***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Gabriel DropOut. Reader discretion is advised.***
Series Synopsis
Heaven sends its young graduates to Earth. There, they must study the ways of humans as well as guide them to righteousness. By doing so, Heaven’s youth can become true angels. And there is much hope for Heaven’s top graduate, Gabriel White Tenma (voiced by Miyu Tomita).
A paragon of angelic perfection, Gabriel tries her best to better humanity. Everything is shaping up as expected. Then Gabriel comes across one of the most life altering and dangerous things known to man. The dreaded MMORPG. Upon doing so, Heaven’s most promising’s true colors come out.
Gabriel has since become a massive slop. She's given up her mission and has little motivation to do anything of effort. She is now a genuine fallen angel.
The human world has a strange effect on outsiders. Gabriel isn’t the only one to succumb to its influence. Both Heaven and Hell have trouble keeping their future angels and demons on the right path. These include Gabriel’s close friends.
Fellow angel and now chronic sadist, Raphiel “Raphi” Ainsworth Shiraha (voiced by Kana Hanazawa). The demon with the heart of gold, Vignette “Vigne” April Tsukinose (voiced by Saori Onishi). And the self-proclaimed future overlord of the underworld, Satanichia “Satania” McDowell Kurumizawa (voiced by Naomi Ozora).
Together, these four destroy what it means to be an angel or a demon.
Series Positives
Gabriel DropOut opened on a character who seemed perfect. She could do no wrong. She was, in all sense of the word, infallible. And it was so heavy handed. To the point where it was almost nauseating. To make it more sickening, it kept going. Longer than I would’ve otherwise cared for. At the time, I would’ve said it was shaping up to be a rocky start. But instead, it turned out to be a brilliant set up.
Once it clicked what kind of show this would be, it made those beginning minutes hilarious. Then once the actual downfall hit, this series never looked back. “This better not tank,” I thought to myself. And it didn’t.
Gabriel DropOut was fantastic.
It went beyond that too. Well past the point of me liking it. I was impressed by.
This series had what I look for in a slice-of-life comedy. Particularly one which focuses on over-the-top, fast-paced humor. It reveled in what it was. This show never tried to be something it wasn’t. Through to the end, this series never stopped having fun. Thus, surprise, it made it so much more fun to watch.
I bring this up because there’s a tendency in these types of comedies. A tendency I wish would die. For most of a show, it’s only silly. It’s only ridiculous. It never takes itself that serious. Then for no reason, there’s a turn. A huge problem comes about and must be dealt with. There’s a sudden wave of drama which didn’t exist up to that point.
Can comedies have dramatic bits? Yes. Are comedies allowed to have series moments? Of course. Kobayashi-san, for example, did it well. Amongst all its jokes, there were hints of something deeper. These were present throughout the series. When the tone did take a shift, it wasn’t out of nowhere. It was a little expected. And it got handled in a very Kobayashi-san way. Making it feel right for the series.
An instance where an anime got it wrong was Majikoi. Like Gabriel DropOut, Majikoi didn’t have problems to deal with. Only inconveniences. There was never any indication we should’ve been expecting something to happen. Then when something did happen, it felt weird. It was no longer the show we had been watching. Without any lead in, a dilemma appeared and forced its way in. Any kind of fun we were having took a hit.
I say any type of fun because there wasn’t much in Majikoi. I never cared for any of the characters. So, when they had to solve this unwarranted crisis, I kind of checked out.
What in the hell does any of this have to do with Gabriel DropOut?
Unlike Majikoi, DrouOut never had a crisis moment. Nor should it have had one. That wasn’t the show. This series established itself as a play on expectations. You thought one thing was going to happen, then something else did. By doing this, DropOut established a personality. It didn’t break that personality for the sake of having a sudden change of heart. Anything that could’ve been described as a dilemma was dealt in the same way as any other issue. For DropOut, that meant sarcasm, plotting, and manipulation. It was amazing.
This show did well in its consistency. That’s not to say it was the same joke over and over again. New ideas came. New situations presented themselves. A big mistake a series can make is handling those new things in a way average people would handle them. DropOut didn’t do that. It handled them in a way that only Gabriel DropOut would handle them.
And that wasn’t even the best part of the show.
Mixing of Characters
I could go into why each of the mains were great. Gabriel’s overt laziness. Vigne’s lovable sweetness. Raphi’s unrelenting sadism. And Satania’s over inflated egotism. Then there would be the obvious, “none of them lived up to their roles” view. The angels were jerks. The demons were friendly. They all lost their purpose.
There’s also the way this show emphasized discretion. Juxtaposed to the characters’ blatant lack of it. Their identities were supposed to be secret. Except, a lot of the things they did were in full view.
Yet none of these things would get to the core of why this show was so good.
Ignoring the title, it’s hard to place who the main character was. All the girls have some claim to that distinction. For me, I’d give my vote to Vigne. She was, in a lot of ways, the anchor of the group.
Why is this though? Why isn’t Gabriel the default lead?
That’s because Gabriel DropOut did an amazing job of mixing its characters. Anyone of them could carry this series. And they all did at some point. There were many instances where Gabriel wasn’t around. She wasn’t even the focus.
Gabriel DropOut tried different combinations. More than that, this show changed how characters react depending on who was talking to who. There was this one scene between Raphi and Vigne that was perfect. They were both their characters, but they acted to the situation. Vigne didn’t let Raphi dominate the scene. In turn, Raphi wasn’t trying to mess with Vigne. In this exchange, the two got to know each other better. And we got to know them better as well.
Vigne kept showing how un-demon like she was. She took a real interest in other people. She always tried to be friendly. Plus, she may not call out someone’s BS, but she didn’t need to either. She was genuine.
Raphi was at her most sadistic with Satania. Except, she wasn’t above doing something to others. She always tried to keep things interesting. Even in this scene, she set up a scenario where someone could be in great discomfort. That person could’ve been her. But that didn’t matter.
While all this was happening, these two had a small, but nice talk.
The scene then ended on the perfect note too. Satania happened to walk by, which set Raphi into motion. Because that was what she did. Vigne could’ve stopped her. Except Vigne wasn’t a buzz kill. She let it continue.
Then as a great touch, Raphi’s attempt to tease Satania didn’t work. This showed that even Raphi could be foiled. Knowing that possibility existed made any later, similar setups unpredictable.
Adding this bit of depth to its characters, Gabriel DropOut became a lot more fun. It became a lot more interesting. This complimented the individual positives of the four leads. This enhanced the lack of subtlety. This made Gabriel DropOut a prime example of how to do a slice-of-life.
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| From left to right: Raphi, Gabriel, Satania, Vigne |
Series Negatives
Gabriel’s fall doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. She was first exposed to a video game when she heard a player asking for help. The moment she looked at her computer, that was it. Question, why was the game on?
Gabriel had no knowledge of it. I doubt she was the one who opened it. So, how did it get there? There’s no reason why Gabriel should’ve fallen. There, I said it.But the show ignored this and went on its way. That’s fine. It’s actually a little funnyt. Especially since I can’t tell if it was deliberate or not.
Now that I think about it, there were a few details which didn’t line up. None of them were important, so they weren’t distracting. Yet when you do notice them, you think to yourself “Hmm, that was weird.” Then you move on because it’s not worth your time.
Other than that, there was something I wish this series would’ve toned down on.
A Little Too Ignorant
I get why this was the case. Both angels and demons were sent to the human world to learn more about it. Therefore, they wouldn’t know somethings. Things we would take for granted. Sometimes this did work in the show’s favor. 
Other times, there was no need for that level of ignorance. The series was at its funniest whenever a character made a mistake. Whether it had anything to do with lack of knowledge or not didn’t matter.
There was a point in the show where Gabriel and Vigne wanted to eat at the school cafeteria. Except they didn’t know how it worked. They weren’t aware they needed to buy a food ticket. That kind of thing wasn’t necessary. Then it became even less necessary when you realized that wasn’t the joke.
Satania was with them and claimed she knew how it worked. Of course, she screwed it up. But it had nothing to do with her not knowing. She over thought the problem and ended up buying way too much food. Gabriel even berated her about. It clearly said the portion sizes, Satania just chose not to read it.
This set up a running joke of Satania getting into trouble because she never took the time to read anything. And that was a lot funnier than the characters not knowing the little nuances of the human world.
What was even stranger, this ignorance thing didn’t come up all that much. Yet the characters still found ways to be hilarious. So why even have any of it at all?
Final Thoughts
Gabriel DropOut is one of the best slice-of-life comedies I’ve seen. And I'll stand by that.
This show was a ton of fun. It did a lot of things which make it stand out. Not only that, this series is a perfect example of how it can be done. The situations were more than inherently funny. They were acted out by characters who made everything more interesting. And it wasn’t only the characters by themselves. Gabriel, Vigne, Raphi, and Satania worked well as a group. They were the focus. It wasn’t just one of them.
From beginning to end, Gabriel DropOut was a blast. It’s worth checking out.
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