I’ve been told that it may have got a six, but it’s selling like a ten. That’s to be understood when it becomes clear that Kandagawa Jet Girls is a fan service show. It’s content created and designed specifically for a target audience, in this case young males, with an emphasis on the female form, and just the merest hint of relationships between its roster of female characters. Once you establish that as your goal, it becomes a matter of hanging a story off it, and Kandagawa Jet Girls is competently done, creating a sport of jet-ski racing, ridden in tandem, with one girl steering, and the other shooting at other teams with high power water cannons/pistols. Click on the review to see why this is one of the fair fan service shows.
This Week I Have Been Mostly Rewatching...
Gosick. I absolutely love this show, but it’s criminally hard to get hold of. Gosick is the Japanese pronunciation of Gothic, which informs the style and presentation of this compelling mystery show. It’s set in a fictional European country in 1924 during the interregnum between the two world wars. A Japanese transfer student encounters a society torn between the superstitious world of the past, and the world of science that is on the rise. Ostracised somewhat by his superstitious classmates, the only friend he makes is a doll-like blonde girl, similarly ostracised, who resides at the top of a library tower, relieving her eternal boredom with the books, and whatever mysteries come her way. With her china pipe, she’s a Gothic Lolita Sherlock Holmes, and he becomes her eager, and often put upon Watson.
There are plenty of really well constructed mysteries to enjoy in Gosick, but it’s also a very well-realised period European setting, and a delightfully idiosyncratic society caught between the past and the future. And as the prospect of war encroaches, the show takes on a great political edge, which gives the story an epic feel. But above all, Gosick is a nigh on perfectly executed love story. And it’s never been released in the UK. I had to import the Region 4 DVD release from Australia, which is in Japanese only, using the Crunchyroll subtitles, as so many Australian exclusives of the period did. Here’s my review of Part 1. It’s deleted now, which means you’ll have to be a better detective than the main character to find a copy. However, Funimation in the US subsequently released the show on Blu-ray, albeit locked to Region A, and they’ll have given it a new translation, and a dub as well. I eternally hope that it will get a Region B release, as it’s one of the best anime shows of the 21st Century so far.
MVM will release Kandagawa Jet Girls on Blu-ray next Monday 31st of May.
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