Get ready for Valley girl speak, Japanese style in Super GALS!

Super GALS! V.1, GALS Gotta Have Heart! V.2, Never Break a GAL’s Heart! V.3, Ran Loves Shibuya! V.4, Look Out! Love is Dangerous! V.5, It’s Okay to Have a Change of Heart! V.6, A GAL’s Heart Never Stops!
TV series (26 episodes), 2001. Director: Tsuneo Kobayashi. V.1-2, five episodes/125 minutes; v.3-6, four episodes/100 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: A.D.V. Films.

Dude! Are you ready for 26 half-hours of concentrated Japanese high-school GIRL talk?! Super GALS! plunges you into the latest (as of 2001) hanging-out street scenes for guys and gals around Tokyo’s super-cool Shibuya shopping district. This swinging, hip-hopping girls’ comedy was presented on Japanese TV with frequent “GAL lingo lessons” to translate the latest girl talk for any Moms who might be watching, such as “ganguro” = a “tan-face” girl with the face covered with light-colored makeup; and “kara-mara” = a karaoke marathon. There are extensive liner notes for American viewers describing in more detail some of the cultural activities that big-city Japanese high-schoolers will be familiar with, such as “‘Subsidized dating’ is a relatively recent phenomenon, where school-age girls agree to ‘accompany’ older men in exchange for expensive gifts and money. It’s not quite prostitution, not in the traditional sense, as the girl isn’t expected to do anything except hang out with the guy... usually.”

Ran Kotobuki is a wild 16-year-old first-year high school student; the despair of her straight-laced police detective father and older brother Yamato who is a rookie cop at the neighborhood police station. Ran, with her bleached hair, mini-skirts, uber-long fake nails, platform shoes and exhibionistic attitude, is determined to be the GAL of all gals. Yet despite her low grades and contempt for authority (“Gee, teach, I couldn’t do my homework ‘cause I was abducted by aliens!”), she is sensible where health and personal safety are concerned. She is loyal to her best pals Miyu Yamazaki and Aya Hoshino, and helps them with classroom and home-life personal problems.

Ran is also a self-appointed one-GAL protector of any Hounan High girls (even her rivals) against boys or older men who try to go too far with them, as well as acting as Cupid to help a romance between Miyu and her brother Yamato, and counselling the emotionally-frail Aya whose parents’ determination to make her study 24/7 to get into college is driving her towards a nervous breakdown. But is Ran too busy being Shibuya’s No. 1 “kogal” and a Big Sister to those who need her to look out for her own future?

Super GALS! Kotobuki Ran is a frenetically-paced romantic comedy featuring cutely-drawn gals and GL (good-looking) guys in bright settings that segue from realistic to exaggerated pop-art styles reminiscent of Yellow Submarine or South Park. It ran on TV Tokyo for 52 weeks, April 1, 2001 through March 31, 2002, although A.D.V. is only releasing the first 26 episodes at this time. Production company Studio Pierrot is well-known for its sweet “magical little girls” TV series aimed for a younger audience. Super GALS! shows that the studio knows how to appeal to the teen set, too.

Fred Patten has written on anime for fan and professional magazines since the late 1970s. He wrote the liner notes for Rhino Entertainment’s The Best of Anime music CD (1998), and was a contributor to The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons, 2nd Edition, ed. by Maurice Horn (1999) and Animation in Asia and the Pacific, ed. by John A. Lent (2001).