#zeon isn't my character

[clownartnie]

the campaign may be over but that isn't stopping me and my friends from making a modern au where the other party members are babysitters for althea and nothing bad happens to them ever

[wordsandrobots]

'Real' robot? No thanks

I shan't be wasting time hang-wringing over the idea of a Gundam show from the point of view of the setting's antagonists. This is a well-worn and perfectly legitimate approach, and in any case, Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) goes out of its way to emphasise the humanity of the Principality of Zeon's soldiers. There are scouts who bend their orders to aid to civilians, wannabe special-forces who take the time to gawk at the teen prodigy who thwarted their attempt to blow up the Gundam, pilots who jump ship rather than go down with their mobile suits, and injured grunts who cling to family pictures while bleeding out in the desert. Even the actual *villains* of Gundam 79 – the Zabi family and their hangers-on – are generally presented as functioning people with loves and motivations beyond conquest. Only Gihren is utterly without morals. You know, the guy who took being compared to Hitler as a compliment? Garma, Degwin, Dozle, and even Kycilia all have moments of humanity, in spite of their reprehensible actions.

So yes, of course there are people fighting for Zeon because it's their job, because they believe the promise of spacenoid independence, because they buy into newtype theory, or simply because circumstances force them to. That's the kind of story Gundam is: the tragedy of people enduring a war driven by forces above their heads and beyond their control, who are just trying to make it home alive. If you don't get that, or that the Federation is squarely in the position of 'lesser evil but still a callous nation state doing dubious things to secure victory' from episode one, I don't know what to tell you. You've missed the point. I'm sorry, you just have.

There is nothing wrong with the premise 'wouldn't fighting against the Gundam be like living in a horror movie?' Indeed, I will go further: that is a good premise for a story.

But Netflix's Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance is not a good story. It is, at best, a serviceable one, trotting from A to B with enough narrative cohesion and character beats to string the set-pieces together. By and large it manages an inoffensive momentum, unfolding a predictable sequence of events with reasonable competency. If I was not hugely entertained, I was not especially put off, either. They even remembered to turn on the contrast for the nighttime battles.

The biggest innovation displayed here is that this production was rendered in Unreal Engine as full CGI, eschewing Gundam's conventional animation style. In my view, that's also the key to its biggest problems. Let's take a quick spoiler break and I'll try to unpack what I mean.

I guess go watch the show before proceeding?

OK, so, there was a point in the middle of Requiem for Vengeance when I found myself questioning the physics of beam sabers. I'd never thought before about why what is essentially a burning stream of energy can be blocked by a bit of metal with a super-heated edge, or indeed by another such stream, because within the animation style usually used to depict such things, they are clearly physical in their interaction with the world. As solid as lightsabers and therefore as capable of acting like real swords.

But Requiem makes the decision to depict the Gundam's saber as, essentially, the jet from a blowtorch. Because that's what this *is*, isn't it? A narrow fountain of plasma? So it looks like fire, you can see the Zaku's heat-hawk through the Gundam's blade, and suddenly I'm wondering – how does that work? Why does the axe stop it instead of passing through? How does this obviously non-physical blade react as if it were a physical object?

There are any number of technobabble reasons you might give for how this works. Forcefields! It's probably forcefields. But what struck me was the beat of 'huh' I experienced, where I asked something I'd never previously *needed* to, even though it always existed as a legitimate question of the sci-fi mumbo-jumbo being deployed, and how that was a direct result of stylistic choices made when the Gundam was reinterpreted through the lens of CGI 'realism'.

Ah, yes. Realism. That elusive quality chased by film-makers and game-developers the world over. Or, specifically chased by a lot of big, mainstream studios who've decided it is vitally important the supernatural and the superscientific be placed within what is recognisably the real world.

In terms of such codifying modern works as 2008's Iron Man, this is primarily about papering over the stitching between what is filmed using actors and what is painted in later. In theory, something rendered entirely by computer does not have to worry about this. However, as many a 'triple-A' computer game has proven, the aspiration towards photographic quality remain. Characters and objects are honed so as to mimic the appearance and texture of real people and objects, with greater verisimilitude to life being a near-universally unquestioned goal.

I won't argue this doesn't have merit as a technical exercise. The results can be impressive. What I will say is: realism is worthless if it removes interest, and useless if it sacrifices coherence. The beam saber example is an instance of what I mean by the latter. Within Gundam 79, we apprehend immediately that the saber and the heat-hawk are of a kind, possessing an energised glow that is nevertheless opaque and physical. Within Requiem's portrayal, however, they no longer adhere to a visual language in which their interaction make sense. You cannot block an axe with a blowtorch flame. A minor illustration, yes, but it captures the tension created by transposing such elements into a more 'realistic' style.

Another may be found in the treatment of Zeon's various military vehicles. These are a bizarre selection of sci-fi objet d'art, from the aerodynamically questionable Dopp fighter jets to Magella tanks that can launch their turrets into open flight. They are strikingly weird designs that make little sense yet function perfectly inside their context. Where another, earlier anime would have had them belong to an alien species, Gundam is the show that pioneered 'what if the bad guys were human too' for the mecha genre, so they merely represent a design logic alien to the Earth Federation, which favours bold, blocky shapes more closely based on extant military hardware.

In Requiem, the Zeonic weirdness is deliberately muted. The Dopps are streamlined, literally flattened into a more traditional jet fighter profile. One Magella does attempt to launch its turret only to be blown apart before it can rise more than a couple of feet. Otherwise, they're just treated as ordinary tanks. And it's easy to see what the artists were doing here: "let's take these weird 70s designs and make them look like real tanks/jets." The result, unfortunately, is a dilution of the clear distinction between Zeon and Federation tech.

If you've watching the original Gundam and its sequels, you'll know how easy it is to tell at a glance which side something belongs to. Looking at them in stills, it is still reasonably clear these are meant to be Zeon vehicles. But in motion, it often took me a good few seconds to be sure I wasn't seeing their Federation equivalents. Visual interest doesn't exist purely for its own sake, after all; it serves to clarify the action. Plus, it seems to me that trying to downplay the wilder aspects of these designs actually draws attention towards those aspects. The Zeonic alienness has its own explanatory power; reducing it raises more questions, not fewer.

Lest you think me some terrible killjoy who doesn't like fun, I'm actually incredibly sympathetic to 'realistic' overhauls of classic designs. Have you seen what I spent years doing for the Daleks? Aesthetic overhauls aren't something I object to, nor do I think 'realism' as practised by the MCU and triple-A game developers is intrinsically a waste of time. What I am trying to demonstrate is Requiem's relation to its source material. It posits a story taking place exactly contemporaneously with episode 25 of Gundam 79, portraying the Battle of Odessa, the great Federation push-back that ejects Zeon forces from Earth. This is what was happening 'just off screen', depicted in a style actively at odds with that of the original

But not entirely at odds with it. Which brings us to another problem: an unwillingness to commit fully to the new style.

The big twist in Requiem episode 4 is that after being chased down by the Gundam and just barely managing to drive it off, Captain Iria Solari of the Red Wolf mobile suit squadron is recruited to go capture an example of the Federation's new mass-produced GM 'suit, so Zeon can identify its weaknesses. The hunted get to become the hunter, infiltrating a Federation base and attempting to hijack a couple of GMs, only for the Gundam to scupper things. All well and good. Not a bad swerve. Enables some useful developments.

Except this plan is delivered into the plot by a Zeon major general who appears to have stepped in from a different production entirely. Specifically, from Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, because this is none other than Major General Yuri Kellerne, he of the Wolverine haircut and unfortunate disagreements with certain scientific officers (that is, it is unfortunate he should have disagreed with a man possessing so few qualms about massacring his own side).

It is truly surreal to have a character who looks like he actually belongs in a Gundam show enter the scene. I was quite impressed prior to this with the depiction of another character, Major Ronet, who captures the essence of a villain-of-the-week Zeon officer using Requiem's style. He looks entirely of a piece with the rest, while still being recognisably a certain type of character.

Kellerne though? For fuck's sake, he's got a full-blown anime bouffant. Juxtaposed with Solari's achingly realistic design, it's just – bad. This is bad. It's a stylistic clash that makes it impossible to take these scenes seriously. Not because either style is problematic on its own, but because they cannot work together.

It's worth pausing to consider Kellerne's native entry in the franchise, because 08th MS represents an older trend of revisiting the original setting. Starting with Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, this saw the release of OVAs with a superior quality of animation and a more ground-level take on events of the Zeon/Federation war. In many respects, Requiem is positioned as the successor to these series, as Kellerne's cameo makes overt.

The thing is, War in the Pocket, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory and 08th MS are all animes. Yes, they render the action with greater fidelity than Gundam 79. But they don't restyle it the way Requiem attempts to. The Dopp fighter is a great example of this. Compare the 08th MS version to the original and you will see that it merely adds extra layers of detail. It doesn't make it make more sense. Likewise for the character models. They look better than Gundam 79, by certain metrics. They still follow conventional anime aesthetics. You can't drop a design from this line of shows straight into a 'realistic' depiction and expect that to work.

Why does any of this matter? None of these issues exceed the threshold of nit-picking. OK, they're mildly distracting, but is there really a huge problem here?

Well, first, there is a philosophical underpinning to the drive for 'realism' we ought to grapple with, namely the idea only live-action and live-action-alike 'count'. I confess to having little time for this line of thought: the stylistic 'realism' discussed up to now matters far less than emotional or experiential realism. That is to say, whether something presents itself using stick-figures or a hyper-photographic style is not as important as whether it can convey the stakes, pathos, and other meat of a story. Art presents a plethora of options for communicating a message. Deciding one is intrinsically more valuable than the rest is a woefully narrow view of creativity. Traditional, non-realistic animation can be as emotionally arresting as any live performance. Why, therefore, should it be necessary to adapt it into a life-like style?

Second, there is the incomplete commitment to 'realism' that plagues Requiem and, I would argue, the entire concept of approaching works such as Gundam in this manner. Sure, stylistic 'realism' isn't about being strictly 'realistic'. It's about achieving a specific texture to the unreality that is functionally indistinguishable from that of the real elements. Yet doesn't the inclusion of a 17.5m-tall humanoid robot suits automatically grant you a get-out-of-realism-free card? If you have something that wild in play, why go to the effort of making it look like a real-world object? And if you're going to arbitrarily throw out the pretence for the sake of gratuitous continuity, what's the point of trying to begin with?

This circles close to what Requiem is, materially. If I use the phrase 'official fan-fiction', I hope you'll understand that's not necessarily derogatory. What I mean is something primarily homaging and reflecting a pre-existing work, rather than more straightforwardly building off it. 'Fan-fic' because it is bounded by what is already there; 'official' because it has the backing of corporate ownership and thus is positioned as more than merely people playing with the toys they enjoy. It's a category of derivative works into which I'd put previous projects such as Gundam Unicorn's animated adaptation – ring-fenced by an established canon, whatever their individual merits.

General Kellerne's stylistically disruptive presence is one example of the short-comings of such an approach. His design looks that way out of deference to 08th MS Team, whether or not it fits next to the other visuals (a side-effect of trying to cram him into Requiem's style is that he appears off-model anyway!).

Another is the plot. We might grant that doing Gundam-by-the-numbers is a self-contained introduction to the series' themes for a novice, but there isn't anything here those of us who've watched the anime(s) haven't seen a dozen times over. Even Solari's pocket-watch feels borrowed from 08th MS.

Now, credit where it's due: Requiem does not downplay the newtype angle. The psychic powers built up to over the course of Gundam 79 and made central to its sequels are usually the first thing ejected when the franchise tries to be more 'serious' and 'gritty'. It was a pleasant surprise to see them embraced. Solari is explicitly a newtype, with all the corresponding traits (supernaturally good pilot, able to sense threats, experiences predictive flashes etc). This is neatly used to establish some of the philosophy behind Zeon's cause, since most of our characters are already aware of newtype theory (humans moving to space tap into skills not previously needed) by dint of being on the side that uses this as justification for invading the Earth.

As in the source material, newtypes serve as a metaphor for the potential of each new generation. Solari was a talented violinist before the war, able to play near-impossible melodies, and this ability has been conscripted in much the same way OG protagonist Amuro Ray's mechanical genius was turned to murder. Equally, the central tragedy in Requiem resolves into newtype-on-newtype violence, as the pilot of the Gundam relentlessly hunting the Zeon soldiers is revealed to be a frightened teenager, paralleling both Solari's son, to whom she is fighting to return, and Solari herself, as someone struggling for their life in a war-zone.

I watching this straight after binging the original Gundam series (I'd previously seen the more refined compilation movies) and was struck there by how brief Amuro's interaction with fellow newtype Lalah Sune is prior to inadvertently killing her in battle. Then I remembered that's the point. These are two people sharing an identical potential for transforming the world, made opponents by circumstance, who understand one another immediately and intimately in the exact instant it is too late to matter. Amuro's cry that he has done something awful he cannot take back is not overlooking the other deaths he's responsible for; rather it is admitting the unique horror of lost possibility.

Following an encounter on the Federation base, Solari recognises the boy pursuing her is equally scared and out of his depth and thus attempts to talk him down. She even succeeds, reaching substitute!Amuro (hey look another traumatised child soldier who executes wild violence in a berserker-like fashion using a hyper-advanced military prototype; what are the odds?) and evoking his sympathy with her status as a mother (characterisation I'd be more annoyed by if Solari wasn't presented functionally identical to the trope of a father desiring to return to his family).

Then, immediately after saving Solari from being crushed by falling spaceship debris, substitute!Amuro is fatally stabbed in the back by another Zeon soldier.

Here we reach the crux of my dislike for Requiem. It has already muddied the clean Federation/Zeon divide and Gundam's internal physics in service of its chosen style, then compromised that style anyway in the name of slavishness to canonicity. Now, during what is position as the emotional climax, it openly rejects the visual language of newtypes.

Solari's powers are portrayed using vocally-stated unease and emotional connection to other individuals (as is standard), and a pair of dream sequences – one prophetic with respect to the Gundam pilot, another tying into newtypes' ability to draw in the souls of those who die around them. Performing at a darkened opera house, Solari's red dress slowly washes outwards, becoming a bloody wave as the audience is revealed to consist of the dead Zeon soldiers she failed to save. It's an arresting visual, as is the fiery descent into her own pocket watch (a souvenir from her dead husband, who was also conscripted into the war) that marks the earlier dream. We also see a brief shot of the Gundam staring straight back at her as she senses its presence on a distant battlefield. These are all effectively done and I genuinely enjoyed them.

Crucially, however, Requiem does not deploy the kind of over-layering that Gundam 79, Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam and the other follow-ups use to show the deep connections developed by newtypes. In the animes, in addition to visions and flashes of awareness, we have full-on mind-to-mind communication where people converse across voids of colour and light. Newtypes appear in ghostly form, too, interacting with the living during and after their deaths. There are also the obligatory glowing auras, cuing the viewer into supernatural happenings.

Requiem's 'realistic' style seemingly does not permit such things to occur in the waking world. That is to say, there is no reason you couldn't depict the standard newtype visuals in CGI, but this show opts not to. If I were to hazard a guess, given the restriction of overt psychedelia to dream sequences and what they did to the Zenoic designs, I would say the aritsts thought it would look silly.

The problem is, how do you then portray newtype connections? In the scene where Solari convinces substitute!Amuro to stop, we get a couple of cutaways to the kid in his cockpit, superposing with his Gundam's movements. That is a great decision, since the point of the newtype visuals is the characters looking past the armour and understanding the person within (not always a good thing, since antagonism can exist despite the link, but the central conceit is always to grasp the essence of somebody else). In these brief moments, we see, as Solari does, the human being, not the mechanical monster.

But the boy's subsequent death is just… the Gundam gets stabbed and keels over, and Solari is grief-stricken. That's it. No manifested ghost, psychic trauma conveyed by voice lines alone, a total absence in this crucial, heart-rending instant of substitute!Amuro's humanity. Just the destruction of property. The death of the monster, not the scared child.

If there had been one additional cutaway to the boy in the cockpit, I think this could have worked. A single shot of him looking at Solari in the second before being stabbed in the back. Something, anything, to imply the connection crucial to this scene. I am honestly baffled as to why it's not there. I feel I'm looking at a picture where a couple of critical numbers weren't coloured in.

To be clear, I don't personally care for the newtype concept as executed in the 'Universal Century' Gundam shows. I'm not annoyed by this because I'm wedded to the idea or the visual conceits. I'm annoyed by the incompetence of failing to land an obvious, even required emotional beat. The finale of Requiem for Vengeance is built around Solari confronting substitute!Amuro. She risks her chance to join the Zeon retreat from Earth – and thus of reuniting with her son – to help take down Federation forces endangering the departing space capsules. She then compounds this by attempting to convince the Gundam pilot to let everyone go, and ultimately abandons any possibility of returning home out of grief over his death. This is a life-changing encounter for her, as is normal for newtypes pushed into fighting each other.

In my opinion, the show does not sell that anywhere near as well as it could have. Further, it betrays the very concept of the newtype connection by leaving substitute!Amuro to be represented by his Gundam rather than his actual self in his final moments. There are cases where other newtypes meet such abrupt ends. Quess' death in Char's Counterattack springs immediately to mind. But that is a moment of a profound lack of communication, which is not what's happening here.

Animes such as the original Gundam shows can move seamlessly between high technology and visual metaphors for empathy without underselling either one. That they are not attempting to look 'real' provides the advantage of absolute coherence. Beam sabers, flying tanks, psychic powers – there are no joins to airbrush away. Everything is unreal, so everything fits together. A switch in medium and style creates the challenge of reinterpreting those disparate elements so they remain coherent. Ultimately, while Requiem for Vengeance has a good try at pulling everything across, it fails, not just at creating 'realism', but at capturing the conceptual depth of what it is assaying.

Being official fan-fic of the Battle of Odessa – being, essentially, 'the Gundam story' in miniature – invites unfavourable comparison with the original work. Unshackled from that, I suspect it could have done more to establish its own visuals, remove incongruities and find better means of conveying its emotional core. As it stands, I have to wonder if there's any sound argument for live-action-alike Gundam. Even the dream sequences don't provide something unique to this style. You could do the same in traditional animation and trivially push it further. So what, precisely, is gained by telling this story this way?

That's the question Requiem for Vengeance has left me pondering. And hey, if you want to answer with 'but it looks cool', fair enough. I'm writing way too much about my personal gripes with a perfectly passable piece of gratuitous mecha porn, simply because I found a more interesting complaint to make than “why the fuck didn't they hire somebody who knew how do facial animations?”

As for Captain Solari, she closing-monologues herself to Africa to join a Zeon remnant group and fight to give children a future without war. Never quite been sure how mecha pilots in these things envision that working, if I'm honest. Oh, and, uh, I guess nobody tell her that if she survives the next seventeen years, there's a decent chance she's going on a suicide run against the Federation spearheaded by a traumatised teenager strapped into a murder machine.

That might put a slight damper on what Netflix's music captions assure me is a heroic ending.

[A note to check you read all the way to the end: obviously the screenshot from Cucuruz Doan's Island shows CGI mobile suit models. But that's CGI aping traditional anime, rather than an attempt at realism. This is why I've been careful to talk about style, not medium.]

[mirensiart]

I'm now curious if you're thinking Xenoblade/LU crossovers, what races would the rest of the Chain be?

I mean, I was just brainstorming possible xenoblade races for each link lol but I'm not gonna do anything about it, I may sketch them as the races but if I have free time some day only hehe

Anyway my ramblings about each link and what race they would be below

Sky: pure blooded high entia from xenoblade chronicles 1. The high entia are an ancient race of long lived bird people that are secluded from everyone and live in a floating technologically advanced city. They all have white hair and white wings to match, their wings are long enough they can fly with them. Here's Prince Kallian from xenoblade 1, which is the vision I have for Sky since Kallian has like massive wings lol longer than others

Warriors: a Half blooded high entia. In xenoblade chronicles 3 there are no pure blooded high entia left since something happened in xenoblade1 and now they're mostly mixed with homs (humans). These high entia have small wings that are useless for flying, their hair isn't white and they have normal life spans. I see Warriors similar to Zeon from xenoblade 3, Zeon is the commander of colony 9 in Keves and uses a sword and shield. He also has the tiniest wings of all high entia in xenoblade3 and I think that's hilarious for warriors, like SMALL WINGS FOR YOU!

For four, wind and legend I see them as the Nopon race but from different nations. The nopon are this adorable race of furry creatures with hand like wings, they are either traveling merchants, craftsmen or they're into illegal stuff lmao and they get away with it thanks to being adorable

So, the nopon:

Four: Kevesi Nopon from xenoblade chronicles 3. In xenoblade 3 there are two nations that are in constant war Keves and Agnus, I see four as a nopon from the Keves side, he is a blacksmith that maintains the soldier's weapons and shields. I see him as riku from xenoblade3 since he's the one who maintains the weapons for the kevesi characters in game

Wind: Argentum Nopon from xenoblade chronicles 2! Argentum is a port city where all the illegal stuff happens LMAO there's a lot of nopon shops, lots of illegal trading and lots of ships with merch! I can totally see Wind as the nopon captain of his own ship doing illegal tradings in Argentum lmao some cute nopons from Argentum so u get the vision:

Legend: THE HEROPON OF FRONTIER VILLAGE FROM XENOBLADE1!!!!!! In xenoblade 1 there's a nopon village that selected a "heropon" to help with the main protag's party (in reality they were annoyed at him so they throw him at you and your party so he leaves with you lol) anyway, the heropon in xenoblade1 is my favorite character ever and I feel like legend would be selected to be that year's heropon against his will lmao here's the LEGENDARY HEROPON RIKI aka how I picture legend

Time: a gormotti from xenoblade2! The gormotti is a race of cat people that live from the earth and are also mostly farmers. There's two types of gormotti, ones that are more animal and ones that are more human. Time is the variant that's more human, like Milton here

Twilight: also a gormotti from xenoblade2 but the variant that's more animal than human, like this npc

Wild: ok hear me out....hear me out.... this is a spoiler for xenoblade1 but like...... if you wanna play xenoblade 1 don't read this ok this is a massive spoiler lmao

Ok?, ok so.... a face mechon for wild omg ok so in xenoblade 1 the kingdom of mechonis attacks the kingdom of bionis, mechonis is a mechanical kingdom with metal races like the machina and the mechon, the bionis have yeah you guessed it, biological races.

The mechon race cannot be destroyed by any type of weapon with the exception of the monado sword. The monado sword cannot hurt biological beings, just metal beings. The people of mechonis find a way to bypass it, by grabbing HUMANS and then PUTTING their DNA in a mechon, making a cyborg kinda deal known as a face mechon, by doing this, they make the monado sword USELESS cause since the cyborgs have biological tissue it cannot hurt them, since the monado can ONLY hurt metal beings

In xenoblade1 one of the main characters dies, the mechon grab her body and basically resurrect her as a cyborg aka a face mechon, she stays the rest of the game as a metal/biological being. Her body is fully metal, without organs or fluids, but her head is her biological one

There are other 2 characters that go through the same process

Anyway, that same thing happening to wild lol here's one of the cyborgs aka face mechon

Hyrule: an Urayan from xenoblade2! In xenoblade 2, the kingdom of uraya is a mostly underground kingdom full of caves and minerals, and it's people have rock-like skin, because of like, being a cave dwelling race! Here's some examples of urayans:

ANYWAY YEAH

I tried to simplify the absolutely INSANE plots of all xenoblade games to be as friendly for people not into it, but these are the races I imagine them all to be (:

[nickthetoony]

I've been in a prolonged Star Wars mood recently which has coincided with me getting deep into Gundam so I've been comparing and contrasting their different approaches to similar ideas a lot, and I thought I might as well lay it all out in writing to get it out of my head.

I'm specifically comparing Star Wars to UC Gundam, starting with the original Gundam which for context began airing in 1978, after A New Hope but before Empire Strikes Back. You can see a bit of A New Hope's visual influence in some aspects of Gundam.

Both series prominently feature a laser sword of some description. "Lightsabers" in SW and "Beam Sabers" in Gundam. Other than the obvious difference of Beam Sabers being in scale with 18 meter tall mechs, there's also the difference in that the lightsaber is made out to be an elegant weapon, harkening back to a nostalgic imagining of knights and samurai, before the invention of less honorable firearms with future stories ascribing a deep cultural significance of the lightsaber to the people that made them.

The Gundam Beam Saber is in comparison a very utilitarian tool in a Mobile Suit's arsenal, usually carried right alongside rifles and bazookas. It still invokes a little bit of that knightly image, but the fact that it's usually used as a last resort weapon of desperation hampers the idea of it being a weapon of elegance or honorable combat. In a way they're more like real swords in that they're sidearms you only pull out in a battlefield when all your other options are unavailable.

Another superficial similarity they share is their masked villains, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Char Aznable was inspired a little bit by Darth Vader. Of course, since Gundam was pre-Empire, when so much of Vader hadn't been established yet and his most notable trait was having a cool costume, the two ended up diverging into wildly different characters.

Char is a pretty young man who uses a mask to cover his identity and Vader is old and scarred and needs the mask to breathe. Vader is the main character's father and Char is completely unrelated to his main character until they meet face to face late in the show. In a way Char is kind of more similar to Kylo Ren being masked pretty boys with daddy issues though again their arcs end up wildly diverging. Kylo and Vader both end up "redeemed" but Char isn't really the kind of character who can or should be redeemed.

Somewhat related to the above, both Gundam and Star Wars have enemy factions who are meant to invoke Nazi Germany. Star Wars' invocation of German fascism (at least in the movies) is a lot more nebulous than Gundam's, communicating this analogy through visual reference to Nazi iconography while leaving the actions of the Empire more broadly as just general cartoon bad guy stuff.

The way Gundam compares the Principality of Zeon and the Nazis is a lot more specific and a lot more direct. The way the Zeon arms race plays out in the original is a direct parallel to the real-life Nazi wunderwaffen projects, where the Third Reich's internal friction and investments in ludicrous super weapons ended up costing them more than they gained, contributing to their eventual defeat. Gundam also takes place in our future (or atleast a future envisioned in 1978) so the real Nazis existed in this world and Hitler is brought up as a direct comparison to the original show's big bad.

(Writing this out, I had the thought that you could draw the same comparison between the Death Star and the wunderwaffen program, but idk if Star Wars itself has ever drawn that comparison.)

Another point of comparison is that both series heavily feature mystical, psychic powers inspired by the spiritualist movements of the day. The Force for Star Wars and Newtypes for Gundam. The Force is cribbing a lot aesthetically from eastern spiritualism while Gundam takes a lot more from the visual ideas of psychedelia.

The Force is far more concrete and straightforward than Newtype-ism. A magic energy field that can be used to perform great feats of power, and which has birthed two established sects of thought that are both treated as ancient. Force users are also clearly demarcated into Good and Evil camps, with specific powers and abilities locked behind a character's individual morality.

Newtypes in Gundam are very different from Sith or Jedi though. Rather than representing an ancient struggle of good vs evil, Newtypes represent a supposed evolution of the human soul, when humanity can communicate to each other psychically in an era where miscommunication is impossible. Supposedly.

Because whereas in Star Wars, the conflict of the Force is one of primordial good and evil, the conflict of the Newtype is one of heightened spiritualist ideas butting up against the mundane reality of different people operating under different and conflicting motivations. There aren't dark or light side Newtypes in the way that Force users are categorized, all of them share the core ability to bridge physical limitations to understand each other on a deep intimate level, but does that matter when their material conditions are inherently at odds? What happens when two people understand each other perfectly and they still have to fight and kill each other?

My last point of comparison is between the two "heroes" of both series. Luke Skywalker and Amuro Ray.

In a way, they're very similar characters. Both start out as young boys living relatively comfortable-if boring lives who are Called To Adventure and eventually awaken to their special powers to become great soldiers of their respective wars. Both are defined by the legacy of their fathers. Both are coming of age stories.

Where I find the comparison between them very interesting is the comparison of Luke at the end of his character arc (in The Last Jedi) and Amuro at the end of his (in Char's Counterattack). Luke in TLJ is a sad disillusioned old man who has failed in his attempt to rebuild the order that had been entrusted to him and who has stagnated into a miserable grandpa. For many longtime fans of the character this was a shock, and apparently for a lot of people felt like a disappointing betrayal. Because Luke was the Hero of The Rebellion, the Return of The Jedi. He was brave, and true, and more than just a normal man. So to see him so impotent felt wrong for many people.

I find it interesting that Amuro (subtler than Luke) also ends up in a similar spot, but in a way that feels far more appropriate to his character and to the tone of the narrative.

Because Amuro was not a hero. He was a child forced to become a soldier far younger than he should've been. Pressured by the dire, apocalyptic world surrounding him and the societal pressures of masculinity that hound him. Luke's inheritance from his father was a Lightsaber. A weapon of a great shining order which eventually was mutated by the Disney movies into a sort of Excalibur wielded only by the worthy virtuous heroes. Amuro's inheritance was the Gundam, the Devil's Machine, the first in a long line of military weapons, the image of which would haunt him for the rest of his tragically short life.

Amuro had at one point been a war hero, then a rebel fighting against the corrupt and self-interested Federation that had eagerly turned him into a human weapon. But his childhood of violence eventually left him no choice but to be subsumed into the military hierarchy he had at one point attempted to break free of. In terms of combat skill, Amuro was the best of the best by the end of his arc, but he had failed in every other regard. His Newtype abilities, once seen as a gateway to a future without misunderstandings, were now honed for violence. His final words ones of dumb confusion as he failed to understand the feelings of his enemy.

Luke gets the benefit of a Rey. The ability to once again become heroic and good and brave, to inhabit the comforting role of a gallant knight. And this step in his characterization is still met with confused hostility by most viewers. Amuro does not receive a similar luxury. He dies young and suddenly, with only the suggestion that his actions will eventually make things better, but it feels right with his character even for how unsatisfying it is.

Again, I don't know if I really have a coherent point with this post. Apologies if you've read this far and felt like I have wasted your time. For now, I think my main conclusion is that it's interesting to see how two different kinds of science fiction (heroic science-fantasy VS military sci-fi) approach similar ideas. I think the reason Luke's arc in TLJ fails for many is that the story of the original trilogy was fundamentally unfit to handle it. It's tacking on an unsatisfying tragedy onto a conventional, simple Hero's Journey rather than building on the foundation of societal critique the way Gundam does with Amuro.

Anyway. Bye.

[journeytojaburo]

My guesses for what Laplace's Box are right now are Banagher or something deep within the Unicorn Gundam. The possibility that it doesn't exist as a real object and is just a concept for bluffing and strategizing that Full Frontal brings up seems plausible too.

This guy really is an accurate Char recreation, browbone scar and all. I wonder if he just naturally had this, or he had to get it to maintain his image.

There's definitely something malicious going on with Full Frontal's mask because the inside of it is so detailed for no (?) reason...

Combined with his odd comments before about ruining his captain's "perfect battlefield", I really wonder what Angelo's deal is in relation to Full Frontal. The overprotective and devoted subordinate isn't a new character type at all (even for Gundam in general because look at Mashymre or if I want to get sadder, Sarah), so it might mean nothing serious for him or some hints of tragic backstory.

Speaking of concerning comments, Full Frontal saying he's just a vessel for the people, so that's why he's "Char" at the moment makes me think Neo Zeon is up to some sinister cloning or brainwashing again.

The discussion on the morality of killing people feels a little basic for how far in the overall series this show is, but it's still interesting to hear different people's takes on it.

It was also interesting to see Banagher describe the philosophy he learned from Vist to someone else, and I feel like Marida's response to it says a lot about her life or personality...

I always love some background name Easter eggs 😋

It's not a unique sci-fi technology, but I'm intrigued by the electronic paper photos (that were seen earlier in the Zeta movies) making an appearance in this.

[hath-e]

"So uh why Angelo of all people?" because I love him and he doesn't deserve the disrespect he's getting, or Angelo Sauper from Gundam Unicorn

So this precious little boy, who has a second hand crush on the Char Azanble, and is also so damn angry all the time. Also minor novel spoilers below (just what Angelo's backstory is)

The main reason why today is about him, is that I wanted today's post to be short and sweet, but also because he's one of my favorite characters from all of Gundam.

So the OVA's and the TV cut don't go into it but Angelo like the other Sleeves has a very terrible background in the novel. His dad was killed by feddies and his mom was badly injured, she then remarried a man who abused Angelo physically but he held out waiting for her to get better, this wouldn't come as she committed suicide, which left Angelo alone and on the street where he was picked up by Frontal. Leading to his life long devotion.

Angelo is loyal to the very end and despite the fact that he's not seen anytime after (no he's not Iron Mask from F91) it is safe to assume that his story has two endings:

Either he's ended his life out in space next to Frontal.

Or chose to keep living to continue the mission of his dear Captain.

Angelo like most other Sleeves isn't involved in the Neo Zeon business out of his belief in the ideals but instead because of his belief in the people who saved him, and because of that he's putting up the attitude of confidence and swagger because he believes so deeply in this.

To him Frontal is THE man who's going to save everyone the same way he saved him, so if you dare to give him even the slightest amount of disrespect Angelo will be there to let you know your place.

And he has the skills to back that up, and so do his machines:

From the purple Geara Doga that's so eye catching and so full of confidence.

To the custom Rozen Zulu, which might just be the fruitiest MS in the UC.

Both of these and their color schemes just carry so much of Angelos personality with them.

Frontal might be the actual clone of Char but even with him in the room odds are you're gonna notice Angelo first.

Love this boy, anyway tomorrow another scene analysis of Gundam Hathaway and the day after a smaller ramble post. Wish you all a pleasant whatever time of day it is.

[kachikirby]

SD Gundam Ultimate Battle: The Story Summary Part 1

Ok, I'm going to start writing summaries about SD Gundam stuff because I know at least a couple of people are interested in me rattling off about stuff.

But before I get into the stuff about Saddrac Knight Saga, which I think most people are interested in, I have to write about SD Gundam Ultimate Battle, and I'm splitting it into parts like the actual work did.

Side note, I do like that the binder cover for the cards is Knight Unicorn Gundam's emblem.

Yeah, this is a work where Knight Unicorn Gundam debuts in. It's also the debut of another character in Saddrac Knight Saga who I will talk about a lot. (Veterans of my page will recognize the name "Vassal Duke Strike Freedom", his younger self appears in this under the name "Crown Knight Gundam III")

The story starts out after the events of "The Legendary Giant", the second arc of the original SD Gundam Gaiden work, Sieg Zeon Hen.

The protagonist, Knight Gundam, is shocked to see a bunch of Gundams appear in the kingdom of Lacroa and break out in a fight. But the most shocking of these people is Black Dragon, an enemy who he had previously defeated. During this fight, he is suddenly assisted by a mysterious Gundam.

This is Knight Unicorn Gundam, a knight at conflict with a person named Musha Sinanju who had appeared as well. Using the summoning magic "Call", Unicorn and Sinanju start their Ultimate Battle, summoning characters from other SD Gundam worlds to fight each other.

Knight Gundam is conflicted about this and yells for the fight to stop, as they are all Gundams and should not fight in his eyes. He is critiqued by the pilot of the machine soldier Legend Vatras, Crown Knight Gundam III.

"We were summoned by Unicorn's magic only to fight!"

During this, he is targeted by Black Dragon and Knight Gundam protects him, to his surprise. Knight simply explains that it is a knight's duty to protect whoever is in front of them.

Hearing these words, Knight Unicorn decides to bestow an upgrade upon Knight Gundam in order to end this battle: The Pheonix Armor.

With assistance from Crown Knight Gundam III, Knight Gundam is able to overwhelm Musha Sinanju.

However... Musha Sinanju then turned into a card upon being defeated.

But that isn't all, something isn't right with Knight Gundam either...

Crown III: He's also a card...!? But then who...!?

Knight: Uuu.... GAAAAHHHHH!

Crown III: Knight Gundam!?

Crown III: Wait! What's wrong!? Knight Gundam!?

Knight Gundam had turned into a card, and the person who picked it up was, of course...

"With this, finally all of the binder's cards have been gathered..."

"From now on, the era of a new god has begun!"

Knight Unicorn Gundam.

-

Part Two

[scruffyssketchbook]

But why did you decide to change everything now, not earlier? And I'm tormented by the question - are you fully abandoning the original SSEC, or are you just taking a long break to return to the old one later?

There was a lot of different dramas that happened in the SSEC community last year that stressed me out super badly. (I kind of have the issue of blaming myself whenever something bad happens in the community cause I created SSEC in the first place.) After things settled down, I was very much in need of a break. Well that break came in the winter when I travelled to a place with very limited internet. Traveling here helped me clear my head and gave me a lot of time to think about SSEC.

I've been complaining about SSEC for years behind the scenes. There were a lot of glaring problems with the story that I had to hide or try to retcon out. It was a constant cycle, every few months I'd be actually depressed about SSEC and how its going and the things that made me uncomfortable in it and the lack of plan with the characters and how aimless the story is and how I cant expand the world due to how I wrote the story. Mostly the things that made me uncomfortable. It didn't really help that certain people would constantly make jokes about these things either, which made me more uncomfortable. And this cycle had been going on for years.

I tried everything to try and fix the story. I tried to retcon things that made me uncomfortable, I took out the legitimate nasty Zeon's Quest esc stuff I put in as an edgy kid, I tried redrawing pages in mass to edit out mentions of the stuff that made me uncomfortable (Like, for example, HARMONY WANTING TO MATE WITH HER SON AND BEING THE MATE OF ONE OF HER OTHER SONS, WHOM SHE HAD HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN WITH. This is tame compared to other stuff btw.) But, I realized, that at the end of the day, SSEC's foundation was built upon all of this weird stuff, so I can never truly retcon it out without breaking the story. And, with how bloated all the plots are, it'll take me 20 years to finish the story. I thought about writing SSEC with all of these issues in it for that long, and I did not want to do it, simply.

So. I decided to break the story :3

and no, I wont be returning to SSEC, as Box 31 is SSEC but executed better. Most plot points will be retained from SSEC, so it isn't even like I can write what happens at the end of SSEC without spoiling Box 31.

[niratheraven]

I thought I'd share my overall thoughts on G Witch here. This is going to have lots of spoilers for it and other Gundam shows so BEWARE SPOILERS

I haven't been this exited watching a Gundam show since I watched Turn A a few years ago. Waiting with anticipation every week for Sunday to watch a new episode and loving it when it aired felt amazing. Few pieces of media do that for me. I liked the finale. I don't feel that strong about it. I'm happy that the girls had a gayly married ending. Sure I wish we had more, but I would say the same for Turn A, and many other media I've enjoyed. Now, do I think it was a good Gundam show? When I was thinking about this 20 minutes ago in the shower, I asked my self "What is a Gundam show?". Therefore I came up with 3 arguments about what defines Gundam.

Gundam is a show that depicts the disparity between the rich and the poor + giant robots in space. Every Gundam show has a major conflict that drives the characters into action, whether it is Zeon against the Earth federation, or Celestial Being against the world, and in G witch Earth against the space corporations. In the end it's always the big players play with their expensive space toys and the rest suffers because of it. The difference between those and G witch is that the characters are not fighting for one side or the other. We see attempts by Miorine to partially resolve it but in the end the show depicts only the resolution of their personal conflict. UC Gundam never resolved its conflict fully either, but the characters managed to get to the end of their current war while fighting for either side. A new war would always start in the next series. Now, is G witch a lesser Gundam for not depicting fully this major conflict? Maybe, if Gundam was just that. Some could argue that that is just a small part of Gundam, instead they could say:

Gundam is a Shakespearean drama with homoerotic tones written by a jaded director + giant robots in space. The grand conflicts, the revenge plots, the mysterious characters, you can see the Shakespeare influence in Tomino's work who also is a big fan of stage plays and the like. G witch fits somewhat well in that context, but we do get a proper gay relationship between the main characters + Utena references. While this categorization works for Tomino's Gundam, it doesn't feel the same for other Gundam shows, where many of the original drama of Gundam became just a point of reference. The revenge plots and the conflicts became Gundam tropes. The original Gundam became the inspiration for most of what followed it. The context of Gundam's creation was doomed to be lost by the following series in the franchise. And that context being:

Gundam is a toy commercial. The reason why Gundam exists in the first place was to sell toys. That is how a lot of art is created. Someone with more money than they could imagine wants to spend it by hiring artist to create for them. It has been like that since the birth of civilization and it still continues to be. Of course the political drama that Tomino created is appreciated beyond the original scope of the production companies, but Gundam still managed to sell those toys... well not at first, but later it certainly did. G witch has excelled in that department. It managed to create a compelling story that got a lot of people into the franchise and into gunpla. Model sales records asside, G Witch isn't going to be remembered by the fans as the Gundam with the most toys sold. What we will remember is this being the first gundam with a fem protagonist who is also in a gay relationship throughout it. One of the main criticisms of the show echoed throughout the web is that it's not enough. It's not enough episodes, it's not enough conflict, or world building, it's not enough GAY!!! I think one of the shows biggest weaknesses it's also one of its strengths. Its subtlety. The show is very subtle in many of its aspects, like the conflict Earth-space, but the most important one, the relationship between Miorine and Suletta. Their relationship develops in subtle ways. We see a hug, a hand holding, or a conversation between the two in the garden or their rooms. We never see the romantic development fully, but it's implied that it is happening off screen. That would definitely leave an audience starved for more lgbtq+ representation to want more. But, considering the context of THIS particular Gundam's creation, it's a miracle we even got what we did. A while ago I heard about the film Suzume by Makoto Shinkai, who has made quite a name for himself with films like Your Name etc etc. In an interview he mentioned how he wanted to have a fem love interest for the main girl protagonist, but that was not to be because of objections by the producers. And if that happened to a big name director, what about G witch? I don't know what this series went through to even get made, but I can't imagine it had it easy. That thought makes me appreciate its subtlety while also wanting for more. Overall, I loved the show, even if it is not perfect, even if I wanted more out of it.

Also also, I wanted to add in regard to what is a Gundam show, Mobile Fighter G Gundam broke all the rules of previous Gundam, it was so outlandish that it had a poor reception by Gundam fans of the era, but went to be appreciated as one of the best in the franchise. So who's to say what makes a good Gundam? Certainly not its "fans".

[soufre-de-paris]

we watched the first few episodes of the original gundam from 1979.

it is absolutely brilliant. thoughts under the cut.

this is a truly different experience from watching later media of any sort. the story continues from episode to episode, without the soft-reset we are used to in nearly all episodic television outside of select prestige series, especially these days. the character designs vary so wildly one might reasonably assume they all come from different properties:

this feels so very 70s (in '79!) but when's the last time you saw any anime with such diverse style of character design? modern anime suffers from such extreme sameface syndrome that this is such a breath of fresh air.

(also bright, baby, why are you with the girls in this clearly gender segregated split? A's suggestion is that it's to separate the serious characters from the slapstick. pretty sure y'all can guess my interpretation 😏)

even though obviously the "heroic"' machines are those with brighter colors, the designs of the machines themselves are wild; they aren't just color-changed variations to tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys":

which is another point.

caveat that we are only on episode three, and i have consumed absolutely nothing of gundam ever prior to this.

so far what we know of the zeon (i'll use the canonized name instead of what they're actually saying, which is jion, likely better transcribed as zion) is that they started a war of independence, and in the ensuing war, half of humanity was killed. we are told this outright in the opening.

in a doylist sense, we know they have some pretty clear indications of "evil" (nearly all their machines are military green, we have seen exactly zero zeon women, everything is dark, one renegade zeon eagerly kills civilians, etc) but in-story, there is so far no reason to believe the entire movement or whatever is evil, at least not compared to the "heroic" side.

in the text, char (main "villain") is presented with steadfast determination and drive and dedication. he praises his men freely, makes decisions quickly, and isn't afraid to enter the fray himself to turn the tides. he mourns the loss of men, while working towards ensuring future successes won't mean they died in vain. he works hard, and despite his worse equipment, regularly runs circles around those with better tech. he's valiant, clever, thoughtful, and just generally traditionally hero-coded.

comparing him to amuro (main "hero") and his wishywashy inadequacy? his wrong motives of "i'll do it because i'm ordered to do so"? his selfishness? his bleeding heart that leads him to fail to do his duty, resulting in worse outcomes for all? the only thing amuro has going for him is that he's a genius and he learns quickly, and does occasionally rise to the challenge.

i'm very eager to see the trajectory of both these characters! from the time period i'd expect the two to invert—amuro becoming more traditionally heroic while char descends into selfishness—but we'll see!

very compelling storytelling so far!

[kronoose]

DND rambling advice is ok

I have no idea wtf where I want to take my rogue like in the beginning it was mostly for the legal clean slate and a small bit revenge because the pirates gave him more work

But then we realized we can't go back to zeon which was not really a big deal he is going to miss his boss but it is what it is

Then he lost his only friend in the group and is firmly the odd one out with the old guard who know eachother from school both are also elves and ugly (inside joke) also more bookish and prefer to be amongst the living

Luka doesn't prefer the living he was an embalmer he didn't deal with the crowds or people outside of the bar tender at the pub and Sal occasionally

He has no deity to follow and doesn't see the appeal in most religions other than the healing which a half decent potion can do that job

At the moment he's kinda just following to keep the old guard safe like they're still decent people who don't deserve to be hunted for not knowing they were fucking with plans by returning the child

Luka blames himself for not putting two and two together about the pirates and the child and very much for sal's death no matter how much he jokes about warning Sal

I feel like he's falling behind the group goals wise like the barbarian has 'become a man'

Our ranger got his wyvern

The bard will definitely have an amazing song if we survive but I don't really count him because he's leaving the group to be with his gf

Idk about our wizard but he's a parent now

But my character isn't out on a coming of age story or looking for a long lost love or any romance really because that would feel weird to me because my father is the DM

I'm thinking maybe making his goal be something to do with his profession like learning more proper post death rituals but like how does that really come up plot wise except PC death which I don't want

[the-stray-liger]

1/? Heya Nate! Sorry for skipping last week. Meds have been kicking my ass recently but that's a story for another day lmao

Things have been BIG(tm) starting with the fact that everyone hates Makeda Shion xD. She made her grand debut calling Captain Nyls raggedy to his face. She was such a bitch, the vibes immediately turned hostile with everyone.

Our mission was to extract some POWs that had managed to escape Kycilia Zabi. All fine and dandy until we find that the squad in charge of the city is *drum rolls* the one Cleopatra the handler is from. And turns out she isn't even top dog, she's actually one of the lower ranking members.

Better yet, the POWs were being sheltered by a priest. A priest who is also a turncoat and declared persona non grata by Zeon. A priest who unknowingly had a fucking *bug* planted on him.

2/? So yeah, we got compromised and Cleopatra and friends roll up to take us down. She's a powerful Newtype and could see right through our cover identities, but she didn't kill us because there was no fun when we couldn't fight back. Real healthy, I know xD So Alicia the pilot and the priest turn themselves in as hostages and allow Makeda and Sergeant Reed to leave. Captain Nyls begins frothing at the mouth upon hearing that Alicia was captured and Makeda outright suggests trading fucking *Arkady* for Alicia. She then let her thirst for Reed get the best of her and she tried to outright seduce him in into agreeing with her. She failed, Reed barely succeded his roll to not fucking shoot her, and now she lost any sympathy with the team. But she did threaten Reed with the knowledge that she IS aware of what Arkady has been doing and who he's trying to reach out to. And she will no doubt use that against the team. Once the mission is completed of course, she's likes Alicia xD 3/? For the rescue mission we had that one Zeon brainwashee we befriended go as part of a prisoner exchange. Turns out she was well-liked and actually was offered a spot in the team by their commander himself. But she wasn't as psychopathic as them so she declined. Meanwhile Alicia and the priest were being interrogated by the team's 2nd Lieutenant, Tetra. Think Kimblee from FMA but a 17-yo girl. By the power of good dice rolls, they're able to convince her to let them go, mostly because she's a Spacenoid supremacist and can't bring herself to kill them once she learns that Alicia is from Side 5 and the priest from Side 2. During the course of all of this, Alicia awakens to her Newtype powers, no doubt exacerbated from being under so much stress and surrounded by so many Newtypes. And she was able to telepathically reach out to Reed and Makeda just as they ordered an air assault on the building they're in. The brainwashee and Alicia managed to escape before the building collapsed, and the priest managed to get out just as Makeda was about to floor it... and he was bringing a badly injured Tetra with him. And that's where we ended! War and hell on Planet Earth!

this STORY omg, I am loving this Tetra character and Alicia!!! wow so many twists and turns! I say this literally every time but I am so insanely jealous of you for being able to play this gundam themed campaign with so many cool things and insane plots!

Thank you so much for always dropping by to give me updates, a lot of times they are the only thing that keep me going. I hope you can get used to your meds soon! and looking forward for the next update 💕

[ponett]

Thoughts on mecha series and Evangellion in relation to Gundam? (I'm trying to get you started)

other people have explored these subjects in-depth many times, but i think people who like later mecha series should just go watch the original 1979 gundam. i know it's old and the animation isn't amazing, but it's good. but mainly i think people who haven't seen it would be shocked by how many elements of later mecha protagonists like shinji in eva, simon in gurren lagann, and renton in eureka seven were already there in amuro

i think people will watch darker takes on a genre like eva and madoka without having much experience with the things they're riffing on, and thus assume that they must be "deconstructing" the tropes in the originals. like people just have some vague assumption about what gundam is about (there is in fact a viral post about this going around tumblr right now) and, in turn, assume that eva is critiquing the trope of forcing teenagers to fight in a giant robot war by saying "that's fucked up, actually." and so that becomes their main take on what eva is "about"

in reality... that's already what gundam is about! amuro goes through so much of the same shit as shinji. he's too young to be piloting the gundam, but he's being manipulated by the adults with power over him. he tries and fails to run away from all the fighting. he ends up losing people he cares about and is traumatized. he becomes desensitized to the violence he commits. in many scenes the gundam is basically an unstoppable fucking monster to the zeon forces in the same way that the eva is. perhaps my favorite example of this is the episode where amuro reunites with his mother. she sees him kill two zeon soldiers and is horrified at what her child has become. at this point amuro has been conditioned to believe that he needs to be a killer in order to be loved, because piloting the gundam is the only thing that earns him praise aboard the white base. he runs away and lashes out by obliterating a random defenseless zeon base. bright praises him for this despite previously saying it was a pointless risk, and the episode ends with amuro's mom watching in tears as her son flies off to keep fighting the war. they never see each other again

that's only episode 13 of the original gundam series and they were already doing shit like that! it rules

but the thing is, i think when you actually go back and watch classic gundam (and ideon, etc.), you gain more of an appreciation for the elements of those later shows that are new, instead of giving them credit for the things that are unabashedly pulled straight from gundam. eva's not novel for saying that making kids pilot giant killing machines is bad. what it does do is trade the wartime political drama of gundam for a focus more squarely on the psychology of the characters (and lots of christian imagery because anno likes shit like devilman and ultraman). it's not about war, it's about the ways in which shinji struggles to relate with other people, and some very fraught parent/child relationships, and things like that

also guntank is the best. they should've put guntank in eva

[luminisvii]

my zeta rewatch is going well but like, the weird gender stuff is more apparent, culminating in how reccoa and haman are the opposite in every way. reccoa is considered a bad soldier because of her identity of being a woman, something she is seen as having no control over, and also because the writers thing women's only aspirations are to get married and have kids. so you have this thing where reccoa is 23, the same age as amuro, by the way, and she is considered as "too old" and ruined by her experiences by war to get a husband, thus leading up to her defection to team srirroco because char won't fuck her she's so desperate to get married. it's weird. and it's explicitly stated that the reason for all of this is because she's a woman who naturally desires to be in love and is obsessed with men. it's such a waste, reccoa has a pretty fantastic premise as a character, and then they chose to do this with her. and then on the other side, you have haman, who is seen as a bad woman. she's cold, manipulative, cruel, and traitorous, all traits that char has, but like. it's okay when HE does it. the problem is, if they didn't want me to like haman, they did a really bad job, because while all the other women are constantly being demeaned by the narrative and their male peers, haman just struts in to announce that she's the baddest bitch on this show and you'd better not fuck with her like. this would be awesome if it weren't for the fact that i know she's being seen as bad because she isn't the weak caretaker that faa has been forced into being. like sure. she's reviving zeon, which char will go on to do the same thing in CCA, but what is really bad is that she's manipulating mineva. unfortunately, i'm an equal opportunist, and i love char for being a messy whore, and i also love haman for her similar crimes of commit treason and look hot doing it. clearly it worked for others bc i'm pretty sure haman is the most popular female character from zeta. idk. it's weird that i see people use zeta as a defense against gundam's shitty female character writing bc are you sure you wanna do that? almost all of the female characters are constantly demeaned for their status as women and just because they die in war too doesn't mean it's equal, if anything, women tend to die disproportionally. it's just odd. i'll always be mad that reccoa is such a wasted character along with emma and unfortunately haman gets messed up in ZZ. i enjoy gundam and zeta but it's really hard to deny all this just really bad writing and weird morals.

[ruakichan]

New Benten is angsty lol. Gonna have to pass; my SW isn't built (not a fan of any of the characters) nor is my GL (who is gold Bathory? she don't know me) and I need to save for the new Garff.

Lolsobbed at this exchange though:

It's so true. It's cause he was the MC of original version, isn't it??!? orz even his skill animations for his gold aren't unique and his regular animations are copypasted from Zeon... His blue only buffs Lenombe instead of a mix like other blues... The devs can't even be consistent on his scar location...

orz being a rachel fan is suffering

Man, I hope Garff will elevate WR cause I don't have any other nations built up other than allies (SB, WL) lol...

Please no stall meta through block, there is no need to drag matches on omfg.

[journeytojaburo]

I did end up going to the first movie reshowing, and not to worry my past self...the captions were normal. I feel like the general flow was the slightest bit clunky at times but not any worse than the TV show's translation was.

(I had all this ready to go a lot closer to when I actually watched it, but I was having technical difficulties with the pictures I wanted to add 😭)

A collection of vaguely organized thoughts...

It has been a little over a year since I watched the first movie, but I definitely forgot a lot about it since then. The biggest thing I forgot was how long it was because when Garma died I was getting ready for Amuro reuniting with his mom and the funeral and that's the end, but no it's time for Ramba Ral (genuinely forgot his debut isn't in the 2nd movie).

I wonder if the way Haro talks comes from how Fraw calls after Amuro because in the beginning of the movie especially she bookends every statement with his name like Haro does.

Yet another scene I forgot about was the extended new segment of Wakkein crying over the treacherous journey our intrepid heroes will have to go on, which comes off as slightly less bizarre because he's less aggressive towards them at Luna II in the movie, but it still baffled me a little.

It's just a reinterpretation of the same line from the show, but Bright's response to Amuro saying his dad never hit him in the movie being this feels the tiniest bit more upsetting than the one about Amuro being spoiled 😟

I like how the scene where Bright slaps Amuro gets put together in the movie, but I'm sad Char's mysterious dirt in the outlet scheme got cut because it makes his betrayal come a little more out of nowhere. At least there's still his menacing shower scene...

I do remember Matilda being kinda malicious, but seeing moments like her disparaging White Base's crew as amateurs despite knowing exactly why they are and getting more concerned over supplies in a ship that gets shot down over its crew cements her as such a fascinating character in my mind.

The scene of Amuro saying goodbye to his mother still horrifies me even after seeing 4 times at this point (if I'm counting the Origin's rendition of it) because he's become so military-minded in such a short amount of time. This is even more accentuated by the movie's pacing where this happens after like an hour and a half instead of 14 episodes worth of time.

My last thought is that every day I wonder why that one Zeon flag got created in the 90s when the funeral scene at least has other iconography to choose from besides Germany alone (pulled from the history books vaguely or not)...

I didn't go out to the other showings, but it was a nice experience and fun to see this movie again :)

For once those special reshowings of the original gundam compilation movies are happening near where I live but the possibility that'll it be the version with the kinda scuffed captions like the official youtube channel upload had mildly concerns me