Hello and welcome to my blog for the first episode of Gate! I didn’t used to watch currently airing anime but after creating an anime landing page for this anime, I couldn’t help myself. I just had to watch it as it was airing. I thought the plot sounded great and the character designs looked so amazing. If by chance you’ve read my past blog entries, you will notice two huge differences in this one. I don’t walk you through the entire episode this time and my comments are intertwine with what I do describe. With that, let’s begin this review!

The theme music for Gate is beautiful. I absolutely love it! I’ve spent hours on end listening to it.

Youji is on his way to a Doujinshi sale, when unbeknownst to him, a Gate appears in the middle of the city and chaos starts to ensue. He is too obsessed with going to the sale for his hobby at first to even notice. *High-fives Youji….in the face* Seriously dude…pay attention! I must say that the appearance of the gate (as seen in Picture 2) was executed quite nicely. I couldn’t have imagined a better appearance.

Youji is so absorbed with researching his hobby that he proceeds to walk into a pole……Baka Youji……Pay attention! For reasons that I’m not quite sure of, he has a vision of the three main female protagonists and he knows exactly what they are……I’m actually wondering if the world on the other side of the Gate is related to his hobby or maybe not….

So anyways, the enemy army is outside wreaking havoc upon the city and Youji STILL hasn’t noticed what’s going on yet…… makes me want to knock some sense into him. Then, HE FINALLY NOTICES THE CHAOS as the dragon creature flies by the window. It’s about time! Youji’s instincts kick in and he starts fighting the monsters so the people can get away….however….he’s mainly worried that his precious Doujinshi sale will be canceled…..Baka Youji. He helps with the evacuations and the people are allowed through the gates to the protection of the outer wall of the Imperial Palace.

By this time, the military has stepped in. Yay for the military! The guns on the helicopters make short work of the poor dragons :’( The tanks and the machine guns decimate the ground forces as the creatures and humans don’t have any kind of bullet proof armor. I kind of feel sorry for them….although it’s their own fault for invading.

After the military breaks the enemy’s formation, the enemy retreats. Youji then goes to where all the citizens were taking refuge and he offers to help a lost girl find her parents. Good guy Youji Several days later, he is recognized as the Hero of Ginza and receives an accommodation as Second Lieutenant. Then he finds out his precious Doujinshi sale was indeed canceled and he almost cries….He’s seriously obsessed….I know how it is.

Later Youji is eating with Kurata and Kurata reveals that he was at the Doujinshi sale and Youji goes ballistic and asks him to bring the stuff he got to his house. He creeped Kurata out and to be honest, he creeped me out as well.

Afterwards, the government decided that a dome will be built around the Gate. They don’t want to destroy it because they fear another Gate will be opened somewhere else in Japan. This is actually quite reasonable conclusion and plan to keep the invaders from invading again…wait…did I just say a government did something reasonable? : O I guess anything really is possible in anime They then declare that they will send forces within the “Special Region*” to initiate negotiations. Once again a decently planned strategy by the government…..only in anime would this happen. In real life…the government would probably just nuke the place since it was a threat. Three months later the dome is complete and the military dispatches the Ground Self-Defense Force (which includes Youji) into the Gate to the other side prepared for immediate battle. The enemy forces are waiting and then the ending them plays in other words, more great music!

*~The name for the area beyond the Gate. To be honest, with a name like “Special Region” I was surprised there wasn’t a speedy blue hedgehog running around collecting chaos emeralds.

Overall, I felt this was a great first episode and I hope the rest of the anime is just as great. I hope my readers enjoyed this entry and like the new format that I’m following that is shorter and less stressful on me. It only took two hours for this entry compared to the four to five hours doing it the way I was. Thanks for reading and see you next time for Episode Two of Gate!

~Ryuji