From Heaven to Earth
Pulled from the 2017 anime winter season we;re checking out Gabriel DropOut. I do not know about you but especially during the summer I prefer a more laid back series. Nothing too intense but not boring either. A series that you can just kick back and watch almost passively.
For centuries once an angel graduates from school they must descend upon the Earth. In order to become full-fledged angels they must live among humans, learn about them and help them on the correct path. This is no different for top of her class angel Gabriel White Tenma, who is excited to get to Earth and help mankind. Things take a drastic turn for her when she becomes addicted to video games and junk food, transforming into a hikikomori. Now she claims to be a ‘faillen angel’, uncaring to all, leading a self-indulgent lifestyle which annoys those connected to her. Including Vignette April Tsukinose a demon who meets Gabriel during her early Earth days.
Vignette constantly tries to change Gabriel back to her previous self. Gabriel makes this impossible for her as she continues to be a slob and enjoy all the creature comforts of the human world. While also constantly threatening to end the world. As they attend Earth high school they come across two more interesting personalities, another angel called Raphiel and a demon called Satanichia. The series follows the antics of these fours characters as they try to figure out what it means to be angels and demons.
Angels and Demons
On the surface this series is exactly what you think it is. A little bit of fun with an easygoing story for the most part. The four main characters are your classic anime types, the angels light-haired and ethereal and the demons darker. Hardly original.
Through the entire series I was more interested in seeing more of Vignette and Satanichia. They are supposed to be the supporting structure to Gabriels main protagonist. For me they stole the show. The angels where their ark was to help mankind and be better angels weren’t particularly good. They both indulged in selfish actions and never really did much for others. We know that is meant to be part of the story of the series but as characters they either didn’t have enough development.
We have seen the lazy and slob character that Gabriel exudes. That is nothing new for anime. Raphiel while a better character still didn’t go far enough. Where Vignette and Satanachia were more engaging. Vignette supposedly a demon cannot help but do nice things for people without really realising it. Satanachia another demon is so set on proving herself as a demon especially to Gabriel that she utterly fails in doing so. These characters deserved more development, I did not want to see a series on Gabriel towards the end I wanted a series follows these too demons with the angels be in the background.
A Fall From Grace
This series did receive a lot of praise and I can see where that has come from. It was never going to be a ground breaking series but it did do exactly as promised which was to entertain. The art style is perfect for this sort of series, colourful and full of emotions. You will love it if you were a fan of Oreimo. It fell short in more than one department. The characters were flat for the most part and did not get as much development as they should. Being only a twelve episode series should not have been a limitation. We have seen other series do it with even more characters.
The other aspect was the story. After the first few episodes it did become very repetitive and you knew exactly the outcome. Even introducing new minor characters did not help the series progress. The only really interesting change in story comes towards the end. Even then the conclusion of the series is flat with a slightly confusing end. As if time had run out and an end needed to just be made.
If you want an easy to watch series without a completely engrossing story with some comedic value then this could be your series.
