I vaguely remember bits and pieces of the Galaxy Angel anime that I watched way back when. The Angel-tai would always be looking for a different piece of “lost technology” every week. The Galaxy Angel manga actually elaborates on the story by adding a plot! Whoa!
Story:
The Galaxy Angel-tai are innocently enjoying a long deserved vacation when they get a call to action! It’s really sad because Milfie gets pulled away from an all you can eat dessert fest. Their mission is to protect Prince Shiva from some kind of coup attempt.
They’re joined by Takuto Meyers, a really bad commanding officer. He likes running away from duty, and hanging out with the Angel-tai. I guess you can’t really blame him. The Galaxy Angels all have their quirks. Milfeulle has crazy luck and cooks well, Mint likes cosplaying as weird animals, Ranpha is um… hot, Forte looks like a dude (besides having EEE cups) and Vanilla is sorta plain.
Together, they do a lot of random stuff. Right now, they’re evading the evil Eonia and his gang who wants to assassinate the prince. In the meantime, this involves visiting random planets and raising a cow…
Analysis:
Okay, so I guess this is typical Galaxy Angel in the sense that there’s still no real plot. The thing with the prince needing protection is just a vehicle to get Takuto and the Galaxy Angel-tai to interact.
Besides all of the awesome SD cow action, I thought the manga was somewhat boring. There weren’t really that many funny parts if you don’t count the cow appearances. I guess it could be due to the fact that the manga is just starting out. Hopefully it’ll get better in the next volume.
Character Designs and Art:
The art and character designs for Galaxy Angel are top notch. All of the girls are unique without getting too gimmicky. I also like the SD moments that happen quite often. The only thing that weirds me out is Forte’s design. I seriously thought Forte was large chested dude for a really long time when I watched the anime. I mean, I like glasses on girls, but monocles? That’s just wrong.
The art in general is really good too. I liked how the panels were set up in original ways besides the normal “blocks and rectangles” method. The art really makes this manga enjoyable to read.
The Actual Book:
Like a lot of older Broccoli Books manga, this book feels really stiff. Like I feel like I’m gonna break the book in half by opening the pages all the way. The print and paper quality is really sweet, though.
Conclusion:
I really wish that either the story was more interesting, or that the random cow made more appearances in this manga. I know there’s a lot of potential for entertainment, but I’m not quite feeling it with this volume. I have a feeling that Galaxy Angel Vol. 2 will be better. I still this volume is decent, especially when you factor in the really nice art.
Many thanks to Broccoli Books for providing me with a review copy of Galaxy Angel Volume 1. You can get more info on the Galaxy Angel manga at their official site.
3 replies on “Galaxy Angel Vol. 1 – Manga Review”
Heh. The manga was indeed great…
It had the “seriousness” that the anime didn’t have. Or at least, the whole series had. Each season, they’d show the last episode which has a serious plot for once… And the game itself had none whatsoever over-the-top humor, instead… it replaces the comedy with melodrama, action and lots of romance. And lots of space dogfights.
I just wish that they made an all-serious season for Galaxy Angel back then.
Which goes the same for the current rendtion/sequel…
Ah yes, the cow. The cow should have been in the game.
hah…. yes i remember watching galaxy angel episodes as a little kid. Back then, I loved it, although I never understood the storyline. And turns out that now I’m grown up, I find out…. well there was no actual REAL storyline.
LOL.