Thursday, May 19, 2016

[Ended] GATE

still hammering out these end posts, sorry if you really like the images

Pros: Tech meets Magic, but not in the usual way
-The characters are well fleshed out, with good distinguishing features and motivations
-The story moves in an amazingly realistic manner
-For all that magic exists in this world, nothing is ever hand-waved away with it
-The show has very little in the way of Erotic fan service, focusing more on...shall we say 'Personality Fan-service'

Cons: Some typical anime industry stereotypes are here
-The main character is clearly collecting a harem, albeit a Stereotype one instead of a Fan service one
-The show relies heavily on you supporting and liking the main character Itami, I have a hard time imagining someone who doesn't like him enjoying the show
-As much as the show does do amazing things, at the end of it, it still feels like it's moving incredibly slowly, for all that it may just be my opinion

My Opinion: This show gets a rating of:
Great
That's my opinion, Deal with it, because I'm about to explain it.
Yes, the show is filled to the gills with industry stereotypes, but in my opinion, the characters that hold them are never dominated by them. Remember, a stereotype is an amazing tool to quickly build a character, but the reason why they have become so tiresome and annoying, is because too many times the creators fail to develop the character past or out of the stereotype. To paraphrase the effect in a way, I could say "Once a tsundere, always a tsundere". The stereotype literally becomes the only defining feature of the character, it overpowers their personality and any traits they might otherwise have.
This show on the other hand, is so self-aware of each of the characters stereotypes, that a character comments on how Itami's group(/harem) is each individually appealing to him. Hell, while shows that have harem'esque features or groups to them have previously always had them competing with each other to get the main character, I've never seen a group compete in such diverse ways. Rory is literally trying to get into his pants, and probably wants a relationship with him as well, but very much so is making a higher priority of seducing him and getting into his pants. Tuka, on the other hand, is borderline hysterical about simply not losing him, rather than explicitly trying to have a relationship with him, even though as the show progresses it clearly presents her as wanting one. Finally, while Lelei clearly has feelings for Itami, she's putting them aside for the most part to continue pursuing her life's goals that she was working on before the entire Gate fiasco happened in their world, even using everything she learns from our world to further her endeavors.
I want you to really focus in on and pay attention to that last one. A member of a harem'esque collection NOT having their entire life rewritten by the appearance of the harem center character. Hell, I'm not even comfortable using the term 'harem' to reference Itami gathering all three of these characters together, for all that the eventual fourth one does feel more fitting with the term. Can't really talk about that one without spoilers.

Additionally, I love the action in this show. With a passion. I will never get over how hard I laughed at and loved it when they started playing Ride of the Valkyries when sending out the choppers. Never.
Since it's predominantly based on modern technology, it's kind of hard to describe it in some manner of appealing way. I just really, really, like it when they find a reason to ship out the soldiers to go fuck somethings shit up.

Impartial Opinion: This show is amazing, and I think everyone should try it. You can't please all of the people, all of the time, so if you don't like it that's fine. There are certainly plenty of things in the show that could be irritating or downright off-putting. However, the potential gain for liking the show massively outweighs those, in my opinion. The Modern-setting is something we rarely see presented in shows, especially not in shows that have magic. Typically, whenever magic shows up, our modern worlds characteristics are drastically rewritten, if not completely erased. Yet here, we have a show that seems to have a mission statement of trying to accurately, even if entertainingly, present what it would be like for our modern world to suddenly happen upon fantasy and magic. We wouldn't just have millennia of our history and culture rewritten in an instant, hell, most of the average populace of the planet either wouldn't give a shit, or wouldn't have the means to care or do anything about it anyway.
In fact, that's part of the appeal of the show to me; Showing how we would bring all of our bloody history to bare against an underdeveloped world, and how absolutely alien and strange the way we conduct ourselves would seem, especially that we wouldn't just immediately start conquering and pillaging. For all of the embarrassment it brings me to be related to someone who's legitimately wishing for Trump to be elected president here, because they're joining the army and want him to start a war so they can earn glory...as a whole, our world has in the majority gotten over the idea of the Glory of War, and instead acknowledges it as the massive tragedy and waste of life and resources that it is. Albeit at the cost of several instances of Nuclear Devastation...
This show does good job of not only having all of the characters from our world conduct themselves in a reasonable manner, but also of presenting the reasons and motivations behind their conduct.
If I had to condense what this show feels like to me, I would say:
"Realistic Surreal Happenings."

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