bartell.kade - 2015-09-27 00:14:20

[Old review is old.]

Any effort of investment in Galilei Donna’s ridiculous premise will only be met with an unfathomably stupid endgame. How far one has to stretch their mind to take this thing remotely seriously in unimaginable, though not impossible considering the reception of popular airing anime nowadays. Some little things do work here and there, but the final piece is as cringe-worthy as it is scatterbrained.

If you want to see how much you can handle, see how far you get in this synopsis. In a futuristic Italy, we open on three sisters being pursued by a bunch of different people. Their aim is to acquire a lost family treasure called the Galileo Tesero, since the sisters happen to be the blood descendants of Galileo Galilei himself. After deciding not to give into the demands of the parties chasing them, the three sisters band together and escape on a massive mecha goldfish built by the youngest sibling named Hocchi. Pursued by the energy company Adni Moon, as well as a ragtag group of pirates, the sisters traverse the globe in their massive flying goldfish in order to look for clues to the location of the Galileo Tesero. Will they outrun their followers? Will they find all the moon sketches containing clues to the treasure? Will they cooperate with the Galileo-obsessed assistant that’s tagged along with them? Will you be reaching for the booze by the time this is over?

The silly content we start off with is bad enough, but really the show’s just getting started. First off, despite forced repetition, I have a bit of trouble accepting these three Love Live rejects as the descendants of Galileo. I also have a tough time believing that this preteen was able to acquire complex mechanical parts, modify bones old blueprints into a futuristic mecha design, and construct said goldfish mecha in a warehouse where nobody could discover it, as well as conveniently get it working in time for when the plot needs it. Now sure, it’s anime and anything goes and characters designs can be whatever anyone wants and imaginative plots can be executed easily, but at what point do you realize that this story could only be created when a historian, an otaku, and a toddler fuse minds?

Beyond the premise, it doesn’t help that the show executes it extremely poorly from beginning to end. Establishing the main conflict with the Tesero and the ongoing search for the scrolls is a nice skeleton, but the following plot is a mixture of downtime segments and rocky encounters with the bad guys, while the clue discoveries are always squeezed into the last minute of each episode. Hocchi’s magical mechanical abilities aren’t built up beyond a bunch of devices to make the plot go faster. Cliches like getting used to the goldfish ship, distant sisterly bonding, connecting sudden clues, and villainous attacks and swift retreats felt rushed and unoriginal.
The pointless one-shots and standoffs add to the constant sidetracking of the main goal, and are always replications of generic drama found throughout many average anime. I may be hopeless in doing so, but every once and awhile there were scenes with fine writing, like a few subtle character insights via pure artwork, or some of the worldbuilding. In no way are these qualities worth dealing with the surrounding clusterfuck, but pointing them out is kinda my job here.

The list of idiotic twists and unbelievable asspulls only gets longer in time. The scriptural problems converge with the evolving silly premise, culminating in an entirely mindless third act. The developments pulled from thin air are no longer relevant as a massive blur of infantile writing and desperately swift explanations for strange elements to quickly wrap up the plot all result in a legitimate contender for worst anime finale. Nothing is effective or meaningful anymore, only a mass stream of confusion from the viewer is certain to combat the ridiculousness happening onscreen.

While not as embarrassingly dreadful as the plot, the characters aren’t anything to praise. The three sisters are rather straightforward in their personalities, never venturing further than one general attitude. They do have a chemistry together, which at helps that sisterly bonding sub-theme that the show fails to build in the background anyway. They have their own reasons to act, which creates some passable drama in that category. Other characters were predictable and shallow. The entire arc of the Galileo enthusiast who follows them was easy to guess from the minute she showed up onscreen. Bonus points in the annoying department was the main villain for AdniMoon; an emotionless, one-faced, super-serious bad guy whose character gimmick is that he makes paper cranes all the time, like it’s his payment as some contractor from Darker Than Black. He did nothing for me despite being the major threatening force and all. The rest of the cast falls in the same categories of annoyance or lack of depth, so the character department doesn’t elevate the show enough to tolerate the absurd plot.

The anime does the little thing where the animation is good in the first episode, but dies down in quality to just plain boring for most of the show. Backgrounds stayed fairly consistent throughout (and show nice imagery of the unique world), but character animation and effects dropped noticeably by the time the story ends. We can’t take in the mecha designs and their decent 3D renditions properly since the cinematography and lighting are so poorly handled too. I already mentioned the idol-esque designs, but it’s obvious that the crew were really pushing to sell their pretty faces with underwear shots, bath scenes, and this one shot in the opening where Hocchi emerges from a pile of rainbow wrenches and plier as if they were fucking flower petals. Despite these complaints, I can’t discredit an effort to display the passable sci-fi setting, or how they managed to blend the character designs with the rest of the art well enough so that they didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Overall the art is okay, making the jarring content a bit more bearable to witness.

The lazy music job ranges from completely generic background tracks to ridiculously cheesy fanfare, partnered with the typical catchy bumpers that sound like they were sung by the pop idols in the show set to pretty visuals. Upon release, the show doesn’t have a dub, though I’d pity any licensing company that would attempt to properly localize this anime anyway. The Japanese voiceover is fine, albeit grating, but nothing too massive to whine about.

The only real reason to devote time to Galilei Donna is to experience everything it does wrong, culminating in the hideous ending. Even if you can take the initial plot semi-seriously, the finale would be such an unexpected curveball that it could throw any possibility of liking the show. Perhaps the Elfen Lied approach to bask in the absurdity of it all is your best option, although the inconsistency between horribly boring writing and hilariously stupid content prevents even that. So what can you take away from this in the end, aside from Galileo Galilei now having a waifu, too?

Galilei Donna (2013):
3.2/10

altenwerth.michel - 2015-01-20 21:45:35

Predictable story and boring unoriginal plot i would NEVER watch this again

wfadel - 2014-02-02 10:43:26

I don't really understand how people can marathon shows. A one cour (11-13 episodes) series is over pretty fast. You never get that time in between episodes to think about its world and its characters, let it sink in and give you a chance to miss it, or get more immersed in it.

Well, it doesn't really matter that much in Galilei Donna's case. This was probably the closest I've been to marathoning something, finishing the 11 episode show in only four sittings across three days. But, like I said, it didn't matter too much, because I watched it quickly so I could move on to something else, and here's why.

It's not that I hated Galilei Donna or anything, but it just didn't do much for me. Unlike Danganronpa, which started off pretty interesting but became more flawed and silly as it went on, Galilei Donna wasn't particularly gripping. I was considering dropping it and watching something else by episode three, but since I'm a nice guy and generally don't like dropping anything, I gave it some more time and ended up watching the rest.

I guess I'd better tell you about the anime itself, before I go on. Galilei Donna follows three Italian sisters, each descendants of Galileo Galilei (hence "Galilei" Donna), a historical figure known for his scientific work. Look him up if you want to know more.

These three sisters are Hazuki Ferrari, the oldest, a university student studying law but not doing particularly well, despite her strong sense of justice, Kazuki Ferrari, a moody-broody high school student, and finally our main character of 13 years, Hozuki Ferrari, a reclusive mechanical genius who seems to have inherited all of Galileo's brilliance. Together, after being attacked by a shady organisation, they set out find a lost treasure called the Galileo Tesoro, before the bad guy can get his hands on it.

It is set in the approximate future where hover cars and giant mechas, almost all with designs curiously based on fish, are the prime method of travel and war. Because of the ice age that is currently plaguing the Earth, certain resources necessary for power are being consumed at an alarming rate, forcing Adni Moon, a possibly shady organisation (wink wink), to capitalise the market.

Hozuki, who as I mentioned is a mechanical genius, builds over the course of three years a hovercraft/gunship modeled after a goldfish, completing it just in time for the series to begin. It is in this craft that the sisters travel the world to find sketches of the moon left by Galileo that supposedly lead to the Tesoro. Problem is, I just didn't buy that a 10-year old could start working on a big ship/mech like this. This was the first of a few more suspensions of disbelief I couldn't pull off, unfortunately.

It looks fairly nice, done by A-1 Pictures, our friends who did Sword Art Online, and the character design is pretty reminiscent of that, with Hozuki looking a lot like Yui and Kazuki looking a bit like Sugu, with a more modest bust. I had no problem with that art style, and it still looks nice enough here.

Soundwise it's pretty standard. The only thing that really stood out for me was the opening, and it's just alright. I like the drums at the beginning and the visual of the sisters running on the Moon was cool.

My problem with Galilei Donna is that it has a pretty basic, predictable premise. It's sort of like National Treasure without Nicholas Cage and with less thought put into it, stretched out into a series. Between a couple of plot holes, conveniences, illogical character developments and just generally weak characters overall, Galilei Donna is pretty mediocre.

It's a shame, really, because I think with some more episodes and better writing, it could have been decent, but I suppose you could say that about anything of this quality, really.

There is one moment in episode 5 that shines for me, and that's about it. Despite playing things pretty safe with the storyline, there was a scene that did make me sad, and I'm glad it was there, despite the subject matter and the emotions it elicited, because it made Galilei Donna just a little better.

Huh, I don't really like writing negative reviews.

ciara.corkery - 2013-12-27 02:29:14

That's it? Seriously, that's all we get? After watching the last episode I get the feeling that I finished a show whose ambition was a lot greater than its total budget.

I really wanted to like this show: a group of three sisters who are bound together by a common ancestor (technically, one could say that at least half of modern Italy "descended" from Galileo Galilei, but fine, I can suspend my disbelief) searching for a legacy that apparently contains the power to change the world. Throw into this mix a rag-tag band of sky-pirates, a powerful European energy corporation, a self-proclaimed Galileo otaku and a stone-cold hitman with his own mech who keeps folding origami cranes, you have the makings of what could be a great story.

I was willing to put up with a lot of plot issues, like Hozuki somehow surviving a three story fall onto a bunch of rusted scrap metal thanks to magical medical NANOMACHINES, the part where a rich dude would choose a crippled child from an orphanage to raise into a hitman instead of someone with all four limbs, even Kazuki being borderline-useless after the first two episodes. After all, there was a sense of adventure, of a family learning to overcome its issues to work together while three different factions were chasing them down, and Anna having to choose between her job and her newfound comraderie with the group. Dare I say, I was actually having fun watching this show.

Then suddenly it all ended in a Phoenix Wright type of episode. The "Galileo Tesoro" that everyone spent so much time trying to obtain? Hozuki shrugs her shoulders and says she can build a new one. The flashback about the hitman? The reason why he was folding all those origami cranes? Who cares, just cut off his storyline in a 10-second bit near the end. The vaunted sketches that they risked life and limb to obtain? Turns out they were just a love letter from the past.

I swear, this series was in my top 5 for the season, if not the year, and then *poof* it disappeared in a cloud of smoke. "That's what you get for thinking this show was getting more than 11 episodes, sucker!"

Should you watch it? Yes, if you can deal with a small, yet potent amount of plotholes. Just be warned that the ending will be a serious letdown, and there is no way around it.

okon.wilmer - 2013-12-26 03:19:27

As always, my reviews are spoiler free.

Every anime fan knows that there comes a point, usually about a minute and a half into your first episode, that the time has come to suspend all disbelief. I shouldn’t need to explain why, what with the massive variety of strange plot points, characters, and subjects that the anime medium covers. Some of the best anime of all time are those which get most outside the box.

That being said, I sometimes get a feeling that an anime is really struggling to find ideas. I usually get my hints at this when I read the plot in the season chart and actually start laughing. This is how I was drawn to Galilei Donna; a well-known studio like A-1 producing an anime about three sisters in search of a magical artifact made by Galileo while being chased by an evil organization in a world with flying goldfish mechs. I knew that I had something special ahead of me.

Story - 4/10

Creativity is a good thing, even when it gets a little bit out there. Just look at the paintings with the eyes drawn on the side of the heads worth more than a lot of people will ever make in their lives. Somebody out there must really like that kind of crazy stuff.

One of these people wrote Galilei Donna, or at least that’s my best guest. My next best ideas were writing the plot on a napkin drunk in a bar, scrawled in blood on a wall in a bad acid trip, or perhaps thrown together literally days before the deadline came about. Why? Because the story of Galilei Donna is weird, and not in a good way.

Three sisters living in Italy are the apparent descendants of Galileo (but part Japanese because of rampant xenophobia; get it together Japan), and when they are attacked one day, they decide that they must track down the sketches which will lead them to Galileo’s inheritance, which is some kind of unknown treasure that everyone and their brother wants although no one knows what it is. The sisters are chased by pirates, evil organizations, and the police all while traveling the globe to retrieve these sketches and stay one step ahead of their pursuers. This is accomplished by Hozuki (a common Italian name I’m sure), who is a mechanical prodigy, building a giant robot goldfish with no one’s knowledge. I could get into how the design of this mech is part of a significant time paradox the show stumbles into (but that’s spoilers; I’ll come back to that later).

The story is actually very simplistic at heart, essentially being a catch-me-if-you-can treasure hunt. There are a number of small problems such as the setting, which is some bastardization of ancient and future day cities (a bit like Aria, but done poorly). In fact, much of the time they are lazy with their setting and end up in barren wastelands, likely to save the amount of work going into production.

While the setting is just a minor complaint, the bigger issue is the “Because I said so (hereafter BISO)” element. Why are these sketches going to lead to us to the treasure? BISS. Why is this treasure so important, and why are all these organizations suddenly after it? BISS. Why am is the big bad villain so evil and the pirates flipping sides every other episode? BISS. We now have a shaky plot on a shaky setting, which is occasionally interrupted by strange and completely out there (and that’s saying something with Galilei) plot twists, such as suddenly going back in time (resulting in some nasty paradoxes for the watchful viewer). All these elements combining is like trying to build a house of cards out of wet toilet paper, and it all comes tumbling down tumbling down tumbling down…

Oh. My. God.

Animation - 7/10

The animation in Galilei Donna is the work of A-1 Pictures, who have a track record for good animation despite not having an especially distinctive style. While I dislike CG in anime, and there is plenty of it here, it is well done enough not to be too distracting. The actual animation is very “moe” in style, especially for the mascot character Hozuki, and is fluid throughout, even in the fight scenes, CG and otherwise.

However, the backgrounds are often bland, and it is noticeable that nearly all of the scenes involving large amounts of action take place in desolate areas, minimizing the amount of extra background work. The backgrounds in general are relatively weak as well, but not at all detracting. While not necessarily a problem, it is a noticeable corner-cut to save budget.

Sound - 6/10

Aside from Synchromania, the very catchy opening, there is not much to say about the soundtrack. Adequate is a nice word. Maybe “fitting.” In any case, not notable in any way whatsoever.

The voice acting is done well enough, with some good voice actors and actresses behind most of the characters.

Characters - 3/10

If there is anything blander than the backgrounds, it’s the lead characters. The three leads are Hozuki, Hazuki, and Kazuki. Hozuki is the main lead, and the mascot of the series. Gifted with mechanical ability, she builds the goldfish mech used throughout the series and often pulls out inventions just in time to save the group. She has little personality other than being the typical “hard working good girl” and no real character flaws or development is presented throughout the series. Even worse are Hazuki and Kazuki, who are the “hothead” and the “my life is suffering why does no one understand me” archetypes, respectively. Not only is there no character development in the series, they are given very little personality to start with outside what you are fed in the first 5 minutes.

The sides exist more as plot devices as than characters and suffer from the same “Because I said so” woes as the plot. The lead villain has no personality and essentially no motivation, the pirates just want the treasure but spontaneously switch sides once in a while because of their leaders love for one of the sisters, and the sisters’ parents disappear after the first episode, and despite playing an important role in the plot near the end, I forgot they existed until then.

The only positives I can really say here are that they fill their rolls, in much the same way that someone takes your order at McDonald’s or takes out your trash on Tuesday. It doesn’t really take much skill and it’s not impressive, but it gets done all the same. These characters take the story to its (lackluster) conclusion just fine, so I guess they pass… sort of.

Enjoyment - 6/10

Despite these massive inherent flaws, I was able to enjoy Galilei Donna far more than I expected. It is poor in both story and characters, but doesn’t take much brain power to process the plot and the animation and action is enough to keep you watching. Luckily, this series was only 11 episodes; that mas plenty to finish the story, and any more would have shined even more light on the flaws in Galilei Donna.

The final verdict is that Galilei Donna can be considered a very odd yet average anime that will likely soon be forgotten. I went in with no expectations, and therefore I wasn’t really disappointed. If you don’t mind some mindless and campy fun, Galilei Donna is only 11 episodes, and it is easy to see early on whether it will be something you consider worth your time. Give it a try if it sounds interesting to you, because without expectations or heavy analysis, there is some fun to be had in it.