This is the appetizer that reminds you Gatchaman Crowds never fought monsters so much as it fought the internet. Before Insight proper starts asking what happens when everyone gets a vote, Inbound sits you back down in Tachikawa with the crew you already argued about: Hajime and her scissors and her notebook full of collage-brained optimism, Rui Ninomiya's GALAX and the CROWDS he handed to strangers, Sugane still trying to do everything by the rules, O.D. and Paiman and Utsutsu holding the room together. Season one ended with Berg-Katze proving a crowd can be weaponized by one loud voice, and this episode zero exists precisely so that scar is fresh when the new arc opens. It is franchise housekeeping done with actual style, in that neon-flat, UI-obsessed Nakamura look nobody else was making in 2013. Watch it right before episode one, then watch how fast the show stops being about aliens.

Inbound is episode zero of Gatchaman Crowds insight, a single sci-fi adventure episode released online in 2015. It streamed on Hulu ahead of the broadcast of the main insight series. It belongs to the Gatchaman Crowds franchise, whose first season centers on Gatchaman, warriors who fight in reinforced suits powered by NOTE, a manifestation of special spiritual powers.