Sleep Is For the Weak

PG-13 for teenagers and all their bad behavior; official series website (Gals! manga); official series website (Super Gals! anime, season 1, although the ADV site sucks) and official series website (Super Gals! anime, season 2, and the Right Stuf site is awesome)

It’s GRRRRRL power…for trendy Japanese schoolgirls involved in risky peer-2-teen choice behavior. In the first, very special episode of the anime, we learn the importance of not selling your body for money.

This series is fun as hell. The main character, Ran, is a kogal, aka a follower of the modern Japanese clothes-and-attitude style that smacks of Enraged Rainbow Bright. Her parents and older brother are all cops, so she embraces her street life as her precious outlet for teenage rebellion, and her fervor elevates her to the top of the kogal pyramid. She spends her afternoons terrorizing the locals with sheer GRRRL and teaching her friends the value of self-respect and ACCESSORIZING.

Super Gals!/Gals! isn’t as good as the brilliant Kodocha, but it has a similar appeal. The series is…a little?…like an after-school special, since it ran in a magazine for elementary/junior high girls and includes lessons about independence and self-motivation – but it’s definitely not corny, and Ran is quick to complain if the mood gets too lame. As of the first few episodes, the series isn’t that feminist, since the boys are often treated like arm trophies or pack animals (and feminism means equality between the genders, people), but it’s all pretty harmless, and I can tell that the boys will be more important later on. I’ve read a bit of the manga as well; I think the series is better-suited to the animation medium, though, what with the bright colors, impromptu dancing, and screaming teenagers.

Initial impression: Worth a try. (Lianne)

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