Gdgd Fairies (2011-13)

From https://www.anime-planet.com/images/anime/
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Director: Sōta Sugahara

Screenplay: Kōtarō Ishidate [Season One], Kazuyuki Osabe and Taizō Yamamoto [Season Two]

(Voice) Cast: Suzuko Mimori as pkpk; Kaoru Mizuhara as shrshr; Satomi Akesaka as krkr

A 1000 Anime Crossover

Synopsis: In their magical forest, three female fairies - pkpk (Suzuko Mimori), shrshr (Kaoru Mizuhara) and krkr (Satomi Akesaka) - spend their time debating inane topics, from the virtues of deja-vu to the virtues of sleeping in, using their magic in the Room of Spirit and Time for bizarre games, or looking into the mystical Dubbing Pool, a mirror to the outside world and weird events.

How do you sell gdgd Fairies? In the 2010s, short form content has grown in popularity, from YouTube videos to short animation. Anime is the same, especially as original net animation (ONA) has grown as straight-to-video (OVA) animation has declined. Short anime, even as low as three minutes per episode, has become more common within this decade especially as the likes of Crunchyroll and streaming programming online has allowed such projects to be available in the West. I suspect as much this development is a way to let younger creators actually cut their teeth in helming a production, to experiment as well. Even the lowest of budgets, with minimal animation, doesn't stop these productions from finding ways around that. Many, like Inferno Cop (2012-2013) to the subject of this review, intentionally use their cheap production values for the humour.

Many of these works are comedies. Strange characters arguing and occasionally with bouts of action. They even have precedent before the 2000s in the "omake", a concept of extra skit animation or segments included as bonuses for works as far back as Gunbuster (1988-89) in the eighties, usually comedic segments that still exist into the modern day for shows, allowing the creators to take a break especially from serious series or franchises to have characters do something silly for a couple of minutes like pretend to be magical girls like Sailor Moon. The difference is now there's a market for parody series to be produced by themselves. On legendary franchises in Japanese anime like Gundam to Fist of the North Star that can riff (or take the piss out of) canonical characters and plot points with fully licensed characters involved. Then there are original projects like gdgd Fairies. Taking advantage of a very low budget, and public domain computer animation figures, this deliberately crude and cheap looking production is the first big work by the duo of Sōta Sugahara and Kōtarō Ishidate, who have made this type of short length comedy with usually three characters their bread and butter even when they separated before gdgd fairies' second season. The pair, even separate, have went their own ways, Sugahara with Hi-sCool! Seha Girls (2014), where the female trio are anthropomorphised Sega videogame consoles, whilst Ishidate has gone onto material like Q Transformers: Kaettekita Convoy no Nazo (2015), which as you guess from the "Transformers" in the title is where Optimus Prime and Bumblebee argue and bitch about their own franchise. Theirs is a very niche style, but why gdgd Fairies worked for me is that, as will be elaborated on, it's a farce that deliberately goes to the strangest of ideas and held aloof, made cohesive, by its three sole voice actresses.

From https://plainpastaandplainrice.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/gdgd02.jpg

Whilst rife in manga and anime references, especially in the mid-break eye catches and the parody next episode previews, most of gdgd Fairies is instead the tale of three likable characters, voiced by popular voice actresses, pissing about with magic or getting into conversations at their tea table which get increasingly off tangent as they go. pkpk (Mimori), the naive pink haired fairy who is nervous and frankly somewhat dim-witted. shrshr (Mizuhara), blonde ponytail and boisterous, at times exceptionally dumb and egotistical but balanced alongside her sense of enthusiasm. And krkr (Akesaka), purple hair with a orange mushroom hat, incredible morbid in saying deliberately gruesome things, or purposely saying weird things to get a rise out of her two friends. krkr is also my favourite not only to the character but because voice actress Akesaka, as I elaborate on the usual structure of the two seasons, not only has the funniest lines but, in the elaborate improvisation that the actresses are required to pull out, she has the most neck crack inducing turns into various voices out of her arsenal out of the three. She also has the tendency to burst out into song, which the creators and her co-performers clearly loved because that becomes a running gag that lasts both seasons.

gdgd Fairies, in one of its best aspects, screws with the viewer constantly in terms of expectations but there is a basic template in both series for each episode, usually split into three parts. Part one is the characters at a table, tea pot and cups unused in the centre, discussing a basic concept but reaching into peculiar tangents that are elaborated on by thought bubbles showing ridiculous, cheaply animated scenarios. Part 2 is the Room of Spirit and Time, where the fairies play very elaborate games, from how many old men they can jump over (the same model copy pasted), to within one of the last episodes an extended Mario Kart/racing game parody where a traffic officer is a weapon that can be fired out and the tortoise shell is instead an actual slow moving tortoise. Occasionally this is changed about, or even ignored, but Part 2 in any form, even when replaced with the fairies attempting to go camping, is among my favourite moments.

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Part Three is not that far behind, the Dubbing Lake the most curious of all the segments as, in which the fairies watch on at events, it's entirely improvised in dialogue when, after the first showing of the sequence, each one has the actresses themselves in character come up with dialogue over the scene depicted. You can tell its improvised as they break character a lot, slip out of their characters' voices and openly discuss their own careers. At one point Satomi Akesaka confess herself to be a terrible actress when in one of the many times the improvised joke bombs among the trio. There's a perverse joy, when Suzuko Mimori drops her squeaky accent for pkpk, or when the actresses nod to other shows they work on they cannot talk about, to this meta-humour, but it works as much because it's the human beings who work on these shows appearing in front and centre. There's a vicarious glee of them voicing these helium voiced characters, mucking about and finding their own jokes funny.

Season One is sustained by both the three voice actresses' charisma, and that Sōta Sugahara and Kōtarō Ishidatedo not let the low budget prevent them from being gloriously weird. Even without the anime references, the series is still hilarious. A game of apple dunking is turned into having to eat ramen from a bungee jump erected in outer space, and even another overt reference to Mario, buying a house that is effectively a death trap filled level from one of those games, still working as a joke in the prolonged agony of mushrooms versus flames. More so in the next season gdgd Fairies gets more resourceful in its material, but even in the first season this type of post-internet influenced humour is thankfully more directed to be deliberately silly and in inventive ways. It does argue that dated computer animation has the potential to be used in creative ways, the use of deliberately awful CGI character models and locations leading to elaborate gags that span the length of episodes. One such model, an older woman with purple hair wearing lingerie, even becomes the closest to a fourth main character in how much she is used, christened Fusako Mochida and eventually voiced by Satomi Akesaka, the model likely used as much as she is because she is where the running joke of Akesaka singing bombastic songs stems from each time the model's used.

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The cheap look helps gdgd Fairies to an advantage, colourful and cartoonish. There are end credits where more overtly realistic and feminised versions of the characters perform a dance, more elaborate as the series goes on and becoming a rap ballad in season two, but the lead trio are usually drawn as "chibi", an exaggerated style usually done for comedy where characters are short, squat and deliberately cute. It's also used for humour a lot in anime, particularly as here there's as much emphasis on the characters' voices and exaggerated facial expressions as there are prolonged skits, a surprising amount of them with a character (usually pkpk) being thrown across the screen, eaten or set on fire. Likewise the utter tackiness of the computer animation is exploited fully, an innate oddness to dated animation that has even been exploited by instillation artists to this type of animation. It's a testament however to the series that its humour varies a lot. Some anti-humour, usually a divisive concept for me in modern comedy, but used here to good effect. Non-sequiturs, more so in the second season as episodes start with random fake advertisements or have mid-episodes interactive games of trying to find krkr in odd Where's Wally/Where's Waldo environments. Perverse humour, both in its misanthrophic glee in moments of violent slapstick or krkr's grim proclamations, crude as well as, even when it is usually pretty innocent, by the second season the voice actresses start to find more excuses to cause each other to burst into laughter for real. Due to the nature of a season, a lot of gags are also the most innocuous of conversations getting out of hand. There's even word play, which could pose an issue due to the language and cultural barrier for a Western viewer, an issue some English dubs have deliberately switched the gags because of, but helped here due to the creators including visuals. (One of my favourite segments is based merely on the transition, just due to slightly altering the kaiji used to write them, from a car having regular wheels to irregular ones to even lions as wheels.)

Season one does end a little flat. The  final episode is played seriously, with pkpk dead and the other two adults, shrshr a washed up drunk, having to collaborate with Fusako Mochida in a larger role to bring pkpk back to life, all for an excuse of a punch line at the end. It's a good punch line, but you still have to sit through a somewhat sluggish drama before. (So far, unless it's a serious series with comedic moments, the only comedy that's gotten away with this is Excel Saga (1999-2000), all because its completely serious episode leads to a final episode that gets even more dynamic and unexpectedly conclusive). Thankfully Season Two takes all the works with the first and gets stranger, building on the characters and visibly slicker in animation even if the tacky computer animation is still proudly there. Kōtarō Ishidate may have left, but Sōta Sugahara by his own with two new writers is more ambitious, arguably more rewarding jokes and segments to be found including even a multi-episode time travel plot, one which is set-up and planned in early episodes fully. There are also, whilst they don't get as much screen time as I would hope, three new fairies (voiced by the same actresses) and a new dubbing segment with a strange sound the actresses have to imagine its origins of, funny as they get crude and even darker in their improvisations. A lot of the Dubbing Lake improvisations aren't necessary funny all the time for a Western viewer, more amusing for their banter, but there are moments like this (or the introduction of one of the actresses'/characters' fathers in the segments) where the improvisations also jump even higher in quality.

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Season Two is also when the desire to defy viewer expectations grows exponentially and when gdgd Fairies became a legitimately good show for myself. Even with the template of the show before, there are also more elaborate and episode long gags involved. The time travel plot. The fairies going on vacation, managing brilliantly to have a sweet and funny series of interactions which last for what feels like one single ten minute scene, all whilst a wooden ceiling is all the viewer is looking at throughout it. The Mario Kart parody. The abrupt running gag about a middle age woman inexplicably being hired for a baseball team, starring Fusako Mochida, that is returned to later on. References even back to Season One, and even changing the premise of the show to a high school comedy for a superior final episode. For material that is meant to illicit merely laughter from the viewer, there's a noticeable jump into funnier, wittier and just plain weirder gags, able to stretch a one scene joke for a long length, not until it stops being funnier as in anti-humour but adding quirks due to the fairies' eccentricities.

Eventually what started as a strange curiosity grew into something I liked immensely, appreciating the hard work just to put together these cheap pieces of computer animation together. It would be enough for some just to have a clip of a superhero punching a bear in the stomach and letting the actresses improvise over said clip, even stumble of over their own improvisations, but the two seasons get further and further with this material with a sense of progression and ambition. Its feels, absolutely, like a project done for fun. It especially shows the talents of Suzuko Mimori, Kaoru Mizuhara and Satomi Akesaka, giving me a greater respect for them and voice actors in general. This argues that comedy is especially where Japanese voice actors have to really be on their toes and the truly talented ones stand out. In its extremes you are forced to switch tones on hair pin twists, like Dragon Half (1993), and even in the less extreme examples there's still the need for flexibility, to be on your toes and even deadpan. A project like but even in the examples like this which are not as much of an endurance, you have to be flexible and on your toes, especially with a project like gdgd Fairies where Sōta Sugahara and Kōtarō Ishidate were probably coming up with their bizarre ideas giggling like mad men, the type of material even in the depths of weirdness anime in general can lead to being a lot to expect from three actresses who have no other cast members to bounce off from barring themselves.  

From https://vintagecoats.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/gdgd-fairies-
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Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric/Post-Ironic/Surreal/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

Even if the look of the series feels tacky and ridiculous, gdgd Fairies is arguably a series a non-anime fan or someone with no real viewing experience of Japanese animation could still get a lot out of. Especially in this era of animated sketch shows with this type of very limited or deliberately crude aesthetic, this one stands out for being very inventive and legitimately charming in its style. If anything because, for all its references to anime and manga, it's not only constantly funny but gleefully strange. Considering there are comedy anime about sentient farts (Onara Gorou (2016)), and jokes like a cat living in a vending machine who proclaims himself God can be tossed off as side gags in obscurer shows like Pani Poni Dash (2005), how gdgd Fairies gets and how merely three voice actresses by themselves can make it all seem more credible (and weirder as a result) is really an accomplishment.