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I always heard this was bad and I even tapped out ages ago after a couple episodes calling it "boring".

But now I appreciate it. A tight 12 episodes, mostly episodic but with an overarcing plot that manages to tie in with the one-offs nicely.

The animation is your typical mid-2000s Madhouse production - good - and I even spotted a little studio called ORANGE in the credits for CGI assistance - a few clunky moments of odd/bad blending or obvious repeated models aside, that is.

The writing staff, headed by veteran tokusatsu screenwriter Toshiki Inoue, has a couple other veterans of stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost ... in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, but also Bingo Morihashi who wrote DMC 3-5, Bayonetta 2, Dragon's Dogma, and portions of the first Blazblue game. There's some fun one-offs like the first meeting of series regulars Lady and Trish or the death game poker episode (written by Inoue and vaguely reminiscent of a future script he'd write for Garo Makaisenki). The overarcing story is cleverly structured around a recurring loser demon and his encounters with Dante.

The voice cast is mostly ADV regulars aside from Reuben Langdon reprising his role as Dante under a pseudonym. Like most ADV productions there's a more than a few funky line reads or awkward performances, made worse by some English rewrites that are either clunky-sounding or unusually profane for the franchise.

The biggest criticism I could give is that it never really goes hard on the action. Nothing ever approaches the wildness of DMC3's cutscenes (tho without Yuji Shimomura of Versus fame, its hard to match) and even the final fight is over in a flash. (well the one critique I'd give aside from the Funimation audio mastering being shit)

One plus is that they actually took the effort to give characters more than one outfit. Small child/sidekick Patty gets a bunch of dresses, Lady gets a casino dealer outfit and a jumpsuit that I'm pretty sure is a reference to Elza Walker from the Resident Evil 1.5 concept.

All the demons in the show have pretty cool designs too. Some are clearly meant to evoke designs like the Seven Hells from the games while others are completely original.

It isn't much of a real game-changer anime but it also isn't the boring insult to the games people treat it as. With the right expectations (slower, episodic stories with lower stakes instead of a fast-paced fight-a-minute world-ending threat) it's quite enjoyable.

One could say this had a messy.... narrative.

To wit:

STORY/CHARACTER: The story is extremely messy and not well told. None of the characters are particularly interesting or fleshed out. Especially the ultimate villain. He's literally nothing and his mecha are just retreads of stuff from the Unicorn series.
There's interesting nuggets in the overall story but nothing to actually give this movie a reason to exist.

ART: Also messy. The designs are good, but the actual implementation and animation are not great all the time. Some returning characters look really derpy.

SOUND: Sawano score so if you've heard one of his OSTs you know what you're in for. Dub ... was fine. Not amazing just fine. Good overall sound design for the foley.

It's a fine ride (in theatre) but outside of the theatre its not worth it imo. It doubles down on the most controversial part of UC Gundam (newtypes) so if you're a 0083/08th MS/Thunderbolt kinda fan, don't bother. If you like the weird stuff in UC, you'll be more inclined to give it a shot.


Final rating: super OK/10

0083 is a fantastic visual treat for the eyes when it gets going, but it falters in almost every other aspect.

To wit:

STORY - In the year 0083 U.C., remnants of the Zeon Republic steal a prototype Gundam armed with a nuclear warhead for nefarious ends. A young pilot and the crew of a Federation battleship take to the skies to hunt it down.

This is meant to bridge the o.g. Gundam to Zeta & explain a few plot points that crop up there. In that regard it does a swell job. However, it insists on spending time focusing on the miserable romance between Kou & Nina ... (we'll talk more about that in CHARACTER). This drags the whole experience down everytime it switches, and it loves to ignore the main story a lot.

The story has some good beats when not focusing on them. The sequence after Lt. Burning recovers the briefcase in the mid-late show is fantastic and a great microcosm of Gundam's oft-repeated "war is hell" message. The whole final battle is a fun watch.

There's an odd bit midway thru where Kou knowingly helps a crippled Zeon pilot build a mobile armor meant to fight the Federation. Then the next episode shows up and, well, one guess what happens. It's a odd little bit of writing but it kind of make sense.

ART - Spectacular. Aside from the rare reused shot, the show is gorgeous, the character designs are top-notch, as is the mechanical design. The animation is some of the best the OVA "genre" has to offer.

SOUND - Fair? The first OP, "The Winner" deserves to be in the pantheon of "greatest anime OPs" as its a real banger and unforgettable. The second OP, "Men of Destiny" is pretty damn good (it just fails to measure up to the sheer Top Gun-itude of The Winner). The endings are pretty whatever.

Outside of the insert song "Back to Paradise", the score is bland and not that memorable. I can only think of two songs that I remember - one for its frequent use, and one for the actual composition.

CHARACTER - Hoo. There's not much character to some of these characters. Kou hates carrots and uhhhhh likes to fly mobile suits? He's very whitebread. He likes Nina for some reason, and Nina is a gargantuan idiot who , depending on scene or episode, is either going "I hope Kou doesn't pilot the Gundam today" and "I hope Gato doesn't kill Kou".

Gato, the Zeon lead, is a funnish character who's slavishly devoted to the Zeon ideals and refuses to compromise. Cima, the Zeon pirate, is a fairly fun character though a scene close to the end of the show forgets her "i gassed a colony and regret it every day" and has her cackle like a children's cartoon villain as she commits mass murder of civilians.

Lt. Burning is a fine "mentor" type character. Chuck Keith is the best and his eventual girlfriend, the Amazonian Maura, are super great to watch when they're around.

The Kou/Nina/Gato love triangle is awful and takes up most of the show. The climax to this triangle is infuriating in so many ways and the actual end of the show is baffling when you look at what happened just 10~ minutes prior.

ENJOYMENT - It's fun. The mecha action is some of the absolute best around. The story is decent when not wasting its breath on the miserable romance.

Ultimately its a 5/10 from me. What it does well, it does damn well. What it does poorly? It does really really poorly. The fun action bits and mecha porn are fantastic but that romance subplot drags down the story every time it takes centre stage, and the characters are mostly flat and dull or flat and decent.

Let's start off right: Watching this in Japanese is torture. Watching this in English? The best decision you've EVER made. In your life.

To wit:

One day, Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of Gundam, went "hey what if i wrote a prequel to that Aura Battler Dunbine thing I did". So he did.

Sometime later, someone went "let's adapt that prequel into these OVAs". And Tomino went "lol sure dude".

And lo, GARZEY'S WING was born.

... It's so quintessentially bad. Legend says it pierced the veil of time and H.P. "Racist McGee" Lovecraft saw it and went "that's less explainable than Cthulhu".

So where to begin? Story? There's a story? I mean this half-Japanese dude goes to a fantasy world but he's still on Earth but his soul and body are connected, he's surrounded by 12th and 13th century foreign warriors, there are even dinosaurs there, and his sword is unbelievably dull.

Also most of the time his Earthbound body is at a pool party or asleep.

The English dub is bad. Not painfully bad, no. It's amazingly bad. It feels like the ADR director left after a few minutes and the voice actors just delivered everything as quick as they could There's an ACTUAL ACTRESS in this dub! She's been in a ton of stuff including Better Call Saul and House of Cards. It's mindblowingly inept, unlike the rest of the liscensor's work which is just inept.

The music's ok. Shiro Sagisu of Evangelion/Nadia/Bleach fame did it. It's not memorable. It's ok.

The art's bad. Its the 90s generic style. The animation is decent in episode one and laughable the other episodes. The second episode features a man sliding across screen to avoid an arrow in one of the funniest moments in the show.

Character-wise? it's so rushed nobody has a character. There's a very telling moment in the final episode, where Chris (our hero) goes "Why does that guy live with monkeys?" and the main girl goes "He's interesting because he is a loner". That's all the development that man gets and he's important to the final episode. Kind of. But not really.

I don't know anyone's name aside from Chris and Rumiko, who's voiced by the aforementioned House of Cards lady. The best character is the fairy who I literally just remembered exists.

It's bad. Nothing is good about it. But get a couple friends and it's the greatest 90 minutes of your life for the next 90 minutes. It's lie Street Fighter: The Movie, except that's actually fun on its own and not fun because it's bad.


A final adage to leave you with from one of the side characters: "Humans are just human." That's the most Tomino thing I think Tomino's ever written.

I want that line engraved on my tombstone.

~~~
RETROMETROID
1992-20XX
"Humans are just human" - Garzey's Wing
~~~

So, Gatchaman Crowds. It's teetering on the edge of being great, but a few things drag it down.

To wit:


STORY - Super hyper gal Hajime becomes the newest member of Earth's (or, at least, this Japanese town's) defenders: GATCHAMAN! She very quickly turns the status quo amongst the Gatchamen(?) on its head. Meanwhile, a strange alien named Berg-Katze begins to terrorize the town. Meanwhilewhile, Rui, the crossdressing creator of the GALAX network begins his issuing of the CROWDS system. This all converges (eventually).

It feels rather... odd? The initial conflict (Gatcha vs the aliens called MESS) is quickly sidelined for... nothing in the middle, and then Katze ... and his groupies in the last portion. The character of Rui is almost more of a protagonist than Hajime at points. Rather, much of the story is driven by him, and not the Gatcha gang.

In fact, Rui feels like he has more of a character arc than Hajime, who is somewhat flat (narratively). This is fine - protagonists who are instruments of change in other people's lives can be an excellent replacement for a protagonist who experiences personal change. Actually, Hajime acts as such an instrument in almost every character who matters in the storyline.

There are a few points I feel the story suffers. It at first posits a concept that really interested me - social media as a power to help others and the gameification of bad things happening. Not of tragedy per se, but just of bad things in general, from accidents to purposeful assault. It explores this concept for a good bit, and then the final stretch decides to forget about the parts where this stuff was portrayed somewhat negatively and went for "yeah it's fine to do that".

The flip feels strange- not unearned but definitely dissonant to the parts of the show where GALAX and CROWDS were used in a very negative manner. This is likely on purpose, to illustrate the wrong ideals of the antagonist, but it still feels kind of jarring to me.

Also! Props to Tatsunoko for not shoehorning pointless action in. Every action sequence feels like it has a purpose to the overall story.

ART - Love it. The artwork is gorgeous, the designs are great and full of character. The CG is there, yeah, but due to where its used it doesn't feel out of place or ugly. There's a kind of gradient the characters have on them that looks really pretty.


SOUND - Voice acting's good. The dub (which is how I watched it fully, the episodes i watched in JP were back at initial release so I can't comment on the original dub) has a few spotty moments, mostly the first few episodes. Joe's voice is too quiet for a few episodes, though after those episodes he's louder. Probably an actor decision as the mixing is good all around.

David Wald, in particular, has a superb performance as Berg-Katze. He chews the scenery in every scene Katze appears in and its great. The other actors are good but nobody seems to be having as much fun as him.

Musically its dope. Taku Iwasaki (Jojo Part 2, Gurren Lagann, Read or Die) is the composer, and he delivers tenfold. The main theme, appropriately named Gatchaman - In the Name of Love, is a kinda silly combination of disco and electronica with the refrain of "Gatchamaaaaan". There's some other good pieces like Music Goes On and so forth. Definitely recommend tracking down it on Youtube and giving a listen.

The OP is pretty good. Lyrically it's complete nonsense, but it's a fine jam and is very punkish. I don't remember much of the ED, though I do recall the singer for it is Hajime's seiyuu. Stuff like I always find cute.


CHARACTERS - They're pretty good. Everyone in the main Gatcha team minus J.J. and Hajime evolves over the course of the show. Although the changes they go through are forcefed to you late in the show via an episode that hybridizes plot progression and clip show... Stuff like the taciturn loner (Joe) get flipped around later on in fun ways. Even the PM of Japan gets character development and he's only in like the last 3 episodes.

I will say some characters get hard sidelined in exchange for more Rui, Hajime, and Katze. Others, like J.J., are not even a character. (J.J. still baffles me as he kind of stops being important at all after the first few episodes.)


ENJOYMENT - It's a fun ride. Until that last episode. It's kind of a bummer. Since we never got that OVA variant of the final episode, there's a certain plot point at the end that comes completely out of nowhere - unless I missed it entirely. As a result, the finale feels rushed and is not as coherent as I'd like.

It doesn't ruin the show, but it definitely drags it down a good bit.


It's closer to a 75/100 than a straight 7/10 (pedantry!!!) but that's still above average. Definitely worth a watch.

Also since I couldn't find a place in the review itself for this aside: Rui's penchant for crossdressing is most likely a nod to Berg-Katze in the original Gatchaman show, where Katze is capable of changing genders at a whim. A few other things feel like nods to o.g. Gatcha but none are as solid as that.