Gotcha

The fourth episode of Preferential Measure Organization Stella Women’s Academy High School Division Class C3 ((as J. Greely translates the title)) suggested that the series might be more than just a sports/socialization story. Subsequent episodes have not fulfilled my hopes, and I’m getting tired of muttering “idiot” at the protagonist. Unless I hear that the eighth episode is markedly better than the previous three, I’m through with Stella etc.

Instead, I’m watching Gatchaman Crowds, Kenji Nakamura‘s current project. Nakamura makes anime unlike other anime, and he doesn’t repeat himself. Last year’s Tsuritama was concerned with fishing, regional dances and alien invasions. Before that came [C] Control, about money, and Kuuchuu Buranko, about psychiatry. His outstanding show remains Mononoke, about the nature, origins and intentions of certain demons. It was one of the best shows to be aired in anime’s annus mirabilis, 2007. This time around Nakamura is considering superheroics.

I picked up a DVD of the original Gatchaman some years back to fill out an order. Members of the “science ninja team” shout “Bird go!” to transform into jumpsuit-clad heroes with bird-beak visors on their helmets and battle the evil Galactor. Their greatest superpower is keeping straight faces through the proceedings. It’s silly stuff, and I’m surprised that anyone thought it was worth rebooting. ((There’s also a new Gatchaman movie, featuring $40,000 suits.

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Gatchaman Crowds is a little different than the 1972 series. A Gatchaman still transforms by shouting “Bird go,” but instead of battling the minions of Galactor, he hunts a “MESS,” an entity that looks like the what happens when a Rubik’s cube collides with a Menger sponge in a Crayola factory, and has tentacles.

Instead of the traditional spandex superhero uniform, he is encased in articulated powered armor, portions of which glow. Several members of this Gatchaman team are aliens, including the irritable leader Paiman, who looks like a small panda.

So things stand in the first episode, when new Gatchaman Hajime is recruited by JJ. Impassive JJ, the director of Team Gatchaman, is very tall and thin, with dark skin and white hair. He wears long robes, and he has claws on his fingertips and fangs behind his lips. He looks like an alien vampire. His utterances are opaquely metaphorical; perhaps he was RahXephon‘s Quon’s rhetoric teacher.

Hajime does an excellent imitation of a impulsive ditz. She loudly loves everything kawaii, including touchy panda-like aliens, and she cannot sit still or be quiet. She’s particularly fond of scissors, and she’d rather make friends than fight. Straight-arrow Sugane spends much of his screen time with his mouth hanging open, appalled at her behavior.

Flaky though Hajime is, her instincts are usually right. By the third episode, through her seemingly irrational actions, MESS is no longer a factor in the story (though I expect it will return in the climactic episodes). Instead, the focus shifts to social media as a means of changing society and whether heroes are necessary. (There’s still vast evil to fight, of course.)

The second episode introduces the other major players. Rui is the young man behind the smartphone app “GALAX” and the artificial intelligence “X” that runs GALAX. He’s a transvestite who favors gothloli fashions. He thought he was smart enough to make a deal with a devil and come out ahead. Berg-Katse is a very tall being of indeterminate gender with copious magenta hair and a smile that would unnerve the Joker. He/she/it finds destruction, violence and death “yummy.”

How much you enjoy Gatchaman Crowds depends on how well you can tolerate Hajime. If you found Haru insufferable in Tsuritama, you will find watching Hajime an ordeal. Even though, unlike Haru, she’s nominally human, she may be the most alien character in the show. Nevertheless, through the seventh episode at least, Gatchaman Crowds is probably one of the better shows of the current season, recommended to anyone who has enjoyed Nakamura’s other work. It’s worth sampling to see if you have any taste for one of the most playful anime directors active today.

Update: Ken the Brickmuppet, who is knowledgeable about the original Gatchaman, comments on Gatchaman Crowds.

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