The Art of Making a Show About Nothing
by Bolt Vanderhuge

This show in a nutshell.

Just in case it isn’t obvious by now, I don’t really watch “slice of life” shows. I generally like the shows I watch to be about something, and the majority of shows that fit into that genre generally aren’t. It doesn’t help that the majority of shows like this also tend to take place in high school. I realize this is because the target audience of such shows tend to be in high school, but I still don’t get the appeal. When it comes to college-aged man-children such as myself, I understand that there can be a nostalgia factor, but honestly even when I was in high school I tended to be interested in things other than high school. Which is why shows like this tend to be more about the stupid shit friends talk about or do while they’re in high school. Of course, if you’re like me, while some of that can be kind of funny, it doesn’t really stretch very far. Which is why the absolute best thing about this series is that each episode has a run time of less than 10 minutes, which includes the minute and a half long opening.

This show is basically about a small group of friends consisting of a busty, bleach blonde girl called Galko, a grey sweats-wearing otaku girl called Otako, and a creepy rich girl called Ojou, and the pointless stupid shit they talk about in while they hang out together at school. Like how the anus is made out of the same kind of tissue as the tongue, at least according to Otako.

Each episode gives us a brief description of each of the pertinent characters, which usually consists of the three girls, but occasionally includes one of the other minor characters from the same class. Occasionally something interesting is revealed about the characters, though most of the attention is focused on the titular character (heh). For instance it’s revealed that Galko is actually quite innocent in spite of her looks. For example, Galko reveals that her older sister, who is essentially an older clone of her, borrows her school uniform from her occasionally, and is completely clueless about the reason for it until Otako strongly hints that it probably involves sexual role-play. There’s also some humor that’s supposed to be derived from Galko saying some things that come off as somewhat suggestive without her realizing it until afterwards.

Otako is an otaku with a dirty mind and an assortment of random knowledge to the point everyone has come to expect that she’s knows some tidbit of information about whatever topic might happen to come up. Also she pretty much hates everyone and the assorted social cliques, so, so, you know, an otaku. Ojou, on the other hand, is far more intelligent and insightful than her description as an airhead in the opening of every episode she’s in lets on. Actually it’s kind of creepy how she knows some of the things she does about Otako and Galko.

Look into her eyes…

Honestly there isn’t much else that can be said about this show, because, as I said, it’s about nothing. It wasn’t horrible, I guess. I even came to somewhat enjoy it as I got toward the mid-point of the series. It’s all just a bunch of random fluff. Stuff like the girls trying to explain what boobs feel like in class one day which results in one of their male classmates going home and kneading dough while he thinks of Galko’s tits being squished out along the top of his desk. And just the general obsession everyone, including Otako, being obsessed with what Galko’s nipples look like (apparently large, pink areola and innies in case you happen to be wondering, you pervert). You know, typical high school shit. They also save revealing how the girls met and got their nicknames (in case you thought their names were a little too on the nose). That being said, there actually isn’t that much fan service, or at least in comparison to something like say High School of the Dead. Galko ends up in a bikini once or twice, but that’s about it.

Mostly this show was saved by its short run time for each episode, because if they’d been much longer it probably would have gotten boring. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to watch this if my editor hadn’t assigned it to me. I was actually aware of the show already thanks to seeing some other reviewers discuss it, and I’d pretty much dismissed it as the high school shit that it is. I’d actually dragged my heels quite a bit in writing this because I wasn’t even sure what to say about it due to just how little substance there is to it, so I guess rambling on randomly kind of makes us even. wink

If you’re into slice-of-life and high school shit, this show might appeal to you. And even if you don’t have much interest, it isn’t too boring to watch. So all I can really do is shrug my shoulders when it comes to recommending this show to anyone (or even describing how I felt about it).

Maybe Look It Up:

Please Tell Me! Galko-chan
Based on the manga by Kenya Suzuki
Produced by Studio Feel