I’ve been excited for this one all week. The confrontation has occurred, Hajime has kind of rubbed Rui’s nose in his own hypocrisy, and no hope of an alliance is in sight. Is Rui actually gonna take off his damn makeup and be honest with them? Not likely – he’s obviously very proud and he seems somewhat incapable of seeing other perspectives. Is it war, then? Possibly, though I don’t know what that would do theme-wise. Either way, I think we’re at the breaking point.
Episode 7
0:02 – Nice shot . I bet this’ll be a cheery episode
0:11 – Another really nice one . This show occasionally has animation issues, but its direction and aesthetic are extremely solid
1:07 – Rui’s losing it.
2:01 – The only other intelligent Gatchaman . He’s a good influence on these kids
4:19 – Simple trick with the lighting here , but it works nicely.
Not sure why I’m on a visual kick this week. The show has kind of set its thematic pieces in place, I guess – we know Hajime and Rui’s philosophies quite well at this point, so all that’s left is to let some dominoes fall
4:27 – Accidental pause reveals another fantastic Hajime face
5:06 – And Utsutsu is drawn into the light
5:18 – Bleh. Another too-much-information moment from Pai. Annoying to see in a show that so often assumes the viewer actually has a brain
6:52 – HOW REAL IS THIS GETTING
7:49 – This escalated quickly
8:58 – NOT THE TIME FOR A MONOLOGUE
10:19 – Hurray for leadership
10:50 – Hajime knows what’s up. She doesn’t blame people for it, though
11:29 – Awesome shot
11:41 – Rui has no trouble deciding. But that has its own pitfalls
God, I love how mixed this show’s feelings are on all its ideas. Well, except for Hajime’s uber-person-hood, I guess
12:21 – Rui’s no fool. He knew it was hypocritical, but was willing to use any means to establish a world where things like Crowds hopefully wouldn’t be necessary. Another great shot
12:42 – It’s nice having Sugane be the one who makes a connection with Rui, not Hajime. They can talk on equal ground, whereas Hajime stands above everyone, even if she is well-meaning in her lecturing
13:18 – I like Berg Katz mockingly reflecting all of Joe’s melodramatic move names. Just grinding in how old-fashioned and irrelevant this style of hero is, which works both for his character and for this show’s goals
13:42 – Oh god we got the first meeting flashback. Joe’s been throwing out death flag after death flag all show, but that’s probably the last straw
Incidentally, is there actually a respectable term for “death flag”?
14:24 – So apparently OD’s real goddamn powerful. And also an unstable risk, or something. Guess that ominous moment in the OP is relevant
14:48 – Even Pai’s suit has stubby little legs
17:32 – Dear lord . Also, didn’t want to pause it at the time, but I liked how Berg Katz was mocking him for only doing what he could as an individual human being, as opposed to being the kind of hero the show itself is so sceptical about
18:03 – Might not work this time, Hajime. Some people just want to watch the world burn
18:14 – Her favorite question.
19:31 – They’re conveying barely attached to this reality pretty well
19:42 – Something she can’t understand. That reoccuring “everyone having fun” thing points to a common humanity that Katz lacks. Hajime’s shocked for the first time
20:08 – Her faith in our nature was shaken. But it’s not always misplaced
20:40 – Rui, asking for help and advice?
21:35 – Really hammering on that “bright future”/”when is the world brightest” thing today – starting with Utsutsu’s conversion, ending here
And Done
Sooo, is Joe dead? He seemed pretty dead, but Utsutsu’s powers are pretty broken, so I dunno. Somehow I don’t think that episode-ending tea party would be appropriate if Sugane’s mentor had bit the bullet.
Anyway, sweet episode. Shit finally hits the fan, and I’m happy to see them finally turning towards Berg Katz. I like how pretty much everyone’s view of both human nature and the power of social media has been examined and discarded by the halfway point, and I’m interested to see what Rui does going forward. I particularly like how Rui finally got his act together this episode – Hajime’s accusations last time didn’t force him further into his own self-delusion, but instead made him resolve to actually attack his own hypocrisy. And when his powers were broken, he freely admitted his rhetoric had been hypocritical all along.
Bunch of other random interesting stuff. All the Gatchamen got some development, and Pai straight up abandoned his subordinates. I hope that results in some changes in their structure – Utsutsu and Sugane almost certainly have far more faith in Hajime than Pai, and even if Hajime’s willing to let this slip, I doubt Sugane will.
This show is full of fun surprises, and at this point I just want to marathon the damn thing out. Watching shows as they air really sucks sometimes.
-edit- Just realized that Pai’s early jealousy about OD being good at managing them plays well into this episode’s mini-arc of tearing down his leadership ability. So that’s actually nice, in retrospect.
I like how both Berg and Hajime were doing psychological attacks on each other. Berg with his mimicking of Hajime’s speaking style and implying gatchaman being morons (but was ignored) to Hajime’s final 2 questions.
Hajime’s response to Utsutsu seems to point that Hajime’s affected to some degree possibly due to the planetary consequences of failure and the other gatchaman being not able to help since they can’t beat Berg in a fight and other than OD’s level of empathy, aren’t really up to Hajime’s level
JJ’s lack of response may point to him wanting the Gatchaman to depend on themselves and not just blindly following orders while Paiman’s leadership crisis has been ongoing a while. When Hajime suggested he implement the punishment himself as the leader last episode, she was pointing it out and trying to get him to change
I dunno. At least three things bothered me.
The press have disappeared. Don’t they know where she lives? Well, she did recently move in. Maybe they don’t know. Maybe the entire apartment block is protected by a variation of the Amnesia Effect. If this was mentioned earlier, I must have missed it. (But the movers certainly knew where to ship her stuff.)
As you noted, that conversation between Joe and Sugane was annoyingly casual while Rui could be heard screaming in the background as he was being lacerated by Berg Katze.
Why did Berg Katze decide to talk with Hajime instead of attacking her? It can’t be because she decided to greet him politely instead of just attacking him as Joe did. She first tried kicking him while yelling at him, calling him a perv. (And why do that without transforming when she was told how powerful he was?) The polite greeting happened later. And I’m not sure that her words were that impressive this time. It seemed as if Berg Katze was impressed by her simply because the story needed him to be impressed. Again, the key seems to be that she greeted him with a kind of respect, which brings up the kick and the perv-yelling again…
Maybe the show can surprise me and keep this all working. But I’m no longer as confident.
Berg Katze has shown a propensity for random chaos, but only attacked Rui after Rui basically declared war on him. In light of this, it’s actually not surprising to me that an interesting new variable would spark Katze’s interest instead of prompting an immediate attack. And I think Katze was impressed because Hajime basically immediately followed up on Katze’s vague prophecies from his first meeting with Joe, and asked probing questions to get at the heart of Katze’s motivation. Hajime immediately displayed a willingness to meet Katze on his own terms, which no one else has really done.
But compare that wall at 4:19 and 21:27. Even more impressive, compare the opposite wall at 4:06 and 20:56. Hajime finds the time to get things done. I think I love this show even if things turn out a bit inconsistent.
And someone just pointed out to me that the entire episode seems to happen on the same night as their first meeting with Rui. Hajime’s just not human.
Yeah, I think the whole episode takes place in about the hour or so after Sugane says he wants to go back and check on Rui from last episode – it seems like Rui pretty much immediately decides to remove Katze after Hajime points out his hypocrisy. Getting things done!