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Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Gatchaman Standing Out in CROWDS Waving their Insights
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tinyirnfist0
Posts: 123 |
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Rui is supposed to be genderqueer.
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mdo7
 Posts: 8230 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Really, are you going to talk about Gatchaman Crowd without discussing the original 1972 anime at all, that's a bit disappointing IMO.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 5149 Location: New York |
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All I remember about CROWDS is that it (and the movie not going over well, at all) kind of killed the brand to the point the biggest thing out of it are the comics from Mad Cave, which pretend Crowds never happened. At least those appear to be selling rather well.
The dismissal/contempt CROWDS had for the original was notable. People claim a lot of unfaithful adaptations are “In Name Only” but CROWDS was about as faithful as the one Penny Arcade joke about a hypothetical Metroid movie where a robot angel helps a kid baseball team. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 5295 |
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I don't remember a lot of the details about this series, but I remember thinking it was brilliant in its own quirky way, and it's definitely even more relevant now than it was when it first aired.
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1582 |
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I liked Crowds a lot, but Crowds Insight was absolutely brilliant in how it predicted the horrible impact social media would have in politics all over the world. And over a decade later, we're still nowhere near figuring out how to put that genie back in the bottle, if that's even possible.
Last edited by Zhou-BR on Wed Feb 18, 2026 4:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dop.L
Posts: 746 Location: London |
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Great to see this piece, as I always felt Crowds and Insight were among the most politically savvy anime I've ever seen. Really must do a rewatch.
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Eilavel
Posts: 486 |
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Great show, one the the smarter political animes going despite this very much not being its appearance. Really underwatched as well.
I think its also worth noting that one of the things keeping it so obviously relevant at first sight is the thus far near immutable form factor of the smartphone, now nearing 20 years with pretty much the same form factor. On the other hand, I think both seasons are really fairly optimistic, even though they do contain bleak elements of what humans can do we can always push through with the better angels of our nature one way or another.. They also saw social media and other networking tools as fundamentally decentralising in a way that I'm not sure reflects the reality of what has happened in a platform world. Hajime is a shallow authorial insert done in a sometimes very mildly annoying way. I think they could have had her play the same role without the total lack of naturalism, but its not a critical factor in the show.
Crowds has nothing to say or even really reference about the original, so in discussing Crowds theres nothing to say about it. If this disappoints, thats something to refer to the creators of Crowds, not to people discussing Crowds not forcing in some artificial genuflection. |
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Nate148
Posts: 657 |
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Thank you for getting to rethink what I read on crowds and might be a good ideal to watch it
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NJ_
 Posts: 3409 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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Screw Sentai for not getting the true last episode of season 1.
With how important everyone has said for years that it was, it reminds me of when they for almost a decade didn't have the Elfen Lied OVA which was important to the show in terms of a certain backstory. |
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 766 Location: USA |
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As much as I love Crowds and its message I will never forgive them for replacing the iconic bird outfits with the mech suits. They are pretty, but the original designs are gorgeous.
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WeirDiE_InC
 Posts: 437 Location: The GVRD |
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It's a shame that they made all those mech designs and never made toys out of them |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2467 |
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EDIT: I say this with the caveat that the term “otokonoko” is sometimes adopted by trans women in Japan as a matter of course if personal anecdotes on Twitter are anything to go by. EDIT 2: And I just had the deeply unpleasant experience of reading posts by my 2013 self. Oh, how I tried to be sensitive. :,) In any case, the series doesn’t clarify either way, so feel however you want to about it! |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4287 |
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My basis for fictional characters: If you have to go outside the work in order to find something out then it doesn't work for the story; I use the neutral "he" for Rui and people didn't like it but for the character in the story it fits in my mind. I felt that Rui wasn't doing it for self expression, merely a momentary placeholder because of cultural expectations. When Rui dressed as a woman he used female pronouns because that's why people outside of Rui expected sort of thing. It makes sense to me because it makes sense in the story. I think it's less genderfluid, more gender reflexive. Rui just doesn't care as there are more important things. It is odd that for a character as asexual as Rui is, that term never came up. Apparently, I never posted anything about Insight; I have both sets, I saw the Director's Cut episode at some point, but because of Tsubasa, I don't have a high opinion of Insight. I just didn't like her, a new character for the fact they didn't want to change an existing character to fill her role... but since the existing characters would have stopped her normally, their own inaction hampers the story. Reframing Insight into 2026 American politics... again, Tsubasa gets in the way. Clueless AND well meaning? That would never fly today. |
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Akamaru_Inu
Subscriber Posts: 118 Location: Florida |
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The thing I remember most about CROWDS is that absolutely amazing song that kicked in when they'd transform. GATCHAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN.....
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Top Gun
Posts: 5295 |
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Oh yeah, that was a total banger. |
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