GATE - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

[Kairin]

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of GATE ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
• Voice Acting
• Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun

[Top Sergeant]

I found the series to be delightful, and that's the most fitting adjective for me.

For the first time I watched a military tagged anime that actually showed a believable Army military unit. The actions of 3rd Recon, and the interaction of the Soldiers with each other and with those they meet, were such an accurate portrayal of a modern western-style Army unit that I felt as if I was right back in uniform myself. Bravo!

I could have hoped for a bit more depth to more of the individual stories of the characters, but in the end this show really hit me like a John Wayne movie: a great, dangerous adventure that must be undertaken.

I found Gate to be understandable and full of cool scenes, cool characters who were engaging to watch, and with an unusual main character but still one to whom an anime fan could relate. The show drove right along and never got slow. It made the viewer laugh, gasp, shout and cheer. It is very re-watchable. This was indeed modern day Band of Brothers meets evil Lord of the Rings. All that rolled up together makes this a 10 for me.

[Brother Coa]

For me this series was something new and interesting when I first found out about it. The concept of modern military going to fantasy world and waging war there was something new to me back then. What also interested me in this was interaction between these two different cultures. But GATE delivered far more than that for me, it is also disappointing in some areas.

Story - 7/10 Story in GATE would be your average fantasy anime story with monsters and swords and cute girls in armor. If not for the entire military mix in it, which was present from episode 1 to the very last episode. This mix is where this anime really shines, it really catches the viewer and makes him to ask what will next step be? How will primitive people of that world react to this and that? But it's far from perfect or even very good. Bellow all of this it's yet again harem story where MC get's several girls following him. And politics in this anime are not done great in all honesty - modern ones, not fantasy ones. Fantasy ones were done good as expected from medieval way of thinking but author clearly did some mistakes when it comes with handling modern politics. And lastly he made military a little too perfect, I am military otaku and I had to agree with others that SDF was presented as just too perfect in this anime. But overall it is good story that can be easily followed and get into.

Characters - 8/10 Characters in this anime are indeed interesting and thanks to 24 format episodes they got chance to be developed and shine. I especially like the main character Itami - finally MC that is not teenager with hidden magical powers who will turn into indestructible mary sue by the end of anime ( SAO, Magical Index, Fate and many, many others... ). MC is actually an adult, 33 years old and he is professional soldier who rose to rank of officer. Yes, his hobby is something added that made little sense but actually people would be surprised how many soldiers are also a hobbyist today. Itami is balancing everything well, looking to ease his job as much as he can but doing the right thing when time comes. Others are again well developed, Rory steal the show in anime fanbase, Lelei is you typical teenage kuudere genius, Tuka is damsel in distress, Yao is naive and unlucky ( most shallow of all characters ), Pina is princess, soldier and politician in one etc... I really felt that some minor characters deserved more screen-time and development but we have Gaiden books for that ( I would personally loved to learn much more about Rogal Dorn, Hamilton and minor characters like that ). Overall, great number of characters and well development with interesting MC.

Sound 9/10 - What can I say other than it's doing it's job when it counts. Also, main theme kicks some major a**.

Visuals 8/10 - To me at least, anime is rarely about animation ( unlike 80% of anime fanbase today, and I personally dislike God Eater because animation looks so unnatural in it for anime ) but I also understand that animation is important part because of how well it delivers the story. What can I say about GATE? Animation was good, not great and not bad. Some scenes were done great and with HD footage, but the rest was your average anime animation we have today. I even noticed in second half of the show how they re-used some animations from previous episodes to fill the gap, only inverting some things to make it slightly different while everything else was same ( go and watch Fire Dragoon F-4 attacks and episode 23 F-4 attacks - you can clearly see it was reused ). But other than that animation was good and did it's job quite well.

Battles 10/10 - I must mention this as this is essentially one of main parts of anime - the battles were glorious. From Ginza and Alnus Hill to Italica and Capital military was presented in it's shinning light and very realistic. Weapons work as they should, tactics are correct, armor is correct and military morals are presented like they work in reality. I suppose I should not be too surprised as main author is former SDF officer. Aldo done better in manga the battles are still major goodness to be seen. It really invoked "Zulu" in me as well as "Peacekeeper" movies mixed with "We were soldiers" and "Band of Brothers". This anime is great watch for even those who are not into anime but are military lovers.

Enjoyment 10/10 For me this anime has flaws and bright moments but it was rarely boring. At any time something was happening to keep the viewer watching. And it is never too slow or too fast.

For me this anime is 9/10 - one of the best I have ever seen. And standing right there on my top 3 with FSN and Claymore. I will buy BD's for sure when they get out.

[Sheba]

I approached Gate with caution not because of its fabled ring-wing leanings (something I found myself not caring about when I played Muv-Luv Alternative), but because my comrades in IRC hyped it up to no end.

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the first episodes and was definitely in the ride by the 3rd episode. What have hurt Gate the most was its portrayal of Earth's foreign powers and its politics, making the 9th and 10th episodes the nadir of its storytelling (I wished a less cartoony portrayal of the foreign powers, instead of the Kissinger-like mustache twirling variety). It got all the better when Gate got back to what it does best, adventuring, portraying the JSDF as a benevolent force, still held back by its bureaucracy and politics (former exposition to the JSDF were negatively colored by the authors' defiance toward military authority) and the clash of cultural values between the Empire and the modern Japan (Piña couldn't conceive that her brother having Japanese slaves was such a bad thing iirc).

The other strength of Gate is its compelling cast of colorful characters, on both sides, modern Japan and the Empire, with Rory Mercury stealing the show and Piña keeping me tuned while she tried to find the best possible outcome for her country and people. (grats on the promotion Piña, you deserved it and Emperor Molt showed he was not that bad of a man).

Production values were serviceable and seiyuu were right on in the job.

Gate. Came in it out of bile fascination and relunctant because of hype aversion, stayed for the adventures and a modern military portrayed as a benevolent and positive force instead of the usual Conquistador-likes, or tool at the whims of omniscient councils of cigar-smoking conspirators of vagueness.

9/10

PS: and I just happened to have watched Cameron's Avatar yesterday, so yeah the contrast was here.

[MrTerrorist]

A great anime. Story was nice and the battles cool.
I really didn't like the Earth politics and the author's right wing views in the show and there were some moments the animation was sloppy.

Maybe in the future there might be another season.

[quigonkenny]

Where were there even "right wing views"?

[Brother Coa]

Originally Posted by quigonkenny

Where were there even "right wing views"?

Spoiler for Explanation:

To people who watched this show glorification of Japan and it's military are main right wing views.

Which is kind of silly because:

-This is anime, and people are actually complaining about anime glorifying Japan. It's the same as Hollywood glorifying USA in it's movies, or Bollywood glorifying India.
-People actually complained about main author putting military in good light. He is former soldier himself, that woudl be like criticizing programmer for making a good computer program. Of course everyone is going to glorify the things they like, it's the very core of each fan.

I admit that in some aspects this show really goes into that kind of territory ( like Japanese Government screwing around USA one xD and JSDF acting so professional that there were no civilian casualties or incidents happening anywhere. Possible but highly unlikely ). But those aspects are to be realistically expected for every other state despite that people who are huge liberal supporters think that their own country would still act fine and dandy even if being invade by foreign invading force.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by quigonkenny

Where were there even "right wing views"?

Basically there is a blatant world wide view that Japan and the people in it is inherently evil and that they need to be put in check. Don't worry, this would all go away after WW3 when we would have a different nation to trample.

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Basically there is a blatant world wide view that Japan and the people in it is inherently evil and that they need to be put in check. Don't worry, this would all go away after WW3 when we would have a different nation to trample.

That's kind of what I was getting at. "Not making the Japanese military look like a bunch of shitbags" is now "right-wing"?

[MrTerrorist]

That wasn't i was talking about.
I was talking about the author's right wing views like how Japan should become an Empire again, denying and refusing to admit the war crimes Japan committed during WW2, his bias view the Japanese Left and Liberal Media cannot be trusted, idiots or opportunistic and his double standards that the other nations wanting to gain the Special region resources are greedy and evil yet praising Japan when it does the same thing.

I have no problem with Gate promoting the JSDF as their servicemen and women have done a lot of good work in humanitarian and peacekeeping missions. The problem that people have with Gate (especially Americans) is that author use the settings of Gate (Modern Military force VS Magical Fantasy races) to promote his Japanese right-wing nationalism and anti-Western stance.

[Brother Coa]

To be honest, if GATE has the same story but set with USA military everyone would whine about the same reasons as well.

And anti-western feel is totally realistic as it really shows the true colors of USA politics.

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

That wasn't i was talking about.
I was talking about the author's right wing views like how Japan should become an Empire again, denying and refusing to admit the war crimes Japan committed during WW2, his bias view the Japanese Left and Liberal Media cannot be trusted, idiots or opportunistic and his double standards that the other nations wanting to gain the Special region resources are greedy and evil yet praising Japan when it does the same thing.

Except none of that applies. Whatever the author's views on Japanese imperialism or Japanese war crime history, they didn't make it into the series, because they're unrelated. The "Japanese Left and Liberal Media" actually can't be trusted, no more than any political or biased media group can. And one of the central conflicts in the series was the military in the Special Region having to put up not only with outside forces, but also the political opportunism and sloughing of responsibility by their own government. And the wish of the Japanese government for the Special Region's resources is hardly "praised". At best it's handled neutrally as an aspect of the situation, and at worst it's seen as a distraction to more pressing matters.

I knew the mindset that VCV mentioned existed, but I didn't think we'd get an example illustrated for us so quickly.

[Top Sergeant]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

I have no problem with Gate promoting the JSDF as their servicemen and women have done a lot of good work in humanitarian and peacekeeping missions. The problem that people have with Gate (especially Americans) is that author use the settings of Gate (Modern Military force VS Magical Fantasy races) to promote his Japanese right-wing nationalism and anti-Western stance.

Well if THAT was what the show was trying to do then it failed completely. The Gate anime had absolutely none of those vibes.

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by quigonkenny

Except none of that applies. Whatever the author's views on Japanese imperialism or Japanese war crime history, they didn't make it into the series, because they're unrelated. The "Japanese Left and Liberal Media" actually can't be trusted, no more than any political or biased media group can. And one of the central conflicts in the series was the military in the Special Region having to put up not only with outside forces, but also the political opportunism and sloughing of responsibility by their own government. And the wish of the Japanese government for the Special Region's resources is hardly "praised". At best it's handled neutrally as an aspect of the situation, and at worst it's seen as a distraction to more pressing matters.

I knew the mindset that VCV mentioned existed, but I didn't think we'd get an example illustrated for us so quickly.

This show had been run through the cleaners at least 3 times before it became an anime and it still goes nuts anytime real world politics comes up. The web novel was practically foaming at the mouth.

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

This show had been run through the cleaners at least 3 times before it became an anime and it still goes nuts anytime real world politics comes up. The web novel was practically foaming at the mouth.

Then take it to the web novel forum, if there even is one. This thread is about the anime.

[Jack]

This series is sorta guilty-pleasure-ish, but it's so much fun. The setting was fun, the characters were fun, the animation was good, and there's some bizarre sadistic pleasure in watching an undeveloped nation helplessly try to rationalize modern military technology/tactics. I mean, most of the series is essentially either a "this... is my BOOMSTICK!" moment, or waiting for that moment to inevitably come. Even so, would have to give it a solid 8-9/10 in terms of overall enjoyment value, even if the story wasn't really a masterpiece. Most of the characters were a barrel of laughs and remained surprisingly fresh throughout, even if that elf was kinda peculiar.

[quigonkenny]

^ You must be a blast at parties...

[jasper222]

Originally Posted by quigonkenny

^ You must be a blast at parties...

The edginess of that post could cut people.