Ask John: What is the Meaning of the End of Gall Force?

Question:
I recently saw Gall Force: Eternal Story as subtitled by US Manga Corps. I really enjoyed it, but I don’t quite get the ending. How can all of the main characters be alive on planet Terra if all but a few of them died defending their ship from the Paranoids?

Answer:
Consider the title “Eternal Story.” The point of Gall Force is that time is circular and the inescapable nature of mankind lies in war and destruction. This is made apparent by the second Gall Force series that includes Rhea Gall Force and the three Earth Chapter OAVs. In the original Gall Force trilogy the paranoids and Solnoids battle simply because “it’s what they do.” By the third movie both of these race’s home worlds have been destroyed and both of their races are clearly heading toward extinction, yet they continue to fight each other. There’s no longer any reason to continue the war, but both sides continue fighting because it’s part of their inherited destiny. In the third film Lufy goes back into battle with suicidal fortitude, even though she could have stayed behind and remained alive, because she knows she’s fighting an impossible to win battle, but surrender is not an option. In the end of the first film, Rabbi saves Patti because she knows that it’s likely that all of the crew will die in battle. Rabby wants to try to preserve some record of her race’s existence through a new generation. In the same way, at the conclusion of the third film Catty Nebulart jettisons the records of the Solnoid race into space because she knows that her race is doomed and wants to try to preserve some record of their existence somehow.

In Rhea Gall Force, the Solnoid records preserved by Catty Nebulart are discovered by the people of contemporary Earth, and a new war breaks out, again repeating the cycle of war and destruction. The ending of Gall Force: Eternal Story can be considered an alternate happy reality in which war doesn’t exist, but it can also be thought of as showing the re-incarnations of the Gall Force crew. As time repeats, people are reborn. Again, the similarity in character design between the Rhea Gall Force characters and their distant ancestors from the original Gall Force trilogy reinforce the idea of an “Eternal Story” of death and rebirth and an endless cosmic cycle of eternal war and destruction broken up by occasional brief periods of peace.