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GIRLS BRAVO COMPLETE SERIES DVD BOX SET |
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Thursday, 04 January 2007 |
 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | GENEON ENTERTAINMENT | | | ▪ | ASPECT RATIO: | | 4:3 FULL FRAME | | | ▪ | AUDIO: | | ENGLISH AND JAPANESE DD 2.0 | | | ▪ | RUNNING TIME: | | 600 MIN | | | ▪ | RATING: | | 17UP | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 11/28/2006 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 01/05/2007 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | HOLLY ELLINGWOOD |
SYNOPSIS:
All his life Yukinari has been bullied and abused by girls, so he naturally developed gynophobia - a fear of women. In fact, just being around girls makes him break out in hives! Then, he mysteriously gets transported to a world without men and meets a beautiful girl named Miharu who inexplicably doesn't affect him! He tries to resume a normal life, but then more girls from the other planet find a way to follow them...
The complete series of 24 episodes are contained on 6 discs in this box set.
REVIEW:
Girls + bravo= hilarious good time in this harem comedy. Cute girls are everywhere. The anime series throws about every type of anime stereotype they can at us. There’s the main squeeze, cute pink haired Miharu, who is sweet and kind and naïve and loves food. There’s the girl next door, Kirie, the rough-and-tumble tomboy who has some killer wrestling moves and is prone to violence. There’s timid Koyome, brassy young intellect Tomo-chan, and to round it off, the occult using blonde Lisa (called Risa in the manga). Add in the clueless guy Yukinari who has a girl phobia and Girls Bravo makes a fantastic recipe of good times, huge laughs and buckets of fan service.
It’s based on the popular manga and a lot of the stories mirror those in the manga series, but personally I find the anime superior. It brings the stories together in a more cohesive way and the end, very different from the manga, is what puts the series over the top. When Miharu gets kidnapped and taken back to her home world, the whole Bravo gang goes to her rescue. This ends up in a huge free-for-all action sequence as each of our team takes on the different female villains. It builds to a great bunch of actions scenes, some stupendous animation, and a climatic finale to shell out a winner anime.
I loved this series. It’s way over the top with the comedy and fan service, and I mean WAY over the top! The first volume has a scene with Miharu and her first experience with a banana. You don’t have to reach for the metaphor they give the viewer and man, is it sexy. They have all sorts of perverted adventures thanks in part to the main pervert of the show: Fukuyama. This guy will stop at nothing to get his own harem and he has the power, the money and the crazy ideas to do it! The show even has a lesbian bodyguard named Kosame who looks a lot like Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell. She’s got the hots for Kirie and wow, when it comes down to the wrestling match they have, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the screen.
All this probably makes it sound like the perviest show out there. It isn’t. What makes this anime a winner isn’t just the fan service and gaggle of pretty girls. The show has a big heart. I wasn’t expecting to be moved by the series but I even got choked up a couple of times. I ended up not only liking the characters, but caring about what happens to them, all of them. The fantastic animation doesn’t hurt either. Usually my expectations with the animation quality for comedy series are pretty low. After all, it’s usually shows like Evangelion and that sort that get the high animation quality art. But Girls Bravo is mega pretty, mega luscious and very polished. The show is super glossy and the action is done amazingly well. Girls Bravo is an anime that exceeded all expectations.
EXTRAS:
Extras include line art gallery, clean opening and closing animation, Geneon previews and US trailer. The hard box it comes in is a bonus in and of itself. A festive checkered green and white, it has the main female cast adorning it, wearing sexy red-checkered little outfits.
IN SUMMARY:
Girls Bravo is super sexy and super fun. It also has a huge heart that will win you over (as if the sexy part wouldn’t already!). For a harem comedy, this anime is big in production value and one of the best indulgences of the year. |
