Gal & Dino – Ep. 1 (First Impressions)

No matter how long you’ve been watching anime and get used to its supposed weirdness, there will still always be that one show that makes you go “What?”. This season, that honor goes to Gal & Dino.

The title says it all. Kaede (Miyuri Shimabukuro) is the titular gal or gyaru and her co-star and new roommate is in fact a dinosaur (who looks like the lovechild of Godzilla and Bloo from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends). Judging by the premiere, the show makes no effort making any sense over such a random combination. Kaede says she met the dinosaur while drunk and invited it to live in her apartment but that obviously doesn’t explain how dinosaurs are still alive in this show’s version of our world. Furthermore, Kaede kind of lets the situation be as it is, proceeding through the day as normal and acting more shocked that the dinosaur is there than it being real. That seems to be the norm too as you later have a scene where Kaede’s landlord meets the dinosaur and her reaction more or less plays the same way.

Admittedly, passing the plot off as completely normal is the best joke the show has. It’s certainly more than what I can say about the rest of the comedy. The most common routine appears to be this: Kaede saying or doing something, the dinosaur giving a face, and rinse and repeat. I wouldn’t mind the routine if this show was running at 3 minutes on average but it’s clocking in at 24 so it feels very repetitive.

But if you want to talk about repetition, we have to talk about the B part of the premiere. It’s just the A part but in live-action and with Kaede replaced by Japanese TV actor, Mieharu playing himself. It does shift to an original scenario set in Christmas and ends with a Death Note parody (I know what I said) but for a good chunk of time, you’re seeing the same story acted out a second time. I don’t really get what the joke here is other than that the fact that there’s a man in his 50s is doing the same actions as the young female lead and the fact that some poor fellow wore that dinosaur costume.

There’s some segments that are styled like short Youtube uploads that play in between the main parts of the episode. The animation is even different, either being stop-motion or CGI rendered to emulate it (and convincingly so I must say). They do help break the monotony but even at about a minute each, they kind of overstay their welcome.

I get the impression that this show is aiming for the Pop Team Epic crowd. It even shares the same director/head writer as that show. It does have a stronger semblance of a plot but it also has the same kind of zany randomness associated with PTE. At least as far as the premiere is concerned, it even the repeats the same material for the B part. I can definitely see this show drawing in a similar audience. As for myself, I had a couple good laughs while watching the premiere but unless there’s some more variety later on, I don’t know if I’ll necessarily watch the whole show.

OP: “Kyouryuu Agemizawa” by Kyoryuu Friends

ED: “Peaceful Days”

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Watch Gal & Dino on Funimation

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