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• Studios: Hoods Entertainment
• Source: Original
• Genres: Music
• Synopsis: “Set five years after the mysterious disaster of a city’s sudden disappearance, a group of girls fascinated by the “Theatrical Material System” using 3D holograms aims to brighten the stage during the city’s post-apocalyptic recovery.”

-MAL News

First Impression:

Gekidol piqued my interest with its peculiar premise as well as it’s connection with Alice in Deadly School. Both are being animated by Hoods Entertainment which was the first clue, after finding that out I did a bit of research and found the correlation between the two shows. While vague it was still something interesting to give a chance so here we are let’s get into it!

The story doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to its strange and otherworldly plot line. It’s abruptly thrown in your face and it take a minute to sort of digest the situation at hand. While the story and setting begins to unfold, the connection between the other anime Alice in Deadly School are unclear, but I will say that the ambience of the show gives off quite an unnerving vibe. There is SOMETHING wrong (yes I know that there’s a giant HOLE in the ground but somehow it doesn’t feel threaten) yet it’s hard to point exactly where or what that something is.

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Ah and here we get a not very subtle dialogue of the history of this giant hole and supposedly dangerous aurora that surround Ikebukuro, where Gekidol takes place.

As the story takes place in Ikebukuro there are familiar spaces and buildings that present, it seems like the animators took a lot of time and effort into recreating the atmosphere and ambience of the city. Though I have to ask…why is there a victorian/gothic style house in the middle of Ikebukuro?! This is the home of our presumable protagonist Morino Seria, who live alone as her grandmother is in France tending to Seria’s grandfather. A lot of questionable plot point that don’t quite click…not sure where this is going but let’s get through it!

Ah yes, here the main event is the Alice in Theater Troupe performs a song and as the story is set in the future, there is fancy tech that creates what seem like holographic stages (which explains why they’re on the beach). The animation sticks strictly to 2D animation. While that not a bad idea, the art quality lacks the articulation and finesse to create a dynamic performance and is mediocre at best.

Recommendation:

NO

So there are two things that I found out while writing this first impression as well as watching the first episode if Gekidol let’s list them!

1. Alice in Deadly School is a play/story that the characters in the Gekidol will perform as said by the character at the end of the episode. So not necessarily same timeline or world but more of a story within a story, which is somewhat disappointing.
2. Alice in Deadly School will not airing at the same time as Gekidol, in fact the sholw 12 episode anime will be release along side Gekidol’s Blu ray in March 2021. The first episode that aired along with the first episode of Gekidol was simply an special OVA (which in my opinion isn’t worth talking about as the story is choppy, the animation is rough, and there are LOT questionable characters and their critical thinking skills…).

So I was wrong in my prediction that they would play off of each other story wise and create this interesting dynamic. Instead it will “here’s the story that they performed in this other story” type of inception. Still interesting but lacks the hype and impact that was thought to have happened. The quality of the show is quite poor aside from the backgrounds which depict real places in Ikebukuro, Japan. And I will also be skipping my Alice in Deadly School first impression as there’s no point in doing it anymore if the whole show will be released soon.

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