“Is It True That Butts Are Culture?”
What They Say:
Galko, Otako and Ojou are a trio of unlikely friends in high school with three very different perspectives. Each episode embarks on a day in the life of a trendy girl, an otaku, and a lady, as they discuss their “girl problems.”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With some good fun the last time around as the show focused a bit more on Charao, giving us more of a boys point of view of things, it helped to shape things in a good way. While the focus on the girls and their view of things has been a big plus, getting a look at them from a different perspective offers up some new ways of looking at them. We get a little bit of that at the start here with the opening prologue as one of the boys ends up in a part of the school where he shouldn’t be as the girls are getting changed in the storage room since the lockers are unavailable. It’s not that he sees anything bad, but he does get to see them in their swimwear, which even for school swimwear is pretty revealing as most swimwear is regardless of type. His view of them, and the way we see them in natural mode here, is definitely nice.
This episode works a few different areas when it gets back on track with more of what we usually get, which has us seeing Galko from another young woman’s perspective, one who is very much an introvert and has a hard time doing things in public. So seeing her watch how Galko is just blunt and confident, almost unthinking of how it could be problematic, is fun since the view of her is somewhat on target but not. It’s a matter of perceptions and that’s always fun to tackle since one of the main objects of the series is to show that there are many sides to these characters – and Galko in particular. She can be viewed in a basic way but there are a lot of layers to peel away depending on your perspective.
Part of the fun is just in the diversions the show takes and we get that with the discussion about the history of toilet paper – which actually has some solid scholastic elements to it in concepts of privacy and culture. Where the show shifts to is the girls going for a sleepover at Ojou’s place and we get to see how Otako packs and plans, showing her to be the cautious one thinking of any situation. Of course, her view of what Ojou is like is hilarious and horrible and even she admits it. It’s fun to see Ojou’s place and the movie they watch but also just the way these three are so good together in how they have fun and enjoy each others company. I also really, really, like that even as a montage sequence they change up their clothes a lot so that it’s not just the same stuff over and over.
In Summary:
Galko-chan again runs the gamut of different stories and they all work on different levels bit by bit. The show deals heavily in perceptions and this episode is one of the stronger ones for it with what it wants to do. While not everything clicks and some of it is a little comically force as you’d expect, the end results are solid and fun, making for a very enjoyable episode. Just taking a look at the cast from different points of view as opposed to the usual Galko aor Otako points of view shakes it up more than enough to let you approach them all from new directions. And, of course, there’s plenty of silliness and sexuality mixed in as well.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
