Review: The Rolling Girls “King of Rookies”

There’s so many hearts and cutesy explosions!

The Rolling Girls is the fourth new show to premiere for Winter 2015 block of Broadcast Dubs for Funimation. I’m not sure how to take The Rolling Girls yet, because “King of Rookies” didn’t do a very good job at setting up many of the characters. Most of the episode focused on the fight between Kuniko Shigyo and Masami Utoku (who is secretly Maccha Green), which transitions almost flawlessly into their second on screen fight in an amusement park.

Where The Rolling Girls shines is in its fighting. For starters, Kuniko fights with a freaking oversized safety pin! I thoroughly enjoy overly exaggerated weapons when there’s a fight, and Kuniko’s giant safety pin does it. Speaking of Kuniko, the only piece of plot that really got across is the rivalry between her and Masami, just by an impromptu ramen eating contest.

The animation has a look of the old school Astro Boy cartoons, but of course, in the modern day times. Sometimes, the animation that doesn’t look very slick or crisp fits a show, and I feel this is one of them. But when the effects like pink explosions and heart and sparkle flying everywhere, the animations clean up and look even better juxtaposed to the less crisp animation. It was really cool looking.

However, the show stings to a point. It sucks when a show puts me in a position where I don’t really have much to say about it. Yeah, the animation is really cool, and the fights look great, but the plot is almost nonexistent. I understand that it’s the first episode, but even shows like Naruto and DBZ got the plot going from episode one. That is the only detriment to The Rolling Girls, but it’s pretty big to me, especially in an episodic show. Hopefully, the second episode picks up the plot, and rolls with it.

The Rolling Girls may not be in my wheelhouse, but it was a fun show to watch. Funimation is doing a great job so far with their Broadcast Dub choices this season.