It’s #HeroWeek over at Crunchyroll, so I’m pitching in with a couple of essays on my two favorite superhero anime of the last few years—Gatchaman Crowds and Concrete Revolutio. Up first, Kenji Nakamura’s Gatchaman Crowds!
By this point, I was pretty burned out with watching new series, but some shows managed to pull through pretty well! It’s both a nice surprise and also kind of bad because I’m at the point where I’m trying to cut shows, not add them.
In any case, here’s the final installment of my first impressions on Summer 2015’s anime offerings! Hope you enjoy!
Lookie all the new animes, onii-chan~!
Today, we saw the ending of Gatchaman Crowds, which probably holds up the title for quirkiest anime of the Summer 2013 season. And yes, the very end was weird, but the ending was exceptional. So let’s get to it. If you want to see where Gatchaman Crowds ended up in my list of rankings, head on over here.
Want an example of a character taking over a show? Hajime does just that.
Gatchaman Crowds, a reboot of the 1972 series Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, is not your typical superhero TV show. Early on, it reminded me a lot of Teen Titans, but as the show went on it differentiated itself as something totally unique. Noted throughout the season for its deconstruction of many cliches of the genre, Gatchaman Crowds continually and deliberately avoids many tropes and dodges expectations time and time again. What we end up with is an intelligent, engaging and ultimately hopeful message on the inherent goodness of humanity and a clear message that violence isn’t always the answer. Continue reading
Mage in a Barrel 