Bandai takes a break from their usual serious anime shows with the release of the humorous Galaxy Angels, a series of 15 minute shows involving a group of five female galactic agents.  Their trials, tribulations and mishaps are all here in these first seven episodes.

The Galaxy Angels are a special military unit that is charged with finding lost technology and helping out wherever they can. That often means walking dogs and running errands.  This comedy show set in the future has a good mix of comedy and SF action.  The episodes on this disc are:

1. Resort-style Angel Preparation:  While staying on a resort planet, Forte and Ranpha, two of the Galaxy Angels, have the oh so important job of finding a cat.  They meet Milfeulle, a young girl who has incredibly good luck.  A good introduction.  This sets the tone for what's to come.

2. Gamble Milfeulle Sauce: Forte and Ranpha take all their money and parlay it into a small fortune at a casino.  Unfortunately the crooked manager cheats them out of their winnings and puts them into debt.  To pay of what they owe, the two officers have to become female wrestlers.  But when  Milfeulle shows up, their luck begins to change.  You can see the ending from a mile away, but it's still a fun show.

3. Vanilla Flavored Asteroid Trash Stir-Fry:  All five Galaxy Angels, including the newest recruit Milfeulle, have to clean up an outer space trash dump while looking for lost technology.  Vanilla, the enigmatic member of the group, finds what they are looking for, a sentient missile, that's still armed to explode.

4. Assorted Angel Fruits Shipped Direct:  The president of a large construction company hires the Angels as bodyguards.  He has been receiving death threats and he needs someone to protect him.  One of the weaker shows on the disc.

5. Pirate-style School Memory Terrine:  An old dying man hires the Angels to return his elementary school ID card.  But it turns out the school is located in the Enigma Sector, the haven for pirates.  A very touching episode, my favorite one on the DVD.

6. Forte's Ruinous Stew and a Dash of Trouble:  Looking for lost technology on a deserted planet, Milfeulle finds a cute, cuddly little mouse.  Something that cute could never be a biotechnological weapon, could it?  Another solid show.  Not the funniest, but enjoyable.

7. Fun Park Specialties with Chicken Mint Compote:  Three Angels Milfeulle, Vanilla and Mint, are assigned to investigate a series of kidnappings at the "Cock-a-doodle-doo-wop-doo Fun Park."  They dress up as the park's mascots to fool the kidnappers.  There's a lot of fun in this show.

A lot of humorous anime is totally wacky, like Excel Saga.  Galaxy Angels has a lot of humor, but never gets really silly.  The plots are all straight forward, and with no unexplained  bizarre happenings half way through to get a laugh.  I really appreciated that.  While I really enjoy a lot of crazy anime, it is nice to see a more sedate show every now and again.

While the show is not laugh-a-minute funny, it does have many humorous parts that kept me chuckling.  Milfeulle's extraordinary luck in the first two episodes were the comic gems of the disc.  I especially liked how the cheating roulette dealer received his comeuppance.

After viewing these first seven episodes, I'm not sure if there is much continuity in this series.  After the first three episodes, all of the main cast has been introduced, and the other four don't contain much of a overall plot.  These last four shows do reveal some details about the main characters backgrounds and history, so they could be setting the foundation for a larger story, but it seems unlikely.

With this episodes running under 15 each, there is not a lot of plot build up.  They jump right in and get the job done.  Each episode seems to center around the punch line at the end of the episode, which isn't bad.  If drawn out to a half hour show, this program might have seemed dumb.  But at a lean and mean 15 minutes, they are great fun.
 

Like most anime DVDs, this disc lets you watch the show in the original Japanese with optional subtitles or with an English dub.  In switched back and forth each episode, and found that I enjoyed both sound tracks.  I have a slight preference for the Japanese, but only a slight one.  The English voice actors did a good job.  They managed to match their dialog to the mouth movements, and didn't use any phony accents.  I've really been impressed with the higher quality of dubs over the last year or so.  If you've previously written all English language dubs off as inferior quality hack work, you might want to revisit them on some of the more recent releases.

In both languages, there was some use of the front soundstage, mainly with sound effects.  The sound quality was very good, with a nice full rounded sound, especially during the opening song.  There was a good amount of bass present, and the dialog was clear and crisp.  No evidence of hiss or hums.  A nice quality sound track.

Video:

The video quality was also top-notch for this DVD. The colors are bright and the lines are crisp.  There was only a slight hint of aliasing and other digital artifacts present.  Hardly worth mentioning.  The fine lines on the characters did not shimmer and disappear like they do on some discs.  I was very happy with the look of these shows.

The Extras:

They have some fun extras on this disc.  In addition to trailers for four shows, and a textless opening, there is a three minute promo clip.  It presented the characters and showed some of the more impressive animation.  It also described the series, which was really strange, because the description doesn't match the show very well.  There is no hint of humor at all, and it plays up aspects that are glossed over in the actual show.  It mentions that the Angels each have a unique fighting ship that they pilot, which is never mentioned at all in the program.  I'm not sure if they changed the focus after this clip was made, or if it was a joke to trick potential investors or what.

There was also introductions to each of the seven shows under the title "Now I get it!  GA Lectures."  These were one minute pieces where voice actress Ryoko Shintani who plays Milfeulle fills in the background to the show while dressed in a Galaxy Angel costume.  There is no English dub on this bonus.  They are in Japanese with subtitles.  These were obviously done in one take, because Ryoko messes up several times.  But she seems to be having fun with it and is laughing much of the time.  I thought these were fun and was very glad they included them on the DVD.  I only wish there was an option to play them automatically before each show, as they were originally shown.
 

Final Thoughts:

A nice show, funny and yet interesting.   The only problem I had with Galaxy Angels was that there didn't seem to be an overall story arc, just a series of gag shows.  Even without the continuity, this is an enjoyable show.  Recommended.