Gokudols Niji-gumi -- Gokudol Music（ゴクドルミュージック）

Well, the Spring 2018 anime season has given way to Summer 2018. It was basically another good outing of shows that my friend and I have seen. "Hinamatsuri"（ヒナまつり）was weird and hilarious, "Hisone & Masotan"（ひそねとまそたん）was great up until the somewhat underwhelming final episode although its opening and ending theme songs are still epic and fun respectively, "Last Period" （ラストピリオド）seemed to be petering out, and the second go at "Amanchu"（あまんちゅ!）was as soothing as ever and is having me think about returning to Ito again.

The new anime from Summer 2018 that I was introduced to yesterday seem to be quite ambitious and/or absolutely nuts. "Island" is flitting between comedy and mystery, "Uchuu Senkan Tiramisu" is plain insane, "Sunohara-Sō no Kanrinin-san" has immediately come out as a harem show, and "Banana Fish" is an anime that seems to want to become an HBO live-action suspense. Ah, I almost forgot to mention "Baki" which could make "Fist of the North Star" resemble a quaint tea party in terms of the violence.

Then, there is "Back Street Girls ~ Gokudols"（ゴクドルズ）which has come out of left field....if left field were elongated as far north as Baffin Island. For the second season in a row, along with "Hinamatsuri", we have an anime that has the yakuza world turned up on its head due to a fantastically deranged plot point. Imagine three tough-guy hoodlums who have run afoul of their oyabun and his demand as punishment/wish as fantasy fulfillment is for them to be completely remade (via a doctor in Thailand [message to Doc: 👍]) into cute and majorly successful female aidorus. Truly only in Japan. In this situation, I guess it wasn't their pinkies that got cut off.

When I first heard the title, I had been expecting (dreading?) a female version of the Backstreet Boys, but then I was completely bewildered by the opening credits until everything was explained in the first five minutes. Plus, I read on the J-Wiki article that the remarkable silhouetted chromakey-esque dancing of the three girls had all been performed by the same person: director Chiaki Kon（今千秋）under different wigs. Now, that is dedication!

However, it is indeed the three seiyuu behind the gangsters-turned-idols Airi Yamamoto（山本アイリ）, Mari Tachibana（立花マリ）and Chika Sugihara（杉原チカ）, Yuka Nukui（貫井柚佳）, Kaori Maeda（前田佳織里）and Hikaru Akao（赤尾ひかる）taking care of the opening theme song "Gokudol Music" under the group name of Gokudols Niji-gumi（ゴクドルズ虹組...Gokudols Rainbow Gang）. That first word is a riff on gokudou（極道）which refers to "organized crime", "evil" or "villain".

It is syrupy and skippy, just like a lot of aidoru music, that starts off with the familiar yakuza trumpet fanfare before things change from scars and dark sunglasses to adorable flowers and bright Benetton colours. And the amazing thing is that "Gokudol Music" was written and composed by Masayoshi Oishi（大石昌良）, the same amiable fellow who came up with "Kimi Janakya Dame Mitai"（君じゃなきゃダメみたい）, the happy and folksy opening theme for the legendary "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）. I am still waiting for the sequel.

For a movie-and-TV genre that I would normally avoid like the plague, it's been a second hilarious hit in a row with these yakuza/insane comedy hybrids.