ゲキドル

GEKIDOL

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
March 3, 2021
LENGTH
23 min

DESCRIPTION

Five years after a mystifying disaster decimates cities across the globe, Seria Morino receives an invitation from a mysterious woman to join Alice in Theater, a small stage troupe that takes it upon themselves to brighten the world through their performances using 3D hologram technology. As Seria settles in, she begins to uncover unexpected truths about herself and the world around her…

(Source: Funimation)

Note: The BD box with all episodes was released on Mar 3, 2021. The regular broadcast ended on Mar 23, 2021 on AT-X.

CAST

Seria Morino
Hikaru Akao
Kaworu Sakakibara
Kana Hanazawa
Airi Kagami
Chihira Mochida
Doll
Mao Ichimichi
Manami Fujita
Asami Takano
Makoto Higuchi
Sarara Yashima
Akira Asagi
Nozomi Yamamoto
Izumi Hinasaki
Ayaka Suwa
Mayuri Nakamura
Amina Satou
Kazuharu Yamamoto
Aya Akiyoshi
Hirokazu Takezaki
Kousuke Toriumi

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO GEKIDOL

OVA SupernaturalAlice in Deadly School

REVIEWS

Katie505
70/100
If a less talented Hideaki Anno made an idol anime [skippable spoilers]
this'll be my first review, hooray

Gekidol, deriving its name from the japanese words for "theater" (engeki) and "idol" (…idol) is hard to describe. Even though I thought up that Anno analogy halfway through the series, having now completed it, I'm not sure if I could organize my present opinion into something that tact. And I'm trying anyway!

The first thing you'll notice about this anime is how painfully bland the first two episodes are. It plays out exactly like how a quote unquote "twist" on the idol genre would. The opening scene of the series introduces us to the futuristic, state of the art Theatrical Material System - or TMS - that pretty much functions as virtual reality for theatre patrons, allowing productions to fully immerse their audience into their show without the limitations of the physical world. Our protagonist, middle schooler Seria is one member of the audience at the Super Material Theater - or SMT - the pioneer of the TMS.

Of course, she falls in love with the artform. She wishes to be an actor, to be a part of the grand story-telling medium. Outside of the SMT, she reenacts one scene she loved with perfection. Then, we see what is Gekidol's greatest accomplishment and largest fault: the camera goes from Seria, to a city landscape, to a gigantic crater with a multi-colored aura right in the middle of the same city. She then joins the troupe Alice In Theatre - which doesn't get an acronym - and from there the highs and lows of her new actor-idol life begin.

Why I compare this anime to others Anno has made, is that Gekidol at once breaks and doesn't break convention of idol anime. There are your typical conflicts. Actor-idols argue over which role should go to each actor, an actress loses confidence in themselves, and, oh no, they risk going out of business if they can't get high enough sales and they only have one chance to make enough money... that sort of thing. Which is fine! I think those aspects of the show are par for the course and done at least better than most idol anime. But the larger story of Gekidol concerns the massive crater and everything that's happened because of it. I won't be spoiling everything, but I will reveal most of what kept me watching this show. So, go off now and skip the next section if you care about the crater, the role of Doll, and how TMS came to be in the first place.

Alright, first of all: Seria was hit hard by the crater. Not physically, but five years prior to the series, she was the only member of her family that survived the event. I wouldn't actually say it affected her that much, but it did enough to trigger the reveal of Gekidol's true colors. Once Seria joins Alice In she has some bonding moments with the other members of the troupe. The first actual production we see out of them is an idol performance made by the wannabe-idol Fujita Manami, who refers to herself in third person with her idol name Lovemin. I don't like her that much. She came up with the idea to spur interest in Alice In, since they're struggling to garner enough attention through plays alone.

Halfway through, the power goes out. Oh no! How will they perform without flashing lights and microphones? Well, one of the other members of Alice In (to be honest I hardly remember any of them) starts reenacting a scene from their upcoming play. In the dark, silent hall, the sole voices of... three members of Alice In strike the hearts of everyone that came to see an idol show. It's a huge success! They're able to show off their idol talent (which never comes up again, actually) and their acting prowess in the same event. Hooray!

They return to Alice In to rehearse for the play they previewed at the idol event, and having seen Seria act previously, every member except one nominates her for the co-star role. The contrarian is Kagami Airi, the second-best character in the whole series. She admits that Seria is a good enough actor for the role, but not if all she amounts to is a copycat of the previous co-star. Remember how I said she reenacted the scene in the first episode "perfectly"? That's because Seria has the talent to mimic people. What a concept that the show almost does nothing with! Back on Airi, her words cause Seria to doubt herself, and to practice with Alice In's "Doll".

Within the show's TMS universe, Dolls are androids that are able to act any perfectly and, when in the virtual reality of the TMS, appear as any person or character. SMT has a number of Dolls, Alice In has one. So Seria practices over and over with Doll but can't seem to find her own voice. Her self-doubt comes to a head when she bursts into tears and hugs Doll for comfort on an empty stage. Doll hugs her back. This moment, this scene, is what kept me from dropping the show. On a whim, after two episodes of perfectly fine content, I watched another and this review is what Gekidol gave me back.

Doll, after coming away from the hug, appears before Seria as her twin sister, Alice. She then makes Seria remember what happened on the day the crater appeared five years ago, which I described earlier. That day was her and Alice's birthday. A birthday cake, the exact same birthday cake Seria remembers seeing five years ago, materializes into existence onstage. This Doll, and all Dolls, have the ability to force others to relive their most emotional memories and to feel those same emotions again in their mind. And it's the crater from five years ago that brought the TMS, and Dolls, into reality.

Getting into things any more than that will spoil the second half of the series, but again, being honest, the last three or so episodes lost me. Among my gripes with Gekidol is how it feels there is so much potential to what it sets up that ends up being pushed aside for a completely different plot that I believe is far less compelling that the pain and doubts of Alice In, and its manager who I didn't even get into, Kaworu. In case you were desperately wondering who I think is the best character of this show that less than a thousand people watched, it's Kaworu.

A more suspect issue, and one that could push people away earlier, is the uncomfortable but uncommon issue/showcasing of these middle schooler's bodies in a sexual light. It's only in two episodes early on, and is a major part of one of Alice In's members backstories, but I understand if reading that put you off immediately and/or disappointed you. Fortunately, the most egregious shots, the show's multiple EDs, are replaced entirely in Funimation's release of this anime.

Alongside that content but definitely not as bad is the show's triumphant set-up of a lesbian couple, and subsequent failure to launch of that relationship. It, along with mostly everything the first half of the show sets up, is background of the second half. It really feels like it was supposed to play a larger role in the story, but hey, there's nothing wrong anyway if it wasn't supposed to be.

To wrap this review up, I'd say that it's a good enough show to start only if you're interested in a thriller, sci-fi type show, or acting and theatre. I'm currently majoring in technical theatre myself, which is most likely why I felt compelled to try my luck with Gekidol in the first place. I did, in fact, enjoy Gekidol the whole time, but my enjoyment of the show graphed would be a bell curve (though the last six minutes brought me back up again).

Still, for what Gekidol is, it's worth the price of admission.
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CirnoHakurei
65/100
Starts off really strong, keeps going, and then has a really messy final quarter where everything just falls apart
Reviewing this show is difficult. It's almost like I watched two different shows. To start with, you have the theatre idol parts. Those were, in my opinion, when the show was at its best. This is pretty much 3/4s of the show. There are the scifi things mixed in throughout, but it's all integrated pretty well. Then....you hit the last quarter. Suddenly, everything that was built up, everything that had happened, is either forgotten, reverted, or pushed entirely to the side, all to make the sci fi completely and totally front and center. There was a lot of time spent learning about the cast, going through many different things, but now they're not important. They're just extras that never get to have a role fulfilled. If you're going to switch main characters, do it via death, or do it early on. That's my opinion on these things.

Also, if you're going to have lots of character growth and development, don't get rid of it just so you can tell your chuunibyou sci fi story. This might seem like harsh words, but if you saw it, you'd know what I mean. So many nonsensical terms start getting utilized, and the plot goes completely off the rails, as off the rails as the romance that the show was working with, in favor of a romance that I can guarantee you is poorly suited to the audience they were marketing this towards. Will use the spoiler tag hereI am not against age gap/whatever you want to call it romance. My profile will reveal this much. But they were making him out to be a total creeper the entire time. He displayed all the traits of a 'groomer', even had cameras looking in on middle school girls' dressing rooms. But then we're supposed to think that this relationship that a 20-30 year old man started with a middle school girl, is "beautiful" or something to root for? When we previously had a really healthy and supportive relationship between two middle school girls (they had thier fights, but what relationship doesn't involve that?)? But it's okay, to make it so you can focus more on Kaworu and Hiro's "tragic" relationship, they just get rid of that relationship progress and turn Airi into someone completely different. The same girl who always wanted Seria to be the lead, even when Izumi was a choice, now that's all just gotten rid of, and she doesn't believe in Seria anymore This is just a small taste of how badly things go in that direction. I can't see why they thought this was a good idea to have actual meaningful kisses and all those things said, and then decide to cover it all up and instead give an age gap lolicon predator relationship as the main focus...I just don't get it
Even ignoring how poorly this show ended up handling the actually pretty well done romance(to that point), you have the scifi plot. The plot that really is something you'd read out of some middle schooler or high schooler's notebook of ideas. It's as coherent as you'd expect too. Nothing really makes sense in the end. And the final scene before the reused footage scene (yes, they used over five minutes of reused footage at the end with a really odd dub over that felt entirely out of place) just....what? Enri Viano said it wanted to "fix" the "proper" timeline, and destroy the current one. And make a happier future. That is 100% what happened. Even though there was talk about "we don't want to support the current timeline being destroyed!" and Seria and co for some reason caused Enri Viano to be shocked...everything went as vano wanted. The timeline was destroyed. They went back and "fixed" the normal timeline, and things happened as they were "supposed" to happen. Enri won big time, but for some reason acted like the goal wasn't met. Which is made all the more frustrating, because everything was reverted. All of that development, all of that everything, was reset. I didn't want Alice to come back. it was an important piece of who Seria was now, and it was important to how her and Airi met and got together. Course, the show at this point already acted like they were never a thing in the first place....so what else would occur in this poorly written mess?
I wanted to love this show. I was loving this show. It was such a brilliant mix of idols, theater and sci fi. But then everything went wrong. It really was as if some other writer entirely took over. There were so many contradictions that I didn't list, because it's too much to pin everything down. But the stuff in the spoiler tags, and what was alluded to outside them, should be more than enough of an idea that something went very wrong. This really could have been something special, something different. I mean, what other anime that wasn't explicitly stated to be yuri...did you get an actual meaningful kiss between two girls? Let alone two! That's why this gets the score it did. I would have given it a much lower score, but before everything went wrong, stuff was so very right. So, a 65 feels a fair representation of my experience. I don't know if it was a case of producers/etc going "you can't show this kind of stuff on TV", and that's why the romance parts of the show started making no sense all of a sudden. Or the writer themself are the cause. But either way, that's how things went. And a show that had shown so much potential, was dumped into HInamizawa's swamp...
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Almy
100/100
There are two characters on this website named Kaworu. One is from Evangelion. The other is from this.
this is more of a terribly organized rant about this show than a proper review. i tried for ages to format my thoughts on this show into a proper review, and i just couldn't do it. i need to talk about this but i don't know how to say it. this is the best way I could.

also i wrote this in one go at midnight so sorry if it's not very coherent.

The best way I can describe this show is that someone watched Evangelion and went "We could make an idol show out of this!"

It is the craziest show I've ever watched, to the point where I have no idea how to rate it.

It's a complete shitfest that somehow manages to be one of the most gripping things I've ever watched. It stumbles ass-backwards into being entertaining despite the fact that the idol portions of the show (which is like half the show) just objectively suck. The first three episodes of this show are exclusively about idol stuff, and they're just really bad. Which is a shame, cause all that did was make the already very low number of people watching this show even lower.

Take everything you associate with good anime and completely chuck it out the window. I don't know if I can call this a so bad it's good show, but I can say with certainty that I've never seen a more batshit insane show. This is so completely stupid and I could score this anywhere from a 1-10 and be able to justify it. I've never seen anything like it. I don't think there IS anything like it.

If nothing else, I commend them for having the balls to try something like this, even if they didn't execute it well at all. I'm not sure if I can even say they didn't execute it well, I really can't tell if they failed completely or accidentally succeeded completely. It's so bizarre it breaks my mind when I try to talk about it.

It tries to explore like 40 different ideas and then actually follows through on none of them. It alternates randomly between being boring and an ADHD Evangelion obsessed 12 year old's fever dream. Seriously, there are a LOT of Evangelion references in this thing (one of the characters is a Misato ripoff named Kaworu). I don't know how half this show can be uninteresting and the other half can be one of the most accidentally gripping things I've ever watched. I have seriously no idea how they did it, and I don't think they do either. It's both gripping and boring and the same time, which I didn’t know was possible.

This show just absolutely oozes chaotic energy at every turn. It'll start the episode with 15 minutes of boring idol stuff that no one cares about, before immediately jumping into hypnotism robots, massive death illusion craters, and time traveling multiple-personality alien cops. I'm serious. All of that is in the show.

There is a scene in this show that I think perfectly summarizes the chaos. Three characters are having a heated, heartfelt discussion. Suddenly, one of them collapses on the ground. The other two continue the conversation over her lifeless body. It never gets brought up again. Just like most other things in this show, it just doesn't get expanded on. I still have absolutely no idea why it happened.

This is a great group watch if you just want to get together with some friends and marvel at whatever the fuck is unfolding on your computer. I watched this with my friend and I think that really enhanced the experience of some of the more wild moments in the show. There are SEVERAL massive WTF moments in this show.

If nothing else, this show is unique. I feel confident in saying there has never been anything like this (at least, certainly not that I've come across), and I doubt I will ever see anything like this again. It is a wholly unique experience that I don't think can be replicated. It is beyond comparison for me, and that's an achievement. This show sticks out to me more than any other show I've ever watched. Even though it's not always enjoyable, it certainly gripped me for it's run, and has continued to grip me even after the ending. It deserves credit for that.

edit: this is a 10. i watched this show over a year ago and it hasn't left my mind since. this just has to be a 10. i don't think i'll ever find anything like this again.

please message me if you find a show or manga in any way similar to this. i want to watch one and i can't
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