Gate Keepers

Truth be told, for the first times I’ve watched it I wasn’t able to fully appreciate it. I’m glad I decided to re-watch Gate Keepers once again, because it’s definitely worth it.

The plot of Gate Keepers can be compared to old school anime, probably because the story is set in the 1960s. The only difference is that Gate Keepers has the feel of contemporary anime – it’s set in the 60s, but it doesn’t really seem like it is. It’s really exciting and fun to watch. Some historical references were actually incorporated into the story, such as the moon landing, the world expo and maybe ... even hippies.

Another aspect I like about it is the comedy. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it was so funny, but that’s probably because most of the comedy came from Reiko and Bancho – the 2 characters I USED to hate. All of the characters are actually very likable. My other favorites are Megane and Fei, because they’re both so adorable. I still like Kaoru and Shun though (Shun’s hot!)

As expected of Gonzo, the animation is really impressive. I love the character design except for Reiko’s because she seems different compared to the other characters. They all have beautifully drawn eyes though – I especially like how the eyes look when they use their gate powers. The CG wasn’t as sophisticated and smooth as I want it to be, but it wasn’t that bad. There were repeated scenes and usually I’d say that’s a sign of laziness, but it’s minimal.

Some of my favorite seiyuus are actually in Gate Keepers. One of them is Takahiro Sakurai. I always seem to like his characters (especially Cloud Strife from Advent Children!). The other is Tomokazu Seki. I just think he’s a really talented VA. Other seiyuus I want to note are Chinami Nishimura (Fei) and Etsuko Kozakura (Megane). They really made Fei and Megane really cute and adorable. I just love it when Fei goes “Ayaya!”.

The music was great as well. Like the story, the music reminds me of old school anime as well (specially the mecha ones) except they’re more updated. I really love how the opening theme was made – it really describes the plot so well. Sometimes you can catch the characters quoting some of the lyrics. The ending theme wasn’t bad either. Yumi Matsuzawa did a great job in performing both songs.

Just to finish this review, I’m going to reaffirm my first point by saying Gate Keepers is definitely a must watch. I’m going to try the OVA and see if it’s as good as the series.

I seen my first anime gate keepers this anime is a good anime this anime has every thing that makes you happy. This is based on story of high school student of 1960 who joins A .E.G.I.S to save world from invaders .

Characters

Shun -: this is one of main and best Character . He is most super character .Shun father is dead and he is angry because he brakes his promise . He is Ruriko first love . He is strong gatekeeper in anime he fights as warrior.

ruriko - she is hot and my loving character. She ... has hidden emotion . she loves shun but she never reveals . she is ultimate fighter and with strong feelings .

Reiko Asagiri -: She is worst character . she thinks as good Witch ( meaningless) . Whenever she fights her instruments brakes . She has power of melodies . her tune kills invader .

Reiji Kageyama -: This is one of the best anime role . he is strong and powerful villan in anime . He thinks human are maggot . He is black gatekeeper

overall -: it is fantastic anime. Story is grate. It makes me remind of old school anime

For buying all the DVD's on a whim since Rightstuf had seven volumes for only $2, I am genuinely surprised by how great this show is. I really enjoyed this a lot.

As for the story it has comedic moments sprinkled throughout each episode and I feel like they generally mix very well with the situations at hand. There's also a decent amount of actually incredible scenes that look fantastic and have great sound design; I love the sound of when they open a gate to use their abilities and then scream "GATE OPEN!" and even though it's essentially the same thing every time it feels ... different depending of what's going on and everything else and how the audio is mixed. It makes a lot of scenes feel really epic and I'd rewind and watch the sequence again because it seemed so cool however it doesn't seem like it's trying too hard to be cool or anything like that (at least not to me) and I feel like that's why comes off really good and really kept me engaged with the show and wanting to continue watching.

The art and animation is pretty consistent throughout the whole show and how good the CGI is really took me by surprise. There was only one episode with a purple CG helicopter that was super bad but other than they did a heck of a job considering this was from the year 2000.

My favorite character was definitely Ikusawa, Ruriko or Rurippe as the nickname given to her by Ukiya, Shun which you will hear most of the time. Kawasumi, Ayako does a fantastic job voicing her and I love when she yells, perfect tone in comedic moments and intense moment and everything in-between. I also really liked Mei and how she'd say "Gate Open" and her powers in Chinese most of the time. Reiko seemed to be a little too much of an air-head but she still seemed to get some good moments and she cares for everyone and not just Ukiya. Kaoru to me felt too pushy to assert herself onto her Senpai Ukiya but I didn't dislike her and she does get some great moments to shine throughout the series. I like how she transformers to use her powers by just whooshing off her normal clothes with her tracksuit underneath. The only character I didn't like so much was Megumi which is kinda backwards for me since I generally really like the quiet ones with glasses. The different tensions with her still had impacts on the story and wasn't meaningless even though she wasn't very nice or anything. Finally for our main character Ukiya, Shun I'd say he's actually likable. He does share some typical traits that you'd expect from a main character but there's also more to him. He also has a couple really good character arcs that he goes through and you get to see him struggle.

If you happen to stumble across this show I highly recommend it, especially if you can still get the DVD's for super cheap like I was able to. As for re-watching, I definitely will eventually and I still have the sequel OVA series to watch too which I will watch next out of the countless DVD's and Blu-Rays that I have. I would've liked to see an HD remaster with PCM audio if they did it correctly/still had the original master but I'm not too concerned since the DVD's still scale nicely. I'd say the average score for this show is an accurate assessment of how it's score should be but I just had such a blast watching this and it felt really refreshing. Anyways, hope my review will be insightful for somebody!