Gatchaman Crowds. What. The. *bleep*.

[usamimi]

Ok. So, I have a few friends who have been raving about the ending of the series and it being really good overall. These same friends know nothing of original Gatchaman, so they basically watched it as it's own, new thing...so I'm going to attempt to watch it again in a similar fashion: trying to think of it as it's own thing and not a Gatchaman tie-in. (Which, I'll admit, is a little hard at times, considering they drop the name fairly often.) I figure it's only 12 eps...might as well try it out while I still have some free Crunchyroll Premium time, I guess.

[SteveH]

ah, so it's only 12 episodes?

Well, that kind of seems...I dunno...

I mean, OK, 12 episodes, nothing really happened. Except "Hey Kids, Crowdsourcing and Facebook and Twitter are COOL so go do it OK?"

I must be missing something, something either cultural or whatever. I can't see any real logical reason to tag this 'Gatchaman', other than it's a current project so using the name 'grandfathers' everything else that came before so the Copyright and Trademark clocks get reset.

I stuck it out, hoping for some kind of classic payoff. I guess that was foolish of me.

[usamimi]

Yeah. I got up to ep. 6 today and...ignoring the Gatchaman thing and judging it just for being a "super hero team" thing, so far there's some interesting bits but there's also some things I'm not really digging. It has elements similar to stuff I liked (like Eden of the East or Mawaru Penguindrum), but it feels like it's constantly being torn between being an interesting, conceptual series vs the super hero team series it's being tied to. It almost feels like it's trying to hard to be something like Madoka Magica was for the magical girl genre, which I hope isn't the case.

Then again, I'm only about halfway through it, so maybe that'll change.

But I'm still thinking that I would be WAY more into this if Gatachaman had nothing to do with it.

[SteveH]

Yeah. I got up to ep. 6 today and...ignoring the Gatchaman thing and judging it just for being a "super hero team" thing, so far there's some interesting bits but there's also some things I'm not really digging. It has elements similar to stuff I liked (like Eden of the East or Mawaru Penguindrum), but it feels like it's constantly being torn between being an interesting, conceptual series vs the super hero team series it's being tied to. It almost feels like it's trying to hard to be something like Madoka Magica was for the magical girl genre, which I hope isn't the case.

Then again, I'm only about halfway through it, so maybe that'll change.

But I'm still thinking that I would be WAY more into this if Gatachaman had nothing to do with it.

That's my thinking. I kept expecting some giant 'shocking' reveal and there wasn't one.

I have no reference point for the shows you namecheck. Sorry.

[nitro]

From what I've seen in the background, I honestly ask myself if this is just one big elaborate parody. It seems like some of the character personalities are like what you'd expect out of an "abridged series" or something like that.

[usamimi]

From what I've seen in the background, I honestly ask myself if this is just one big elaborate parody. It seems like some of the character personalities are like what you'd expect out of an "abridged series" or something like that.

Yeah...all the character's personalities seem to be very over-exaggerated, for some reason. I dunno if this is supposed to be a throwback to the old anime and how everyone was kinda written as sort of cliched tropes most of the time, or WHAT. It's weird and annoying at times.

[usamimi]

Alright. I finished watching the last 2 episodes, so here's some thoughts.

SteveH was right in the respect that you spend a lot of time watching this series waiting for a big payoff, and there really isn't one. The series seems to be far too ambitious, trying to tackle a lot of ideas and themes instead of working on character development. The only character that seems to get any real development is the main character, Hajime, and she can get awfully grating after a while. She's an overly-genki type, so much so that it seems irritating. (And this is coming from me, who usually loves the genki types.) I think it's because she comes off as forced and fake: you never see her upset, crying, or anything else that would make her seem more human and relatable. She literally has unfaltering, unwavering optimism and cheeriness to the point where it gets downright frustrating--even when there's danger and people are DYING, she talks about it with that CHEERINESS, so it almost comes off as if she simply doesn't care. I don't know if they did this to try to make her seem pure-hearted or what, but it came off as really fakey and/or moe-ish pandering...and as much as I WANTED to like her character, there were times I was just thinking "oh my GAWD, can she just stop talking already?!"

There's other things that seem like fan-pandering, too, such as an alien girl with hair that looks like cat-ears (???) that likes to hang around wearing nothing but a bikini and has the build of a 12 year old. There's also a stereotypical gay guy, and a guy that crossdresses whenever he's getting ready to do something, but I found those two to be way more interesting as characters then most of the others.

They vaguely reference classic Gatchaman here and there, but it's in small ways: bad guy is also Berg Katse...who was the original villain of Gatchaman, so I'm not sure if it's supposed to be the same Katse or an "updated" version. This one also seems to be either a hermaphrodite or just very femme/androgynous, moreso than I remember the old one to be. Also there is a "Jou" character as well, who seems to be there solely to sound like the only tough, macho guy of the group and not really do much else other than fight in the brief instances they actually DO fight in the series. Jou even briefly mentions something like "the other Gatchamans had it worse than us" or something like that, seemingly meaning that it's supposed to take place in the same universe? It's kind of odd and confusing.

But, like I said, I decided to try to distance anything "Gatchaman" while watching it to see how I liked it and...well, I kept feeling like I WANTED to like it, but it just was--like I said--far too ambitious for it's own good. It tried to juggle a lot of plot elements and was only able to successfully carry a couple all the way to the end. There's a LOT of loose ends at the end of the series that are never addressed, and by the end we still barely know anything about most of the main characters, which is frustrating. Their take on the future of media, crowd-sourcing, and similar themes is kind of cool, but if you're looking for a series like that, I'd recommend Eden of the East instead, which tackled similar themes and did a much better job, imo. (EotE is available on Hulu AND on Netflix, and the dub is surprisingly great!) Their themes of believing in yourself and everyone can be a hero are good, but seem to be kind of lackluster in comparison to their focus on how media influences society, so it just kind of falls flat. If you're looking for something "inspiring" like that, I'd just recommend watching something like Gurren Lagann.

The animation itself also left something to be desired. At times it felt good, other times it felt like a bunch of trendy Pixiv artists had vomited rainbow-colored background art all over the place. It seemed like it was just trying way too hard to look hip and modern, and then at other times it'd look sloppy and rushed. The color pallets for some things looked really too high-contrast and ugly to me at times, too. I also wasn't a huge fan of their Gatchaman suits...each one by themselves is cool, but they don't really look like they all belong to the same team when they're all standing together. They all seem overly complicated in design, too. I thought the idea of them transforming with little moleskin notebooks to be kind of a cool idea, but other than that, I thought it was kind of a mess.

Bottom line: too many unresolved and unanswered questions, barely any character development, and often trying way too hard to be new and hip while somehow making the whole thing relate SOMEWHAT to Gatchaman. If this had been a 20-some episode series, with more character & plot development, and no Gatchaman tie-in, it could've been pretty good. Otherwise, it's a series that doesn't really seem to know WHAT it's trying to be or what it wants to accomplish that just left me kinda frustrated. I'm kind of confused that so many people seem to think it's one of the best new shows of the year...I'm assuming they've never seen Eden of the East, I guess.

[SteveH]

Reflecting my advanced age and the unavoidably linked 'damn kids get off my lawn!!' mindset, I think I'm going to say Gatchaman Crowds is designed for stoners, because the story doesn't MATTER, just action moving COLORS and COLORS.

The 'suits' seem to be influenced by Tiger & Bunny for the most part.

Berg Katse was a capricious demon child in this, which the original *did* act like once in a while, but not on the whole.

Hajime..my god I just wanted to scream, so damn genki.

yeah, way way too many questions. This is the kind of show that had it been released on DVD back in 2003 I would rant against it the same way I focus displeasure on Geneon's 'L/R- Licensed by Royalty' AND I STILL WANT MY MONEY BACK GENEON!

[usamimi]

Reflecting my advanced age and the unavoidably linked 'damn kids get off my lawn!!' mindset, I think I'm going to say Gatchaman Crowds is designed for stoners, because the story doesn't MATTER, just action moving COLORS and COLORS.

If not stoners, than just the younger generation in general. Like I said, it really reminded me of the kind of art you see Japanese fanart/art website Pixiv that gets really popular/a lot of hits. (Right down to the same kinds of color palettes, and even the rounded, almost shoujo-y character designs.) They were definitely trying to appeal to the younger, "hipper" crowd.

The 'suits' seem to be influenced by Tiger & Bunny for the most part.

That wouldn't surprise me. I haven't seen any of T&B, but looking at their suits, they do seem very similar. Again, trying to appeal to a younger generation?

Berg Katse was a capricious demon child in this, which the original *did* act like once in a while, but not on the whole.

True! I actually liked Katse in this show, s/he seemed a lot more interesting as a demon/alien thing...but again, Crowds did no character development for Katse at ALL, which is disappointing/frustrating. Where'd Katse come from? Was their motive more than just being a giant troll? Why did Katse have a Note just like the Gatchaman? None of these were addressed.

Hajime..my god I just wanted to scream, so damn genki.

Yeah. I mean, there's genki, and then there's GENKIIIIIIIII to the point of just being ridiculous. Hajime makes me think of Pinkie Pie from the new My Little Pony or something.

yeah, way way too many questions. This is the kind of show that had it been released on DVD back in 2003 I would rant against it the same way I focus displeasure on Geneon's 'L/R- Licensed by Royalty' AND I STILL WANT MY MONEY BACK GENEON

Oh gosh, I feel you on that. If I had blindly bought this instead of just checking it out on Crunchyroll, I would've felt insanely cheated. If this had been season 1 of an ongoing series, MAYBE I could cut it a little slack...but as far as I know, that's not the case, so it's just really overall kind of disappointing. As Nitro pointed out, at times it almost seems like a PARODY of Gatchaman...if they had given the series a full parody treatment, maybe it could have worked. But as it is, it just seems like a big confusing mess.

[greg]

Thank you, you two. Now I feel justified in my prejudging based on how stupid it all seemed from the get-go.