26 December 2017: Infini-T Force: Local girl finds hero inside her
Emi has an epiphany.
Infini-T Force is my surprise of the season, not because it was necessarily better than I was expecting, but rather because it got me to understand the appeal of its related superhero series and sentai-type antics in general. I typically have a very low tolerance for nonsense which I characterize as shounen jive. In particular, characters described as having "a strong sense of justice" irritate the Bejesus out of me and I usually avoid any such shows if at all possible out of general principle.
I don't actually know how to spell Casshern.
However, I am also a sucker for crossovers, and Infini-T Force leans heavily on this gimmick, so I was guaranteed to give it a try even though Ken from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was the only character I even sort of knew, and Casshern was the only other one I had even heard about. Surprisingly, I was totally okay with an entire cours about superhero ethics and the conflict between providing protection and preserving freedom. This is notable because my eyes typically glaze over when some angry anime boy starts ranting about how his opponent isn't thinking about the heroine's feelings, etc.
As far as I know, Belle Lynn is an Infini-T Force original character.
I can't claim Infini-T Force delivered these arguments in a new or creative way, so I suspect the important distinction is that the speakers were adult men in superhero costumes, rather than teenage boys in school uniforms. I suppose it makes sense that there are some things only people who are dressed up as superheroes can say and still be taken seriously. Whether this will also prove to be be true of teenage girls wearing mom jeans remains to be seen.
Emi fails the Gatchaman workout challenge.
As you might expect, Infini-T Force concludes with Emi awakening the hero inside of her as well. This is sort of a no-brainer since she does control the MacGuffin which provides basically unlimited power. I don't know what sort of role Emi will have in the upcoming Infini-T Force movie. The teaser trailer suggests a Ken-focused story. (It highlights Ken re-encountering fellow Gatchaman teammate Joe, but Emi does briefly appear.)
"I can see my house from here."
Assuming the end of the series is meant to be the conclusion of Emi's story and not its beginning, I can see the movie being about Ken, primarily. Ken is clearly the lead among the various heroes assembled during the series and the one with whom Emi interacts the most. She mostly just calls him ossan and rags on him for being old as fuck (he's in his 20s), but comes to respect and admire him (in ways that probably fuel 'shippers) before ultimately recognizing her own potential as a hero and rejecting the nihilistic attitude she had at the beginning of the series. There ain't no way Emi will bloom into a full-on love interest for Ken (the Internet would lose its mind), but I do hope she'll have a prominent role in the movie.
