Gal & Dino

The (2nd) last of the COVID-delayed shows, AND REALLY, WHAT A DISASTER for this to be postponed, because this half-anime, half-live-action show is continuing director Jun Aoki's record at producing one-of-a-kind special and incomparable GOAT shows of the 21st Century (along with his studio Kamikaze Douga), with the cooperation from the same team that did Pop Team Epic over at Space Neko Company of hilarious short skits and stop-motion animations. Based on Moriko Mori's short manga about a gal who accidentally picks up an unexplanable Dino and doing daily comedic slice-of-life elements, all you need to know is that these two really hit it out ofthe ballpark, and let those daily communions drive you nuts with the everyday lives of "Gal and Dino". You don't just watch this show for the gyaru Kaede, her best friend Yamada and boyfriend Shouta, but for the exhilarating blue Dino, whose expressions can go from being smitten through animated and IRL discoveries to pure "catastrophes" of situations that wrecks Dino time and time again, all while eating its favourite food: cup noodles. All of these simple, yet entertaining timeless comical hilarities, you won't get it anywhere else other than here. As if I did not know any better that watching Pop Team Epic's masterpiece of a whack-ton of various styles of animation would become the norm (and prepare me for another masterpiece in a span of 2 years), Gal and Dino might as well re-affirm my sentiments of the same variations of identifying future Jun Aoki/Kamikaze Douga works, and it's still GOAT, no questions asked. But due to COVID (of which you can easily figure out WHICH part got axed), sadly this show joined some other concurrently airing Spring 2020 shows, only to resurface by future seasons. Coming back to the Fall season mid-way was even less of a consolation, because this show also had its audience, but COVID stripped the anime masses away, to the point of "obsolescence" with the resulting barren of a wasteland. It's all for people's safety, and a much needed precaution, so that's an essential thing. "G-A-L, with DI-NO-SAUR! Age-age-age Agemizawa~~~" I'd swear, these trippy OSTs always gets me going abuzz and bopping along with the music, because it's THAT entertaining feel like we're part of the song (at least for the OP, although we're just weirdly watching this IRL and can only act like a weeaboo when no one's watching). The ED with Ryuuko Takahashi's "Peaceful Days" is no slouch either, bringing the entire feeling of the show to a close altogether in a calm and collective position. In a nutshell: If you feel like most comedy nowadays are getting old, throw away your old ways of perception, dedicate your time to watching Gal and Dino, and give it the stamp of "definitive masterpiece" approval. Don't try to understand it, but experience it for yourself.

Gal to Kyouryuu initially presents itself as a faithful adaptation of its manga counterpart: a series of relaxing animated shorts of a gyaru who met with and took home a dino. With the source material itself being rather short, it receiving a full-length adaptation (as opposed to a 5/10-minute short) is rather curious indeed. And at the halfway point, when the live-action segments begin, and you are greeted with Mieharu-san. The second half of the show is a live-action segment that is incredibly surreal in nature with branching timelines, mysterious tomes, and weird celebrity guest cameos. It's also about a gyaru and her Dino (originally anold man and his Dino). While occasionally disjointed and strange, this incredibly surreal series still manages to tie into the main themes of the original source material about the relationships of a gal and her Dino, albeit in a very roundabout fashion. Every week I sit in anticipation for the next unpredictable moment of the show, and the Covid-19 pandemic just made the waiting even more unbearable. And at the tail end of it, even if the resolution wasn't what I wanted, I still felt something inside me as Mieharu-san parted with Dino so it could have a better life with Kaede. Not to discredit the animated segments as well. You also get the occasional variety-esque sections with guest animators providing short scenes of the Dino in various (grounded) scenarios that keep the show fresh. And the actual adaptation is fairly well done in it of itself. While it wasn't what I expected, I'm glad to have experienced this one of a kind of show to its end. To say any more would be to spoil its many surprises. So long as you have an open mind to anticipate the unexpected, you'll be treated to one of the most original and wildest shows of the current generation. 8/10

Gal and Dino is a delightful little show with a strong main dynamic that it builds off of and makes for a fun time all around. Its a simple premise, a broke gyaru gets really drunk and then somehow brings home a dinosaur. Her and the Dino live together as basically roommates and we get to see their daily lives as Kaede (the gyaru) learns more about her strange new roomie. Its a very silly idea that makes for a surprisingly healthy and chill dynamic between the two and makes for a strong foundation for the show's stories to be told! I think my favorite partabout their relationship is how nonchalant Kaede is about all of this. She just treats Dino like any other person and tries to be considerate of them and understand what it likes. And Dino just kinda chillin in their apartment and learning about the world while also being very sweet in a well meaning naive kinda way. It really ends up with Kaede and Dino knowing enough about each other where they can casually talk to others about what they like and I think that makes for such a genuine feeling and fun central character pairing! The other side characters are overall solid and support the show well. Shouta is Kaede's ex who's desprate to get back together with her and its kinda pathetic, but Dino likes him so she begrudgingly puts up with him to make Dino happy. xD He ends up being a nice guy but was the side character I was least into. Reika is just a chill friend of Kaede who likes hanging out with her and Dino. And Nanami is Kaede's coworker who's sincerely awkward interactions with Kaede were entertaining. They aren't super complex characters by any means but they don't have to be. They compliment the main dynamic really well and I think they add nicely to the show! The thing that really put this show over the top for me was the multi media approach this anime has. It feels like the artists on this anime had so much fun messing with Dino in so many different mediums of animation! From traditional animation, to many different styles of 3D animation, to stop motion, even to live action, there is so much experimentation with this anime and it gives the fairly simple characters and story so much interest! In fact that simplicity is what makes Dino such a great character for a show like this. The fact Dino is so simple and easy to draw allows the animators to mess around with them and interpret it in so many different ways with different mediums! I absolutely love this show's standard style of animation as well. With its eye candy colors, solid lines, and shifting line art color based on where the light is, it makes for a very unique and striking visual style that is very fun to look at! All of the animation is really cool and enhances the show a lot for me. The sound design was also excellent, especially for Dino in the animated half of the show. Dino, being mute, can not speak and only talks through body language and facial expressions. This makes Dino a really expressive character and how Dino reacts to things without being able to speak is where a lot of the humor can come from. Because of this the sound design of how Dino moves and expressive themselves is very important and I think the show nails it! Dino's movements sound very bloopy and a lot of the effects they use almost sound like some retro video game sounds. This really adds so much personality to Dino and makes them very expressive even without saying a word! Most of this review so far has been about the first half of the anime, the animated half. Just as importantly, the second half of the show is completely live action with real actors and a person in a bigass derpy Dino mascot costume. This part of the anime has a distinctly similar yet different vibe to the rest of the show. It starts of much more chaotic and strange than the first half with some intentionally bizarre lore shit going on which I found very funny. xD But as that dies down the tone of the live action bits becomes much more similar to the first half of the show, if a bit more absurd, which I don't mind but I found to be a bit boring. There also seemed to be random ass cameos from what I can only assume to be Japanese celebrities??? Maybe internet celebrities? I have no idea. They just like show up to do silly dumb gags out of nowhere which I found hilarious without knowing the context of who these people are. Intentional or not I laughed really hard at some random Japanese dudes just showing up and doing skits. xD Another quirk of the live action segments is how they do the sound design on Dino. Instead of the gamey boops and blips of the main animated segment, they use like lightsaber sounds, rubbery balloon sounds, and air horns at different pitches??? Its a strange directing choice but it gives live action Dino a unique identity. Makes me wonder if live action Dino and animated Dino are the same character from different timelines ;000 One other minor thing about this anime as a whole is that its very 2020. One segment is framed like a YouTube video, one gag was about video calls (this was produced during covid19), social media as a minor focus in general, lotsa modern slang and such. This isn't necessarily a bad thing to be apparently modern but I do find it interesting and wonder if it will date the show for future audiences. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this anime! Its very unconventional and strange ,but it has a lot of heart and that unconventional side of it is what makes me like the show so much. Absolutely worth a watch if you are a fan of unique animation or down to earth slice of life silliness with an absurd premise! Such a fun show -v-

“Do you like funny anime? Do you like good jokes? Do you want to feel like you have spent your time well? Well, then I have some anime suggestions for you! Nichijou, Kill Me Baby, and Jashin-chan Dropkick. Gal to Kyouryuu, or Gal and Dinosaur, is not one of those anime.” This is how I started my review of Gal and Dinosaur back in April of 2020, however, now I feel that this is too harsh and unnecessarily mean. Now, I didn’t have this sudden realization that Gal and Dinosaur is good, but it is above the 2/10 I was going to give it allthose months ago. Quite a few of my opinions still hold firm, such as the humor and editing are akin to a C-tier modern Cartoon Network show than what many people think of as an anime. My opinions that changed were the story is fine instead of terrible, the art is okay instead of awful, and the music is oaky instead of unbearable. Honestly, I also kind of enjoyed this anime more than I did back in the spring. Really, Gal to Kyouryuu isn’t bad, it’s just not to my taste. 5/10. The story is limited. Really, it’s a slice of life where Gal and Dinosaur are followed around doing whatever. The first half is animated and the second half is live-action, which is largely disconnected from the animated part. These live-action segments are simultaneously funny and cringy. Honestly, I think a silent comedy would work a lot better for this anime, and this might even make the show more enjoyable for me. The sound in the anime is very weird and off-putting. There are random sound effects that sound like lightsabers and airhorns in places where they just don’t belong. Some may say that’s the point. That the whole show is meant to be random and meant to be watched with your brain turned off. Now that’s fine, but it bothers me nonetheless. Moving on from the sounds to the OP and ED, I have to say I kind of like the OP and ED. There have been times when I was at work or a boring lecture at university when one of the songs played in my head, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy them. The art in the ED is nice, but the art in the OP is just random images with Dinosaur somewhere in them, and I think that is rather lazy and should be stepped up for an OP because this is one of the first things people see going into an episode. Speaking of the first things people see, the sole image of this show on here is terrible. The perspective is all wrong and it looks worse than one of my 12-year-old cousin’s drawings. The art in the show is fine. It doesn’t make me stare in awe like Made In Abyss does, and it doesn’t make me want to go blind like The Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath of the Gods does. The characters are nothing special. They are just stick-puppets that the story flows through. They have bits of personality sure, but a few little bits can’t support all the characters in the story. I kind of enjoyed the whole Gal to Kyouryuu, but it wasn’t good. I don’t hate this show. In order for me to hate this show, it would have to make me slightly worked up. If someone were to tell me that they really liked Gal and Dinosaur I would just shrug my shoulders and say something like “Good for you man, or, I’m glad you like it so much.” When I watch Gal to Kyouryuu I feel like I’m watching a modern Cartoon Network show with my cousins. That being said if you like modern C-tier Cartoon Network shows you will probably like this anime too. In the end, the story gets a 5, art and sound a 4, characters a 5, and enjoyment a 6. For a final score of 5.