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Reviewed by Barb Lien-Cooper Back when I was working at Sequential Tart (back in the good ol' days when it was highly influential), I did a lot of reviews because no one else wanted to do the work of slogging through the leftover review copies which included some very bad comics and graphic novels. I quickly became burnt out from reading so much unmitigated crap. My only joy as a reviewer back then was when I could get my hands on some anime (manga companies didn't send out a lot of review copies back then the way they do now), usually from ADV Films, Funimation, and the Right Stuf (bless 'em all). In fact, seeing how comics were so bad and anime was so good, slowly but surely, a lot of my loyalties sort of switched to the Asian Rim part of the creative world. One of the anime series that changed me from a casual but long-time manga admirer to an active fan was a silly, slight, but very funny little slice of girl power called Super Gals! Um, the exclamation point is part of the title, not me losing maturity points, okay? A "gal" is sort of a sassy, slightly vain, slightly shallow teenaged girl who likes to shop a lot. We don't have an exact corollary in the United States. About the best equivalent I can think of is the whole "Valley Girl" trend of the 1980s. Super Gals (and its source manga Gals) took the whole val/gal concept and turned it on its ear. Instead of the "gal" just being a source of humor, creator Mihona Fujii has made his lead character Ran into a Japanese version of Cher in Clueless. Ran Kotobuki is fierceless loyal to her friends. She's brave and strong. She believes in doing the right thing---as long as she's wearing the right outfit to do it in! So, Super Gals is just the slice of life comedic adventures of Ran, the mediocre high school student who just happens to come from a family of cops (which leads to many subplots) and her increasingly big gang of friends. Um, imagine an Asian version of Archie, but more hip and up to date? As some anime tends to do, Super Gals ended in sort of a funny/odd place, so I wasn't quite satisfied with how things stood with me and the series that always made me laugh. So when I saw that the final volume of Gals was out, I decided to see if it's ending was any different from the anime's. The answer is a resounding You Bet! (Don't mind me. "You bet" is just a running gag from the Super Gals anime.) Now, before I go too much into things, let me say that the art style of Gals itself is a little more busy than I like it. I also have to say that the lettering font was just as busy, which made me think of American comic books, but not in a good way. If the art is busy, the font, to me, should be somewhat plain. Also, if I'd been adapting the work, I think I would have done what I could to have made some of the lines a bit more direct. Now, that's no swipe at the adaptor. It's just, that darned busy art again. You just long for more white space than there is with the work. As to the rest, the manga ends with two stories. The first one is an unnecessary soap opera/medical drama that shows that Mihona Fujii, while excellent with comedy, shouldn't come to the USA and try writing episodes of House any time soon. Medical melodrama just isn't Fujii's forte. The second story, where Ran's brother and best friend finally take their relationship to the next level, is terrific. It's the classic happy ending I'd hoped for; a sweet, sentimental wave goodbye from characters I've liked for a long time. All manga romance/comedy series should end this well! But, as you and I know, they don't always. So creator-sama gets extra bonus points for making a heart-touching, satisfying ending. Am I going go back and check out the other volumes of the series? Nah, I like my anime better. But this ending makes me happy. I'm kind of sentimental, so I'll give this last volume of Gals an A minus. Comment on this review of Gals! v10 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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