I have been feeling down the last few days and then IT appeared as a new item in my RSS feed in the Old Reader. Kate shared a most unexpected article that picked me right up. It seems there is actually Galaxy Angel news! As a huge fan of the series I was both a little shocked and tremendously overjoyed that they were doing anything with the series.

If you are one of the few readers that have been with us since the beginning you will know that my old joke was Reverse Thieves is the number one Type-Moon and Galaxy Angel blog on the Internet. The joke being I used to talk about those two things whenever I could. Sadly while the Type-Moon content has been consistent I have not been able to inject as much Galaxy Angel material into the blog and podcast as I would like. I bring it up from time to time when discussing Space Dandy or Detective Opera Milky Holmes (aka THE DEVIL) but nothing more than that. This was a welcome return.

It is certainly an odd bit of news. To celebrate the 14th anniversary of the Galaxy Angel anime (as opposed to the games or the manga) they are taking suggestions for Normad merchandise. I would enter the contest but it is only for people living in Japan.

Normad is an odd duck. The original games were a fairly straight mixture of dating sims and RTS space combat games.  I have always loved Yuuko Ootsuki’s character designs and I found the story of the series quite fun. The thing is the anime barely has anything to do with the games other than borrowing a bit of the universe and of course the five heroines of the original. The anime is its own strange beast that is a scatterbrained comedy series. In the games the Galaxy Angels are ace space pilots who are part of an elite military force that protect the Galaxy. The the anime they are bumbling officers who theoretically go around the universe looking for lost technology. It is mostly an excuse to get them into silly situations. This is a show where the girls decide to quit the military and start a business where they make a candy that tastes like the flute boy you liked high school. Normad is the mascot of the anime (and a Dark Star reference to boot.)

If the games are Fate/Stay Night then the anime is Carnival Phantasm. It was Space Dandy before Space Dandy.

(Random Trivia: Yasumi Yoshizawa, the author of Dokonjou Gaeru, is Yuuko Ootsuki’s father.)

So the question is why the heck are the announcing this news on this day on the 14th anniversary of the show as opposed to the 15th.

I can’t answer why they picked the 14th anniversary (yet) but I can tell you why it was announced on March 17th.

There are a few running jokes in Galaxy Angel. One of them is the fact that Mint is obsessed with what she has labeled “The Mystery of the Corned Beef Can.” She is always asking why do rectangular blocks of Corned Beef come in trapezoidal cans. It is rather random as Mint is a filthy rich heiress who likes dressing up in Kigurumi. Nothing about her says connoisseur of corned beef. Despite that the joke was well-known enough that they even referenced it several times in Hime-sama Goyojin.

As I was trying to figure out why they picked the 14th anniversary at work today it stuck me that March 17th was far more important. That was Saint Patrick’s Day. And what is the traditional meal on Saint Patrick’s Day (at least in America)? Corned beef and cabbage.

So I had to ask myself. Is that too long a walk for a joke from Galaxy Angel? Then I remembered that lots of the episodes are 15 minuets to build up to a single punchline. Pyuru-riku Magical Steak and Fresh Packed Fish jump to mind in that regard. So in that respect a new Mystery of the Corned Beef Can joke 14 years later is hardly that much of a stretch.

Still either way it is crazy to see Galaxy Angel again. Who knows? Maybe Broccoli will take a break from making Uta no Prince-sama stuff for a bit and go back to the ladies of Moon Angel Troupe again. I would love to see that.