YMMV / Gatchaman Crowds

• Audience-Alienating Premise: How a lot of the fans of the original Gatchman series feel about this anime. Not only is it an In Name Only Continuity Reboot, but it also aims to exclusively appeal to a new audience while shunning the fanbase of the original 70s anime. While the show managed to do just well enough to get a second season, it never managed to become a huge hit and the second season itself is very contested.
• Awesome Music: It's Taku Iwasaki, so the entire OST qualifies, but "Gatchaman ~ In the name of Love", "Music goes on" and "Unbeatable Network" really stand out.
• Base-Breaking Character: From the first episode itself, Hajime Ichinose was either adored for her Genki Girl attitude and considered the high point of the show, or she was alternatively considered to be obnoxious and criticized as one of the weaker parts. On the other hand, episode 2 has shown more of her caring and friendly aspects (even going so far as to befriend a MESS), which has won over some of her detractors.
• Contested Sequel: Either Insight is a good, necessary sequel that expands on the previous characters and their new selves from the end of Crowds and has an excellent new set of characters, plot, and social commentary, or it's an unneeded sequel that stomps all over the characters and their development, has a boring plot and uninteresting new commentary and characters, and in general fails to live up to the amazing standard of the first season.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Alan Kokubun, a Bit Character whose only role in the first season was being Joe's bartender friend, became so popular with Japanese fans that he began showing up in official art and merchandise despite barely having any screen time or lines. The sequel even gives him a somewhat bigger role in the story when he becomes the first victim of assimilation by the Kuu-sama for not blindly accepting them and following the crowd. Not so much for the western fans though, where he's pretty unknown for the most part.
• LGBT Fanbase: Due in large part to Rui being widely considered to be genderqueer, O.D. being outright gay, and Berg-Katze appearing to be genderqueer or non-binary; there's also homoerotic subtext between both male and female pairings. The second season seems to be continuing this trend with more subtle hints of homoeroticism scattered under the heavy political and social commentary.
• Love to Hate: Berg-Katze, thanks to Mamoru Miyano's incredibly hammy performance.
• Memetic Loser: Rizumu is more-often-than-not made the butt of some kind of joke and near-universally ridiculed in the fandom despite his in-series status as a smug yet efficient and cruel villain.
• Memetic Mutation
  • :>^note Hajime's bird-like smile.
  • GATCHAMAAAAAAAAAAAAN~^note From the catchy transformation music.
• Moe: Hajime, in spades.
• More Popular Spin Off: The show was undoubtedly an attempt to cash-in on the live-action film adaptation of the original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, which premiered around the middle of this show's run in August 2013. The movie got poor reviews and was considered a flop, while this show has signs of becoming a Cult Classic... and got a second season!
• Nightmare Fuel: For an anime starring Hajime, one of the most upbeat characters ever, there are a lot of very disturbing parts to it.
  • Berg Katze's eyes.
  • Joe getting his NOTE ripped out by Katze.
  • O.D.'s and Rui's fights against Katze, reducing them both to bloody messes.
  • The episode 12 director's cut shows Hajime sealing Katze, and it is a very long and disturbing scene, thanks to Hajime's pained moaning and squirming.
  • The seventh episode of insight has the low-key creepiness of Gelsadra's increasingly cult-like supporters, then caps the episode with Gelsadra, whose stomach has swollen to enormous sizes, vomiting the emotions he's gathered, with the freed emotions mutating into drooling, eyeless monsters that parrot his catchphrase and strike his signature pose.
  • The Kuu-samas that appear from the emotions in Episode 8. They look and act cute and cuddly, but all of that changes at the end of the episode when one of them devours a man.
  • In Episode 12 of Insight, the fight with fake Gelsadra is shown in detail from Tsubasa's point-of-view, which shows Hajime receiving a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from all her comrades, complete with Hajime being bloodied and battered, along with her pained moaning and screaming.
• The Scrappy: You'd be hard-pressed to find a fan who actually, genuinely likes Rizumu, thanks to his belittling and tormenting of fan favorite Rui.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!
  • The most vocal reaction before it even aired. Classic Gatchaman fans were not very happy once it was revealed that the anime would have a completely new cast of characters and an entirely different setting compared to the original. Most criticism and controversy appears to come from the birdstyles being gone, the entire origin over the team's powers and the "Gatchaman" concept being overhauled, and the existence of a camp gay transvestite on the team. Otherwise, the In Name Only nature of the show and the team not being the original Science Ninja Team helped sour the reception.
  • Kicked up to eleven when the new suit designs were revealed. The classic fans are even less happy that the suits appear to be more akin to the Powered Armor seen in Tiger & Bunny...
  • Some classic fans were also annoyed by the overhaul done to Katze, in which he was a former Gatchaman and alien. Although, the new Katze also has his fair share of fans.
• Ugly Cute: The Kuu-samas from Insight.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Rui Ninomiya is described as a boy in NTV's English press release, and has a male voice actor, but other translations of articles referred to the character as a woman. Needless to say, Rui's androgynous appearance and crossdressing habits lead to quite some confusion with fans, especially due to the fact that Rui doesn't react in the slightest to being called different genders or pronouns.
  • Gelsadra's child form in Insight. Due to his voice actor being Kana Hanazawa and his androgynous appearance, many fans assumed he was female at first even when his true form appeared to be fairly masculine, as well as various characters addressing him with either "-chan" or "-kun" to further confuse things. The fourth episode reveals he is male, however, when he ages himself up into the appearance of a young man in order to run for prime minister, with the official website referring to his younger form as a boy and his older form as a man. Becomes even more of a confusion when you find out that the original Gel Sadra had a masculine voice and appearance but was still female (at least in the original Japanese version).
  • OD and Berg-Katze, who have been labelled as both male and non-binary. Not helped by both characters' androgynous appearances (Berg-Katze's becomes more traditionally masculine in Insight thanks to their new haircut) yet masculine voices, and somewhat ambiguous sexualities.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The openings of both seasons are beautifully animated by naoki yoshibe who masterfully combines various animation techniques for an overall eye appealing product.
• The Woobie: Rui, starting around the time he gets beaten up by Katze, loses control of the GALAX system to Katze, and starts having frequent Heroic BSODs. Unfortunately, Insight doesn't let up on this, with Rui being stabbed repeatedly by Rizumu while having his ideals challenged and belittled, only three episodes in.