Gatchaman Crowds insight is the second season of the Gatchaman Crowds anime. The studio that produced it was Tatsunoko Production, and the director was Kenji Nakamura. There are a total of twelve episodes in all. The review for the first season is here, and both seasons are available on Crunchyroll.
Gatchaman Crowds insight is set a year after the events of the first season. Though CROWDS have been distributed to the public, there is a group called VAPE who opposes that idea. The group use red CROWDS to terrorise Tachikawa to show that allowing people to possess such power is dangerous. The leader of VAPE is a man called Rizumu Suzuki.
Similarly to the MESS from the first season, the red CROWDS are pretty much forgotten about with the arrival of a new alien. In this case, it is Gelsadra. However, unlike the MESS, Rizumu does have a role to play later on in the season.
Gelsadra first appears in a child-like form, but he ages up later to run for election as Japan’s prime minister. He also has the ability to make speech bubbles appear over people’s heads that change colour according to their state of mind. However, there are a couple of characters who have speech bubbles that remain consistently grey – Hajime being an example.
Another newcomer is Tsubasa Misudachi, the newest addition to the G-Crew. She struggles with her Gatchaman abilities early on, and becomes a little annoying when she utterly refuses to face difficult things. However, events transpire that make her realise just how nonsensical that approach is.
Though Rizumu could be considered an antagonist in the earlier parts of Gatchaman Crowds insight, he isn’t the biggest threat. Actually, in this season, there is no one character who could be considered a main antagonist. Instead, it is the atmosphere that is the cause of danger in insight.
This is what makes this season interesting – the whole thing is a criticism of just going with the flow, and not thinking for yourself. Not even all the members of the G-Crew are safe from being swept up in the atmosphere.
Introducing voting through a smart-phone app is an interesting idea, particularly when it comes to electing a prime minister. However, insight shows that the voting can go too far, and if you give the masses an option to have someone else shoulder the responsibility, that’s what they will choose.
This becomes a problem when the speech bubbles that Gelsadra can make appear manifest themselves as beings called ‘Kuu-samas’. They are a manifestation of the atmosphere, and if you go against the atmosphere you will find yourself getting swallowed – quite literally.
The way in which the G-Crew tackle the situation is interesting, and makes for a more interesting watch than having them all just fight the Kuu-samas.
The soundtrack is of equal quality to the first season, mostly because it’s the same. There is a new ‘Gatchaman’ theme, as well.
Score: 10/10
With it tackling the idea of just going with the flow, Gatchaman Crowds insight makes for some compelling viewing.
Rory Muses 
Online voting sounds like a good way of boosting low election turnout – although the way web polls get trolled I guess I understand why people are wary of implementing it.