08.16
This shot worked better in Blade Runner
My laptop’s screen may have shorted out but that isn’t enough to stop CROWDS-SOURCING! Last time: Recon gave us a ton of philosophy pretending to be exposition and then there was a cave-in. This week… more of the same except in reverse.
This isn't Sugane's day is it?
Hajime’s antics are caught on a security camera and now the whole world knows that Gatchaman are not some urban legend. This proves to be an incredible hassle to Veal Paimansean who can’t figure out whether the consistently disobedient Hajime should be terminated or not. With Hajime’s face plastered all over the news, even going to the local shopping mall proves to be a problem for the trio of Hajime, Sugane, and Utsutsu. Reporters quickly mob them and it takes a group of baseball bat wielding GALAXters (who by the way are now sporting some very familiar masks) to help them get out.
You're not fooling anyone Nakamura!
This has all been set up by Rui who now wants to use Gatchaman (and more precisely, Hajime) in his masterplan to update the world. He, in his guise of LOAD GALAX, invites Hajime and later Sugane to talk business. While Hajime and Utsutsu enter the old fashioned way, the ever-doubting Sugane sneaks in via amnesia effect/“Bird go!”
"This is what Gatchaman has become." - John Harkrider
Once there Rui outlines his plan. Basically Gatchaman should quit while their ahead and let Galax do all the hero work from this point forward. Of course Sugane, and surprisingly Hajime, aren’t buying it and say no dice. To make matters even more interesting, Hajime sees through Rui’s crossdressing disguise pretty quickly (a fact that even escaped Sugane), and Sugane notices that GALAXters (or at least the ones closest to LOAD) are immune to the Amnesia Effect. While all this is going down Jou goes home to buy a gun so he can blow Berg Katze’s brains out personally.
This is Genei-level character design people.
Episode 6 effectively cements the rewritten dynamics hinted at the end of last week. Gatchaman ARE real, Gatchaman ARE fighting to save people, Gatchaman ARE a problem if GALAX wants to maintain order for themselves. This actually seems like a pretty interesting idea for once, its a shame then that it gets buried under way too much philosophy/exposition much like the first half of Episode 5 was. With much of the focus on Hajime and Sugane this week many of the characters got the short shrift again. Utsutsu and Jou have one or two nice bits each but Paiman is quickly developing a pattern of “complain about everything Hajime does then have an aneurysm over it” (rince, repeat) and O.D is just there to spell that fact out to the audience. I’d give you some choice Space-Pimpkun moments but Berg Katze was actually not in this week’s episode. Surprise!
I second that opinion.
Ultimately what give this week’s show a bit of an edge on some of the past installments is a great scene where Hajime and Utsutsu are chased by the paparazzi at the mall. Otherwise… fairly par for the course. 5/10
OH MY GOD WE’RE HALFWAY DONE WITH THIS SHIT AREN’T WE???
Mean: 2.5/10; Median: 2.5; Mode: 1.