Hi all! The Gatchaman Crowds website has been updated, giving new images and descriptions to all the main characters. Here's what they've added: G-101 Hajime Ichinose A 2nd year student attending the "Tachikawa Hosu Private School" in Tachikawa City. She refers to herself as "Boku" (A masculine pronoun for "I" in Japanese) She is bright and cheerful, powerfully energetic. Judging things on a basis of "It is beautiful, or nor beautiful?" "It is cute, or not so cute?," she rushes through My World at top speed, a Moe girl with a slightly strange artistic ability. She has a passion for stationery goods, and gets extremely excited when it comes to different models of pens and scissors. Though she tries to look for the good in every day, she has felt that something was lacking, idly thinking, "There must be more to life..." At that time, J.J. Robinson, an alien who is a member of the Council, appointed her to Gatchaman. Born: November 24th Age: 16-years-old Blood Type: A Height: 155cm G-96 Sugane Tachibana A 3rd year student attending the "Tachikawa Hosu Private School" in Tachikawa City. A Samurai Boy who is good at the art of drawing Katanas known as Iaijutsu. He has an old fashioned personality regarding justice and common sense, and feels strongly in his mission and his responsibility as a person with power. Born: August 2nd Age: 19-years-old Blood Type: O Height: 175cm Time As A G-Member: 5 years G-89 Joe Hibiki An excellent civil servant who graduated from a prestigious university. However, this is not he career. He comes into his job early, gets his work done in the morning, and goes home on time every day. That is the face of the serious civil servant, but late at night, he wears the face of an adult man in the city who loves smoking and darts. Born: March 29th Age: 29-years-old Blood Type: B Height: 187cm Time As A G-Member: 10 years G-12 O.D With his favorite phrase of, "This is too much!!," he is the mood maker of the Tachikawa "CAGE." The self-proclaimed Sad Gatchaman who is unable to transform, he is not ordinarily sent out on missions. He will open his heart only to those will open their hearts to him, a man with a guardian-like personality. He has a cat named Altair (Nicknamed Al). Born: June 8th Age: Unknown Blood Type: Unknown Height: 190cm Time As A G-Member: Unknown G-99 Utsu-tsu A 1st year student attending the "Tachikawa Hosu Private School" in Tachikawa City. She volunteers to take care of the flowers in the International Flower Green Park. She has low self-esteem, and is afraid to close the gap between her and others, with O.D being the only person with whom she will talk to directly. To the other G-Members, she can only say, "Depressing..." Born: Unknown Age: 15-years-old (Estimated) Blood Type: Unknown Height: 143cm Time As A G-Member: 2 years G-3 Paiman An alien Gatchaman sent to Earth by J.J., he is the oldest member of the Tachikawa "CAGE." He has J.J.'s complete confidence, he feels that his top priority are his prediction poetry. As the leader (Self-proclaimed) of the Tachikawa "CAGE," he issues orders to the members. Born: Unknown Age: Unidentified Blood Type: Unknown Height: 33cm Time As A G-Member: Several hundred years J.J. Robinson As a member of the "Council," he is monitoring the Earth. Over many long years, he is a person who has watched life rise and fall in space. He appoints Earthlings who possess the predisposition to Gatchaman, and through the "NOTE," uses the scientific power of Earth to cope with the impossibilities that are provided by the predictions. Rui Ninomiya She lives on the top floor of the luxurious "Glorious Tower Toyosu" apartments in Tokyo's Koto Ward. She is very clear-headed, and is trilingual (English, Japanese, and Chinese). Self taught by training sites on the net, she has learned to write language and code from the hackers of the world, and developed the SNS (Social Networking Service) "GALAX" and "Governor X." She thinks that present world (Japan) is extremely boring, and is doing various activities to "Accelerate the clock of the world, updating it." Born: April 25th Age: 18-years-old Blood Type: O Height: 168cm Berg Katze A mysterious person who calls himself an "alien." His reasons behind his goals and actions are completely shrouded in mystery. Born: Unknown Age: Unidentified Blood Type: Unknown Height: 215cm ? A celebrity on the SNS "GALAX," she has a charismatic personality. if you wish to view these on the original website, they can be found here: http://www.ntv.co.jp/GATCHAMAN_Crowds/character/index.html You can choose between the characters by clicking on their image at the bottom of the page. They still haven't announced the date for the premiere, and anyone in the voice cast beyond Maaya Uchida voicing Hajime, but I would expect more to come soon! James

AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! (this is the strangest sensation. I'm torn between wanting to put my fist through the monitor and laughing myself dead) NOOOOOOOAHAHAHAHAH...hahahaha...(thanks for the intel, James. You're the best) What were the people at Tatsunoko smoking?> I...admit I like the design for BK v2.0. I think it's the hair. And the heels. ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I'm with you, Victoria. Ugh. I want to laugh or cry, though ... What did us Gatch fans do to deserve this?

Oh brother. Let's just go back to the OAV. I can now say it's spectacular compared to this. James, say it ain't so!!!!!!!!!!!

An adult man who loves smoking and the arts? An alien animal mascot? Shudder... And these are the least ridiculous things I could come up with...

This just makes me so sad...I wish they weren't attaching the Gatchaman name to this...

I love how they made this Joe a happy civil servant.

About the designs - I think they're pretty well done. They are diverse and pretty imaginative. However on the other side, their description is jarringly at odds with them. A girl with low self-esteem walking around in lingerie? A completely humanoid alien? A Japanese 29yrs old civil servant with long hair? An order-issuing panda-mascot? Self-proclaimd Sad Gatchaman (emo much?)? That's a bit too much to swallow even for the anime-loving me. (And I thought I swallowed a lot just by watching this season's Valvrave the Liberator and The Devil is a Part-Timer!) What I mean to say with all this is that imaginative, varied designs are the best in my books; but please, Tatsunoko, would you please stop losing sight of common sense at least for a second? Please? (...215cm. 215cm. I... can't even imagine that. That's, like, above the ceiling of my attic room. I pray that he(?)'ll be voiced by Takahiro Sakurai, Yutaka Koizumi, or Toshihiko Seki. That would be glorious.)

I can't stand the designs. They're pretty generic when it comes to anime characters and I really dislike the out of proportion stretching they've done to a lot of the characters (limbs are far too long). I thought the lingerie girl was Lum for a moment. And seriously, anime needs another fighting girl in a school uniform? (man the more I learn about this show the crankier I get, at least this update finally has some gatch references, even if it's just G-numbers and someone named Berg Katse)

I've tried to keep an open mind about this....but I'm afraid this thing might drive me to need a handful of Prozac daily. I just pray this sort of nonsense doesn't ruin any real attempts to revive the REAL Gatch!

I tend to agree with you. I have been keeping an open mind about this, but I really don't see what girls in lingerie have to do with ANY anime. Then again, if the writers are going to insist on putting a girl in lingerie maybe they should have a guy in their skivvies as well, to keep those female viewers happy. No .... I can't see myself even interested in watching something like this. And quite frankly I am getting to the point where I want to put it out of my mind and pretend/hope that it never existed.

Originally posted by ChrisW I love how they made this Joe a happy civil servant.

I doubt this character has anything to do with our favorite Condor - even if he has the look of the team Lancer.

Originally posted by UnpublishedWriter

Originally posted by ChrisW I love how they made this Joe a happy civil servant.

I doubt this character has anything to do with our favorite Condor - even if he has the look of the team Lancer.

I know, all they have in common is a first name, but it was too funny to pass up and I'm all for finding anything funny in this to keep me from crying.

Ditto

Oh, dear! Could be lotsa tears In our beers...

I haven't seen anything so complete and utterly WTF in centuries Words fail me

I kind of like Berg Katse's look. The rest? Shudder. Neither the descriptions nor the drawings would compel me to watch. I might be able to handle Hajime, although she looks like Sailor Moon.

I'm totally dumbfounded!

Where did this crap come from? First I've heard of it, and it looks awful, just awful.

That's what we're still trying to figure out, what possessed them to do this. Besides money and maybe new merchandise to sell.

Grrrrrrrr