About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

The misadventures of a teenage girl who'd rather spend her time hanging out with friends in Tokyo's Shibuya district than applying herself in school. It's a fun but ultimately slight show, best in small doses, which revolves around the cocky, brassy charm of its main character.



Pros

• Gets many fun gags out of its Tokyo locales.

Cons

• Works best in small doses.

Description

• Director: Tsuneo Kobayashi

• Animation Studios: Studio Pierrot
• Released By: TV Tokyo / Bandai Visual
• Released Domestically By: Nozomi Entertainment / Right Stuf International
• Audio: English / Japanese w/English subtitles
• Age Rating: 13+ (mild violence, crude language)
• List Price: $59.99
• Anime Genres:
  • Comedy
  • Drama
  • Action
  • Shojo
  • Slice-of-life
• Related Titles:
  • NANA

Guide Review - Super Gals!: The Complete Collection

Here’s a series that is every bit as energetic and bubbly—and probably also superficial—as its main character. Super GALS! isn’t a classic, and it shows the limits of what it’s all about less than halfway through, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun in small doses.

Said main character is Ran Kotobuki, the teenage daughter of a family with deep roots in law enforcement. Dad and Mom are both cops, as is her older brother, and her younger sister’s favorite pastime is playing junior detective. Ran, though, has no such ambitions: she’s proudly lazy, brassy, confrontational, bad with money, and has no greater ambitions than to hang out and have a good time with her friends.

But she’s also fiercely loyal and imbued with the same sense of justice that fuels her siblings and parents—even if the way she deals with injustice often amounts to applying a stacked-heel boot to someone’s face.

Most of the show revolves around Ran’s misadventures with family and friends—outings at the beach, running around in the fashionable Shibuya district. Many of the gags stem from Shibuya street culture—like the trio of heavily-tanned (ganguro) girls who constantly butt heads with Ran and her friends. I also smiled at the on-the-spot language lessons that explain common Shibuya slang phrases. This works less well in the English dub, though, where the spoken and on-screen terminology typically don’t match at all.

Some of what goes on is total nonsense, like a sticker-printing booth that reverses the polarity on Ran’s personality and turns her into a bookish goody-goody. Sometimes the show veers into more serious territory, as when one of Ran’s friends is confronted by the ghost of her past misdeeds as a street-gang member. But the general tone of the show is frivolous and light-hearted (if not downright lightweight) and a happy ending is pretty much guaranteed every time.



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