Back Street Girls: Gokudolls

After failing their boss for the last time, yakuza members Kentarou, Ryou, and Kazuhiko are faced with one of two choices: have their organs harvested and sold or take a trip to Thailand for sex reassignment surgery and become pop idols. Now, after a year of excruciating training, the three thugs have been reborn as Airi, Chika, and Mari. Debuting as the amateur idol group The Goku Dolls, the three strive towards becoming top idols.

However, despite the hours of feminizing brainwashing they were forced to endure, the three idols have managed to keep the yakuza spirit alive in their hearts. In order to fix this, their yakuza boss hires Mandarin Kinoshita, a legendary manager who has never had an idol group fail under his management. With their lives now on the line, the reluctant yakuza must work with their new manager to unleash their inner cuteness and become the successful idols that their tyrannical boss can truly be proud of.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tachibana, Mari Main

Maeda, Kaori Japanese

Yamamoto, Airi Main

Nukui, Yuka Japanese

Sugihara, Chika Main

Akao, Hikaru Japanese

Inugane, Kimanjirou Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Rina Supporting

Takahashi, Minami Japanese

Kinoshita, Mandarin Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Yamakoshi, Oil Shock Supporting

Takagi, Wataru Japanese

Mizoguchi, Karin Supporting

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Nakamura, Yui Supporting

Mano, Ayumi Japanese

Oguroda, Tooru Supporting

Aoyama, Yutaka Japanese

Oda, Motohiro Producer

Matsuo, Kousuke Producer

Kon, Chiaki Director, Storyboard

Aketagawa, Jin Sound Director

Reviews

Sep 24, 2025

toxicgreen777

Recommended

Two of the most intense and life-altering occupations in Japan is being a
1. Yakuza member or
2. an Idol.

Either occupation has enough content to easily write a stand-alone story, in which there are already many. Someone probably got high one night and thought, "what if the Idols... (big puff) were Yakuza?". Thus the absurd classic, "Back Street Girls: Gokudols" was made.

The visual gags and jokes in this show are off the charts, even for a Japanese anime. Whether there is a sudden cut to when the main characters impaled a literal bear or when one of the characters' anus explodes in ... a bloody mess, anything is on the table. Without spoiling everything that happens in the show, the R rating is very much earned. All the jokes seem to hit a perfect balance of disturbing and bizarrely hilarious that few shows can replicate.

The voice acting is some of the best ever done. The three main characters (Mari, Airi, and Chika) sometimes switch to their male voice actors for their internal thoughts. However, when they speak out loud, their female voice actors are utilized. Having the three female voice actors yell obscenities passionately like a punk guy is something I'm pretty sure they never trained for, yet all three nailed their performances.

The one sort-of big downside to the show is that there are a lot of still-frame shots used to save on animation costs. The only dancing animation in the entire show is of the rotoscoped idols in the opening animation. Maybe the still-frames during the idol performances symbolize the lack of effort Mari, Airi, and Chika are give, but it still would have been nice to have at least some animation.

If you have a base-level understanding of Idol and Yakuza culture and enjoy gag humor, this show is surprisingly great. If you don't have this base-level understanding, play "Yakuza 5" (the video game).


PS: Having the female voice actor for Mari be Kaori Maeda be the same voice actor for Nice Nature from the "Uma Musume: Pretty Derby" series is really funny for me. With all the times Mari in the show curses out another character, it would be really funny if a line was taken from Gokudolls and used to over-dub edit one of the scenes where Nice Nature consoles Kitasan Black.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 19, 2026

SakamakiKoyatsu

Mixed Feelings

Such an interesting plot when you read the description of this anime, being centered around a dastardly event of becoming pop idols to serve a Yakuza boss, however with that involving males becoming females(No, it is not really the case in the perspective of this review that the idols being men initially transiting to women is a trope to transgenderism, since they did what they had to do as part of the yakuza) is quite an extreme.

When you first watch this anime, what is really going for it are not a lot of continuous and soothing character dynamics but more since it is all yakuza, ... threatening and high alert based imperatives for character dynamics, which is fair enough. What is sprinked are surprising, and shocking moments of truth, realization, climaxing, and depressing shouts in the mind moments for our trio of(do not be offended by the use of the word "transgenderesque" when describing them in ths review, it mean like a transgender since they had surgery to fit themselves to become female idols whilst not being mentally females) transgenderesque idols and how it really plays with the Yakuza-type masculinity.

These are all interesting takes and retrospectives of what is gone through in this anime. Being an pop idol is also something to take in as a perspective when watching this since it seems ot a play on stereotype of overword that oyu average pop star takes in real life, but that is a discussion to be had for another space. What cannot be ignored is how twisted the anime is in its spins in order to generate a comedic atmosphere which are as ridiculous as they can get. Coupled with sporadic just between episodes, then motivation to keep watching are not as high. As a result, the rating attached in thsi review is based on the execution of the description with how are the episodes writted out.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 11, 2024

ghostorbz

Not Recommended

This anime just,,, isn't good. A friend of mine showed it to me about 3 or 4 years ago, and I decided to watch it again because I didn't remember what happened at all. I really shouldn't have though. Maybe I'm just sensitive but being someone who is trans this anime didn't sit well with me. The majority of the anime is just shaming the main 3 characters, putting them through abuse, and bashing trans people. There's not much beyond that, that's the only premise. You can't even ignore it, since that's all this anime is about! Comedy is the main genre, but I don't ... remember laughing at a single joke in this anime. The characters get verbally and physically harassed by fans and their boss, they're constantly being told they'll "Never be as pretty as real women", and even betrayed by past friends who fetishize them in their new bodies. The idea sound good on paper, 3 tough guys pretending to be cute idols. This didn't live up to my expectations at all. I wouldn't recommend this anime to anyone, especially another trans person.
Stepping away from the blatant transphobia, the art isn't appealing. There's basically no animation other than lip flaps, just making it a slideshow. It's not like the animation looks rushed or anything, there just isn't any. Characters barely move, even when the main 3 are on stage they just stand there, and it doesn't even look good. The art is very poorly drawn.
The music isn't memorable at all, I can't remember a single song the idols sang. I can't say much about it, the songs are unoriginal to the point I couldn't remember them if I had to.
Overall, I give gokudolls a 2. It isn't the absolute worst thing I've seen, but it's really bad. If you're trans, don't let this anime put you down. There's a ton of shows that portray you better, but this isn't one of them.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: Back Street Girls: Gokudolls Episode 2 Discussion TheFreycook - Aug 8, 2018	13 replies	by -Sonal- »» Feb 22, 12:15 AM
	Poll: Back Street Girls: Gokudolls Episode 3 Discussion TheFreycook - Aug 9, 2018	15 replies	by SadMeat »» Jan 9, 7:02 PM
	Poll: Back Street Girls: Gokudolls Episode 1 Discussion TheFreycook - Aug 8, 2018	26 replies	by TheDeep007 »» Feb 21, 2025 8:44 AM
	Poll: Back Street Girls: Gokudolls Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 4, 2018	59 replies	by Musakien0-0 »» Sep 30, 2024 10:41 AM
	After anime... Kutana_0P - Sep 15, 2024	1 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Sep 15, 2024 8:23 AM