Tuesday, July 14, 2015

[New][July 2015] GATE



Summary: On August 20XX, a gate suddenly appears in Tokyo's Ginza district, unleashing a portal where monsters, medieval knights and other fantasy beings come from another world and wreak havoc on Tokyo. The Japanese Defense Force take action against these monsters and push them back into the "Gate". Third Reconnaissance Team is dispatched to the "Special Region" lead by officer (and otaku) Youji Itami.

First Impression: It's hitting all the right notes. The main character isn't just magically ready for combat because 'reasons'. He has an actually sensible reason for being combat ready. I'm already giving this show a First Episode recommendation to watch, it looks very promising.

My Opinion: Excellent. There's not a lot of story in the first episode, but it lays the perfect ground work for the story to be superb. There's a lot of potential for an Otaku main character to fall flat, and just be grating on the nerves, but I already like this character. His mantra makes sense. No one should live for their job, unless their job is their hobby. Additionally, I thought the show was going to make the stupid call, and was trying to cut all blood out of the show, but when it came down to it they actually did show blood, and not a stupidly large amount, or a pathetically impractical small amount. Just enough, and not too much.

Which bears to the assumption that they're trying to avoid the show having an appeal point in violence and gore, which is always a plus in my book. Any show that makes the effort to appeal to violence as a reason to watch the show, however they rationalize it, tends to detract from whatever message it may try to convey. There are exceptions, such as something like Attack on Titan, where the violence is explicitly to underline the gloom everyone in that world lives under, and a few other shows, but without proper execution and restraint, it just risks being hypocritical.