Gatchaman CROWDS - Disaster Zone

Until just recently I hadn't watched any anime in a long while, almost six months. If you asked me why I'd be hard pressed to give an exact answer. The closest I can come to an explanation is that I ran out of A-list series to check out. My anime A-list is exactly what it sounds like, anime that I've had trusted recommendations for or that I feel are must-see. I'm a little annoyed that the list ran out. Particularly I'm annoyed because I don't exactly blaze through anime and it's not uncommon for me to go several months between series, which tells me that I have not only caught up on anything that really stands out as worthwhile (including a backlog of older shows) but that nothing new is coming out to replenish my list. Of course this is all subject to my own taste in shows and a lot of other subjective things, yadda, yadda, yadda.

My point being, I've been forced to draw from my B-list a lot lately. It's a good and bad thing. I'm sorry to say that much of my B-list has exactly what makes my B-list a B-list: mediocrity, great ideas ruined by poor execution, thick veneers of cliche slathered over otherwise decent characters, and series that are bearably bad or finger-quotes good. Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised and that keeps me going.  But going through my B-list I find the highs and lows very underwhelming and after a few B-list series   it's all too easy to forget just how moving or cerebral a good anime can be. This is where I've been for a while now, and where Gatchaman comes in.

Although the animation style didn't call out to me I had read a growing number of favorable reviews for Gatchaman CROWDS and its sequel. Finally earlier this week, after finishing off another mediocre B-list I decided I was ready for something that had a little rapport and watched Gatchaman CROWDS.

Overview - Gatchaman CROWDS Reaches for Everything But Grasps Nothing.

I went into Gatchaman CROWDS with moderately high expectations ready to like the series, but quickly realized about halfway in that Gatchaman was dying a death of a thousand cuts. For every step forward Gatchaman took in pulling me in there was something else breaking immersion or failing to make sense. In the first two episodes Hajime and MESS are introduced, with MESS being implied to be a long-running enemy of the Gatchaman, only for Hajime to completely resolve the entire mess (pun intended) in the second episode. Fine, whatever, the show doesn't want to be about good guys fighting throwaway bad guys, that's okay. Though since MESS doesn't play any other role in the story after the first two episodes what was the point in even establishing MESS? Where is the show going then? Well that's where Rui (or as I call him: "guy/girl", since I can never seem to remember his name) and 'X' come in with their super app GALAX. Once again I was ready to overlook a few flaws in GALAX for the sake of the greater story, but given how large a role GALAX plays in the latter half of the story those small gripes became gaping holes that shattered my suspension of disbelief.

And then he left for no raisin at all! Hahahaha!

Now, allow me a little aside here. Maybe it's just because I have a background in computers making me a little more aware of trends in apps and whatnot but I just can't see GALAX being as successful as it was portrayed. The idea behind GALAX is pretty cool, you connect people who need medical attention to nearby first responders, people who need help to those who have the skills to assist, as well as serving a traditional role as general chat room and platform for shared interests. There are just two big issues with that. Number one is the first responder issue, which in theory is really great, but then you have situations like the stabbing (perpetrated by Katze) in which GALAX would actually be putting medical first responders in danger in a situation that would require police intervention first. Number two is that long term success of GALAX as a platform for connecting people with problems (like the housewife and the lawyer using an in-show example) would be dependent on pay. Contacting a lawyer in the vicinity is great, if they are going to help for free, but at the same time that lawyer is essentially working without pay. Of course, maybe the lawyer is getting paid since the show never specifies, in which case that feature of GALAX is essentially just a fancy Google search. Without a paid system GALAX could still be successful but it would then ultimately be forced to cater to entry-level assistance as professional help would almost certainly require payment. People gotta' make a living yo.

Getting back to the story overall, Gatchaman tried to juggle a lot of ideas: the internet as a tool for greater civic action/responsibility, the role of leadership in the internet age, organization in government vs online, approaching problems with empathy, and I'm sure there was more. The end result is that the series feels frenetic and cluttered, and doesn't seem like it's actually about anything. Even the transformation abilities of the Gatchaman somehow felt out of place after a while. I thought maybe the story was going to be about the Gatchamen slowly becoming irrelevant but that didn't pan out. Then I thought maybe the show was going to examine the Gatchamen as a force for executive action, competing for dominance with CROWDS, while an inept government tied down by bureaucracy was forced to change. Nope. Maybe it was due to the increasing absurdity and lack of realism in a setting that is supposed to be the real world albeit with fantasy elements, but I had an extremely difficult time concentrating on what Gatchaman CROWDS was trying to convey.

Gatchaman Aesthetics and 70's Chic.

Setting aside my ranty complaints for a moment let's look at one of the few things I actually didn't mind about the show (even if I still find it weird). Gatchaman has a very strange visual aesthetic that seems to be infused with 70's influences. I'm not sure if this is a hat-tip to when the original Gatchaman (Science Ninja Team Gatchaman) came out in 1972, but all the aliens seem to dress like 70's chic is where it's at. OD and Sugane both wear those loose shirts with the off-kilter neck and Sugane in particular is prone to stripes. Not to mention both have that pixie haircut thing going on. I couldn't place it at first but Hajime's outfit also seemed vaguely 70's but I couldn't place why. After running a few image searches I'm fairly certain now that the high waist on her skirt is the culprit. Strangely enough the Gatchaman theme is another 70's throwback with the repeated "Gatchaman!!" chorus that plays during the action scenes. Don't ask me why I'm picking up on so many 70's things, I wasn't even born back then.

The overall animation is pretty good even if the character designs don't do anything special for me. The animation is smooth and, well, animated. The color palette seems to be infused with a lot of bold or neon colours where the Gatchaman are concerned though everything else looks pretty normal, which really helps set the Gatchaman apart as alien and fantastical. I'm not very fond of the use of cell-shaded graphics in the series though. Once again cell-shading is a jarring and noticeable shift and I disapprove of it. There seems to be some issue with translating a smooth CG animation into the lower frame rate of animated cells without the CG looking terribly choppy or awkwardly fluid.

OD is Best Character. The Rest Are Pretty Terrible.

As far as protagonists go Hajime barely registers as a character as she is too busy being a plot device. She doesn't develop, she doesn't have any depth, and somehow she always knows how to diffuse a situation. There were several great opportunities to hint that perhaps Hajime's ceaseless exuberance is just a front instead of a happiness bordering on mental illness. Of course those opportunities were passed over without incident. J.J. is another non-character who only appears to bestow powers, dispense prophecies, and blow paper birds around. Paiman is insufferably annoying and although he does undergo a small amount of character growth he never matures enough to actually be an enjoyable character. Mostly he acts as a terrible bossy leader who is largely useless. Sugane, Utsutsu, and Joe could be much more interesting characters but they spend most of the show mostly doing their own thing or following Hajime's lead. 

One wonders how the Gatchaman got along before Hajime came along, but I'd chalk that up to OD. OD is one of the few decent characters, though he doesn't undergo much growth either. Nonetheless he is still my favorite. I like his casual style, the way he is completely and comfortably himself, his self-assured nature, and the hint of mysteriousness that accompanies his character. He obviously cares for the Gatchaman as a team, and more so for the Gatchaman as individuals. I can't say as much for most of the others besides Hajime and she doesn't count. That OD is also the most powerful is just an added bonus for me. Although on that point I'm a little confused as to why OD was so reluctant to use his Gatchaman power, because despite some collateral damage from his light tentacles I wouldn't exactly call that city destroying. Also I admit that I was rather confused when I saw OD's weapons breach the ground as I had always assumed that JJ's sanctum was extra-dimensional or on another planet and not simply underground.

My last gripe where characters are concerned falls on Berg-Katze. I actually really liked Katze as a villain. He has this "I want to watch the world burn" style, but it's very clear that he doesn't actually want to get his hands dirty. Katze is subversive and manipulative, and wherever possible Katze doesn't like to actually kill people himself; to him it is almost necessary that the blood is on someone else's hands. Toward the end of the series when Katze emerges from JJ's lair to find everyone distracted instead of in chaos it would have been all too easy for him to wade into the crowds and start cutting people apart. After all that would sow plenty of chaos, but Katze's game is to fan the flames of darkness in others lives. Katze isn't just after chaos, he is after the destruction of the human spirit by guiding his victims into creating their own downfall. Aaaaand then Hajime completely de-tooths his character by essentially saying "Awww, he was just lonely all this time!" I honestly hope that isn't true because I feel that severely diminishes Katze as a villain. Not to mention that being lonely is not a valid excuse for destroying entire planets in a sadistic and brutal manner.

As for Rui, Rui is an okay character but there was something about him that I didn't particularly care for. At least Rui undergoes some actual growth, but his misguided idealism and his complete lack of background bothered me.

Let's Examine Leadership Themes by Completely Disregarding a Realistic Portrayal of Leadership.

My biggest complaint about Gatchaman CROWDS is that it has no idea how to correctly represent leadership. Honestly, they have no freaking clue or they just plain don't care. The Gatchaman themselves don't really have a strong sense of leadership, which seems to be by design. Paiman is a poor leader who is bossy and afraid to make decisions, JJ doesn't actually say anything beyond his prophecies, and the other Gatchaman members don't really have an organized system down. That all makes sense.

What doesn't make sense to me is neglecting to have the Mayor and the Fire Marshall play a central role in organizing aid during the emergency at the end of the series. What doesn't make sense to me is a Prime Minister so inept that there is no plausible explanation as to how he got his position in the first place. Maybe my perspective is too coloured by American politics but in my experience someone in a role requiring major responsibility and civic duty knows to project confidence and speak deliberately. Public speaking is an inextricable part of public leadership for most high level positions, so that entire scene with the Prime Minister mumbling in front of a camera for 5 minutes is the effectively Gatchaman tapping reality on the shoulder and saying "Hey realism...SUPLEX!" The Prime Minister in Gatchaman spends several episodes literally moping around. After multiple capital buildings are destroyed the PM makes no televised, streaming, or radio address to Japan until the Gatchamen practically force him to. The mayor, likewise, isn't shown to address the city during or after the attacks on the capital buildings. Where is the organization, where is the communication, where is the, er, leadership? At one point the mayor literally laughs as he rides into the distance on a bicycle during the climax. There are certain qualities that accompany people in positions of power that are essentially required to be able to perform well in an important and public position. You can't wind up in a position of power like that without the ability to at least fake competence. Then again, leadership seems to be a weak point for Gatchaman CROWDS in particular, because there is no strong sense of leadership within any of the groups portrayed in the series. Is that their point maybe? Something something non-central leadership structure? I have no idea, the show is so diffuse with its ideas.

While we're on the subject of non-central leadership, however, let's touch on GALAX. GALAX was used to organize the CROWDS/terrorist forces once Katze took control of 'X'. Once again, the CROWDS users didn't seem to have any sort of actual leadership, which became apparent after the enthusiasm of the initial attacks died down. CROWDS user #23 (I only know his number thanks to Bobduh), the father who moonlighted as a political terrorist, tried to motivate the directionless mob of CROWDS users several weeks (or days?) later to no avail. Honestly this is another section I find confusing. If GALAX allows people to connect to each other, wouldn't it have been relatively easy for #23 to find and connect to other political extremists? Even assuming that Rui blocked #23 from using GALAX completely and not just using CROWDS, when Katze reinvites the previously vetoed individuals, some 24,000 of them if I recall correctly, was there not even a small cadre of like-minded individuals willing to band together? Online a website or app usually manages the organizational systems, so really the only work required of someone who wanted to organize CROWDS attacks would have been to create an incentive. I'd also like to point out that even after the worst is over there doesn't seem to be any concern over finding the individuals who conspired to destroy multiple government buildings, though that could haved just been ignored in the interst of time. Still, not even a passing mention. Regardless, there was obviously still some sort of leadership present within the CROWDS user-base, as is demonstrated when the PM's caravan is attacked by several waves of the CROWDS avatars.

Actually, the PM being attacked while under escort brings me to one final leadership complaint. Whilst CROWDS is attacking the caravan the prime minister, if I recall correctly, shouts something along the lines of "this isn't the time to be worrying about protocol!'. What!? That is precisely the time to be worrying about protocol! Protocol exists to give you a precedent, a series of steps to follow so that even when things break down and go to hell you still have a course of action to follow independent of your own panic and potential lack of communication. A leader exists to determine when it is proper to break from protocol to achieve desired results, which is sometimes necessary especially in times of chaos. Before that point, however, protocol exists to guide actions in the absence of active leadership. Honestly I'm just not sure what to say on this anymore.

The infamous bike riding scene.

A Happy-Go-Lucky State of Emergency Tale.

I tried to stick with Gatchaman CROWDS for a while. I felt that if it could pull just a few things together I could overlook a lot of its flaws, but instead the show came completely unglued with a loud and prolonged flop, like a lasagna slowly falling out of its dish.

During the climax Gatchaman drops all pretense of realism. Even after CROWDS has become a huge problem the towers handling cell-phone communications are never shut down. The building housing X or (and maybe this is a bit presumptuous of me) a server room is never stormed in an attempt to isolate or bring down the GALAX network; traditional cell phone and SMS functions should have still worked, unless I misunderstood GALAX's scope. While we're on the matter of communications, and I admit this is nit-picky, but during the height of the emergency when everyone was trying out their new CROWDS ability, I highly doubt that the mobile network could have performed without issue. In fact it is quite a common occurrence in real life for cell phone networks to perform sluggishly or fail to connect during or immediately after major disasters.

The entire emergency event is where the series really could have benefited from a greater sense of realism in order to emphasize the gravity of the situation and contrast the fantastical power of the Gatchamen. Instead the show breaks down into this surreal almost 'merry adventure' state in the midst of what should be a justifiably terrifying experience. Let's begin from the scene where the PM is attacked while with his JSDF escort. The Gatchamen show up out of nowhere, which to be fair is standard fare for a super-hero series, so Gatchaman gets a free pass on that one. However Gatchaman CROWDS wastes no time in setting that free pass on fire and warming its hands on it and the glowing embers of realism. Apparently sometime between moping around and showing up to save the PM the Gatchamen figured out a way to stun users out of the CROWDS ability without putting them in a coma. An awfully convenient development considering that there wasn't any foreshadowing or discussion about such a discovery earlier. I rather think the story would have been much more interesting if the Gatchamen were forced to contend with the coma issue without an apparent solution. Also in the same scene was an event that seemed innocuous enough at the time but later began to grate on me. Hajime decides that the Gatchamen should reveal themselves so she does the 'Amnesia Remind' thing so everyone can see them, which also means everyone can see the CROWDS. I didn't think anything of it at the time...until several episodes later I suddenly began to wonder to myself why everyone throughout the city could see the CROWDS. Wait, I thought, just what is the range on 'Amnesia Remind'? Is it city-wide? How long does it last? Are the Gatchamen using the ability off screen throughout the entire event? Could people not actually see many of the CROWDS until they started using the CROWDS ability as well? Did the CROWDS remain permanently visible after the major conflict? Such a small detail but whether intentional or not it raises a lot of questions such as how things might have turned out different had the CROWDS remained invisible.

Later in the story, in the midst of the central conflict I just gave up trying to be invested. The disaster and defense teams seem to be completely useless without the help of the GALAX system, despite the fact that low-tech solutions have often been remarkably effective in emergencies. Then again that's in the real world which doesn't seem to have much bearing in Gatchaman, which completely negates how amazing GALAX is supposed to be. OZ in Summer Wars was impressive and effective because it demonstrated the reach and power of such a system in the context of the real world. Without the real world as context the effectiveness of GALAX feels forced and unnatural. People unnaturally flock to the CROWDS games in Gatchaman and compete for points during the attacks as if that somehow negates the severity of the situation. Think about it, hundreds of individuals competing to reunite families, provide food, and assist in various other ways for personal gain, although said personal gain is merely virtual credit and some measure of recognition. I can easily see more harm than good coming from such a situation. Not to mention I don't see the need for GALAX to motivate people as shared strife is a powerful motivator for cooperation and selflessness. Then there is the matter of how dangerous the CROWDS are in general. There has to be hundreds of thousands, if not millions in collateral damage from the CROWDS by the end of the series. We witness the CROWDS bodies flipping cars and, through combined effort, destroying government buildings and the avatars are easily four times the size of an average person. The damage these CROWDS things could do to a person, and completely on accident mind you, is catastrophic. Throw into the mix that they may or may not be invisible and the likelihood of such an incident sky-rockets. (I rewatched some of the final episodes in the hopes of clarifying the invisibility matter but the scenes I saw only left me more confused. Several background texts say things like "and they're invisible....scary!" yet several other scenes clearly suggest that the CROWDS are visible, such as a news footage of a CROWDS covered building with no apparent damage, and people scattering out of the way of wrestling CROWDS. Wtf!?) My point being, there is no consistency, there is no sense of danger, and jumping back to a previous paragraph- the characters aren't developed enough for their 'moments' to have any real impact. I'm so confused as to how such a well-animated series could get so bad.

 In the end I'm very disappointed. Nonetheless I'll probably still watch INSIGHT just to see if Gatchaman is consistent about being bad, and because I'm wondering more than ever what garnered this series such good reviews. Let me know your own thoughts in the comments.