Gatchaman Crowds Anime Gets 2nd Season

Production on the second season of the Gatchaman Crowds anime has been green-lit under the title Gatchaman Crowds Second. The season will air on NTV, and more details such as the broadcast schedule and staff will be announced in the future.

Gatchaman Crowds based on the classic science-fiction hero series Gatchaman. The story is set in Japan in the early summer of 2015. 180,000 people live in Tachikawa City, the "second metropolis" of the Tokyo area. Among them are "Gatchaman" — warriors who fight in special reinforced suits powered by "NOTE," the manifestation of special spiritual powers in living beings. A council has scouted a group of individuals with latent powers to protect Earth from alien criminals. In recent years, the council has assigned Gatchaman warriors to deal with the mysterious entity known as "MESS."

The cast for the first season included Maaya Uchida, Katsuji Mori, Ryota Ohsaka, Daisuke Namikawa, Aya Hirano, Daisuke Hosomi, Kotori Koiwai, Mamoru Miyano, Ayumu Murase, and Sakura Tange.

Gatchaman Crowds premiered in Japan on July 12, and it earned a 2.7% rating in Tokyo's Kanto area in NTV's late-night Friday 2:00 a.m. timeslot. Crunchyroll streamed the first season as it aired. Sentai Filmworks licensed the first Gatchaman Crowds season as well as the original Gatchaman anime for home video in North America. Sentai Filmworks had revealed in July that it had signed a deal with Tatsunoko Production to release 11 of the studio's titles, including Gatchaman and Casshan.

The first Gatchaman anime premiered in October of 1972 and earned an average rating of 21%. It was only planned for two quarters (kūru or cours) of a year, but was extended to two full years and 105 episodes. It has since spawned anime films as well as later television and video series. The anime series in the Gatchaman franchise were adapted, with varying degrees of faithfulness, into English under the names Battle of the Planets, G-Force, and Eagle Riders.

The franchise also inspired a live-action film starring Tori Matsuzaka, Gō Ayano, Ayame Gōriki, Tatsuomi Hamada, and Ryōhei Suzuki, and the film opened in Japan on August 24. NTV also ran Ohayō Ninja-Tai Gatchaman, an anime series of one-minute flash shorts. These shorts aired during the station's Zip! television program on weekday mornings.