If you were to ask me why I watched this anime, it’s because I like gyarus. If you were to ask me why I watch any gyaru anime, it’s because I like gyarus.

This subgenre has become a product that exists only for its own sake, there is no further message attached to it, the gyaru is a holistic being that justifies its own existence. Thankfully, it seems that the people making these gyaru works have taken notice of this and are trying to turn the self-cannibalization of the niche into an opportunity to try new things. Dosanko Gal is not the most exemplary of this, similar dynamics have been tried before and manga like Gal Gohan does it better; but I’m sure in the recent sleuth of romance and SoL shows this one still feels rather refreshing. Layering on top of this an atlas style exploration of one of Japan’s most beautiful but most often overlooked areas results in a pleasant combination that has facilitated the wasting away of many an evening.

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While I can’t say that this show does anything for me – barring the gyarus of course – it still presents a few nuggets that I think are interesting enough to deserve a further look.

For starters, Hokkaido to me is a mythical place. Outside of various historical works I rarely get the chance to see it represented, and being made aware of the small quirks and obstacles that come with everyday life here I’ve grown even more fond of it. Unfortunately, this show doesn’t take the concept far enough, its more so a show with gyarus in Hokkaido rather than a show about Hokkaido gyarus, even the different slang and dialect seems to fall off later in the show or is otherwise tokenized. Maybe to my untrained eye the depth of details has escaped, but as it stands the exploration of Hokkaido here is not so different from what I'd get in a video from the most affable British youtuber.

In the point I made earlier about similar dynamics I was referring to this anime’s attempt at abandoning miscommunication induced drama. These kinds of shows abandon drama in nearly all forms anyway but this specific kind is one so often seen in romance stories that it has become cliché, it isn’t a bad device in and of itself but it has become very predictable. Fuyuki is a character that aims to reduce these frustrations, up until the final two episodes there is no moment made worse by a misunderstanding, there is no jumping to conclusions, and there is no irritation between the leads. On paper at least his sounds both wonderful and harrowing, I’m not sure there are many stories out there made better by removing intrigue, at the same time however I can’t say that this is purely a bad thing either. With no valleys, all your peaks start looking like plateaus.

I realize that I may be a bit of a hypocrite, and that maybe I just enjoy the novelty of losing all the friction, but at the same time I haven’t seen enough of this “anti-trope” to know that for sure so until then I will keep welcoming these kinds of stories.

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As for why anyone should bother watching this anime, ask yourself if you like gyarus. I’m not kidding when I say how distilled this subgenre has become, this show doesn’t even attempt having a subtext, and while it tries to separate itself from the chaff by playing opposites to the exhausted cliches, until some larger shift happens in the story you won’t be getting much more than “just gyaru” out of its text. The depth is wafer thin and maybe that’s a deal breaker for you or maybe you just really like wafers.