#Gundam UC Engage

[slowlysointernet]

I recently came across a character analysis about Char and his various relationships which tickled me funny. Why? Because the author of this analysis claimed that Nanai and Char were not in a sexual relationship and that the women he's been involved in were platonic.

I'm making a post about this because this isn't the first time i've come across these opinions amongst the fandom and how Reccoa wanted Quattro's d and that's why she defected to the titans blah blah blah. I've also seen the occasional ''Nanai and Char are not in a sexual relationship'' if you would believe it.

Let's start with Reccoa and Quattro in Zeta:

How does the viewer know that these two are lovers/in a relationship/a couple/ whatever you wish to call it ? Well the director (Tomino) doesn't tell me outright that ''THESE TWO CHARACTERS ARE IN A RELATIONSHIP'' in neon lights. He's not obliged to this. He can do what he wants, so he shows it though character interaction and body language.

Quattro enters Reccoa's room, which is her own personal intimate space mind you. He sits on her bed (again an intimate space), briefly takes off his sunglasses and pulls her to him and hold her hips. Reccoa reciprocates this intimacy by leaning onto him and putting her hands on his shoulders. This, dear people is a depiction of two people who are intimate with each other sexually. The director isn't going to depict someone like Captain Henken or Kamille in this way because neither have that kind of relationship with Reccoa.

Aaaand let's not forget that they kiss after:

(Zeta Gundam Episode 32)

Gundam Zeta Define is much more explicit in showing their physical relationship for people who are still under the assumption that it's one sided or that nothing is going on:

'Char' and Nanai in Char's Counteratack;

Again you see the same body language here just like with Reccoa. Touches her hand, holds her by the waist, puts her in his lap etc. Other Zeon soldiers don't act that way towards Nanai or 'Char' and this is a way to show two people who are in a romantic/sexual relationship.

This same scene UC Engage Char's Counterattack is slightly longer than the movie but it's conveying the same thing:

'Char' and Nanai are also shown in a room wearing gowns hinting that these two characters just did the deed👍. This is from Char's Counterattack movie :

Here is another scene in PS1 Char's Counterattack cutscene showing 'Char' and Nanai ''platonically'' sleeping together 🙄:

Annnd a cute scene where 'Char' is hinting to Nanai to join him in the shower. You know non-sexually and all that 😉. Char's Counterattack Beltorchika's Children manga Chapter 10. :

High-Steamer Novel Volume 3:

Char's Counterattack Beltorchika's Children Novel:

Some things are inferred via tone of voice and body language and some things are explicitly shown and a outright explicit example would be with Flay and Lacus having sex in Gundam Seed which is not really the norm in anime form in Gundam.

So here we are. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out and but i do think there are disingenuous and self centered reasons when it comes to understanding Char's relationships with women. Like i said in this post the male fans/dudebros/incels tend to dislike female character's that act like Reccoa and pretend she's crazy just because Quattro doesn't bed her or you have the female fans/yaoi/fujoshi's who don't like the idea of the fictional male character they are attracted to having a woman love interest.

So my entire point here is that try not to view a piece of media through your own lenses otherwise the analysis/discussion/discourse becomes about headcanons and fanons. It's the story and the characters that are interesting not you. I'm not that interesting tbh.

(I use inverted commas on the word 'Char' in my posts because the name is a mask and not his true self.)

[acid-eater]

Me neither

[bulecelup]

MATAMUUUUUUU

[saltyspacenoid]

Most beautiful boi

(U.C. Engage)

[ryuki-blogs]

Peche Montagne, I love you

[gundamnet]

[l0nely-edgel0rd-g0d]

[thehydromancer]

Update to the Lego Thunderbolt Full Armor Gundam. Been playing a lot of the UC Engage mobile game, which made me want to revisit one of my favorites. Totally new backpack that now includes the side mounted beam sabers + I'd guess half the parts (and hopefully weight), revamped the double beam rifles as well as the beam cannon, simplified some of the add-on armor, did some minor recoloring (the medium nougat on the shields really pops), but I still can't figure out how to add the newer articulated neck that the base Jacaranda mobile frame enjoys without losing the only viable hard points for the add-on chest armor.

[kocurek1921]

On one hand U.C. Engage is rubbish

On the other hand it gave us scenes like this one:

In all seriousness the Peche story is actually quite solid, glad I was finally able to experience it.

[mbharestuff]

there's a good Gundam story deep into this mediocre mobile game, UC Engage, and I dearly hope they make this Peche Montagne story into a series or movies or ANYTHING but this.

[gremoria411]

Alright, so GBO2 was kind enough to drop a Kämpfer High-Mobility type for me the other day, so I figured I’d use this as a springboard to talk about the design, and by extension my feelings towards UC Engage’s designs as a whole.

I already went over the Kämpfer and its variants previously, but being able to compare the models in GBO2 changes things a bit.

There’s actually a lot of subtle differences that I hadn’t caught the first time around that distinguishes the High-Mobility type. When compared to the original Kämpfer; the chest’s larger and rounder, the head is wider, the armour on the arms is different and the legs have a feminine design closer to the Gerbera Tetra. It’s very good, the increased mass implies a more powerful reactor and the masses of extra thrusters do make it feel like a High-Mobility unit. The head incorporates Vulcan guns, and the suit itself also incorporates a beam machinegun, again implying an improved reactor. The thruster pack is similar to the Gerbera-Tetra’s but it feels much more like prototype, with its larger fuel tanks and holes for multiple large thrusters, as opposed to the Gerbera Tetra’s more understated look. The design has a much more rounded feel for it, typical of space-use units. It’s just rather annoying, because I’d written it off as “Kämpfer with Gerbera Tetra Thrusters”, so coming back to it and finding all these deign flourishes is…… just sort of odd. Like, yeah maybe I should’ve looked a little closer, or maybe it should’ve been a little more attention-grabbing in the first place?

See, I generally don’t like officialised “kitbash” designs - I typically find that there’s too many familiar elements, so the design doesn’t really have much of an identity of itself. Yeah, battle damage or repair’s fine, but when a designs’ just bits from one suit slapped on another it just feels rather unimaginative to me.

But then again, shared equipment between mobile suits typically speaks of an elegance of design to me - these are machines that are outfitted for war, so standardisation is helpful in that respect. I’m typically a big fan of seeing the MMP-80 machine gun or 90mm bullpup machine gun on one year war units, because they’re so ubiquitous that I don’t think of them as being part of any single design.

I think what I’m getting at is; I don’t think I like the concept of the Kämpfer High-Mobility type (i.e. fuse the Kämpfer and Gerbera Tetra together due to their shared design philosophies), even if the execution’s much better than I gave it credit for previously.

I’ve been meaning to do a post on UC Engage’s designs for a while now, so I figured I’d package it with my thoughts on the Kämpfer High mobility type. I’m not going to go through every design in the game, I just figured I’d cherry-pick 8 designs I’ve got strong opinions on - what I think works, and what I think doesn’t.

Disclaimer: I’m going to be looking at the UC Engage in-game models for all of these, simply because either higher quality models don’t exist, or I’m not inclined to wait around for GBO2 to supply them to me so I can properly look at them (honestly I tend to use GBO2 as a design gallery more than anything else, but because it’s gatcha I really don’t have much influence over what I get). If I ever receive the higher-quality GBO2 Models, then I’ll note any changes of opinion then. I also don’t really care about the plot or story of UC Engage, but I’m given to understand that it’s explicitly non-canon to the rest of UC (since they put Peche and the Engage Zero in Kamille and Rosamia’s final confrontation during Gryps, and introduce a new Doga unit during Chars Counterattack as a counterpart to the Jagd Doga and Psycho Doga), so I’ll only really be considering the mobile suit designs.

Engage Zero

Okay, nine designs, because I should probably talk about the Protagonist’s suit. The RX-78MS00Z Engage Zero. So -assuming I’m reading this right- the Engage Zero was a prototype/competing design to the Gundam Development Project - the GP series seen during 0083: Stardust Memory, that were developed by Anaheim Electronics. The Engage Zero incorporated magnetic coating technology and a prototype movable frame, which would make it cutting-edge at the time of its release. It and its pilot, Peche Montague, would be passed between various groups and upgraded throughout, eventually concluding in the Neo Zeon designed Engage Zero Yonghwavin, a fully psycommu-equipped mobile suit. The general design of the Engage Zero is that it was developed as a Newtype-speciality machine amongst the rest of the Gundam Development Project.

Design-wise…. Eh. I can imagine it’s difficult to “fit in” another Gundam unit in UC canon at any rate (which is why there’s so many Gundam’s and gundam-a-likes running around in the One Year War, since it’s an easy fit), so tying it into the Gundam Development Project is a smart move, but there’s very little to tie it in design-wise. Yeah, there’s some similarity in the legs, but the chest resembles the G-Self more than anything to me. The arms are what I’d describe as inoffensive - there isn’t anything wrong, per se, there just isn’t anything distinct either. The waist seems to want to suggest a Gelgoog influence with the skirt, but it just looks wrong on a Gundam, and it overshoots and makes me think of the Qubeley. The head’s fine, no real opinion there. It’s overall a very feminine design, which I’m not against or anything, it just again feels odd. Like, it’s a feminine design because the pilot is female, but ….why? It just seems a bit odd tonally, especially since it retains the original gundam’s samurai influences, which are typically rather masculine. It’s a feminine design, but in doing so, it masculine-codes every other design. So it’s a feminine Gundam that causes you to question why every other female Gundam pilot has just had (for want of a better term) a non-feminine Gundam. I just find it incredibly odd from that perspective. I imagine that’s why it makes me think of the Qubeley so much, because that’s the most prominent other feminine design we see in UC.

Dijeh Assault Package

Is the fact that there’s actual art of this one cheating? Anyway, the MSK-008S/A Dijeh Assault Package was an upgraded version of the standard Dijeh, and was used in a bombardment role. It’s essentially a Dijeh with additional weapons, armour and, of course, missiles. I like this one, not necessarily because I think it’s an amazing design (the artwork’s doing a lot of heavy lifting), but because I think it fits so well with Karaba as an organisation. They’ve got a fairly limited number of mobile suit designs available, but a lot of them are very good, so it makes sense to manufacture variants to those units for different mission types. A high-spec bombardment unit that can fight well after the initial barrage is always going to be attractive to a Guerilla organisation, hence the Dijeh Assault Type. Even the reused equipment works really well, since Karaba isn’t known for being well-funded. All-in-all, it’s solid.

Roswell Jegan

I’ve used this one as a punchline a few times, so I’m sure my opinion shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. I really just don’t like the Roswell Jegan. It’s basically a Jegan that was used to test fin funnel weaponry designed by Amuro, which would then be incorporated into the Nu Gundam. I’ve kinda got a lot of questions here - where did the psycho-frame come from? How’s the jegan got the reactor to mount all those fin funnels? How did they know it worked? Doesn’t the existence of the Silver Bullet (funnel test type) kinda invalidate this machine’s existence? Why Roswell?

And all that for a jegan with a little bit of additional armour and funnel rack backpack. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m no great Jegan fan, but I actually do like a lot of its other variants, so the Roswell Jegan just feels so plain and drab by comparison. A funnel-mounted or newtype-use jegan has potential, I just don’t think the Roswell is that.

Gelgoog Ls

Regrettably, this is the best image I have. The Gelgoog Ls was an upgraded form of the Gelgoog L, a Gelgoog variant designed for defending VIP’s, which was essentially a standard Gelgoog with a new backpack, large shield and heat lance. The only real difference with the two units is that the Gelgoog Ls incorporated more filigree and mounted Vulcan guns in its much larger head. It’s noted that Gelgoog L pilots were often young and barely-trained cadets, which wasn’t uncommon around the time of the Gelgoogs deployment. The Gelgoog Ls, meanwhile was apparently more geared towards the secret service.

The Gelgoog Ls is a bit of an odd one for me. I’m kind of a sucker for Lance units in general, and the Gelgoog seems to be an attempt to backdate guard units like the GAZ-L and GAZ-R into something that started with the principality. Only real issue is that there seems to be an awful lot of “Royal Guard” units running around. There’s the Gelgoog Ls, the Rick Dom, the Galbaldy Alpha, the Gyan Eos and so forth. That and that customising a mobile suit for the Secret Police seems overkill. What are they gonna be facing that requires that level of force, particularly a goddamn heat lance? (the Vulcans make sense, because they’re typically used against infantry or light vehicles, but the Lance is just overkill). The design itself is just…. Fine. Gelgoog with a shield and heat Lance probably didn’t *need* to be its own thing, but I like how the Vulcans are integrated. I am weirdly fascinated by what the backpack looks like, since I’m absolutely certain I’ve seen that design somewhere before, I’ve just no idea where. (I keep thinking it’s from the Gyan Marine from Gihren’s Greed, I know it’s not that)

Finally, I should note that the head appears to be based on contemporary police uniforms. My initial thought was of the “classic” Gendarmerie (the French police service), with the cylindrical hats, which spun out naturally to the Landespolizei (the German police service) and the Ordnungspolizei (the Nazi police service, which I was very happy to find no similarity to), but it seems to be based more on contemporary dress uniforms than anything else, which makes sense, considering the all of the filigree.

Gaza CZ

The Gaza CZ is a Gaza C that has been modified for use in an artillery role, it replaces the shoulder armour of the original Gaza C with missile pods, and the integrated Knuckle Buster with a belt-fed minigun. The Head and legs also appear to have been slightly remodelled - the head’s sleeker and more pointed, emphasising the monoeye (and likely its role in target acquisition), while the characteristic three-digit foot “claws” of the Gaza C have been reduced to a fairly standard looking foot, with the side thruster being enlarged.

The rationale of the Gaza CZ’s design is to up-arm the aging Gaza-C second-line units and use them as artillery support similar to the Zssa. I like this rationale, because it makes sense that Neo Zeon would want to make use of the massive amount of Gaza-C’s it had, and strapping some missile pods to it is a logical and practical approach to this. Even the Gatling gun is excellent, because it would enable more of the mobile suits generator to be directed to its improved thrusters and thus offset the weight of the heavier equipment, and as a second-line unit, it would typically be operating within easy reach of resupply. I just wish I could get a better look at the feet and see it transformed.

Gabthley B

As in “beta”. The original Gabthley is a design from Zeta I just love - it fits perfectly into my definition of a “mid/late-season weirdo”. So good. The Gabthley Beta was a redesigned and upgraded Gabthley used by the Titans. While the original Gabthley showed promise, the design was judged to be too complex and expensive for mass production, which led to the design of the Gabthley B. There’s only stated to be one produced but it really *feels* like a limited-production suit to me. The design’s just wonderful because it’s a just a hodgepodge of Titans mobile suits - there’s the Gabthley, obviously, but it incorporates the arm claws of Scirocco’s Messala, it looks to have a (single) wing binder from the Gaplant and the feyadeen rifle Mk-II is an upgraded form of the original used by the Gabthley and Hambrabi. The large arms and oddly-proportioned body even make this commenter think of some of the oddities of the Titans Test Team, such as the TR-6 Hyze’nthley and the TR-6 Kehaar II. I’d also like to note that the head’s been completely resdesigned - it’s this blend of the monoeye, visor, the original streamlined Gabthley head and it’s even got some Gundam-style protrusions near the collar. It’s a very commanding design, for a commander type unit, it what I’m getting at.

I do hope we see it in a better colour scheme at some point, however. I don’t typically dislike black-and-purple, it’s just that there’s quite a lot of obscure, bulky titans units with that colour scheme, and they tend to look rather similar (especially since it’s a rather busy design).

Nemo Bellator

The Nemo’s an interesting one, since it seems to have dodged the many, many variants of the GM and Jegan. It’s certainly got a fair few, but (with the noted exception of the Nemo III and the absolute superb MSA-003 Nemo Cannon from Aoz) none of them are really that exciting. A bit of armour plating here, a new backpack there, never necessarily setting the world on fire but being pretty solid “yeah, that’s a grunt mobile suit” throughout.

So the Nemo Bellator being just so boring is rather novel, in a way. A Nemo, with back binders and a mega launcher. No reworking of the body, no targeting equipment (like the Hyaku Shiki), no improvement to the generator. There’s just nothing going on here. And the name “Bellator” just sounds like the creator needed a name quickly so they could knock off for lunch.

Sliferail

The Sliferail was an upgraded Gundam Ground Type that was remodelled with the expectation of deploying in cover operations in forests and wetlands. It was apparently a custom job on behalf of the pilot, who specifically requested the addition of the beam javelin.

This is a design where I love the concept, but I’m ambivalent about the execution - we see a bunch of ace custom units in Gundam anyway, and there was a good amount of Gundam Ground Types around, making them an excellent opportunity for variant designs in different theatres. The Sliferail is essentially a counterpart to the Ez8, showing how another pilot adapted to the changing war situation. The design itself…. It’s not bad, I like the new fins on the legs, and the new head and chest are nice. The colour scheme’s nice, and it makes sense for a wetlands environment. To be honest, it’s probably that I’m quite fond of the “standard” Gundam ground type, and so the Sliferail just feels like a step away from that, and I feel if anything, it should have leant into the changes a bit more. Up-armour the shoulders, put a ghille cloak on there, maybe remodel the lower legs a little more to better distribute the weight or something.

Type 99 Assault

Last but not least, the Type 99 Assault. The Type 99 assault was an update to the Type 100 Hyaku shiki from the Gryps Conflict and was intended to be a competitor to the Formula Series. It was built around U.C. 123. Though it’s stated to be an upgraded to the hyaku shiki, the Delta Gundam Kai influences are obvious, what with the head and chest. Interestingly, the lineart appears to be drawing from Kazuhisa Kondo’s designs, with the larger wing binders and differently styled head (which reminds me of the rather obscure Hyaku Ichi Shiki), though the design seen in UC engage leans more Delta Kai.

I really like the rear arms and integrated leg thrusters on this one, it gives it a really unique feel. The Gatling gun and beam rifle are both nice touches, and it feels like a machine designed for extended operations. It’s a design I would really like to see more detailed illustrations of, since I’d like to look at it in more detail. The leg thrusters also suggest great agility and remind me of the Anksha from Unicorn, which is nice. I do rather like how Anaheim made the Delta Gundam, and just consistently failed to then take that any further. Like, yeah, it happens a lot with Gundam’s too, where they’re built and they perform well and then they’re just sorta never expanded on, but the way that the Delta line just keeps throwing all these great ideas at the wall with none of them sticking makes it fell like….. I dunno, the Sega Saturn of mobile suits?

Closing

And that’s the highlights for the U.C. Engage Design Series. This ended up being a lot more positive than I was expecting honestly, which is nice. Quick shoutouts to: the Giessen Doga for being so boring I don’t even want to talk about it, the Duffel Jegan for being another ace-use jegan to add to the pile, and the Delta Gundam Ans for not having any good images available.

[slowlysointernet]

It's nice to see Gundam U.C. ENGAGE Char's Counterattack animate Char's last words from Beltorchika's Children:

Two small differences from the manga is the photo in the manga only has Artesia in it;

and in ENGACE, it's Arteisa and Casval like the Zeta photo he had on his desk.

And i think his words are slightly different too. More apologetic in this version? Someone who knows Japanese will have to correct me on this one.

[acid-eater]

[osg-pod]

discovering uc engage Little Freaks in the podcast chat

[retroanimechris]

Ashley Horn from Mobile Suit Gundam UC Engage 15 minute sketch with toning.

[ryuki-blogs]

Have you seen her?

Now you have.