#my boy can pilot a gundam

[failwormwife]

i made a meme

[ladyloveandjustice]

My Top 12 Favorite Anime of 2023 (and more)!

This was a great year for anime, so here's a long list of my top 12 (including some bonus great anime). If you get tired of clicking the review links, check out my anime overview collection for all of them here.  You can also check out my list of favorite manga here!

Some of these are ongoing, so consider those only a review of the first cour-- no official endorsement on the rest because it hasn't aired yet!

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 2)

When I listed G-Witch in last year's top anime list, I prayed the show wouldn't betray me. Fortunately, it didn't! Though the final half of the show was a bit rushed, it remained must-see, compelling sci-fi full of exciting twists and turns. And I adore the well developed romance between the robot-piloting protagonist and precious girl, Suletta, and her fierce fiancé, Miorine.  Whether you’re here for starcrossed queer lovers, robots wrecking each other, tense battles between opposing political factions, or morally-horrifying moms on a revenge spree, you’re in for a treat.

See my full review here.

Yuri is my Job!

Hime is roped into working at a cafe where the waitresses playact as students of the fictional all girl’s school from a beloved novel series. However, Hime finds her co-worker, Mitsuki, has an inexplicable grudge against her. Thus begins a tangled web of romance and wounded feelings among the girls in the cafe! Yuri is My Job seems like a fun comedy boasting a cast full of quirky lesbians, but then reveals itself to be a complicated and fascinating examination of performance- as it intersects with queerness, girlhood,  and the desire to be “likeable” and “cute". It's top-tier lesbian drama full of fraught relationships and it's absolutely worth a watch.

See my full review here.

The Apothecary Diaries (still ongoing, review is for the first cour)

Though it's still going, I have to sing the praises of this dazzling anime about a saavy apothecary who uses her medical expertise to solve the many murders and betrayals in the Emperor's palace. MaoMao is a fantastic lead, a poison-obsessed gremlin who's whip-smart, deadpan, and fun to follow. The Apothecary Diaries has intrigue, well-developed characters, and an impeccable atmosphere. It tells a great range of stories, from romantic triumph, to bittersweet tales of recovering from grief, to pure tragedies. I'm totally hooked.

See my full review here.

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady

When Euphie is dumped by her fiance at a ball, the oddball princess Anis rescues her.  Euphie becomes Anis' assistant in her quest to develop magical tools. The girls also start to develop feelings for each other, while discovering a conspiracy among the nobility. I'm always desperately in need of cool lesbians having action-packed fantasy adventures, and Magirevo delivers. The characters grow in entertaining ways, we get to see them fight dragons in killer action scenes, and the romantic development is completely satisfying. It's a simple story at its core, but the lovable characters, joyous queerness and jubilant execution make it a great watch.

See my full review here.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story (Season 2)

In the second season of the anime about girls homoerotically golfing while dealing with the mafia and ludicrous family drama, Birdie Wing remains a bombastically absurd sports anime that is fun all the way through. Please come watch these girls get ridiculous sports  injuries, scream their super golf attacks, experience extremely extra plot twists--and be super gay with each other, of course. The finale didn't go quite as hard as I wanted (and the romance is more subtexual than I wanted), but you need to allow yourself to experience the madness of Birdie Wing.

See full review here.

Skip and Loafer

An endearingly dorky, earnest, and driven girl moves from her small town to Tokyo. While she struggles to adjust, she befriends a nice popular boy who's got some baggage. Skip and Loafer is a show that’s like a warm hug. It's sweet, entertaining and funny. It handles adolescent struggles with tender nuance. There's a emphasis on kindness, connection, and looking past stereotypes and misconceptions. It also includes a trans character who's treated with respect (and is a great character in general!) Let this show touch your heart.

See my full review here.

Undead Murder Farce

An immortal woman has had most of her body stolen by a mysterious man. Reduced to a head carried around by her maid, she teams up with a half-demon man to track the thief down while solving supernatural mysteries all across Victorian England.

This a fun, campy mystery series starring three asshole weirdo protagonists,  it’s bursting with supernatural creatures and literary references. We've got Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom of the Opera, Carmilla and more...along with a vampire murders and werewolf drama galore. UDM is a wonderful romp with stylish, slick direction... and it’s unexpectedly really gay.  I’m aching to see more of these scrappy misfits and their adventures.

See my full review here.

Migi & Dali

A story of twins who are pretending to be one kid in order to fool their foster parents and find out who killed their mother. It starts out as an utterly absurd comedy becomes a impressive and genuinely tense murder mystery that is incredibly moving at times, all while keeping up it’s signature brand of goofiness. There’s genuine commentary on abuse, the damage you can do to children by forcing perfection on them, the struggle of being a foster kid, grief and recovery and more. There's also some great character development. It's a weird one, but it's absolutely worth sticking with.

See full review here.

Pluto

Somebody is killing the most advanced robots in the  world and murdering humans alongside them. A robot detective is trying to track this killer down, but he might be compromised as well. Pluto is a tense, tense, tightly plotted robot murder mystery that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Through robots, it explores the idea of being a tool in a corrupt system, and tackles subjects like war, imperialism, and the nature of hatred. It's a masterful psychological thriller with stunning animation and a rich story.

See my full review here.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

This anime approaches the story of Scott Pilgrim and Ramona's seven evil exes from a brands new angle, and the results are great. We get a exploration of relationships and regrets, the messiness of communication and connection, the trials of becoming an adult, all with the signature goofy video game antics. Characters neglected in previous iterations finally get their due, new facets of the story are explored, queer relationships are delved into more, girls kiss...and it's all accompanied by phenomenal animation and a killer soundtrack.

See my full review here

Soaring Sky! Precure

Sora lives in a world called Skyland and wants to be a great hero. When rescuing the kidnapped baby princess, she falls through a portal to earth. There she meets her fellow magical warriors, and as Precure they protect the princess from the villains!

This vibrant, warm-hearted adventure got me back on the Precure train! This series boasts a lot exciting firsts for the franchise--the first official male cure, the first main cure that's eighteen years old- but above all, it has a lively team of characters with who have an entertaining dynamic and enjoyable individual journeys. It's often very funny, the baby has a surprisingly good character arc, and it's bursting with magical girl (and boy) goodness! It's also not afraid to give you an emotional gutpunch when you've been lured into a false sense of security by all the fun times. If you're new to Precure, this is a great jumping on point, and if you've watched it before, this is a series you won't want to miss.

I'm in Love with the Villainess

Rae is reincarnated as the heroine of her favorite dating sim. But she has no interest in romancing any of the boys- she’s head over heels for Claire Francois, the snooty villainess.

Villainess may not be as polished--storywise or animation-wise-- as these other entries. It's a messy series, it has plenty of problems...but it's also very fun, and it touched my queer little heart like no other. Queer people get to indulge in our imperfect faves too, and the silly shenanigans, blatant lesbian wish fulfillment, honest advocacy for queer people, and the joy and earnestness of the series works for me!

See my full review here.

Some Other Great Anime:

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (still ongoing, review is for the first cour)

Frieren is a long-lived elf who was once part of an adventuring party that saved the world from the Demon Lord. But now her friends are passing away and the world is moving on. She decides to retrace her old party's journey so she can understand what she's feeling.

Frieren is both an interesting examination of what happens after the hero saves the world, as well as a meditation on mortality, grief,  and the endless march of time. It takes you on a quiet, beautiful and sometimes touching journey though a pastoral fantasy world. There's some breath-taking animation and excellent atmosphere to enjoy.

See my review here.

Spy x Family (Season 3)

Spy x Family is pretty much staying the course from when we last checked in,  though this season gives a lot more attention to Yor, and I love the cruise ship arc and all the ridiculous fights she gets into a lot! That arc contains some of my favorite gags of the series too (like Loid’s  attempts to be a cool dad). Otherwise, Spyfam has settled into a series that intends to be around for the long haul, so don’t expect too much forward plot momentum. And Yuri (the man, not the genre) unfortunately still exists. Overall it was good season and remains a fun  adaptation. Yor, please step on me.

[mitraoki]

Hi hi! I'd like to rq a Ken Sato x Gundam pilot (pilot of a giant war robot, similar to a transformer) reader, fem or gen if possible!

She's slightly older and used to work with the KDF but quit due to realising the problems KDF has caused.

OR! She could have worked for the Japanese army but due to a horrible accident during a mission she could've been injured badly and was forced to retire early.

Possibly low-key sassy and stoic personality that she acquired after years of working for the army, that undermine her politeness and sweet personality.

And if possible, can she wear an eye patch?

If you don't like this feel free to ignore :( But I really like this concept and your writing style so it'd be really nice to see it written out :)

Don't tire yourself out!

😧🪒😦 - Anon

hot and cold. (ken sato x gn! reader)

note; HELLO anon!! thank you soo much for requesting. this is a REALLY good background you've given me, i just hope i've done it enough justice for you🥹🥹please let me know of your thoughts about this! i always welcome feedback <33

as usual, requests are open!! refer to my rules for a better view on what i write (✿◕‿◕✿)

masterlist.

i would say that after ken's experiences with emi and bonding with his dad, he becomes more open to various possibilities. yes he's happy he's slowly recovering what he'd lost long ago, but there's definitely something in particular that's missing in his life.

he hasn't thought about love in a long, long time. back in america it was always crushes, or simple dates but nothing ever lasted longer than he wanted it to. ken sato hates cliffhangers.

you, on the other hand, weren't hoping for much. all your life you've worked - very obviously - as a tool for the KDF, but what good did it bring you except to push yourself away from people?? so you did, not wanting to be around people quite often, so much as to even isolating yourself.

after learning of your boss' potential demise, what good is there staying in an organization that left you completely shallow? gone was the need to remain in KDF, signing the very last paper regarding your resignation.

"i should get an eye patch," you muttered, staring into the mirror with a dull look. it was no news for the frontliners to experience heavy injuries, but you definitely did not expect one of your eyes to become completely dysfunctional.

it had only been a few days since your departure from the shackles when you just had to bump into the well-known, ecstatic baseball player, ken sato in a convenience store. purely out of coincidence, of course. squinting your eyes, you sent a nod his way.

"heard of you," you uttered, stretching your lips into a thin line as you headed towards the counter, paying for the stuff you'd picked out for dinner later.

....leaving the man himself completely speechless.

who were you? why didn't you say anything else about his plays? have you attended any of them? were you pissed that he wasn't playing to his full potential? and what was with the eye patch?

he needed to know more of you.

i'd like to think he'd ask more about you from mina, gaining as much information as he could about you. if you had any specific history, some kind of secret that he was yet to uncover. lo and behold, he dug far enough to find out you once worked with his enemy. emphasis on worked.

a shiver ran down his spine when he read those words. he didn't need to see it, but he could tell there was more to than what meets the eye.

"something the matter, ken?" mina questioned, her holographic screen dissipating.

"oh- how difficult do you think this is gonna be?"

"....i cannot give you a definitive answer, ken. i would depend on the way you'd choose to approach her."

and approached you he did. not exactly, but again. it was purely out of coincidence when he saw you sitting by the window of a quaint cafe, sipping on your favorite beverage.

"baseball boy?" you called out behind him while he was "trying his best to order his favorite drink." his words, not yours.

"fancy seeing you 'round here."

"yeah! well. you know me - super down to earth," he chuckled nervously, clearing his throat after.

but you can see just how bad he was suppressing himself from throwing the biggest questions he had for you. out of respect, you had hoped. nodding, you walked back to your seat after grabbing your long-awaited dessert.

that was - until - the same baseball boy practically begged to sit at the same table as you. there it was. one would expect the fan to do most of the questioning towards their idol, but in this case it was different.

you were no fan, and ken surely wasn't one himself. the KDF doesn't really have a good image going on, after all. it was the slight glimmer of hope in your heart that this man had a pure heart, just wanting to explore what he hasn't in this big, cruel world.

heaving a huge sigh, you gave in. this can go on. what's the worst that could happen?

and it did. for hours. hours turning into days. days turning into weeks. months. suddenly a year had passed, and you were now in his arms, being the little spoon you had desired for so long.

he hears story after story of yours. all the secret missions you'd gone through before resigning. the eye that you'd lost a long time ago.

ken sato was careful with your heart, soul and you. he cares for you like the world's most fragile glass, holds you in his arms like he might lose you the moment he lets go. he kisses every single scar of yours like he was silently acknowledging the sacrifices you'd made through the years.

and for the first time, you felt like there was some meaning. you needed to see this through. you wanted ken sato more than ever now. the way he smiles, the way his eyes glimmer when you tell him something new. the way he cups your face and reminds you of your worth.

it's mind boggling to know someone slightly younger than you has such a vast and mature mind, ready to accept you when no one else has. life had always been stagnant. you wake up, you face the days ahead. some conversations with or without you. unwanted noises that bothered you to the core.

it was just something about ken, his voice perhaps. or it could be the way he wants to listen. he chooses to listen even when he doesn't understand, because this man would do anything in the world to be in yours.

"i don't know what the others have told you, y/n. but in my eyes, i can keep them on you forever and i'd never grow tired."

and those were the words that left you speechless, the fresh warm streak of tears flowing down your cheeks. it was such a rare sight to see someone so stoic, so persistent break down. but even then, ken sato was there to hold you tight, whisper soothing words into your ear and pepper you with endless kisses.

you'd grown absolutely smitten for this man, and i would say you'd never regret a single moment with him.

all created content belongs to mitraoki. reposts/remakes are not allowed.

[gunpowderdtim]

could i possibly please hear your marius backstory hc? no pressure ofc

boy am i glad you asked.

Byron, as per "canon", grew up on a planet with poor nutrition, poor everything really, with his sister, Dorothea, and his parent. (menntioned by kofi once)

Dorothea and Byron spent their time, when not experiencing the horrors, poking around ruins, trying not to die, and to scavenge what they can from the relics left behind by the long-crumbled ancient society of some sort.

(Very memory of water, if any of you have read that book)

One day, Byron and Dorothea stumble across an entrance to some sort of old science facility, or warehouse, or perhaps hangar is the best word.

And together, they discover Kismet, Fate, (or, more pertinently within my mechs canon, fate in the matter that a story has its written ending.) - and Byron begins piloting it.

A sword in a stone, one might say.

Arthur.

When Arthur got his railgun, that started his destiny.

Byron did not have a military grade gun.

Byron had Kismet.

Now what is Kismet?

A gundam, a mecha, a giant fucking humanoid robot vehicle that Byron then pilots to do plot things.

What sort of plot things? Exactly what doesn't particularly matter, only that Byron did not stop.

He just kept on fucking going. Until he couldn't. That sounds sort of familiar, huh?

Like Hercules.

[Zeus's] favourite trick is to offer [his bastard children] a place in the family, contingent on the completion of a suicide mission or two. Most barely last a week, but Heracles? Heracles is too mean, too tough, and too stupid to stop. So he just keeps going. 

Now, Kismet eventually will crash, with Byron inside, but thats to discuss later, for now, lets ask another question:

How does Kismet operate?

To me, Kismet is made of a very familiar metal - the sort, that we may know, "hums like a far off chant"

(the sort of metal i think all Mechanisms are made of, a far off chant, you say? like a song?)

And how, i may offer, do machines of metal like that operate?

His name is Kvasir, a low level member of the Midgardian resistance, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the dozen tubes and feed lines plugged into his veins, pumping blood through the arcane glyphs and blood channels and gears and sigils that line the chamber. The metal is the same as that which makes the track, and it hums like a far off chant.​

Blood. Blood that runs through channels, the life force of the user, hoooking them into the heart of the machine to feed it, to regulate it.

(We know the mechanisms are likely powered off void. They shimmer rainbow when damaged.)

Byron is Kismet's pilot, and, i would imagine, there has to me a mechanism of sort to pilot it, pilot fate, to me, i envision a cuff around his arm, with veins of metal snaking up his veins, sapping his blood, drop by drop, to power the machine.

Byron is the heart, in the center of machine, who needs hearts blood when you act as it? He controls Kismet with a cuff around his arm He is its pilot.

He steers fate.

Thor begins pulling levers and throwing switches seemingly at random, causing the glyphs and channels to move and warp their constellations.

Byron, most likely, pulls the wrong lever.

Kismet crashes.

And Byron becomes it.

Or it becomes Marius.

The cuff stops being around his arm, starts being his arm, fusing into his body, his bones, becoming it, becoming him, and Byron becomes something else altogether.

Byron Von Raum once piloted Kismet.

Kismet is now piloting Marius.

What is the relationship between parasite and host? What is the relationship between pilot and ship? What is the relationship between Mechanism, and the body a mechanism 'enhances'?

What is the relationship between a story, and its ending?

[shin-meddlesome-hero]

Some of my notes from watching Zeta Gundam very, very slowly (up until ep. 34)

(Needless to say that it contains spoilers and that I get very annoying about the female characters because that's my thing)

-I'm 6 episodes into Zeta Gundam and I still don't know what to make of Kamille. On the other hand, it took me a look at some screenshots of SD Gundam Kamille to know that I'd die for him.

-I was very surprised to see Kamille openly declaring that he's autistic. Why don't we have more of that?

-20 episodes in, now (watching v. slowly). So... Z isn't exactly that great about women... right? 0079 left me gladly surprised on that front, but my expectations were super low. Maybe I should turn off that part of my brain while watching this.

- I hate to say this about a female character but so far Beltorchika is so annoying. Wake up, sis! You can't fix the dude, you barely know him! He's not opening up to you, and please leave the 15 year old out of your problems with Amuro!

-"I learned karate and how to make Mobile Suits to become a man!". Kamille isn't beating the transmasc allegations /J

-It makes sense that Kamille resents her mother for apparently caring more about her job than her family, but this does speak more of that general anxiety about women in the workplace than of anything else. Might be a common cliché at the time, still don't like it.

-She's allowed to be a terrible mom, but maybe for other more nuanced reasons? Also the fact that Kamille mentions that Fa made things that his mother should've done for him... it's gonna be really awkward if Kamille/Fa is the endgame ship.

-So, if both Kamille's parents were responsible for the development of the MK-II, then when he fights in it, one can say that his parents are still protecting him. On the other hand, we could also consider the MK-II as Kamille's little br- *gets shot*

-Ep 21: The titular Zeta Gundam appears. -Male Feminist guy is creepy. -Bright has the vibes of an exhausted High School teacher. - Fa rescues Kamille in space. This two are soo endgame

-Bright: Emma, you should do something about Kamille and Fa. Emma: Nah. I'm not Kamille's mom, besides, teens like to make drama as a form of recreation.

Emma is so cool. (Also, she and Reccoa should kiss)

-If there's a fanfic out there about Bright Noah being a clueless high school teacher/principal, please let me know. That's like the perfect AU for him.

-Girls can also fuck up in the battlefield and get slapped as a form of military disciplinary tactic! Hashtag equality. (But seriously though, I wasn't expecting Fa to become a pilot. Interesting).

-In the comment section of the dubious site where I'm watching this show, people are saying that Zeta is ahead of its time. And yeah, in many aspects it is. On the other hand it took Gundam 40+ years to have a girl protag. Suletta Mercury should've been invented like 30 or 20 years ago.

-Meanwhile, Scirocco is high-key trying to get Jerid killed and failing. They're both huge losers.

-Also, Kamille is slowly and steadily growing on me.

-Kamille becomes more mature and thoughtful. - The story brings Katz to be the new impulsive boy who fucks everything up. -Katz matures after a couple of episodes. -Now there's a pair of annoying kids whose only purpose is to awake Fa's maternal instinct (???) It never ends!

-On the other hand, I did enjoy those five seconds where Quattro was babysitting those kids. Would've preferred more of that.

-I love that in-universe everyone refers to teenage drama as "recreation". Even Kamille at some point admits that he and Fa are engaging in such recreation. At least their relationship is evolving in a healthier way than Amuro and Fraw's in 0079.

-Between Reccoa possibly having feelings for Scirocco and Mauar protecting Jerid, it's evident that in this universe everyone suffers from having Bad Taste in Men. Y'all could do better, queens!

-Also everyone punches and slaps each other so much. And it's not a love language. It's just another language that everyone just use. (There's even a punch compilation in tumblr, it's hilarious).

-I really hope to eventually get an explanation of what's up with those kids that Char brought from Earth, because so far their only purpose is to fuel Fa's maternal instincts.

-Episode 33! We're finally meeting those funny guys from Axis. This is also full of high quality Char moments.

-*Char has flashbacks of him playing with toddler!Mineva and also gets angry when he realizes how much they have manipulated her* Aww, daddy Char.

* Char unnecesarily beats the crap out of Kamille, five minutes later* Hey! What the hell, Char?!

-Char: "I have never betrayed anyone in my entire life! Ever!

lol, a classic.

-Help! Char is starting to have a similar effect on me as the one that other horrible and pathetic fictional white men have on tumblrinas.

-Seriously though, if UC Gundam were more popular in the western hemisphere, Char Aznable would totally be a Tumblr Sexyman. *shudders*

-Me: I see, so Reccoa actually has a death wish, she recklessly jumps into the battlefield on a desperate attempt to find her own demise, but she doesn't know it.

Z Gundam: Actually Scirocco is brainwashing her with space magic and she's sexually frustrated with Char.

Wha-?

-Reccoa has so many death flags that I'm always surprised whenever she survives. Her fake "death" and its consequences were really well done. I particularly liked Kamille's reaction.

-Maybe the most effective death flag in Zeta is being close to Jerid. That's more letal than the birthday song or being near Amuro's range.

And that's all for now. Join me next time as I try to watch Z less slowly so I might be able to watch "Char's Counterattack" before Christmas 2023.

[wordsandrobots]

IBO reference notes on . . . the battle at the low-orbit station

So. According to Gundam Wiki (citing an official Twitter message that's cited in turn without a link on an English-language message board), the shoulder-mounted bazooka that Akihiro uses in his second deployment in the Graze Custom was acquired during the battle in Mars orbit that forms the bulk episode 5, 'Beyond the Red Sky', when Tekkadan manage to run rings around Colonel Coral Conrad and shady trader Orcus (remember Orcus?). This struck me as rather curious, since I couldn't remember a point in that fight where it would have made sense for anybody to mug a Graze for its weaponry, much less a bazooka-equipped Graze actually appearing among the Gjallarhorn forces.

Being a diligent sort of obsessive, I decided to go back and watch the episode in full, to check my memory. This led to noting a number of (to me) interesting things and since nobody can stop me, I'm going to jot them down here.

First up, the Graze contingent for this episode mostly consists of the rather nice blue models labelled alternatively in secondary material as the 'Ares type' or 'space type'. The latter seems the most useful term since we see this livery repeat at various other locations later on, most significantly as part of the Dort Colony garrison and Gaelio's intercept squadron in Earth orbit. We can assume this is the general-purpose colours for Gjallarhorn 'suits operating in space, outside of elite units like the Arianrhod Fleet or those under the Seven Stars direct control (e.g. the yellow/gold versions the Issues use in Urdr Hunt).

Like a lot of the Graze's design, this seems to be a callback to the Leos from Gundam Wing, which featured a similar green/indigo distinction for ground/space (although space Leos are much more purple).

This episode is the series' first major space battle and it showcases some brilliant shot composition. There's so much to love about how this fight is story-boarded, from the mobile suits flying at weird angles to one another, to the way in-cockpit views are used.

The right-hand image here is from the perspective of Ein Dalton's Graze, and his appearance demonstrates a small detail that's easy to miss if you haven't poured over the the concept art. While this is still the green Graze that Ein was piloting in the opening episodes (its arm having been replaced in the meantime), the waist-mounted boosters have been swapped for blue shoulder-mounted units, like the rest of the squadron deployed from the Ares space station.

This is because the space boosters are slightly different from the ground-use ones, featuring extra vernier jets. However, I'm not sure the gaps for those ought to have been drawn in the left screenshot here, since they're supposed to be at right angles to the main thrusters. You can see the correct rendering on the left, below. In a great bit of continuity, Ein is later shown assisting this particular Graze after it's lost one of its boosters. Good boy! (For all that he turned out to be a mite unbalanced, Ein begins as a very diligent soldier.)

Oddly enough given its ubiquity in the merchandising, the shot on the right will be the last time the green Mars-branch Graze is seen in action in the show. After this, Ein switches to using Gaelio's Schwalbe Graze, and opposition to Tekkadan comes from different Gjallarhorn units using other colour schemes. The Arianrhod Grazes that will become the mandated 'green enemy type' for Season 2 are a notably different shade and colour layout (left), and the next and final time the 'Mars green' Graze appears, it will be in the rather ignoble aftermath of Hashmal's rampage across the Chryse Planatia (right).

[EDIT: I belatedly realised the above is not quite true: Mars-green Grazes do in fact participate in the final battle of the show against Mikazuki and Akihiro, and the machine Iok commandeers after McGillis wrecks his custom model is painted in these colours. So that's actually a nice bookending. I was misremembering because most of the action is handled by the Graze Schild variants.]

Anyway, that's enough Graze appreciation.

Time for some blatant Eugene Sevenstark propaganda.

Up to this point in the show, Eugene has been positioned as something between a joke character and the obligatory Doubting Thomas. He's clearly got an ego, clearly has a chip on his shoulder regarding Orga's leadership, and his main contribution to a battle previously has been to run away (very effectively, saving Orga's life in the process, but still).

Then, with Gjallarhorn and Orcus bearing down on Tekkadan's spacehsip, Orga comes up with a plan to use a nearby mining asteroid to perform an insanely sharp handbrake turn in order to gain altitude over their pursuers. This involves launching an anchor into the asteroid and sling-shotting the Isaribi through a tight orbit before using an explosive charge to blow the anchor and release them. Given the speed with which this must be enacted, the charge has to be placed manually, using a mobile worker. Orga originally intends to do this himself but Eugene brashly volunteers in his place, saying that as leader, he shouldn't be doing everything himself and grumbling that the others let Orga have his way far too easily.

Both these will be important charaterisation for later.

What I want to talk about, however, is how this manoeuvre goes off. It starts reasonably enough, with the anchor being fired into the rock and Eugene racing down the cable to, uh, shoulder-barge the bomb into position.

He shoots the charge and it detonates, but the anchor struck deeper than expected and doesn't come free. Now, based on past expectations, one might expect Eugene to panic over this. He's certainly not seemed especially level-headed up to now, and perhaps even a bit of a paper-tiger.

Instead, he backflips the mobile worker to launch his fuel tank at the recalcitrant anchor.

I just -- this is the first time we have seen any of these boys operating in space and he just . . . does that. Split second decision-making, zero-g environment, no problem. And it works! The extra blast from the tank frees the anchor.

It's brilliantly rendered too, with Eugene's shots going wide for a long few seconds before he finally gets the range and blows the tank.

If that wasn't enough, we then get a moment of 'oh shit, what happened to Eugene?' as the screen whites out, the cable snaking in silhouette, before coming around again to show that he's managed to latch on to the anchor to ride it back to the Isaribi.

Not only is this a fantastic action sequence, showcasing the weight and physical interaction that IBO excels at, and not only does it cement Eugene's position as 'the guy you really want flying your spaceship', it also serves as excellent set-up for where his griping about Orga's leadership is eventually going to go. Because yes, Eugene complains about Orga charging ahead and raises some legitimate objections. But at the same time, he is fully prepared to take incredibly risky actions on Orga's say-so, both recognising the strategy is sound and trusting Orga enough to follow his lead regardless of personal friction.

This will pay off later in perhaps the worst way it could, when Eugene proves incapable of properly pulling Orga up on his 'I must do everything' tendencies until it's much too late, precisely because of this trust. For now, it's just a wonderful piece of showing-against-telling, highlighting that Eugene is a true part of the team -- whatever he says -- and a damn skilled one at that.

Also, and this is me stretching for interesting reads, but the fact he is *this* good in a mobile worker and in zero-g in general despite being canonically not great during ground battles or when using mobile suits is something I place in the 'neurodivergent Eugene' column. I mean, if that's the right term when we're talking about fighting ability using a human/machine interface. Basically I think there's the basis to argue Eugene just copes better in space, where he can move any way he wants, rather than being stuck under gravity and following a human template. Partly this is inspired by how he gallops his mobile worker during the battle at the CGS base, as if he's trying to jump into the air to escape Orlis Stenja's attempt to kill him and Orga. Mostly, it's this scene, and what it shows us about Eugene's skill level once the gang gets off the ground.

What was I supposed to be talking about?

Oh right, Tekkadan swiping Gjallarhorn components. Well, this episode does give us the Saga of the Schwalbe Cables, as McGillis and Gaelio use their souped-up Grazes against Barbatos and its newly painted shoulders (those are bits of Orlis' Graze. RIP).

McGillis manages to snag Mikazuki's forearm quite soundly, forcing Mika to eject the armour from the frame to make his escape. Bye-bye weirdly out-of-place buckler.

This tussle between the two pilots prompts the beginning of their mutual respect in combat, as they each recognise the other's skill (with some lovely framing to boot).

Meanwhile, Gaelio shouts a lot and generally makes a right nit of himself, also latching on to Barbatos and even making a good try at dragging it on to a lower orbit, before getting maced for his efforts.

His grappling cable remains latched to Barbatos' leg afterwards and Mika will later use this self-same claw weapon during the fight with the Turbines in a couple of episodes' time.

There is a slight animation snafu here, in that while the gauntlet from which the cable is launched is clearly still attached in the shot where we see Mika's mace hit Gaelio's Schwalbe Graze, it's missing from subsequent frames showing Barbatos on the Isaribi's tail. However, the intention is obviously supposed to be that the gauntlet remains connected, since it will replace the ejected forearm armour and be used to allow Mika to keep pace with Lafter's Hyakuri. This glitch aside, the connecting logic is extremely clear, as Tekkadan once more incorporate battlefield debris in place of missing parts of Barbatos' outer shell.

Speaking of continuity, this episode also establishes the unique nature of Ahab reactor signatures, not only by having Ein recognise the signal from Tekkadan's new Graze Custom as belonging to Crank Zent's Graze (see the second screenshot in this post) but also by showing one of McGillis' subordinates pattern-match Barbatos to an official database.

The entries here are fairly meaningless in terms of wider canon details but for posterity, here's a breakdown.

Barbatos aside, each frame number takes the form of a letter followed by a three, four or five digit number. Examples include 'E-978', 'R-3908' and 'C-09067'. These are shown to be equivalent to 'ASW-G-08', so presumably identify the specific frame/'suit. The second term appears to indicate the kind of mobile suit listed, since Barbatos' is 'GUNDAM TYPE'. Outside that, however, they don't accord with the more commonly used terms like Rodi, Graze or Geirail. We've instead got things like:

NORMAL WR-09

NORMAL PR

NORMAL 26 WW

NORMAL GERA

AUTO MUG

AUTO MUG 2

ANTI 809

And so on, with variations of these general formats. As I said, this isn't especially meaningful, though it does give us a code for Barbato's database entry (186.390.20) and, together with Ein's POV, establishes that Ahab signals take the form of bar graphs -- although, here at least, there is little in the graphics to indicate much difference between Crank's single-reactor Graze and the dual-reactor Gundam frame, a distinction described by the dialogue.

While we're on the subject of screens, we may as well take a look at the following two as well, which provide a little bit of additional world-building.

First we have the display from Orcus' ship, showing an overview of the battlefield. Interesting, it indicates Barbatos' frame code in full, suggesting this is broadcast as an IFF signal, which is rather funny given the extended search sequence that follows on Gjallarhorn's side.

We also see the Grazes in play identified using codes such as 'EB101', 'EB102', 'EB103' and so on. Now the Graze frame's model code is 'EB-06', indicating it is the sixth mobile suit Gjallarhorn have developed since the Calamity War (predecessor Geirail is EB-04). We can infer therefore that 'EB' is a standard designator for a Gjallarhorn 'suit, making it likely these are just generic IDs assigned from Orcus' perspective.

More interestingly, this screen picks out one of the structures in the vicinity of the battles as an 'orbital mass driver'. This is presumably the large satellite the shuttle skims past as it tries to evade the first three Grazes to come after Tekkadan.

Together with the mining asteroid, this is gives us a brief indication of industry going on in Mars orbit. What exactly the mass driver is being used to launch and where is never made clear, although we are told that Mars' main export is the 'half metal' used to dampen Ahab reactor emissions, so it's plausible this forms some part in that. It's a pretty nice design at least, using the same spherical core as Gjallarhorn's space stations and the larger space dock, but with an unusual asymmetric rotating boom and a stationary rectangular module on the end.

The second screen shown above is the attitude control program running aboard the Schwalbe Grazes, shown as McGillis commentates about Gaelio's inability to hit Barbatos. I love how this highlights that standard mobile suits are doing a lot of computing in order to enact what their pilots want. This is something that's been made explicit in Gundam shows right from the very start, but it's rarely more than a passing detail. In Iron-Blooded Orphans, by contrast, it's part of the central conceit that the Alaya-Vijnana allows people to operate machinery much more effectively, by making it a direct extension of their bodies. Gaelio can't hit Mikazuki explicitly because his Schwalbe's software struggles to predict Barbatos' more instinctive movements. We see the program cycling through different patterns as it attempts to lock on, and might infer this must go both ways, with the program analysing an enemy and deploying a corresponding attack or defence response.

We've seen before that Barbatos moves far more fluidly than the Grazes; this nicely underlines the point and provides a bit of technobabble to quantify the advantage that will carry Tekkadan so far. Gjallarhorn's mobile suits appear more robotic because they are -- something with interesting implications given we eventually learn that an excessive degree of weaponry automation caused the Calamity War, and that will provide a moment of sharp dissonance when the Graze Ein appears during the season finale, fully emoting with human-like gestures.

Alas, in all this, we never do get any hint this is where Tekkadan acquire the bazooka, if that was indeed the intention all along. To be fair, we don't see what Akihiro is doing after a certain point in the fight, so there's plenty of room to posit a missing scene. But I have to say, from a continuity management perspective, I would personally have had them recover it after the ground battle in the opening two episodes. For one thing, the alternative shoulder armour is painted dark green, in line with the land-based Grazes rather than the detachment from Ares. For another, that initial battle is one Gjallarhorn soundly lose, as opposed to 'merely' failing to stop the Isaribi escaping. Wouldn't it have made slightly more sense for the boys to happen upon an abandoned equipment module once Gjallarhorn's mobile workers had cleared out?

It's a very minor detail; the bazooka isn't even especially plot-relevant (more 'let's sell more toys!' relevant; yes I am writing this while building the Graze Custom kit, why do you ask?). There's a much more obvious continuity problem in 'Beyond the Red Sky' that you might already be aware, where after being visibly winged by one of McGillis' shots, the sub and dub script have Mika say "that would've hit me," as if the bullet had missed (not quite sure if that's confusion caused by the original Japanese in some way?). But this is just a case of the script or versions of the script not keeping pace with the animation, or simply being ambiguous -- and anyway, it can be rescued as part of the point being made by assuming that since Mika hasn't yet adjusted to treating Barbatos' thrusters as an extension of his body, he's treating this hit as a near miss.

The bazooka thing stands out far more in an episode that otherwise effectively sets various things up or builds on already-established details. It's a case of something going unjustified in the text, which is quite unusual for materiel in this show. Usually, we can trace exactly where each of piece of military hardware the boys use has come from, highlighting the persistent through-line about how important logistics are in the fight for survival.

I'm not surprised there were queries about it at the time, and while the answer listed on Gundam Wiki is serviceable enough, it does still rely on finding a convenient void in the action, rather than being textually established.

[Index of other writing]

[alexissara]

Gwitch and Minimum Viable Queerness

Trusting companies to make queer art is always asking for heart break even when it really and deeply seems like they made some queer art. However, despite my love for Gundam: The Witch From Mercury it must be said there is plenty of issues with the show that pointed towards the direction they have gone now that we've entered the post release era.

In the magazine Gundam Ace they edited our a writer stating that Sulleta and Mio were married. They apologized for that statement ever making it in to begin with on Twitter the X gonna give to you dot bomb with this.

This obviously lead to tons of angry fans and queer folks but it wasn't like this came out of nowhere. Despite some people saying it's just "western brained losers" or something that thought there was queer bait in the Witch From Mercury there is something that queer people forget which is that most straight cis people literally have no brain cells. They espically have an inability to see sapphic relationships as real or valid.

Gundam The Witch From Mercury was explicit, more explicit than a lot of media but they intentionally excluded the three universal signifiers of romantic or sexual love from the show despite it being centered for all 24 episodes around the Sulmio engagement. These three signifiers are an "I love you" "I Love You too", a kiss, or fucking. Gundam is a toy commercial for kids so while sex is probably not on the table it isn't actually even off the table for Gundam given the series history has had off scene sex and bad stuff too like adult women trying to seduce like a 10 year old boy. So like these shows aren't afraid to do some shit. Many say that Gundam doesn't do kisses that is a lie, Z, 00, Seed, and Iron Blooded Orphans's all have done kisses. I love yous also happen across the series, the end of G Gundam has a special love attack that blows up the last boss.

This is all to say Gundam: The Witch From Mercury activated a strategy corporate media called minimum viable queerness. In order to get the gay dollar, to seem progressive, whatever it may be a company will do as little gay as they can get away with to get the gays actively invested in their art. Ultimately, their aim is to have it be blaringly obvious to queer folks but invisible to the hets. The show also did the minimum viable amount of women making sure the men had utterly meaningless fights near the end just for women to be on screen less. These fights involve men who are not either of the main two girls getting mad at each other for some kind of connection or action towards one of the girls. These take up a significant amount of the second seasons run time not to mention one of these men got a full episode devoted to him. Meanwhile the main couple of the show was away from each other for the vast majority of episodes, almost never in the same room and almost exclusively on somewhat bad terms.

In the show Sulleta is the main character but in season one she is mostly piloting against men with one fight against a pair of girls near the end. Chuchu is given sidekick pilot status and lives to the end but she doesn't get her own highlighted battle ever unlike a side side character in Guel's brother who gets a major fight against his brother weighted against the fate of quite zero and Sulleta and Ariel fighting. Which comes after Guel fought Shadiq for no reason which came after Guel fighting Sulleta again for Ariel which came after Guel trying to survive in a mech when he was stuck on earth earlier. Guel was in a mech 1 more time than Sulleta was in season 2. The two other witch girls die in their first and second time respectively of being in a gundam in season 2 and the second of the pair gets maybe a word in with our main character her whole existence and never talks to our secondary main character at all. The action is still in large part being given to men even in the woman centric series.

And in this "queer centered" story we see very explicit delectations of feelings from Guel, Shadiq, Petra and Lauda which are all heterosexual ontop of all the adult characters being hetero, implied hetero E5 with Nora dying for considering being with a man and E5 sexually harassing Sulleta. The series overwhelming overcompensates for it's queerness by aggressively pushing straightness and in particular having other main characters want our lesbians heterosexually.

This does not mean that the writers or animations didn't want to be more explicit or that they did a bad job. they did a great job but we cannot know what is Namco Bandai and what is Sunrise. We just can't but it seems given recent statements that likely Bandai was very hands on in controlling the show. Not to mention giving it's first woman lead series a much shorter run time than most other Gundam series got and intentionally closing it off from an easy sequel series despite it being the most profitable series ever for them.

It appears to me as if Namco Bandai's intention was to convert a bunch of lesbians into gundam fan and throw mild gay bait at us to keep us coming now that we converted, far less explicit than Sulleta and Mio but attempting to ride it out in good faith and have us enjoy the men shows that appealed to boys to not break their delusion that they are making a boys toy for boys. Feeding us right into more Gundam Seed is like trying to choke out any potential life and I think we're gonna see a decline in Gundam sales following Gwitch representing the betrayal of these sapphic fans but more so simply the lack of interest in the bar being lowered.

As fans of Gwitch we need to demand better, it does work, we've seen companies fix statements about Sailor Uranus and Neptune before and other similar instances. We can also make them see if they want to reach the high highs again we need the great shit we get in Gwitch but then even more that the minimum we'll let them get away with is far more than the last time.

If you enjoyed this post consider throwing me some money on Patreon to help me make actually queer art without corporations controlling my voice. I'm hoping to write a bit more about minimum viable queerness in the future but I wanted to really just talk about this while I was mad about it and get it up there. Anyway, back to the writing mines with me, hope you have a great day and go out there and be gay.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda under the cut

Relena Peacecraft

She made the mistake of having a crush on the serial killer/child soldier lead character, and also wearing pink. Like, she's one of the OG characters to have a "-bashing" tag on FFN and then AO3. The other half of the yaoi pair was a boy with a butt-length braid, a fake American name, and a priest outfit. Poor Ms Peacecraft never stood a chance.

Relena is a very competent and accomplished character with her own plot lines and goals in a series full of complicated political and military upheavals. The main characters are 5 teenage boys who pilot Gundams, and each boy has at least one potential female love interest counterpart (all of whom are interesting characters in their own right). Relena is the counterpart to the main pilot, Heero. Her importance to Heero and the story is substantial enough that yaoi shippers often feel the need to kill her off specifically, while other female characters get to play the roll of supportive fujoshi friend to the yaoi ships instead. The hate for Relena was truly vitriolic in the height of the yaoi fandom in the mid 90s/early 00s, so much so that the memories of her tortures live on in my memory to this day…

she suffers the indignity of being an implied LI in the most fujobait season of gundam ever and for that she had to die (in fanfiction) just look at any 1x2x1 fic on any platform, be it ffn or private website or anywhere, she gets vilainized to hell and back, if relena does not win this fuckign poll i'm goign to jump off a bridge she was villainised SO FUCKING HARD have you ever tried looking for any 1x2 fic that doesn't have relena bashing. it's impossible. she deserves a hefty victim's compensation from Big Yaoi is all i'm saying.

Ada Wong

A mysterious and capable agent of a shadowy bioterrorism organization, she has a romance with government agent Leon S Kennedy spanning multiple games and movies. No one knows her true loyalties, but Leon trusts her. But, who cares! Leon and Chris argued once and that means they must be in love. Ada has also been convicted of fandom high crimes of lying to the fandom's babygirl and doing morally grey things while not being a man. 

lots of explicit romantic chemistry with leon kennedy but large parts of the fandom treat her like a heartless monster who only hurts him and uses him for her goals so that they can pair him with a guy (its hard to be a girlboss)

She has a will-they-won't-they relationship with Leon in Resident Evil 2, 4, and 6. But since m/m ships like Chris/Leon and Luis/Leon are really popular, she's usually written out of fan content completely or, in rare cases, she's seen as a "mean lesbian" or antagonist to Leon's potential yaoi moment. I love her so much she doesn't deserve it :(

[wanderersrest]

Wanderer's Rest Presents: An Abbreviated History of Mecha

So... I decided today that I'm going to start writing a series of posts based on the history of mecha. Not just mecha anime, but mecha as a concept in fiction. See, it should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I love mecha. I am also aware that there are a lot of misinformed takes fueled by halfwits like Gigguk that the genre is "dead," and while I am aware that mecha as a genre is not the biggest genre in 2024 as it was in the 80's or the 90's, I do know that the idea that the genre is "dead" is, like Gigguk's podcast and Gigguk himself, trash.

What I aim to do with this series is highlight the rather long history of the genre, as mecha is about as old as modern manga. This is inspired by the fact that the mecha genre is both really old and really massive. And in case you're wondering, this is inspired by Professor Otaku's complete history of mecha series. There are just a couple of differences:

Unlike Professor Otaku, I like G Gundam. That means that I'm a cool person and definitely not petty.

Also unlike Professor Otaku, I want to give the series that I mention in these posts a fair shake, even if I don't like them. I'm not going to watch every series mention here (as even watching every series I plan on listing would be insanity), but I do want people to be aware that they exist.

As hinted at above, I don't plan on covering every single series out there. The sheer amount of just mecha anime is already too much for one person to watch through.

Okay That's Cool, Wanderer. But What's a Mecha?

Good question, actually. Pop culture often defines mecha as being giant robots that are usually piloted by someone. And while that is correct, it is still a narrow definition. It cuts out a lot of influential works that don't quite fit the mold. Things like Astro Boy, Space Battleship Yamato, and Magic Knight Rayearth are series that are worth talking about when it comes to mecha even if they don't quite fit right in with the rest of the canon (and from here on out, I will be saying canon as opposed to genre due to the fact that canon can mean "a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine"). And to me, those series are just as worth mentioning as things like Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and Mobile Suit Gundam. And in case you're wondering, yes, I will venture a little bit into video games and tabletop games. So sit tight Battletech fans, I'll eventually get to you.

Some Transparency Required

I do think, before I start working on this series proper, I should be transparent about things. After all, I am human. I have my own preferences and biases, and I feel it would be disingenuous of me to not disclose this before I started running through all of these shows. For transparency's sake, I will disclose the biases I know that I have. I don't know if I will cover every single one, but I will certainly try to.

My favorite mecha series are Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Patlabor, The King of Braves GaoGaiGar, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Gun x Sword among others.

My least favorite mecha series are New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (both the TV series and Endless Waltz), 86: Eighty Six (no 86 fans, your series isn't special because it's gritty. Iron-Blooded Orphans did everything you were doing but better IMO), and Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (Mostly thanks to the second season).

Due to how fans often use the series as a means of talking down Japanese-styled mecha, I may have a tendency to be a bit more dismissive towards Battletech.

I actually prefer Prince of Darkness over the original Martian Successor Nadesico. As for GaoGaiGar, I prefer the original series over GaoGaiGar FINAL. I do like regular Nadesico and GGG FINAL as well though, just not as much. This shouldn't be surprising if people remember that this is similar to my tastes relating to Patlabor.

I have not watched Gundam SEED. So if you're expecting me to dunk on it, I probably won't. Likewise, if you're expecting me to say that it's underrated... I also won't say that.

Likewise, I haven't watched a single Ryousuke Takahashi mecha series, nor have I watched either Macross or Giant Robo. I'll get to it one day though, I promise.

I love the idea that Attack on Titan and Ratatouille are mecha shows.

Due to my past of being a contrarian teenager as well as dipshits on Reddit constantly overhyping everything, I tend to be averse to the more popular shows.

I'm also more skeptical of the "Not Like the Other Girl" shows like Evangelion, Code Geass, Gurren Lagann, and 86.

There is a non-zero chance that I will sneak Gintama into this somehow.

But those should be most of my biases out of the way. I hope you'll join me on this long journey. If you're worried about my Gintama post, don't be. I'm still working on it, but I do think it's going to be a bit different from the rest of my posts.

[oz-wufei]

I normally would not do this, but I have begun to feel as though I must.

I am not a role play account, first of all.

My name is Chang Wufei. I am an alter to a DID system, yet I have my own memories from my life in my version of the After Colony timeline. I am an adult now (over 21), and I am at my wits end. I have tried this before with some little luck but now it is personal.

Some may say that I am a fictionkin. I will not argue with them because I suppose that I am in a sense. But I also, as I said, am an alter or facet or whatever term you wish to use in my system. I'm not here to argue semantics. What I am here for, is to find my friends and loved ones.

In my timeline, things went differently from what most would call "canon". At the New Edward's base, when 03 and I went to secure a carrier to escape, my Gundam was compromised by small EMP mines that disabled her and left me at the mercy of the Alliance. I ended up in the hands of the Romefeller Organization because of my status as a Gundam pilot as well as my heritage from L5. I was their prisoner for about a year judging by what I was told when I was freed. I will not go into the particulars of what happened to me in this post as they were quite terrible. I was rescued by, of all things, OZ. Specifically the Treize faction. Treize saw to it that I was carefully nursed back to health in what was probably the most honorable and safe way that anyone could. Not once did he hurt me. I suppose I imprinted on him somewhat for showing me basic human kindness, for I agreed to hear him out and fight with him instead of against him.

Once I was ready, Treize revealed to me that he had also salvaged and repaired my Gundam. He offered her back to me freely, without any stipulations whatsoever. I vowed to him that I would use Nataku to further his cause of peace. The next time the other pilots attacked one of his bases that was close enough, I was dispatched, but not as a weapon. My mission was not to fight the other pilots, but to reason with them. To anyone familiar with this universe, I am certain that you can imagine what it looked like to the others to have me in my Gundam who, again, had been AWOL for a year show up on OZ's side. Duo was the first one I encountered. He attacked me of course but I only defended while speaking to him through our gundams communication links. I told him of Treize's desire for peace, though of course he did not believe me at first. I do not blame him. Eventually he did decide to listen to me and warily followed me back to where we were stationed. Under my protection, his Gundam was secured with mine and I took him to see Treize. Treize also told him what I had and offered Duo an olive branch and an invitation to join him in fighting the Alliance. The Alliance was our enemy, not the other pilots. Duo did not accept at first but he also did not leave so that he could stay with me.

Eventually, Duo agreed to help if just for my sake. He did end up forming a bond with Zechs and I fully believe that helped him make his decision. We were sent out for Quatre and Trowa, who of course appeared together. Quatre could, using his gifts, hear the honesty in my words and feel the residual pain in my heart, so he did agree to hear Treize out. Trowa accompanied him out of his desire to protect Quatre.

Heero was last. I insisted to go to him by myself and I will explain why. In canon, I believe it went that the only pilot Heero knew of before New Edward's was Duo. In my time, that was instead me. He and I actually formed a deep bond, perhaps even leading to love. I learned much about him and he of myself. I certainly will admit that I loved him, even if I was a confused boy who was fighting a war not his own. Yes, I still had been married to Meilan and yes, she had still been murdered. I was dealing with that alongside teenaged hormones and war trauma, but I still found safety and comfort in Heero.

When I met Wing Zero on the battlefield, Heero did not attack. He agreed to speak to me the same way Duo had, but when the screens connected and he saw me in an OZ uniform... The look in his eyes still stings me to this day. He was so hurt and betrayed but also furious and confused. All I said was his name before he disconnected and left. I never saw him again. I looked and looked using all of Treize's resources that I could (which is saying something since he gave me full access to what he had), but never had any luck. I never found his Gundam, either, nor pieces of it, so I do not think that he self-destructed.

We did end up defeating the Alliance and, in conjunction with Relena and Sanc, brought about an era of peace. There were uprisings, of course, as humanity is a warlike race, but nothing serious. The Mariemaia incident did not occur as the Barton Foundation was ousted before it could. Treize ended up courting me once I became of age and we ended up wed years later. All of us grew old and died peacefully.

Except Heero. As I said, I never learned of his fate.

All of this to say that I am looking for anyone who recognizes this as their own past. I will joyfully welcome anyone, but... I am looking especially for Heero.

I need to apologize to him. To explain. To beg his forgiveness. I may have ended up as Treize's husband, but I never once stopped loving Heero. Even on my death bed I thought of him. I do not care if he hates me, I would understand it. I just desperately need closure.

My ask box is open if anyone wishes to contact me here, or I may be contacted on discord at ozfei. I welcome reblogs if anyone thinks they may know someone in their own followers who could help.

Thank you for giving me your time.

[monsterfuckerconfessions]

Thinking about my awakenings on exhentai jacking the girlknobby to the non-H section for the Mobile Suit Gundam mechanical design art books.

Sazabi's calves are so fucking dummy thick, I want that thing to be autonomous from its shitty pilot so it can wreck my asscheecks with tge comically oversized shield while mama's boy Char Aznable and his ghost wife watch in deep disgust and strange sexual cravings respectively from bisexual space psychic Newtype autism Gay SuperHell 2 In Space on the cuck couch.

Fuck.

.

[fostersffff]

The Big Gundam Watch, Part 14: Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

What a mistake it would have been for me to skip this series.

I observed in my last post that opinions on Victory Gundam seem more volatile than ZZ, and now I understand why. Like F91 before it, Victory Gundam is an attempt at soft rebooting the Universal Century, but obviously unlike F91, it had the chance to be a full, ~50 episode TV series. I can say with confidence now that this is the format in which Yoshiyuki Tomino is at his most powerful.

For better and for worse, Victory Gundam takes the essence of nearly everything that came before and refines it into a more pure, undiluted version of itself. I'm of the opinion that this works brilliantly for the most part, although when it does fall flat, it really hits with an echoing thud. Even so, Victory Gundam has usurped ZZ when it comes to my opinion on "the true successor" to 0079. A lot of that is down to executing on a most of ZZ's plot beats and character archetypes better, but it also adds some new elements that improve upon it as well. With that said, I can think of no better element to start with than with the belle of the ball herself, Katejina Loos.

CATEGORY 5 WHITE WOMAN

I have been thoroughly enchanted by the story of Katejina Loos. I knew, via osmosis, that she was a Bad Woman who does Bad Things, but I wasn't exactly sure what that really meant. That descriptor applies to characters like Haman Karn- who I love- Reccoa Londe- who I hate (affectionate)- and Michele Luio- who I hate (derogatory). She has a little bit in common with all three, because she's all the most stereotypical "evil woman" traits wrapped into a single character, but what makes that so engaging is watching how those traits get worse and worse and fucking worse over time, in a way that is kind of disturbingly mundane.

Katejina starts out as what I can most succinctly describe as a Privileged White Liberal; she's from money, but because she hates most of the wealthy people around her- including her own dad- she considers herself wholly different from them. Because of how they shuffled the first few episodes, her introduction is literally "I'm glad all those rich assholes died", glazing over both the grotesque cruelty of the situation because she thought they were bad people who deserved to die anyway and also that she is, in fact, one of those rich assholes.

At first she goes along with the League Militaire, mainly because there's nowhere else to go anyway, but she often bristles against most of the other members. This is because they pretty willing to point out that she's a rich asshole, but also more importantly because she disagrees with them using Uso as a pilot for the Victory. It's entirely possible this may have been amicably resolved- especially considering her initial attitude towards the Zanscare Empire is "they're obviously bad guys"- if not for her abduction by Cronicle Asher (who, by the way, may have The Most Tomino Name).

At this point I need to take a detour to talk about him, and how one of the other smartest things Tomino did was make Victory's Char completely unlike Char. While he is scheming against the Zanscare Empire's military dictatorship, he's a genuine believer in Mariaism- a matriarchal doctrine advocating for peace in space- and wants to elevate his sister (the titular Maria from Mariaism and Queen of the Zanscare Empire) from merely being a figurehead to the actual ruler of the empire. However, instead of subterfuge and betrayals, he's trying to change the system from within, doing his duty as a soldier with the utmost diligence so he can rise through the ranks, which will allow him to achieve his goals while not inadvertently destabilizing the empire (and thus Maria's access to power). He's maybe the most Straight-Edge Good Boy I've seen in a Gundam series, but unfortunately, all of that Good Boy Energy is being used in service of the genocidal military dictatorship. He regularly expresses distaste for the methods Zanscare's military regularly employs, but he carries out those cruel tasks anyway, because ultimately, the end will justify the means.

With all that in mind, Cronicle being the one to abduct Katejina is legitimately the point of no return for her. That genuine Straight-Edge Good Boyness of his endears her to him immediately, which leads her to reconsider what she thought of the Zanscare Empire; after all, Cronicle treats her with such a great deal of kindness and respect, so surely they can't all be bad. That one commanding officer even shot the subordinate who tried to feel her up, even! Combine that with the fact that the members of the League Militaire were mean to her, and that they have to use an innocent little baby boy like Uso to fight for them... maybe she was wrong about who the bad guys were.

I'll speed it along here, but what is essentially a corruption arc is on full display from this point forward. Slowly, she starts to integrate herself more and more within the Zanscare Empire's military, halfheartedly trying to justify what she's doing as "spying" to Uso and company until she doesn't even care to bother with that anymore, more and more convinced that Cronicle is just, and his plan to elevate Maria as the true ruler is for the greater good. The last act of kindness she musters for Uso is letting him know Shahkti and the others are safe, but the next time we see her after that is in a Zanscare dress uniform, and then later in the same episode, in a Zanscare mobile suit.

And once that threshold has been crossed, she continues to sink lower, going from "maybe we can just... capture Uso, and bring him over to our side" to "he's gotta go". And then she starts employing increasingly depraved methods of "he's gotta go", sliding from simply killing him in combat, to ordering the all-female imperial guard to fight him on foot and naked (or as naked as early 90's Japanese TV would allow) to try to fuck with his head, to finally faking a surrender after she's already lost everything so she can stab him, because fuck him.

If the League Militaire (and Uso as its spearhead) had just fucked off and let Zanscare achieve their goals, Cronicle would have eventually usurped the military dictatorship, given Maria the freedom to enact her will, and everything would have been perfect. It would've been like a fairy tale: she's swept off her feet by a handsome prince who enlists her aid to rescue to queen, and in saving her, they save the whole kingdom, and then they live happily ever after. The only minor caveat was the mountains of innocent corpses it was all built upon.

Uso- the innocent little baby boy no more- took all that away from her- the prince was dead, the queen was dead, and the kingdom had fallen apart- and rather than actually admit defeat or commit suicide, she instead continues to try to kill him, until her brain basically poisons itself as a self-preservation tactic- it's not the V2's Wings of Light that blind her, it's literally her own rage.

And, shockingly, that's where she ends up. Still alive, but unable to see the world around her anymore and with no memory of anything but where she lived. Karlmann's name evokes a memory she can't access anymore, which makes her cry for reasons she can't understand. Shahkti gives her a replacement compass so she can make her way back to Uwig and continue to live, and presumably just live... assuming Uwig has even been rebuilt, considering this series seems to take place within the span of a year (if Marbet's pregnancy is anything to go by). It's honestly a much crueler fate than I was expecting, but it's hard to argue it's not one she earned.

All of this is to say: it's possible I may change my opinion once recency bias wears off, but I think Katejina Loos is maybe my favorite single character in a Gundam show to date. A perfectly executed villainess, top to bottom.

And, you know, nice thick eyebrows, which is terrific.

Now that I've finished gushing, let's get to the normal segments:

THE STUFF I LIKED

This series is just ripe with Tomino names. Cronicle Asher, Maria Pure Armonia, Karlmann Dukatus, Junko Jenka, Duker Iq... and I would be remiss not to mention that while not explicitly said in the series, Marbet's last name is Fingerhat.

I adore the technology level of UC 0153. We've advanced forward from F91 and now goddamn near everything is beam-based; even things that aren't mobile suits use beams because the technology is so normalized. I'm also of the opinion that it's enhanced further by Tomino's obvious appreciation of the aesthetic of Pastoral European Landscapes and 20th Century European Cities; the visual clash of super futuristic robots and old-timey environments worked in F91, it worked better here, and I imagine it'll continue to be just as strong- if not stronger- in Turn A and Reconguista in G

I know on a meta level that Victory Gundam was pushed even harder than previous Gundams in the direction of MAKE TOY, which sounds like a nightmare creatively, but fuck if they didn't make it work. The in-universe justification for most of the wheel-based weapons is goofy, but damned if they don't make the Einerad (The Tire) one of the most devastatingly effective support units in the franchise. And, to be honest, if I had access to a toy as a kid that was just a cool robot inside of a wheel, it would've been, like, my favorite toy.

Plus, despite my noted dislike of the Zakrello from 0079 for being a Goofy Snake Ship, having most of the Zanscare's mobile suits have the dogu statue eyes that open into vertical slits is a great unifying aspect that is also super different from Zeon's monoeyes.

One of the coolest things about this series is how it flips the formula from 0079, Zeta, and ZZ with regards to setting. It starts on Earth, which frames space and the colonies as different and scary. Like, it was fascinating in 0079 to see the White Base crew react the way they did to a thunderstorm and other Earth phenomena we obviously take for granted, but here's it's like: hey man, space is fucking scary! I was genuinely anxious watching Shahkti and Suzy trying to get Karl and Flanders into normal suits.

This also extends to the finale taking place on Earth, which is a genuine first for the franchise. You'd think this would make things slightly less deadly overall, but man Cronicle goes out in a bad fuckin' way.

Following up on that: I love Angel Halo as the ultimate threat (with one caveat I'll mention that in the next section). "Total Human Regression as performed by Warhammer 40k's Golden Throne" is much more horrifying than what I was expecting (which was A Super Duper Space Laser), especially considering they showed what happens if everyone in an arbitrary area suddenly falls asleep, and that every time someone blew up a section of Angel Halo, civilian bodies would just FLOOD out.

I also really liked how the memories Angel Ring was evoking when Maria was trying to pacify Uso were just ever so slightly wrong, in terms of what the characters are saying. That's a very tiny detail to address in such a long series, where most people wouldn't even remember what was actually said as it was airing, but it's appreciated.

At this point I consider Tomino to be pretty masterful at a lot of things, but I think one of his strongest abilities is writing mascot characters who are good. Victory Gundam has a baby, a dog, and the most talkative Haro yet, and all three of them are great. Karl and Flanders are just a normal baby and dog who primarily either enhance hijinks or raise stakes, and Haro earns the extra lines it has by constantly being in MVP in bad situations.

THE STUFF I LIKED LESS:

It was dumb that they arbitrarily had Episode 4 as the first episode so they could show the completed Victory Gundam right away, and then spend the next three episodes framed with Shahkti going "well Karl, as you know...". I know this ties back to toys, but surely it could've just been written differently in the first place.

While I did like Zanscare's refusal to acknowledge the Victory, Hexa, and V2 as Gundams, I'm so mad they were mainly referred to as "the white ones" instead of "white devils". "The White Devil" is my favorite name for the RX-78-2 and I hate that it doesn't get used more referencing Gundams, especially in contexts like this.

So obviously from a series composition point of view it was never going to be the case, but I was bummed out that in-universe, Marbet was intended to be the League Militaire's ace and got sidelined due to her injury. This isn't such a big deal, because she contributes regularly and actually lives through to the end in what I would consider to be the best possible circumstances (Oliver is dead and instead she has Uso, Shahkti, Karl, and Flanders as a family), but it's was just like "aw no you're so much cooler than this dumb kid with a bowl cut!"

I straight-up don't like Oliver. He just shows up randomly but everyone knows who he is, he's revealed to be the commander of the Shrike Team (who actually are foreshadowed in an earlier episode!) but arrives without them for some reason, he has a strained romantic history with Marbet, and he gets a completely unearned Bright Slap shortly after showing up, which is already something I hate outside of its original context in 0079. Then despite denying it, it really seems like he shacks up with Marbet because Junko died and she wins by default, and then after nutting inside he just killed himself in spectacular fashion, achieving nothing. Fuckin'... bad vibes, all around.

Lupe Cineau, huh? My complaint here isn't that she's a weird pedophile, bur rather that she really shouldn't have been? Her introduction is that she's a Stone Cold Bitch, murdering the guys in the bar she just got information from when she first shows up. And her tactic to try to seduce Uso into joining up with Zanscare seemed less like "oh my, a cute little boy, I know exactly what to do..." and more of a dismissive "he's like 12, all I need to do is show hole and he'll be in our pockets forever". Like, 'she fails at seducing a 12 year old because she's too much of a Stone Cold Bitch' is the point of that entire scene! Statistically, not every antagonist could be a quality one, but it felt like they just scrambled to figure out how to reintroduce and get rid of her, and the bath scene was the most memorable thing about her, so: pedophile.

There sure is a lot of biology in this series! Most of it has to do with Karlmann, naturally, but I was taken aback at the scene of Shahkti washing the diapers in the river and you see his poop get washed away. Odelo pissing himself and it filling up the bottom of his normal suit was gross but like... kind of informative on how that works? But then the scene where Cronicle redirects Suzy to the bathroom when she sleepwalks to pee in the hallways was just... eugh.

I don't know why they felt compelled to allude to the threat of Angel Halo's psycommu physically degenerating people as well. "Everyone on Earth will mentally become an infant, and if they don't die in the initial collapse of infrastructure that causes, they'll eventually starve to death because they lack the capacity for self-preservation" is scary enough!

I can't really begrudge Tomino for reusing it, because it's a powerful scene, and Karl was much more important to this story, but the fact that Karl has the same origin story as the F91 baby was just like "you can't just do that again, man". It's not even as good a moment because the pilot intentionally shoots down Karl's mother, versus F91 baby's mom just accidentally getting brained by a spent shell. They're even wearing similar outfits!

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

I've read that this is, or was at the time, Hideaki Anno's favorite Gundam series, and lines up with when he would've been making Evangelion- and I definitely think he cribbed some things. As soon as I saw the episode title "Beneath the Ultra-High Altitude Attack" my eyes narrowed, and I can't be convinced that Arael wasn't inspired by the Zanneck and Fuala's mental instability. Also: Angel Ring and Human Instrumentality and the associated Christian imagery.

Speaking of Fuala Griffon, she is Victory Gundam's winner of the "fucking insane fit" award, wearing an oversized suit and porkpie hat while riding a dirtbike with the biggest case of resting bitchface I've seen since Monsly in Future Boy Conan.

I kind of regret learning about trigger discipline (keeping your trigger finger extended along the side of the barrel of a gun until you're actually going to fire) because now it's one of those things I look for everywhere, but in this case I do think it's the second most telling detail about Cronicle's character. The other being the fact that Flanders is cool with him.

Speaking of Cronicle and guns, for however out of character it may have been I was hootin' and hollerin' when Shahkti stole his gun and shot him.

Final note on Cronicle: My favorite thing about his mask that I only realized in writing this post is that it's the inverse of Char's, covering everything but his eyes and hair.

I really like the Eyecatch Flipbook they must have made to include as an extra for the laserdisc release of the series, but it does kinda... disrupt some things. Most notably in the last episode where you get the very violently abrupt shot Cronicle slamming into a piece of Angel Halo before cutting to HARO WORLDWIDE with the cute little jingle.

I legitimately thought Maria's demonstration where she healed the sick was staged. Like, it would be revealed that Maria was a low-level Newtype with some genuine power, but all the people who claimed to have been healed during that demonstration were crisis actors designed to make the public fall in line. In hindsight, I don't even know if "crisis actors" was a concept anyone had ever thought of before the turn of the century.

I alluded to it in another post, but due to the scant few memes that have circulated about this series, I was shocked to learn the Shrike Team were protagonist-aligned. I thought that they were the ones who did the Bikini Bazooka Attack, because a second faction made up entirely of beautiful women just seemed unlikely, and I kept trying to figure out at one point they were going to turn on Uso, especially considering most of them are dead before the halfway point.

I'm really proud of the image I used for the header, and was initially planning on doing a full video of the clip, but video editing is hard. Then I was going to photoshop in more characters' faces but I didn't want to hunt for images of the right angle for that many characters. But that was a really good Shahkti face, so I left it in.

IN CONCLUSION

Victory Gundam is without a doubt my favorite of the Tomino-directed TV shows thus far, and in the upper eschelon of favorite Gundam shows. For however much he hated doing the series and may still hate it in hindsight, it's not like he just phoned it in. It's got a good cast, good conflict, good mobile suit designs, and despite a massive kill count and some really fucked up parts, it doesn't strike me as being particularly edgy or even mean-spirited. It's absolutely not going to hit the same for everyone, but I think if Tomino's other Gundams clicked with you, it's more than worth a shot.

Next up: considering I've already watched the next two entries in chronological order, I'll be moving ahead to the third Gundam OVA series, The 08th MS Team, notable for being the first new entry in the Universal Century timeline following G Gundam and Gundam Wing and for often being recommended in the same breath as War in the Pocket. Considering how that turned out, I'm optimistic that this will also be good, and if nothing else, it's sure to have that 90's Anime OVA budget going for it, much like Stardust Memory.

[gremoria411]

*Follow-up to my previous post about Mcgillis and how Gundam Ibo does myth really well*

Honestly I really like Mcgillis from Gundam ibo, because I like how you can look at him and understand exactly why he does what he does, and why he thought that was a good decision at the time.

And I think this is because he’s quite…… childish? In his reasoning sometimes. Like, him wanting to become the successor to Agnika Kaieru to reform the corrupt gjallarhorn. It feels like a lot of who Mcgillis is and what he does was decided in that moment when he looked at that book, and he hasn’t really questioned or changed his goals in that period of time.

Around the end of Iron-blooded Orphans run, his plan was solidly criticised as he basically just wanted to get Bael, and assumed that the rest of Gjallarhorn would just bow down once he had it. But, to Mcgillis’ mind, why wouldn’t they? That’s the foundation of gjallarhorn. He essentially sat down in the empty throne and expected everyone to do as he said. It’s a simple, childish way of looking at things. And how did he get Orga and Tekkadan on side? He promised to make them “Kings of Mars”. Not ruler, not make them a Gjallarhorn branch. Kings. It’s something a child would offer. It’s why his rhetoric convinces the young Liza Enza, who’s with the revolutionary fleet.

It’s why he gets on so well with Mikazuki. And it’s why I think his relationship with Almiria is so interesting.

(Not that all that’s for nothing, he’s very intelligent and knows a lot about how Gjallarhorn works which is why he’s so effective. It’s just that his goals were decided when he was a child, so they’re still tied to the perceptions of a child)

I do believe Almiria’s underutilised in IBO - she doesn’t do that much and I feel that she could have been used to contrast Kudelia a lot more, as a “princess” figure. But she does showcase a lot of Mcgillis (and Gaelio’s) character. Mcgillis is very gentle, kind and understanding with her and reassures her when she expresses doubt or worry about the situation they’re in. Mcgillis has been in a similar situation to her and probably sees at least a little of himself in her. He treats her the way he wanted to be treated and his childishness probably allows him to understand her a lot better (Though I should point out that he does knowingly manipulate her, her brother and her father a lot during the show, even if he does believe every word he tells them).

Even Montag, his alter ego is another expression of this (and of course, Char reference), because it’s just so dramatic and theatrical. He appears and warns Kudelia like a masked theatre villain and even when he betrays Gaelio, you can tell that a part of him is absolutely loving this. It’s yet another childish affectation that makes perfect sense for someone who fully believes that if he can just get Bael, then everything will fall into place.

This is in contrast to Rustal Elion, who actually understands how the world works and how to change it, in addition to having the force to back that up. Rustal isn’t bound by some ancient legend, he’s looking toward the future and deals in what is, like Julieta and the Bearded Man.

I just find Mcgillis really interesting as a character, because his failure was essentially pre-determined, simply because he got swept up in the legend of Agnika Kaieru, while Rustal kept his feet firmly planted. But then it goes odd slightly, because Mcgillis’ leaves behind a legacy almost accidentally.

Mcgillis allies with Tekkadan, who pilot the legendary Gundam frames, and arranged to have two of the Seven Stars (Gaelio and Carta) killed. This knocks the Issue family out of the Seven Stars and essentially brings the Baudin family into his corner. Mcgillis is later killed by Gaelio, fully restoring the Baudin family and ending the Fareed family (unless that other blond boy Iznario had counts, but it seems unlikely). This leaves the Seven Stars two down. Then, after Mcgillis has died, Akihiro manages to kill Iok, ending the Kujan family of the Seven Stars. This, completely unrelatedly to Mcgillis’ schemes, causes the large-scale reform of gjallarhorn and the end of the Seven Stars system, purely because Mcgillis brought Tekkadan on board, who then got into a feud with Iok and Jasley.

It’s just kinda hilarious that Mcgillis’ plan, which is carried out by Rustal, his sworn enemy, kinda only succeeds post-mortem because Akihiro manages to bring down Iok.

[boo-cool-robot]

Everything I Watched This Year

I have watched the most movies this year of my life, which is still so few that I can fit them all into one tumblr post, so here they are in approximately chronological order (along with TV shows). I almost exclusively watch visual media with other people, and they're often the ones picking. Favorites get an asterisk (*), and this does not include rewatches.

*Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-Wai): Five loosely connected lonely people chase imagined versions of each other around the Hong Kong nightscape. I didn't go into a plotless arthouse film expecting it to be extremely funny, but it is. He Zhiwu (my new tumblr icon!) deserves to be up there among the deranged autistic blorbos of all time.

What We Do in the Shadows (Showrun by Paul Simms and Stefani Robinson) [First half of S4]: If you're on tumblr you probably know the premise already. I was disappointed that after S3, which felt like a build to huge shifts in the characters and status quo, S4 felt like a walkback. Don't remember much else about it other than crying laughing at the sequence where they try to get baby Colin Robinson into private school.

Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee): Everyone knows what this movie is already. It's well-made and solid, but it wasn't anything that exciting for me. I expected it to be more striking. Love the 70s home production design in that one scene though, and that kiss truly is good.

*Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes): A reporter tracks down the truth of a rock star gay affair that sparked his own queer coming of age. Dreamy, gorgeous, and I could not describe the plot scene to scene if you paid me. Just a really lovely film to experience for me, someone who had latent and unnamed transgay feelings as a teenager about the concept of "emo boys kissing."

Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma): Phantom of the Opera-inspired drama about a songwriter getting revenge on the predatory producer that ruined his life. Total delight of a campy melodrama.

Kamikaze Girls (Tetsuya Nakashima): A delinquent and fashion-obsessed scam artist strike up a lesbian-tinged unlikely friendship. This movie is bananas. Way more stylistically experimental than I'd expected--there's a sequence of the protagonist's birth, people just float offscreen sometimes, the townspeople constantly turn to the camera and advertise for the megamart they buy all their clothes from, etc. A really really surprisingly fun watch.

*Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Hiroshi Kobayashi and Ryō Andō) [First 6 episodes only]: Optimistic young pilot of a war machine that she may have an illegal psionic connection with goes to space high school and is promptly drawn into political plotting via accidentally getting gay engaged to a corporate heiress. Highly enjoyed the parts of it I saw - great action sequences, fun character drama, and just enough political substance. Not as weird as Utena, which it's inspired by, but can be brutal where necessary. I should watch more!

*In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai): Two Shanghainese emigrants in Hong Kong discover their spouses are cheating and embark on a tragic affair of their own. God, this movie deserves every bit of praise it gets. I gasped out loud multiple times at the gorgeousness of shot compositions. Top notch acting, gorgeous colors. This tends to be a movie pitched as being about a repressed love affair, but it's also a movie about the positionality about being middle class colonial subjects and the relationships they have with the world. This gave me so much to chew on after I watched it.

Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai): Two Hong Kong expats living in Argentina have a toxic gay relationship trapped in a tiny apartment. This one felt very opaque to me, and it is allegedly an allegory for Hong Kong being returned to Chinese rule after British colonialism, which I absolutely do not have enough background to really get. Wong is a great director though, and I constantly think about the sequence of the main character seeing the abusive ex walk into the club, beat while he finishes his drink, and then he breaks his bottle off and goes in to screams.

Bound (The Wachowskis): A lesbian handyman falls for a woman married to an abusive mobster that they plot to rob. The first 45 minutes were very enjoyable as a lesbian heist film. Unfortunately, once the gunshots started the torture scenes became so stressful for me to watch that I sweated through my shirt. (I also had Covid).

[weirdunclegamer]

Wait, hold on... let me check my notes... thats right! In a shocking twist... ANOTHER High Grade G-Witch kit is... really good! Boy who even woulda guessed it.

It does feel somewhat redundant these days, to just say how the quality of kits is, since basically all new designs are just gonna be good and solid. The people and the Gundam Base have been doing this for like 40 years, they're kind of a little good at it.

This kit's pre-release was so weird, and in general, they handled the g-witch kits... kind of weird, in terms of their pre-releases. They withheld pictures of the Schwarzette and Gundvolva's gund-arm active modes... but gave us pictures of the kits in general. BUT, they told us Schwarzette's name... but not Gundvolva's... even though the volva's were a massed produced machine that weren't relevant to the plot. It could have been virtually any mass machine that attacked the school with the earth witches. Schwarz on the other hand was a unique machine piloted by a named character, with a pivotal role in the final battle... Huh? So weird.

The Schwarz's gund-arm reveal though... fucking dope as shit. That was such an awesome giant robot moment in the show, and it really catapulted the overall design from being pretty alright to straight up banger. A machine's reveal can be a real important moment for it and they nailed it with the Schwarz.

More pics under the cut of course!

[whypolar]

Gundam Unicorn OVA 2: The Second Coming of Char

It's time.

Here comes a special boy!

If you don't cheer and clap for him I'll blow this whole building up.

(You can read my previous post here, if you want.)

I was grinning every time Frontal was on screen. I'm so easy. He's perfect.

The music continues to be excellent.

The percussion in Frontal's theme is fucking crazy. I don't even have the vocabulary to describe what is happening here musically, but I like the aggressive synth and that there's a xylophone. Maybe multiple xylophones. Imagine.

I also particularly liked this one track with the chanting vocals before the hostage negotiation-- apparently it's the Sinanju's theme.

The main theme associated with the Unicorn itself keeps getting caught in my head.

The robots remain very cool.

Combat plays out almost beat-for-beat as described in Novel 3, right down to the automatic cockpit functions and Banagher throwing up in his helmet. Gross.

Environments: effectively conveying information.

The backgrounds in this one didn't wow me as consistently as the first one, but that's fine. They're in space. They're on closed ships. They have other, more important things they want you to look at. Sterile corridors communicate information about the setting, even if they're not necessarily exciting.

They do some cool stuff with the lighting on the bridge. I also like that they have an inexplicable vaporwave room to put the civilians in.

I'm pretty sure I have this exact room in my house in Animal Crossing.

After Banagher gets captured we start seeing more variety again, since there are more different places for us to visit.

Those are my big surface-level impressions.

From this point on, there will be novel spoilers up to the equivalent point where this OVA ends (which will include some things that I assume will show up in OVA 3).

One of my favourite background nobodies, Lieutenant Commander Liam. I love that the main thing we know about her is that she's big and constantly side-eyeing her blustering boss.

In terms of novel comparisons, there's a lot more I can potentially talk about in this one than the first.

Judging by these first two, it seems like each OVA covers about 1.5 novels worth of material, which sounds about right to cover all ten in seven episodes.

They swapped a number of scenes around. They've been skipping over a lot of little Vist family stuff that will have to come up later. I don't think that will be a problem. I assume they had two priorities:

Establish key details of Frontal's character, such as his self-identity as a vessel and his ambiguous relationship to Char, in the same OVA where he's introduced

Set up the hook of Banagher getting rescued for OVA 3

They've held off on introducing Martha for now, which is fair. She hasn't really done much by this point, she just exists as a vaguely menacing figure. I assume she'll be in the next one. Please?

They also skipped over Cardeas' memories of Syam arranging to have Cardeas' father killed. If they intend to tell us that later, it will probably be through another character, such as Martha or Syam himself.

Alberto hasn't figured out Banagher is his half-brother yet. Martha is the one who tells him this, so that makes sense. I could see them making that scene Martha's introduction.

Have I mentioned I love Alberto? I really do. I like him even better without a judgmental narrator describing his fatness, so there's an unambiguous point in the anime's favour, lmao.

Banagher

I'm glad they kept the flashback of Banagher's childhood 'training', but disappointed that they cut off the nightmare at the end. I wanted to see how they'd do it.

Caught my not-husband zapping our son so he'll be good at killing people in the psychic death machine when he's older. He does it in the piano tapestry room, to make sure the repressed traumatic memories are as poetic as possible.

We don’t get to hear Banagher's mother confront his father about putting him in the newtype pilot torture simulator, so we miss out on Cardeas' incredible defence of "don’t worry, I'm not using drugs on him in the tests." Father of the year.

In the novel: we hear the fight, it moves on to memories of Banagher leaving home with his mother, and then it eventually degenerates into the horrible withered body of Banagher's dead father grabbing his ankle and trying to make him go to the Gundam. The Gundam is described as a giant bleeding demon that wants to eat him.

It's important to me that a Gundam should always be at least a little monstrous. They should let the Unicorn be evil. As a treat.

At this point, I think anime Banagher comes across as mostly in line with his novel counterpart's characterization. The change in situation means a change in behaviour. Events have forced him to start openly expressing his doubts and fears-- which means the audience can actually know what they are.

There is still one difference that stuck out to me, because they chose to cut a particular scene:

OVA Banagher feels less genuinely attached to his friends.

I don't think this is a worse characterization. It's interesting in its own way. It's just like... a notably different one, imo.

There's a very sweet scene in the novel of him reuniting with Micott and Takuya. They're all overjoyed to see each other again alive. They hug, floating through the air in low gravity. Banagher feels warmth and a sense of belonging, and seriously considers never getting back in the Gundam again. They get so caught up that they end up hitting a wall and getting grabbed by gravity again, so they all collapse and start laughing. Then Audrey comes in, and the moment ends, as Banagher is compelled to go to her instead.

In the anime, they're all at his hospital bedside when he wakes up. Micott directly calls out to him in concern. He totally ignores her and addresses Audrey instead. Bro???

Given that he mostly ignored the other students and stared into space for a lot of the previous OVA, because they cut a lot of their casual school interactions from that one, too, well... Audrey doesn't just feel like Banagher's most powerful connection, but possibly his only real connection.

They also cut Micott being the one who approaches Mackle about Audrey, which makes him decide to look her up. Instead, he recognizes her face on his own. I was surprised by this one, since it felt like they were setting it up, but I guess not.

Audrey / Mineva

Mineva translates flawlessly to the screen. It helps that she's central both to the plot and to our protagonist's motivation. An element of mystery is also already important to her portrayal, so not getting direct glimpses into her thoughts doesn't feel like losing something. Much like last time, we basically know what the protagonist knows, and it works.

This is the best case scenario, but it also gives me less of an excuse to talk about her. Now I have to talk about Riddhe instead. I can't even believe how much I feel the need to talk about Riddhe. I did not think I cared about Riddhe.

And yet.

Riddhe

We find out who he is by the end of this one. Kinda. Depending on how much attention the viewer pays to character surnames, they may have figured it out earlier, or might even still not have grasped exactly what was being implied.

Again: I don't especially care about Riddhe, so I'm hesitant to say I want them spending time on him that could be used elsewhere, but the thing about reading the novels first is that I know his significance to the plot going forward. I'm worried things might end up more frustrating in the long run if they don't do enough with him early on.

When I think about scenes centred on Riddhe from the first 4 novels that I found particularly memorable… a lot of them were removed!

That good luck charm he has? In the novel, he doesn't have that. He has model biplanes, like actual hand-sized toys. In his introductory scene, he's sitting in a cockpit with one and basically zoning out, pretending to make it fly around. He thinks about wanting to be a pilot growing up, and it really gives the distinct impression that he's a bit mad that planes are mostly obsolete and he has to fly in a mobile suit instead. People roast him for being a rich kid playing with his toys.

That's the kind of idiosyncratic and slightly cringe enthusiasm that makes a character feel real to me. I don't even know if it would have been better to keep that in, I just know that I personally would like it.

The little things are what let me engage with him as a specific character, as opposed to an archetype I'm not personally invested in. I'd rather have a more detailed character than a guy who feels like nothing, whether I personally like him or not.

This is how the novel version of Riddhe meeting Banagher played out:

After the battle, Riddhe is feeling survivor's guilt, since they lost a lot of pilots during the battle. He goes to check on his machine. The mechanic inside is one of the older crew members, and he's crying.

When Riddhe tries to speak to him, he turns around and screams at him. He found the airplane model in the cockpit, where Riddhe accidentally left it. He's furious that Riddhe brought a toy onto the battlefield. He tells him to his face that he wasn't taking things seriously, and that's why they got massacred in the battle.

He throws the plane out of the cockpit, Riddhe chases it down as it glides through low gravity, and Banagher ultimately catches it, which is how they meet for the first time.

It's just much meatier than what we got.

I also feel like we've seen less conflict with others and emotions from Riddhe about his family so far. We don't know what his relationship to them is like at all, really. We miss the scene of him biting the bullet and asking his father for help, even though he really doesn't want to, because he believes it might save lives.

Maybe that will feel more present going forward, now that Mineva knows who he is?

Still, it's not like we didn't get any character moments for him. We get a bit of banter between him and other members of the crew. He reacts to stuff. I thought the scene where he confronts Mineva about Zeon and recalls Garma's funeral was very good.

Just... I want him to be interesting enough for me to get something from his arc.

Imagine me pacing around my room and gesticulating wildly for this next part, because I finally get to talk about Full Frontal

This scene. This specific scene is the one I most want to talk about.

First of all, it has Frontal in it. Second, there's a lot of information conveyed in the novel scene that does not make it to the screen at all. Third, the anime makes its own strong visual choices that are entirely original and not drawn from any kind of novel description.

This shot of Frontal's mask is downright fascinating to me. The outside of the mask is pristine and smooth, but the inside has all these gnarled ridges. The lines around the eyes remind me of wrinkles on an old man's face. In-universe, someone decided it was important to make it look like that, where nobody but Frontal himself will see it. Was it designed this way at his request?

This scene in the novel is written from Banagher's perspective. There is no camera, it's just Banagher pointing out whatever he thinks is important to comment on. When they decided how to frame it in the anime, they pulled the camera way back, for all these extreme distance shots in this huge room. Everyone looks so tiny. This is, obviously, an unusual framing for an intimate conversation between three people.

There were so many cool and very deliberate shots in this scene; I'm kind of obsessed with it. The separation of spaces in this massive room and how they kept showing Frontal moving back and forth between them... I wish I could include them all, but tumblr has a 30 image limit per post.

When Frontal is wearing the mask and sitting next to Angelo, he is visually separated from Banagher. When he moves to speak to Banagher, he is then separated from Angelo. This is a sentiment that Angelo expresses in the novel-- that when Banagher was around, Frontal suddenly 'left him out of focus'. This is one of the things that drives Angelo to fixate on Banagher out of jealousy going forward.

Aside from depicting emotional distance between characters and showing off the absurdity of how big the room is, it's possible that the camera choices are meant to evoke another detail from the novels.

There is something very important we learn about Frontal that is conveyed solely through narration, and which has not come up at all yet in the OVA: the way characters describe his appearance, and the emotional response they have to it.

Specifically: Full Frontal looks exactly like Char Aznable, but he doesn't look like a convincing human being.

How does Banagher describe Full Frontal in this scene?

Well:

Is he a human? This was the first impression Banagher had. He could not detect any sense of life from that man, not just from the mask covering his eyes, but also the vibe that he was artificially created. He stared at the masked man who sat on the Mahogany made office table, and seriously thought that it might really be part of the decorations in the room.

The hand under the glove felt rather hard, causing Banagher to remember the first impression of a puppet ...

Perhaps I might not have seen the true appearance of this man? Banagher recalled the beautiful blue eyes, and felt that he was following an illusion ...

He also describes his stare as "machine-like" at one point.

After removing the mask, he describes Frontal's face as handsome and without identifiable flaws. "His cheekbones did not reflect his age" -- he looked younger than expected based on the age of Char Aznable, I think is the implication.

Anyway. The point is, he's good-looking and there's nothing specific anyone can pinpoint that's obviously wrong with him, and yet this is a consistent reaction characters have to meeting him. He doesn't feel real.

Honestly, this is one of my favourite things about Frontal, and it makes me a bit sad that it doesn't translate at all. I'm sure it would be difficult to visually convey-- any attempt runs the risk of looking like an error, or just 'bad'. It could also be they were worried about going too hard with it and making him read like a monster, rather than someone who could plausibly be a charismatic leader.

I get it. I just miss it, man. It's such a good little detail. He'll always be a beautiful creepy puppet to ME.

I love that Angelo's always two seconds from going on the attack. He's like a beautiful fluffy dog that's human-aggressive and keeps biting people. He's Frontal's feral rescue persian cat.

Angelo doesn't go for Banagher a third time in the novel. In that version, these lines are delivered (less violently) by Frontal himself.

The change makes sense. It's in character for Angelo, and it still implies something about Frontal-- he speaks about Banagher sympathetically, but he pretty much just lets Angelo do this, not even chastising him or telling him to stop like the previous two times.

Banagher still falls over in the novel, despite not being physically assaulted. He almost passes out from the horror of realizing he killed someone, and then he spends the entire rest of the scene dissociating and feeling physically ill. Marida and Zinnerman pretty much have to drag him out of there.

The scene with Angelo and Frontal on their own discussing the possibility of an attack on Palau is gayer in the novel. Being inside Angelo's head is always gayer. We might get the full version of this scene in the next one, since they started talking about certain exposition-related things before getting abruptly cut off.

Concluding scenes

I really like this scene with the family. The designs of these characters and how they interact with each other is very endearing. Marida casually holding the little girl upside-down and handing her over to the mother is unbearably cute.

They don't fully explain the logistics of where and how Banagher is being held prisoner, leaving it to you to intuit what the arrangement is. This works just fine for me, but I did wonder if it might throw some people off. Maybe not-- I feel like most UC Gundam stuff I've watched occasionally leaves gaps like this and trusts you to connect the dots on your own.

It's just very different from reading the novel, where it leads you through the whole process of him being kept on the ship, brought to Palau, being taken to see Frontal, etc. It gives a history of Palau as a mining colony, including how and why it was built, why the guy who bought it most recently renamed it Palau, the population size, the dimensions in kilometers... you get the idea. Completely different approach.

Marida.... the next one should have a lot more of Marida, I think. I'm glad. I want more Marida. She's one of my favourites.

Her big scene in this one is a good one with a lot of thematic and emotional weight, but the reordering of scenes did skip over a lot of smaller moments between her and Banagher that I really love-- big fan of her grabbing his face to check his eyes and then telling him about the effects of g-force on the human eyeball.

I'm hoping at least some of those casual interactions make it into the next one. They can be shifted around pretty easily, so long as it's before the attack on Palau begins.

I think that's everything I wanted to go over... either way, I'm done. This post took me a lot longer to edit than the first one.

I can't believe they made me write fifteen paragraphs about Riddhe.