09.13
So yeah since the last edition of Crowds-Sourcing, my computer’s hard drive died a slow painful death so I’m without the ability to provide you with my usual 1080 screenshots of this week’s episode at the moment. I should have it fixed by next week, in which case I may update this week’s installment (EDIT… and done!). In fact I’m actually quite surprised to be writing this right now since I announced earlier that Crowds-Sourcing X would be delayed and it took a stroke of sheer luck to make it happen. Now that that’s out of the way…
They should learn to play mahjong... LIKE A REAL MAN
The Neo Hundred continue their reign of terror in Tokyo, destroying building after building. Umeda finds his leadership skills as a terrorist figurehead leader quickly compromised as the CROWDS begin their assault on the government’s temporary HQ in Tachikawa. With conventional weapons useless against them (because of that whole coma thing), Gatchaman steps in and proceeds to turn all the crowds into small cubes for orderly disposal without killing the controlling hosts. Yeah, some actual ACTION in this show for once.
Utsutsu suru...
Sugane and Hajime attack the blobs with their sword/scissors skills and we FINALLY get to see Utsutsu’s suit form, even if it comes off as an anti-climax after a few months of buildup (its also more fucking ugly than Hajime’s somehow). Meanwhile Jou continues to act all depressed about his inability to fight Katze, and Paiman has an incredibly boring conversation with the Prime Minister about the use of politics in crisis management that sticks out like a sore thumb, suggesting this episode had some major script issues.
That Jou is so dreamy!
Ultimately the main focus of this episode becomes less about the usual pair of Hajime and Sugane and on the two most emotionally crippled Gatchaman, Jou and Paiman and how they end up growing a pair (or whatever Paiman calls a pair). There’s also a surprisingly good arc for Umeda who goes from being frustrated to paranoid to absolutely terrified after Berg Katze throws him out to dry, leaking his personal information out onto the internets. The episode concludes with five of the six Gatchaman transformed and working together for the first time (we’ll probably see O.D. next week). It’s a shame it just took this long to do it.
This will be the day we've waited for...
This is probably the best episode of Crowds to date… but that being said it still had a big problem (the Prime Minister stuff). I’m not going to lie, if Nakamura had paced that better than this would have been the first time Crowds got a 10 from me, unfortunately he didn’t. There’s also the feeling that Crowds is finally going somewhere with its storyline. Unfortunately, there are only two episodes left and that brings up the show’s overall horrible plot progression again. If only the last 9 or so episodes could have been more like this, but too little too late I’m affraid… 9/10