Gatchaman Crowds Insight – Taking it slow for the crowds

The first season of Gatchaman Crowds is my favorite anime ever. It’s a literally-colorful show that captures the optimism of the traditional superhero genre while acknowledging the cynical practicalities of modern social systems. But most of all, it’s a show that thematically interacts with its spectators, more than any other piece of media I can think of. It asks a lot of questions, but doesn’t provide many answers. Instead, it explores possibilities. It will show you how gamification encourages people to take initiative in one scene, but it will also present you a character who has removed all meaning from his actions and only now cares about the promised reward. Is gamification good or bad then? This show lets you think about it and make your own decision. For me, this has always been the real message of the show: “here are things to think about, so… what do you think?”

With this approach, Gatchaman Crowds escapes many narrative pitfalls that other pieces of media often indulges in without any afterthought (like, say, a black and white morality, or a narrative that puts thought-provoking questions in the mouth of a villain that get conveniently silenced), but because of that, I think it ended up being overwhelming for a good part of its audience. We’ve have come to expect stories to tell us their meaning in a plain and explicit way, to have a precise vision about its subject, a moral to force upon us without giving us any say in the matter. Most stories are one-way messages, and it seems to me that a number of watchers didn’t expect Gatchaman Crowds to be a dialogue. This show wants something in return, because it doesn’t consider itself to be the end. It doesn’t want the audience to follow its morals passively, but to participate in debating its subjects matters, and maybe even to take them further. The problem was, you obviously can’t force the audience to approach a piece of media in a certain way, especially if they aren’t used to it, so in reaction, the second season, named Insight, chose to adapt to its audience. (Spoilers ahead)

Gatchaman Crowds – episode 1: The white bird is not lost

[Translated and adapted from the original French version]

The first season of Gatchaman Crowds aired two years ago and I wanted to write a detailed analysis of it since then. But this series has so much to say in just twelve episode that I have constantly failed to finish this task because I don’t know where to start and to end my commentary. So now I have decided to take it episode per episode and see if that works better.

The second season, Insight, is way less dense and much more focused on a single theme, so I can already announce that it will only get a single review from me once it’s over. I will also ignore it most of the time in my analysis of season 1. Not that I dislike Insight, but I want to look at the messages of the first season in their own context.

Gatchaman Crowds is a sort-of reboot of the Sentai series also known as Battle of the Planets. It is still about superheroes protecting Earth from aliens but yet it’s also much more than that. These analyses will be spoilers heavy, but hey, if you haven’t watched the series yet, it’s available on Crunchyroll. If you want to see a fun, yet intelligent, anime that subverts superheroes tropes without going grimdark or that offers the first relevant commentary on how internet influences our society since Lain, you will get what you bargained for.