Gatchaman Crowds has come to a close and while it ended on a rather anticlimactic note this show was still a well above average and enjoyable romp.
As I mentioned in a previous post, It has a quirky, rather simplistic art style and it's not particularly
well animated. It feels kind of low budget, but that may be a perk,
because the impression I get is that the people making it had a fair
amount of creative freedom...and went wild with it...starting with the theme song which isn't exactly J-pop...
It's a
fascinating little show that, amongst other things, touches on the remarkable
ability of social networks and other information technologies ( and
ummm...magics) to do end runs around hierarchical structures...for good or
ill.
The protagonist is SO perky as to be off-putting at times. However, she's smart, optimistic and insightful.
She's perkytudinous!
All in all I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the somewhat abrupt (but internally logical) ending. If you watch it, do sit all the way through the last episodes credits though.
The oddness, presence of Mr. Not-a-Panda and complete lack of relation to its classic namesake will be seriously off-putting to some people but I recommend it.
It's really odd, and (especially for an anime) it has a very atypical political message...
It's almost Libertarian in its vision of people bypassing government entities.
However,
they do this not by 'going Galt' , each becoming a nation of one or leaving everyone else to their own devices, but rather by networking online to form associations to help one another. Additionally, there is
still great respect paid to those government organizations involved in
first response.
Thus rather than straight Libertarian, the viewpoint seems to be remarkably close to the peculiar type of Conservatism most prevalent in the United States.
It sure as hell isn't leftist because the show actually contains the line "Your skills as a housewife are needed to help save people."
In fact the great existential threat of a hundred thousand
or so asshats given superpowers is solved quickly, neatly and logically
by making the superpowers available to everyone online (don't ask)...so
the problem is solved by...OMG...an armed citizenry,
This is Japan...so I'm pretty sure they didn't mean that, but that's certanly the takeaway.
On top of that, there was a brief speech by either the chief of police or the mayor
telling his first response staff that in the future the government is going to have to
restrict itself to those few things like emergency response and defense
that it can do better than the populace and leave the rest of it to
these free associations that form to deal with civic issues....
Holy de Tocqueville!
This so awesome that it has got to be some kind of a trap!
Actually he's the trap.
...and this is all in a show that includes idealistic transvestites and heroic gay people from space.
It's just...I mean...wow.
I may have just ruined it for some people but my recommendation stands.
2
Given that sword and gun control were the foundations of both the unification of Japan and the oppression of peasants and merchants (not to mention the untouchable class), I think maybe that's exactly what the series is advocating. The Meiji revolution was touched off by samurai and merchant/peasants getting together (and commoners getting to get armed by both sides, as the Shinsengumi illustrate) and then all of a sudden, weapons control came back and so did oppressive government.... So restricting the computer powers of normal people would set off the same alarms, for a history-minded Japanese person.
So yeah, how they mean it might be different, but what they mean probably is the same.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Fri Oct 4 12:53:36 2013 (cvXSV)
3
Good points.
There is also the example of Kanazawa, which was more or less democratic and had something very similar to a Swiss defense model. They held out for about a hundred years.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Fri Oct 4 13:07:09 2013 (F7DdT)
4
I was ready to cry "foul!" until the after-credits scene. I think they need an OVA or two to give us some closure on the rest of the cast, though; Utsutsu-chan could do the beach episode all by herself, although they'd probably fill it with Rui-service instead...
Oh, and I just found this picture of the cast...
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Fri Oct 4 18:19:11 2013 (+cEg2)
