Bella “Donna”

August 12th, 2014 in Anime, General Reviews by

Bella Donna blog 95

The only thing tougher than being smart as a whip is being the descendant of someone who was the smartest whip in history. Try filling those shoes!

Galilei Donna” tells the tale of the Ferrari sisters, Hazuki (20), Kazuki (17) and Hozuki (13), who are direct descendants of the great Galileo. It is now the year 2061 and the world is in an energy crisis. For some odd reason, the world has declared war on the Ferrari sisters, accusing them of terrorism against a corporation (and we all know how badly mistreated and misunderstood corporations are) and are actively hunting them down to find them guilty and bring them to trial for energy theft. It’s like “Alice in Wonderland”: ‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’

However, the girls have a task, a very special and important task set before them: they are to find the seven sketches that Galileo made of the moon through his first telescope, as there are clues within these sketches to something referred to as the Galileo Tesoro. Well, the evil misunderstood corporation Adnimoon, who are trying to make certain that the world has enough energy, are doing what they can to corral these wild women. The girls are aided by Anna Hendrix, who, right from the get-go, you feel oddly about, and not just because of those jelly-roll curls she sports.

In double pursuit of them all is Cicinho, a space pirate from the group “Black Ganymede”, who also want the inheritance so they can break Adnimoon’s stranglehold on energy and show them to the world for the monsters they are and Roberto Materazzi from Adnimoon, who is as ruthless as they come, carries a dark secret and will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, and that means ANYTHING!

The sisters are able to escape in an aircraft completely constructed by Hozuki in their basement without any one ever tumbling to it. It also looks like a gigantic goldfish. They are now in a desperate search around the world to gather all the parts together and determine not only what is being given to them, but to best the forces of ignorance and greed that threaten to gobble up everything they stand for.

It certainly is an action-packed show, as they are chased by those with better hardware and a longer reach, but manage to elude for as long as they can. There is an odd sequence in the middle, something that is germane to the plot, so it cannot be immediately revealed, but it does seem oddly out of place in the narrative line, since is involves Hozuki only.

It’s just that a lot of the show was telegraphed, so you were aware of things before the cast was, but just not to the depth that you may have initially understood. Materazzi is really cardboard, as a plank of wood could have substituted for him. You want your villains to have some depth and complexity, not just be there to play the heavy. “I am evil, as I am evil.”

It also got annoying that the girls were able to stay one or two jumps ahead of everyone until it was necessary for them to get caught. Once they got the seven parts, THEN they were ensnared. If the task was to make certain they got the parts, why try to actually kill them beforehand? And if we wanted them to die, it could have been easily accomplished numerous times before the dénouement. So, it was at mixed ends throughout the series. And the actual end was a real let-down. I can’t say I was disappointed with the end, but it was a major cop-out. It’s just that things could have been handled better, but it looked like they flung it all together at the end so it would end.
On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork 7 (Backgrounds were sometimes more interesting than the people)
Plot 7 (Just a big chase show)
Pacing 7 (Slows down at the end)
Effectiveness 7 (Too many cliches)
Conclusion 7 (It reaches a ‘coupler point’, but doesn’t really end)
Fan Service 1 (A similar show would be “Ouran High School”)

Overall 7 (Writing could have been crisper)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. Take us out of here, Grande Rosso.


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