Assuming you don’t recognize the profile picture of Kamille Bidan screaming in horror, one look at my anime list will tell you that I love Gundam. The epic battles, the colorful, dynamic characters, the visually-appealing robots, and the brutal war narratives are all reasons why I love Gundam. But Gundam isn’t a show, nor a series, nor a genre. It’s a brand, encompassing all manner of media and genres. I tried my hand at a less serious take on Gundam where the battles took place via virtual reality. The low-stakes and bland characters weren’t my cup of tea. But what about a Gundam installment where there aren’t stakes and there aren’t meant to be stakes? What about a Gundam comedy?

~~No, not SD Gundam.~~

I believe I found out about Ganota no Onna due to it being likened to a manga I like, Tokusatsu GaGaGa. A reference-heavy comedy about an office-worker juggling their love of Gundam with their daily duties? Yes please!

Ganota no Onna centers around Ganota Utsuki, a closeted Gundam fanatic with a particular affinity for things relating to the Red Comet, Char Aznable. She works for Zum Inc., a technology development firm, where she’s the number one employee.

I would say that hijinks ensue as Ganota Utsuki tries to hide her love of Gundam from her coworkers, but it doesn’t really seem to be that big of a deal, to the point where until I read the summary, I forgot that it was a plotpoint. A lot of her fellow coworkers are Gundam fans as well. Only Kishiri-san, a man having what can only be described as Gundam PTSD, seems to be averse to Gundam. With this in mind, I wonder why the manga contains such a plotpoint that’s so nebulous as it doesn’t do anything for the story or comedy. Maybe that’s the point, showing that her worry over her interests is pointless and that she’ll be accepted either way. But until the end, the theme of acceptance isn’t really brought up. It doesn’t feel like there’s a disconnect between what the character believes and the reality of the story’s world. Instead, it seems like there’s a disconnect between the author’s intention and execution.

In the parallel universe where people actually pay attention to my manga list, you’d notice that Ganota no Onna remained on my list for the better part of a year.

Surely that must mean I found the manga terrible, right?

Well, no, I just didn’t find it that good.

I was surprised by how easy it was to read once I got into it. So at the very least, the manga isn’t bad, I just found that it didn’t offer me anything that compelled me to return to it besides writing this review.

I found the characters indistinct. Besides the ones that were recurring (which were relatively few), I found myself having a hard time remembering or caring about them. This is an office comedy first and foremost, so there are a lot of characters and character relations. I unfortunately didn’t find the characters interesting enough to remember, which is a huge detriment when there’s a large cast of characters. At other times, I did remember characters, but their jokes were shallow (“hurhur, her boss is a lesbian, isn’t that so funny guys?”) At the very least, I liked Lahlah-chan, a cute and creepy child who idolizes Ganota. Fans of Gundam will know that she’s a reference to the original show’s Lalah Sune.

I didn’t find the manga that funny. The comedy of this manga seems to simply be making references. Not by really doing anything with those references, mind you, but just by making references themselves. They were cool when they popped up, but didn’t contribute to the comedy. Really, my primary reaction was

Speaking of references, Ganota goes about it in a weird way, with Ganota making references to Gundam itself, but also by having the world itself be a reference to Gundam. She works at Zum Inc. and several characters are named/modeled after Gundam characters. I find this odd because Gundam exists in this world, yet none of the Gundam fans of the manga seem to notice the Gundam reference. I think you can have one or the other type of reference, but having both is odd. Plus, again, nothing is done with either type of reference. We don’t really have Ganota connecting her life to the shows she watches/living her life as if it were a Gundam show nor are the character relations of the gundam-modeled characters developed. The characters as Gundam-characters doesn’t really go much past...having similar names, often not even sharing personalities of their namesakes. I think this would have been a riot and it’s a painfully missed opportunity.

However, things started to look up at the end. Towards the end of the manga, things got a bit more serious and characters started to develop. I know that comedic works don’t really need for there to be developments, but it’s always nice for things to wrap up and for Ganota, where I wasn’t engaged as much, these more tenderhearted and serious moments (such as Lahlah-chan and Ganota having to depart) helped me see the “point” to the story I read. Then the story takes it a step further.

Spoiler, click to view

So, in the penultimate chapter, Ganota has a rendezvous with everyone’s favorite character across series lines, the tried and true Truck-kun. She’s put in a coma. If that wasn’t melodramatic enough, she wakes up in the final the next chapter reveals that she’s been in cryofreeze for twenty years. My mouth hung open as I was unexpectedly thrust into a soap opera. The tonal shift is completely ridiculous and tosses away the goodwill created by the preceding few chapters. Maybe the point is that it’s supposed to be rediculous, but I really can’t buy it because it’s played so seriously.

Furthermore, the story ends too soon. Th employees of the rival company, Federation Inc. are introduced shortly before the manga’s end, so we don’t really get to see a lot of the rivalry. A division based on AEUG (the protagonist group from my favorite Gundam show) was introduced in the second-to-last-chapter and got no exposure besides a brief mention. Needless to say, I was miffed.

According to the status distribution list, less than one hundred people have completed Ganota no Onna. Meaning that, most likely, no one will read this review. Meaning that, most likely, no one will care if I do something completely different.

I have two primary goals when writing reviews: conveying my thoughts in a coherent manner and recommending works that may otherwise have been glossed over. Today, I’ll talk about an obscure manga that I enjoy by detailing how it improves over Ganota no Onna.

I’d like to reintroduce you to Tokusatsu no GaGaGa.

Tokusatsu tells the story of Nakamura Kano, an office worker who has a secret. She’s a sentai fan, but she fears ridicule for her passion, and thus keeps it secret. Already Tokusatsu is an improvement over Ganota, with the “closeted nerd” aspect being a very, very central aspect to the plot. Unlike Ganota, the manga won’t let you forget Nakamura is a fan of sentail, because the manga makes it apparent that is plays a role in her daily life. In practically every chapter, we see Nakamura struggling to connect with her coworkers, worrying about being found out, and wrestle between her occupational and recreational life. Granted some of this can be chalked up to Nakamura being a lot more neurotic that Ganota, but regardless, the stated focus of the work actual is, well, focused on, grounding Ganota more.

Furthermore, the same passion is often a part of the resolution of each chapter. Nakamura often ties the things she learns in her shows (as they’re primarily children shows, they always have a clear ,message) to personal life lessons. Therefore, each chapter, we see growth and it helps us as the audience care for and root for Nakamura. Again, comedic manga don’t need to have takeaways and the difference in presentation can be chalked up to personalities (with Ganota being more adjusted that Nakamura), but these help make the character more interesting and likable, as well as again tying the aspects of the manga together. It’s not an office comedy that happens to have sentai in it, it’s an office comedy about sentai.

But the most important factor for a comedy, regardless of subject matter, is how funny again. Once again, Tokusatsu blows Ganota out of the water. Both manga often use the main characters’ connection to their fandom as a source of comedy. Tokusatsu often does what I wish Ganota did: heavily utilize references in order to create a funny contrast. To be fair, Ganota has its moments, such as when Ganota wears a Char mask, but these moments are very few and far between. Tokusatsu does this often and takes it a step farther. We see Nakamura constantly likening her life’s situation to a sentai show and at times, she imagines that the characters are talking to her, making mundane situations absolutely hilarious.

If you plan on reading Ganota no Onna for the interesting blend of fandom with office humor, I’d recommend Tokusatsu no GaGaGa instead. It does fandom better, it does characters better, it does office life better, and it just does humor better as well.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

At the end of the day, Ganota no Onna really isn’t anything special. It’s a bit bland and there’s at least one manga that fills its niche so much more successfully. With that in mind, and based on its references, I can only see Gundam fans getting much out of this, but the references can be surprisingly sporadic and they seem to just be references for references sake. Not to mention, the reference pool is a bit limited. Ganota loves Char so you’re going to be getting almost exclusively One Year War and Char’s Counterattack material.

The manga isn’t terrible, it’s a bit below average, at worst. But wouldn’t you want to do better, especially with such a novel concept?

6.5/10

D+

These last three reviews have been kind of a bummer, huh? But as each score is higher than the last, I’m sure we’ll soon be charting enjoyable territory again.