Galilei Donna: Storia di tre sorelle a caccia di un mistero

Galilei Donna. A world of that is filled with science and politics, a world in which space vehicles are a common sight in the form of goldfishes. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the series takes place in a futuristic setting. The technology is there. The conflicts are set. And in the center of it all are three young girls with nothing in common except their last names. They are the Ferrari family and no, they don’t come with a garage. Noitamina has always been known to present unique series with all types of tropes. This time, they bring forth a new titleout of their hats with this little scientific adventure. It’s a ride that started out well with the settings, characters, and themes. Yasoumi Umetsu whom is in charged with the directing is often more known for his work in the animation department. Memorable series such as Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, and Welcome to the NHK were all part of his work with his animation style. However this time around, he plays the role of a director. Unfortunately, that role didn’t go in a path of success. Instead, it dropped like a slippery slope faster than Ferrari ride. Essentially, the series blasts off like a rocket. Even the first few minutes of the show is breathtaking with a devastating mecha engagement that puts many peoples' lives at risk. The extravagance of this start will easily have viewers’ eyes glued to the screen as we are curious to see what’s going to happen next. For what we may know, the Ferrari sisters have become targets by kidnappers that seemed to want a bounty on their heads. The Ferrari sisters themselves have almost nothing in common in terms of their intellect levels, personalities, or appearances. What they have in common is the blood pumping in their veins that signifies their ancestry towards a well-known physicist, Galileo Galilei. There’s definitely a legitimate reason why kidnappers want to target them from the very beginning. Although vaguely explained or elaborated, it’s easy to guess because of their ancestry and what they might inherit. But even with this set up, there’s interest because the way the story is set up. That’s what I thought at first anyways. But the tragedy doesn’t stop there. We quickly find out the girls’ lives is no fairy tale. It’s a grim reality because what happens in their hometown changes their lives forever. There’s some odd twists, foreshadowing, but also predictable factors that constructs the story. By odd twists, I mean it in a way that tries to set up a sort of suspense for viewers. While this works out right at first, it takes away the more emotional factors later on in the show with certain revelations. At the same time, it become strange to realize certain characters’ roles have altered greatly from their original set up. There’s also suspense among the characters themselves in regards to what they inherit. For all they know, it’s important. Unfortunately, they don’t know themselves what their kidnappers want from them. It’s a decent set up to a mystery if the show walks on that route most of the time. However, it instead goes on a path involving a travesty of justice involving the ambitions of our antagonists. To make it worse, certain “good guys” in this show turns out not to be so good after all reflecting on an antithesis in their roles. It becomes absurd at certain points with the various plot holes and hard to absorb it in all at once. It's ravaging to see what direction the story will go. Given the previous experience of director Umetsu, he’s trying to create some sense of insanity in this show while creating a sense of mystery. That sense becomes a degeneration later on as there’s just too much to take in all at once. This doesn't also help with the fact with certain supernatural twists added to the series involving a bit of science travel. As the main stars, the Ferrari sisters are the driving force of this show. Their oddly similarly names - Hazuki, Kazuki, and Hozuki have almost nothing in common. Hazuki is the eldest of the trio who has the dream of becoming a lawyer. Taking on the role of the elder child, she is supposed to be the guardian in the absence of her parents. Instead, what do we get? A young woman with high level drinking tendency fused with a wild personality and amazing brutality through the words of her mouth. Kazuki is the middle child that plays more of the cold role. She hides her emotions most of the time although deep down has problems of her own like skipping class. Finally, the youngest of the sisters Hozuki has a strong interest in science. Little do her parents or classmates know that she is behind the creation of humongous mecha. It’s odd since she plays more of a role in action than her siblings despite being the youngest. In this role, she goes against the typical ‘big sister should look out for her younger sibling’. In essence, these trio of girls mostly are isolated from one another despite being close to one another after their reunion. The only time they seem to coexist whole together is when their lives are truly in grave danger. Hazuki does display her role to protect her sisters but often lacks the direct initiatives. It’s only when danger comes the shove is when she takes direct action. To say the least, the Ferrari family is the like the wheels of an incomplete vehicle. It’s missing the steering wheel because of their parents. As far as action goes, there’s plenty of opportunities for that. The scientific inventions in this futuristic worlds sets off a decent balance of motifs and warfare. The mecha designs reflects a style of what futuristic spacecrafts looks like. Taken for granted however is the shape of Hozuki’s choice of vehicles as they take shape of goldfishes. It may be the symbol for peace and hope as their hometown have become infested with bounty hunters. The aerial combat otherwise is played out in a fantastic fashion with added aesthetics. The way the world is crafted also resembles a bit of a steampunk style that paints a more elaborated meaning to the aircrafts. On a more negative symmetry is some of the absurdity of the series. Not only do they open up plot holes with weak characterization but they also creates too much twists. In fact, some of the supporting characters and even antagonists such as Roberto gets more insight. The weakness also deals with a lack of historical backgrounds involving Ferrari’s family. What we get instead is whom they are now rather than whom they were in the past obliterating a sense of relevant characterization. Some other characters also shines more than the Ferrari family such as the flamboyant leader of the air pirate group, Cicinho. Later on, there are also sudden tragedies and violence that comes into play to sent some sort of message. It feels a bit senseless since there are stages of interlude that degrades the overall story. Other times, sudden events feels rushed and makes little sense in essence. The artwork of this show is brilliant with constructed talent. Noitamina’s animation brings out a sense of uniqueness especially with the space vehicles. A1-Pictures crafts the Ferrari sisters’ charms to relevance. The backgrounds is gorgeous along with the gadgets that forges the installation of the settings. The setting also makes sense since it takes place in a futuristic world. The artwork reflects that and conveys it with a purpose. An example is how the sisters looks quite different in appearance despite their blood relations. Most of the characters also has their designs that matches them. The stage of the series also gives off an Italian like feeling with its backgrounds. Fan service is minimal and completely omits the typical onsen/beach episodes so you can save your headaches for those fillers. Soundtrack wise, the show is well balanced. OST is performed fashionably during action scenes. When emotional moments takes the stage, the soundtrack backs it up to convey the tone. There’s also bits of comedy but most of it sets forth a more mystery like atmosphere. The Ferrari sister’s voices matches well that matches each of their characters whether it’s confident, stoic, enthusiastic, joy, or sorrowful. Both the OP (Synchromanica) and ED (Innocent) gives off a feeling of scientific creativity, charm, innocence. Additionally, it creates a sense of unity as we see many shots of the sisters together like actual siblings. So ultimately, how do I describe Galilei Donna? It felt like watching National Treasure with a less emphasis on mystery solving. Because the show defies common sense at various stages, it’s hard to take it seriously sometimes despite the way it started. The characters are hard to get used to at first and some might not ever be in your favor by the time the show ends. There’s a lack of characterization and plot holes here and there surrounded by inconsistency. On the other hand though, the technical aspects courtesy of A1-Pictures demonstrates a superior presentation of the futuristic world that the show takes place in. Some of the tragedies and emotional factors might also hit a nerve for viewers. And being labeled as a show with galactic star wars extravaganza, the action of the series is well performed. So sit back and enjoy that when you witness crafty vehicles and fish shaped ships fire away. Now with only 11 episodes, this show will be a breeze to get through as long as you’re aware to what you signed up for.

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, youhave 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.

“Grand Rosso, start engines!” So, I just finished watching Galilei Donna and I honestly didn’t plan to make a review on this but as I went to add this series to my complete list I noticed the top reviews and it honestly surprised me why this series got so much hate. Since I don’t agree with most of the reviews about this anime I’ll be writing my own with my point of view about Galilei Donna. Galilei Donna’s about three sisters, Hozuki, Kazuki and Hazuki, these sisters are descendants of Galileo. They end up ultimately getting in trouble and become essentially wanted criminals and are made travellingaround the world gathering Moon Sketches left by Galileo with the objective of discovering the Galileo’s Tesoro and avoid the people targeting the sisters from actually getting it first. After watching all the episodes I can say that the plot execution is not perfect, however, it’s not horrid or even mediocre like most of the people around here seem to think, it has its flaws and a few plot holes here and there but it isn’t by all means unwatchable and I’ve watched really really worse things that didn’t get rated as low as I’ve seen around here. Now that I got this out of the way, let’s get to the characters shall we? The main characters, the three sisters aren’t by all means you stereotypical sisters, they’re all really different from each other and all of them want different things. Hozuki, being the youngest, is portrayed as a really pure and nice girl. She’s really good at physics and science, developing the Galileo (the big fish mecha) by herself and her objective was the attaining of the Moon sketches and the Galileo Tesoro. The middle one, Kazuki who is shown to be a really emotional girl that seems to deny as much as possible what’s happening, she also had knowledge on some sort of martial art that she used one or two times throughout the series. And finally we have the oldest sister, Hazuki who was studying law before the incident with the sisters; she’s your typical hot-headed girl who says everything that comes to her mind. Despite its duration, the series is really good at actually making character development of the sisters, Hozuki, for once, starts as a really shy and timid girl but becomes a really solid thinker and strong character towards the end. Kazuki starts off really childish but starts making really mature decisions for the sisters and even cooking for them and eventually accepts the difficult condition that the sisters are in and finally Hazuki who also shows some development throughout the series, she starts as really hot headed girl who I honestly thought to be kind of annoying but she becomes this “shield” to the sisters, trying as hard as she can to protect them from any harm. I don’t know if it’s just me, but these are the major changes I noticed over the course of this anime regarding to the sisters and I think that one of the objectives of the series was for the psychological growth of the sisters as their journey to find the moon sketches and the Galileo Tesoro occurs. These changes are also really gradual and hardly noticeable from episode to episode. As far as the art goes, I can say that one of the things that I liked the most about this series was the art, it was honestly superb, the characters were really well drawn, the art was colorful and solid, the mechas also were really fluid with nice animation and the backgrounds were simply beautiful. The sound was also not bad at all, both the OP and ED are catchy and the BGM is also blend really nicely with the scenes but since the sound if not really my specialty I might be a little biased here, but overall I think it was good. In sum, Galilei Donna is BY NO MEANS a bad show and with the little time it had it managed to bring a decent story with characters that get new mindsets as the show progresses and that also brings a really nice ending with not much questions unanswered as far as I can tell. If you’re looking for a quick show with decent plot, interesting and diverse characters, one badass of an antagonist and colorful and gorgeously designed mechas then recommended you to check this one out; it’s also relatively short so it won’t take you much time to actually complete it. Thanks for reading.

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 doingthis 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