Super Gals #1: Gals Gotta Have Heart ADV 125 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles Released: 09/16/2003 Reviewed: 11/08/2005

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I think it's prudent to assume that my readers don't have much insight into the workings of Japanese culture. The kind of people that would be majorly obsessed with the difference between the "-San" suffix and the "-Chan" suffix aren't exactly the type of fellows who would glean a lot of useful information from my intelligent, well written and humorous anime write-ups. They're more concerned about getting their life-sized Belldandy hug-pillow thing than watching me spew my vitriol all over the screen. So I'm going to clue you in on something. In Japan they've got this whole thing you might not know about. They call it "kogals". These girls are superficial teenagers that make it their purpose in life to acquire the finest clothes and accessories. They're identifiable by the ridiculous physical traits they adopt. Stuff like excessive tanning, retarded press-on nails, and, for some inexplicable reason, loose socks.

Now, since it is very difficult to obtain these things on the (non) salary of a high school girl, many of these young ladies will turn to the practice of "enjou kosai", or compensated dating, which is basically a pleasant way of saying 'whore'. By no means does any compensated dating affair require sex, but this is much like saying an escort is just there to provide a man company for the evening. Technically this may be true, but the general populace sure as hell doesn't believe it and it's not the end result that forty year old virgins would prefer, given they had the option to choose.. So somebody in Japan got the bright idea that the subject of kogals would make a great TV show. Of course they had to tone it down, because parents might get a little up in arms about a show where materialistic sixteen year old girls defied their parents and (possibly) sold their virginity to the highest bidder on the Japanese eBay. In this show kogals are heroines of justice, role-models, and would never think to dirty themselves with a man just so they could get the latest Guchi bag.

 

Unsurprisingly, anime has lied to us again. The three characters in Super Gals!, led by the inimitable Ran Kotobuki, are paragons of good attitude. They are only defiant towards their parents in ways that are appropriate, such as not letting themselves be muscled into unwanted career paths or having fun when they should be studying. Certainly none of them would even DREAM of giving up sexual favors to a thirty-five year old businessman over a pair of shoes. I suppose this isn't all that different than the dozen animes where a shy, subservient thirteen year old girl is held up as a perfectly acceptable choice for love and dating. All the same, I'm really not sure that making a subculture that, at its best, is shallow and morally bankrupt (and at its worst, perverted and illegal) out to be the heroines of our time is really productive. A show like this is aimed specifically at the age range of girls it portrays and younger. And, well... I know if I was living in Japan I wouldn't want my daughter to even act like one of these girls, even if they are watered down versions of the real thing.

I would not say that Super Gals! offends me, but it is excessively stupid. I just can't see the attraction in watching a sixteen year old girl pursue a (chaste) relationship with a guy ten years her senior. Isn't there something wrong with that? What happened to the times when anime was all about boobs and stuff blowing up in that wonderfully benign 80s way? And the only kind of sex was with demon girls who had spider vaginas that bit you if you tried to have sex with them. I can't keep up with these new trends. I think I'd rather go back to a time where Mamoru Oshii was making stories about airplanes turning into giant fish than watch another five minutes of this. By the third episode I was firing up WebSudoku, and that's never a good sign. Though Super Gals! narrowly skirts the stuff that makes ACTUAL kogals bad news, that doesn't make it any more interesting to watch. In the end the show is just another lame lie about life in Japan. But it sure does have some good theme songs.