MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*
There's not much info online about this one-shot obscurity, though one site translated about thirteen installments of a manga series, with the added info that the feature enjoyed about 60 chapters. I'm going to guess that the GAUTAMAN manga was not terribly successful, but that this lack of success made the franchise cheap enough for some studio to snap up the rights. Maybe the studio hoped to garner some attention with yet another fanservice-heavy "magical-girl" concept (though nowhere near as heavy as KEKKO KAMEN). As far as I know, there was just this 45-minute OAV.
From the thirteen chapters I read, the concept is relatively novel. Mari Amachi is a Japanese Christian of high school age. She's enrolled in an extraordinarily "multi-culti" school, the Perfect Religion Institute, where all students and teachers belong to a wide variety of religions. The manga starts off gradually, showing how Mari arrives at school and is befriended by future best friend Saori, a Hindu girl. However, the anime jumps ahead to a point where Mari and Saori have also become acquainted with another classmate, handsome Tobishima, with whom Mari is smitten. In the anime Mari has already been transforming for some time into "Gautaman," a name that may be a combination of the 1970s anime GATCHAMAN and the personal cognomen of the Buddha. Mari's origin is super-simple; the first time she's in peril, she calls on God for help, but instead the Buddha answers and gives her the power to change into Gautaman. It's not clear exactly what powers Gautaman has, for she's usually seen just hitting villains with punches and kicks. Once or twice, she satisfies the oddity of her name by slamming into someone with her big, well-exposed butt. Yet even in 45 minutes, there aren't as many butt-jokes as I expected.
As for the source of peril, Guataman's source of enemies is a gang called the "Black Buddhas," who want to force everyone at the school to convert to their religion, whatever it is. There's nothing remotely Buddhist about any of the villains: some of them dress up like octopi (I think they get turned into sashimi) and their leader calls himself "Pope Johann" and dresses accordingly. (He also turns into a Terminator at the climax.) Mari in her "secret identity" is terribly embarrassed by her alter ego's showiness, especially since Tobishima considers Guataman to be little better than a whore. Yet he really has no room to talk, for Tobishima is a member of the Black Buddhas.
The biggest surprise for GAUTAMAN is that for a one-shot OVA, it actually has a unifying arc despite the rampant silliness. Two-thirds of the way through, Mari's father recognizes her in her superhero ID, because-- he recognizes her exposed butt as that of his own little girl. Surprisingly, there's no sense that his butt-recognition is pervy in any way, which perviness is something one sees a LOT of, in anime. Further, because the dad disapproves of Mari being a half-naked hero, he tells her that unless she gives it up, he'll remove her from school. Of course at the end, Mari must become Gautaman to battle Tobishima in his super-villain guise. She wins, but then loses, because the OAV does end with Dad and Mari departing the school by train. We don't see Tobishima wishing her goodbye, but Saori does. She for her part had been tossing out a few lesbian overtures to Mari throughout the anime, and Mari didn't pick up on them, but for the conclusion she confesses to Mari as she leaves. Mari pledges that they'll see one another again-- roll credits. It wasn't anything heart-rending, to be sure. But it was at least an original way to finish up a video that was mostly naked boobs and butts, dopey religious jokes, and light lesbianism.
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