"It's not heroes who will update the world. It's us." — GALAX
I usually don't review anime I've recently watched. This is because in my experience, my opinion on certain anime seem to change drastically over time. I don't want to give an opinion on a show, then have to do a redux review because I now think the show is a 7/10 instead of a 8/10. I remember a time when I thought Sword Art Online was decent, though that brings back painful memories of myself which I don't want to elaborate on. I recall when I thought Kara no Kyoukai wasn't that great; I guess I was stupid or something back then. There was even a time where I hated Fate/Zero, something that couldn't be further than my thoughts on it currently. But with all that said, today I'll be reviewing Gatchaman Crowds, an anime I only finished watching about two days ago. The reason for this is that I think I know exactly what I think of this show right now, I want to get these thoughts out before they vanish. And if this review comes back to bite me in the future, well, I just take that when it comes. Now let's get started.
Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, I hope you're doing fantastic, and today I'll be giving my opinion on the funky and eccentric anime known as Gatchaman Crowds, an experience I can't even summarize in one sentence, because it almost needs to be seen to be believed. Because trust me, you're going to be thinking: "did that really just happen?", half the time when you're watching this show. Quick answer: yes, yes it did.
Gatchaman Crowds is a 12 episode anime that aired last year in July of 2013, a rather awesome season in hindsight which brought us other fantastic shows like The World God Only Knows: Goddesses, Monogatari Second Season, the Kara no Kyoukai epilogue film: Mirai Fukuin, Hayao Miyazaki's last film: The Wind Rises, and last and least the slightly depressing story of an introverted girl that was Watemote. 'Crowds'(which is what I'll refer the show as from now on) was brought to us by Tatsunoko Production, an anime company I had literally never heard of until I watched this show. Looking over their list of anime they've created though, there's little wonder why now. Tatsunoko seems like one of those animation studios that have helped everyone else besides themselves. Former Tatsunoko employees have formed animation studios such as J.C Staff(Toradora! Golden Time) and Production I.G(Psycho-Pass, Guilty Crown), but the studio itself hasn't done much of anything worthy of note recently at all, and not only this, but the number of material they've produced over the years has diminished, which is a shame, because I would like to see tons more anime done in "Crowds''s unique art style(more on that later). The anime was written by the one and only Toshiya Oono, and was directed by Kenji Nakamura, a guy who seems to have done this show and very little else, much like almost everyone else who was involved with the series. I mean he was the episode director of The Big O. So that's something...I guess. OK, we're finally through with the technical "mumbojombo", "So", you may ask, "what exactly is Gatchaman Crowds about?" Well that might be the hardest part.
At its core though, 'Crowds' is about Hajime Ichinose, an eccentric and extremely cheerful 11th grader living in Tachikawa City, the "second metropolis" of Toyko and the areas that surround it. One day she has an encounter with a mysterious man about 9 or so feet tall, who promptly reaches out and pulls her soul out of her body, in the form of a device called a NOTE. He then informs her that she is now a "Gatchaman", a sort of superhero/power ranger/thingy, who must protect the citizens of Tachikawa City and the planet from hostile aliens known as MESS. Taking this pretty much completely in stride, Hajime quickly meets up with a fellow Gatchaman named Sagane Tachibana, who takes her to the Gatchaman headquarters to meet the rest of the Gatchaman, which look like someone took a bizarre skate-park, threw random colors into the bullets of a mini-gun and opened fired.
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| The "Gatcha" headquarters known as the CAGE. |
However, Hajime's oblivious and optimistic viewpoint of pretty much everything causes both tension and amusement for her new teammates, especially considering her blatant disregard for typical Gatchaman rules and ideals, such as never revealing yourself as a Gatchaman to the public, which she nearly does on more then one occasion. In between trying to make friends with the Gatchaman's enemies the MESS, Hajime meets the other Gatchaman, who include the panda alien leader Pai-Pai, the gloomy and enigmatic Utsutsu, the cold-hearted Joe-san, and the chipper care-taker of the team: O.D. As the Gatchaman attempt to handle Hajime's eccentricities however, a dark new opponent may be causing the real problems from the shadows.
Meanwhile, a new app named GALAX has enthralled the citizens of Tachikawa City. On GALAX people can do pretty much whatever they want, from social networking, to even disaster prevention. The person behind the show is revealed to be Rui Ninomiya, an older teenager who manages all of GALAX with the help of the strange power known as "Crowds" who he bestows on those he deems worthy. He intends to use the new hit app to realize his well-intentioned yet idealistic goals of an "updated" world, but he quickly becomes aware that his actions and the power of "Crowds" could have consequences, consequences that could spell chaos for Tachikawa City, Japan, and perhaps even the world.
So, if you couldn't tell, the plot is far from the best thing about this show. The concept of a person being suddenly thrust into a super-hero team to fight humanities enemies isn't exactly something overwhelming with creativity, but 'Crowds' doesn't exactly go the direction you would think. It's not a typical, MESS fight of the week formula you would expect, in fact, I found the direction quite unpredictable after the anime throws a certain plot-point two or three episodes, and while it didn't quite throw plot-twists and the such at you very often, I thought the story evolved quite nicely from the beginning into something that I didn't really expect by the end. But the growth itself is annoyingly gradual, and the anime takes a long time to actually set everything up until the plot can kick itself into overdrive. These first few episodes of set-up could be slow to some, because you really don't have much besides characters talking to each-other and getting into wacky adventures to save the milk supply(no seriously), and whatever intrigue you had with the interesting cast of characters starts to fade when you learn that the anime has no intention of developing any of them. It's not boring by any means, it's just that the anime seems to lack any sort of objective. When, the plot does gets going, while it isn't anything amazing, I really enjoyed watching the final episodes play out, because if nothing else, I think it's extremely entertaining.
Any real meat in the show can be found in the themes in portrays throughout. It asks questions like: "what is a hero?", "what does it mean to change the world?", "and is it worth having heroes?", the kind of things I haven't seen presented in an anime since Fate/Zero. I found these themes extremely interesting to ponder throughout the anime, and they mostly carried the show when the plot was lacking. What I really love though is how the show presents these themes; instead of using them to tell a dark and gritty story, it throws 80's pop music and funky colors at them, to form an experience that I can't really explain in anime terms. If any of you have played the game Japanese offbeat RPG "Earthbound" though, I think I can draw a comparison. In the same way that Earthbound hides its mature themes behind wacky humor, 'Crowds' takes themes that could easily be warped into something dark and adds a spice of fun to it all. And that's almost a way to describe the show as a whole: an eccentric thrill-ride reminiscent of old Power Rangers episodes, that has wonderfully bizarre characters and a animation style like someone dumped waterfalls of random color of everything, but once you start to look a little deeper and actually think about what is happening, you realize it's a lot more intelligent then it first appears. I don't know...I guess I just think that's really cool, the way the show toys around with darker things, but never forgets it just wants us to be having fun. In that regard, I think the show has succeeded.
Going to be honest here, the characters aren't the best aspic of the show. While all of them are relatively original, and their designs are absolutely amazing, but the questions that are raised when you meet them aren't exactly answered by the end of the show. It kind of feels like sort of a waste to be honest, when you have characters as cool and potentially complex as these, but they never really become anything more than their initial introduction leads on. Not they never could be awesome, especially when you consider that Gatchaman Crowds will be getting a second season at some point; there's still plenty of unanswered questions about the characters, especially our main character Hajime. Speaking about her, let's get on with the individual descriptions. Hajime Ichinose is our offbeat protagonist, and pretty much a headache for all her new Gatchaman teammates. Hajime is optimistic to a fault, willing to see the good in everybody, even her MESS enemies, and this trait makes her a natural at making friends, even among Tachikawa city's most prestigious people. Going to be honest(I like that term don't I?), when I first met Hajime, I thought she was really, really annoying, but over time, I began to appreciate her as she constantly acted as a friend and a moral booster for everyone around her. And quite like the show in a way, she might be more than she appears under that cheerful demeanor. Nothing is ever explored in that regard, but the anime does hint at it, in very small ways, and I'm looking forward to that being possibly a highlight in the second season. Sugane Tachibana acts as a stark contrast to Hajime, he diligently obeys and upholds the rules, and never is quick to trust unless he has a satisfactory reason to. As you can imagine, when he is assigned as Hajime's mentor for all things "Gatcha", he becomes quickly exasperated at her care-free nature and lack of caring when she does something against his wishes. For the first part of the show, they mostly have an oil-and-water relationship, but slowly and surely, Hajime's optimism begins to rub off greatly on Sugane, as well as the rest of the Gatchaman, but that's almost another problem in itself. What little development the characters get is initiated by Hajime's personality, but our main character herself really doesn't get any back-story, even though that back-story looks like it could potentially be very interesting. This last character I'll talk about is Rui, and he's probably the most interesting and developed of the cast. Being introduced into episode 3, Rui is a genesis programmer who created GALAX and whose motivations about why he created the social application and what he intends to do with it are slowly revealed as the anime progresses. I found his ideals and intentions very interesting for the most part, and once they start to potentially turn against him by the end of the series, we get a very good look at his character. The rest of the cast are relatively interesting if not complex. O.D gets a rather good character moment near the end of the series, and Utsutsu and Pai-Pai do get predictable but decent development, but once you look past that, they are all one-dimensional, which is kind of a shame for a show this crazy. We do get a kind of cool villain named Berg Katze later on in the series, but even he's just a deranged alien who basically just wants to see the world explode. Not exactly original stuff there anime. At least these characters are entertaining to watch, which is really important if no development is on hand. It might be because the anime is only 12 episodes long, but if they can spare an episode to detail saving a school from milk poisoning(yeah, I'm still hung up on that), they can have time to explain why O.D's Gatchaman could destroy the world, or why does Pai-Pai hiccups bubbles when he gets scared? Seriously what's up with that?
Now if you couldn't tell from the subtle hints I've given and the images I shown, the animation for this show is far from typical. I don't know what Tatsunoko was drinking the day they animated this thing, but it must have been full of caffeine and sugary drinks, because the show looks just so cool, and unique as well. OK, admittedly, when nothing much is happening, the animation is just decent, Tachikawa City is brought to life fairly well, with fair colors and efficient lighting, expect for people's hair, which for some reason always was a streak of another color in, and that's kind of weird. Not sure why that's there.
Any real meat in the show can be found in the themes in portrays throughout. It asks questions like: "what is a hero?", "what does it mean to change the world?", "and is it worth having heroes?", the kind of things I haven't seen presented in an anime since Fate/Zero. I found these themes extremely interesting to ponder throughout the anime, and they mostly carried the show when the plot was lacking. What I really love though is how the show presents these themes; instead of using them to tell a dark and gritty story, it throws 80's pop music and funky colors at them, to form an experience that I can't really explain in anime terms. If any of you have played the game Japanese offbeat RPG "Earthbound" though, I think I can draw a comparison. In the same way that Earthbound hides its mature themes behind wacky humor, 'Crowds' takes themes that could easily be warped into something dark and adds a spice of fun to it all. And that's almost a way to describe the show as a whole: an eccentric thrill-ride reminiscent of old Power Rangers episodes, that has wonderfully bizarre characters and a animation style like someone dumped waterfalls of random color of everything, but once you start to look a little deeper and actually think about what is happening, you realize it's a lot more intelligent then it first appears. I don't know...I guess I just think that's really cool, the way the show toys around with darker things, but never forgets it just wants us to be having fun. In that regard, I think the show has succeeded.
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| From left to right: Berg Katze, Rui, Rui(dressed as girl), Joe, Hajime, Sagane, Utsutsu, O.D, JJ, Pai-Pai...the one under Hajime...the panda one. |
Going to be honest here, the characters aren't the best aspic of the show. While all of them are relatively original, and their designs are absolutely amazing, but the questions that are raised when you meet them aren't exactly answered by the end of the show. It kind of feels like sort of a waste to be honest, when you have characters as cool and potentially complex as these, but they never really become anything more than their initial introduction leads on. Not they never could be awesome, especially when you consider that Gatchaman Crowds will be getting a second season at some point; there's still plenty of unanswered questions about the characters, especially our main character Hajime. Speaking about her, let's get on with the individual descriptions. Hajime Ichinose is our offbeat protagonist, and pretty much a headache for all her new Gatchaman teammates. Hajime is optimistic to a fault, willing to see the good in everybody, even her MESS enemies, and this trait makes her a natural at making friends, even among Tachikawa city's most prestigious people. Going to be honest(I like that term don't I?), when I first met Hajime, I thought she was really, really annoying, but over time, I began to appreciate her as she constantly acted as a friend and a moral booster for everyone around her. And quite like the show in a way, she might be more than she appears under that cheerful demeanor. Nothing is ever explored in that regard, but the anime does hint at it, in very small ways, and I'm looking forward to that being possibly a highlight in the second season. Sugane Tachibana acts as a stark contrast to Hajime, he diligently obeys and upholds the rules, and never is quick to trust unless he has a satisfactory reason to. As you can imagine, when he is assigned as Hajime's mentor for all things "Gatcha", he becomes quickly exasperated at her care-free nature and lack of caring when she does something against his wishes. For the first part of the show, they mostly have an oil-and-water relationship, but slowly and surely, Hajime's optimism begins to rub off greatly on Sugane, as well as the rest of the Gatchaman, but that's almost another problem in itself. What little development the characters get is initiated by Hajime's personality, but our main character herself really doesn't get any back-story, even though that back-story looks like it could potentially be very interesting. This last character I'll talk about is Rui, and he's probably the most interesting and developed of the cast. Being introduced into episode 3, Rui is a genesis programmer who created GALAX and whose motivations about why he created the social application and what he intends to do with it are slowly revealed as the anime progresses. I found his ideals and intentions very interesting for the most part, and once they start to potentially turn against him by the end of the series, we get a very good look at his character. The rest of the cast are relatively interesting if not complex. O.D gets a rather good character moment near the end of the series, and Utsutsu and Pai-Pai do get predictable but decent development, but once you look past that, they are all one-dimensional, which is kind of a shame for a show this crazy. We do get a kind of cool villain named Berg Katze later on in the series, but even he's just a deranged alien who basically just wants to see the world explode. Not exactly original stuff there anime. At least these characters are entertaining to watch, which is really important if no development is on hand. It might be because the anime is only 12 episodes long, but if they can spare an episode to detail saving a school from milk poisoning(yeah, I'm still hung up on that), they can have time to explain why O.D's Gatchaman could destroy the world, or why does Pai-Pai hiccups bubbles when he gets scared? Seriously what's up with that?
Now if you couldn't tell from the subtle hints I've given and the images I shown, the animation for this show is far from typical. I don't know what Tatsunoko was drinking the day they animated this thing, but it must have been full of caffeine and sugary drinks, because the show looks just so cool, and unique as well. OK, admittedly, when nothing much is happening, the animation is just decent, Tachikawa City is brought to life fairly well, with fair colors and efficient lighting, expect for people's hair, which for some reason always was a streak of another color in, and that's kind of weird. Not sure why that's there.
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| A Gatchaman suit. |
However when anything supernatural or Gatchaman related starts happening, the animation gets really wacky. The Gatchaman suits themselves are always really awesome to look at, so there's a certain thrill when a new suit is revealed, and the rainbow colors circulate in the background like there's a rave party happening. Also colors become extremely nonsensical and surreal, as you've already seen with the CAGE, so it adds a little more style to the fight scenes and paranormal happenings of the show. It might take a little getting used to when you first start watching the anime, but I think you'll come to appreciate it as I did, when the funky look of the show correlates with the fun and strange characters, and the music starts starts yelling out: "GATCHAMAAAAAAN!!!!" Speaking of which...
The soundtrack of 'Crowds' is one that's typical with a few awesome standouts. In the usual manner of the show, all of the music is either extremely strange or so varied that you can hardly believe it's all part of the soundtrack. I mean you've got a gentle French song with a name I can't pronounce, "Pandaman" which sounds almost Chinese, and a song like "Tutu", which I can't even begin to explain. While none of it is particularity great, it's a very interesting soundtrack to listen to at the very least, what with all the different kinds of music that is has cooking. That is, with the exception of two songs, songs which solidify 'Crowds''s OST as one of my new favorites. The first of these songs is the OP: "Crowds" by WHITE ASH, and I must say, it's just fantastic. It combines the best of the show's wacky and awesome art style with a song so different and cooler than most OP's that I can't help but love it. The second song is the one titled "In the name of Love", and plays every time Hajime or some other member of the team transforms into a Gatchaman. And once you've listened to this song multiple times during the show, I will give you a medal if you don't have "GATCHAMAAAAAAN!" stuck in your head till the end of time once you finish the anime. It's so cheesy yet awesome at the same time, and I just love it to death.
So when all is said and done, I think I can safely say I really liked Gatchaman Crowds. It's certainly not a show for everyone, its eccentric nature and strange art-style might be off-putting to some people, but if you want a little break from the norm, there's no reason not to give it a try. It just has a way of capturing you with its charm, what with the 80's pop music and Hajime's face always having smile on it as she delivers some kind of motivational speech to her teammates or knits them yarn frogs as presents. And hey, if you give it a try and find it too cheesy and stupid, try looking a little deeper into it, it might just surprise you. With that though, I must bring this review to an end, bid you all goodbye, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day; I need to go spell-check this review and such. See you later.
Final Verdict: 7/10
P.S: Is she gloomy or dreamy?
Recommended Anime:
Durarara!
If it's another bunch of crazy people in a random city you're looking for, look no further. While not as crazy or funky as Gatchaman Crowds, Durarara! maintains that balance of fun and awesomely cool characters. It might not be as good as some other anime out there(namely its older cousin Baccano!) but it holds its own and deliveries a fantastic ride. Also Celty is like, the best character ever.
Bakemonogatari
OK, wait. If this is the first time if you're hearing of the anime known as Bakemonogatari, please do not just watch it on impulse. Make sure you do plenty of research and know exactly what you're getting into when you go to watch this show. What are you getting into? Well, one of the most bizarre, disturbing, imaginative anime I have ever seen, which holds some of, in my opinion, some of the best characters I've seen in any anime period. So go watch the first two or so episodes, if you absolutely despise the show, that's completely understandable, but if you like it...well...you've got one strange adventure ahead of you.
Goodbye for now guys.
Find Me At:
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| https://kitsu.io/users/Quan |
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| https://twitter.com/QuanReviews |
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| quanqreviews@gmail.com |
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