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If Mushoku Tensei — Jobless Reincarnation was a difficult review to write, Gekidol unfortunately isn't. This unhappy cross between Love Live and Stein's Gate is for me easily the worst anime I've actually managed to finish this season.
The story tells the fight of an underdog theatre group, Alice in Theatre, with an overpowering competing group, the aptly named Super Material Theatre. Supposedly set in a post-apocalyptic world (that looks surprisingly unchanged to today's Japan), Alice In fights for economic and artistic survival and at times branches out into Idol territory to gain some money on the side to stave off bankruptcy — in fact, the word Gekidol is meant to be a mix between theatre (gekjoo / げきじょう / 劇場) and idol.
If properly executed, this could have been a winning formula — aspiring artists trying to realise their artistic visions under difficult economic and personal circumstances. There are even a few scenes that show promise in this direction. The characters discuss their expectations, there willingness to compromise. They even have a cheap restaurant where they hang out.
Unfortunately, the writers didn't leave it at this. They decided to mix in time travel in which two teams conspire across the different periods, artificial intelligence, loss, and depression. Add to this holography and a largely one-sided and (at least to me) unmotivated love affair between of the characters, and it would have taken a genius to pull this off.
I'd have like to see this fly — alas, not this time. I think largely due to its unwillingness to commit to any clear line, Gekidol's plot appears to me as largely incomprehensible mess. The characters don't save it either; many of their motivations remain a mystery to me. For Gekidol, less would have been more.
Gekidol — Official Anime Trailer
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