https://thatguygar.neocities.org
Katamari Damacy - The Wonderful Stars Walk is Wonderful 
So this one is gonna be long and a little rambly. Probably more rambly than normal. I'm gonna split it into two parts...maybe three: 1) A look back on a series I used to love, 2) the sins of the creator, and then 3) changing attitudes around certain material in anime and the growth of the fandom. Part three is important because I wanna get all that off my chest in one sitting, so I don't have to constantly talk about it.
Please Tell Me! Galko-chan (or "Oshiete! Gyaruko-chan" if you're annoying) was a manga series that was created by an artist named Kenya Suzuki. It went on to have a short anime series that aired in 2016. This is where I found it. I was over at a friend's house back in high school, scrolling through Crunchyroll, and we decided to watch that since each episode was about 5 minutes or so. We were immediately made fans of the series as we fell in love with the entertaining cast of characters, heartfelt moments, well-constructed comedy, and generous amounts of fan service for our teenage brains. I went on to start collecting volumes of the manga as they (slowly) released, and fell more in love with it.
One thing that will immediately jump out at you is Galko's unique artstyle. Instead of the standard manga practice of illustrating characters in black and white, Galko used purple as the outline color and then used various bright colors in select areas to create contrast and to draw attention to certain details on the page. Beyond that, individual characters were expressive, distinct, and very stylish. If things had gone differently with this series, I'd put Kenya Suzuki on my Mt Rushmore of manga character designers up there with Tite Kubo and Hirahiko Araki.
If I were to describe Galko, I would say it was trashy, but sweet. There was plenty of breasts and cleavage thrown at you (especially in the manga but we'll get there), but the other half was a collection of short stories about characters building connections and learning to appreciate one another outside of the preconceptions they initially had. This running theme is first introduced through the three main characters: an odd trio of a trendy, popular gyaru/gal (Galko), a socially awkward otaku girl (Otako), and an airheaded rich girl (Ojou). Despite the extreme contrast in their aesthetics and personalities, they still spend every day at and after school together. Showing that friendship is more than just fitting in with a certain crowd. Galko is often the target of aesthetic-based profiling on account of her being a gyaru. People expect her to be dumb and stuck-up, but when they get to know her, it turns out that she's a nice and caring person with varied interests such as anime and films. There are entire chapters in the manga where Galko and the girls will just talk about movies, in fact, but that's clearly the mangaka just using the manga as a vehicle to talk about his own hobbies (still cool though). One of the standout moments from the series that everyone loves is the scene where Galko helps out one of her reclusive and antisocial classmates by fixing his bad bed head. It stands out to people because she saw someone who was having a bad hair day and just wanted to help out.
The anime was definitely a little horny, but the manga was another story. If you're an anime fandom veteran, you'll know that the anime is always toned down from the manga, and Galko was certainly toned down. I'd say it started to get hornier after the point the anime ended, but a lot of it was all the bonus illustrations that are used at the end of each chapter, usually in the form of some kind of pinup. A lot of these pinups were of Galko herself, but as the cast expanded, you'd see some of the extended cast show up. Sometimes there would be ones of this character who's supposed to be some sort of in-universe gravure model named "Titty Morgane". The interesting thing about Miss Titty Morgane is that she's quite literally an aged-up version of Galko with MASSIVE breasts. Like...stupidly large. Also interesting is that Galko's older sister is also a slightly aged-up version of Galko...I'm starting to think that Galko is just Suzuki's favorite OC.
Something that I also appreciated from Galko was how seemingly worldly (for lack of a better term) Kenya Suzuki was. He always struck me as a "true artist". On top of the film talk segments he inserted into the manga, there was also an appreciation for classical art, various cultures as shown through his love of samba outfits, and other sorts of "high-brow" stuff he'd throw into this ecchi slice-of-life comedy manga. There was also a very apparent appreciation for different body types. You see a bit of it right away with the title character Galko as she actually has the body proportions to support her large chest, but as the series continues, we're introduced to more thick women. We even get some true BBWs in there. Horny tangent incoming I've never seen so many thick women in one manga bro. Real thickness too - not the fake shit you see a lot of anime fans drool over. I'm black, so I'm particular about how people use "thick.” There was plenty of thickness to go around in that manga: hips, thighs, breasts, BREASTS, ass, and even stomach. Yeah, he fucked with fat bitches too. Way before Delicious in Dungeon came out, and suddenly everyone switched up and started claiming to "fuck with fat bitches" (the fat bitch in question was really just a little chubby and not that big compared to the average woman you'd see on the street, but that's an entire other thesis paper I won't get into).
But since we're on the topic of the mangaka, and I've done enough glazing...I think we should move on to our next topic of discussion:
December 19, 2021 was the day the music died for us Galko-heads. The aforementioned creator, Kenya Suzuki, had been MIA for a few days - which was strange because he was typically pretty active on Twitter (not calling it X) - so fans were beginning to get concerned. Eventually, we ended up finding out what had happened... Buddy got caught up importing CSEM magazines from Germany. When that news dropped, I pretty much saw the entire fanbase dissolve overnight.
I remember there being a Twitter account called RT Your Galko-chan that would, as the name would imply, retweet posts about the series. They would also post screenshots of the anime and art from the manga. Going back to their account is like a time capsule from before the fall. They posted about Suzuki going missing, them turning up alive and healthy, a normal Galko post or two, the account owner being surprised at the sudden influx of new followers, and then after that: nothing.
Three days after that last post, the bad news would arrive. The account's been silent since.
So obviously, the safety of real-life children is more important than my trashy comedy/slice of life manga, but I think what bothers me the most is the feeling of wasted potential. Galko-chan had such great art and likable characters. It was also one of the last manga I was reading regularly. And in typical fashion, the last volume that was released had you anticipating the next one so you could see more of a couple that was established. I remember sending my friend an article about the arrest and going, "I guess we're not getting that volume 6.”
I loved this series, man. It had a small fanbase that loved it, and there were people who had caught the anime and thought it was cool, but it likely wasn't on anyone's Mount Rushmore. And that's fine. Nothing wrong with a series being a little low-profile. I'd still take a small and niche fanbase over the entire community having to dissolve because the mangaka being outed as a goddamn PEDOPHILE!!!
This is a fate I wouldn't wish on my own worst enemy (that's a lie, I'd totally do that).
After that shit, you had to hide that you were a Galko fan or just pretend you were never into it, because once the news hit the timeline, the entire series and fanbase got hit with the allegations. Now, were there sexualized depictions of underage characters in the series?: Yes. Were they any crazier than your typical ecchi series?: Not really.
But does that even matter...I don't know bruh.
***HEAVY DISCLAIMER***:I'd like to state for the record that I am NOT one of those "Erhm it's just a drawing!" guys. I've got complex thoughts on that whole topic that I don't wanna spend time on here. The summarized version is that nearly every anime character is a high schooler, and I believe people are more attracted to designs than age. Although there is a sect of the fanbase that likes the especially young characters a little too much, and they need to be beaten with hammers. That is all.
I mentioned earlier how there were a lot of big women in the series. That was one thing that surprised me when the news came out, because I would've never expected him to be into children of all things. Now, none of that means that he can't also be a dirty ass kid diddler, but what fucked me up was that people started claiming that the entire series was pedophilic. I saw a ton of posts being like, "Well of course he's a pedophile, have you seen the anime/manga?” Insane levels of slander. I'm not gonna die on the hill that the manga that has half-naked high schoolers isn't kinda weird, but also compared to the average anime, it's nothing crazy. And compared to some of the real Epstein ass anime I've had the displeasure of seeing...yeah, they're not even in the same boat.And that may be my problem. My personal bar for unacceptable depictions of underage characters is Kodoma no Jikan (extreme Epstein particles!), whereas other people draw the line way before that.
But the reality is that's just the current state of the fandom. Things that were looked past and viewed as acceptable back in the day are looked at with a bit more of a critical lens nowadays. For better or worse. Galko was more or less beloved when it came out in 2016, but now, nearly 10 years later (Jesus fucking christ), I wonder if it would have the same initially warm reception. I will say that I do spend a lot of time on TikTok, and the kids these days are becoming increasingly puritan, so that may be part of it. Some of the stuff that they call fan service would not even register back in the days of High School of the Dead and other trashy faves. Shit like that might actually kill them.
Funny enough, as I was looking around for information on the series, it turns out that the series is coming back soon. I don't know if it's gonna get published over here, and I would not wanna get caught walking out of Books-A-Million with the infamous CP manga anyway. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious about what comes next, but I should probably just leave the whole series behind me and act as if it just ended back in 2021.
2014-2021
