Galilei Donna

Put simply, Galilei Donna is an abject failure, a complete trainwreck of a show, and by merely reading this review, you have already wasted too much of your life on it. The show's premise seems full of promise, a complicated post-environmental apocalypse world with megacorporations and sky pirates and the ever-encroaching threat of complete energy collapse. Add to this main characters with pluck, and a story that concerns itself with a major historical figure, and you have something for everyone, be they fan of moe, mecha action, American Treasure-style clue-following, or a projection of what our world might become. All in theory. In reality, you ... have two meaningless protagonists next to Hozuki, who is one of the most dreadful mary sue characters I've seen in a professionally written work, and who doesn't even have the common courtesy to be adorable while doing so. You have mecha that show up rarely, and work so hard to match the bizarre obsession with goldfish that it ruins what little interesting design it had come up with. You have "clues" that literally boil down to an AI telling them where they go next, without even real sight-seeing eyecandy to show for it, before they just stumble over the next piece of the puzzle. Plus, we spend the entire show in either a strange version of Italy that's basically just like Japan with silly outfits, a Japan which is just Japan with a little extra snow, or the middle of a desert. None of it's pieces fit, none of the promise is delivered upon. Even the protagonists themselves have no real character development, with the non-Hozuki protagonists being actively ignored by the plot, to the degree that one receives literally no plot arc, and the other having an arc that consists of staring longly at a picture, being shunned wordlessly, and then throwing away the picture. The primary antagonist's hitman receives more character development and backstory examination than every other character combined, and frankly, I'd much rather have watched a show about him. The only even barely likable character is Cinciho, a sky pirate, whose primary trait that makes him amusing is being voiced by Hiroshi Kamiya.

Simply put, the story and characters are complete crap, the art ranges from below average to passable, and the only high points are a couple of musical pieces and the aforementioned sky pirate. To cap off this abortion masquerading as entertainment, the entire work is based off the creators mistaken belief that Galileo was actually Leonardo Da Vinci. 2/10, and may God preserve us from any additional content within this work.

For this, my first ever written review for MAL, I decided to pick a series for which I had zero expectations going into watching the show. That is, no familiarity whatsoever with the source material (this is a TV original, so no issues there), or with the production staff or writers or any other personnel. This was a series I picked up "blind" at the start of the season and finished when it finished.

So just how did Galilei Donna end up being? If you want the short answer, it would be to both anime enthusiasts and casual watchers alike, “don’t bother.”

But I wouldn’t be doing ... this right if I didn’t go into further detail. Let us go through the various aspects in order and then summarize at the end.

The Story

Three sisters who are alternate-history Galileo's descendants, Hozuki, Kazuki, Hazuki learn of some kind of long-lost treasure of Galileo's and realize some evil energy corporation is also after it. After a rather violent disruption to their daily lives, they are forced to go on a journey to try to search for clues as to its identity and location before the evil company and some sky-faring pirates get their hands on it. So far, so good. It's a rather generic-sounding fetch quest or mystery/adventure story, but it has some potential in the right hands.

Unfortunately, the execution of the story is absolutely abysmal. It's like the writers thought the series needed a "treasure" mystery for the adventure to even occur in the first place, but all they were looking for was some kind of somewhat urgent situation with which to burden the delicate character of Hozuki such that she could look sort of moe while working her child-prodigy engineering magic (more on that later).

Whereas a classic mystery/adventure formula features (reluctantly or not) daring protagonists (again, more on that later) on a journey to solve some kind of puzzle by finding clues, and struggling against being set back by misdirection or other various conflicts, in Galilei Donna the pervading sense is that the story merely was an excuse to get the girls from one perilous action sequence to another with the "sketches" of Galileo as some kind of checkpoint.

Not once did I ever sense any kind of concern as to where the location of the next checkpoint would be, or what kind of puzzle they would have to solve to get their hands on it once the location was identified. In fact, in one particular instance, they randomly and inexplicably land in some far-off location I have since forgotten for reasons I didn't pick up on, and a strange hobo hands them a clue because he happened to have it.

And then it all concludes in the most inane, drama-less courtroom drama that I have ever seen onscreen. After giving us an entire show featuring about three girls on the run from an evil corporation and sky-pirates that clearly have very few scruples about killing or destroying to get what they want, the writers have the evil corporation arrest the girls and put them on trial...for stealing some of their precious energy source from them. Huh?

Note to writers: If your genre is mystery/adventure, put some mystery into your adventure, and have the climax of the show feature some kind of mystery-solving or at least a climactic battle for a long-lost treasure, please. It doesn't really count as a story if the protagonists accidentally stumble from clue to clue as though they were predefined checkpoints along a linear path, and then suddenly show up in a courtroom to defend themselves against a corporation that would probably just have killed them, anyway.

Throughout Galilei Donna, I am sorry to say, I was continuously baffled by the inexplicable sequence of events that followed one after another with barely any thread of plot stringing them together. Story: 2/10

The Art

To be honest, Galilei Donna was mostly a pleasure to look at. While a lot of the scenery was fairly generic, which made it seem like the writers did painfully little Google image searching for pictures of Italy, the action sequences were well-animated, and the character designs were unique and pleasant enough for this kind of show. In particular, Hozuki’s (Hocchi, Hocchibi) design was a high point.

In addition, the weapons, missile/rocket spam, the usual blingy computer displays, explosion effects, and other noticeably 3D-animated sequences were pretty well-done. This contributed to the general sense of fluidity and competence in the action sequences, of which there were plenty.

For the most part, the visuals delivered. However, there were a few very puzzling decisions that I could not shake off for the entire series, namely, why does alternate-future Italy look so Japanese, and more importantly, why was everything a fish?

These rather irksome questions were enough to cause me to actually laugh when I should have been riveted to the screen watching air-to-air missile combat during tense dogfights. Instead, what we got was...fish-fights? What?

In conclusion, this was a competently produced and animated show, with some odd design decisions that fell rather flat, and others that had some amount of charm to them. Art: 7/10

The Sound

The voice-acting in Galilei Donna was mediocre to decent. In particular, the three main girls had some decent amount of differentiation, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say they really had “personality,” but good enough. The minor characters were all reasonable well-acted as well, with relatively little “ham” or overly-dramatically delivered dialogue, except possibly for the sky pirate Cicinho, whose penchant for calling Hazuki “bambina” grew old very fast.

The opening and closing songs did their job and didn’t get too much in the way. Though I still remain puzzled as to their relation to the actual content of the series, they were competently sung and decently composed songs. I had no qualms about either, but they didn’t really stand out to me either. Sound effects in general were perfectly adequate, as were backing music tracks, but once again, neither particularly stood out to me.

A competent showing but not a particularly outstanding effort from the sound department. Sound: 6/10

The Characters

Unfortunately things get really bad when it comes to the characters. Though it is easy to nitpick over the incredibly lackluster cast of villains and side characters, in the interest of time and space, I will focus on the protagonists.

Hozuki, Kazuki, and Hazuki are, respectively, an unfailingly cute child prodigy engineer, a rather pessimistic and grouchy teenager who...complains a lot, and a college-age law student (which, as you know by now, really only matters a single time at the end of the show). The girls are part-Japanese, which seems be the case simply to give the writers a convenient excuse to have the main characters speak Japanese and visit Japan when they feel like it.

Supposedly, this show is about their adventure together and the relationship between these sisters who don’t seem to get along very well. So by the end, they should have grown both personally and interpersonally; that is, as individual people and in their relationships with each other. Well, it is certainly true that by the end of the show they got used to living together with each other and their companion Anna Hendrix in a cramped (but surprisingly stable and comfortable-looking) flying goldfish.

However, do not be fooled.Although we are treated to occasional squabbles over trivial matters in life aboard a flying goldfish, and then occasional moments where the evil corporation, pirates, or other struggles force them to work together, never do we really see their relationships advance. Instead it seems that, simply by virtue of having been through some troubling times together, the sisters now know each other somewhat better, and have decided that they really are a family. Aw...that’s so...touchingly obvious?

Well, whatever. I guess lack of relationship developments is all right so long each character has some kind of depth or personality or internal struggle she has to work out. Unfortunately, this is not the case either.

Hozuki doesn’t really have anything to her. Beyond being an adorable pre-teen with genius-level engineering skills, there is literally no depth to her character. She doesn’t even have an internal struggle to make up for it, unless you count “missing” her ancestor Galileo.

Kazuki, much in the same vein, is an angsty teenage girl, and that seems to be her entire character. I guess there is some unrequited crush or something but this is never really explored, just literally tossed aside at the end (symbolism!!). Her entire character seems to exist to complain about what the other two girls are doing.

Meanwhile, Hazuki seems to struggle with being hit on by a space pirate...oh, and I guess she’s the eldest and has some responsibility or something. Too bad doesn’t really have time to shoulder all that responsibility until the courtroom drama sequence and she...well, gets saved by her parents anyway. Sigh...so much for that.

Flat and uninteresting personalities, complete with generic and boring character concepts leads to a pretty dull cast. Characters: 2/10

Enjoyment

Well, you might have already sensed that I didn’t enjoy this show terribly much, and you’d be right. It was entertaining, mildly, to see this trainwreck of a show (shipwreck? fishwreck?) play out, all the while holding a glimmer of hope that something really astounding might occur to turn the show around. And, I guess it wasn’t an eyesore or too hard on the ears.

Still, though, “not annoying visually or audibly” is not enough to actually say I enjoyed something. If maybe I had cared for any of the content of the show, I would have enjoyed it more, but really, this was a vapid, forgettable piece of animation. Enjoyment: 3/10

Conclusion

In conclusion, some technically strong points lead to a watchable show that unfortunately has little to nothing in the way of content. This is a classic example of a show that tried too hard in all the wrong ways to be original or surprisingly, and ended up really just rehashing some clichéd story with some wooden characters, and then dressing it up in a different outfit or something.

Overall: 4/10

Note: This is not spoiler free. Particularly, all the plot elements of the last episode are discussed freely as a point criticism.

This series has become a staple of my anime repertoire as the perfect example of how good setup can end up in massive disappointment.

It started out incredibly promising. The potential for the development of the three Galileo sisters fulfilling their different niches in their relationship while undertaking an arduous journey ultimately proved unfulfilled, however.

In fact, the only character explored out of the trio was the youngest, Hozuki, who arguably had the least room for development. Rather than playing to the strengths of the two ... elder sisters, Kazuki and Hazuki, it was played on top of a romantic frame between her and her ancestor, Galileo Galilei (thanks to a time traveling plot device that was never explained), making her entire character not only mediocre to watch, but even a little weird.

Here especially, the faults of the show become apparent. The two older sisters were, for all intents and purposes, completely useless. After being introduced in the first few episode, their characters remained stagnant and bland.

Kazuki, being shown doing martial arts in the opening sequence (or was it the ending?), and performing a take down of a much larger man in the early episodes, was never developed along these character strengths. Instead, she remained as a voice of disagreement and home-sickness against the other two, stronger-willed sisters. At the most, her development consisted of a short sequence showing her phone breaking and her finally giving up on her romantic interests towards a character that was never shown for more than 5 minutes in the entire series. I'm not even sure what this was supposed to represent. Her newfound pride and respect for her family? Were we ever supposed to care about her love interests in the first place - so much so that we viewers were expected to feel some sort of emotion during the final episode where he rejected her and viewed her as a criminal? If so, the show failed miserably in this aspect.

Hazuki, on the other hand, is quickly presented as a sort of justice compass for the group. It is also here where she remains throughout the story - simply pointing the direction to the very obvious 'right' choices. We never see why she had such strong emotions towards the idea of 'justice' nor the reason why she'd let her schooling career nearly fail. She simply just is, with no context, the way she is. Honestly, the most important thing she did was bring Anna into the picture.

Ignoring the rest of characters, who all have varying degrees of unexplained motivations, we finally get to the series finale. This episode can be summed up in three words: Deus Ex Machina. We see the mother reveal her faking her amnesia. We watch the friendly sky pirate reveal himself as their senile old lawyer after taking off his facemask. And finally, we are left stunned (in a bad way) as Roberto shoots and kills his father for literally no reason. And that's the series. The final episode perfectly summarizes everything you need to know about this series in a 20 minute package.

Granted, as it was originally plotted out to be twice the episode length, perhaps many of these faults were simply due to the lack of time. This however does not excuse the poorly written story - there have been plenty of excellent anime that have filled out an eleven episode shell.

If there is one good thing I have to say about this series, it was that the art and scenery were colorful, delightful, and solidly above average.

At first, it looked like a light spot of fun with the addition of awesome airships to spice things up. So, three sisters are going on a quest, pursued by an evil corporation and some colourful pirates, right? "It's fine", I say, "it's normal for anime premises to sound a bit goofy, and the universe looks like it has great potential". So I decided to give it a chance, in the hopes of some good fun, drama, character development and all of that jazz - indeed I got my hopes up in such a way as the show progressed: At a point, it looked like ... the characters were set for some interesting exploration and evolution individually and collectively. Moreover, I was impressed by the tone of two adjacent episodes in the mid-point in which things became pretty serious all of the sudden with some new, darker themes introduced. I believed I might have found a hidden gem, that the sisters' relationship and personalities would be explored satisfyingly, that I would be fearing for their safety in crises and filled with good feelings when they succeeded. Yes, I sensed the tendrils of that goosebump-worthy anime magic that can bump up my ratings of any series creeping their way around GD.

Yet none of these ever happened. The show didn't reach nearly as far or as high as I had hoped, and the bad aspects that were apparent near the beginning only inflated towards the end, snuffing out any magic that might have been had. The characters fly around wielding plot armour and using lazily frequent mechanical hocus pocus, the dialogue gets dull, whilst ridiculous or boring events become the show's bread and butter. Interesting character developments are dealt with in only the most rudimentary and unsubtle manner, and once Kozuki is done it would be generous to say that they slow to a trickle - including one of the most mediocre villains I've ever encountered in anime. The plot and story all but collapse in the final three episodes, culminating in a conclusion devoid of pacing, drama, intensity, emotion, depth or anything that might carry the viewer with it. GD never sets out to be funny, but combined with the above defects it doesn't really have much going for it sadly, just a kind of watered down, lukewarm averageness.

Alright, maybe I'm being a bit harsh. On the technical side, you'll be able to expect a fantastic OP which was a pleasure to watch each time, with the rest of the score and ED being pretty decent. The expressions and animation are decent, while the costumes and mechas are a noticeable strong point. The main strength of this show are the pleasant, positive moments between the characters that surface quite often, as the dark ones are quite rare. They're simple, and in no way exceptional, but they keep the show together and make it somewhat enjoyable on a basic level. And yet, when I think about other shows that I've given four stars and how much I enjoyed them in comparison, the overall result comes a bit closer to a 2 than to a 3 star rating for me. I can see why people might enjoy it, but if you don't like the idea of investing a good amount of time in something that turns out to be kind of dull, I hope you find my feedback helpful. Whatever the case, I find this all a big shame because it's clear that the people who worked on this gave it an honest go to make it worthwhile/special, and if they happen to bring out an OVA, I'll give it a fair chance.

4/10