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EP. REVIEW: Gatchaman Crowds insight


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DRosencraft



Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 665
PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2015 11:49 am Reply with quote
There are still gaps that are nagging me in the story. If Gel is this evil borg from space, he seems fairly ignorant of the fact. Now, it is possible, probably likely, that there are a race of Gelsadra out in space, but it's a little personally unsatisfying that we get little in the way of affirmation of this point.

The appearance of the Kuu-sama seems to be thoroughly a mystery to Gel. Functionally it is almost as if he turned out to be a carrier of a virus.

I remain uncertain of the exact message they are trying to deliver. Until this episode, suspicion of Gel was based entirely on the fact that he was the only plausible antagonist of the story. He talked about everyone "uniting" and went about that goal, but did nothing violent or coercive to force that outcome. He articulate his ideas, got support, and executed those ideas, which is in theory what we expect from any democratically elected official. And, as I said, the only direct threat from him has come from the Kuu-sama whose existence he seems oblivious to. The general theme seems to be on the dangers of lack of thought and personal responsibility, but framing of Gelsadra as the villain seems to be a potentially poor writing choice, as his direct actions are not the real problem.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 11:42 am Reply with quote
DRosencraft wrote:
The general theme seems to be on the dangers of lack of thought and personal responsibility, but framing of Gelsadra as the villain seems to be a potentially poor writing choice, as his direct actions are not the real problem.

They're not framing Gel as the villain. Gel is acting out of goodwill, and genuinely wants the best for people, problem is, his idea of "best" is actually horrifying. But for that matter Gel also has no understanding of humans - even though he can read thoughts he fails to see the wider context in which those thoughts exists. He strives to "unite" everyone but his attempts at this are basically exploiting flaws in human nature (we saw this before the Kuu even appeared) without any moral, ethical, political, financial, etc. consideration. He's a tyrant - a gentle, well-meaning tyrant, but a tyrant nonetheless. Not to mention the way that his methods destroy society.
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DRosencraft



Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 7:14 pm Reply with quote
SHD wrote:

They're not framing Gel as the villain. Gel is acting out of goodwill, and genuinely wants the best for people, problem is, his idea of "best" is actually horrifying. But for that matter Gel also has no understanding of humans - even though he can read thoughts he fails to see the wider context in which those thoughts exists. He strives to "unite" everyone but his attempts at this are basically exploiting flaws in human nature (we saw this before the Kuu even appeared) without any moral, ethical, political, financial, etc. consideration. He's a tyrant - a gentle, well-meaning tyrant, but a tyrant nonetheless. Not to mention the way that his methods destroy society.


Until this episode spoiler[when Hajime stated they had to save Gelsadra], I doubt very many questioned if he was being crafted as the villain of the story being set up. Your post itself even circles back to the idea that he is a despotic tyrant - if that's not a villain, I don't know what is.

But as they seemed to be getting at towards the end of the episode, and as I expect they will flesh out more next episode, Gel isn't the villain people want to scapegoat him as. All he did was show up with an idea, talk about it, campaign on it, and people decided it sounded good. That isn't tyranny, that is the definition of a democratic system. He hasn't proclaimed himself king, hasn't said he'd forbid free speech, hasn't even done anything violent or even rude to anyone who has wanted to refute his ideas. Violence emerged against people via the Kuu-sama, which through indirectly born from his actions, are not under his control. But as is shown when the Kuu-sama stop the attack on the Gatchaman base, they act purely as an extension and enforcement of the prevailing mood, not on explicitly violent or malicious terms. That they are being violent doesn't change the end result of their actions, but it does shade the fact that they are the direct expression of the prevailing will of the populace.

Yes, Gel is ignorant of nuance of human thought and emotion, but what does that say of the people then who look at what was happening and don't even think anything is wrong? His goals are not what are wrong. The idea of unity in thought and purpose is not in-of-itself wrong. The problem is the process of reaching that goal, the method by which that unification is achieved. The people and the Kuu-sama do not envision a process, however. They are captivated by the result only. Gelsadra is in the process of learning that what is happening may be wrong. We don't yet know what his response will be, because he is still of the thinking that everyone loves the Kuu-sama and so therefore the Kuu-sama cannot be bad. Heck, even when people find out and see what the Kuu-sama are doing, they celebrate it as good before Gel even knows or states an opinion.

The point the story seems to be trying to make is that people need to think for themselves, not make excuses to shill off their choices on someone else. The season started with people misusing Crowds, and the blame was shilled off more on the system, less on the people using it, so Crowds was gotten rid of. They blamed the politicians in government, now they're all gone and things were still not good. At every turn, we are seeing that rather than owning up to their own roles, putting in any personal effort, the majorities are pushing off the blame for anything that goes wrong onto anyone else.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 4:45 pm Reply with quote
DRosencraft wrote:
His goals are not what are wrong. The idea of unity in thought and purpose is not in-of-itself wrong.

Gel's goal is "for everyone to become one". How do you make 100 into 1? Answer: You subtract 99. No matter the loftiness of the ambition, as long as each of the 100 is distinct, they will never be "one" because there are ALWAYS differences. What's worse, who leads the thought collective? What (I think) Joe has realized is that EVEN if you think Gelsadra is benign, his swift rise to power shows just how SIMPLE it would be for someone else to completely co-opt the movement. Now that the Kuu are in place, all one needs is a simple majority to bully everyone else into following a directive. And worse, you can keep culling however you choose, if you can read the "polling data" correctly. Remove the "dissent" and you force everyone into line.
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DRosencraft



Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 5:43 pm Reply with quote
HeeroTX wrote:

Gel's goal is "for everyone to become one". How do you make 100 into 1? Answer: You subtract 99. No matter the loftiness of the ambition, as long as each of the 100 is distinct, they will never be "one" because there are ALWAYS differences. What's worse, who leads the thought collective? What (I think) Joe has realized is that EVEN if you think Gelsadra is benign, his swift rise to power shows just how SIMPLE it would be for someone else to completely co-opt the movement. Now that the Kuu are in place, all one needs is a simple majority to bully everyone else into following a directive. And worse, you can keep culling however you choose, if you can read the "polling data" correctly. Remove the "dissent" and you force everyone into line.


That is the sort of oversimplification that I am hoping the writers avoid. It's not merely a question of addition and subtraction. Again, I go back to the ideal of how a democracy works; everyone gets all the information needed to make a decision, they discuss and debate, and there is an eventual understanding that the achieved consensus represents the ideal best solution under the facts, thus everyone agrees to it.

It is the corruption of the ideology of "everyone as one" that arrives at Gelsadra being a villain, that spawned the Kuu-sama, and arrives at the over-simplified answer that to make everyone as one, you just gotta get rid of the rest. That same rationale would say that the best way to end war is to just kill or threaten away everybody you don't like or don't agree with.

You can argue that the ideology is an impossibility, but what then is the alternative? An anarchic model where no leadership exists and everyone is left to fend for themselves? A dictatorship? Or do you strive to perfect the democratic model? Or, do you create something else entirely?

Anarchy doesn't work, and the unanimity against Gel would clearly revoke the idea of anything that approaches a dictatorship as his rule has ended up becoming by the public's fiat. I doubt this series would choose to attempt creating a new form of government, so they will likely strive for a refinement of the perceived faults of the democratic model. That was what Gel's ascent to power and the reforms he made were supposed to be about.

I retain the fault lies with the fact that the offer was made in allowing people to foist their responsibility for making choices on him. It was an inevitability, as in many democracies participation dwindles over time, but he hastened that decline by offering to make those decisions himself. But again, why did he make that offer? Because it was the feeling of the public, "don't feel like deciding all this stuff. He's already making good suggestions we like, let him just do what he wants".

I view blaming Gelsadra as the equivalent of blaming fast food companies for making people fat. Fast food companies make and sell food. The individuals are the ones who decide what they will buy and what they eat. Fast food restaurants can do better, but in the end eating too much of it is the fault of the individual. Same here. They were given the chance to vote on their right to have a say in all decisions. They even retain the ability to make their own choice in all later decisions, with Gel doing nothing to outright assuage their choices. Yet they still do not. What does a manageable future look like for them then? How do they not end up in the rule of any despotic figure? What would stop a slightly more savvy Berg-Katze from having taken over as leader of their government?
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zztop



Joined: 28 Aug 2014
Posts: 642
PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 10:29 am Reply with quote
There's still a few more issues left to resolve:
1)Rui reconciling his CROWDS-for-all idealism with Suzuki's cynicism that the masses aren't knowledgable enough to handle such power.

2)Suzuki's future plans, now that he's made his point about the masses and power. The VAPEs have proven they are an opposition force to be reckoned with, given how well-organized and well-placed they are in society to sow doubt and gathered influence. Arresting Suzuki is pointless, since it's members will just scatter and lay low until he decides to strike again.

3)Gelsadra. He may have learned his lesson, but the masses may not be as forgiving.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 11:23 am Reply with quote
I think this episode was enough proof that Gel is not and was never a villain.

Quote:
I feel like Rui's collapse and final rise were both not well-integrated with the rest of the story and too similar to Tsubasa's arc, and the ending just isn't feeling quite as climactic as I'd hoped.

It's not the ending yet, though? We have two more episodes, and Rui's story is not done yet (unlike Tsubasa's, whose character development seemingly reached its end, with its logical conclusion). In any case, I didn't feel any issues with Rui's story so far, I think it was different enough from Tsubasa's (not in the least because the characters themselves are very different).
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DRosencraft



Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 11:27 am Reply with quote
I think the review nails most of the things I've seen in this show and these episodes. The point about the media is even on that gets overlooked a bit. I'd even go so far as to say that in the real world, the "old" media has arrived at the reputation of being terrible, but because so many dog-pile on that idea they don't even know why and end up just gravitating to other similarly bad sources of information, or worse, merely gravitate to one side and outright dismissing the other. One only need look at the continuing debate on man-made climate change and the coverage of the issue as if there are two equal sides, despite the fact more than 90% of scientists say it is real and occurring.

Like the review says, there isn't really a true "villain" in this series. In a sense, the idea of a "villain" is one of the things the writers seems to be trying to say wrong. If I recall there is even a moment in this latest episode where someone makes a statement to the effect that people put too much effort into trying to find villains or enemies to fight, instead of trying to solve problems.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 1:10 pm Reply with quote
The people have some real chutzpah calling him a dictator and the Kuu sama murders. The people freely chose to make him so by agreeing to fire all politicians aside from him and then ceding decision making to him. The Kuu sama murders have always been murders but when it was "bad" people being killed, they called them the hammer of justice. Though, it is understandable why they would scapegoat Gel to avoid realizing what they did. They are complicit in the murders perpetrated by the Kuu sama by not hearing out those who disagreed and not speaking up about and frequently justifying the murders of their friends and acquaintances. Now some might be justified in not speaking up about their worries about the Kuu as they could be next. However, if you are in a group of friends and one gets eaten for disagreeing, the response should not be they got what they deserve. It should be the Kuu are dangerous and need to go away. Even after the Kuu's actions became viewed as murders, they turned on Gel not the Kuu sama. They didn't want to see the truth that the Kuu sama didn't kill people Gel didn't like, but killed those who didn't agree with the majority on a individual group level. The executioner was the Kuu sama, but the judge and jury were the majority.

I wonder how the Kuu work in the case of more close disagreements. The disagreements shown are 1 vs everyone else. But what would happen if it were 6 vs 4? Would the four be killed together? What if it were even? Who would the Kuu sama kill?

Now as to Gel's ideal being necessarily good or bad. Unity in thought after people discuss it and come to an agreement is ideal for a democracy but it necessitates independent thought. While on finished issues everyone is of one mind, most of the time people will not be united in mind as ideally the thinking about issues takes the most time. What Gel has in mind is different than that. When he sees the people's votes, he doesn't see the differing opinions as forming the ideal decision. He sees them as disappointing lack of unity. One of his solutions to that "problem" is to make a leave it to me option, which does not seem to reflect the ideal of discussing and coming to a decision everyone agrees on. His ideal does not seem to be unity in thought after everyone thinks about it, it seems to be unity of thought full stop. If that is his ideal, then it is necessarily is bad as that can only occur in three options being 1)the thoughtcrime dystopia that Gel inadvertently created, 2) a true hive mind, 3) everyone but one person being killed. A pure unity of thought is the opposite of independent thought, and thus if one values the latter than the former is necessarily terrifying. This does not get into the fact that some issues are not clear cut evidence wise and some issues are defined by values not facts. These conflicts cannot come to agreement just by everyone coming together and agreeing on the appropriate action. People will not agree on what to do on those issues no matter how much they discuss or how much evidence is presented. This is why democracy does not operate on complete consensus. Decisions are made over the minority that disagrees. It would be nice if everyone could agree, but believing everyone can come together on everything is just the shallow thinking that got Tsubasa into her position.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 4:46 pm Reply with quote
It's been a while since I've seen a reviewer so steadfastly miss the point -- or, rather, dance around it.

No villain? Of course there was a villain. In fact, there were a very large number of them. Gel merely was an enabler for the villains, and so is worthy of contempt, but not hatred. But the villains of this series do hate him at the moment.

I'll just cut to the chase: the people (in this case, of Japan) are the villain. Where did this "atmosphere" come from? Who creates it and changes it? Not Gel. Not the Kuu-sama. The people do. Tsubasa is merely one of the people in this matter, and basically acts are their representative in the story: she doesn't think (it's too hard, she doesn't get it, but still thinks she understands everything better than those wiser or more intelligent than herself). Who really controls the Kuu-sama? Not Gel: the people do. They decide what everyone should be "one" with, and they are the ones that, when it was just "bad people" being eaten, were mostly fine with it. They are also the people who *still* are using Kuu-sama to go after Gel, whom they have condemned with the same mindlessness they've exhibited all along.

These people have *chosen* not to think for themselves. They are *happy* having someone lead them along. They are selfish and self-absorbed, and will lash out at anything that tries to tug them out of that state. They are the villains here, though they are not evil per se.

In a way, this show reminds me of Paranoia Agent. I suggest that anyone who is still confused about who the villain is here to rewatch the part with Tsuaba's grandfather. He was absolutely correct in what he said and with the remedy he provided to Tsubasa.

Speaking of Tsubasa, she did do something in this episode that finally made me give her some credit: when confronted with the truth and her hand in it, she didn't try to deny it, but accepted her error right away and sought to do what she could to correct it. She gets full marks for that in my book, and it helps explain why JJ chose her as a Gatchaman.

Oh, and one last thing: democracy isn't about finding an ideal solution. Democracy is about compromise: about finding *a* solution that everyone can agree upon, which is almost never the *best* or ideal solution. Of course, if everyone thinks as one, there is no need for democracy or for compromise.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 6:24 pm Reply with quote
Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
Oh, and one last thing: democracy isn't about finding an ideal solution. Democracy is about compromise: about finding *a* solution that everyone can agree upon, which is almost never the *best* or ideal solution. Of course, if everyone thinks as one, there is no need for democracy or for compromise.

This is an INCREDIBLY important distinction that many societies (America for sure, presumably Japan too considering this is an anime) have lost in the Internet age. Governing effectively in a "democracy" is about give and take, but too many people want a "my way or the highway" viewpoint.
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kameoosama



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 8:48 pm Reply with quote
HeeroTX wrote:
Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
Oh, and one last thing: democracy isn't about finding an ideal solution. Democracy is about compromise: about finding *a* solution that everyone can agree upon, which is almost never the *best* or ideal solution. Of course, if everyone thinks as one, there is no need for democracy or for compromise.

This is an INCREDIBLY important distinction that many societies (America for sure, presumably Japan too considering this is an anime) have lost in the Internet age. Governing effectively in a "democracy" is about give and take, but too many people want a "my way or the highway" viewpoint.


More or less, but it is important to realize that sometimes compromise isn't possible or only creates a solution that absolutely nobody is happy with. Or a million other possibilities where the answer doesn't lie in the middle. But even then people with conflicting needs and wants either work it out through open, good-faith, honest discourse; or they get third party remediation that is interested in a greater good all interested parties respect.
Which is kind of the central conflict of this arc. Gel-chan thinks consensus is god, Rizumu seems to be some sort of "everyone should be a rugged individualist and anyone who doesn't think for themselves 100% of the time is a sheep" person, Rui's spent this arc getting rude awakenings from their TED talks "wisdom of crowds" idealism, and Hajime is (obviously) promoting what the creator thinks is the way to go which is somewhere in between the other three.
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist


Joined: 02 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 17, 2015 10:23 am Reply with quote
zrnzle500 wrote:
I wonder how the Kuu work in the case of more close disagreements. The disagreements shown are 1 vs everyone else. But what would happen if it were 6 vs 4? Would the four be killed together? What if it were even? Who would the Kuu sama kill?

In a 1-vs-1 or 5-vs-5 disagreement, I have a feeling everyone would get killed off, for the sin of disturbing the general harmony. :-/

Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
Oh, and one last thing: democracy isn't about finding an ideal solution. Democracy is about compromise: about finding *a* solution that everyone can agree upon, which is almost never the *best* or ideal solution.

You're splitting hairs. In a democratic context, a compromise that the most people can agree upon is by definition the "ideal" best solution.


Gatchaman Crowds continues to amazes me. I don't think I've ever seen anything else in anime come close to this level of smart political/social commentary. I mean, these issues about independant thought and the human instinct for herd behavior... these are some of the biggest problems that humanity has been stuck with since there was a humanity. It's the stuff that most wars are made of, literally.

Nick is also pretty insightful in his reviews, but I find really ironic that he bemoans the lack of a true villain in episode 10. Of course when things go bad it's easier to accept a villain than "an unfortunate confluence of events" that doesn't leave any target for frustration. But one of the big points of that episode was to show the error of people who want to blame everything (including their own faults) on a villain/scapegoat. So to me it really made sense that the series avoided that same trap and abstained from shoving responsability onto a clear-cut villain. Everyone is a little bit to blame for the mess they're in.
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Bobduh



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 24
PostPosted: Sun Sep 20, 2015 10:18 am Reply with quote
Dan42 wrote:
I find really ironic that he bemoans the lack of a true villain in episode 10. Of course when things go bad it's easier to accept a villain than "an unfortunate confluence of events" that doesn't leave any target for frustration. But one of the big points of that episode was to show the error of people who want to blame everything (including their own faults) on a villain/scapegoat. So to me it really made sense that the series avoided that same trap and abstained from shoving responsability onto a clear-cut villain. Everyone is a little bit to blame for the mess they're in.


Actually, I wasn't really bemoaning that (or at least not intending to) - I was just kinda cheekily echoing the show itself to highlight what it's doing. It's definitely to the show's credit that there's no real antagonist here, outside of "our collective worse instincts."
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kamui85



Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Posts: 267
PostPosted: Sun Sep 20, 2015 2:32 pm Reply with quote
JaffaOrange wrote:
kamui85 wrote:
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THIS SHOW? Like seriously, i really liked the first season, action and concept wise, but Insight feels like it doesnt know where the hell its going!! the suits have BARELY appeared since the first episode, don't they have budget for the CG or something? urghh its driving me crazy!!


On the contrary, it feels like Insight knows exactly what it's doing. But don't worry, the recent developments look like there's now an excuse to have the transformed Gatchaman fighting inhuman mobs to appease those who think that shows that explore their central conflict without overt violence aren't their thing.


Urgh please don’t try to make me look dumb just because I want some action in a supposedly “sci-fi/ action show”. One of my favorite anime is the Monogatari series, and all they do there is talk. Insight feels weak in execution and I'm even on board when it comes to its central ideals of community, democracy and what not, but it seems Tatsunoko can't present its message in an entertaining consistent way. This reminds me of what they did with “C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control” ANOTHER series in which I was hooked from the start because of its concept (capitalism and currency creating an alternate reality that affects our own? Hell yeah!) and then greatly disappointed because of the way it was carried out. Episode 11 is what everyone was expecting and knew was going to happen but they dragged it out too long for me to care...
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