What exactly is the mystery that corned beef holds? It is said that the answer has something to do with the shape of the can. This question sits among the plethora of queries within the world of Galaxy Angel.

When BROCCOLI revealed the first game's trailer at the Tokyo Game Show in 2000, the setting was portrayed as a dramatic sci-fi world of political conflict with the Angel Brigade, a specialized military strike team, locked in space combat. Then, in April of 2001, the Galaxy Angel anime aired in Japan, and everything anyone had previously seen in the trailers was shot down like enemy spacecraft.

The anime series took the original portrayal and turned it upside-down and inside-out. The world of the Galaxy Angel anime is the exact opposite of the world from the trailer. Instead of a gripping space opera about the suppression of a coup d'état, the anime is a comedy series about absolutely nothing in particular.

In the show, the five girls of the Angel Brigade must travel throughout the star system to locate the "Lost Technology" scattered across the vast spacescape. Lost Technology, as explained in the manga and games, consists of the technology that existed before a disaster that rendered facets of interstellar communications and travel useless. However, in the anime series, the Lost Technology is nothing more than a plot device that connects the Angels to their next zany adventure and could be anything from a magical girl wand to a nuclear warhead. Thus, the stage is set for this bizarro universe.

The anime has a lot more in common with Di Gi Charat, another BROCCOLI creation, with its unreasonable situations and incredibly strange outcomes. In one particular example, the main character Milfeulle is killed when she is struck with a volleyball. Her friends vow to get revenge by defeating her "killers" in a game. Milfeulle cheers from the sidelines to little avail as her friends are picked off one-by-one, often by doing something ridiculous or explosive to themselves. Eventually, everyone dies, and Milfeulle sings a song that brings them all back to life. There is absolutely everything wrong with that episode synopsis, but the execution is so masterfully done, viewers are left laughing at the absurdity of it all.

In addition to the crazy comedy, the show throws all sorts of twists and loops by making episodes entirely serious through genre shifts, emotional situations, and a drastic change in the soundtrack. The show jumps all over the place, and yet it never feels schizophrenic. Everything manages to piece together well, and the sudden changes are seldom jarring.

The characters themselves are unforgettable. Animation studio MADHOUSE brings them to life with quality that further illustrates the distinct personalities that set them apart, from the ditzy Milfeulle to the hot-headed Forte to the deadpan Vanilla. The girls' demeanors often complement each other, even when they themselves are clashing, and no character gets boring or overplayed. Also, because of the randomness of the show and situations they fall into, they sometimes change their personalities (or switch them) entirely, causing them to play to different strengths with amazing, insane results.

If you love comedy, give this a show a try. If you loved Di Gi Charat, you absolutely owe it to yourself to get hold of this series. In Japan, the show achieved critical acclaim and became such a sensation that it managed to get its own musical. This praise is not unwarranted. Galaxy Angel is a light-hearted comedic classic, and there is really everything in this series to love. You won't be disappointed.