NOTE: Written after I watched all episodes.
Oh Galilei Donna, I had such high hopes for you at the beginning of the show--original series featuring the character designer of SAO and by A-1 with a focus on European history? Sounds pretty different from the majority of the shows that aired in Fall 2013, no? Alas, a flashy opening and bright colors can't really save the convoluted, mess of
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NOTE: Written after I watched all episodes.
Oh Galilei Donna, I had such high hopes for you at the beginning of the show--original series featuring the character designer of SAO and by A-1 with a focus on European history? Sounds pretty different from the majority of the shows that aired in Fall 2013, no? Alas, a flashy opening and bright colors can't really save the convoluted, mess of a plot that this poor show ultimately turned out to be. I mean, I wanted to like it--I really did, but by the fourth episode or so, I started noticing a bunch of "really obvious" red herrings (hello, wasn't it obvious that Anna was, y'know, NOT on their side??), and failed attempts at making us sympathize with sorta-bad-guy(?) Roberto didn't make things better. In fact, not only was the plot extremely confusing after a while, it was incredibly rushed towards the end as the sisters just seemed to fall into the "find one sketch/side story per week" cliche, and then it all culminated with the bizarre "Hozuki goes back in time and meets Galileo" and then bringing all back up together in ONE episode. The worst part was, throughout the entire series, there seemed be very little character development--bad plots I can take, but when I don't even care about the characters, that's when I start kicking it off my queue. Out of all the sisters, Hozuki is clearly the most focused on, but even by the end she started to get on my nerves. I never really warmed up to Kazuki, the grumpy middle one, and Hazuki just seemed kinda...there. Many side characters, especially the sky pirates, were totally shafted in terms of screentime and development, which basically pushed them from "supporting" down to "minor" characters.
I was surprised this show was not slated for a continuing second season, because boy, I think it would've benefited from it a lot more. There were too many plot elements that were never explained or had to be left for the audience to infer, which really frustrated me. What bothers me the most is that they NEVER give you an exact explanation for just exactly what the hell the tessoro is, and why it's so important, let alone how it's going to solve the world's ice age crisis. When it first activated, I couldn't decide if it was science or magic, or some weird combination of both. And then the show just fell from there.
I think the core problem is, aside from being too rushed and not explaining things well, is that ultimately this show has an identity crisis: it can't decide if it wants to be a action adventure with a mystery twist, or a family bonding adventure. Instead, it tries to cram in as many elements as it can, but fails to really develop in one direction. In fact, I think I would've liked it better if the show had simply been about these three sisters learning more about each other while going on this quest to find Galileo's sketches. Oh, and cut out the weird tessoro blingy/magic crap too; I definitely could've lived without the whole Hozuki-Galileo-ancestor-decendent incest weirdenss.
On a final note, there are a few things this series did do okay: it definitely looks gorgeous, and the music is good, and the final episode kinda answers your questions and has some feel-y moments, but not enough to salvage the series. In fact, if you just want to know what the series is about but don't want to torture yourself, I'd say you can just watch the first two episodes and then the last one and that's the series in a nutshell.
The only reason I didn't give this series one star is solely for the goldfish A.I. Yeah. Grande Rosso. I think he was the only reason I slogged through this mess week after week.
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