Gatchaman Crowds

TV (12 eps)
3.587 out of 5 from 4,328 votes
Rank #4,602

The Gatchaman are a group of superhero fighters rumored to exist in urban legends, blurry pictures and second-hand hearsay. Teenager Hajime Ichinose has heard the gossip, but she never imagined her love of stationery would make her a candidate to be a Gatchaman… as their suits are empowered by cosmic notebooks! Hajime teams up with the stern Sugane Tachibana, aloof Jou Hibiki and other beacons of justice - but the Gatchaman are not this world’s only heroes, as Galax, a social media app, lets anyone use their unique skills to assist in a crisis! Strangers and newfound friends must now band together to stop Berg Katze, a mysterious alien who threatens the world with death and destruction.

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Reviews

ThatAnimeSnob
5

RETRO ALWAYS WINS I grew up watching the original Gatchaman series. It was never very deep or that good; just a dark and usually depressing Power Rangers variant. It was still a fine action series for the time it came out, with exciting battles, huge monsters, and oozing idealism. From a historical perspective, it was even revolutionary for using ideas that at the time were still new. I was content with that anime, it was retro, fun, and innovating. And then they remade it and ruined my sweet childhood memories. Because it’s modern, stupid, and does poorly with its ideas. Let’s start with how THERE IS CLOSE TO NO RESEMBLENCE with the original. The insignia and some names are the same with the rest of it having nothing in common with the clearly superior show you grew up with. Because it’s modern. SELLING ON NAME They could have named it anything they liked, and nobody would tell this is supposed to be Gatchaman. This shit looks closer to nonsense like Symphogear or Sacred Seven. If they were trying to sell based on nostalgia, as somebody who grew up with the original I found it to be almost of an insult. The live action movie remake was kinda forgettable, but damn, they nailed how the characters look and act. And no, I am not being a stuck up prick who wants to see things stay the same despite the world moving forward. If they want to make a remake of something, they should keep more things the same than just the name and the insignia. Space Battleship Yamato is an awesome remake, and so are Hunter X Hunter and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. They are very close to their original versions and just updated the visuals and the plot mechanics. Gatchaman Crowds doesn’t do that. NOTHING IS SERIOUS The original was never Shakespeare but it retained a level of seriousness amongst all the campiness. The characters there CARED for the roles they had to fulfill. There was drama, comedy, tension, and even horror at points. The remake throws all that out of the window and just makes a prank of it all. Nothing feels important because nothing is taken seriously. Even when the world is one step away from complete destruction, you don’t feel anything. Despite all the bullshit Madoka Magica had, it still tried to build up some drama. Over there, when the girls found out their souls were snatched from their bodies, they had a mental breakdown. Over here, that stupid bimbo is yelling HOW COOL after seeing her soul turning into a freaking cell phone. OBNOXIOUS CAST And boy, how more obnoxious can a heroine be, than the one in this show? While the original version had a young man with the personality of a wooden plank as a lead, this one here is an aloof girl who doesn’t take anything seriously. No matter what happens, she reacts by laughing, yelling stuff like HOW CUTE and generally thinks everything is a joke and the world is full of unicorns and rainbows. Meaning she is a total retard. And it doesn’t stop there; her skirt is ridiculously wide, her smile is a lame V, she has a sexual fetish for notebooks, skips school anytime she feels like it because it’s fun, and nobody ever scolds her because she always manages to make them laugh with her dumb positivity. There are many who find her adorable, intelligent, and mature, for questioning why the hell she needs to fight aliens and not just have a barbeque party for the lulz. She is a subversion of superheroes who fight without ever questioning their actions! Not really, she is just so autistic in positivity that makes her no better than some show for babies, where they need to be constantly spoonfeeded how to be nice to people. Yeah, whatever, girl, you were turned against your will into a super fighter, with the task of protecting the world from alien invaders who plan to wipe out humanity. You could AT LEAST show you care a bit instead of just thinking it’s all a playground. And it’s not just her; pretty much everybody is a joke. The other Gatchaman members are also not taking their roles seriously, even when they really try to. One of them is a feminine blonde dude, who exists to be a parody of noble samurais, being a stuck up idiot for the sake of being a stuck up idiot. Another one is a gay dude, who takes the stereotype to such extremes that it makes real gay people to cringe. We have a boy who cross-dresses because… he likes it. That’s it. Then we have a practically naked emotionless girl who repeats the same words like a freaking pokemon, and is there as nothing more that fapping material. We have the leader of the team, a tiny talking space panda which pulls out huge stuff from its pants, pretending to be serious when it’s an annoying mascot, and spits bubbles every time it feels weird. Their leader is some sort of samurai god who after you touch his penis, he sticks his hands in your boobs, pulls out your soul, turns it to a smart phone, and tells you to go fight aliens anytime he feels like writing a cryptic poem. I am not making this up. MODERN SUCKS And don’t give me crap excuses such as the makers of this abomination updating the whole thing so it can appeal to the new generation. I mean, who would like the grimdark superhero formula anymore? Can you take seriously a bunch of silly dressed people, protecting the world from silly looking monsters? No sir, we need to modernize something that was perfectly fine but no longer in fashion. So of course and everything needs to be colorful and silly; that’s what modern anime are all about. Of course and the heroes need to be students or it’s the end of the world. Of course the female characters need to be half-naked retarded moeblobs, so the damn thing will sell to ronery otakus. Of course and everybody needs to be using smart phones to communicate and transform, as low effort pandering to gamers and casuals. The good old days when only secret agents and superheroes had wristwatches that worked as communication devices and were full of cool gadgets are gone. Now every 5 year old can have an iphone17 or something, and packs more CPU power in his pocket than the entire NASA facilities of the 60s. This makes the whole concept of transformation devices being smart phones completely boring. PRETTY COLORS But it’s not like there is nothing I liked in it. The budget is good enough to make the whole thing look eye-catchy enough, with pop-art animation, videogame-like visual effects during battles, a funky soundtrack, a most over the top arch-villain, and a feeling of HAHA THIS IS SO STUPID I ACTUALLY LIKE IT. So if you go in it expecting pop-corn entertainment, you will like what you will find in it. UNTAPED POTENTIAL The problem is, it is not presenting itself as simply pop-corn entertainment. It has this weird theme of social reconstruction based on motivating the population to take action through smartphone applications. The concept is cool, very uncommon in anime, and yet it’s ruined because of the silly presentation, and gets wasted by an awfully rushed ending that does very little with it. Once the feeling of stupidity from the pretty colors wears off, you will realize it is all crap done for giggles. It feels like a social study done by drunken college students, who gave up half-way through completion and let a 5 year old kid to fill the rest with crayon doodles.

Tyranomaster
9.5

Let me open with, I never watched the original Gatchaman series.  I'd stumbled upon crowds while looking through various anime I might want to watch.  It went onto my want to watch list for about a year, then this last week, I went on vacation (and had no internet), so I watched Gatchaman Crowds (along with a few others) while I was away. Also let me appoligize in advance, this is my first review, but when I read through the ones that were posted, I had a pretty strong reaction against it, so I had to write my own. I thoroughly enjoyed it.   Let me ask you, have you ever played the game Bastion?  This gave me a very Bastion-esq feel.  Bastion wasn't that remarkable of a game in and of itself, meh mechanics, not to original of characters, but they had some depth, story was easy to predict.  If it had been just the game, it wouldn't have been that good, but Bastion had 2 things going for it. 1. An absolutely amazing soundtrack. 2. The story progressed in such a way that you wanted to see what was next, even if you knew what would happen. And that is what I meant when I said Gatchaman Crowds was very Bastion-esq.  In and of itself its a pretty boring action anime, with an average plot, and characters that appear to fall into very pre-defined character roles.  However, if you get into it, and watch all the way through, the show is kept light by their surface personality, but they have a lot more depth.  When I started watching, I was sure I would hate Hajime.  By the end, she is easily one of my top 10 favorite heroines, she has a lot more depth than I thought they could put into a "peppy" "optimistic" character.  Now onto each rating. Story The story is pretty mediocre: Aliens, earth in trouble, heroes.  Same stuff different day. That said, they had a nice conflict between wanting a world with heroes, and one without, contrasting the complexity of society, and if heroes are even usefull in such a complicated world.  I'm a sucker for when stuff gets philosophical.  7/10 Animation You get what you see in the screenshots.  You either like it or you don't.  I personally really like the style, and its well done, its not like they slipped any unfinished stuff in (I'm looking at you rail wars...).  9/10 Sound By God the soundtrack for this is my favorite in a long time.  Not only can quite a few pieces stand alone and just be listened to by themselves, but they were so well integrated that it sets an amazing mood in quite a few scenes.  I personally love the fight music, and one piece just titled "Tutu".  Without the music, Crowds would easily be a 6/10, it just wouldn't be that great.  10/10 Characters But Tyranomaster, you said they were pretty standard cookie cutter characters, why would you give them a 9/10?  Look look, your right, I said they were cookie cutter characters, not that original, and various other things.  That said, what the writers did with the characters, how they developed and revealed their personalities, and how they took a lot of archtypes and did different or unexpected things with them made me feel happy.  I was glad that the optimist wasn't blindly optimistic.  I was glad that character re-evaluated themselves either openly, or not.  I was also really glad that they took some archtypes and made ME re-evaluate what I thought characters who fall into that style can be.  My horizons were brodened, so for that, they get a 9/10. Final All in all, much like the game Bastion I would give this a 9.5/10, it has its quarks, sure, but what it does with what is has, and how it all comes together, that is what makes it special.  Its an experience more than an anime, much like how Bastion to me was more of an experience than a game. Once again 9.5/10.

Osiummaster
9.5

Gatchaman Crowds is the most underrated anime I have ever seen. Story: Gatchaman Crowds is an anime about society, opinions of others, the influence of them, and herd mentality.What happens when people start to rely too much on something and stop thinking for themselves? What happens when people gain power over others that they can use without consequence? This anime handles these very complex subjects in a very lighthearted way and manages to write a good story about it instead of forcing it down your throat It is is a more realistic take on a hero anime where all characters have a very defined and flamboyant personality. They each have their own very different role and perspective on problems. The story begins when an alien named Berg-Katze appaears which turns the leader of the social network app Galax into a Gatchaman. This person gains the ability to give people a power called "Crowds". A big blue alien looking creature which is very strong. Berg-Katze then takes over Crowds powers and tries to spread them around the world. When humans gain the power to anonymously take actions without consequences, it draws out the worst in them. And this is exactly what Berg-Katze wants. To destroy the world by setting people up against themselves. To make humanity's egoistical nature lead to its downfall. Animation: At first glance it seems very basically animated, but the body and facial expression are amazingly executed. They very much fit the characters personalities and the emotions they are trying to express. There are some moments on which animation costs were clearly saved, but those are mostly talking scenes in which nothing drastic is happening. Sound: The soundtrack is stunning. The intro, the outro, the fighting music, and especially the well timed soft tunes that get thrown in during times which seem dramatic. Characters: The cast is extremely diverse and flamboyant, while their true character is actually very subtly pronounced. Each character has a different personality, and personalities which are normally glorified are now questioned. Hajime has by far the most interesting personality I have ever seen in anime. What at first glance appears to be an incredibly stupid girl, is actually someone who pretends to not understand instructions, simply because the instructions were stupid to begin with. Someone who actually questions what's being told to her. Hajime is the strongest and most original character to have ever existed in Anime. The rest of the cast is (aside from sometimes a bit gay) mostly not that interesting. Their reactions and interpretations, their growth as humans when interacting with Hajime and the moment they also start thinking for themselves is what the cast stand out. Overall: The second season of Gatchaman Crowds was, while good, definitely not as strong as the first one, which is the biggest downside. Gatchaman Crowds is the most underrated anime I have ever seen, and anyone who takes a critical look at it will be able to appreciate originality and conflicting opinions more after seeing this anime.

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