First impression: Gabriel DropOut

Your parents were right to warn you about the evils of videogaming.

Gabriel Dropout: angel trash

Meet Gabriel. A honour student in heaven, she got hooked on MMOs during her placement in a high school on Earth and turned into trash. She’s like a worse version of Umaru, as she doesn’t even try and keep up a facade outside her room. She doesn’t care and she doesn’t even pretend to care. Fortunately for her though her best friend is a demon who does. A considerate demon as straight woman and a trashy angel: a simple role reversal that leads to some good jokes, but this series needs something more.

Gabriel Dropout: truly evil

And gets it in the form of the truly evil Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell, Future Queen of Hell, who is the delusional sort of character who wants to be evil, but is too dumb and good natured to actually be evil. She’s also the butt of most of the show’s better jokes whenever her need to impress her “rival” overwhelms her common sense. It’s always satisfying to see a character suffer through their own flaws and she delivers in spades. Though she does get the upper hand at times, as episode two showed.


The last major character is another angel, this time a sadistic one and to be honest the least interesting one, seeing how cliched she is. At best she’s a plot device to get Satania in trouble. She is the most “anime” of them all and you’ve seen her type before in a dozen other shows. Sadistic, pervy and with no real debt to her.

Gabriel Dropout: dumb comedy

That minor issue set aside, Gabriel DropOut surprised me with how funny it was. I’d tried the original manga but found it boring, so had few expectations, but I laughed at both episodes out so far. Not always the case with anime comedies.