>>120924363The problem with Gadget isn't the character, it's that every adaptation since the original series mistakes him being soft and childlike for being a braindead idiot.
Gadget is a French character whose animation was all done in Japan (possibly even by Lupin animators that signed in when it was still going to be a Lupin III spin-off), and it shows. He goes through serious detective plots with childlike wonderment and optimism, he's an indestructive swiss knife weapon of mass destruction who doesn't have a violent or serious gear in his body for anything other than protecting Penny when she's in actual danger.
He's nonchalant when goons try to kill him, he blushes like five times per episode, he's a slapstick magnet with a big heart.
He's Inspector Clouseau with a dash of single dad Goofy, Luigi and Robocop. He really should be a more popular character.
He has this childlike cutesyness that Americans wouldn't have thought to give him and is completely absent from every adaptation since then, which is why every Gadget adaptation since then makes him more and more of a dumb, unlikable idiot.
Gadget is great, it's just that he's been terribly mishandled.
