Gatchaman Crowds – 05

JJ sends the Gatchamen a strange prophecy. Rui’s ideals are questioned by Umeda, one of his chosen “Hundred” Galaxters who wish to use the CROWDS. Katze also assures Rui that one day he’ll have no choice to use them. Hajime’s GALAX Collage group has an offline bus trip to Fukushima, and the other Gatchamen accompany her. When the bus enters a tunnel it collapses. GALAX is used to coordinate emergency procedures, but they aren’t enough, so Rui summons the CROWDS again. This time, Hajime transforms to do her part…

When a large box has vanished into darkness, the broken child will finally reveal itself to us. The white bird shall bear witness.

One of the things we liked about Valvrave was watching how exactly L-elf’s prophecies came to be in the course of an episode. We’re treated to a similar situation here, where cryptic words by JJ come to pass. The large box is the bus, the darkness is the collapsed tunnel, the broken child is Rui, and the white bird is Hajime. But before that prophecy comes true, we learn more about just how difficult and unenviable a position Rui is in.

Sure, he’s smart, rich, powerful, possesses above average fashion sense, and can run in heels. But his dream for a world in which everyone looks after each other; a world that doesn’t need heroes or leaders, is under constant threat, not just from the evil alien Katze, but from his own handpicked followers who have grown disillusioned (if they were ever illusioned to begin with) and impatient with Rui’s progress in updating the world. They’d just as well conquer it using the power at his command, and don’t know why he won’t pull the trigger. With Katze in his shadow and malcontents poisoning his beloved GALAX, Rui’s enemies are everywhere – but we suspect Hajime isn’t one of them.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Tamayura: More Aggressive – 06

Fuu’s photographer friend Shihomi Riho introduces her to her father’s kohai, Kawai Harumi, who worked with him (and still works) as a travel planner. She takes Fuu and Riho on a Seto Inland “Where The Wind Takes You” tour, where she revisits places she’d been to with Fuu’s dad, plus some places they never made it to, telling her about her father along the way. They end up at a home of Akio and Yuuko, a couple who took Fuu’s father’s advice to open a simple bed & breakfast.

Potte takes a day off from the two-person photo club (and she and Kanae are fine with it being just them) to go on a grand adventure at the behest of her photog friend, who introduces her to someone else whose life her dad touched and enriched when he was alive; lives she was connected to without even knowing it. Thus the tour isn’t just of some truly beautiful and cozy spots around the Seto Inland Sea, it’s also a tour of a side of her dad she didn’t know, and of those new bonds. It’s also an opportunity for Harumi to spend time with Fuu, something planned but never happened, due to her senpai’s passing. Harumi seems pleased to see a lot of her senpai in Fuu.

Like her dad, Fuu has “the mindset to enjoy anything and everything.” Fuu is wide-eyed full of questions the whole time. Not every place Harumi takes her was a place her father had been; she’s not just rehashing old times with an old friend, but creating new memories with a new one. We’ll admit to nearly tearing up when Harumi and the B&B couple talked about Fuu and her dad, making this the first episode since the first to elicit that response in us. It was also a particularly gorgeous episode that really made us want to travel, particularly to the Inland Sea region.

Rating: 8 (Great)