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gremoria411 · 3 months ago

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*The following contains spoilers for Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance*

This is a follow-up post to my earlier one covering the first two episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance. I’ll link it here but I’ll probably be covering a lot of the same points

I’m also going to completely give the game away right now: I don’t find Requiem for Vengeance to be a good show. Probably the nicest thing I could say is that that the designs are nice. It has some good ideas, it just really mangles the execution.

A lot of these are notes I made as I was watching the episodes, and I specifically rewatched episodes 4 and 6, because I’ve got a lot to say about them relative to everything else.

Characters

Is the only reason they made Iria a mother so they could justify her empathy towards the enemy pilot!? Like motherhood isn’t a necessary component of caring about other humans. You can just do that.

Follow-up: Iria doesn’t really express much affection towards her actual flesh-and-blood child during the show. He’s presumably in Zeon somewhere, but he never appears except in photograph. But her actions at the end of the show….. really don’t help.

Major Ronnay’s odd. Because he kinda feels like the only sensible character/the only character who’s aware of the wider situation - the war’s starting to turn against Zeon, and shifting to shepherding his resources to compensate for disrupted supply lines feels like a good decision at this point, not picking fights with the Earth federation’s newest prototype. Ronnay also marshalls the group’s evacuation from Earth. Yeah, he’s mean to the protagonists, but he’s under a lot of stress and he’s in charge of a worsening was situation. It’s just quite odd to see the only character who indicates a wider understanding of the conflict presented so negatively. That said, it’s not like he’s really immune to the bad acting and dialogue. When talking about dead civilians in episode 4, he sounds more bothered that they died for something so measly, as opposed to the fact that they were innocent people caught up in a war that had nothing to do with them.

I really don’t like Captain Zydoss. He kinda just exists to verbally explain other characters backstories, or to tell other characters that they’re in the right. There’s no real character here. Man straight-up says: “Those soldiers? They were just doing their jobs.” That is not a line I’m really enthused about hearing in a show like this, because it makes me question what the fuck the writers were trying to say here.

I kinda already made a post about this, but I really don’t like Yuri Kellerne in this. The design’s awful, he only shows up to say to the viewers “Yeah, Iria was right, also she’s a cool dude who doesn’t afraid of anything”. He doesn’t really do anything, and it just feels like a “see 08th MS team fans, it’s that character you like!”.

To be honest, I didn’t really have strong opinions on the other characters. There just isn’t a lot there to care about honestly.

Story

Okay, so “War is Hell” just isn’t a theme here. That’s kinda the main problem. There’s no real attempt to humanise the Earth Federation or present them as anything other than largely faceless. I’ve noted before that “War is Hell” is kinda the main thing that makes Gundam work in my opinion, because it’s really noticeable if it isn’t there. It’s just a very by-the-numbers military series. There’s no real “hook” or idea that it’s putting forward. It might’ve helped if Iria’s squad mates had been better characterised, so there’d be a sense of them having actual plans beyond the war. But, ultimately, they die because of the federation’s new mobile suit - not because war is an ultimately horrifying and tragic thing. The presentation just doesn’t line up for me at all.

I do think the emphasis on the watch is good, because it emphasises that time is running out for Zeon. But it never really comes up again after the first two episodes.

The voice work really brings it down, because there’s just no way for the scenes to have any real gravitas or impact when the voices are this poor.

I think another problem is that the opening episode(s) with the Gundam sell it as a threat too well - it effortlessly wiped out Iria’s entire team, as well as numerous other Zaku’s that challenge it while Iria’s scrambling around in recovery. It shrugs off machineguns, bazooka’s, a fuel tanker…… so any attempts by Iria to bring the fight to it just feels utterly stupid, because there’s no real reason it shouldn’t just wipe out another two Zaku’s. The fight in episode 4 is particularly obvious - the Gundam just slowly approaches, it’s doesn’t exhibit any of its trademark speed and never presses the advantage. There’s never a sense that any damage dealt to it is “earned”, it just takes a hit because the plot demands it.

Okay, the dress turning to blood thing was ambitious, and if it had worked would’ve been really cool. But fabric and liquid are hard to animate at the best of times, so one to the other in a show like this was never going to pan out.

You can really tell this was made by former transformers alumni. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, just some of the shots are very transformers-esque.

Wait, doesn’t Iria’s comment about not shooting disembarking pilots directly contradict the actions of the federation forces earlier in the show? Also didn’t she just tell her squadmate to kill him? Oh, getting out of his mobile suit and trying to escape in order to come back in a fresh suit? Oh well, it just wouldn’t be sporting to kill him now, better let him go.

“I wasn’t aiming to take out the pilot! This is our best chance to take out the Gundam!” “At what price, lieutenant?” I dunno, two enemy combatants that were just trying to kill you? And have killed your allies? In a warzone? Seems like an odd time to develop a conscience, Iria. It’s not necessarily off-brand for Gundam, but it’s just so hackneyed. Iria recognises the Gm pilot and later the Gundam pilot as human exclusively, but the infantry and tank gunners were apparently fair game.

Follow-up: Iria also randomly spares a Guntank in episode 6. A Guntank that could very easily shoot down Zeon HLV’s that Iria is currently defending. I feel like that was unwise.

To be clear here, I’m not criticising the decision to have Iria spare characters, I’m criticising the decision to present it in this way - it causes Iria to come off as hypocritical and careless to ignore active threats, and the rationale of why she’s sparing them never comes up.

The URMC guy helps the cast attack the enemy (such as in episode 4). Doesn’t that kinda spit in the face of his neutrality?

Oh hey, I was so busy talking about the poor character writing that I almost forgot to mention the false flag operation. Y’know, that thing that is illegal under wartime law? That the characters commit when they dress up as Federation forces in order to steal the GMs? Yeah, that. Like, I know it’s par for the course in shows like this (like 0080), but it still feels odd to see it presented in such a heroic fashion. It just would’ve felt better if the characters had acknowledged that it was a sketchy/desperate thing to do (like 0080), rather than playing it completely straight.

It kinda feels like they came up with the title first, and then introduced elements to fit with it - Iria being a violinist just feels very vestigial, and vengeance…… either isn’t a theme or it’s badly executed enough that I didn’t notice it (characters talk about it a lot, but not to any real purpose).

Okay, the combination of character animation, voice work dialogue and the fact that Iria probably has a concussion makes the fact that Iria decides to pilot her Zaku in episode 6 (unintentionally) really funny. Because she’s giving this big dramatic speech with swelling music, but it genuinely just feels like this is the shock and concussion talking, so I just expect her to step on to the truck and fall flat on her face.

We can swear now, great, good for us. That isn’t an excuse for the dialogue to be as bad as it is.

Alright, I fully fell off on episode 6. I’m sorry, it crosses the line from plain old regular bad to hilariously bad for me. It’s like the hyper-realistic faces coupled with the absolutely terrible animation and voice acting just blends together into something completely farcical.

“Machineguns are not effective, aim for the treads” *continues firing*. Also, did they just forget that guntanks have missile launchers?

There’s kind of no real sense of flow to the fights either. Everything moves as fast as it needs to. Stopping stock-still in the middle of a combat zone is a death sentence, so it’s really noticeable how frequently Requiem for Vengeance stops fights so its characters can have dramatic conversations. This is very, very noticeable in episode 6.

Wait hang on. Iria: “The Earth Federation’s Won, We’re just trying to retreat, please let us go” Gundam Pilot: “Then surrender, if we let you terrorists go you’ll just attack us again later” Iria then proceeds to not surrender. Furthermore, Zeon is withdrawing military personnel and war material like mobile suits, which they will use against the Earth Federation in the last months of the war. Isn’t the Gundam pilot completely in the right here? But the presentation of the scene seems to be trying to put Iria in the right. But what the Gundam pilot’s saying is correct. Zeon did start the war, and will continue attacking the Earth. So it feels like the narrative is presenting the Gundam pilot as being in the wrong simply by their nature as a child soldier thrust into this war. They didn’t have a choice, they need Iria (who’s a mother, by the way) to tell them they have a choice. The narrative places the fact that they’re a mother and child over the fact that they share a common humanity. It’s such a stupid choice.

“Zeon forces were driven completely out of Europe and Asia” that’s a funny way of saying “we were driven off the entire Earth”.

Other stuff (mostly Setting and Visuals)

I do like the little Zaku ears, they’re nice.

So why is the character covered in highly identifiable Zeon tattoos considered for an infiltration? Just a note.

The mobile suits are pretty dang gorgeous.

The Gundam pilot has a Nintendo switch.

Sooooo…… no mention of why they’re going to Odessa? No reason that might be relevant to anything?

I will probably do a small post on Loum. Because this is gonna annoy me.

Can the Gouf’s fly in this? It’s really throwing me. Because they shouldn’t be able to, but it looks really cool? Maybe they just didn’t want to model Gouf flight types.

Yes, Requiem for Vengeance, I enjoyed the Gouf Custom in 08th MS team as well. Can I please have literally any other mobile suit. (Yeah, it’s cool, but it’s not cool enough to carry your entire show).

Follow-up: it feels like the writers wanted to emphasise that the Gouf Custom in 08th ms team could totally have beaten the Gundam if it had needed to. Like yeah, but that’s not important. The point of that scene (in 08th Ms Team) isn’t some kind of dick-measuring of mobile suits, it’s to emphasise Norris Packard’s character and skill, that he made those decisions in service to the wider objective (and to iterate on Ramba Ral and Amuro’s relationship from 0079). It’s not there to demonstrate how strong the Gouf is. I mean, yeah they want you to buy the models, but come on.

In case the ratio of criticism-to-praise above didn’t give it away, I really didn’t like Requiem for Vengeance. It just fails to engage with the theme I consider central to Gundam: “War is hell”. It also doesn’t really humanise any of the opposing side, which while not a deal-breaker, certainly doesn’t help its position. There just really isn’t a lot of character on display here, so there’s little to distract from the bad dialogue, stiff animation and near-comedically poor line deliveries. The human animation and writing really kill the series for me, since they just cripple the shows ability to deliver any kind of impact on its points. Then again, when its points are “The Earth Federation is just SO MEAN you guys”, it’s probably best the delivery’s as poor as it is. I don’t really know what the shows trying to say but it certainly doesn’t seem to be “War is bad”.

It feels like the writers were able to grasp gundam’s thesis of “child soldiers are bad”, but took that to be “people who use child soldiers are bad”, not “the circumstances that war creates will eventually cause children to take up arms for a cause they don’t fully understand, leaving them to have short miserable live of perpetuating the harm they have suffered upon others, as just one part of the horror that war visits upon its victims”. This is emphasised by the ending, which is pretty shit. Despite the opportunity to return home and retire, like multiple other Zeon aces did. Iria instead fucks off and joins the Zeon remnant in Africa, while stating that many of the other soldiers there “don’t have a home to return to, are consumed by hatred or yearning only for a glorious death on the battlefeild”. THEN WHY ARE YOU THERE. Why are you perpetuating the conflict by throwing in with remnant groups? How the hell is this supposed to prevent child soldiers from happening? Go home.

Plus, the way Zeon’s presented here seems kind of…… dishonest. Like it’s not incorrect or canon-breaking, it just seems to skirt around a lot of details in order to paint Zeon as, for want of a better term, “less evil”. So, we have characters mention The Battle of Loum, without mentioning what Loum was. We have characters note the worsening war situation, without engaging with why Zeon’s on the back foot. The characters retreat back up into space, but it isn’t stated what they’re retreating from. You’d expect someone to mention the actual wider war situation. I know they’re soldiers, and they’re likely fed a steady diet of Zeon propaganda - but then why not let us see that propaganda, note how the characters engage with it. Do they agree, disagree? Do they take it as gospel, accept that the principality is covering up some things or rage that it’s blatant lies? How does Zeon, the nation, its leaders and its governance affect these characters? The choice to completely ignore it seems wrongheaded and, as above, dishonest. There’s no hint of Zeon’s fractious command structure here, that the upper brass are too consumed by infighting to heed the wider war situation. There’s no mention of Garma Zabi, late commander of the Earth Attack Force, who presumably the characters would have a lot of opinions on. Requiem for Vengeance doesn’t exactly paper over Zeon’s failings, it just doesn’t mention them. I find it interesting that of the “big three” Zeon Earth Commanders (Garma Zabi, Yuri Kellerne, and M’Quve) we only see Yuri, who’s arguably the softest of the three. Like, M’Quve is right there, you guys. There’s even a Tony Takezaki illustration that could be used as a basis to adapt his design to the new style:

And M’Quve would have been the perfect opportunity to showcase Zeon’s fractious upper command. So his omission just feels glaring (much like the illustration). Major Ronnay’s perhaps the closest to being a member of Zeon High Command, but he’s essentially the stock “Commander whose orders the protagonist disregards” archetype. I *could* describe him as the most humanised out of the cast, but that feels like I’m reaching. There is Joshua Stein (the commander in the first episode, who originally calls the Red Wolves in), but he feels more genuinely incompetent, rather than saying anything meaningful about Zeon as a whole - his failings are more personal, rather than symptoms of a wider problem with Zeon Command (and in any case he’s only got around three scenes, so it’s difficult to glean anything from him).

Slight follow-up, but we’re also not told anything about the Battle of Odessa. I noted in my posts in the run-up to the release of Requiem for Vengeance that it takes place shortly before the Battle of Odessa, which was the big turnaround for Zeon’s fortunes on Earth, leading to a mass retreat back up into space. This is a *big thing* in the wider war, because it is where the Federation finally gets its momentum (and mobile suits) going and essentially forces Zeon into the back foot, a position they never really recover from. For all the series loves to bang on about Loum, it never mentions Odessa. Part of this is excusable - Zeon would likely downplay its loss as Odessa to keep morale high, and the characters may not have received accurate reports yet, but I’d just like someone to mention it - “seems Odessa didn’t go to plan” or just something like that. Because it’s the whole reason they’re retreating in the last few episodes and no-one says anything.

I’d ordinarily be pretty easy on the whole “Zeon’s War for Independence” thing, since it’s an example of how the populace of Zeon was motivated to fight, but it’s a lie. It’s a lie told to justify the One Year War (and subsequent acts of spacenoid aggression). Like, there’s no problem with the characters believing the lie, but presenting it completely straight feels off. Like, if there was just one instance where it was acknowledged that maybe we shouldn’t trust the motivation of the guys who declared war and dress like space nazi’s, then cool, but the series doubles down on this impression by Iria’s statement at the end that the war didn’t really end as far as she’s concerned. Again, no problem with Iria believing that, by all accounts that’s how a lot of Zeon Remnant Groups saw the situation but it just reads oddly when talking about the One Year War. It kinda makes the series feel like in-universe propaganda or revisionist history, because at no point does it acknowledge that maybe Iria isn’t that reliable of a narrator.

Iria: “and so, to prevent more children from becoming child soldiers, I became a deadbeat mom.”

So yeah, Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance - the mechanical design and opening’s pretty nice, but they really can’t carry the rest of the show and over time the dull plot, uninteresting characters and awful voice acting really just sap away any initial goodwill I possessed. The fact that it seems utterly unwilling to engage with *why* the war happened and *why* Zeon lost is particularly irritating, since (by its nature as a Zeon-focused show) it’s in the perfect position to talk about those questions.

#kicking this out the door because I’ve been working on it way too long #Wanted to do a comparison with Gundam IGLOO but I didn’t want it to take any longer than it has #Its one of those topics where I’m consistently like - and another thing -#gundam #ramblings #long post #Mobile Suit Gundam Requiem for Vengeance #gundam requiem for vengeance #requiem for vengeance #iria solari #mobile suit gundam #One Year War #Shout-out to that one article I saw that suggested requiem for vengeance might be better than Igloo

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by-ethan-fox · 10 months ago

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So I saw Gundam Seed FREEDOM...

... and honestly it defies analysis.

I will avoid spoilers for major plot elements in this write-up.

I'm a huge Gundam fan. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has followed my work for a long time, as I frequently bring it up, even in entirely inapplicable situations.

But even though I've been a fan since the late 90s, I'd never had a chance to see any of it in the cinema - so when AllTheAnime organised a special short run of the movie for UK theatres, I jumped at the chance.

What I saw surprised me.

To clarify, I'm not one of those Gundam fans who hates SEED. Sure, I love the UC, but I'm not gonna lie, Wing was my genesis within the fandom so I'm as likely to watch G-Gundam as 08th MS Team, though I do lean towards the grittier side of the franchise, with War in the Pocket being my favourite entry.

But most relevant to this is that while I enjoyed SEED, I've always been critical of Destiny for some really bizarre plotting that, frankly, kinda left the CE timeline in a mess. Like many fans, with the show having been off the air for nearly two decades, I gave up on the idea the movie might exist literally years ago.

With all that out of the way...

The movie does exist. Finally. And is it good? Bad?

The weird thing is I don't know what to say, and that's weird for a writer.

It's awesome. It's terrible. It's goofy. It's clever. It's idiotic. It's bizarre.

But it's over 2 hours long and, honestly, I was never bored, which I guess is a success?

Perhaps most surprisingly, the movie expends ZERO ENERGY on helping you if you haven't seen the near-100-episodes of CE anime which came before this. Like, if you haven't seen SEED and or Destiny, you are just utterly fucked. The show wheels characters and plot-beats from the prior material in-and-out in a manner I could best call aggressive. I last watched Destiny about ~7 years ago, and I'm a self-admitted Gundam nerd; but even I had to look up a few things on my phone afterwards.

Then, fan-service. Of both kinds. All sorts of things get pulled out of cold storage for the movie... But it works. Though that also stands as a testament to how this is, in the truest sense, a 2004 anime throwback. I actually heard some people in the cinema groaning at some of the Gainax Bouncing going on; but then given the jiggly silhouette in EVERY OPENING TO SEED, frankly it would've been stranger if it had been absent.

I think the movie has loads of problems. Even by CE standards, some of the storytelling was really goofy and dare-I-say-it, "cringe". It recycles probably too much and certainly doesn't stand on its own as a piece of media (though that's not so much a failing as a clear, conscious choice).

Also... It has that "anime movie" thing where the plot feels a bit filler. The first time you have this new guy on the scene with shock-white hair, being all edgelord as he talks about war and destiny and fencing or some other weird metaphor you kinda see the entire movie unfurl before you. If you're a longtime anime fan this isn't so much your first rodeo as your daily commute.

From there, the story takes numerous predictable turns, dips liberally into melodrama, sets up some great Mobile Suit fights, with relatively few surprises (note, however, I'm not saying "no surprises", as there are some, and also, I'm not suggesting it's tedious).

And yet...

It's fun.

It's really, really fun.

That's the crux of all this. That's what really matters. And honestly, when that new theme comes out of the speakers, sounding in perfect key with the types of music that ran through SEED's run, and Kira's onscreen, and he's locking onto a dozen targets and beams are spamming everywhere and everything's exploding in that weird pink way that things in SEED explode...

Have you ever tried to play a videogame from the 90s that you haven't played in years? And do you know how touch-and-go that is?

Gundam Seed FREEDOM is, if I'm to compare it to anything, like that.

But thankfully, it's one of the times when your memories might have been optimistic, but they're not wrong. That game may be a bit crude, a bit rough around the edges, and have more boob and ass jiggle than you recall... But it's good. So good that you find yourself sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of your console, grinning like an absolute loon, until it's 2am and you can no longer feel your feet.

If you have fond memories of the SEED era of the Gundam franchise, don't miss it.

#featuretag #Gundam #gundam seed #gundam seed freedom #gundam seed destiny #anime

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wordsandrobots · 2 years ago

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This is not in response to anybody in particular but I’m going to be grumpy and pedantic for a moment (I’m in a mood this week, sorry).

Throughout the Gundam franchise, far more major stories end on ‘hopeful’ terms than do not. This is entirely reasonable because hopeful endings are oftentimes more broadly appealing and therefore more saleable. Working shown below, but my point is that liking the qualities in a particular ending is distinct from categorising it. Whether something executes a ‘hopeful ending’ with technical competence or to your liking are important questions, but the truth is, few Gundam shows are totally bleak. A lot of them would probably hit harder if they were, but that isn’t the kind of product they are. I don’t even say that as a value judgement; it’s simply a consequence of what they are and the many, occasionally competing influences upon them.

I suspect this is one of those places where the franchise’s reputation is clashing with the reality, which is why I felt it necessary to write this out. Similar to earlier comments regarding the body-counts in various series, from what I can gather, the . . . let’s say, utter grim and bloodiness is largely restricted to particular iterations (Zeta, Pocket etc.). Again, that’s not me saying ‘that’s bad’ (or even ‘that’s good’). It’s simply a facet of the general tone of the thing.

This isn’t Blake’s 7 or, I dunno, some more culturally up-to-date reference to something that ends horribly my brain is too frazzled to produce. Gundam is more often ‘hope emerging from adversity’ than it is not.

SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT. AS IN, END-OF-THE-SHOW SPOILERS.

I’ve cludged a couple of the movies together with the series where I think it’s funnier to give the filmic endings, but the endings of those particular series don’t go against the trend. Some of the ones I don’t list are more ‘neutral good’ endings than actively hopeful, too, so it’s not like everything not here is automatically hopeless. (Gosh, it’s handy having all these typed up in list form already; usual caveat that I haven’t watched Victory.)

(Also, the IBO part features me going off on one because of course it does. Again, sorry.)

Mobile Suit Gundam (1979): the crew of the White Base reunites as the war finally comes to a close; it is both a happy ending and one that points towards their capacity to be/become newtypes.

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986): Judau and co head into new lives with (some) maturity and responsibilities. Even prior to that, it takes the route of a triumphant recapitulation of Zeta’s explicitly harsh ending.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988): Char’s cynicism is disproved, the rock is moved, the sky literally lights up with the power of the human heart.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994): the power of love defeats the Devil. In space!

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing/Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (1995/1997): peace is restored, the weapons are discarded, Heero finally gets to rest.

After War Gundam X (1996): the entire philosophical underpinning of the UC timeline is ejected in favour of working together to restore the Earth.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1996): star-crossed lovers ditch the war entirely to live together off the grid.

Turn A Gundam (1999): a new understanding between the Moon and Earth is made possible; Loren and Diana settle down into queerplatonic domesticity.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002): The war is ended, the mega weapons are busted, Kira and Athrun part on speaking terms.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Destiny (2004): Ditto.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00/Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer (2007/2010): Setsuna (the world’s least people person) becomes a vector for understanding between species; humanity journeys to the stars.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Unicorn (2010): A broadly positive resolution despite the losses; Amuro, Lallah and Char fly off into eternity together because . . . sure.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (2011): The Earth and Mars make peace and work towards recovery, the family is reunited, and Flit is remembered as a unifier.

Gundam Reconguista in G (2014): Bellri ditches his responsibilities for a world tour, also everything else finally calms down a bit.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (2015): For goodness sake, this series ends hopefully. You can problematise the heck out of some of the things we’re shown but if you don’t see the survivors of Tekkadan getting to grow up and (by and large) live peaceful lives as a hopeful ending, I genuinely question your understanding of the term. Hope gained at cost is still hope, hope tinted with bittersweetness is still hope, hope alongside tragedy is still hope.

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (2018): Most everyone dies but even so. There are still things to live for and both living and dead find peace.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway (2021): Mafty gets away with it by the skin of their teeth; yes I am aware where the rest of the story goes but this film ends unquestionably upbeat.

Mobile Suit Gundam the Witch from Mercury (2022): Not actually an outlier on this particular score.

#GUNDAM #endings #tone #franchise #hopefulness #loosely defined here as #'a better future is possible'

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iconthe7 · 2 years ago

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[SPOILER] IMO in the 08th ms Team Yuri Kellerne didn’t really deserve to die (unless I missed something) he never did anything bad and treated the men under his command well just seemed like a standard zeon general… well at least ginias got what he deserved

#gundam #08th ms team #discussion #anime #retro anime

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winterking975 · 7 months ago

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Wow. So back a while ago I said I was gonna check out The 08th MS Team for my first dip into Gundam as an anime. And I gotta tell ya. One episode in and just like my recent experience with Kamen Rider 01, I’m hooked.

Here are some of my personal takeaways from episode 1. So spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet.

1. I could tell this anime was made way back in the day, not just because of the style. But also because somebody said fag as a derogatory insult and nobody batted an eye within the first few minutes of the anime beginning.

2. Something tells me I’m going to fall in love with every member of this team.

3. Sanders reminds me of Mitsuru Kiruda from Space Pirate Captain Harlock in a way. Probably the same VA but I definitely get some of his vibe from him.

4. Whoever was in the studio making the background music, especially after Shiro and Aina set off those fireworks and they begin drifting together in space. They smashed it. Just. Top tier.

I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the episodes!

#gundam #08th ms team #anime

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lichlordpinkerton · 1 year ago

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This is also an immensely frustrating take because it misses the point of the power dynamic. Sulletta is a great pilot, yeah, but the Aerial by the end of S1 is the second best mobile suit (both UC and non) ever and becomes unquestionably the best by the end of S2.

Also importantly, the show would be significantly worse if Aerial wasn't busted. I'm not like, a gundam historian but I'll try to explain (huge spoilers below cut).

Something incredibly important about this show I don't see mentioned much is that it's an entirely new universe outside of other ones, same as 00 (OP based for watching btw). There is no Victory Gundam, no TurnA, no Psycho Frames, and no Unicorn. For so long the power scaling has been made in such a way that hardware makes the machines better and pilots are good but you don't *have* to be a newtype to be an Ace. Even in non-UC you see a lot of mobile suits that are just bigger and louder to sell kits. And while the Aerial does have new hardware that makes it powerful (the drones, my behated), the real power comes from Ericht and human will.

It was an incredibly bold move to nullify all future power scaling by saying "the best pilot to ever live was a 4-year old who is now haunting this machine" and I am all for it. One of my favorite scenes in all of Gundam is the 08th MS Team Gouf fight because it shows that your suit can be terrible and if the pilot's skill and will is high enough it is monstrous. By extension, as Suletta and the Aerial grow together they become more and more powerful until you get the ending two episodes of S2. And that's it! You're never gonna beat Aerial once she becomes the machine god! The metanarrative has defined that the way you make a mobile suit be the best is by sticking two autistic women in there and that so perfectly fits the themes of the Gundam Curse as an allegory for fanon. No matter how big you build the suit, no matter what convoluted way you have to make it 2% faster, no matter how much death it can theoretically cause, there is now a cap and it makes established fans pissed. I'll admit I was too before the end of the season, but on rewatch I get it now and wouldn't change it for anything. The thesis statement of the Aerial is "Human spirit has been and always will be what makes the best suits," and they chose to prove it with Suletta.

Sulleta is strong, a quick thinker, and overall a very good pilot. However, she's also one of the most immature and sensitive protagonists in the series; this gal could kick my ass but needs someone else to ask the cashier for a ketchup packet. But she has so much faith and trust and sheer will that unlocked Aerial's actually infinite potential. That's part of the reason I think people dislike her so much (besides the whole queer disabled POC thing) is she doesn't fit the standard emotional profile for the very good pilot's. She's not a Banagher Links, an Io Fleming, and certainly not an Amuro Ray. And I don't think she could 1v1 beat any of them S1. The Aerial in autopilot (kinda a misnomer) destroys them no questions asked. She needs the Aerial, the representation of humanity and force of will and healing to get there.

Aerial is the best Gundam in the series but is useless if the pilot doesn't have a strong enough will. By S2 it can self-pilot, but only becomes the machine god once Suletta's will connects with it. By contrast, Suletta is a fine to good pilot with a big heart and a mobile suit that amplifies that to the point of absurdity. The Gundam Curse as an allegory requires the Aerial to be the capstone, and more importantly requires the pilot to not be the best.

So im in a Gundam discord so I could talk about 00 as I watch it and then I go into the spoilers chat to talk about episode 23 of 00 only to be greeted by THE WORST FUCKING WITCH FROM MERCURY TAKE IVE SEEN IN MY LIFE

#witch from mercury #gundam #g witch #anime #analysis #ramblings #i tried my best here but I'm not a gundam expert

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kaxtwenty · 15 days ago

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"A name is a very precious thing to have, no one can ever take it away from you." "And they never will again." "Everything's gonna be alright."

#mobile suit gundam #the 08th ms team #08th ms team #Gundam Ez8 #Apsalus III #felt rather “normal” until the last two episodes #at which point I knew I was watching Gundam again #for the freaks and yearners Gundam shall forever belong to #08th ms team spoilers #me rambles

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dangus-doo · 2 years ago

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I draw a pen doodle every day until I forget

Day 116: MS-07B3 Gouf Custom (Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th M.S. Team)

So I’m almost finished with the 08th MS team, and I. LOVE. The Gouf Custom. I love that it has voice commands, I love it’s giant black sword, and it’s cool finger shield. I hope it gets to do more than shoot guntanks! (No Spoilers Please!)

#pen and paper #drawing every day #drawing exercise #penandink #mobile suit gundam #ballpointart #ballpen #the 08 Ms team #universal century #gundam #mobile suit gundam the 08 Ms Team #gouf custom #gouf #gundam art

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fostersffff · 3 years ago

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The Big Gundam Watch, Part 5: Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

After a short break, I’ve returned to my Big Gundam Watch project with Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, a 7 episode OVA series that released its first episode 22 years- to the day!- after Char’s Counterattack.

I mentioned at the end of my post on Char’s Counterattack that I decided to skip past all the Universal Century side stories like War in the Pocket and The 08th MS Team, as well as alternate settings like Wing and 00 for the time being so I could get caught up to Hathaway, which as of this post is the newest entry in the franchise. That’s not to say that I was just watching Unicorn to get it out of the way; in fact, before I decided to go all-in on Gundam, I considered testing the waters by watching Unicorn first, because of how well regarded it is and its relatively short length.

In hindsight, that would have been a tremendous mistake, because a lot of what makes Unicorn so good is how intimately it builds on the stories that came before it- specifically Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, and Char’s Counterattack- to provide what I would consider to be the perfect ending to the story of the Universal Century. And... although I just gave away my opinion of the series, we can still go through and break down what makes it so damn good.

THE STUFF I LIKED:

I adore that the central philosophical conflict of Unicorn is whether it’s better to languish in a stable but unfair status quo, or push for optimistic but uncertain change that will 100% threaten that stability, and that both the Federation and Zeon are technically on the same side of the conflict. I imagine there are some people who rolled their eyes at all the talk of “a god called possibility”, and it is a very melodramatic way of saying it, but as a result it’s also the most hopeful and uplifting conclusion that any of these stories have had yet.

I assumed, after Char’s Counterattack gave it nothing more than a brief nod, that Gundam ZZ was going to be treated like the red-headed stepchild of the Universal Century’s continuity. To my delight, Unicorn paid plenty of respect to my favorite original UC show, both by prominently featuring the Nahel Argama, and much more importantly, in the form of Marida Cruz, who’s easily one of the best characters in the series and one of my favorite kinds of characters: the ultra capable, singularly-focused, and devastatingly sympathetic woman who gets voiced by Tara Platt in the dub, while also being intricately connected to one of my other favorite characters in all of Gundam, Elpeo Ple.

Spoilers don’t bother me as much as they do some people, and going into Unicorn I already knew a couple of them, like how Full Frontal was a clone of Char, because of an ancient tumblr post talking about how ridiculous his name is, and halfway through Zeta I was 100% confident that the girl on the cover was going to turn out to be Mineva Zabi, if it was even going to be a secret at all. What I did not know, and was actually really bummed about getting spoiled on, was Marida being one of Ple’s clones, which I learned from- of all the fucking sources- a cryptocurrency meme.

At least it’s accurate.

Banagher Links is a Certified Good Boy™, second only to The Boy™ Amuro Ray himself. The arc of a dispassionate teenager who’s just kinda drifting through life being suddenly stricken with purpose, and overcoming adversity to adhere to that purpose and the beliefs he comes to develop is really fucking good and executed immaculately, culminating in him literally defeating nihilism to try to usher in a better tomorrow for the whole Universal Century.

I also love that Banagher is the first protagonist (I’ve seen) to rightfully talk shit about my mortal nemesis, Anaheim Electronics. You’re right dude, they did invent the mobile suit maintenance equivalent of USB to better facilitate their war profiteering!

Seeing Mineva Zabi come into her own as a character in Unicorn after existing mainly as a tragic background element and bargaining chip in Zeta and ZZ was an immensely satisfying payoff, and that’s only with me starting Gundam last year; I can’t imagine how fucking cool it must have been for longtime fans to see. The fact that she’s a great character in her own right- shifting from wanting to prevent war at all costs, at least partially due to the generational guilt of being a Zabi, to choosing to believe in and pursue a better future no matter the consequences- is icing on the cake.

MY MAN BRIGHT NOA reaping the benefits of his character development in ZZ so that every single time he’s on screen, he’s being the Hugest Man there’s ever been. I was also thrilled to see that his character design in Unicorn flawlessly bridges the gap between the TV shows and Char’s Counterattack, where he has very faint sclera and very dark brown eyes, so they’re not as cartoony as they were back in the day, but also not... wrong like they were in CCA.

Speaking of character designs: one of the things I noticed- and liked- about Unicorn was how the characters in this series look like they fit alongside characters from the original TV shows, rather than fitting in with design trends of the era it was made. Specifically, it was when I noticed how voluminous Micott’s hair is, and how you don’t really see that too often except when the designer is older, like Akira Toriyama designing Android 21 for Dragon Ball FighterZ. As it turns out, I was dead-on, because the character designer for Unicorn was Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, the original character designer for Mobile Suit Gundam! It’s a very refreshing return to form after Char’s Counterattack felt like it “standardized” all the characters, and as a result, it feels more special.

Full Frontal wound up being a very pleasant surprise. I had low expectations of the character based on the concept of “Char, again”, but they actually do the most interesting thing with that concept, where he’s less who Char actually was and more who Char presented himself as and what people believed he was. As a result, he’s a very different antagonist than the man in CCA, and a damn good one to boot.

Rapid fire character and group compliments because this segment is already too damn long!

The Nahel Argama crew are really well portrayed, where on the surface they appear to be as incompetent and heartless as any regular Federation military personnel we’ve seen before, but the more time spent with them the more they reveal that they are, in fact, actual multidimensional characters.

Same goes for Zinnerman and the Garencieres crew, where they’re the most fleshed out any Zeons have been since the original series. Also critical that they exist as survivors of the Federation military’s own war crimes, which have always been implied, but not explicitly detailed (unless you count the Titans, which I don’t since they were considered a separate faction).

I was surprised it took until Unicorn for a Charfucker to arrive in the Universal Century, in the form of Angelo. Despite not loving the character archetype of “subordinate who’s overly protective of and in love with their superior”, he gets a pass on account of the fact that he’s the first (Lalah and Quess don’t quite hit this same kind of archetype, but there are similarities).

Considering how often I complained about the way they were handled in the last three stories, I was glad to see Anaheim Electronics assume an explicitly antagonistic role, with Martha Vist Carbine being The Biggest Bitch In The Earth Sphere.

All the mobile suits and armors are great, top to bottom, and they do the thing I like where they don’t mix and match design elements so each side is distinctly Federation or Zeon, but I specifically want to talk about the Unicorn Gundam. This was the first time that my opinion on the titular mobile suit actually changed over time, going from “man this thing looks kinda lame” to “oh fuck I actually really love it”. It was specifically the shutdown sequence in Episode 2 where you see a clear, straight-on demonstration of each part as it goes from Destroy Mode back to Unicorn Mode that I started to appreciate it, especially in Unicorn Mode. I’m not crazy about the way modern mobile suit color schemes seem to have become more muted, sticking to one solid color instead of an assortment of accented pieces, but it makes thematic sense for the Unicorn.

Also, as someone who really loves the way shields are standard issue equipment in the Universal Century and the concept of bits/funnels/omnidirectional remote weapon systems, the Full Armor Unicorn having what are essentially shield bits is The Fucking Coolest.

One of the neat things about being an OVA series released over four years is that each episode has its own theme song, but the winner by a county mile is Episode 2′s Everlasting.

Starting with Unicorn, all of the English dubs for Universal Century stories have been done by the same studio- NYAV Post- and as such, I decided to switch over to English. It’s a solid dub through and through, but I want to give special kudos to Keith Silverstein as Full Frontal and Char and Ellyn Stern as Martha Vist Carbine. The two of them are perfectly cast as these characters, with Silverstein just feeling right in the way Steve Blum just was right for Spike Spiegel, and Ellyn Stern has the ultimate “old white businesswoman” voice, where she’s emphasizing the wrong words or wrong parts of words and constantly sounds like she needs more air, but despite that is still crushingly haughty and condescending.

Something I noticed about Gundam Unicorn is that, in addition to all the Universal Century stories that came before it, it also has the spirit of my (still) favorite Gundam story, Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Everything from the surface level comparisons like the main Gundam having a super mode activated by out-of-control emotions that is later harnessed into a much more effective one by reigning in and controlling those emotions, the final enemy mech being an absolutely titantic one with a smaller, regular mech as a head that can “infect” and manipulate others, and the protagonist being able to summon the Gundam by calling for it, to more thematic ones like the emphasis on the relationship between the main male and female character being critical to the narrative (Domon and Rain, Banagher and Mineva), the nihilism of the antagonist as a direct result of humanity’s actions (Master Asia realizing how fucked the Earth had become due to the Gundam Fight, Full Frontal coping with the fact that nothing changed after the Axis Shock), and the fact that the final enemy mech is literally defeated by the power of Human Emotion made manifest (love in G Gundam, hope in Unicorn). And of course, both series feature a unicorn!

THE STUFF I LIKED LESS:

Truth be told, it’s slim pickings for this section. Originally, I had a whole big, scathing segment written about how fucked it is in Episode 5 that Zinnerman calls his daughter’s name instead of Marida’s after she falls out of the Banshee’s cockpit, and that I thought it was bad writing- up to that point, Zinnerman had shown nothing but genuine concern for Marida herself, so it felt out-of-character and hackish for him to suddenly think of her as a replacement like that. But then no, it turns out that was actually setting up the next episode where Zinnerman is agonizing over whether to side with Full Frontal or Mineva, because he’s not completely able to let go of his anger towards the Federation, even after everything that happened at Torrington. It’s still a weaker story beat, one that might have been stronger if there were more scenes featuring Marida and Zinnerman interacting up to that point, and I still felt it spoiled the high-flying mood that the rest of the climax of Episode 5 had built up, but this is all much more mild criticism than I had planned.

Another mild, almost joke criticism: the scene where Micott says the insane line about knowing when other women are lying and Takuya remarking that even in 0096, women be shopping... that was kinda bizarrely funny when it clearly was not supposed to be. I get it- after the tense scene where Micott grills Mineva about how she didn’t actually do what she said she was going to do on Earth, the way Mineva handled Full Frontal gave Micott some measure of faith in her, but it’s still expressed in such a bizarre way.

Also, Mineva cut the ship’s intercom before telling Full Frontal the final coordinates, so Micott shouldn’t have even been able to hear her lie. I honestly probably would have never even noticed this continuity error if not for how ridiculous it is.

I enjoy most of the fanservice in this series, but there was one real groaner. When the Nahel Argama is being occupied, the Zeons remark about how weird it is that the Federation stores their mobile suits upright, and one of them goes “only people who’s souls are weighed down by gravity would do that!” Again, I get the sentiment- if gravity isn’t a consideration, it makes way more sense to lay them down while on standby, but don’t use that wording just to get the line in there. It’s like someone talking about the evils of capitalism because the price of their coffee went up by a dollar: they’re not necessarily wrong, but it’s an overblown response for the particular situation.

I do have two actual problem characters, at least in the way that the narrative ultimately winds up framing them: Alberto Vist and Riddhe Marcenes. It’s the same issue for both, in that they fall on the side of being good, but they never actually make up for being Tremendous Fucking Dirtbags.

It’s clear that Alberto has feelings for Marida, in no small part due to the fact that she saved him from being sucked out into space during Episode 3. He’s uncomfortable and conflicted about what Martha does to recondition her back into Ple-Twelve, and I got the sense that once Martha entrusted her to his care, he was going to subvert his aunt somehow, possibly by trying to get some kind of backdoor into her conditioning that would allow her to easily break free. Instead, the next time we see him, he’s working as her handler without a second thought, regularly patching in to reinforce his control over her and her Ple-Twelve identity. Worse yet, he tries to fucking hit on her, which is played off as comical because she’s been conditioned to only follow orders, but it just completely saps any goodwill Alberto may have had, especially when you consider her backstory. Worst of all, he does eventually subvert his aunt… in order to get Riddhe in the Banshee out to Industrial 7, with special instructions to recapture Marida so she can be reconditioned again, presumably this time into a waifu for him. At least he had the fucking decency to call her “Marida” in the end and not “Ple-Twelve”.

Also: I have literally never had this issue with a Gundam character before, but I could not remember Alberto’s name. I would get Alonso, Adolfo, Rudolfo, Arturo, but I regularly needed to consult something to remember “Alberto”. Even writing this I was thinking “am I sure it’s Alberto?”

Riddhe is actually one of my favorite kinds of antagonistic characters: the person who thinks he’s the protagonist of a story, and is then beaten down over and over with the fact that he isn’t until he snaps. It starts with him attempting to mad dog Mineva for being the Zabi heir, but she effortlessly and embarrassingly shuts him down. There’s also the incredibly cringe moment where he tells Bright not to treat him differently than the rest of the crew, only for My Man to sweep his leg by asking him why he’s assuming that he would get special treatment in the first place. After Mineva rejects his ultimate plan to just lock themselves in a room and spend the rest of their lives coddling each other while the world outside goes to hell, he goes full antagonist, dropping his Anime Protagonist Good Luck Charm and submitting to the Banshee’s NT-D so he has a shot at killing Banagher for cucking him on multiple levels. He does finally come to his senses and actually starts helping at the end... but the problem is, coming to his senses required him murdering Marida, and it sits wrong with me that no one seems to hold that against him.

You may notice both of these have to do with the treatment of Marida, and you would be right! While Marida ultimately gets a much more meaningful and appropriate send off than Ple or especially Ple-Two, I’m still upset that she died in service of character development for these two characters, who as a result are treated like good guys when they really aren’t, they just opted to do the right thing in the end. Plus, and maybe I’m looking at this aspect of it too deeply, but the fact that she seems so much more at peace after death is like… odd, almost like she felt it was her purpose to die. And maybe that is the intent of the narrative, because she is, objectively, a relic of the First Neo Zeon War, much in the same way Full Frontal is a relic, and in death she’s able to exist freely, warn everyone about the Colony Laser, and help guide both Mineva and Banagher on a more personal level. Again, I don’t really have issues with Marida’s role in the story at the end, it’s more just being a little salty about how my favorite characters keep fucking dying.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

We’ll begin this section with the BRAVO, SUNRISE KINO AWARDS for excellence in making me clap like a seal:

In the first episode, I took a screencap of Mineva eating a hot dog, because it was that classic bit of “girl with a high-class upbringing has never eaten junk food and is delighted by it”, but then I noticed there’s multiple scenes of Mineva eating, or about to eat. Like, maybe I’m the weirdo for noticing, but I thought it’s definitely also weird that they have a lavishly animated sequence where she makes herself a roast beef sandwich (see above). And then, in the process of writing that, I realized that the reason she makes it into a sandwich is because she’s thinking about Banagher, which makes her remember the hot dogs they ate on Industrial 7. She even holds it with the meat up like a hot dog! BRAVO, SUNRISE.

The first half of Episode 2 is almost beat-for-beat recreation of Episode 2 of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. It starts with one of the crew of the Nahel Argama saying that something is approaching them three times faster than any mobile suit could, it’s revealed to be a red mobile suit, comments about how absurdly powerful the Gundam’s armaments are compared to the standard issue, the Char smugly noting that the power doesn’t matter if they can’t hit him, and of course, THE BIG BOOT. But the really impressive part here isn’t that they did it, it’s that they did it and it didn’t feel hackish or uninspired, so BRAVO, SUNRISE.

I was writing a note about the scene in Episode 5 where the Unicorn Gundam first turns green, and the words I wrote were “when Banagher links the two ships” before I realized what I had just written and felt like I was about to explode. That led to a cascading realization that Banagher was both literally linking the Garencieres to the Nahel Argama and figuratively linking Zeon and the Federation, or more generally, spacenoids and earthnoids. He’s even being guided on one hand by the ghost of Daguza, and on the other by the ghost of Gilboa. Fucking BRAVO, SUNRISE.

The restraint involved in not having Bright Noa slap Banagher Links at any point in their interactions in this love letter to the Universal Century must have been massive, so with all sincerity I say BRAVO, SUNRISE.

You know how a lot of the time in Japanese media, there will be things with names that seem interesting until you find out they’re named incredibly literally, like how Stands in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are called that because they stand behind the user? Apparently, the Sleeves are named that because their mobile suits all have fancy patterns... on their sleeves. Although, maybe “Cuffs” would have been a more appropriate name by that logic.

Thumbing through character pages on the wiki tells me that for as good as this OVA series was and for how heavy it can get, they cut a lot of stuff for content from the original light novel- like, Marida having her womb surgically removed is actually better than what happens in the novels, and most of Loni Garvey’s story was cut out, if her father’s page is anything go by, which appears to be “hey what if the ethnic conflict from Gundam ZZ was even more of an ethnic conflict”. Makes me hope that we’ll get an official English release of it someday.

Speaking of the novel, I’d again like to pay compliments to Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, because all of the character designs for the series originated from his art for that, and I really love his work with watercolors. I also appreciate that, mostly due to stylistic differences, Banagher and Mineva look less babyfaced, and Mineva actually bears a familial resemblance to her aunt Kycilia thanks to her much narrower eyes.

You know how sometimes there are just scenes that kick around in your head despite being relatively unimportant? This scene from Episode 4, where the Shamblo’s scatter beams just obliterate an apartment complex and this lady and her baby enter freefall is one for me. Like, it doesn’t even look like she’s being propelled by the explosion, she was just already moving in that direction and the building was deleted from beneath her feet.

Another minor but similarly memorable scene to me is Marida and the Garencieres crew attempting to take Mineva back in Episode 1. Both because Marida’s outfit is impeccable and also because this is when I first noticed that a lot of the show is painted-over 3D models. Just look at the way Marida animates as she hops over the railing and how smooth it is, compared to the guys, like, buffering as they hop over (and that’s not because the gif rendered poorly)

The other reason this sequence is memorable is because Banagher programming Haro to pretend to be a bomb is the absolute funniest tech in this franchise, even more than the inflatable dummies.

My exact note on Banagher throwing up inside his helmet when the Kshatriya punches the Unicorn’s cockpit was “yuck, but yeah that checks out”.

I’m going to make it my mission to find every instance of a looping spin in Gundam from here on out, because after Quess and the Sazabi in CCA and the Unicorn and Kshatriya’s lock-up in this I feel like there must be more.

It took until this series but there was finally an example of the Newtype ability to understand one another preventing conflict, when Banagher stopped himself from destroying the Kshatriya’s cockpit and killing Marida once he saw her life before his eyes, and then they both just reflect on the tragedy of the situation without either of them needing to die.

Last but not least was the scene when Bright was talking to the picture of Amuro about his plans for helping Banagher. I didn’t expect it to feel so emotionally intense, but it made sense that it was once I started to think about how we never really got to see Amuro and Bright interact casually as adults. I’m sure there’s something somewhere, maybe in untranslated supplemental stories, but it was really touching to see that Bright still thinks so fondly of Amuro.

IN CONCLUSION:

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn serves as the perfect denouement to the Universal Century. It almost makes me want to not watch on to the next things I have planned because it’s just such a beautiful bow on this story, which is funny considering the entire reason I skipped ahead to it was to get to Hathaway sooner than later. Naturally, it gets the most enthusiastic recommendation of any of the Gundams I’ve covered to date, with a glowing red asterisk that there’s roughly 60 hours worth of anime you should really watch beforehand to get the most out of it. Believe me when I say it’s 100% worth it: to this point, the experience of getting into Gundam has been incredibly rewarding.

Next up: Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis - Red Trace! I’ve avoided compilations up to this point, but considering the nature of the source material, the compilation seems like the best possible shot this story will have...

#Gundam #Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn #Gundam Unicorn #Gundam UC #The Big Gundam Watch #anime #blu-ray #long post

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gremoria411 · 8 months ago

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Huh, there’s an idea. I wonder what the overall casualty rate for Gundam Pilots is?

*The Following Contains Spoilers for pretty much every Gundam series, though I’ll try to keep them non-specific*

I’ll list each series, the number of Gundam’s in that series, and the amount of Gundam pilots that don’t make it to the end of the series. (Watch me regret this when I get to the really Gundam-Heavy series). However, I’m not including:

After War Gundam X and Turn A Gundam - I haven’t seen either of these yet.

G-Saviour

Igloo - No Gundams.

Gundam the Origin - Feels like cheating.

Gundam Thunderbolt - 1 Gundam Pilot in the OVA versus 9 at present in the Manga, which is still ongoing. It feels awkward to qualify.

If a pilot appears in multiple series, I’ll count them separately for each series, but they only get one mobile suit per series. For Example, Kira Yamato appears in Two Series, and has three mobile suits. Thus, he only counts twice.

In regards to what counts as a Gundam -

“Why is that?”

“Because I said so”

Delling Rembran, father of statistics, everyone. “What is a Gundam” is a delightful question, but it isn’t the focus of this exercise. My definitions of “Gundam” and “Gundam Pilot” exist because I needed a metric, they’re not really designed to stand up to much scrutiny. I’ve worked with enough statistics that I’m aware you can usually skew them without too much bother, which is also why I don’t feel too bad about leaving out Turn A and Gundam X.

Lastly, I’ve almost certainly missed something here, so feel free to message me and I’ll adjust it accordingly.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 - 1 Gundam (RX-78). 1/1 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - 6 Gundams (Three Mk-II’s, Zeta and Psycho Gundam’s 1&2). 2/5 Pilots Survive - 40% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam - 4 Gundams (ZZ, Zeta, Mk-II and Psycho Gundam Mk-II). 3/4 Pilots Survive - 75% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Char’s Counterattack - 1 Gundam (Nu) 0/1 Pilots Survive - 0% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket - 1 Gundam (NT-1 Alex). 1/1 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam F91 - 1 Gundam (F91). 1/1 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory - 3 Gundams (Gp01,2 and 3). 1/2 Pilots Survive - 50% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam - Could someone who’s watched Victory lately come back to me with how many Gundam’s are in that series (and their pilots), because I’ve genuinely no clue off the top of my head. I know it’s at least Six (V, V2, Other V2, then at least three Victory Gundam Hexa’s).

Mobile Fighter G Gundam - 50 Gundams (Fuck that). 22/38 Pilots Survive - 57.89% Survival Rate.

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing - 11 Gundams (Wing, Deathscythe, Heavyarms, Sandrock, Shenlong, their upgrades and Epyon). 6/6 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz - 5 Gundams (as above, minus Epyon). 5/5 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team - 4 Gundams (Three Ground Types and EZ8). 3/3 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Gundam SEED - 11 Gundams (5 first gen, 3 second gen, Providence). 4/9 Pilots Survive - 44.44% Survival Rate.

Gundam SEED Destiny - 11 Gundams. 6/10 Pilots Survive - 60% Survival Rate

Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer - 4 Gundams. 3/5 Pilots Survive - 60% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - 14 Gundams. 5/11 Pilots Survive - 45.45% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazer - 4 Gundams (00 Quanta, Zabanya, Harute and Raphael). 5/5 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn - 3 Gundams (Unicorn, Banshee and Delta Plus). 2/2 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative - 2 Gundams (Phenex and Narrative). 1/2 Pilots Survive - 50% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE - 5 Gundams (Four AGE’s and Legillis). 3/5 Pilots Survive - 60% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam Twilight Axis - 1 Gundam (Tristan). 1/1 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam G-Reconguista - 3 Gundams (G-Self, G-Arcane, G-Lucifer) 4/4 Pilots Survive - 100% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans - 12 Gundams (Barbatos, Gusion, Kimaris, Flauros and Bael). 1/6 Pilots Survive - 16.67% Survival Rate.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - 10 Gundams (Aerial’s, Lfrith’s, Schwarzette, Pharact and Calibarn). 5/11 Pilots Survive - 45.45% Chance Survival Rate.

Total Number of Gundams - 163

Overall Pilot Survival Rate - 85/138 Pilots Survive- 61.59% Chance Survival Rate.

(As above, not counting Turn A and Gundam X). That is lower than I expected. I believe it’s because most series either lose around half their pilots or few-to none at all. So either the series that keep all or most of their small amount of pilots will push the average up to over halfway, or the series that kill half or more of their pilots will pull the average down.

Highlights and anomalies.

All those odd little decisions that mess with the metrics of this exercise.

Pilot Survivability - Any cases where the survival of a character is ambiguous, but a later work clears it up, I went for the later interpretation, since I’m looking at overall survivability, so Milliardo and CCA Amuro get to count as alive and dead, respectively.

What is survival? - continued sentient existence, flesh not required. I really wasn’t expecting this to come up as much as it did. Tieria Erde (00) and Ericht Samaya (Wfm) both continue living as a virtual consciousness, so are classed as surviving for the purposes of this exercise. In the same vein, Kamille Bidan is counted as surviving (because I’m personally fond of the idea of him getting better).

Best Available Pilots - due to the precise shakedown of pairing pilots to mobile suits, both Lieutenant Quattro Bajeena and Lasse Aeon are on this list, under Zeta and 00, respectively. Quattro because he pilots one of the stolen Gundam Mk-II units briefly, and Lasse because though the 0 Gundam’s “main” pilot to my mind is Ribbons Almark, he already has the Reborns Gundam, and thus Lasse qualifies for the 0 Gundam.

SEED Destiny - I was really bad at remembering how many Gundam’s and how many pilots for this one. I fully forgot about Andrew Waltfeld and Mu La Flaga, and about how many Destroy Gundams the Earth Sphere alliance pulls out later in the series. I eventually just split the difference and added Andrew Waltfeld and a single Destroy Gundam (It was something like a 0.2 percent difference to the overall survival percentage).

Gundam 00 and Innovades - You can single-handedly mess up this entire excercise if you expand your qualification of Gundam to encompass the GNZ suits used by the Innovators in Gundam 00, since that includes the Gaga. You know, the suit that has a 95% casualty rate across literal hundreds of pilots? I’m not saying you should, but it was on my mind as I made this list.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam - was more complicated than expected. I was fully aware SEED Destiny would be tricky, but I forgot about G Gundam in the process. I’m reasonably confident in my count of Gundams - I only counted the Devil Gundam and Master Gundam once, not the Kowloon or Ultimate Gundam, and I didn’t count any of the combined units (like the Grand Master Gundam). I’ll list my Gundam Fighter math in a re-blog, since this is already a bit long.

I truly do not understand where the idea that most Gundam protagonists die came from. I’ve even seen self-proclaimed fans warn newcomers that almost every Gundam protagonist dies, when that is patently not true!

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end-of-pizza · 5 years ago

Text

Weird anime night ~Please teacher

Okay guys, I know I’ve been out of this whole anime discussing thing for a bit. Been in my own little world of building gundam models, watching ASMR videos and doing my tech support job, also got into buying stocks….the quarantine has been weird. I haven’t really left the house save to go to meijers to get groceries for 4 months now……kinda starting to lose touch with reality. To try and ground myself I have been revisiting things from when I was a teenager, rewatching old tv shows, reading old books….started with gundam 08th ms team, and Red Mars, and lo and behold I fell back in love with my old flame…ROMANCE ANIMES

long time readers of weird anime night will know that this is a thing that happens to me off and on. Highschool romance shows just vibe with me in a real way, I have been dating the same girl since I was 13, and I am 29 now, and we live together, so learning how to love while learning what love is, and learning about girls while also learning how to love one girl, man romance anime have that shit in spades….and it makes me feel really nostalgic, for things like first kisses, sneaking out after hours, being nervous with someone you will later be intimate with. I love it man, that shit DOES. IT. FOR. ME

so while revisiting my favorite romance anime of all time, Suzuka, I remembered about one I hadn’t watched since 2006, Please Teacher.

AND DUDES

THIS SHOWS FUCKING WEIRD

I remember it being pretty run of the mill, comedy romance story about a kid who bangs his teacher…..and like, yea on the surface that is what it is, but like…..spesh if you incorporate the second season into it, its sort of about ALL love….even some kinda eh….troubling kinds of love, like in season 2 a dude straight up wants to plow is like……kid sister, and that is…..well fucking disgusting, I know its like a THING in japan to want to bone your parents and siblings, because well……some sort of mass mental delusions or something…..but like, its there….its gross as fuck but its there….

The rest of the show is fun though, still pretty problematic, I guess it was less gross to me when I was 16, but as a 29 year old….yea a teacher wanting to bone her 15 year old student is pretty gosh darn awful......I mean she’s also like...an Alien.....but he’s still 15 years old and she is a dang adult

heres the wiki plot summary of season 1, warning spoilers ahead.

Please Teacher! is a story mainly revolving around a tight-knit group of friends in high school and how they cope with several life-changing events that are never too far off from intimate relationships. The main character is a boy named Kei Kusanagi who suffers from a very rare disease which causes a comatose state referred to as a "standstill" whenever he is under severe emotional distress.

Before the beginning of the story, Kei, at 15 years of age, had fallen into a "standstill" lasting three years after witnessing the suicide of his elder sister. After recovering, he quietly moved away from home in order to avoid social difficulty due to his long absence, and began living with his uncle, a medical doctor, and aunt. Due to the strange nature of how he came to live there, Kei wanted to keep the situation a secret from his new friends for fear of being ostracized as being too old to associate with them. After Kei had established himself in his new surroundings and had entered into a close group of mutually supportive friends, a Galactic Federation starship had entered Earth's atmosphere stealthily, approached Honshū Island and landed surreptitiously in Lake Kizaki.

The story begins with Kei suffering a minor 'standstill' while in the vicinity of the lake, witnessing several unexplainable phenomena happening there, and then watching as a beautiful half-human alien named Mizuho Kazami materialize beside the shore. Kazami was sent to observe planet Earth by a seemingly benevolent Galactic Federation in order to prevent humans from making developmental mistakes. Kei, upon observing the materialization, attempts to escape the pursuing Kazami. Kazami is under strict orders to prevent her true identity and mission from being discovered. During his attempt to escape, Kei falls into the lake. Kazami rescues Kei and, using information from his identification, is able to return him home in secret. The next day, Kazami has become Kei's new homeroom teacher and next-door neighbor.

During assisting her in moving in, Kei suffers another standstill, and while in a weakened state explains his predicament to the compassionate Mizuho, who ends up revealing her own origins and purpose on Earth. Several accidental activations of Mizuho's teleport technology (which were inadvertently caused by Kei) eventually place Kei and Mizuho in a couple of compromising situations in front of his uncle and aunt and his school's headmaster, but Kei protects Mizuho from charges for an inappropriate relationship between student and teacher by impulsively stating that they are married, resulting in an actual civil marriage that later blossoms into genuine affection for each other. The headmaster relents, partly because he, too, had married a former student younger than himself and can understand their situation personally. Both are allowed to stay so long as they do not reveal their status to the other students, and do not engage in any public displays of affection.

The remainder of the series concerns the budding intimate relationships between the close friends, one of whom (Koishi Herikawa) is romantically interested in Kei, and another (Ichigo Morino) who has suffered even greater loss of time from the same disease as he has; the problems of having to maintain the secrecy of the marriage; an interfering parent and sibling visiting from the Galaxy Federation; and Kei learning to overcome the ever-present threat of another lengthy 'standstill' stealing more of his life, particularly as he has fallen deeply in love with Mizuho and desperately wants to remain with her.

Eventually Kei falls into another major "standstill" and in order to bring him out of it, Mizuho has to use her technology which is against the law. As a result, her status on Earth is revoked, she is banned from the planet and all memory of her is erased from everyone's, including Kei's, minds. With the help of her mother and sister she sneaks back and is devastated to learn that Kei, who she is deeply in love with, has no memory of her. While helping her move back in, Kei reveals that his memory has returned and the two express their love for each other and get married again.

I am rewatching it, its nostalgic, not as nostalgic as Suzuka or School Rumble, which are my number 1 and also number 1 favorite romance anime. But it’s also not as problematic as like, Rumbling Hearts or School days.

I am happy to have this tumblr back in my life, it’s helping with the depression, I think that’s why I started it in the first place….the American Education System was surprisingly good at both causing depression and training me to help people cope with depression.

I love you guys, I will start doing one of these every week, and I really am thinking about doing a sort of short podcast on all the series I have done thus far, like a 30 minute episode or so discussing the stories, rating them etc. I really like the idea of doing a podcast, just takes a long time to make em, I’ve been trying to do a D20 or Cyberpunk real play podcast for like 2 years now, and still just in the editing process of it.

blah blah blah, TLDR

this shows weird, fun and heart warming at times, but it is about a teacher who fucks her student, and like YES she is half alien.....but…..she is also a pedophile, that didn’t really stick with me when I was 16, but it does now….so it is harder to watch then I remember.

6.5/10

~Hoover ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

please teacher update

maybe I wasnt watching the show closely enough but I guess he isnt 15? I got the impression he was like early highschool, but watched some more tonight and I guess hes 18 during the course of the show.....so she isnt a pedophile, but she is boning her student, and she is a space alien so there are still some not good implications there power dynamics wise.....but lets just say maybe I was too hard on Please Teacher 7.5/10

#weird anime night #please teacher #anime #romance

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thatothercosplayer · 7 years ago

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i want to watch the uc gundam timeline. there are many animes in this timeline. some people say to watch in cronological order others say to watch in production order. i am overwhelmed.

Eeeeeeh. It’s six dozen one, half dozen the other. Personally, I recommend watching in production order, simply because

Everything builds off each other and the themes contained within logically follow up on ideas introduced in prior works

It can be rather jarring if you’re watching chronologically to go from stuff like 08th MS Team and Stardust Memory to Zeta Gundam, or MS Igloo to 0079, etc. Animation quality jumping all over the place drives me nuts.

Little cameos from characters (EG: a certain waifu’s cameo in the middle of Stardust Memory

Having context from at least the UC Trilogy, CCA, and Unicorn goes REALLY FAR when it comes to the good majority of the UC timeline sidestories (seriously there are so goddamn many One Year War stories)

Watching the animation and mechanical design evolve is absolutely thrilling

Now, that said, there are some major UC installments you can watch independent of everything because they’re really self-contained:

MS Igloo: The Hidden One Year War + Apocalypse 0079. MY GOD. The CG may be a bit aged but the characters in this make this one a strong contender for my favorite One Year War sidestory. You get to see a lot of cool experimental Mobile Suits (❤︎ Hildofr❤︎ Zudah❤︎ Big Rang❤︎) and the writing is AMAZING. Bring tissues, it’s sad as hell. Speaking of sadness….

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. While this is another OYW sidestory, the thing is that….after the opening sequence, this takes place ENTIRELY on/around a single colony. For the first OVA series that Gundam ever had, it is HIGH QUALITY and Chris is still one of my favorite Gundam pilots SOBS BERNIEEEEEE ;W;

Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team. This, right here, is in the contender for top 3 most beautifully animated UC installments (Stardust Memory was the king of this until Unicorn came along). It’s about a Federation ground team in the Southeast Asian front, and has the single most hotblooded Gundam pilot in the franchise’s history, save for maybe Domon Kasshu himself. Also, did I mention said pilot is voiced by Nobuyuki goddamn Hiyama, Mr. King of Braves himself!? NO?! WELL NOW I HAVE. (Also be sure not to miss the short film 08th MS Team: Battle in the 3rd Dimension, set between the 9th and 10th episodes….which is a convienent buffer if you’re watching 08th through the compilation movie, Miller’s Report).

Gundam Thunderbolt. I need to sit down and watch this one, honestly, but FUCK I just can’t get over the interpretation of the Full Armor Gundam in that series. WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST USE THE ONE FROM MS-V!? Sunrise what’s your fucking deal. Hanging shit off a Gundam doesn’t always make it cool. AND THAT PSYCHO ZAKU. GODDAMN THAT BACKPACK. But, uh, mechanical design gripes aside, I have heard nothing but good things about this- whether you watch the compilation movie or just the series itself.

Twilight Axis. I still need to get around to watching the other episodes, but honestly I am waiting on a compilation movie given how fucking incoherent and disjointed the first episode was (I mean, swapping repeatedly between two points in time kind of does that), but the animation and music is so fucking beautiful that I’m gonna watch it. Look, I cried actual tears when I saw that final trailer. I was fucking hyped.

Mobile Suit Gundam the Origin. Actually a prequel to 0079, but it has a SHITLOAD of spoilers that would kind of ruin what parts of 0079 hasn’t been turned into It Was His Sled territory.

Mobile Suit Gundam F91. It’s set 20 years after Unicorn, and 23 years after Char’s Counterattack. It’s so far removed from the UC timeline’s major events that, honestly, you don’t need to worry about continuity. Though I insist you watch it because a) this movie is fucking beautiful and b) Seabook and Cecily are great. Yeeeah it has its hiccups due to the fact that it was meant to be a TV show and it got converted into a movie, but it’s worth the watch.

G-Saviour. Look….let’s take a step back from the odious reputation this film has. Yes, it was written by someone who had no experience with Gundam prior. BUT there are a few things that go into enjoying it a bit more. For one: it’s good popcorn movie. Like, Godzilla ‘98. Watch it with some friends and riff it if you have to. The score of the film is brilliant, and the idea behind the G-Saviour’s mechanical design is actually pretty good itself (a skeletal frame that gets its shell exchanged depending on what environment it’s fighting in). If you absolutely can’t deal with the movie and you happen to be Japanese, I recommend picking up the novels. Much more faithful to the UC timeline, and you get a detailed description of a colony drop. Now, as for the supplementary material: there were several audio dramas released on vinyl that were prequels to this movie. They were 3 stories that kind of expanded on the backstory of Mark Curran (the Gundam pilot), and two other characters in the film. And, of course, there’s the badass PS2 game, which contains the equally badass G2 Saviour and G3 Saviour. Give them a chance, honestly. You might be surprised by how much you enjoy it. Not to say the film is perfect; far from it. There are little to no Mobile Suit battles (only at the end), the CG is stiff and makes the designs feel like tech from the One Year War considering how slowly they move, and the majority of the characters are hard to follow and rather generic. Oh, yeah, and save for like 3 most of them are unlikable. So, again, not perfect, but I bet with some booze and a few friends it’d be a blast.

Now, given there are compilation movies out the wazoo and shit, there are honestly multiple ways to go about watching pretty much every major UC installment save for ZZ (WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY COMPILATION MOVIES, MAN) but I’ve got a handy guide for you here:

Gundam 0079: Watch the TV series and the movies. Why? Because while the movies take out the goofy things (read: everything related to Clover pushing Tomino to put out stuff so they could make toys. RIP Guntank) and actually add bits to the story that would be acknowledged as canon, you don’t get to experience some of the things that made the tv series so good (EG: THE ENTIRETY OF THE DESERT ARC, FUCK YOU SUNRISE RAMBA RAL DESERVES BETTER).

Zeta Gundam: TV series first, and you can come back for the compilation movies later. The movies are in a separate timeline due to how the ending is so radically different that basically ZZ doesn’t happen, and as such it can be a bit more of a palate cleanser/pick-me-up after you watch Zeta or 0080 just because your ass is gonna get destroyed with feels.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory: Just watch the OVAs. They crammed the whole series into one two hour movie. As you could imagine, 6 hours and 30 minutes of footage and story being condensed into that did not go over well. Characters disappear without any reason (only clear if you’ve seen the OVAs), not much new animation was put in (even if 0083 has aged spectacularly in the animation department), and just….look, man. You miss out on the homoerotic bonding sequence between Kou and Kelly Layzner. You gonna tell me you want to ignore Stardust Memory living up to the memory of it’s spiritual predecessor (Top Gun)!? PLAYIN’ WITH THE BOYS (YEAH)

08th MS Team: Both the OVAs and the compilation movie. They took a much different angle to this, and instead of doing a straight-up compilation they added a new substory. Miller’s Report is really only a compilation of episodes 1, 7, and 8, anyways, so you’ll be missing out on a lot of stuff regardless. Since you’re going to be at it, just go ahead and throw in Battle in the 3rd Dimension because hot damn modern animation for a series already known for looking really damn good.

Gundam Thunderbolt: Considering how short the series’ episodes are, honestly you’re not missing out on much with the compilation movies. The new footage just extends the fight between the two main characters and that’s about it. The new music for it is nowhere close to the awesome jazz they used in the series anyways.

Gundam Unicorn: Look. Unicorn is really good. Treat yourself. Watch the OVAs and RE:0096 because. Treat yourself. Like. Really. You get to see old, obscure designs kick ass and have their day in the limelight, Banagher and Audrey are fucking adorable together, and you get sexy Mobile Suits like the Unicorn, Banshee, and Sinanju. If you’re a mechanical design nerd like me you’re going to be salivating the whole time. Just. TREAT YOURSELF.

#out of cosplay #mechanons #Grunts #Secret Base Inbox

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