Project Otaku Power-Levelling: Part 1

With explanations out of the way, let's get started on the first night of my marathon.


My first night involved the OVAs Gestalt and Eien no Aseria. I was excited to watch these, but truth be told...they were kinda letdowns.

Gestalt

Gestalt is one of about a billion fantasy anime ideas that get shoved into OVA format and never goes anywhere. I'm not sure what I expected out of it, but I wanted better than a "tournament of the demi-gods" and a priest going on a long journey to find out a blatantly obvious truth. The thing is, Gestalt kinda does that thing I hate about OVAs. It sets up a lot of plot points that would take several episodes to play out, while the writers are already aware most won't be able to pay off.

The one part I did enjoy was Ouri's (click the link) introduction. The character has a Silence spell cast on her, so she talks with text boxes, RPG-style. Its simultaneously hilarious and cute. The priest seems likable enough, but only as a side character. I've never been big on action series where the main character is just a bystander whenever fights come and a side character has to save them, and that's what this was and would have remained.

A positive thing I can say about Gestalt, too, was that the most pertinent issues DID get resolved, even if it had more story to be told. The story ends with the priest and Ouri having saved a kingdom from a dark elf and a demi-god before heading off to new, unseen adventures. We'd like to know more, but at least we know how that particular story ended. I wish I could say that for my other pick of the night.

Eien no Aseria

This anime gives me a headache. I didn't know anything about it going in--I hadn't even read MAL's synopsis, I just thought the art was pretty and it was a short, fantasy anime that might be nice to waste an hour watching.

My mistake. To start, fantasy worlds by way of parallel universes is rarely my bag. Then there's the fact that we're not allowed to like any of the characters. The main character just reacts to events, rather than using his strength to forge his own path, so he gets bullied by some dick-ish King and his even more dick-ish daughter while they threaten his sister.

They ask him to use what is CLEARLY an evil sword so the entire two episodes I spent screaming: "Hey douchebag! Your sword's EVIL! Ditch it before that bites you in the ass!" He NEVER listens.

The series raises an interesting issue with the idea of using summoned spirits to fight battles instead of humans--how it can basically lead to endless no-win battles that destroy lives for no reason. No one even knew anything about the warring kingdom--which, honestly, has been used by far deeper stories than this series. But again: Episode count of two. So there's really no time to get into that. I'm fine with that, but...

The story ends with some anonymous villains kidnapping his sister after an attack on the kingdom the protagonist has been assigned to protect, and him continuing to help despite the death of the king, so they'll help him get his sister back.

...I'm sorry, WHAT? You CAN'T end your story that way. Its bad enough to ignore all the philosophical questions raised, but to refuse to at LEAST solve something THAT huge? Why even bother?!

Ugh. Yeah. Hopefully my remaining series are more interesting than this.