Rolling☆Girls

The first two episodes of Rolling Girls are an explosion of light and colour, leaving the viewer wondering what sort of show this wacky, crazy and interesting thing is going to be. The answer is: not a whole lot. Rolling Girls never lives up to that original promise. The story decides to focus on entirely different characters than the premier, introduced in about the third episode. It jumps from city to city, introducing characters but never spending enough time with them for the viewer to actually care about them. The Rolling Girls themselves, Nozomi, Yukina, Ai and Chiaya spend most of their time failing to achieve,well, anything. Now to explain the art rating. Man, this show is pretty, and the duel animation is a thing of beauty. Every background is a watercolour-style painting that gives the show an interesting atmosphere. Unfortunately the rest of the show is something of a letdown. The writing basically backs itself into a corner, and the show goes out with a lot less of the energy it came in with. The end of the story leaves you going-or at least, it left me going-"Wait, what?" The show had some okay arcs, but on the whole it was something of a flop.

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW** Rolling Girls is what happens when you sell out. It’s the embodiment of relinquishing your own vision and creativity to ensure that your product sells rather than ensuring its actual quality. This anime is a great exemplification of the profit-over-quality mindset that has plagued the anime industry with its indistinguishable moe garbage for nearly a decade. Now, I’m not being so hard on this show because it’s the worst offender of lazy moe-blob entertainment, but because it has the structure and budget to be something that’s actually good, yet consciously chooses to be something stupid and generic instead. That, to me, is theultimate offense. You Rolling Girls fans probably want me to elaborate after that seething intro, so let’s jump into this: Synopsis: In an alternate reality, Japan is split into a multitude of factions, each of which is controlled by one or many moe-blobs. Hijinks ensue. After watching the first episode or two of Rolling Girls, you might be fooled into thinking that this show has an actual plot, actual characters, and a fleshed out setting. Well, don’t be, because this anime has none of those things. The only imaginable reason that you could enjoy watching this show is for the flashy animation with no rhyme or reason behind it and the copious amounts of moe. It’s the epitome of mindless entertainment. Now, that’s all fine and dandy if the show was honest about what it is, but it isn’t. Rolling Girls tries to convince you that it develops a coherent story and legitimate, multi-dimensional characters when it so obviously is not. The whole idea of Japan being split into factions seems like a cool and imaginative idea, until you realize they are merely using it as an excuse to change the show’s setting and supporting characters every episode or two. Following a largely episodic style, characters come and go before you’ve even committed their names to memory, much less their personality or motivations. Every single subplot is incredibly shallow and pointless, and ends in the same place that it began. To reiterate, NOTHING of significance happens in this show; there is no coherent plot, no matter how hard it tries to convince you that there is. The only reason to watch it is for comedic, moe hijinks, which you can get in so many other shows without the deception. The characters, as you might expect from a moe-blob show, are completely one-dimensional, boring, and indistinguishable. They all have the exact same sense of humor (which, again, is moe) and even the exact same face. They are completely uninteresting, unoriginal, and zero-effort. However, yet again, the show will try to trick you into thinking they are more than that. The first two episodes strongly indicate the backstories, motivations, and personalities of the girls will actually come into play at some point. Needless to say, they don’t; this is a plotless comedy show and nothing more. The one and only thing that Rolling Girls deserves praise for is its bright, colorful animation. When they actually decide to animate something of note, this show is absolutely beautiful. Fantastic (though seldom utilized) choreography combines with vibrant colors to really pop off the screen and make you want to never look away. This is really the only reason to watch the anime, as it goes quite well with the whole theme of mindless entertainment that the show has. The soundtrack is pretty unremarkable, as the opening is a pandering idol-girl sequence and the OST is bland. The voiceacting is your standard series of moe quirks and not memorable either. In short, is Rolling Girls a bad show? Not necessarily, but it certainly is an uninspired one. It can be actually funny at times and the colors are pretty, but when it comes down to it, there is no reason to recommend this show over any other moe-blob comedy; especially when many other shows do the comedy part far better and don’t pretend to have depth to their plot and characters when they actually don’t. I do not recommend Rolling Girls, though I can see how people would enjoy watching it.

Rolling Girls came into the scene with plenty of promise. Following in the path of the widely known Kill la Kill, Rolling Girls, with a variety of vivid and artistic colors had a fair amount of potential to become the next big thing. But does it live to the expectations? Not quite. Set in a period where all the territories and districts inside Tokyo are divided and ruled by various people, the first glance you'd get from Rolling Girls is a positive one. If you just started this anime you're in for a good ride for the first couple of episodes as Maccha Green, the"Best" for the Tokorozawa district is up against Kuniko Shigyo who's the "Best" for Higashi Murayama. The fight scenes at the start is extremely cool and stylish with great aesthetics and a wonderful art style. However, it only lasts for a couple of episodes as after that the show clearly loses its charm. After the fight, both Maccha green and Kuniko get injured and are unable to defend their own territories and thus Nozomi, a "Rest" and a substitute for Maccha Green's squad, sets on a journey to various districts and places in place for Maccha Green and search for the heart-shaped jewel, which is believed to give power to the one who wears it and thus helping them to get stronger and be a "Best". The greatest asset for Rolling Girls is its art, without a doubt. Following the trait of that of Kill la Kill, Rolling Girls uses an extremely unique, elegant and an exaggerative art style. The way the characters are depicted is truly beautiful and the backgrounds which match that of an oil paint art, is pleasing to the eyes. As the show progresses further, Rolling Girls gets very boring and tends to be repetitive with our girls going from place to place. And as a result the plot seems to be all over the place but the one thing that kept me hooked into it was certainly its aesthetic visuals. I really hoped to see more of Maccha Green and the next fights she would encounter but that was quickly thrown away into the water as the show focused a lot more on Nozomi and her friends that she makes in the way as they travel from place to place. The development for each of the character isn't progressive too as they vie for the stones that would make them stronger but instead mostly end up causing a mishap. Perhaps another redeeming factor for Rolling Girls is the soundtrack. The opening theme is catchy and gets inside your head quickly and also with wonderful visuals. There are several tracks inserted into each of the episodes and it perfectly suits the scenario. The art plus the soundtrack of this was a good enough reason for me to keep watching Rolling Girls. Rolling Girls tries to be adventurous and wacky but eventually fails as the show progresses. It had all the things you need to turn it into a good anime, but not a good plot. I really tried to enjoy this show for what it had but alas if the core of the anime itself is bad then there's no way I could. This doesn't mean Rolling Girls is a horrible show, you may easily come to like just by its superb art style and visuals. I could only wish for a second season but it ends on a note where it's pretty satisfying and shuts itself down so there's little chance for it...

SPOILER-FREE (I try :p) Just a disclaimer, I can see what the other reviews refer to, lack of story and sucky plot, etc. However I feel like the most important part of Rolling Girls was the character development, which I have not seen covered in the reviews I have read. This series might not be for everyone; those who like a plot intensive series will not find it here (there is a plot but each episode more or less has episodic plots (a plot may extend to 2-3 episodes along with the main plot that is barely there except for the last 3 ep.). Many maycompare it to Kill-la-Kill (i did until i got 3 ep. into the series) however those who like klk may not even like Rolling Girls (but i digress) Back to the main point, I feel like this series should be judged mostly on what it claims to be. ACTION: Looking at the genres, yes it is slightly action however action fans may be slightly disappointed at the lack of fights throughout the mid-part of the series so I would down mark that, say..5/10. The fights that ARE there are actually pretty well drawn and eye-candy. If the series were to have had more fighting scenes, those that like this genre would enjoy this series quite a bit but sadly it is lacking for it to be tagged Action :p ADVENTURE: "Adventure fiction is a genre of fiction in which an adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, forms the main storyline" According to this definition, Rolling Girls is accurately placed into the Adventure genre. They travel all throughout divided Japan risking their lives as reps for the Best of the heroine's hometown. Can't argue much there. 8/10 SUPER POWER: Now here comes the interesting part. Super powers are shown all throughout the series. The Bests are the ones with the fantastic shiny powers while the Rests are our everyday common folk. This makes up a big part of our plot (which is pretty lacking in a way). These superpowers are shown throughout the series in different ways, through races, fights, etc. but I also feel like it is shown through the heroines. To keep this spoiler free, throughout the adventure the heroines discover more about themselves and find out what their superpower is (not as in the literal superpower, whether or not they have them is up to you, potential watcher, to watch >83) It may not be official but I feel like I should put up my opinion somewhere :pp 10/10 (in all ways possible >83) SLICE OF LIFE: Despite the fights you may see in ep. 1 and 2, this is DEFINITELY a slice of life. The heroines go on a journey to represent a tiny town and discover more about themselves and their inner strengths as they progress into their little adventure. If you put aside the ridiculous fighting scenes and plot and actually look at the characters themselves, you'll definitely see the Slice of Life in there. Just imagine. It's getting pretty lengthy however I feel like all those other reviews are scaring off people who'd like this series too ;A;. Yes, the plot is lackluster however the characters are great. They may seem like annoying moe girls (I thought so too) however the ending changed things for me :p. I would've given this series a 7-8/10 however that last bit towards the ending made me look at the series from a different perspective. This may not happen to everyone however I feel like it's important to atleast note that. Hopefully this review was not too lengthy/ doesn't-scare-you away-from-the-series. Many may agree to disagree on this comment however I hope that for those of you who read this that it might change how you see the show. It isn't the best series out there however I feel like it is under-rated (and in no way am I over-rating it, I just want people out there it is worth a try) Thanks for reading and hopefully this review will leave you thinking (even if it is just a tiny bit like 0.01% or something >.

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