#save me Gundam women

[kamurawaffles5684]

m…mobile suit…mobile suit women…wommeennnnnnn…i lov womennn…i wanna smooch a mobile suit pilot…pls let me love them

[peterrrei]

that one charmuro illustration but its ⚢

[kaxtwenty]

The goodbye scene between Kamille and Reccoa actuallly got me pretty emotional. She was one of the people he looked up to the most and her leaving like this fucked him up a lot.

This show has a repeating thread of Kamille desperately trying to save people, but ultimately is unable to. It feels linked to his inability to truly understand what they've gone through. He tries, but he can't and often doesn't want to for reasons that don't feel shallow. First his mom, then his dad, then Four, then Sarah and now Reccoa. Kamille can't save any of them and of course he can't! He's just a kid! A well-meaning, stupid kid who by all accounts shouldn't be burdened with trying to save people from themselves, but he is anyway.

He just barely misses the mark each time and it sucks to see happen over and over again.

[the-eeveekins]

I love G-Witch's ending. While I do wish the journey had been longer, that we had gotten more time with the characters and the world, I would not change that destination. I still want it to end with Suletta saving her family at Quiet Zero.

"It's too happy, no one died!" I actually love this! Gundam has 45 years of bittersweet and occasionally downer endings. We can have one ending that is almost unambiguously a happy one. People always talk about finding non-violent solutions, about solving problems peacefully. And in a Gundam first, Suletta does that. She solves a violent situation with non-violence, and just this once, everybody lived!

"That was accomplished with bullshit space magic though!" Look, setting aside the fact that Bullshit Space Magic has been a part of Gundam since the original (and is often MORE bullshit in UC), this show is called The Witch From Mercury. If there was any Gundam series where Bullshit Space Magic saving the day and solving the problem is thematically appropriate and should not be an issue, it's this one.

"The bad guys lived and escaped jail!" I'm fine with this, especially since every good character survived too. And it's not like they didn't suffer any consequences. Miorine dissvolved the Benerit Group. Their empire is gone, along with their wealth and power. They may be free (for now), but they're definitely miserable. With Shaddiq's help, Miorine exposed the SAL's crimes, and considering the precarious position they were in previously, it's likely there was a major shake-up. The power structures in space were completely shaken up and changed, and much of it's power was transferred to Earth.

"What about Shaddiq?" Look, I definitely understand the contextual issues with Shaddiq being the only martyr. But in the show itself, Shaddiq accomplished his goals. He got to see the Benerit Group dissolved and their assets placed in the hands of Earthian companies, all without further violence. He secured the freedom of the women working for them, and importantly, they all now work for Miorine in her efforts to improve Earth and make reparations for Spacians. And as a last gift and blessing to Miorine and her new family, he took the fall for Quiet Zero while he was at it. Shaddiq may be imprisoned unlike the former BG members, but unlike them, he is a happy and satisfied man.

It's rare for the main characters in Gundam to enact massive, systemic change for the better, especially permanently. Amuro, Kamille and Judau did not change the world in any significant fashion. Their world was still mired in conflict after their reapective conflicts, to the point that Amuro dies in a later conflict and Judau gets so sick of things not changing for the better that he abandons Earth and later the solar system. Yet there is a lot of criticism that Suletta & Miorine didn’t solve all of Ad Stella's problems, that they did their part and peaced out. But their part was destroying the immediate threat of Gundams and Quiet Zero, they dismantled the Benerit Group power structure and put it in the hands of Earth and they exposed the SAL. They made huge changes to the world and they didn't stop. Miorine is still using her company to make amends for the BG's crimes and improve the lives of Earthians. Suletta has built a school on Mercury and is now building one on Earth. Even if they're not going to be fighting on the front lines, they're still fighting to make their world a better place.

That's not to say the ending is perfect. I don't think Nika should have spent 3 years in jail because of a guilty conscience and because Martin is a snitch. I don't think you should ruin the thematics of Suletta facing down and battling Quiet Zero by herself, but the part of me who loves to see giant robots fight wishes there could have been a way to involve the Demi-Barding, Pharact and Schwarzette in more action during the end. If not at QZ, then earlier in the series.

I personally believe a lot of the criticism of the ending boils down to preference, and people not preferring how G-Witch chose to end things, rather than those things being objectively bad. I think a lot of fans struggle to accept that G-Witch was trying to do something smaller, something different, and they still can't let go of wanting it to be something it never tried to be. Did it do what it wanted to do perfectly? Definitely not. It forgot what it was at points in S2 and I'd argue it actually cooked too good with it's background details, making people want more of something it never set out to do. But ultimately it was never trying to be a 50 episode war epic focused on the wider world. It was about these two girls and their families.

Suletta & Miorine's scene together in the wheat field on Earth is perhaps one of my favorite scenes in anime. Maybe in any media. I wouldn't trade that moment for anything short of their actual wedding.

[calcium-chan]

DRAWMEGLE DUMP FROM LIKEFORVER AGO

drawmegle was this weird little website that was like omegle, except for drawing and nominally fewer nazis?? tho at launch that was a bit of an issue lol (idk the creator went on vacation right after advertising or something? oops). i got sucked into it for like a day or two and ended up drawing a bunch of stuff. ive lost some of it because there was this weird glitch that just deleted my drawings before i could save them or anything. OH WELL. thats also the reason some of these are slightly unfinished. im also going to be cropping most of these to just my side, exceptions where its funny, or the other persons art was nice or whatever. just know that these almost all had people on the other side who were also drawing their own thing. also of note, i wont be posting these in order of creation, its mostly arbitrary tbh

this first one is of haru from dorohedodo. i had just finished reading the manga about a month or so prior, and i really loved this character a lot. disregard the amogus or whatever. dorohedoro is really cool and its really special to me now. not a fan of the anime adaption but what the fuck else is new (im sorry if you like the anime, i just didnt like the style very much). Q hayashida is brilliant, and she clearly just really loves women like a lot, thank you miss Q!

next is this silly drawing of knives chau. scott pilgrim takes off had just aired, and i was slightly enamored with knives for a bit, i kin the scott pilgrim girl fucking sue me. i also drew kim, but the drawing deleted and this was the last save i had WAHOOOOOO its so fucking over. scott pilgrim takes off was obviously really really good in my opinion, and its like the perfect way to adapt an original work in my mind. uh shout outs knives or whatever.

oops shitty cowboy bebop drawing. i like this one well enough for how goofy it is. jets fucking face still kinda gets me. i love bebop a ton, but i dont think ive ever drawn the characters despite that. theyre actually a ton of fun to draw, like their shapes are all super varied and they have distinct style about them. very good cast of characters. i didnt even realize or mean to, but i kinda gave spike a fucking granny face, oops

uuuuhthese pissing dogs are really funny, they were fun to draw, and seeing peoples reactions to this one in particular was cool. having even a little bit of ability to draw on sites like this where randos are looking at your work as youre drawing it is always kind of an ego boost. like none of these drawings are really that great, but for the medium im happy with them, and having people show up and go "woah" was always really flattering and it was fun watching the other people draw and interacting with them in some limited capacity.

ggggundam bullshit. i left the other persons side this time because i thought it was kinda funny. i had been rewatching the early part of turn A gundam, and it really reminded me how fucking cool that series is? loran is like top 10 gender non conforming mech pilots (there are a surprising amount honestly). and it always kinda takes me off guard when i watch any gundam because they were just so forward thinking in a nominally "boy" coded genre. shoutouts the fucking gundam staff frfr.

@oretal joined me for these next two!

a lot of the shit in the second drawing is probably totally incomprehensible to like anyone outside of a select group. were both have that like, 3ds era nintendo brain parasite, so a lot of these are just weird obscure game characters or memes, or just straight up OCs. most of these are actually oretals little characters which have kind of entered that inside joke canon of being so ubiquitous between the two of us (and honestly i assume oretals friend group at large) that i kinda forget "glasses girl" isnt a well known character. many such cases. thank you oretal for drawing silly shit with me! i really like your drawing of james and your madotsuki yapping about blunt rotations to uboa. very cool

uuuh quick fire round of stuff i dont like how i drew but want to post anyways. the first one is my irl husband, aki from chainsaw man. i love him a lot, kinda hate this drawing tho, i think it was the first one i did? the second one is basil from omori, im a big fan of little blorbos who peep the horror, and basil is no exception. my friend got me the little vinyl figure of him for my birthday so i end up thinking about him a lot and i doodle him every now and then. very good design. the last one is kiruko from heavenly delusion. i did not have much hype going into the show after my middling feelings on summertime rendering (they were both in the news for being on disney+ for absolutely no reason). i dont remember what got me to watch it, but by the time episode 2 ended i was stuck in big time. i ended up binging the whole series in like one night and it was such a good time. the prototypical calcium show is probably somewhere between heavenly delusion and made in abyss. its a rough watch at times, but if you have this specific brainrot, its probably one of the best in its league tbh.

second to last is this drawing of vriska homestuck. i kept the other side because it was really pretty. im genuinely quite pleased witht his drawing, its not perfect but for what it is i find it visually appealing enough to like it. vriskas design is probably the best in homestuck, at least to me. its been a long time since ive read through homestuck proper, but something about these little shits sticks with you pretty much forever. actual fucking deadly brain parasites you get from dunking your head underwater in an infested pool, dead within days.

OOPS ALL KUMI CHAN! it had to be alien nine, it could only be alien nine. i love alien nine more than i love any of my blood relatives. kumi is literally me, i love this stupid fucking series so much you have no idea.

[robian]

Sailor Moon

Not gonna lie, I actually enjoyed watching this show more than I thought I would and I'm a guy. I went into this thinking it was going to be as boring as the gundam anime, but Sailor Moon was a pretty interesting watch. The villains kinda reminded me of team rocket and how every episode they'd show up with a different plan.

Anyways, Sailor Moon is obviously big on girl power. I bet it's not an accident that we recently in the course read about Bishoujo. Sailor Moon is probably the most iconic Bishoujo after all. I wasn't alive in the 1990’s so don't know for sure what it was like, but I bet narratives portraying strong independent women were not as common as they are today.

Japan especially is a place where people don't tend to go outside the norm. That just makes it harder for societal views to change. In Japan, although it's getting better, it's still very common for women to be solely in charge of home duties while the man goes to work. Even in Sailor Moon, the mom is depicted as a housewife while the dad seems to be a salaryman. Sailor Moon, herself, however isn't good at sticking to society's expectations. She's not good at school, she's always late, and she eats a lot. Yet, she doesn't let that stop her from saving the world.

Sailor Moon also has a lot of comments on societal problems. The enemy often makes use of these problems in order to gain energy for their lord. Some of the biggest problems they pointed out were the expectation of women to always be thin and beautiful, the problem of kids being pressured too much over studying, and consumerism. These issues have even continued to persist until today. Sailor Moon, although disguised as a children's show, made a lot of comments on society. Society is hard to change, but the easiest way to do it is through new generations. Media such as Sailor Moon paved the way for progress.

[retro-friki]

So, I know you've seen both G-Witch and Zeta, so I would like your opinion on something: there's a wide variety of military (and military-adjacent) fashion in Gundam, but I haven't seen much that looks like Suletta's Holder uniform (aside from the black collar with gold filigree), with one exception:

The resemblance would be stronger if Paptimus wore a black capelet a la Zeon officers (like Char) from the One Year War, but even so, I haven't seen anyone wear a (mostly) white uniform combined with a gold-filigreed black collar, except for these two. And I might let it go as a coincidence, but there's a number of other similarities as well:

*They're both space-dwellers, but from planets well outside the Earth Sphere, isolating them from political stances more common among their Earth Sphere-dwelling brethren.

*They're both ace pilots using machines that were custom-designed for their personal use.

*Despite their spacial origins, they both elected to become champions of Earth-based organizations.

*They're even both opposed by a teenage terrorist with dark teal hair, who attempts to use a black Gundam to crush one of their allies with its foot.

But at the same time, it's hard to imagine a pair of characters with more polar opposite moral alignments than these two, and since there's no way these similarities weren't intentional, it makes me wonder if some of G-Witch's visuals weren't partly designed as a funhouse reflection of Zeta's.

But what do you think? Am I off-base here, or is there merit to my observations? Anything I'm overlooking?

Hi, I hope that I’ll be able to answer this on a coherent manner.

First things first, even if they have some superficial similarities Scirocco and Suletta are absolute opposites, but there’s still something that we can work on here, bear in mind that this is speculative and that I still need to rewatch Zeta, so maybe I will revisit this character analysis in the future.

(Also, I won't be spoiling Zeta but there's vague G-Witch spoilers here).

So why are these characters wearing white and gold garments?

Well, I think those are Prince garments.

White represents purity and has great contrast with gold which is also the color of one of the purest and most valuable metals of the world. So the combination of the two colors has something royal and even divine to it.

I’ve read that Scirocco is described as something akin to a “dark newtype”, instead of using his powers to achieve understanding among humanity, he manipulates the people around him, particularly young women. He presents himself as the prince that would save them and give them what they’re craving for when he’s just using them as tools and human shields. We can say that his clothes, his pretty face and all his discourse about “women being the rulers of the next generation” is just a facade that he uses to hide his real ambitions. Many fall for it and follow him but they don’t know that he’s willing to sacrifice them in order to get what he wants. If we were to describe Scirocco in Utena terms, he would be an Akio.

Now all of this has nothing to do with our tanuki, but let’s remember how she got her own princely clothes. The Holder title is described as something “given only to the most outstanding student among all duel winners”. It’s a symbol of the elite in Asticassia. Once again: prince garments. However, that description omits something very important that comes with the Holder title: whoever has it gets to marry Miorine. I don’t understand why the series wasn’t that critical of the Holder title considering the Utena influences and all, but I think that the uniform was something that Suletta had to outgrow. During the series she’s putting up this noble knightly/princely persona because she thinks that she needs to be useful to be loved. Once she loses Miorine and her title, she realizes that her friends will be there for her no matter what, and that sometimes it’s important to do the right thing even if there’s nothing to gain from it. Suletta found herself when she lost the Holder title, and I think there was no need for her to get it back. By the time she meets Miorine, she knows her own worth and she recognizes Mio’s independence, they are together because that’s what they want, it’s not an imposition or part of a deal anymore.

So yeah, Scirocco is a “dark prince”, while Suletta realizes that she doesn’t have to be anyone’s prince. Idk, maybe someone like Scirocco could’ve been a great antagonist (1) to Suletta and Miorine, but yet again, people would be complaining about the story being “too woke” or whatever, so that wasn’t going to happen.

In conclusion:

Some notes:

Sure, Prospera is also a master manipulator but she was more in a “mommy knows best” mindset and I think she actually cared about Suletta hence why she was redeemable. Scirocco, on the other hand was manipulative and a misogynist.

Scirocco wasn’t in the picture yet when Kamille tried to crush that one guy, but I think he wouldn’t have cared, lol.

I would’ve liked to see a battle between Suletta and Norea and see their ideals crash. It would’ve given Suletta a greater insight of things, maybe.

Well, that’s all I have on the matter, I hope that I made some sense. Thanks for asking :)

[wordsandrobots]

You know, watching play-throughs of the Iron-Blooded Orphans DLC for Super Robot Wars, I am struck by how slightly *off* the characterisation is. I suspect that's a natural consequence something like this, throwing so many characters into the mix that you can't help render them down a bit (and then there's translation on top of that), but it feels very weird to have Shino saying:

Shino: When you're as smart and skilled as me, you can get used to anything. Akihiro: "Smart and skilled", my ass. First thing you did was try to steal some food, and I had to save you from an angry mob. Shino: Shush, you! That was just, uh...a bit of a blooper. Happens to the best of us.

This reads to me more like something written for Eugene (in fact, this whole exchange feels like something you'd see between Eugene and *Shino*, not Shino and Akihiro). It's one of those quirks that I have perhaps spent too long dwelling on, but in the anime, Shino's boasting is almost exclusively about Tekkadan as a group and rarely if ever about himself. If anything, he tends to own being a goof more readily, laughing off his own missteps (with a couple of amusing exceptions) despite an obvious ego regarding his fighting skills and a preoccupation with not appearing 'lame'.

(I do think Shino would be 100% down for stealing food if necessary, although given his in-canon attention to stocking his mobile suit with ration bars, it's just a generally weird situation to gesture at.)

That said, the flirting with Gundam Victory's all-women mobile suit squad feels on-point. Possibly that's just because this is the only official-ish example we have of what Shino is *actually* like when he's flirting. It all happens off-screen otherwise, so it's fun to see someone attempt to portray the kind of crashing and burning that got Lafter calling him a 'pierced idiot'.

Shino: ...So what I'm saying is, we should all go downtown and have some fun! Kite: Only if it's your treat. Shino: Yeah, sure, it's all on me! But ALL of you Shrikes gotta come! Come on? Pretty please? Peggy: You seriously can't take a hint, can you? Helen: I mean, he definitely can't, but... c'mon, free drinks! Franny: Let's just make this clear: you're just a walking wallet to us. Shino: Y'know what? I'm okay with that. Shino: Love is a journey, and it's gotta start somewhere. Ain't that right, Junko? Junko: Hah! You've got guts, I'll give you that. Keep it up, Shino. Shino: Yeah, baby! I can hear the door to your heart unlocking! Miliera: He's actually going after Junko? He's either very brave, or very, very dumb. Mahalia: He'll have to go through all of us before he gets anywhere near her. Shino: ALL of you? Whoa, mama! Cony: Wow, he really can't take a hint. It's kind of impressive, really. Juca: Honestly? I don't mind it. It means he's fitting in well with the team.

(I still haven't seen Victory but I know what happens to these ladies, so there is a layer at which this is . . . a choice in terms of character match-ups. Seems like that's half the fun of these games, though.)

But yeah. Given that this feeling of it not being quite on the money with characterisation extends to what I've seen of both Lelouch and Char too, I do think it's kind of inevitable with what this thing is -- broad-strokes and all that. The only bit that genuinely annoyed me was the site of Biscuit's death being changed; they have Orga reacting as if Biscuit was killed at Edmonton and saying he never expected to be back there, which is really bad example of cludging a whole heap of different stuff together for the sake of a condensed emotional beat.

Still, I can't deny it's highly amusing to have McGillis rocking up to get advice from his peers in scheming bastardry while Orga is sitting in the corner wondering why this is his life now. And Akihiro and Shino engaging in one-up-manship with the Ultramen is fun (even if I do not get along with that anime AT ALL).

[ikuzeminna]

In my previous post I talked about the women of Gundam Wing not being treated as awards or reasons for man pain for the guys and I’m actually a little surprised that no one so far called me out on Meilan because at first glance, she falls right into that category. Because her death is specifically there to motivate Wufei and do nothing else. No one else knows about her, her death doesn’t affect anyone or anything else.

Except for her grandma who is apparently still so grief-stricken she blows up her entire colony. Thanks for more trauma, Master Long.

But I guess I’m gonna call myself out here then and derail this into a meta about Meilan’s portrayal actually being male-coded. Apparently I’m also gonna make up words while doing so lol

What do I mean? Let’s first clear up what I meant when I said the Wing women aren’t used for man pain. Man pain is quite an umbrella term that’s supposed to describe any instance of the narrative portraying a male’s emotional pain be of a higher magnitude than anyone else’s within his story. Especially women’s.

In my post I was referring to the very specific case where a woman’s suffering is stripped from her narratively and made exclusively a guy’s problem, to the point it only exists if it’s in relation to him. Think Gwen Stacy’s death affecting Spiderman or 2009‘s Spock’s mom dying or Aang burning Katara and then moping about never firebending again, necessitating her comforting him about his (accidental) assault on her. messed up doesn’t even begin to cover that last one The girl with the puppy is actually an example of this in Wing because her death only exists to make Heero feel bad. She isn't even given a name. The most classic example really is a guy’s mom dying though and him being forever sad about it. It’s the easy way for the writer to give his manly man something to cry over without making him a wimp. Otherwise Kira from Gundam Seed would be more popular.

But when we get asked to name a famous fictional death, I think most people will pick Mufasa, the prime example ever of a death affecting the audience. And it makes sense. Because not only was Mufasa a good parent, who sacrificed his life to save his son, Simba’s entire hero’s journey is basically living up to his father’s example. It's what drives the story.

And that’s the difference between men and women dying in fiction, especially parents. If a mother dies, it’s something to be sad over (i.e. Spock). If a father dies, it’s a legacy to uphold (i.e. Kirk). Simba is never worried about living up to Sarabi’s expectations. Hiccup spends three movies trying not to shame his father. Katniss won’t shut up about what a great person her dad was even though her mom is right there, being the medic for her entire district, but never being worth emulating in any way.

The same goes if it’s just a friend. A female friend’s death is a devastating event, a male friend’s death is a call to not let his sacrifice be in vain.

Which brings us back to Meilan. Meilan may have been written as just a device to give Wufei a tragic backstory, which lands her squarely in man pain territory, but narratively she is the same category as Mufasa, influencing Wufei to the degree he changes his entire way of life to live up to her memory and hold himself accountable during the series when he fails to do so, which yanks her right out of it again.

Besides, Wufei never goes around openly mourning her death. It’s hidden in aggressiveness and weird sexism towards Noin and his odd reverence of his Gundam. I love that it was supposed to be a secret that would have been revealed at the middle of the series, just like everyone else’s backstories, had the schedule not been crazy, giving us the recap episodes instead. Alas...

But this is one of the reasons I love Gundam Wing so much. The colony leader Heero Yuy and the late King Peacecraft may be revered figures within its universe, but by the end of the series, and definitely by EW, the person the entire galaxy admires is Relena. A girl. Which is completely deserved for all the things she manages to pull off, mind you.

I love most that Heero admiring Relena also has a very personal aspect to it. He knows her. He knows how bullheaded she can be. She’s not an abstract to him, he’s intimately familiar with that Gundanium backbone of hers. That scene on Libra where they keep throwing compliments at each other is great. Relena tries to transfer her accomplishments to Heero, playing into narrative tradition of gender roles here where the guy always gets all the glory, no matter how competent the girl may have been (glaring at you here, Hiccup and Astrid >_>) and Heero, the show’s male protagonist, bounces it right back, telling her he is nothing compared to her, landing a sweet blow to narrative sexism.

Gundam Wing is a weird little show where I don’t know if one could call it feminist considering how every woman is assigned to a man, with Treize and Zechs and Duo and Wufei standing above their female counterparts due to their strength or lineage or because they’re the series’ Char clone, but within the roles it assigned to everyone, it does a wonderful job of not being sexist about them. Une is portrayed as more competent than Treize, who is more of an opportunist. Zechs outright says Noin is better than him. Wufei won’t shut up about Nataku and what a failure he is. It's like the show apologizes for being Gundam and made in the 90s, explaining why the pilots and big bads all have to be male, but they'll make the female characters as cool as they can to make up for it. Here, have some Sally and Noin being a badass duo or Relena and Dorothy carrying the philosophical debate during the Cinq arc.

....Except Hilde. I got nothing here because her and Duo are classic gender roles to a T, haha. But at least Duo is not being a jerk about it, which is more than can be said about most fictional guys trying to dictate a female’s actions. Duo lets Hilde make her own decisions.

[ninthprime]

mildly arbitrary rating of every gundam i have watched so far

in order of me starting them

witch from mercury: 7.5/10. we’re never gonna get confirmation of people’s various theories that this show was originally planned for 50 episodes and i’ve also heard that the showrunner’s series tend to be kind of just Like This, but gwitch has a lot of missed potential mostly focused on 1. its seemingly incomplete worldbuilding and 2. the fact that the arcs of much of its secondary cast (guel, nika, shaddiq) appear to jump over a few steps or just are missing something. on the other hand, the arcs of its primary cast (particularly suletta) are great, suletta herself is a top-tier protagonist, the tertiary cast is one of the best i’ve seen in gundam (i love earth house), and sulemio is probably objectively the best gundam romance even if i’m pretty sure it’s not my personal favorite.

gundam 0079: 9.5/10. the GOAT. you know how it is. every single person who got into gundam via gwitch like i did but still hasn’t gone back to watch 0079 is doing themself a total disservice. you watch this show and both everything about mecha and everything about modern anime in general suddenly clicks completely in your brain. everyone who has been obsessed with char aznable and amuro ray for the last 40+ years has been completely right. i think its only big flaws are some of its treatment of women (though later shows like ZZ have way more glaring issues there) and its shortened length, but frankly if you hadn’t told me it got cut short seven episodes early i would not have noticed, because its finale may be one of my all time favorite television finales ever. just go watch it. i’m sitting you down right now

zeta gundam: 8.5/10. a really ideal sequel in a lot of ways that are remarkable considering the gap of time between it and 0079. focuses on new characters who reflect on the last show while still being their own things, and brings back the cast of the last show in ways that feel like they make sense while still being unexpected and making you look at things in a new light. deeply iconic and atmospheric in ways that are a little overwhelming at times; it is a dour show. has way more glaring flaws for me than a lot of the fandom brings up though, mostly in its pacing and its villains. this show has an entire middle section i barely remember and do we need both the four and rosamia storylines? and frankly i do not care about the titans that much (other than sarah).

zz gundam: 8.5/10. zz defender crop is here. please ignore everyone who tells you that you can skip zz. zeta’s other half in ways that aren’t just “it started two weeks after zeta in real life”- it also fixes zeta’s pacing, provides a welcome counterpoint to its dire tone, and its villains are literally just improved versions of zeta’s (glemy is better scirocco! haman is a top tier gundam villain in general!). i think the middle section of this show- the entire time they are on earth- is my favorite section of UC gundam, or at least tied with 0079’s ramba ral and finale arcs. i do think the dip in quality people say it has in the last arc is true. also probably has the largest Woman Problem in any gundam i’ve seen so far (i have a threshold for bad women writing so high it is practically antifeminist but unfortunately emary breaks that threshold, what the hell is up with everything about emary) even though i love some of those women very much. secretly has the boldest and most thematically interesting gundam finale so far. ple forever

char’s counterattack: 8/10. as i’ve said before: a gorgeous film about two men being so divorced that thousands of people die. genuinely iconic and also very bold but i often find myself torn as to whether i want tomino to be more explicit about what he’s saying here. we could have saved ourselves years of “was char right??” debates but then again, it’s the spirit of cca to claim that only you have the right take about cca. beyond the time is a good song

gundam unicorn: 7.5/10. politics here are often confusing and messy, and i think it suffers from its core characters (banagher and mineva) and their relationship not getting the time they need. on the other hand, i’m interested in what it says about the worldbuilding of UC (even if i think it didn’t execute it that well) and its secondary cast is great; i did nearly cry about marida and zinnerman so that sure works. full frontal does not bug me nearly as much as he bothers most people although i think he has the same “needs more time to cook” issue banagher and mineva have. i even kind of like what they do with riddhe and i usually dislike that archetype. in other words: i would have been nuts for the forty episode (and properly paced) version of this show. marida forever

gundam hathaway: 7/10?? hard to tell here without having the next two movies. was a bit hard to get invested in the conflict near the end as we met many characters who are not developed yet. but the relationship between the core trio here is intriguing and i like hathaway as a protagonist a lot.

the rest of my “gundams i am most interested in list” is victory -> turn a -> 00 -> iron blooded orphans so that’s the next four shows. after…who can say

[bunnymajo]

Top 5 toy-driven anime for boys? For some reason I've been really noticing lately how much of the magical girl genre is essentially really pretty toy commercials and I'm kind of fascinated now by whatever the gendered flipside of that is.

Keroro Gunso

Keroro's a funny case because it wasn't always a toy driven franchise, it was just a boy's comedy manga heavy on anime references/parody and romcom hijinks, but once Sunrise & Bandai decided to be a sponsor for the anime adaptation you better believe it became one.

One aspect you have a team of color coded alien critters that are screaming to be made into marketable plushies. Each one even has a corresponding human character they're best friends kids can identify with. So there's that merch avenue

On the other hand you have Keroro's great love of Gundam model kits, a trait they leaned into hard. The show served not only to promote Keroro's toys but also real world Gundam models and other Bandai ventures. The funniest part of the 3rd movie to me is when they're all building a giant gundam model to fight against the bad guy and as a test of their friendship - and when they finish an orchestral cover of "Tobe! Gundam" plays in the background. Gundam models can solve all your problems kids!

2. Digimon

Where to even start with Digimon man...

It's strongest aspect as a toyline frachise was selling these guys with the ideal of having your own personal pet that can have conversations with you and all beat up your bullies, save you from danger, loves you unconditionally and help you grow into the best version of yourself. Digimon are the ultimate magical girl mascots if you ask me. While Pokemon has a big emphasis on collecting and working together as a big team - I like Digimon's spin on making it more personal.

3. SDF Macross

(I'm adding the "Women of Robotech" dolls because I think they're neat)

Macross may have more of a reputation for its music these days but in the 80's it was all about the giant robots & transforming planes! The VF-1S Valkyrie also went on to famously be added to Hasbro's Transformers toy line so when Harmony Gold wanted to make Robotech toys they couldn't sell it! 80's toy deals were a mess! Love it!

That all aside, the heart of Macross is it's drama and it's analysis of humanity adapting to weird af conditions. What do we fight for, how do we solve conflicts, how do we create, how to we continue to grow - the answer is to sing pop music until the aliens leave us alone. In my mind the planes & robots are just a fun bonus to everything else lol.

4. Yu-Gi-Oh

I had a huge Yugioh phase in early High School so I gotta mention it even if I wasn't really into it for the toys. I liked the monsters and the characters/story and tried to get into the card game but it didn't stick. I didn't have a hard time learning the rules though.

5. Saint Seiya

I'll be real, I've never been really into Saint Seiya's story or characters much, but I LOVE its aesthetics. If I was a kid in the 80s I probably would've gone nuts for this. A bunch of cool fighters named after stars and you can go and collect them all and collect all their cool outfits? I keep trying to get into it each iteration (the closest was probably Saintia Shou or Saint Seiya Omega) and it never sticks, but dang it looks cool

[ruinsoftime]

I've finally finished Gundam Seed and Destiny. My body is more than ready for the movie on Thursday.

It has been years since a series brought me that much frustration, worrying about who lives, who dies and what gets destroyed.

Ramblings ahead:

Shinn is an ass smh the boy only has one neuron and it's dead. I like Flay way more than him.

I liked Athrun (not because of his red suit), we both try to convince assholes with no avail. And he has bad taste, too... Cagalli? Really?

Kira is on another league. Great character development. Went from "meh emo guy" to "Jesus, please save us all".

Lacus is a great girl but she's too dangerous for the plot so only appears to slap everyone and then flies away.

Lunamaria WTF I shipped her with Athrun but my man is a cool guy with well defined priorities regarding romance. Shinn, really? During the OG airing the VAs weren't married yet.

Cagalli development made no sense until it did. It was good. It was very obvious she didn't know a damn about politics.

The whole Mu thing was painful to watch.

I was planning to watch all Gundam in release order, so, I come from Z to SEED. Oh man the difference in narrative and character behaviour is so so so so great. There's less (keyword) chauvinism. People doesn't get punched at the slightest show of trauma (they punch walls instead), they're punched when they're being morons. A girl finally piloted a Gundam. Women hold positions of power (not enough power, still limited with some retarded decisions for the plot and to stay in house taking care of children). And no one said: "you can't pilot a Gundam because you're a girl". I know it's around 30 years of difference between shows. Life was hard back then.

Definitely, SEED is way more darker and has more plot twists and surprises than DESTINY, but I enjoyed both greatly. I want to surf through the gundam seed tag but I know the movie is already available to watch so I don't want to get spoiled lol

[bronanlynch]

the thing abt thinking of who my favorite fictional woman is is that if I let myself pick too many I'll just start listing like. most women from many gundams and then instead of listing characters Iike I'll be writing an essay abt gender in gundam and the way gender is used thematically in various gundam stories and how sometimes it's done in ways I find incredibly compelling and rich grounds for analysis even if I ultimately disgree with the conclusions and sometimes it's not (in both directions, sometimes it's just good and interesting without the disclaimers and sometimes it's bad in ways that do not compel me and are not interesting for me to analyze) and also why transition would not save char but she should do it anyway and that's maybe a little much for the tags of someone else's post

[royasuka]

i think mainly, macross DYRL is very much an otaku anime. the robots, the personalities of men and women, the gore, the idol romance, the animation style… it’s a movie made by people who love anime. which is not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong! i love evangelion which is another anime made by people who love anime! but it’s an odd feeling to watch something made by fans of another thing i like (gundam) but who took different things from it than i did. macross and gundam are very, very different anime, but the similarities are clear. at the same time, DYRL also feels a lot like the other “otaku-type” OVAs and movies that came out in the 80s that were focused on gore and beautiful women.

maybe it’s the romance that makes me confused. i’m used to gore and beautiful women, but when you add in silly dates and a love triangle, plus love songs saving the world… i compartmentalize this sort of thing to eroge. DYRL is like PG eroge.

[crabcrabcrabmeat]

Ok final thoughts on Gundam Novels. Idk why ppl call them novelizations when it's a p different story lol. Lots of Tominoisms unsurprisingly.

Frau stays a Civilian! And presumably has pants. Garma has more narrative raison d'etre (er, to die ig) in this but he's still a bit character as he should be lol. Kai is less fun imo but apparently he gets laid more than anyone, good for him. Ages are a bit older, but sleggar is still younger than me lmao.

Low points: not a huge fan of what I assume is the translation lol. I assume the original has more dry humor, there's a bit abt Big Zam that was tainted (I assume) by this, as well as a lot of moments where the text vs subtext seem out of balance, rip. Scene by scene pacing is good but overall is sooo jumpy esp w the POV swaps and lore dumps. I like all the espionage but it's not presented in the most ideal way. Also the fuckinnnn pube amulets. Why.

??? Moments: Amuro and Char aren't as much of narrative foils, as this has some concepts that would go on to be used in Zeta such as their attempt at allyship. Baffling name choices. Lalah is a minor character! She's not even the most Lalah of a character narratively lol. Some transliterations are inconsistent which irks me. M'qve's biggest contribution to the story is calling Char a fuckboy lol. The ending has a very different vibe, despite both ending on the idea of desperate hope. The story itself is stunningly gender essentialist to the point it breaks its own verisimilitude wrt identity and eroticism, but simultaneously frames misogyny as bad. Let her cook.

High points: Char and Amuro both have sex multiple times with women and yet they seem just as gay. Phenomenal. Lots of detailed characterization thru snark, intimacy and lack there of, and of course Amuros insane diet my beloved. Give him his mocha mandarin coffee! Let him complain against warcrimes while eating strawberry shortcake! Delightful. It's such a good addition to any scene. I like the continuation of the water motif! Lalah's few scenes are spot on. The moment w the scars lives in my head rent free. Some of my fav characters were ones specific to this! How cool is it that Amuro interacts w a proto Reccoa? Also Bright is even easier to hate in this lolol. Genuinely impressed by some of the descriptions of how it feels to have a newtype flash, there's a lot going on conceptually wrt neurodivergency, personhood, autonomy, vulnerability. Its like an attempt to interrogate the BDSM concept of subspace thru more rational lenses like physics and psychology. They really can have sex fully clothed on opposite sides of a building huh.

A lot of the more infamous or contentious moments were spoiled for me but it's defs worth reading in context! It's not SO good I'd recommend it to a non fan but that's really not the audience to begin with hehe. Just make sure whatever format u do,,,, don't be like me and read it miniscule on ur phone. Save ur eyes.

[arznersfishingrod]

Tagged by @fursasaida

Last Song: Red Flag Diver by Aimee Mann. As you will see below, I’ve been listening to a lot of Aimee Mann.

Currently Reading: As I always do, I’m juggling a few different books. House of Leaves, which is incredible. Death of the Necromancer, which is a very fun fantasy novel. I’ve been reading Frieren: Beyond Journeys End, a fantasy comic about an elf, 80 years after she and her party saved the world, realizing how much she loved the humans in her party who have died, and retracing their journey to remember them. Also I’ve got Neal Stephenson’s Anathem on dock, and reading The End of Alice when I want to be bummed out. Also keeping up with a bunch of comics.

Currently Watching: I just watched the movie Spencer, and Pablo Larrain should make a Judy Garland biopic, he loves him some tragic women loved by gay men. And I love the movies he makes about tragic women loved by gay men. I’m in between shows at the moment

Currently Listening: I’m in one of my semi regular Aimee Mann career relistens. I feel a little bad that I’m not keeping up on new music anymore but also I used to do that with friends and they’ve all moved elsewhere. So the pressure isn’t really there. Alas.

Latest Obsession: The Gundam: The Witch From Mercury ending was nice but also I felt the production headaches in the many political elements that never got resolved. Space Capitalism still kills! So I’m still thinking over the aspects of that show that could have used a full 50 episode series. Also spicy stuff under the cut.

Tagging: @pastel-petticoats @explosionshark @lowdowndandy

Obsession wise, it’s not exactly that, but it’s taking as much time and energy. I’m supposed to be ~exploring my body. Literally, doctors keep telling me that. They are telling me to watch porn and it’s so time consuming I need to like, skip 10 months into this 3rd puberty I’m on.