G-Force, from left to right: Ace, Hooty, Pee Wee, Aggie and Dirk. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So I just got back from a screening of Gatchaman Crowds (Episodes 1-4) and to my great surprise, not only did the ADR Director & cast & crew turn out, but among them was none other than Luci Christian!! Pretty amazing. I'd already gotten Luci's autograph at Anime Matsuri, but it was pretty special to see her again.
My brief jokey synopsis of Gatchaman Crowds, Ep.1-4; our team of heroes recruits a loud crazy girl, and they have to battle these mutant Borg-like Rubik's Cubes that they think are bad but crazy girl makes them friendly and then the original cross-dressing big-bad from the original series shows up The End (of Ep.4).
This series bears only very tenuous connections to the original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman; the main influences of which are the Gatchaman "G" logo and the bird iconography. Beyond that, and the return of even more flamboyant Berg-Katse turned up to 11, that's about it as far as deep connections go.
It's a very weird show so far, and I look forward to seeing where Gatchaman Crowds takes us. There seems to be an Eden-of-the-East type vibe going on and expanded into a more definitively sci-fi direction, with spontaneous, anarchic Crowd Sourcing solving all of society's problems without the need of plodding, slow, musty ol' government. This anime feels like some anarchist's wet dream...or Libertarian mental fap fetish....the intellectual masturbation is strong in this one.
It needless to say has a very strong utopian and even pacifistic streak running through it, or at least for the first four episodes. It's pure fantasy, and if you just go with it, you'll probably enjoy this series a lot more than if you subject it to rational scrutiny, etc.
I enjoyed the first four episodes, but MAN this show is weird. And it feels like it's only gonna get weirder as the narrative progresses. My friend Stephen won the Blu-Ray edition in the drawing at the end, so he gets to continue the journey. As for me, this isn't a "must buy" title, but it's something I might pick up later on down the line, to put along side my original Gatchaman Box Set re-released by Sentai Filmworks.
The English dub seems to like the word play between English slang "Gotcha" and the Japanese title, Gatchaman. Whatever, it's dumb but it works, so I give it a pass. Purist weeaboos might hate it, but *shrug*.
It's worth a look, and I'd probably watch beyond Episode 4 if I were renting this volume by volume.
