An important part of any post-apocalyptic story is tone. If the viewer doesn’t feel at least a little bit of the despair that comes with the world ending, then your premise and world-building have gone to waste. This is why I’m confused by the fact that Rolling Girls is a light-hearted cute-girls-doing-cute-things story. It takes place in a world where any semblance of government was done away with a while ago and where people just recently started to feel safe walking outside of the city limits. What creator thinks that’s supposed to be a light-hearted story?
Internally, it makes a bit of sense. A recent treaty essentially relegated all political disputes to proxy fights between superheroes, which presumably reduces civilian casualties a great deal. But Rolling Girls is trying to have its cake and eat it too. Everyone keeps trying to tell Nozomi that this world is a dangerous place, but how am I supposed to believe that when ramen-eating competitions are treated as a big deal? And look at that cliffhanger at the end of the episode. Does anyone actually believe that anyone’s going to die next episode? Mami’s not going to lose her head in episode three. I can guarantee that right now.
None of the characters stood out to me in this episode. The series made a joke about how perfectly average Nozomi is (which did make me laugh, but for all the wrong reasons), Masami’s your stereotypical selfless super-powered hero, and Shigyo was just a stereotypical sexy villainess. Shigyo in particular made it very clear where the entertainment of this show is supposed to lie. When she was trying to unmask Masami, the blush marks and the exact phrasing of “I’ll take it all off” made it seem like it was for the sake of sexual entertainment.
Admittedly, the visuals of Rolling Girls are pretty nice. There’s a distinct art style at play, and, while I’m pretty sure I’ve seen all of the moves used in the fights before, there’s a lot of cool movements going on. I don’t know if the animations will be enough to keep me watching, but I guess I’ll stick with this for a few episodes.
Mo[r]e Anime 