Gate: Jieitai Kanochi Nite, Kaku Tatakaeri Episode 1: The Self-Defense Force Goes to Another World - Bobble Reviews

I think the plot of this show is that the universe, in a cosmic attempt to make this one 33-year-old otaku love his work, spontaneously created an anime fantasy world parallel to ours. Welcome to Outbreak Company 2: The Outbreakening.

So there's this man. The Japan he lives in is an idyll of ice cream and subways where a new doujinshi exhibition is just around the corner. But something's here to threaten that peace: a big Roman building just sitting around with some fog inside.

But it doesn't just sit there, oh no. It spits out bloodthirsty evildoers from a fantasy world, too. Orcs with hammers, gladiators, pigs that roll up like Sonic the Hedgehog.

And dragons, also.

When our protagonist wakes up and smells the chaos, he comes to a frightening conclusion: that if these fantasy characters don't stop hurling clubs at citizens, the doujin hall...

So he does some actual good stuff. He reaches out to people and gets them out of trouble, and he intervenes in a battle between a gladiator guy and a cop-looking member of the Special Defense Force. Intervenes by trapping the warrior in an expert lock. And then later, when the force is making an organized effort to brutally gun down all the mysterious fantasy characters they can...

Really? You couldn't maybe try to...tranquilize them...first? No?

...Itami has no choice but to follow all the other citizens into shelte

REALLY? REALLY, REALLY!?

Well I mean, after getting inexplicably buddy-buddy with the SDF and exchanging combat information with them, at least he's gotta return to civilian li

WHAT, WHAT, WHAT –

NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It's around here that the show tells us – about five years too late, I say – that Tommy was actually a member of the SDF all along. He was just in plainclothes for the doujinshi exhibition! Aww, you got me, anime! Also, Tom-Tom's upset 'cause his promotion didn't fix the fact that he didn't get any doujinshi.

Also hugs and rubs his friend Murata, who, in a daringly progressive move, immediately complains about how gross Itami is for being so gay.

The guy watching them run is not gay, though.

A few days later, the area beyond the big Roman building – the sprawling unexplored fantasy land – is declared a special region of Japan, probably because officials are dry and have no imagination. Frightened by this new danger, they promptly built a big metal dome around it and simply dubbed it "Gate." And now, months later, Itami is finally traveling with a huge expedition, complete with dramatic opera music, into "Gate!" What will they find there?

Turn up your brightness to find out!

The next episode preview promises two armies, but when I see those credits roll, I know what this anime's really all about:

aaaaaaaaw yeeeeehhhhhh