Title: Galaxy Angel
Publisher: Nozomi
U. S. Re-Release Date: 2/7/2017
Format: Blu-ray / 26 Episodes / 390 minutes
Genre: Sci Fi, Comedy
Age Rating: 14+
Overall Personal Rating: B
Synopsis:
In Galaxy Angel there is a group of 5 females, they form the Angel Brigade and are part of the government special forces with the underlying task of finding the Lost Technology, unfortunately no one actually knows what that is. Besides that, they keep busy taking on special missions, often hired and paid by private citizens. These vary from the seemingly mundane assignment of finding a cat to the more serious saving a world sort of thing.
Commentary:
The Galaxy Angel anime is a comedy set in a Sci Fi universe with a bit of heart thrown in. Originally produced in 2001, this is a re-release. I specify anime, because there are also games and manga. There is shared similarities, but the differences really make this a different story set. Here, the ladies/girls are the main characters with no real romance ( if there is any, it only amounts to one side imagination). There is also some action and plenty of character interest to balance everything out.
Noting that this is a comedy is important because there are several things off or overdone but that all leads into the silliness. Or at least can be excused by the context. For instance, the anime cliches’ and the character stereotypes or body forms.
This Blu-ray edition can be watched in English dub or sub. I used the English voice option and thought they did a fine job of matching the characters. The sound track also worked well.
The episodes are stand alone mostly, a little bit of story carries over like bringing up the Lost technology and few stories take more than one episodes. Sure, there are 26 episodes, but they are only 15 minutes each. Generally, this anime is quick paced, but I didn’t feel like it rushed. It just is efficient and doesn’t waste time on fillers. This format works well because there isn’t one story or direction through out the season.
Visually, I enjoyed the saturated color that made it so visually strong. The animation seemed a bit off sometimes, or maybe old, but since it’s a comedy it works okay. Quirky is part of the charm. Keeping the characters straight was comfortably easy. First, they all have different hair color, very different cliche personalities and at least one really weird trait. What I mean about that, for example, the anatomically incorrect, physics defying boobs -plainly looks stupid but I suppose a hyperbole for comedic effect. The main five represented the no nonsense military type, the robotic emotionless, the frilly homemaker and the ever boy crazy (looking for a husband) and the amazing luckiest girl in the universe.
Overall Grade: B Cute and entertaining to watch, but didn’t pull me in to really connect with the characters. And I don’t think it meant to.
Although it tells a story with a different template, there is a quality that reminded my of El Hazard, the Wanderers. If you like one, you might want to give the other a go.
