dramatic look! What's going on over there?

Super Gals has incredible character growth through out the series. You get the feeling that the characters grew up by the time the series ended. When I said earlier that the characters grew with me, I meant that literally. This show is great. If you want some good comedy and drama, mostly comedy, find this show. Warning though, the first half has been dubbed into English, but the later half is only in sub form, so that might be a little jaring if you are not ready for it. Until next time, have fun watching.

"Lets get together again someday!!"