#gundamjacking

[turboghast]

Gundamjacking really goes up to 11 in Gundam ZZ. While watching episode 13 ("Little Sister!"), I thought Beecha and Mondo's plot to jack the Double Zeta was going to fail because Judau's completely unrelated plot to jack his own mobile suit in order to sortie without permission would beat them to the punch.

[balis77]

The finale to G-Witch is funny because you’d think the member of the Mercury family Miorine would have the most arguments with would be the one that made her an accomplice to a war crime, but it’s actually the fucking keychain.

[paxesoterica]

@adracat​ has made some really intriguing observations about allusions to Norse mythology in The Witch from Mercury, but it recently occurred to me there’s some connections to Greco-Roman mythology too, specifically the namesake of Suletta and Prospera’s surname, Mercury, and how mother and daughter are associated with his various attributes:

Traveller & Merchant: The family motto of “Move forward and gain two” is a mercantile mindset, one shared by mother and daughter (though it looks increasingly like Suletta won’t be renewing her subscription), and is further apt with Suletta being an immigrant from literally another planet and Prospera being a CEO.

Trickster: As Miorine and Shaddiq have both observed, Suletta’s too honest for this to apply, but it fits Prospera and her schemes like a glove.

Herdsman: Mercury’s association with farm animals, particularly goats, cattle, and chickens, is practically shouting about Suletta’s bond with Earth House and their animals.

Communicator: Developing communication skills, from what I’ve been told, is a recurring theme for Gundam protagonists in general, and is definitely one for Suletta in particular, and I’m looking forward to the payoff of Suletta learning how to effectively communicate.

Thief: This one might actually apply to Suletta in the future, depending on how she acquires her next mobile suit (Gundamjacking is also apparently a time-honored tradition of Gundam protagonists).

Psychopomp: Oddly enough, Prospera’s an inverse of this, since her goals seem to be the opposite of a psychopomp’s traditional duties. Conversely, depending on how the ending plays out, Suletta may turn out to be a more straightforward example (the only time Suletta will be straight anything, heh).

Also, I can’t help but feel that the open flaps of Suletta’s boots, and the tufts of hair she has sticking off to the side of her head, are meant to invoke the winged footwear and helmet traditionally associated with Mercury.

[ID: Two pictures side-by-side for contrast.

The left picture depicts official character art of Suletta Mercury, the protagonist of the anime Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. The tufts of her hair sticking out to the sides of her head, and the unzipped flaps of her boots, are all circled in sky blue.

The right picture depicts the high relief sculpture Mercurius, which depicts the Roman god Mercury flanked by a goat on his left and a chicken on his right. The wings of his helmet and boots are all circled in sky blue. End ID.]

[anthurak]

Schwarzette is definitely gonna be piloted by one of the Jeturk boys.

Possibly. I will say it's almost certainly a Jeturk-built Gundam, going by its headgear. So I can definitely see it being meant for one of the Jeturk boys.

Now, whether or not it will actually be piloted by Guel or Lauda? Well, lets just say this franchise has a long and storied tradition of 'Gundamjacking'.

For example, one though that comes to mind is that Guel's personal machines have been brightly colored, while Lauda's Dilanza had more muted colors.

So I can definitely see the Schwarzette being built as Lauda's personal machine, but it winds up getting stolen. Either (once again) by Guel, or by someone else entirely. Also 'Schwarzette' roughly translates to 'black', so the white color-scheme might be the result of a post-jacking repaint.

[stacotto]

I need episode 11/12 to feature Guel either gundamjacking one of the new Lfriths or just happening upon the Darilbalde at Plant Quetta to get back in the action.

[notathrowawayname]

When the gundam protag gets a taste of their own gundamjacking medicine

Judau has a brief moment of deja vu

[newtypezaku]

Me: These are gonna be Gundamjacked by the end of this episode

[sntechsupport]

Which carapace dude do I need to talk to for getting new strife cards? I need the mechakind and am tired of waiting for imps to take up gundamjacking for me to take one off them.

Mechakind? If you want to get some skill bonus for the beginning in it as well, you should seek Anarchist Artificer in Ruins of Dimon-Zion in Skaia.

SincerelySN Tech Support (Gear)

[adamblue]

Let's take a look at Episode 1 of 0083 Stardust memory, Gundamjack. What a great series, am I right? This first episode sets everything up perfectly with a great ending shot. What are your thoughts on the episode and mobile suit designs? Enter the Giveaway Here: https://youtu.be/3mlZ7GkJtTM --- Join the Gundam Explained Discord! - https://ift.tt/3yauRyF Twitter - https://twitter.com/GundamExplained Instagram - https://ift.tt/3kjoO5c Facebook - https://ift.tt/3BhzuZ3 #gundam #anime #reaction by Gundam Explained

[tarhalindur]

The thing is, I’m honestly not sure that’s a useful division, because at least in anime shows like Madoka and Eva before it are in many ways a direct response to that kind of “only these kids can do it” setup.  (I think Animorphs may count as well for a Western example, but I never actually read the series so.)  At some level, the reason for plot setups like “our young hero accidentally or in extremis wound up in the cockpit and the system imprinted on him/he did so well that now he’s been assigned the robot permanently” (they call it the Gundamjack for a reason) or “fate has rendered you preteen girls the only people capable of transforming to fight the evil magical villain”) is that that’s how you square the circle between “this is not something that we would allow a young kid to do” and “we’re selling this to late preteens and teens who are starting to want to be seen as grown up and they want to read/watch someone their age doing this adult thing” - but the trick is, for all that that the authority figures say that they have and often do in fact have a good reason they’re still enlisting kids as combatants.  (I wonder just how many people who actually recruit/draft child soldiers tell themselves that they have no other choice?)

(Staying with anime, Eva is honestly the better example here, because I’d place it firmly in the child soldiers critique side of things and yet Eva plays the old trope straight - Shinji is in fact the only person who’s going to be able to use Unit 01 right, for obvious mom-related reasons.  Indeed, while Gendo is a terrible father, he is played somewhat sympathetically by the end.  Where Eva differs from its forebears (to the best of my knowledge, I might be missing precedents) is the combination of a) Shinji consistently not wanting to get in the robot (above and beyond an initial Refusal of the Call followed by learning to like it), and b) the emphasis on what piloting Unit 01 does to him.  (Likewise, Madoka’s change relative to prior magical girl shows is having outright malevolent “authorities” who implicitly draw on the genre’s “you’re the special destined ones who are the only ones who can do this!” trope as part of their sales pitch.)  And I’d not that while not all of the prevalence of this in anime is residual Eva influence (some of it is Japanese cultural tropes, some of it is residual experience from the generation that grew up during World War II), some of it is.)

One thing I find weird about all these tumblr posts about "Child soldiers" in kids fiction is that, at least in my experience...

This trope doesn't appear that often?

Like, I'm not saying it never appears, like, as I recall Naruto works like this, with the kids being trained to become warriors for their village and, indeed, actually dispatched on potentially deadly missions by their parents and adult authority figures.

So there are stories where adults send kids into a frankly irresponsible amount of danger, or where they are just not nearly as concerned with the safety of kids as one might like.

But that's actually not something that happens all that often, I don't think?

Much more common are stories where the child or teen protagonists have a sudden responsibility thrust upon them by some kind of happenstance, and that happenstance is of such a nature that they can't rely on adults to help them.

Like, people on tumblr like the Animorphs, but, according to my vague memories and the wiki, they got their powers when they just accidentally stumbled upon a crashed alien spaceship and the dying Andalite on board gave them his powers in the few moments before he was killed by an alien monster.

And the Animorphs can't tell anybody about their secret powers because they're fighting a race of evil mind controlling slugs that have secretly infiltrated all of earth's most important institutions. So any adult could secretly be working for their enemies.

Or Spider-Man; in the original comics, he gets his powers completely by accident, and then keeps them secret from his loved ones because he doesn't want to burden them or put them at risk, and other adult superheroes don't know that he's a teenager.

This paradigm, where circumstances put a young protagonist in a position of danger and responsibility that adults don't know about and, even if they did, would have limited ability to mitigate or stop, is dominant in most of the young adult and kids adventure stuff I've seen, at least.

[dynared]

What's your opinion on the clone theory?

I think it made sense (but it wasn’t my favorite) right up until this season.

Ok, setting up a dispute in the command leadership, the Black Lion notices something is wrong, etc, should be a compelling story. Furthermore, a clone does let them keep Shiro alive rather than being forced to kill him off in one dramatic final conflict. It’s essentially the Space Hospital again. “Don’t worry, Shiro is fine! Consequences are for Japanese shows!”

Except this season completely ruins the idea to the point doing it would introduce a ton of plot holes.

Shiro regained the Black Lion’s trust. He turned the tide of a (boring) battle without any sort of betrayal or GundamJack or anything. If he was a clone or a sleeper agent there would be no need for him to do that. Furthermore, the whole point of a clone/brainwashed Shiro arc, to push Keith into the position of leader and hero makes no sense when it’s Shiro who saved the day and led everyone to victory. It would feel unearned.

So while it could have made sense at one point, the ship has sailed. Doing it now would make less sense.

[turboghast]

While internally joking around about "Wow, the Universal Century really seems to have a hijacking problem" I realized that how Knightmares have keys is neat tone-setting detail. The One-Year War and the AEUG's rebellion against the Titans are equal enough that neither side wants to risk a mobile suit getting stuck in the hangar because the pilot misplaced their keys despite all the mobile suit-jacking that occurs in Zeta.

Britannia at the start of Code Geass has no such equal; they're already dominating the world and are preparing to dominate it even harder. Their military advantages are so large that they're willing and able to sacrifice some combat readiness to maintain them.

[laurarolla]

Gundams Rising: Gundam 0083 (1991)

After the previous OVA in 1989, a sort of split began to form in the Gundam franchise. Yoshiyuki Tomino continued working on expanding the Universal Century forward, not only with Gundam F91, but also with manga storylines and light novels like Hathaway's Flash and Crossbone Gundam.  However, 0080 showed that there was some value in exploring the stories the surround the events early in the franchise.  Additionally, there was a plot of extremely fertile ground for storytelling left by the seven year gap between the original series and its direct sequel.  So, from 1990 to 1992, Sunrise got a bunch of directors, writers, and design staff together and set about telling the story of how the Federation turned from Democracy to Facism.  Yet despite the number of capable staff involved, Gundam 0083 was truly a grand debut for one man in particular:  Hajime Katoki.

Katoki had worked with writer Masaya Takahashi to create a Gundam ZZ doujin serial novel called Gundam Sentinel, telling the story of a group of Federation pilots given the task of hunting down remnants of the Titans.  It ran from 1987 to 1988 in a model hobbyist magazine, and was later compiled into a single volume as a result of its rather strong cult following.  Katoki's work in Sentinel was a springboard for his career in later mechanical design which continues to this day, in part with the redesign of various Gundam machines for a special run of model kits and toys sold partially on his name (the “Version Ka” series, for those of you wondering).  Katoki's designs are heavily realistic in their aesthetic, yet not quite in the same stylized manner of Mamoru Nagano's designs, nor like the hyper-realism of the more recent designer Takayuki Yanase.

From the beginning of the episode, “Gundamjack,” and taking Katoki's mechanical design focus into account, it becomes clear that 0083, unlike 0080, will be far more focused on creating smooth yet high-impact action scenes, while maintaining strong quality character design with art that, at times, seems the slightest bit segregated between the men and the machines. The opening sequence features our antagonists, Aiguille Delaz and Anavel Gato, facing off against the federation in the battle of A Bau A Qu, with Delaz learning of Gihren's death and forcing Gato to retreat from the battle with him.  And as we know by now, the Federation wins the war with the deaths of the remaining adult members of the Zabi Family, and Zeon retreats to Axis.  Mostly.

Shifting to the desolite wasteland of Australia, a group of Zakus engages in a mock battle against an enhanced GM unit.  Here we meet our protagonist Kou Uraki and his best buddy Chuck Keith.  We also see the first quick contrast of their skills and personality, with Uraki pushing the Zaku to the absolute limits of what it can do, and Keith getting stuck in some of the wrecked remains of the Operation British colony left behind from the war 4 years prior.  Also, Kou immediately bitches about his machine's limits in relation to the GM he's fighting, setting up his character arc for the remainder of the series. Afterwards, we shift over to see the new Pegasus class ship, Albion. Nina Purpleton, a technician from Anaheim Electronics, is admiring the ocean for the first time right up to the point where Captain Synapse points out that they are currently over Sydney, the city hit by the colony.  Just from the first seven minutes of the series, the tone is being made clear.  0083 feels only slightly lighter than Zeta early on, and is clearly showing itself to be the bridge between the first series and Zeta, with One Year War machines blended with a technical aesthetic closer to Zeta and Sentinel.  Even Nina being from Anaheim is a nod to Zeta, ZZ, and Char's Counterattack, with the company being a hugely successful arms dealer who sells to both sides of the Federation/Zeon conflicts of the future.  Hiding in the shadows, Gato and his subordinates take note of the Albion arriving on schedule, showing in one quick moment that Anaheim is just as two-faced now as it will be in the future.

As the Albion lands, Kou and Keith head over against orders to check out whatever new mobile suits happen to be aboard.  After a quick cut away to establish the rather unique nature of the suits in question, we return to our duo checking out the fancy new Gundam units, Zephyranthes and Physalis.  I'd think that maybe the names were based on the idea of flower language, but I can't actually posit a guess as to exactly what was meant by the Physalis if that is the case, since as a genus name for a subtype of nightshade, it has a fair few different meanings.  Zephyranthes, however, means “expectation” everywhere I've looked, and it is actually pretty fitting in that case.  In any case, while Kou is distracted by the Gundams, Keith proceeds to hit on Nina when she comes over to confront them about being somewhere they aren't supposed to be.  He's stopped by Mora, a tall, muscular, dark-skinned woman who takes an immediate liking to the little guy.  Lucky dog...

So one of the Anaheim dudes drives off ostensibly to see the sunset, but really he's going to pick up Gato of a late night rendezvous of their own with the Physalis.  I'll talk about the use of German code names and aesthetic later, but for now, we jump back and forth a bit to the base and Gato's team to build the tension for the coming battle. Even a scene in the cafeteria, with Kou being given a bunch of carrots after asking for no carrots, isn't really there for levity, but to build more onto the fight that's coming later.  Orville finally returns to the base with some cargo that the soldier at the gate conveniently forgets to check, leading to my favorite line in the dub.  The team on the Albion loads the nuke onto the Physalis, and Kou and Keith arrive just too late to watch them do it.  However, Kou is right on time to tell Gato that it has been loaded, and thus the Nightmare of Solomon takes full advantage of the opportunity and swipes the Gundam.  Kou, for his part, swipes the Zephyranthes in an attempt to stop the nuclear warhead-equipped Gundam.  He is held up a bit by the need to load the vulcan ammo, and Gato makes his intentions to resurrect Zeon clear as he cuts his way out of the Albion's hanger.  Keith notifies his compatriots of the Gundam's nuclear armament, and the group of test pilots suits up for battle. Then one of them gets sliced in half by a Dom.  So, things aren't exactly going well for the Federation at this point.  The episode ends with Kou jumping dramatically in front of the Physalis and drawing his beam saber.

0083 seems to have the occasional issue with the way some scenes flow into each other, but all of the scenes do move toward the same end.  The action sequences are well choreographed, and the music is really great. Best of all, the dub is a really solid localization, rather than a full-on straight translation.  Personal bias here, but I prefer studios actually work to make the translation fit the mechanics and feel of the language they are translating into without scrubbing the culture of the original work.  0083, 0080, and the Gundam movie trilogy dub all came out originally in the states in 1998, just before the anime boom in the US hit full force.  Gundam has tended toward having accurate yet well-written dubs, acting quality aside, but there were some hiccups with later dubs where things just feel a bit off (Gundam Seed and Gundam Unicorn, for instance).  In terms of the biggest issue I have that shows up in this episode, 0083 is the first Gundam show that really glorifies the Nazi aesthetic of Zeon's look.  Additionally, Gato is very much the samurai style character glorified in Gundam, so much so that he gets a Gundam to pilot, making him the first Zeon Gundam pilot and evoking the original RX-78's shogun armor look with his samurai attitude.  And the use of so much German language from facist loyalists is... a bit on the nose.

Overall, the episode is a good way to get people interested in the show, but the narrative issues that will plague the later episodes of the series do begin to show through here.  The action is the focus, and that remains the case for the entire series, for better or worse.

[stacotto]

I'm half and half torn between Prospera manipulating Miorine into piloting Aerial expecting it to kill her, and wanting Prospera to drop the ball and say "well it's too bad about Suletta but we're getting the hell outta here" and Mio successfully Gundamjacking this time.

So here’s a rather fun idea that came to me after thinking about the whole idea of Aerial activating/moving on her own to protect Suletta, as to what we might be seeing next episode:

Due to being captured by Sophie or simply due to the damage the station has suffered, Suletta isn’t able to make it to the hanger where Aerial is.

However, Miorine manages to make it there. And when it becomes clear that Suletta has been cut off and is in trouble, Miorine does the same thing she did back in Episode 1, and gets in the Aerial.

Except this time, instead of just trying to take control, Miorine starts talking to Aerial. Basically she has a big character moment where she admits just how much she cares about and loves Suletta and begs Aerial to help her save Suletta.

Then Aerial powers up, and for the first time both Miorine and the audience hear Aerial speak. Probably something cute/cheeky like ‘Well why didn’t you say so?’ or teasing Miorine like you’d expect from a future sister-in-law XD

And with that, ‘The Witch from Mercury’ kicks in as Miorine and Aerial blast their way out of the hanger to go save Suletta.

[newtypezaku]

P-P-P-Power Rankings!!

Knight's & Magic (Last: 1): Some sweet mech-on-mech combat was overshadowed by my disappointment that Ernie, who should be dangerously genre savvy, built a bunch of new robots but didn't create adequate safeguards against Gundamjacking.

Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun (Last: 3): Tsukamoto spent most of the match against Minamida Fuzoku getting stomped by junior high bully Kadomatsu Ryou. But Aoyama's faith in his teammates helped Tsukamoto redeem himself by literally pulling the game-tying goal out of his ass.

Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu (Last: 2): Unable to use contemporary toadies to stop the negotiations to surrender Edo Castle, the Time Retrograde Army used a warship to set the city on fire. The sword boys failed to stop the attack and came close to being wiped out.

Welcome to the Ballroom (Last: 4): Hyodo had to prove his manhood by dancing the Tango de la Muerte, completely wrecking his leg and getting DQed for an illegal substitution. Tatara took the blame and shouldered the guilt for Sengoku's no good, terrible, awful idea.

Altair: A Record of Battles (Last: NR): Picked this up on recommendation because, hey, alternate/fictional history or whatever. Witness the rapid rise and fall of military wunderkid Mahmud in what I'm calling "Akatsuki no Arslan," at least for now.

Kamen Rider Ex-aid (Last: 7): After a suicide attack by CR's remaining Riders gave Masamune all of their gear, Emu revealed that he hadn't killed Parad after all, allowing the two of them to team up for smackdo-- except Masamune has the power to reset the world now.

Re:Creators (Last: NR): It wouldn't be a proper meta-anime without a hot springs episode, even if it's the money pit on Odaiba. Using powers developed off-screen during a time skip, Meteora summoned Selesia's Vogelchevalier to give their team more firepower.

Dragon Ball Super (Last: 5): Toppo had half of the Pride Troopers team up against Goku, with Caulifla and Kale joining in. The arrival of 17 and 18 tipped the scales in their favor, and the Troopers were wiped out after Kale controlled her Super Saiyan powers.

Aiming for eight each week cuz eighters gonna eight. Full watch lists: [Animu][Dramu]

[turboghast]

Having watched the next 6 episodes, at this rate there's going to be a total of 46 mobile suit-jackings across ZZ as a whole.

Gundamjacking really goes up to 11 in Gundam ZZ. While watching episode 13 ("Little Sister!"), I thought Beecha and Mondo's plot to jack the Double Zeta was going to fail because Judau's completely unrelated plot to jack his own mobile suit in order to sortie without permission would beat them to the punch.