Speculative Review of Gatchaman Crowds
By James U.
Speculative Review at a Glance:
Rating as of Episode 5:
2 out of 5
Highest Point:
Certain stories focus on the average citizens rather than the main cast. The bystander’s point of view can get pretty immersive and enhances the believability of the setting.
Lowest Point:
A very unrelatable and uninteresting main character. She’s almost too perfect to the point that she devalues the other characters because everything she does is always right anyway, even though she acts on a whim almost all the time. Her happy-go-lucky demeanor even when things go south, while admirable and very shounen hero-like, still doesn't make her fun to watch since it seems like she’s not taking things very seriously even when people’s lives are at risk.
Recommendation:
It’s been a while since I've seen a Henshin Hero type of anime. While I’m a total sucker for such things, it’s not enough to pull me into it. There are just too many things that drag it down, plus it’s only meant to run for 12 episodes. It’s filled with bad cliches, it’s kinda bland, and the main character is insufferable. I don’t recommend it.
Overview
Gatchaman Crowds is a transformation superhero sci-fi anime set in modern-day Japan. It’s loosely based on the old 70s anime Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (It was localized as G-Force: Guardians of Space). It’s directed by Nakamura Kenji, a guy who storyboarded Karas and directed that weird economy-based combat anime C: The Money of Soul and Possibility of Control. Crowds started airing July 13, 2013 and is scheduled to have 12 episodes.
Premise
In a slightly futuristic Japan (where else?), a small group of people with superpowers called Gatchaman secretly protect the world from an alien invasion. Ordinary high school student Ichinose Hajime is the newest member of the team, and she brings with her a new perspective on the ongoing war with the aliens. Due to her newbie status, her different views don’t go over well with the other team members, particularly her direct senior (both in Gatchaman AND in school) Tachibana Sugane.
Japan is a funky place... for now
Crowds is set in a semi-futuristic Japan not unlike the current one with the exception of GALAX. It’s basically Facebook in MMORPG form, complete with avatars and world stats. It’s a very idealized online community that actually has a very concrete impact in the real world in the form of live notifications, real-time requests for assistance, etc.
The avatar style also prevents duck face pics. It’s perfect.
The city itself is quite colorful and has that “hand-drawn” feel that matches the 70s look of the characters. It even has a very preppy soundtrack. It’s fun to watch, and despite the colors, it’s still pretty easy on the eyes.
Is that preppy? I dunno, I haven’t been young in years.
All is not well of course, as alien invaders secretly wreak havoc across the city. The thing about the aliens is that they can take the form of normal civilians, causing not only property destruction, but also distrust among the populace. This creates a very idyllic setting that has a subtle dark side slowly eating away at the fragile peace its citizens take for granted. It’s fun to watch for the subtle changes in the citizens’ behavior as the chaos begins to spread.
Aliens and Power Armor! What’s not to like?
If there’s one thing cool about Crowds, it’s the awesome suit designs. It reminds me of Tiger & Bunny, only less streamlined and more spiky Cyberpunk-like. They’re all quite unique (well, all three of them for now anyway), but they all follow the same design paradigm.
Uniforms and spandex can go suck a dick.
It’s even better when they zip around the battlefield. The movements, while a tad jerky (CG problems), are quite fast and well choreographed. The fights themselves are pretty fun to watch since all the Gatchaman (men?) have unique power sets that can totally wreck your neighborhood.
Umm... I’m not gonna pay for that.
The aliens, at least the first ones, look pretty crappy in comparison. They’re basically floating Rubik's cubes with black goo flailing around inside. Fight scenes aren't very engaging simply because they just float around and fling their shit all over the place. They don’t look that threatening and they don’t make for interesting enemies since they don’t talk. They also devalue the fight scenes (and by extension, the heroes) since it doesn't take much to take them out.
“What did you just call me!?”
It’s still pretty early to tell whether succeeding villains will have a bigger impact. Luckily, that doesn't seem to be the case since the Rubik's cube aliens get phased out from the food chain pretty early on, and the new alien seems rather demented.
And rapey.
The real heroes are the ones who deliver your pizza
The story is pretty standard stuff, to the point where it gets utterly predictable. Aliens invade the planet, school kids fight back with super powers, something more sinister is fapping in the background, the works.
You could probably guess what’s going on here.
If there’s one thing that isn't as cliche, it’s the way the story captures modern society. While it’s a very idealized version of a wirelessly-connected culture, it does manage to show pretty well how society functions given technological advances like GALAX.
There are no heroes, only superpowered alien fighters.
There’s quite a bit of focus on the regular civilians. It’s actually quite immersive from an extra’s perspective; like you’re part of the world, but as a bystander rather than a Power Ranger. It’s an interesting experience to say the least, and it ties well with one of the themes of the series which is the power of the common man (also the main intent of GALAX). It’s certainly a high point, but I can’t really say the same for everybody else since it’s not a very empowering experience for the viewer.
Go normal people!
It seems like the story will be very slow, at least in the beginning. There isn't very much going on (not even fight scenes) in the five episodes that I've seen. It’s mostly some societal problem that gets tackled by normal people with some minor alien or Gatchaman intervention. Other than that, the pace of the plot just shambles along, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it only has 12 episodes.
An insult to paper
You might have noticed that I don’t talk about the characters so much. That’s ‘cos they’re not really very interesting. They've got their own personality archetypes to pull from, but other than that there’s very little indication that there’s a human being inside their 2D shells.
I used the term “human” very loosely.
I get that it’s still a bit early to tell what kind of people they are, but five episodes in and I still don’t know them as individuals, only referring to them by their archetype. The story is pretty bad at showing what makes them tick, essentially turning them into walking cliches. I’m holding out hope that they’ll eventually be fleshed out, but I’m having doubts since there’s less than 10 episodes left (at the time of writing).
It also doesn't help that most of them are kinda annoying. Except for the aloof salaryman and the emotionless girl, the rest of the main cast can get pretty loud and overly flamboyant. Part of their speech pattern or even just their normal reactions are stretched too far and serve little to no purpose at all. I think it’s supposed to show their personalities a bit, or at least serve as a cold contrast to make their more serious moments more effective, but it doesn't cancel out the fact that they act like terrible impromptu comedy acts. Watching them is no fun at all.
*sigh* Of course they have the gay stereotype.
Perfect human beings are the worst kind
My biggest gripe with Crowds is with its main character, Ichinose Hajime. See, I really like flawed characters. They’re easy to make a connection with, and stories that have them grow from having to live with the consequences of their actions are always great to watch. On the flip side, there’s the super perfect character who slowly gets taken down a notch, peg by peg, and watching the deconstruction process often makes for great character arcs. The one thing they have in common is character development, change, whether it be for better or worse.
And I don’t mean puberty.
Hajime is none of these. She is neither flawed nor does she get into any humbling experiences (for now at least). She’s also annoying. See, she’s got that outlandish behavior thing going on, so much so that it actually seems like she has some sort of mental sickness like ADHD (unfortunately, she doesn’t). It seems like she just does things based on the arbitrary rule that people do things for good reasons. It’s nice on paper, and might even be a good setup for a deconstruction of the concept, but it doesn’t seem like the story is going in that direction. The worst part is, she’s always right.
She will shit on your hierarchy, and her shit will be pearly-white and it smells like perfection.
I don’t really understand what the writers were going for with Hajime. She does something, and it’s always good, even if it goes against common logic. She also has no respect for authority. While the Gatchaman are by no means an organized force, they do seem to have some sort of hierarchy within the team since their job involves protecting the human race. So of course she takes a massive holier-than-thou shit on that hierarchy since she’s never wrong. Hell, at one point she disobeys a direct order from her superior based on abstract bullshit reasoning that makes little sense, and it turns out she was right to do so. It doesn’t help that her insubordination has resulted in property damage at least once and yet she never gets called out for it.
“I didn’t kill that penis monster that was raping you because I think it just wanted to make friends! Tee-hee!”
Another problem with Hajime is that she’s an incredibly static character. Since nobody calls her out for her shit, or will even listen if anybody does, she doesn’t really get much in the way of character development. She doesn’t change over time, and in fact she’s the one who brings about change among the other Gatchaman as if they were never able to make any sort of character progression until she came along. It’s like there’s nothing left for this character to do other than save everybody’s incompetent asses while farting rainbows and happiness.
I’m not molesting you because I can tell that you secretly want to be friends with me!
She’s loud, she’s annoying, she doesn’t respect your personal space or your opinions, or just plain doesn’t respect you, and she’s better than you because you don’t think like her. I think teenagers, or hell maybe just the writers, would be the only ones who can like such a character.
Conclusion
There’s really not much reason to watch Gatchaman Crowds. It’s got a great setting sure, and the unique focus on the extras is an interesting experience, but that isn’t really enough to make it entertaining to watch. It’s difficult to slog through an episode because nothing much happens in terms of plot development, and it’s trying to tell a story that’s filled to the brim with unlikeable characters. The setting and the art style can only go so far. I do not recommend this anime, but hey you never know, maybe it’ll get better over time.
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