We're growing way past that.

At this point in the season, Gatchaman Crowds has had a considerable amount of episodes aired. I don’t have to tell you though that it’s never too late to watch an anime, so if you haven’t seen this, I recommend adding it to your ‘plan to watch’.

In the world of Gatachaman Crowds, which so happens to be future Japan, social media has taken over to the point where people rely on it completely. Everyone is constantly on their phone taking part in society’s most popular and useful invention: a social media platform known as GALAX. There, you have an avatar whose clothes you can constantly change every day if you want to, just as you do for yourself physically. You walk the streets of this virtual world and meet with friends, encounter new people, and take part in all sorts of conversations with each other. I remember a platform called HABBO Hotel which was similar to this, but I never joined because I was too young to care (I was also too busy with Neopets).

Hajime's avatar.

But GALAX is more than what HABBO, or even today’s pop platforms, Twitter and Facebook, are: at your request, you can be directly connected with anyone who can provide you with the particular service you’re looking for, especially if they’re in the same location you’re in at the time. For example, earlier in the show, a new mom was seeking a lawyer. GALAX connected her with someone who happened to be a lawyer, in the food court she was in at the time of her request. GALAX also spreads word about emergencies, and urges people to take action. News spreads like wildfire, and everyone reacts immediately to help those in need (especially those qualified for the job), while calling help from police, ambulance, or firemen.

GALAX is a fresh way of solving problems, and to get people to lend a hand and actually care. It does so by cleverly taking situations and presenting them in the form of a game. If the mission is accomplished, it gives a statistic of how many casualties have been avoided. As mentioned, getting others to care is exactly the goal!

X, the mastermind behind GALAX (whose identity we soon find out) wants to, as she (he?) states, “update the world”: to eliminate the notion of one super hero, but rather create a world where everybody is a hero. A place where we all help each other without expectation of praise or compensation.She wants to increase the humane side of people. By not putting anyone on a pedestal, everybody can be regarded as being equal to one another, and it’s working: the closest form of praise they get is a cute message that pops up saying “Mission Accomplished”, and they also get points. Some may argue that the point system contradicts the idea of no compensation, but my take on it is that the points are just there to make you feel good about your deed so you can do more, because, let’s face it, everyone likes to feel appreciated when they've done something good for others. It does so not by praising you, but by giving the illusion that you've earned something; the points don’t seem to have any further value, like using it to unlock certain things on GALAX, so in a way it doesn't contradict X’s idea.

The only thing I have an issue with, and that I see in our own world, is that people are too dependent of it. No one’s really thinking for themselves: when a major accident happens, the first thing they do is look to their phone for help via GALAX, despite the fact that someone might be a doctor, or a fireman. GALAX tells them what to do first and who should do what, when it should be instinct for their skills to kick into gear. The other thing is that although people are connected through GALAX, they don’t make the effort to connect in person. However, our protagonist Hajime, emphasizes the need for face-to-face communication. I’ll discuss more on Hajime next week, as she is a remarkable character.

In a sense, we could certainly say that our current social platforms act similarly to GALAX—in the past, I've gotten comments from friends of friends like “I've seen you on Facebook, I’m adding you tonight!” It’s as if Facebook were a big urban city, where you see the same people on the bus on your way to school or work every morning, or have seen before at a function. Point is, they become familiar faces, and if you ever were to meet, you might say “you look familiar, I think I might have seen you on the 95”. What I think is that social media today definitely has the potential to be GALAX. And it’s most certain, the way things are looking, that it’s going to happen.

And, despite the dependence and obsession people have on social media, I think that’s exciting! 

"Oh senpai, can you slash right here!?" Haha, she's so adorable! I bet she posted the photo on GALAX afterwards.