Gestalt

Choujuu Densetsu Gestalt is a somewhat obscure two episode OVA produced by TV Tokyo. It's based on an eight volume manga by Kouga Yun. What is it about and why has it been largely overlooked by people? Is it a forgotten gem or should it be left in a refuse bin somewhere? Let's delve in and see if we can find out. Story: We open with a dark elf named Suzu, who incidentally looks nothing like the traditional jet black skinned, silver haired dark elf, talking to a priest. He tells her that Father Olivier has left the order on a journey to the forbidden land of“G” in order to find the truth about their religion and the world and needs to be returned because religious orders frown on truth finding excursions. Plus there's the whole forbidden thing. We transition to a scene of Father Olivier performing a blessing for some townspeople at the urging of the innkeeper. She's so grateful that she gives him a woman named Ouri who can only communicate in video game style text boxes. Having a moral compass, he doesn't approve of slavery but he reluctantly takes her just so that she won't be sold to an establishment of ill repute where terrible things will happen to her. They encounter Suzu but they're saved when Olivier dispels the silence spell that's sealing Ouri's magic. The OVA covers their first stop on their way to the cursed island and what happens with that. Let's start with the first really noticeable problem with the OVA. The spontaneous romance. Being a decent person, Olivier offers Ouri her freedom pretty much the instant they leave the town where they met, but she needs a reason to stick with him because otherwise there wouldn't be a story. So, they use the most cliched, and one of the most contrived, excuse they can think of. She instantly falls in love with him. The climax also has a deus ex moment but, in all fairness, it's kind of a light offender since it's clearly establishing something for later in the narrative. The OVA just doesn't get far enough into the story to have the payoff. The comedic elements in this are kind of weak too. The whole thing with Ouri communicating with text boxes for a while is clearly meant to be funny, but it really isn't and there are a lot of jokes like that. You can tell what they're going for but it's either just not funny or the execution isn't good so it ends up not working. It's not cringe-worthily bad or offensive, it's just lacking actual humour value. Characters: The cast is pretty basic. Olivier's the generic nice guy. He has convictions but isn't strong enough to do anything about them. So he ends up in situations where he's completely inadequate. Ouri is the action girl love interest. Suzu is... a romantic rival for Ouri, I think. Her character is so bland it's hard to tell. I suppose that they might be decent enough for a comedy if there were really good jokes surrounding them, but that isn't the case so they just come across as dull and rather listless. Art: The artwork is pretty good. The character designs are nicely done and the action sequences are quite good. The only real problem is that the backgrounds can be kind of stock and lazy. Sound: The acting is fine. They got some really talented actors like Koyasu Takehito and Araki Kae. But, there's not a lot for them to work with. Koyasu doesn't get to show much emotion and Araki doesn't get to employ any subtlety, with a lot of her dialogue being exaggerated. They're still passable performances, just not ones that leave much impact. The music is pretty mediocre. Ho-yay: This one doesn't have any homo-eroticism. Of course, it's bad at romance so that's probably a good thing. Final Thoughts: Choujuu Densetsu Gestalt doesn't really do much. As a comedy it's largely unfunny. As a fantasy work it's just banal. I don't particularly dislike it and I wouldn't call it bad per se. It's easy to see why it's largely forgotten since it really doesn't have much impact whatsoever, positive or negative. My final rating is going to be a 4/10. It's a sub-par piece. Next week I'll look at Glass no Kamen, which was requested quite a while ago but I had the Gintama request to finish first. So look forward to that next week. I'll try to make it worth the wait.

Gestalt is one of those myriad OVAs released in the 90s, titles which often get forgotten despite a certain level of creativity and passion which deserves some recognition, even for all the problems which often beset them. Gestalt embodies this phenomenon, pairing an interesting premise with a nostalgic, if flawed, execution. Beginning with the story, it's a simple fantasy adventure setup, with a distant mystical destination, a mystery, and populated by dragons, dark elves, and sorcerers. I like the story for its creative worldbuilding, which has its own sense of identity, while also drawing on many of the tropes whichgive many 90s anime that sense of warmth and adventure. However, it does feel as though the viewer is dropped in right at the middle of the story, missing serious context. As a result, the wider story is generally lacking the weight needed to make the viewer really care about it. The art, meanwhile, is simultaneously the strongest and weakest aspect of this anime. The art direction, creature design, and architectural detailing, altogether lends itself to the construction of a fascinating world which feels eminently explorable, driven by the passion and creativity often on display in titles of this era. It is this aspect that really carries the rest of the anime for me. However, the character design is uninspired, the animation is often pretty stifled, and the frequent reuse of animations is both obvious and clumsy. Characters also sometimes suffer from what I term the 'dreaded mask', where facial animation is sorely lacking and dramatic moments fail to play out in facial expressions. This can take the wind right out of a scene that would otherwise be quite engaging. The sound is fine, though it falls behind in a few areas, namely the obnoxious stock sound effects and occasionally awkward line delivery. The characters also meet all standards of quality, managing to develop just enough to feel more than empty puppets for the story to move around. Of them, my favorites are the main duo, Olivier and Ohri, namely for the way in which they fill the gaps in the others' character, keeping each of their glaring flaws from getting in the way of the story. However, I did not like how they developed Ohri later on, towards the very tail end of the 2nd episode. In my opinion, it was a very odd direction to go in. Overall, Gestalt is an intriguing little OVA with a fun world that bleeds 90s fantasy vibes, but fails to stick the landing overall. Give it a watch if you just want to enjoy some light viewing and fun, nostalgic visuals, especially if you're not too bothered about the wider tale being told.

This is a short fantasy anime with elves, magic, and priests with some parody elements. It's on the comedy side. The story follows a priest who leaves his religious order to go a region called "G" which is taboo. In this mysterious region, some sort of truth would be revealed. However, since it's a very short adaptation, it's naturally incomplete and only one small introductory arc is covered. Weak points: very incomplete story. 90's gags that you may not like. The fights are mainly spell-casters chanting spells at each other. Strong points: art looks okay if you like 90's anime girls and dark elves. I checked this animebecause the art in the main cover on MAL looked really interesting, but the art in the anime looks different and much more in line with what you would expect of a 90s fantasy with elves. I guess that style of illustration is from the manga instead. The story isn't that interesting. Although there seems to be something serious going on, most of the anime is light hearted with gags and even parodies RPG games with dialogue boxes, so even if the story was complete I don't think it would be good.