Aitsuko has been translated to 78.7% of Chapter 2 of Volume 1.
While I'm still translating this, I'll concentrate on getting Chapter 19 of ZnT completely translated in Baka Tsuki as the editors of the book has announced that they will continue to finish off the series with notes provided by the author.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Gatchaman Crowds Analysis 2
In any battle, no matter how cool looking the scene is, it isn't truly an epic battle unless it is really a clash of ideologies. Take for example Sparta 300. The clash present here is not how the 300 warriors fought against the entire Persian army, but more of how the 300 warriors challenged the entirety of Greece against their cowardice to bow down to an outside pressure. The reason why we are rooting for the warriors are because they have been left alone during their fight, with no help from the king's own country, who have been bought over by the power of money. It is a clash of money and loyalty, materialism and essence.
Such is the same with Gatchaman Crowds. I've researched on some of the opinions on the net for the series and some have stated that the opening of the series is pretty slow. While I do agreed to some extent, I cannot stress again how important the starting few episodes were important in setting up the status quo and all the foreshadowing for the clashes to come. Most of my analysis here will come from the first half of the show, since any mention of the second half would most likely spoil the story for you.
After looking at the conservationist and the realist last time, this time we would look at the idealist, Rui Ninomiya.
Instead of object metaphors as before, Rui himself (yes, he's a guy) is his own metaphor. He cross-dresses and walks around the streets watching people use Galax, a social game of his own creation. However, he lives alone with X, an artificial intelligence he created by himself. It is ironic that he seeks companionship with a computer program rather than with people when he himself is the creator of the application that brought the masses together. When he is outside, he wears elaborate clothes of the other gender and hides in plain view, preferring not to communicate directly with others.
In fact, Rui is the ultimate cluster of clashes and irony in the series. Galax is his tool to bring humanity together by solving problems on their own. X, the AI is able to match people with needs with the right people with the ability to solve that need. Early in the series, we see posters hanging everywhere in the train where Sugane was in, stating that "the world is not updated by heroes, but by us". However, as we can see later on in the series, in spite of Rui's best intentions, humanity have not learnt to solve problems on their own, instead, they relied blindly on the machine like a faux God. It shows how humanity craves for leadership and an omnipotent character. They simply move their beliefs from superheroes to an AI. However, they don't do this lightly, and they only do it after X proves itself worthy and correct time over time. This is especially evident in a school scene where Rui and X prevents students from consuming spoilt milk. Every Galax user believes in X, while non users, some cynical, turn from non-believers to believers.
In the background, the TV is showing a bribery case of the vice-president of Japan.
Rui is obsessed with making the world a better place. Again, early in the series, we are shown how politicians are ruining Japan. In spite of being in a democratic country, the people still elected a leader that has shown himself incapable of running his country while allowing money embezzlement to occur. The democratic system is the one clashing with Galax, which itself is actually quite a despotic system. Democracy, where the people are given the power to rule themselves is shown to have led to a downward path of disappointment while despotism, which hides under the pretext of freedom, is shown to have positive results. This shows how information symmetry is important for the democratic system to actually work, since what Galax does is essentially sharing information. In this age where internet allows free trade of information, the one who holds the most information is king. The demographics of this is skewed towards the younger generation, but the ones holding the most information, is the search engine companies, but for a larger discussion on that you could watch the movie, Ex Machina.
The Galax system itself also clashes with the notion of having heroes save the day. On one hand, Galax helps people with their everyday lives, while the Gatchaman fights with aliens and does not progress from there on. Rui does not place his hopes on superpowers and instead wishes to rely on humans, however, he does realizes that there are some cases where even humans can't do anything, which is shown in a scenario later on, and that is when he activates his own superpower to summon the Hundreds Crowds, which is paradoxical to his idea that humans should help themselves without superpowers. This places him in direct conflict of Hajime, who believes that people with superpowers are part of the everyone he was talking so fervently about. Hajime thinks that superpower or not, what can be used, should be used, but Rui thinks that only humans can help themselves.
I think that part of the charm of Gatchaman Crowds is in watching how Rui grows as an character. While Sugane may be one-dimensional, Hajime two-dimensional, Rui could be said as a multi-dimensional character, one that we can relate to as we grow as a person, having our ideals shattered one by one while we try to hold on to them, only to leave them once we've grown into an adult.
Such is the same with Gatchaman Crowds. I've researched on some of the opinions on the net for the series and some have stated that the opening of the series is pretty slow. While I do agreed to some extent, I cannot stress again how important the starting few episodes were important in setting up the status quo and all the foreshadowing for the clashes to come. Most of my analysis here will come from the first half of the show, since any mention of the second half would most likely spoil the story for you.
After looking at the conservationist and the realist last time, this time we would look at the idealist, Rui Ninomiya.
Instead of object metaphors as before, Rui himself (yes, he's a guy) is his own metaphor. He cross-dresses and walks around the streets watching people use Galax, a social game of his own creation. However, he lives alone with X, an artificial intelligence he created by himself. It is ironic that he seeks companionship with a computer program rather than with people when he himself is the creator of the application that brought the masses together. When he is outside, he wears elaborate clothes of the other gender and hides in plain view, preferring not to communicate directly with others.
In fact, Rui is the ultimate cluster of clashes and irony in the series. Galax is his tool to bring humanity together by solving problems on their own. X, the AI is able to match people with needs with the right people with the ability to solve that need. Early in the series, we see posters hanging everywhere in the train where Sugane was in, stating that "the world is not updated by heroes, but by us". However, as we can see later on in the series, in spite of Rui's best intentions, humanity have not learnt to solve problems on their own, instead, they relied blindly on the machine like a faux God. It shows how humanity craves for leadership and an omnipotent character. They simply move their beliefs from superheroes to an AI. However, they don't do this lightly, and they only do it after X proves itself worthy and correct time over time. This is especially evident in a school scene where Rui and X prevents students from consuming spoilt milk. Every Galax user believes in X, while non users, some cynical, turn from non-believers to believers.
In the background, the TV is showing a bribery case of the vice-president of Japan.
Rui is obsessed with making the world a better place. Again, early in the series, we are shown how politicians are ruining Japan. In spite of being in a democratic country, the people still elected a leader that has shown himself incapable of running his country while allowing money embezzlement to occur. The democratic system is the one clashing with Galax, which itself is actually quite a despotic system. Democracy, where the people are given the power to rule themselves is shown to have led to a downward path of disappointment while despotism, which hides under the pretext of freedom, is shown to have positive results. This shows how information symmetry is important for the democratic system to actually work, since what Galax does is essentially sharing information. In this age where internet allows free trade of information, the one who holds the most information is king. The demographics of this is skewed towards the younger generation, but the ones holding the most information, is the search engine companies, but for a larger discussion on that you could watch the movie, Ex Machina.
The Galax system itself also clashes with the notion of having heroes save the day. On one hand, Galax helps people with their everyday lives, while the Gatchaman fights with aliens and does not progress from there on. Rui does not place his hopes on superpowers and instead wishes to rely on humans, however, he does realizes that there are some cases where even humans can't do anything, which is shown in a scenario later on, and that is when he activates his own superpower to summon the Hundreds Crowds, which is paradoxical to his idea that humans should help themselves without superpowers. This places him in direct conflict of Hajime, who believes that people with superpowers are part of the everyone he was talking so fervently about. Hajime thinks that superpower or not, what can be used, should be used, but Rui thinks that only humans can help themselves.
I think that part of the charm of Gatchaman Crowds is in watching how Rui grows as an character. While Sugane may be one-dimensional, Hajime two-dimensional, Rui could be said as a multi-dimensional character, one that we can relate to as we grow as a person, having our ideals shattered one by one while we try to hold on to them, only to leave them once we've grown into an adult.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Fate Zero and Fate Stay/Night Semi-Rant
So I have been watching the Fate Series, from Fate Zero to Fate Stay/Night UBW.
I'm getting my hats off to ufotable for making such a spectacle in both series. The artwork is gorgeous and splendidly meticulous (I especially appreciate the job they did with the lighting and the dust effect), the animations are fluid and it shows the exciting fight scenes very satisfyingly, for both series.
Absolutely gorgeous. (The GIF might be slightly large)
Fate Zero had the blessing of Gen Urobuchi to work on the its story and characters, so I also like how each Master is given a chance to grow within the series, with the help of their Servants, as a mirror of their ideals, yin to their yang. I liked how the setting is played out as a death match between powerful heroes. Each character is separated from the normal tropes we normally see in a lot of anime now, and they have their own ideals, thoughts and desires, making them incredibly humane, even though somewhat twisted. I also like how Gilgamesh is potrayed and animated as a bad-ass, which is his original setting, instead of how he is downplayed in Fate Stay/Night, in favor of the "plot".
Which brings us to the sequel to Fate Zero, Fate Stay/Night. The first thing I want to say is how lucky I am to watch Fate Zero first. The character motivations are much clearer compared to how I watched the Fate Stay/Night Fate arc from 2006, without watching Zero first. Unfortunately, even with all the eye candy, bad story telling is still bad story telling, no matter how many times you remake it. I guess the problem with UBW is how it tries to wrap the plot around Shirou, who is really, as Arcada puts it, an idiot. Unlike in Fate Zero, where our characters are mature, Shirou, our main protagonist is a high school student, so I can accept that Shirou might be somewhat immature in his thinking, but not really to this level. What he does completely conflicts with what he says, and even though he is powerless compared to the others(and he knows it), he still drags other people who has the power into life threatening situations by putting his own life in danger.
While I may understand that this is a show of courage, did he really had to chase Saber while she was focused on fighting Beserker, and then just do absolutely nothing except getting nearly killed? Of course, the explanation for why he acts like he acts in from around episode 4 is that he is so angry that he has become calm and emotionless and brainless. Now, I may be getting too harsh with his character, since I actually understand where he is coming from, i.e. the immature always-in-anger stubborn child, but he is really painful to watch. In fact, to get a sense of what I'm saying, go watch the interactions of Shirou and Archer in episode 6 and 7, and tell me why Shirou acts like that. He has shown repeatedly that he has no magic, is useless against Caster, and yet he wants to go after Caster, who has already disappeared into thin air. He asks Archer to chase after Caster, and even after Archer explains that defeating her Master is the better way to defeat Caster, he still does that. Where the heck is he going to chase after, thin air? Then in episode 10, he acts nonchalant towards the clues of Caster's master's indentity, as if his desire to save people has suddenly vanished to thin air. I could almost understand why Archer wants to kill him so badly.
Every time, Shirou is dependent on the powers of others, but he acts like he actually can do it by himself, which either makes him delusional or thoughtless towards the sacrifices of others, which makes his altruism fake and pointless, since he doesn't have empathy at all, which contradicts his so-called good guy setting. So unless they want to show how Shirou goes down the dark path, I don't see why are they are doing this.
Next, I also don't like how Rin is potrayed as a bad-ass at first, but suddenly becomes a confused damsel when Shirou is around. So at first, she takes on a building full of monsters by herself in one episode, and then she acts scared when she is with Shirou in a school full of the same monsters in another. What the heck? This can be explained as her infatuation with Shirou clouding her judgement, I guess, which is probably the only reason why someone who had been training as a magician in a deathmatch for more than 10 years under a killer of Magi, could suddenly lose her professionalism. Love is blind. But other than that, I like her character pretty well, just like how Asuna in SAO makes the story interesting.
Other than the problem with Shirou's character, the rest is pretty good, I think. What I really want to see though, is Sakura. A girl who got sold to another family, and got tortured with worms all over her body, witnessing how a person she has once took as a kind uncle die in vain, thinking that it is his fault for not listening to her grandfather, who was also the one torturing her, getting raped by her brother, among all the other things, and yet she managed to potray herself as a normal high school girl, who seemingly has a crush on a "kind" senpai. All that psychological and physical trauma hidden under a facade of smiles...I want to see her break free of her facade and get saved (Well, its not that I mind a Bad End anyway, I just want to see her story).
So don't mess up the Heaven Feels movie, please.
I'm getting my hats off to ufotable for making such a spectacle in both series. The artwork is gorgeous and splendidly meticulous (I especially appreciate the job they did with the lighting and the dust effect), the animations are fluid and it shows the exciting fight scenes very satisfyingly, for both series.
Absolutely gorgeous. (The GIF might be slightly large)
Fate Zero had the blessing of Gen Urobuchi to work on the its story and characters, so I also like how each Master is given a chance to grow within the series, with the help of their Servants, as a mirror of their ideals, yin to their yang. I liked how the setting is played out as a death match between powerful heroes. Each character is separated from the normal tropes we normally see in a lot of anime now, and they have their own ideals, thoughts and desires, making them incredibly humane, even though somewhat twisted. I also like how Gilgamesh is potrayed and animated as a bad-ass, which is his original setting, instead of how he is downplayed in Fate Stay/Night, in favor of the "plot".
Which brings us to the sequel to Fate Zero, Fate Stay/Night. The first thing I want to say is how lucky I am to watch Fate Zero first. The character motivations are much clearer compared to how I watched the Fate Stay/Night Fate arc from 2006, without watching Zero first. Unfortunately, even with all the eye candy, bad story telling is still bad story telling, no matter how many times you remake it. I guess the problem with UBW is how it tries to wrap the plot around Shirou, who is really, as Arcada puts it, an idiot. Unlike in Fate Zero, where our characters are mature, Shirou, our main protagonist is a high school student, so I can accept that Shirou might be somewhat immature in his thinking, but not really to this level. What he does completely conflicts with what he says, and even though he is powerless compared to the others(and he knows it), he still drags other people who has the power into life threatening situations by putting his own life in danger.
While I may understand that this is a show of courage, did he really had to chase Saber while she was focused on fighting Beserker, and then just do absolutely nothing except getting nearly killed? Of course, the explanation for why he acts like he acts in from around episode 4 is that he is so angry that he has become calm and emotionless and brainless. Now, I may be getting too harsh with his character, since I actually understand where he is coming from, i.e. the immature always-in-anger stubborn child, but he is really painful to watch. In fact, to get a sense of what I'm saying, go watch the interactions of Shirou and Archer in episode 6 and 7, and tell me why Shirou acts like that. He has shown repeatedly that he has no magic, is useless against Caster, and yet he wants to go after Caster, who has already disappeared into thin air. He asks Archer to chase after Caster, and even after Archer explains that defeating her Master is the better way to defeat Caster, he still does that. Where the heck is he going to chase after, thin air? Then in episode 10, he acts nonchalant towards the clues of Caster's master's indentity, as if his desire to save people has suddenly vanished to thin air. I could almost understand why Archer wants to kill him so badly.
Every time, Shirou is dependent on the powers of others, but he acts like he actually can do it by himself, which either makes him delusional or thoughtless towards the sacrifices of others, which makes his altruism fake and pointless, since he doesn't have empathy at all, which contradicts his so-called good guy setting. So unless they want to show how Shirou goes down the dark path, I don't see why are they are doing this.
Next, I also don't like how Rin is potrayed as a bad-ass at first, but suddenly becomes a confused damsel when Shirou is around. So at first, she takes on a building full of monsters by herself in one episode, and then she acts scared when she is with Shirou in a school full of the same monsters in another. What the heck? This can be explained as her infatuation with Shirou clouding her judgement, I guess, which is probably the only reason why someone who had been training as a magician in a deathmatch for more than 10 years under a killer of Magi, could suddenly lose her professionalism. Love is blind. But other than that, I like her character pretty well, just like how Asuna in SAO makes the story interesting.
Other than the problem with Shirou's character, the rest is pretty good, I think. What I really want to see though, is Sakura. A girl who got sold to another family, and got tortured with worms all over her body, witnessing how a person she has once took as a kind uncle die in vain, thinking that it is his fault for not listening to her grandfather, who was also the one torturing her, getting raped by her brother, among all the other things, and yet she managed to potray herself as a normal high school girl, who seemingly has a crush on a "kind" senpai. All that psychological and physical trauma hidden under a facade of smiles...I want to see her break free of her facade and get saved (Well, its not that I mind a Bad End anyway, I just want to see her story).
So don't mess up the Heaven Feels movie, please.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Gatchaman Crowds Analysis 1
So I've been watching a reboot of the children's show, Gatchaman Crowds.
And boy was it a tough watch.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mean that it is bad, it is surprisingly good, with detailed animation, meaningful character development and a rich plot, with clashes and conflicts within each episode paced out to advance it, but that the anime feels like a novel or a social commentary. The messages are deep and meaningful, but takes time and effort to think about it before you manage to get the point.
You don't really get these types of anime in the market nowadays. Especially considering that this came from a children's show, but requires more than just a teenager's perspective to pick it apart.
I'll start the analysis of the show with an analysis of the characters. The characters are human, in that they are not stupid, but have normal intelligence. They don't just do things just because of plot, like a lot of anime out there, but do things because they feel like doing it, with their own reasons and compulsions.
However, their interactions are pretty complex, but for most part I'll talk about the ones with more screen time first.
1. Sugane Tachibana, conservationist.
We focus on Sugane first, our protagonist who provides an objective view on the world around him because of his simplicity.
Our main male character is a high school student who walks and talks like a samurai. Early in the opening scene, we get to see his room.
His room is simple and traditionally styled. A scroll stating "to focus with all your heart" is place on top of his Gatchaman NOTE, whereas his sword is placed below his NOTE. A person's room is one's own personal space, and the way you treat your room is like the way you treat your mind. It serves to show where Sugane put his loyalty to. He places his ideology first, and his gatchaman duty next in front of him. This part is a little crucial if one were to understand why as to he chose to remain in the shadows as a Gatchaman.
A samurai is affliated with honor, loyalty, and the old forgotten world. This will put him in direct conflict with our main protagonist, Hajime. The Japanese are not known for talking back against their superiors, nor are they known to challenge the status quo. Sugane here is our exaggerated normal Japanese. He does not question the actions of his superiors and is loyal to a fault.
In episode one, we see him asking a sick young man to give his seat to a pregnant woman. This is not wrong. He simply judged that the pregnant woman deserves the seat more than a young man. However, in a later episode, we see a similar scene happen again, with a standing old man, in front of a sleeping young couple. However, this time Hajime is present. Sugane determines that the old man deserves the seat more, but Hajime stops him saying that the couple may be too tired from work. They are both not wrong. It is simply a show of perspective. This is a recurring theme that occurs from time to time.
There is no right or wrong in the real world, this may seem cliched, but in Gatchaman Crowds, instead of showing us a villian who had another perspective on his actions, it shows us the absolute villian, and instead turns the focus on the good guys, who actually seems to do bad, even if their intentions are good, but they are stuck with their own self-made rules to do anything significant.
Fighting aliens? Cool! Helping normal people during a crisis? No way, we have to keep our identities a secret! Such is the actions of the Gatchamans, which we can see from Sugane's perspective. He repeatedly stops Hajime from helping people out with their powers, with no explanation given. Remember his room? Simple, organised, and in the center of everything, his ideology, his mater, his sword. His actions are to his master and his master alone. As the story progresses, we see plenty of chances for him to change, but he does not change a lot. The main status quo is still there. This is in tandem with the Japanese society. While it has changed a lot, it retained its culture, warts and all. Sugane is obstinate on change, so is the old society. However, as events and conflicts crashed around him, we see as Sugane slowly opens to new ideas and he changes as the world progresses. He changes his master from simply the Gatchaman duty, to the people of the world.
2. Hajime Ichinose, realist (oh, the irony)
Hajime is our OP female character, almost like Haruhi Suzumiya, but with one difference, which I would like to quote from a comment in the wikia, "Hajime makes Haruhi Suzumiya seem like Ayanami Rei", to which I find to be extremely true.
Hajime strikes many as loud, overly cheerful, creepy and overpowered, but she is human. It becomes slowly apparent that her "genki" facade hides a surprisingly complex and insightful mind. She has a dark personality, but she has it all under wraps of a masquerade.
Ask yourself this. How do you grow, mentally? You think about stuff that happen and in understanding the background and motivations of the people around you gain insight. To understand another person, you must put yourself in their shoes. In PsychoPass, "to catch a criminal you need another criminal", and this is shown in the heightened crime coefficient of the "hunting dogs" of the police force.
For Hajime to make such insightful comments and actions on the darkness around her, she must also sink herself in this dark pool of thoughts. Her "genki" facade is exaggerated, and this may be the last stand for her against the darkness.
One of the most sharpest criticism she has made about the world around her is when she asked Rui, "Are those shining children your friends?". For someone who has just met him and witnessed his actions, that is a very painful question for Rui to answer.
Early in the anime we are shown a glimpse into this complex nature of our female main character. Instead of a room metaphor, we get to see how she uses her notebooks.
She had different note books for different things, showing that she handles different stuff independently. This is apparent in her later involvement in the MESS incident. Hajime treats duty and justice as different things.
In the early episodes, MESS, while being able to morph to anything under the sun, it prefers to run. Now that is strange. Don't you think it should morph, maybe to the double of its attacker and strike back, for an alien race that the Gatchaman takes it to be? Instead, it takes the cowardly route and ran, thrice in a row we are shown this action.
The Gatchaman takes it to be a show of their strength. Hajime being the newbie, has not understood her powers well, and in the skirmish with MESS, she saw that in spite being a powerful alien, it does not prefer to attack her and instead just morphs itself into a faux scissors. This makes her confused, but she bounces back immediately and even makes MESS into something like a lackey.
Again, we see the comparison of the old and new society here. Sugane, in spite of being more powerful than Hajime, but not flexible is not able to solve the MESS "threat", but Hajime, being extremely open and flexible in her thinking, was able to solve the threat without resorting to force. This is a criticism to the current Japanese society that without a fundamental change, they would not be able to clinch the results they actually want.
I've already mentioned how Hajime provides another perspective to Sugane. Something good may not really be the best choice to do, even though it is good. The nice ED of the series captures this spirit, and you can view the english translation here.
Hajime believes in changing the world with their own powers, but it doesn't mean that super heroes are not needed.
Superheroes are also part of the(ir) world too, su!
And boy was it a tough watch.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mean that it is bad, it is surprisingly good, with detailed animation, meaningful character development and a rich plot, with clashes and conflicts within each episode paced out to advance it, but that the anime feels like a novel or a social commentary. The messages are deep and meaningful, but takes time and effort to think about it before you manage to get the point.
You don't really get these types of anime in the market nowadays. Especially considering that this came from a children's show, but requires more than just a teenager's perspective to pick it apart.
I'll start the analysis of the show with an analysis of the characters. The characters are human, in that they are not stupid, but have normal intelligence. They don't just do things just because of plot, like a lot of anime out there, but do things because they feel like doing it, with their own reasons and compulsions.
However, their interactions are pretty complex, but for most part I'll talk about the ones with more screen time first.
1. Sugane Tachibana, conservationist.
We focus on Sugane first, our protagonist who provides an objective view on the world around him because of his simplicity.
Our main male character is a high school student who walks and talks like a samurai. Early in the opening scene, we get to see his room.
His room is simple and traditionally styled. A scroll stating "to focus with all your heart" is place on top of his Gatchaman NOTE, whereas his sword is placed below his NOTE. A person's room is one's own personal space, and the way you treat your room is like the way you treat your mind. It serves to show where Sugane put his loyalty to. He places his ideology first, and his gatchaman duty next in front of him. This part is a little crucial if one were to understand why as to he chose to remain in the shadows as a Gatchaman.
A samurai is affliated with honor, loyalty, and the old forgotten world. This will put him in direct conflict with our main protagonist, Hajime. The Japanese are not known for talking back against their superiors, nor are they known to challenge the status quo. Sugane here is our exaggerated normal Japanese. He does not question the actions of his superiors and is loyal to a fault.
In episode one, we see him asking a sick young man to give his seat to a pregnant woman. This is not wrong. He simply judged that the pregnant woman deserves the seat more than a young man. However, in a later episode, we see a similar scene happen again, with a standing old man, in front of a sleeping young couple. However, this time Hajime is present. Sugane determines that the old man deserves the seat more, but Hajime stops him saying that the couple may be too tired from work. They are both not wrong. It is simply a show of perspective. This is a recurring theme that occurs from time to time.
There is no right or wrong in the real world, this may seem cliched, but in Gatchaman Crowds, instead of showing us a villian who had another perspective on his actions, it shows us the absolute villian, and instead turns the focus on the good guys, who actually seems to do bad, even if their intentions are good, but they are stuck with their own self-made rules to do anything significant.
Fighting aliens? Cool! Helping normal people during a crisis? No way, we have to keep our identities a secret! Such is the actions of the Gatchamans, which we can see from Sugane's perspective. He repeatedly stops Hajime from helping people out with their powers, with no explanation given. Remember his room? Simple, organised, and in the center of everything, his ideology, his mater, his sword. His actions are to his master and his master alone. As the story progresses, we see plenty of chances for him to change, but he does not change a lot. The main status quo is still there. This is in tandem with the Japanese society. While it has changed a lot, it retained its culture, warts and all. Sugane is obstinate on change, so is the old society. However, as events and conflicts crashed around him, we see as Sugane slowly opens to new ideas and he changes as the world progresses. He changes his master from simply the Gatchaman duty, to the people of the world.
2. Hajime Ichinose, realist (oh, the irony)
Hajime is our OP female character, almost like Haruhi Suzumiya, but with one difference, which I would like to quote from a comment in the wikia, "Hajime makes Haruhi Suzumiya seem like Ayanami Rei", to which I find to be extremely true.
Hajime strikes many as loud, overly cheerful, creepy and overpowered, but she is human. It becomes slowly apparent that her "genki" facade hides a surprisingly complex and insightful mind. She has a dark personality, but she has it all under wraps of a masquerade.
Ask yourself this. How do you grow, mentally? You think about stuff that happen and in understanding the background and motivations of the people around you gain insight. To understand another person, you must put yourself in their shoes. In PsychoPass, "to catch a criminal you need another criminal", and this is shown in the heightened crime coefficient of the "hunting dogs" of the police force.
For Hajime to make such insightful comments and actions on the darkness around her, she must also sink herself in this dark pool of thoughts. Her "genki" facade is exaggerated, and this may be the last stand for her against the darkness.
One of the most sharpest criticism she has made about the world around her is when she asked Rui, "Are those shining children your friends?". For someone who has just met him and witnessed his actions, that is a very painful question for Rui to answer.
Early in the anime we are shown a glimpse into this complex nature of our female main character. Instead of a room metaphor, we get to see how she uses her notebooks.
She had different note books for different things, showing that she handles different stuff independently. This is apparent in her later involvement in the MESS incident. Hajime treats duty and justice as different things.
In the early episodes, MESS, while being able to morph to anything under the sun, it prefers to run. Now that is strange. Don't you think it should morph, maybe to the double of its attacker and strike back, for an alien race that the Gatchaman takes it to be? Instead, it takes the cowardly route and ran, thrice in a row we are shown this action.
The Gatchaman takes it to be a show of their strength. Hajime being the newbie, has not understood her powers well, and in the skirmish with MESS, she saw that in spite being a powerful alien, it does not prefer to attack her and instead just morphs itself into a faux scissors. This makes her confused, but she bounces back immediately and even makes MESS into something like a lackey.
Again, we see the comparison of the old and new society here. Sugane, in spite of being more powerful than Hajime, but not flexible is not able to solve the MESS "threat", but Hajime, being extremely open and flexible in her thinking, was able to solve the threat without resorting to force. This is a criticism to the current Japanese society that without a fundamental change, they would not be able to clinch the results they actually want.
I've already mentioned how Hajime provides another perspective to Sugane. Something good may not really be the best choice to do, even though it is good. The nice ED of the series captures this spirit, and you can view the english translation here.
Hajime believes in changing the world with their own powers, but it doesn't mean that super heroes are not needed.
Superheroes are also part of the(ir) world too, su!
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