Christ, it’s like the world is out to get me. Anime releases this season require diving head-on in a cesspool of ideas produced by every desperate author seeking recognition. To boot, a lot of times, I imagine the editors hearing an idea and going, “I did not understand shit… – That’s perfect! Now make it complete nonsense. Don’t leave a doubt that you need to be locked in asylum.”
Despite this being the case with editors, I always imagine that in most of the cases, the author comes up with a perfectly logical, brilliant idea, which the industry manages to trample, break and pulverize it to bits, before it even hits its first normal public reviewer that could even express his opinion.
But that is not the case with Galilei Donna (super-excited, right?). Unlike a high percentage of other things from the anime industry that get torn up, shredded and turned to crap by the end, this one was already crap to begin with. I mean the main idea was bad, and the subsequent plot, development scheme and everything else just kept getting worse.
The idea, as usual, start with a family that are the descendants of Galilei. He picked the short straw here, out of famous people, but I really wonder how old Galio ever got around to shagging a Japanese woman. Furthermore, since he was alive round the 16th century, presuming, he was a respectable Italian, he had at least about 6-8 mistresses in his life, and since kids limit was not an issue back then, pass the third, divide by the square root, take a bite of the abacus then swallow and we can imagine the dude in 23rd or whatever century we are looking at in this anime would have about 5000 descendants give or take 500. I’d make fun of the fact that their family name is Ferrari, but there is just too much to make fun of in this thing. Let’s ride on…
So… why pick the 3 Japanese ones? Cause, duh, this is not Italy and for a manga writer learning more than 6 Italian words would result in ulcer. So yeah, this is the story of the Three Japanese Descendants of Galileo Galilei that live in alternate universe that give a fuck about what he actually did… Well tries to – because we got mecha built by 12 years old. “Just go with it”, winks the author.
Okay, you pretentious prick, I’ll bite. I’m not one to judge based on the cover. Just let me wipe the bloody tears. Due to your lack of cultural immersion in Italian history, further than a Wikipedia page and a quick read through the menu at your local restaurant that serves pizza – you managed to instantly cliché Italians to being fat sleezebags. Well kudos to you, I hope you come with me to Sicilia, I know a familia there that teaches respect.
Then of course the author is not done with that. He and his editor, sucking up the remaining fumes of desperation together with whatever other chemicals they had in their bathroom, decided on the rest of the elements they want to mix in. I’ll shortly bullet point them.
Mecha Theme:
– Goldfish. Fucking ferocious gold fish. With rockets. Yeah. Cause, hell, we considered mecha seagulls, but they were already used in Gundam, Tokyo Ravens or something.
– Balloon Mecha. Nothing easier than a 500 ton mecha to fly. “Technology?!” asks the author “Nobody cares about explaining that. It just flies. It happens in the future. That solves everything.” To which we ask, why even bother using the Galilei name?
– Gun-Bike. Cause if you can’t surpass something at 35 km/h, why not just add a gun function. Making it actually go faster might be dangerous, wouldn’t want children doing that. And it’s a stun gun. That never hurt anyone. And you say sorry before shooting. It’s ok… What is the criminality rate in japan again? Of course it’s low if maniacs like this are free to publish. It’s like saying there are no criminal acts in a country where stealing, murder and rape are legal.
2. It’s velocità. That thing Italians add above the a is not a decoration.
3. If there was a Canadian nearby, he’d be compelled to shoot you. And the author for his stereotypes.
Character Theme:
– The villain, is not villainous, but plain retarded. Or he will be the hero villain. Which being retarded makes him stronger in stressful situations and super useless against anything that normally he would have no problems against. Which in the end is still retarded. Does anyone see where this is going? It’s taking me straight to the hospital.
– The daughters are – the first is silly/genius/cute/innocent, second is immature/unsocial/not sarcastic or witty (because that requires intellect)/bratty, third is sleazy/lazy/annoying/a failure of a human. I’m dying inside.
– The father is a workaholic. That’s it. We don’t need to develop him. Just replace him with random dude A. Call me an ambulance.
– Mother is hysterical and illogical. Why not. I mean it defines most mothers. The authors especially, most likely when he told her he will become a great manga author. Coroner better.
To end this. The plot is weak. The animation is good, but that is to be expected in the current day. But damn me if I will watch something just because the animation is good. If you want a good amount of images without any story, might as well get a deviant art account. If this was an action anime, it would do a lot better than Tokyo Ravens, only if it was not so darn gone set (dog-on-scent?) on going bonkers. The mecha scene went from something possibly impressive to being pure ridiculous.
Conclusion: Wait for all the episodes to come out. At least a couple more if bored or watch this in one go. Really. It might be good for later. But now, just don’t touch the thing. Treat it like that cheese grandma sent four years ago that is currently festering in the back of the fridge. Aging will either improve it, or at least kill you in one go. Seriously, at the moment it is a cluster of damn crazy ideas packed into one episode. It’s too flimsy to follow.
Recommendation: This is theoretically a mess of action, mecha, sci-fi and adventure with probably some other things thrown in. But let’s leave it as an Action Sci-fi Anime. For you that are specifically looking forward to this sorta thing, and you just started watching anime, go and have a look at what the tops of your gender are. This will not be there. For oldies, that have watched everything up to this point and really have nothing more to look forward to, have a look and think forward. If you are looking for something else, other genres or have something else – this – should stay low priority for a moment when you have a lot of free time.
