What are the criticisms of Gaim again? I know Baron's unclear motivations was one of them. And I remember people dicussing how the show had fake depth of characters?

Baron wanted to entertain people and gain street cred because he found Invess Battles and breakdancing boring
Kouta's sister, promotional filler wasting episodes, the suits, people thinking it was TOO dark

Well, if you've got an hour or so...

But less detailed (keep in mind I don't actually agree with a lot of these anymore, but it's how I used to feel):

- Seriously, screw Kaito
- Sagara is even worse
- Character growth is there, but strangely stunted a lot of the time
- Characters can be kind of one-note sometimes
- It's kind of pretentious (though some of that is on the more... zealous fans)
- Poor Yoko
- Demushu and Redue are Saturday morning cartoon villains
- Everybody is kind of an idiot (except Mai)
- Ryoma is made to seem like some kind of puppet-master even though all these other idiots are extremely easy to manipulate
- It wasn't anywhere near as well planned out as it wants you to think it is

...and that's all I can think of right now? It's probably for the best. I think criticizing Gaim is punishable by law or something. :p

My biggest gripe with Gaim was the second episode having Kouta's sister say "If you're not helping others then it's not a REEEEEEEEAAL JOB" Comedians? Youtubers? Not REEEEAAAAL jobs. Game developers? Actors? False and homosexual jobs. It's not like Gaim is a tv show, y'know, part of the ENTERTAINMENT industry. It's like if the Dr. Strange movie would constantly treat their fans like 'an anime fan on prom night'

1. It was episode 3.

2. The real problem is that it's a "great power, great responsibility" speech that comes after Kouta gave one to himself in episode 2, and it was stupid of the show to think it needed another one.

3. She's not saying you have to put on a suit and go work at McDonalds. She's saying Kouta should maybe not treat the shady, gambling-esque, underground "sport" of the Inves Game as a stable source of income.

4. Akira is a great supporting character and I'm sure she would totally support Kouta's secret dream to become an actor and star in a superhero Tokusatsu show (or whatever).

I think that scene was the earliest thing I ever disagreed with the rest of the fandom on about Gaim (though ironically I'm the one with the positive outlook here). It's got problems, but a lot of people seemed to miss the point of it completely, which is understandable, given how poorly executed it is.

Thing is, I'm a gal who looks at the execution, not the concept. If you have a good message but fuck up the delivery of that message, you get 'REEEEEEEEEEAL JOOOOOOOOBS'. Now, had she said something like "I'm not taking that money, It's gambling money, and *insert gambling is wrong speech*" then it'd be completely fine, especially because gambling is illegal in Japan iirc, so not only does the message come across less as being a fucking moron, but it actually makes a better point

How much of that was on the translator's translation over the original Japanese?

Actually, I think that is exactly what she said to start the speech. But don't get me wrong, it's a dumb scene, and I totally agree the execution is crap, but I still think a chunk of the fandom misunderstood the actual words being said, and not just the words the script was going for.

I watched TV-Nihon subs then (heresy, I know) so most likely original Japanese