Kogalo & Kolio, or Koyama-styled Galo and Lio, are chibi-styled sketches of Galo and Lio drawn by Shigeto Koyama, the movie Promare's character and mecha designer. Multiple doodles of them were uploaded to his Twitter accounts and Instagram. They soon became popular enough to allow for merchandise[1][2][3][4].
Appearance[]
Kogalo[]
Kogalo is a big-headed version of Galo. His mohawk hair may occasionally be exaggerated to joke about Imashi's protagonists' hairstyles. His hip belts switch from being added or excluded for simplicity. The same could be said for his gloves and other details on his pants. His eyes resemble black dots while his waist remains thin compared to his head mass.
Kolio[]
Kolio is a big-headed version of Lio, who is shown constantly smiling. His kerchief is one triangle while all of Lio's black belts have been removed. White belts may remain however. Only one or two zippers may be added. Similar to Kogalo, those eyes of his are black dots. White silk cuffs are occasionally added. There are no gloves to be seen. Compared to Kogalo, he is more frequently featured in Koyama's art.
History[]
The earliest drawing of either character was on April 6th, 2019, where Kolio is shown having a conversation with a chibi Mako from Kill la Kill[5]. Since then, Koyama has constantly used the character for his signatures and uploaded them to his Twitter accounts or Instagram. He soon began to incorporate Kogalo into this later on. Fans enjoyed the simplistic and cute style, resulting in fan request drawings at booths. For the magazine Famitsu for the May 2019 issue, an illustration of Kolio was offered in a contest with the deadline being May 30th of the same year. Said illustration was also offered alongside a Matoi Tech drawing by Hiroyuki Imaishi[6].
In July 2019, it was revealed that plastic 3D figures were made of the duo by Noramurachou via garage kit. Garage kits are figurine model kits used to make plastic figures of pop culture as fan art. An image was later uploaded by Koyama on July 27th, 2019[7]. It was soon commercialized and is sold via Goodsmile for both Japanese and United States fans[2]. They are referred to as "SGT version." For Japanese Blu-ray preorders in February 2020, yellow stands featuring the duo posing acted as a bonus for select consumers[8]. Later color versions would be shown on official staff Instagrams. They would later be added to frisbees sold from Trigger's official website as promoted on Twitter.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
Etymology[]
- The terms "Kogalo" and "Kolio" come from combining Koyama's name with the respective character. It was adopted by both English and Japanese fans to allow for fan art categorization, but this name has not been confirmed by Koyama himself.
- Ko may also be a play on the kanji character "子" which is the character for child. This references their chibi-like art style and tendency to act childish in Koyama's artwork[note 1].
Intertextuality and References[]
- The same style used for the duo can be found in both Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and Kill la Kill's EDs, projects both Koyama and Imaishi worked on.
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