Tag Archives: Gundam

12 Days I: Weight is caused by gravity

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「赤い彗星の再来」/「ZB」

「赤い彗星の再来」/「ZB」

I liked Gundam because I liked robots. The genesis of my Gundam fandom is my cousin’s gunpla collection, which I thought was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. Many, many years later, I still think it’s the coolest thing.

For a long time, my knowledge of Gundam was basically ROBOTS and then Wing and then SEED. Somewhere along the line, I learned that there was a rich history behind Gundam and intended to one day experience this glorious Universal Century timeline, but until then, the UC would exist as some sort of holy grail. This would not happen until last year, when I watched the original trilogy movies.

This year, I took the step to pretty much finishing the UC with the exception of the one that’s not anime. It’s kind of amazing how different the entirety of the UC is to the AU Gundams. I mean, sure, SEED was a fairly transparent attempt at cloning the original, but other than the obvious differences like the incessant crying and the in your face pacifism, the two series just don’t feel the same.

So my perspective on Gundam was definitely realigned, not after watching the original Gundam movies, but after my viewing of Zeta, 08th MS Team, and Char’s Counterattack. These became my favourite Gundam shows, but there was still something missing. What I wanted was something that was modern in style but still distinctly UC.

And wouldn’t you know it, a show that bears those two letters shows up at the beginning of the year.

And with that, my soul was finally freed from that oppressive gravity.

Gundam Unicorn: Everything old is new again

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I was pretty blown away by Gundam Unicorn’s first episode.

I’ve watched a few first episodes of Gundam shows in the past year and I don’t think anything comes close to how I felt while I was watching UC’s first episode. Even though it’s not until pretty recently that I started traversing through what the Universal Century had to offer me, I considered myself a Gundam fan. Even though I was only halfway through Zeta, I could still feel the significance that Unicorn carried in being the first show set in the UC in more than ten years.

I think the production really surprised me. It was way above any other Gundam show I’d seen. 00 may have had HD sparklies, but UC made even GMs in combat look impressive. I was really happy to see the UC style and aesthetic rendered with modern animation techniques and technology. And the music! I want to know why they never got this guy to do music for any other Gundam show before.

Making my way through the Universal Century, something I’ve felt was off was the pacing of the shows. It was only slightly noticeable throughout the original movies and the OVAs, but it became pretty apparent in Zeta. Something about the way events are timed and episodes are constructed really bothers me. I’m assuming it’s just the way shows were written back then, since I felt 0083 flowed more naturally out of everything I’ve seen. Of course, it could be Unicorn’s origins as a novel shining through here. Not only that, but there’s a lot more symbolism in that episode than a lot of Gundam shows that I can remember.

What’s unfortunate is its release schedule. Thinking about it some more, it doesn’t really seem all that far off from a typical OVA schedule, but it still doesn’t make the excruciating wait between episodes and the completion of the series any easier. But, it does look like we’ll have our Kara no Kyoukai equivalent to obsess over every few months for a few days whenever it lands over the next few years.

But yeah, I certainly didn’t expect to start off 2010 with the best first episode of a Gundam show while also being the most impressive thing of the year so far.

Old school anime: Mobile Suit Gundam

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It’s really, really hard to go from watching 00 Gundam in its 720p GN particle emitting glory flying around to watching the RX-78-2 go around punching Zakus. I mean, I found Evangelion really old and I was really only able to see just how much had changed after I saw my housemate rewatching Gundam Wing.

Anyway, what was more surprising was that I was coming into MSG with my own preconceptions of what Gundam was. My Gundam knowledge consists of Wing, SEED, and 00, along with whatever bits and pieces I’d happened to glean from the UC.

The story was largely something I’d expected, which was thanks to SEED basically being a carbon copy of the original MSG. Even though I knew it was intended to be sort of an homage to the original, it really struck me just how much was lifted from the original. In the same way, it’s interesting to see how different 00 actually is from the original.

I’m not really a fan of the crew of the White Base. I suspect that it’s not because they’re bad, but because the intended audience is so different that they seem uninteresting to me. On the other hand, the villains are so obviously villains, even in the very deliberate attempts to humanize them. Honestly, the only character worth any notice to me was Char and it’s pretty clear that Char is the best Char clone ever.

I think the thing I enjoy most about UC is the mecha designs. The Federation’s mobile suit designs are pretty terrible, blocky constructs. But, Zeon’s mobile suits are awesome weapons of war. I can see why the Zaku II will stay forever in our hearts. My favourite one in action was Char’s Gelgoog, fighting in space with the RX-78-2. That double beam saber is hot.

I think that the first two movies were boring to me because I sort of knew that I’d have to put up with Amuro being whiny and the White Base being under siege all the time. The third movie made it for me, with all of the background for UC that I wanted: Char’s identity, the Newtype concept, the politics of Zeon, large scale battles, and so on.

The first two movies had me wondering if I should stop at MSG and skip over some of the longer UC series, but the third movie had me convinced on continuing through the timeline. Will it be enough to convince me to watch ZZ? I don’t know yet.

Finale: Mobile Suit Gundam 00

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Gundam is kind of a big deal. The last big Gundam was Gundam SEED Destiny, which itself was a direct sequel to Gundam SEED. So it’s been a while since we’ve seen a new Gundam.

Gundam 00 takes the opportunity to do a few things differently. For one thing, it’s made for HD, which means that it’s super pretty to watch, with all the glowing green particle trails and the Trans-AM pinkish shifting. The other was that it’s the first Gundam to be set in the “real world” timeline with a recognizable geopolitical situation. Sure, the Advanced European Union is hilarious, but it’s not so far removed as the usual space vs. Earth conflict we’ve seen since forever.

We all know SEED was supposed to be some sort of modern version of UC, with some really obvious parallels (oh look, a Zaku). The same can’t be said of 00. I know people were all like ‘lolol four Gundam meisters => Gundam Wing’ and ‘A-LAWS => Titans’. This mostly has to do with the fact that Celestial Being are an autonomous organization and aren’t operatives of one side of the usual space vs. Earth thing.

The end of the first season made it sound like the second season would be all about Earth vs. space, what with the whole colony building and “Earth Federation” thing going on. Luckily, that didn’t happen. Instead, we got some stuff about the evolution of humanity. I suppose it’s kind of the Newtype thing, but there is no superior space race.

It took me a long time to warm up to Gundam 00. In fact, I didn’t really like it until the second season started. I wasn’t really a fan of the dynamics between the characters in the first season and I didn’t like how most episodes were focused on the geopolitical situation of the world instead of telling us about the characters. The Gundam meisters weren’t really likable, the crew of the Ptolemy were stupid, and most of the opposition was one-dimensional.

A lot of the characters played a role that wasn’t really explored or given enough detail. What was the point of the three new meisters? What was the point of Wang Liu Mei? The Innovators were kind of a threat before Setsuna started lopping them off effortlessly. Why was there the whole Saji and Louise side plot? What role did Marina and Azadistan play? All of these characters arguably did something, but they all seemed very tangential to the main plot.

The second season invoked memories of Code Geass R2, as it revealed shocking revelation after shocking revelation. Innovators! Aeolia’s real plan for CB! He’s an Innovator! She’s an Innovator! GN particle-verse! Innovators aren’t Innovators! He’s a real Innovator! Aeolia’s real, real plan! Aliens! Jupiter!

I will say that the final battle between Setsuna and Ribbons was fantastic. Best fight sequence of the series.

So I guess if you are in the market for Gundam, Gundam 00 is an acceptable choice.

SEED Destiny Final Plus

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Gundam SEED Destiny’s ending sucked. Basically, all of the character development that went into the new characters for the forty-nine episodes prior went down the hole so that the old characters could save the day. Thankfully, they released an alternate ending, and though I could not remember what really happened, not all that much changed. But, what they did do was add about fifteen minutes of epilogue. That really salvaged the ending, because it let the new characters not just get royally owned like they were before.

The thing I’ve learned about Gundam is that it’s not about mecha. Yes, there are mecha, and they fight quite often, but after a while, the fights get kind of monotonous. They do the same things. Gundam is about politics. Both Wing and SEED feature a main character who can lay waste to an entire opposing army and their love interest who is the daughter of a politician, who eventually becomes the most important and powerful character in the series because they become queen of the world and such. The ‘final boss’ is always a head of state who goes completely off the deep end and ends up trying to completely annihilate the opposing side.