The Old School Otaku Lounge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SENTAI FILMWORKS LICENSES
“GATCHAMAN CROWDS”

HOUSTON, September 5, 2013 — To fight a hidden enemy requires an invisible army in Sentai Filmworks’ newest acquisition: GATCHAMAN CROWDS! This 12 episode series derived from the classic GATCHAMAN TV series originally produced by Tatsunoko Production is directed by Kenji Nakamura (tsuritama), features character designs by Kinako, G-Suit designs by Kenji Andou and Koji Nakakita, who also does mechanical designs, and series composition by Toshiya Ono.

For most of the residents of Tachikawa city, life seems to be perfectly normal. That’s how it seems, but the truth, known only by a tiny select handful, is that this is a city at war. Every day, as the citizens go about their business, they are under attack by alien criminals and mysterious monsters seeking to conquer, enslave and destroy. But to combat these threats, a covert council has secretly selected certain individuals to serve as protectors. Wearing special suits that amplify latent powers hitherto unsuspected, they blend into the crowds and shadows, waiting until the call is given to fight again. They could be anyone: your neighbor; your best friend’s mom; even high school students like Sugane Tachibana and recent college grad Joe Hibiki. And needless to say, schoolgirl artist Hajime Ichinose is probably the last person anyone would ever suspect of being a soldier entrusted with defending mankind. But she is, even if as the latest recruit she still has an awful lot of learning to do. Hiding like ninjas, powered by super-science, they are humanity’s first and greatest line of defense. They are the GATCHAMAN!

GATCHAMAN CROWDS will be available soon through select digital outlets with a home video release to follow in 2014.

Well, don't that just scream the 'bad, old' days of ADV, licensing something before it's finished. This show could go off the rails in some major ways.

I am FRUSTRATED by this show. It seems to be making some interesting social commentary on living in a 'social media' connected world, with a talking baby panda, a space demon taoist priest wizard, and the main protagonist who apparently doesn't understand that making a 'scissors' hand gesture with her hand held down below her groin was a visual 'hand language' cue that a woman was a hooker looking for sex in post-war Japan...

I can't fathom any reason why this is called Gatchaman.

Oh, Section 23? As long as you're burning to buy up Tatsunoko licenses, would you please finally pick up the Gatchaman movie from the '70s? Thank you.

Yeah, but companies do not license things based on quality anyway. So even if it goes off the rails, it doesn't matter to them as long as there is a market for this show. And since they already have Gatchaman, they "might as well" get this one as well.

That said, the problem with licensing things too early these days is that the BD releases will often be affected by some stupid reverse importation.

All anime companies are licensing things before they're finished nowadays. I've even seen some companies buy titles before the first episode's even up for streaming on Crunchyroll.

That said...I have a few friends who are REALLY liking Crowds, but these are people who've never seen a Gatchaman series, period. I'm begining to think that if this had been called anything else, if it had ZERO ties to the Gatchaman name, that I probably would've watched more of it...but I just couldn't get past the fact that it's called Gatchaman and seems nothing like a Gatchaman series. :S I dunno. Maybe if I tried it again and pretended it was something else, then maybe I could get further.... ^^;

usamimi wrote:All anime companies are licensing things before they're finished nowadays. I've even seen some companies buy titles before the first episode's even up for streaming on Crunchyroll.

That said...I have a few friends who are REALLY liking Crowds, but these are people who've never seen a Gatchaman series, period. I'm begining to think that if this had been called anything else, if it had ZERO ties to the Gatchaman name, that I probably would've watched more of it...but I just couldn't get past the fact that it's called Gatchaman and seems nothing like a Gatchaman series. :S I dunno. Maybe if I tried it again and pretended it was something else, then maybe I could get further.... ^^;

That's kinda what I've been doing. I just self-censor all uses of the name Gatchaman.

Thing is, the show is actually trying to say this exists in the same world as some version of Gatchaman. I'm betting on the OAVs, because man, how does the world forget GIANT FLAMING LAVA JESUS or any of the other Galactor terror mecha rampaging about?

I'd rather see Sentai spend the energy re-releasing the original Gatchaman on DVD, and make it as space-conserving for my bookshelf as possible.

Greg, you know Sentai is re-releasing the original Gatchaman on BD AND DVD this fall, right?

This is the DVD set:

http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827 ... 8787/4/0/0

Here's a visual of how it will be packaged, for your shelf space concern

http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/sho ... Collection

I... did NOT know that! (My impresson of Dana Carvey's Johnny Carson impression.) Thanks! Was that shared in this thread before? It's a bit pricey, but eventually I'd like to get that. It looks like it will take up less space than the big ADV box, IIRC.

I thought her name was "June the Swan." "June the Swallow" was her nickname in college, right?

So, still re-using the Alex Ross art, long after everyone stopped caring about it?

"Ohh! Ohh! BIG NAME comic book artist Alex Ross likes Gatchaman! Why, that totally makes it legit! WOOOOO"

*pffft*

Anyway, looks like they just reused the art from the first ADV box.

Never had a problem with the Alex Ross art, personally. It's quite attractive.

greg wrote:I... did NOT know that! (My impresson of Dana Carvey's Johnny Carson impression.) Thanks! Was that shared in this thread before? It's a bit pricey, but eventually I'd like to get that. It looks like it will take up less space than the big ADV box, IIRC.

I thought her name was "June the Swan." "June the Swallow" was her nickname in college, right?

LOL!

Yeah, this was mentioned in the DVD/BD thread. I'm quite excited to see how the BD will turn out, given that Tatsunoko recently did an HD master for it. I imagine the DVDs should also see an upgrade over the ADV DVDs if they are using the new HD master for the DVDs as well.

For 105 episodes + the OVAs, it seems like a pretty darned good deal to me.