Gall Force 1: Eternal Story

Bizancio★ 6

Excuse me, I'm Spanish and I don't usually write in English. If you want you can read my review in Spanish. One of the most popular and profitable franchises within the realm of the OVAs of the 80s was Gall Force, which for a lot of people is totally unknown due to its minor impact in the West. The origin of this multimedia franchise is in Star Front Gall Force, a 3D photonovela that appeared in the monthly Model Graphix magazine. Here were presented several of the characters that star in the film, which was produced and animated by the AIC and Artmic studios. Between themost prominent members of the staff are those responsible for Bubblegum Crisis (1987-1991) such as Katsuhito Akiyama or Kenichi Sonoda. Without reaching the splendor of the cyberpunk title, the quality of the animation is close to outstanding when the action erupts in the form of space battles. Gall Force: Eternal Story (1986) is a war drama about the eternal conflict between two alien races. Despite the fact that this question has been addressed, to a greater or lesser extent, by several previous titles, among which Space Runaway Ideon (1980-1981) or Macross (1982-1983) stand out, what strikes me is the idea that both sides seek an agreement to avoid their mutual destruction. A peace agreement that would be carried out through the creation of a third alien race, which would be born thanks to the genetic combination of the two. From my point of view, this idea is sensational since among those destined to hate each other, the only one who can mediate between them is a third party who is both alien, but also aware of the conflict. An idea that reminds me of a later film like Wicked City (1987), although Kawajiri's film has a more interesting thematic and symbolic construction. What it does not have, however, is a failure that will be repeated cyclically in the following films. Although I applaud such a solution I believe that this issue together with the war drama does not reach its highest point due to a series of inconveniences. In the first place, the action sometimes overshadows this theme due to the excessive attention it receives with long and abundant sequences of chases, space battles, etc. Second, the film's tone is inappropriate on multiple occasions, incapacitating the work to represent the seriousness of the conflict and explore the issues at stake. Comedy —generated above all by Rumy's comic relief— and eroticism —partial nudity, here and there— end up subtracting more than adding. Not extremely serious, but it clearly affects your presentation. Third, the background to the war is somewhat poor, with very little about the reasons that drive both sides to fight to the death. Finally, the war drama is less effective than it should because the subjects of this misfortune are of no interest to the audience. Despite the attractive designs, the characterization of the characters is mediocre. They hardly define his character and personality correctly, except for Lufy. Among the group members, this tough and reckless aunt is distinguished by her personal background which reveals how hurt she is over the death of her former companions. In addition to this background, her personality caused friction in the group that, in turn, generated a strong dynamic. Unfortunately, Lufy is the first to fall so we run out of interesting characters. Perhaps she does not catch anyone by surprise that from now on many feel indifference to the fate of the rest of the crew. Although the aforementioned inconveniences do not completely detract from this historical title, had it not been present, we would speak of a remarkable or even excellent work.

RobdeFR★ 7

For a start I have to paraphrase “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. I judged it that way all these years so I ended always postponing my visualization of Gall Force. I have to say that I regret not having watched it earlier. -------Little Spoilers on the beginning of the story bellow---------- In the middle of a space war, our all female team on their spaceship unite themselves to run away from what looked like a lost war, by doing that, they gained some unexpected members on their crew, females of course. But they were unable to escape safely, they were pursued by their enemies, analien race, in their attempt and that led to some confronts later on. -------End of the Spoilers---------- Well, the premise wasn’t anything extraordinary, in fact the premise and the cover image made my interest decrease, “an all girl force fighting in some galaxy…”, in fact it was quite lame and it got me away of Gall Force all these years, but fortunately this was one of those cases when “there’s more than meets the eye”. The characters weren’t nothing extraordinary too as I had expected, except the lead one, which we assume it is the lead, that was pretty dependable and actually developed into a great character. The story and the plot twists that it led were the strong points of the film, perhaps some twists weren’t well explained and detailed and there were a lot of background story to be told, but the fact how the story ran away from it’s initial course and done in an interesting way leading us to a completely unexpected and pretty cool ending makes for all the flaws of the anime. Ah, I’m a sucker to those types of endings, I loved it. The animation was pretty nice and proper for a ’86 OVA, the music fitted well. Some characters really annoyed me, but the great lead made for it. It’s a pretty good recommendation for a mid to late 80s sci-fi anime title. You’ll not regret it. Rate; 7.4/10