Galaxy Angel vol. 1
 Mike Toole  rates it:    

I'm pretty sure that I'm not supposed to like shows like Galaxy Angel. It's a TV series that doesn't exhibit much of a continuing plot-- at least, not initially. It's populated by a quintet of adorable, vaguely stereotypical teenaged girls, whose fresh-faced voice actresses charmingly belt out a theme song teeming with pleasantly untranslatable onomatopoeia like "ukky ukky." There's a cloyingly cute robot/animal mascot. The main character is an archetype of blazingly exaggerated cutesy femininity, with a tiny mouth, button nose, bright pink hair and omnipresent flowers as hair accessories. She's even named after a flower, Milfeulle.

But Galaxy Angel also has an awful lot to offset its out-of-control toothsomeness. The series is ostensibly about the exploits of the Angel Brigade, a tiny section of the sprawling, intergalactic Transvaal Empire. It's the job of the Angel Brigade, under the supervision of the hapless Colonel Wolcott, to seek out ancient artifacts known as Lost Technology. The trouble is, nobody is really sure what Lost Technology is, so the Brigade ends up spending a lot of time acting as interplanetary dog walkers and house painters to fill up the time. This is complicated by the Brigade themselves, who are equal parts Buxom Incarnate (the imposing, monocle-wearing Forte), Thoughtless Vanity (Ranpha, a leggy blonde who wears a sort of midriff-baring cheongsam), Costuming Sincerity (Mint, who appears to have goat ears), and the Angry Little Girl (Vanilla). Seriously, Vanilla doesn't say much, but throughout this first volume, I continually got the impression that she was just scowling at everything around her. I'll delve into that in a moment.

Galaxy Angel, which is broken up into bite-size 15-minute chunks, kicks off with the unlikely duo of Ranpha and Forte sniffing around at a resort, looking for a lost cat. The cat, referred to as the Baron (a cheeky reference to Whispers of the Heart), is the property of a young man who's absolutely apoplectic about the feline's disappearance. We soon learn that the man is aghast because the cat is the only heir to his father's fortune; the fate of the cat, therefore, decides the fate of the money. Naturally, the guy's intentions for the Baron are less than pure-- he's got Ranpha and Forte looking for it as a cover, but his plans for the cat are dire ones indeed. But the duo don't have time to notice that-- they're too busy meeting Milfeulle, a sparklingly-- indeed, annoyingly cheerful waitress at the resort. Milfeulle likes cats, and is able to point the pair in the direction of the Baron. But in the course of the "rescue," the Baron dies tragically (but not without dishing up some amusing revenge on its owner), and Milfeulle gets fired from her job.

That's okay, because Milfeulle ends up joining the Angel Brigade in the very next episode. This bizarre coincidence is just another example of the girl's incredible luck; everything seems to go her way, no matter how unfavorable circumstances are. When Ranpha and Forte run up a huge casino debt and are forced into pro wrestling to pay their debts, it seems like a natural solution to try and exploit Milfeulle's unusual luck. But the girl's good luck can't really be exploited, exactly, so it all culminates in a hilarious scene that comes off like the climactic roulette wheel scene in Run Lola Run gone horribly wrong.

The disc is filled out with several more episodes, most of them at least passably funny. Episode three sees the introduction of the team's mascot, a sentient missile called NORMAD. (Some amateur translations listed the thing as NOMAD. The official spelling disappoints me, because I was just waiting to let loose with a horribly nerdy "I AM NOMAD. THIS ANIME IS IMPERFECT" joke.) NORMAD makes its first appearance in a scene reminiscent of the bit in Dark Star where the characters have to convince a depressed robot bomb not to blow itself-- and them-- sky-high. This is probably the disc's funniest episode-- we're first treated to NORMAD insulting all of the girls except for the nearly catatonic Vanilla, whom he gushingly describes as a perfect young lady. There is a scene later in the episode where Milfeulle is presented with a bomb to defuse. The girl loses her composure and starts to crack under the pressure, but her teammates shout encouragement... as they carefully position themselves behind a blast shield, with the normally sensible and caring Mint taking the safest spot. NORMAD eventually ends up in a stuffed animal body.

The disc is rounded out by an amusing tale of a wealthy bachelor looking for prospective brides, a ghost story, and an episodic excuse for Mint to engage in her favorite pasttime-- squeezing her tiny frame into bulky mascot costumes. She'd probably make a first-rate Baseball Chicken. I have to admit, Galaxy Angel comes off as really nice. It's funny without being overbearing, and cute without being saccharine. The disc's only low point is episode five, a tedious yarn about an abandoned spacebound school and the ghosts that inhabit it. As shopworn as most of the girls' personalities seem at first, I found myself really liking them after just a couple of episodes. These girls are feisty. They've got gumption.

Another impressive aspect of Galaxy Angel is the dub, which comes as a surprise-- it comes courtesy of the Ocean Group, an outfit that tends to swing pendulously from awful to excellent, oftentimes within five minutes of a single episode. But the dub here is executed wonderfully well-- for the role of Milfeulle, they cast Jocelyne Loewen, an actress who pulls off the impossible task of sounding both shrill and cute. But Loewen can't match the intensity and energy of Ryoko Shintani in the Japanese version, who's almost reason enough by herself to watch the series. Altogether, I'm very impressed with both versions of Galaxy Angel. The DVD comes packed with the usual extras-- a bunch of amusing short "lecture" clips, a textless opening, and a promotional clip made for the series early in its development cycle. For the special edition of the DVD, Bandai Entertainment loaded it up with more extras than usual-- if you buy the version in the box, not only do you get pencil boards and a booklet, you get a bunch of neat little figurines. Honestly, this stuff is nice and all, but I have to admit that I'm mostly just concerned with the damn DVD.

Galaxy Angel is an unexpected surprise-- a funny, thoroughly pleasant, honestly fun comedy. I wish they'd show more footage of the rad spaceships that each girl gets to fly around in, but I'm sure they'll be getting to that later in the series' whopping three-season run. As it is, Galaxy Angel is an appealing comedy-- it's a lot of fun to watch the Angel Brigade immediately start to use Milfeulle's strange luck as a crutch, insisting on falling back on it even in dangerous situations. The show's mixture of deadpan one-liners, off-kilter situations, and crazed screaming sometimes gives it the same air of sublimely weird comedy as Sealab 2021. Maybe it's not as good as Sealab, but Galaxy Angel is still damn good-- almost as good as a koala bear crapping a rainbow in your brain.

Added:  Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Related Link:  Bandai Entertainment
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Language: eng