Gatchaman
Crowds - Insight
*Contains
Spoilers*
At
the time of writing we are on episode 9 of the second season of
Gatchaman Crowds and I am continued to be impressed. If you're
not familiar with the series you still may have hear the name
‘Gatchaman’ which was an anime/cartoon that was around in the
1980’s that went by a number of different names, depending on where
in the world you lived. You could have known it by:
G-Force
Battle
of the planets
Eagle
Riders
Science
Ninja Team Gatchaman
The
80’s series followed a team of heroes who fought space aliens and
donned bird themed costumes. The Series followed a ‘monster
of the week’ format in the same style as Power rangers or
Terrahawks where we see the enemy send a monster to attack earth
and the Gatchaman team would fight and defeat it. Gatchaman
Crowds is not the 80’s series, the hero’s still, occasionally,
transform into costumes, some of which are bird themed but gone are
the weekly monsters, replaced with a series long threat and
characters who scheme and plot to their own ends. And we don't
just get one scheme, in the second season we start with a terrorist
group who want to get rid of the crowds which are blue or red
creatures which can be summoned by their users to help them in
anything. We also have a new visiting alien, Gelsandra who
becomes obsessed with making humans happy and ‘one’. The
crowds are soon remove to make way for the new story but i think they
will make a return by the end of the series.
As
i stated above we are now on episode 9 and I find myself drawing
similarities first to ‘Death Note’, an anime and now live action
series from Japan about a boy who finds a book which will kill anyone
whose name is written in it (A very basic synopsis I know, I’ll
cover more later) but also I found myself comparing Gatchaman to the
play ‘rhinoceros’ by Eugene
Ionesco. Gatchaman contains the
themes of sociological change and individuality with a number of
characters whose’ gender is questionable, I have to admit I was
unsure of Rui
Ninomiya’s
gender
for most of the first season. In Episode 8 we are introduced to
the Kuu-sama,
creatures that are only concerned with making humanity (or at least
Japan) one, meaning that they want a society where everyone is happy
but also of one mind. Anyone who disrupts this oneness is
swallowed by the Kuu-sama. This is where Gatchaman is similar
to ‘Death Note’. In ‘Death Note’ Light Yagami is using
the titular book to make a ‘perfect’ society by killing off
criminals, thus making most people feel safer and scarring anyone who
would consider a criminal act. As ‘Death Note’ progresses
it is questioned where Kira
(the name given to Light by the public) will stop, if he starts
punishing lower crimes this may affect more of the normal people.
This point is expanded in ‘Gatchaman Crowds’, when the
Kuu-sama start absorbing people it is those who are social problems,
the people who play their music loud at night and the people who
molest women on the tube train but it soon expands to anyone who
doesn’t want to doesn’t want to do the same as a group which
leads to people joining in with activities not because they want to
but because they want
to but because they are afraid to do anything different. We
also see the same disregard for the current law enforcement that
starts to happen in ‘Death Note’, in Death Note there are a lot
of the normal population who start to side with Kira over the police
because he is seen to be doing something about the rising crime where
the police appear to be powerless and in Gatchaman we see the
population turning against the Gatchaman team who are a law
enforcement team where aliens are concerned. Even when the
Kuu-sama start to absorb people the majority of the population react
by ignoring the Gatchaman’s warnings because the affected people
can be seen to deserve it.
As
I have said Gatchaman Crowds also follows covers the subject of
individuality and fitting in which is where the comparison with the
play ‘rhinoceros’.
There are a few different groups/identities in Gatchaman,
the most obvious are the Gatchaman themselves who are known as the
Gatchaman even in their civilian identity but the character within
the group some of which are aliens. As I've already mentioned
one of the team members O.D. is a famous cross drag queen who is also
a Co host on a popular T.V. show who questions his identity when a
second drag queen is brought onto the show. I found Gatchaman
became similar to 'Rhinoceros' with the introduction of the Kuu-sama.
In 'Rhinoceros' people start changing into Rhinoceros (for no
reason) and, although it is first seen as strange it becomes a new
fashion with those who do not turn being seen as strange and uncool
even though it not known what is causing it or if it is dangerous.
This is the same reaction with the Kuu-sama, to begin with no
one knows where they come from but, when it is found that they make
people feel better about themselves and happier people just accept
them and try to make anyone who doesn't accept them. The
comparison is continued when you consider the earlier in the series
the public chose to stop using the crowd so, instead of changing from
person to rhinoceros we have the change from crowds to Kuu-sama.
Gatchaman Crowds is a good thought provoking anime which uses science fiction to bring across interesting points about society and human culture.
