Ask John: Where is Gall Force: The Revolution?

Question:
I have seen an anime titled called Gall Force: The Revolution on the Internet and I was wondering, has this title be exported to the US?

Answer:
I’ve been a Gall Force fan for many years. The 1986 Gall Force: Eternal Story movie was one of the first Japanese language anime I ever watched, and I still count the original Gall Force trilogy among my very favorite anime titles. The original trilogy, which concluded in 1988, was quickly followed by the 1989 Rhea Gall Force OVA that served as an introduction to the three episode Gall Force: Earth Chapter OVA series. The Earth Chapter OVAs were shortly followed by the wretched and ill-fated two episode Gall Force: New Era OVA series that seemed to drive the final nail into the Gall Force franchise coffin. However, five years after New Era, the Gall Force franchise briefly resurfaced in 1996 with the four episode Gall Force: The Revolution OVA series. Central Park Media acquired and released all of the Gall Force anime except Revolution on American VHS and DVD. Gall Force: The Revolution has never been officially released in America and probably never will be.

Gall Force is a parable about the cyclical nature of time and the cosmic cycle. Existence breeds animosity leading to war and cataclysmic extinction. Since the universe continues, endings are also new beginnings. The characters and situations that occur in the original trilogy repeat a millennia later in the Earth Chapter saga. The conceptual conflict of the Earth Chapter saga repeats again after 200 years in the New Era story. So it’s not surprising to see that Revolution is an alternate retelling of the original Gall Force trilogy story, complete with a similar cast. Viewers completely fresh to the series may be able to enjoy the show, but Kyoko Tsuchiya’s original character designs lack the cherubic charm of Kenichi Sonoda’s original character designs. The space battle action may be fairly well animated, but it also feels redundant and simply a bit dull. Ultimately, the entire 4 episode series – I should specify that I’ve only watched it in untranslated Japanese and that was in 1996 – feels uninspired and lacking personality. There are enough narrative changes from the original trilogy to make Revolution a distinct series and not a rote re-make, but there are also numerous noticeable intentional similarities.

The original Gall Force trilogy was a bit of a landmark production. The trilogy – particularly the first and third episodes, are conceptually interesting, visually dynamic, and narratively provocative. The Rhea & Earth Chapter saga trades artistic and narrative experimentation for straightforward sci-fi action. So it’s less interesting, but not bad. New Era is simply awful, characterized by poor scripting and terrible art design and animation quality. Gall Force: The Revolution is on par with the Earth saga episodes; not bad, but not exceptional, either. I’d recommend Revolution to viewers curious about a spiritual predecessor to Divergence Eve minus the gratuitous sexism and awful CG. Central Park Media’s Gall Force releases have been out of print in America for years, and I don’t expect to see them relicensed for new distribution. Since the whole Gall Force franchise has minimal contemporary American market potential and the Revolution series is both mediocre and obscure, I can’t imagine it being a title likely for American release any time in the future.