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blackguy32 posted:Also, is 08th MS team good? I saw the Norris fight that everyone seems to say is a high point and I found it unbearably dull considering that the only people seeming to actually do anything in the battle is Norris and very rarely Shiro. To be perfectly honest, if you don’t like that fight you won’t like any others. They intentionally kept the fights paced like that because of the suits involved, I think.
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Nov 15, 2019 03:54
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Tulalip Tulips posted:I thought Frozen Teardrop also implied Heero was genetically engineered but I could be super off base there since my memory of the more mundane things in that is fuzzy. In FT we find out that Heero is the child of an OZ spy (Aoi Clark) and an assassin (surprise, Odin Lowe is his father). (His stepfather is Seis Clark, so when Trant Clark forces Heero to screw around with the Zero System in the series he's torturing his nephew. Whee!) He came about the ol' fashioned way, not genetically engineered. That said, after his parents get killed (takes a bit, Aoi and Seis go first and that's where Odin steps in and starts training the sprog to kill people, then bites it himself) Heero gets picked up by Doctor J and has a slew of weird experimentation done on him. He's also cloned, and yes as it turns out the clone does go on and live right through everything. (And might be the "Heero", Black Alpha, in the Episode Zero story since the clone chooses the "Alpha" designation and Heero is "Beta".)
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Nov 15, 2019 03:58
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No question Sayla would be the best ruler.
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Nov 15, 2019 03:59
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taichara posted:In FT we find out that Heero is the child of an OZ spy (Aoi Clark) and an assassin (surprise, Odin Lowe is his father). (His stepfather is Seis Clark, so when Trant Clark forces Heero to screw around with the Zero System in the series he's torturing his nephew. Whee!) He came about the ol' fashioned way, not genetically engineered. Holy crap, my memory of FT is terrible despite being filled with all the insanity I love. I definutely only remembered Quatre's lady clone and believing that Trowa2 was a definitely a clone.
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Nov 15, 2019 04:17
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Tulalip Tulips posted:Holy crap, my memory of FT is terrible despite being filled with all the insanity I love. I definutely only remembered Quatre's lady clone and believing that Trowa2 was a definitely a clone. Alpha even gets namechecked in one of the additional-info sidebars in Glory of the Losers, he's definitely got some sticking power narratively.
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Nov 15, 2019 04:26
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blackguy32 posted:Also, is 08th MS team good? I saw the Norris fight that everyone seems to say is a high point and I found it unbearably dull considering that the only people seeming to actually do anything in the battle is Norris and very rarely Shiro. It's alright but it's also rather obsolete. The 08th MS Team's claim to fame was showing "realistic" Gundam battles where the mechanics of the suits were unreliable and the environment actively fought against them. You got slower battles as a result and more ambushes and preplanned assaults. The show hits a high point following a very low low point, but the episodes afterwards just sort of trudge along until you get a dogshit final episode. It has its good to great moments, but none of them are really the result of stellar action sequences. Most of it is down to solid characterization (except for Michel because gently caress Michel) and a well crafted aesthetic that really sells the "Mobile Suits in Vietnam" style. When I say it's obsolete, I don't mean that there's 08th MS Team 2.0 out there in a new series. I'm saying that the things that initially drew people to 08th have been done better in more recent series, especially if someone sold the series to you for it's "grittiness" factor. The first season of Thunderbolt is where you want to go if you want tragic nihilism and brutal fight scenes. 08th MS Team is a decent series about a squad of soldiers you've seen from every war movie. It's very pretty, has phenomenal music, a decent dub, and some questionable story choices that hamper the product. It's solidly on the "good" side of Gundam shows, but I wouldn't call it one of the greats.
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Nov 15, 2019 05:32
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Weird BIAS posted:Is Char the kind of person who could just, do nothing of political note without his past coming back to haunt him? No. He really wants to be that kind of person, of course. In Zeta, he wants to just be a regular pilot, flying out, killing dudes, and looking cool. But he's not that guy. He's the guy who, at a mere mention that he's alive, inspires a revolution. He's someone who everyone assumes is someone special. Kai and Hayato spent months trying to kill him, and as soon as they were on the same side, Hayato went "Dude. Run for Prime Minister. You would be awesome at it." and Kai went "Char would be a great Prime Minister or something, but he's going to wuss out to just be a pilot because he's an rear end in a top hat who sucks. You suck, Char!" That's something important in understanding Char's Counterattack, and why Char (while a total piece of poo poo) isn't just a piece of poo poo in that movie. He's finally taking the role he's been "meant" to play his entire life, and he hates it. His self-sabotage isn't just because fighting Amuro is cool, but because fighting Amuro is what he actually wants, while destroying the Federation is just what people expect from him. (It's also why he's so kind to Minerva, and so angry about her mistreatment. Minerva's basically in his exact position, only with even less chance to escape.)
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Nov 15, 2019 06:35
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Hell, in the OYW Char just wanted to be a pilot. A lot of the time he was having a grand old time being Red Comet Char Aznable and getting heavily invested in his rivalry with Amuro to the point where he seemingly forgets about his vengeance except for times when it incidentally becomes convenient for him to bump off a Zabi.
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Nov 15, 2019 07:21
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drrockso20 posted:I feel the reason Yas did that in The Origin is because they're honestly too subtle about how crazy he is in the original series Hell my favourite moment in the original series is how Char tells Sayla "I'm not that conceited, I just want to make a world where newtypes can't be controlled and used." Before in his final duel with Amuro telling him that he's too dangerous to be left outside of someone's control and that's why Char has to kill him. Char is a hypocrite, he constantly spouts whatever he thinks the person listening to him wants to hear, but in the end he's just as bad as those he claims to fight against. My bigger issue with Char in the Origin is basically inserting him into events I don't rightfully think he needs to be there for, like General Revil's escape, which already kinda stinks of "Actually it turns out this was a Kycillia plot all along." in making the event kinda feel kinda wanky (Same as Ryu at the Battle of Loum) Interesting though, that The Origin introduces Lalah as being an Earthnoid, as it is kind of the massive silver bullet in the Deikun Newtype theory. Two of the series most prominent Newtypes (Lalah and Amuro) are both earthnoids whom awakened on Earth, even if they did spend time in space, for Lalah it was after she'd already shown the signs, and for Amuro he showed no signs of awakening in space.
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Nov 15, 2019 09:01
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I had thought it got explained somewhere that "Newtype" had become pop slang for psychics and other weirdos, and it only got fixed as a real term when Zeon and co. were able to confirm and make use of the psychic phenomenon in question. Was that in the OG UC novels?
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Nov 15, 2019 09:36
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Nessus posted:I had thought it got explained somewhere that "Newtype" had become pop slang for psychics and other weirdos, and it only got fixed as a real term when Zeon and co. were able to confirm and make use of the psychic phenomenon in question. Was that in the OG UC novels? Well one of the big thing in 0079 was that despite everyone saying "Newtype" no one actually has any idea what counts as one, or if Amuro and the WB crew even are ones. Like it's even brought up directly with "Well, aren't the people of the White Base proof of newtypes?" "Didn't Deikun say that Newtypes were people who could live without war and understood one another perfectly?" Newtype's are mostly just propaganda for everyone. Char's a Newtype himself but doesn't seem to recognize he is. Zeta would continue this theme, by having a lot of what are ostensibly Oldtype pilots, essentially show what I'd think of as "signs of newtypism" curse Newtypes. Lila for example, I swear shows signs that she's becoming/become a newtype herself and yet doesn't seem to acknowledge or even think of it. In the end, Newtype's have multiple definitions.
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Nov 15, 2019 09:58
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https://twitter.com/kusokaisetu/status/1195229025779646464?s=20
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Nov 15, 2019 15:26
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Captain Zeon's true power being the friends he made along the way was very sweet.  What a hero!So I guess Hiroto knows something about the Seltsam? Rushing it down upon seeing it was out of character for him. Looks like he's still got to work on the whole 'trust your teammates with relevant information' deal. Lemon-Lime posted:I was hoping he'd change his weapons or his combat style or something at the last second and reveal that the bombastic musclehead thing is just a gimmick he's been putting on to copy Captain Zeon, and he's actually really good at anything at all, but nope. I kind of like that they showed some restraint and didn't have Kazami reveal he's got some super skill up his sleeve at the last second. Sure, he's taken his first step in growing as a person, but it doesn't mean he's suddenly going to be better at fighting right then and there. The show seems to be doing a good job so far in tracking everyone's skill level.
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Nov 15, 2019 15:42
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chiasaur11 posted:[Char is] the guy who, at a mere mention that he's alive, inspires a revolution. Does he? I mean, he apparently had to work for several years behind the scenes to gather a rather small army in Char's Counterattack. You say that Hayato and Kai immediately changed their opinion of him despite trying to kill him for several months just because he's on their side, but that's ignoring that he had been working as a secondary leader in a revolution that fell in line with their goals for months (if not years) before either of them interacted with him in any meaningful way and attending Federation diet meetings with the actual leader to try and convince them to change their minds on both the Titans and reluctance to expand in to space at the very least. It's not really a sudden change of heart at all. It's the kind of circumstances that'd change a lot of people's minds about someone they were once in conflict with, because it's demonstrably doing something hard with no real glory for a greater good. chiasaur11 posted:That's something important in understanding Char's Counterattack, and why Char (while a total piece of poo poo) isn't just a piece of poo poo in that movie. He's finally taking the role he's been "meant" to play his entire life, and he hates it. His self-sabotage isn't just because fighting Amuro is cool, but because fighting Amuro is what he actually wants, while destroying the Federation is just what people expect from him. No, he definitely wants to destroy the Federation on a personal level, and repeatedly shouts at Amuro about how Earthnoids and the Federation are lazy and selfish people who deserve his judgement throughout the movie. He might be fulfilling a role he doesn't particularly want, but the goals he sets that role on are definitely ones he wants. Kanos posted:Hell, in the OYW Char just wanted to be a pilot. A lot of the time he was having a grand old time being Red Comet Char Aznable and getting heavily invested in his rivalry with Amuro to the point where he seemingly forgets about his vengeance except for times when it incidentally becomes convenient for him to bump off a Zabi. Char himself tells Sayla that he joined Zeon specifically to exact revenge on the Zabis, and even at the start of the show he seems to be chasing the Gundam and White Base with the specific goal of destroying them for accolades, so that he can advance within Zeon and personally interact with more of the Zabis. He absolutely was not just looking to be a pilot in 0079, and the reason he got invested in his rivalry with Amuro is because he's a petty rear end in a top hat and couldn't take losing to someone as a mobile suit pilot. Even after he's been forced to let go of his rivalry with Amuro by Lalah, Sayla and the fact he's failed to kill Amuro on several fronts with every means he has to hand and has no way left to do so at that moment, he still immediately falls back on "gently caress it, might as well kill me a Zabi". Onmi posted:Hell my favourite moment in the original series is how Char tells Sayla "I'm not that conceited, I just want to make a world where newtypes can't be controlled and used." Before in his final duel with Amuro telling him that he's too dangerous to be left outside of someone's control and that's why Char has to kill him. Char is a hypocrite, he constantly spouts whatever he thinks the person listening to him wants to hear, but in the end he's just as bad as those he claims to fight against. I think the noteworthy part of the exchange with Sayla is that while Sayla seems to think he has some plans for Newtypes, Char himself doesn't really seem to have any himself despite how that scene is shot to frame him as lying. He never actually speaks of any plans, never seems to act to further any kind of goals that would move such a plan along etc. The first time he really speaks like someone who has any real intention of pursuing that path is in the final episode, after he's been forced to let go of the vengeance he's spent the show pursuing. And even then, it's only talk of it. I think it's possible Char had some vague motivation in the back of his head that he'd get around to one day, but it was second fiddle to killing the Zabis and eventually third fiddle to beating Amuro and killing the Zabis. It was just something he paid lip-service to basically. Lalah being a great example of that, because despite demonstrably being a real Newtype who would do anything for him, he just turns her in to a weapon and helps cause her death, then justifies it as something she would be okay with because she wouldn't have become such a powerful Newtype if not for the war before telling Amuro that people just see Newtypes as weapons; the very thing he himself has done. This also kind of explains his turn as Quattro Bajeena in Zeta, since he does eventually turn to the goal that he'd been putting off for years when his vengeance is done (or denied) but never quite seems to have his heart in it. Onmi posted:Interesting though, that The Origin introduces Lalah as being an Earthnoid, as it is kind of the massive silver bullet in the Deikun Newtype theory. Two of the series most prominent Newtypes (Lalah and Amuro) are both earthnoids whom awakened on Earth, even if they did spend time in space, for Lalah it was after she'd already shown the signs, and for Amuro he showed no signs of awakening in space. I'm pretty sure the idea of Lalah being an Earthnoid was introduced in a novel that Tomino wrote in the mid 80s, the one where her past as a prostitute that Char rescues is detailed. It was never actually stated in animation before, but the idea of her being an Earthnoid has been around for decades to my knowledge. tsob fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Nov 15, 2019 |
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Nov 15, 2019 16:57
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I mean Char in Zeta actually seems like a good person, even when he outs himself, which is why most of the White Base cast tolerate him and at times hold him in high esteem. You can sort of see bits of it in the original when he isn't blinded by his pursuit of the White Base or Amuro. But his Zeta turn is just so weird to me because he seems like a completely different person, right down to him being outclassed much of the time and often outmaneuvered tactically, which rarely happened in the OYW.
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Nov 16, 2019 03:23
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It's because Char was an enemy boss in 0079, and everybody knows that when an enemy boss joins your team their stats go down all across the board.
Raxivace fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Nov 16, 2019 |
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Nov 16, 2019 03:28
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Raxivace posted:It's because Char was an enemy boss in 0079, and everybody knows that when an enemy boss joins your team their stats go down all across the board. I do find it fun when this doesn't happen. Beatrix in FFIX was utterly terrifying whether or not she was on your side.
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Nov 16, 2019 03:37
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blackguy32 posted:I mean Char in Zeta actually seems like a good person, even when he outs himself, which is why most of the White Base cast tolerate him and at times hold him in high esteem. You can sort of see bits of it in the original when he isn't blinded by his pursuit of the White Base or Amuro.
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Nov 16, 2019 03:39
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tsob posted:Does he? I mean, he apparently had to work for several years behind the scenes to gather a rather small army in Char's Counterattack. You say that Hayato and Kai immediately changed their opinion of him despite trying to kill him for several months just because he's on their side, but that's ignoring that he had been working as a secondary leader in a revolution that fell in line with their goals for months (if not years) before either of them interacted with him in any meaningful way and attending Federation diet meetings with the actual leader to try and convince them to change their minds on both the Titans and reluctance to expand in to space at the very least. It's not really a sudden change of heart at all. It's the kind of circumstances that'd change a lot of people's minds about someone they were once in conflict with, because it's demonstrably doing something hard with no real glory for a greater good. Plot to Assassinate Gihren for the first one. Zeon got a revolt going as soon as it was confirmed that Casval lives. (Similar to Sayla in the Origin). Zeon's family line matters to some people an awful lot. And Kai never changed his opinion on Char, which is why he's so useful as a character witness here. From when they first met until Char died, Kai maintained a consistent position on the subject of Char, best summarized as a single raised finger. But Kai still believed that Char was someone who was an inherently gifted leader, that Char should take a position of authority because he was so clearly good at it, despite his disdain for the guy. Everyone who met him went "...You know, you could be doing so much more." tsob posted:No, he definitely wants to destroy the Federation on a personal level, and repeatedly shouts at Amuro about how Earthnoids and the Federation are lazy and selfish people who deserve his judgement throughout the movie. He might be fulfilling a role he doesn't particularly want, but the goals he sets that role on are definitely ones he wants. He thinks the Federation should be destroyed, but that doesn't mean he wants to be the guy in charge of doing it. Again, the original and Zeta have his big thing be "I want to be a cool pilot guy and kill dudes while other people do politics." Being Casval the symbol is an obligation, what he feels he should do. Being an ace pilot is the fun part. (Of course, Mobile Suit Breakdown has been a big influence on my thoughts here. They spend a lot of time noting how... Char Captain Quattro is. Being on the right side doesn't exactly make him a good person.)
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Nov 16, 2019 05:25
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Darth Walrus posted:I do find it fun when this doesn't happen. Beatrix in FFIX was utterly terrifying whether or not she was on your side. Or Super Robot Wars, where becoming a playable unit means you don't have near as much HP but your damage potential goes up about fivefold once you join the winning team.
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Nov 16, 2019 05:25
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I think Amuro sums up his feelings on Char pretty well during CCA and how he feels he's going about things.quote:“There are just some things you don’t understand. Revolutions are dreamt up by intellectuals, but their aims are so unrealistic that they’ll steep to drastic measures. Following the revolution, the worthy passions for rebirth are swallowed up by bureaucracy and mediocrity. Intellectuals hate this and withdraw from society and politics and become recluses!” chiasaur11 posted:And Kai never changed his opinion on Char, which is why he's so useful as a character witness here. From when they first met until Char died, Kai maintained a consistent position on the subject of Char, best summarized as a single raised finger. Which is even in the Novel, where after teaming up with Char and killing Gihren, as he watches him kill Kycillia the only thing that Kai can think is "Wow... I loving hate you. You're the loving worst human being in the world."
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Nov 16, 2019 05:54
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Onmi posted:Which is even in the Novel, where after teaming up with Char and killing Gihren, as he watches him kill Kycillia the only thing that Kai can think is "Wow... I loving hate you. You're the loving worst human being in the world." Char “Florida Man” Aznable Last seen attempting to bribe a Federation Ensign into desertion using gold bullion.
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Nov 16, 2019 06:11
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Nessus posted:He was probably doubting himself a lot, and doubting yourself is up there with "Missing your kitty" for reasons why you can't pilot the Gundam so good. Char's Deleted Affair directly brings this up if I remember correctly, like Char ends up in a simulation battle against an AI based on combat data of himself from the OYW, and even though he's using an advanced Gelgoog model and the AI is using his way more outdated custom Zaku II he gets his rear end kicked hard by it Onmi posted:I think Amuro sums up his feelings on Char pretty well during CCA and how he feels he's going about things. Probably helps that he killed Kycillia in a manner somehow even more brutal than in the other canons
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Nov 16, 2019 06:58
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Onmi posted:I think Amuro sums up his feelings on Char pretty well during CCA and how he feels he's going about things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd3JrFXLrA0
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Nov 16, 2019 07:59
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oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit https://twitter.com/denpa_books/status/1195531901324398592?s=20
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Nov 16, 2019 23:29
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Gripweed posted:oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit I’m in.
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Nov 16, 2019 23:39
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Nov 17, 2019 02:59
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Lady in the back eyeing the Lowain bros is a strong feeling. Tomino is cool too I guess.
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Nov 17, 2019 04:10
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So I've read up to the latest release of 0083: Rebellion, and on the whole I'd day it's an improvement over the OVA. A lot of my issues with it are born from my own mentality, but there are still some real... "loving really?" Moments born from it. The first of a problem that's mine and not most peoples... the Mecha Wank. There's a sequence on earth where the Albion uses a G-Fighter II to combine with the GP-01, ignoring that I just despise the G-Fighter as a machine, there's also the point that it's only around for this and maybe one more sequence? Which creates the feeling of "Equipment of the Week" where suddenly the GP-01 has a tool that it won't have anymore. And a lot of it is gushing about the MSV in such a way that just... feels fake as hell? So here's another example, the Albion is tasked with searching the Garden of Thorns for the Delaz Fleet, but as an addition in this manga, Green Wyatt assigns a unit to the Albion who all use RX-81 G-Lines. That, seemingly, has no god damned relevance. The Albion doesn't wind up having to fight against the G-Lines (for more than a second which amounts to grabbing Kou's arm), when the G-Line's get involved in battle they get shredded just like a GM, none of our protagonists get one, so ultimately it leaves me going... "For what purpose?" On top of gushing over the MSVs, it also just like... drags in OVA/Video Game characters for seemingly no purpose other than "Hey look! It's Terry Sanders! And he gets a vibe from Kou that makes him think of Shiro! You guys remember Terry right?" Easily the worst loving offenders of this are Matt Healy and Ken Bederstadt. Both of these guys show up for what basically amounts to 5 pages or so... and I could not loving tell you why as they don't do anything related to Stardust, they show up, get name-dropped, wave to the camera and then leave. I don't know if it's meant to be promoting other Gundam Ace stuff, but I have a distaste for things that seemingly exist just to waste my time. That said, I do think Rebellion actually improves on a number of things. Most characters who died quickly in the OVA live out longer to be more fleshed out and have more of an arc. Dick Allen, who dies in the second episode to a bazooka body shot, survives all the way to the end of Africa, where his death isn't lost in the deluge of other deaths. Burning, rather than being killed by one of the stupidest deaths in Gundam, is instead killed by Kelly's Val Varo during the battle of Solomon. And speaking of which, Kelly. Kelly's role is greatly expanded, from actually getting picked up by Gato, killing Burning at Solomon, being defeated and spared by Kou, and piloting the Dendrobium alongside him.  He's actually allowed to feel like an important character and I don't think he outstays his welcome. But... okay y'all knew it was coming because it's where all 0083 Discussion has to wind up going. Nina. For the first half of the manga, Nina is fine, they do a bunch of rewrites and retcons to not make it that all of a sudden she remembers she used to be dating Gato. Then comes volume 8. So, Nina has gotten Anaheim to take her and another staffer to the Delaz Fleet, where she's going to confront Gato. She wants to hear from Gato if the only reason they were ever together was because he was using her to get the Gundam. Gato's pretty conflicted about saying it but clearly wanting Nina to not be involved says that yes, he just used her.   So Nina tries to shoot herself in the head. This puts her into a coma, and when she wakes up, the Igloo guys (See what I mean about Oh look it's those people from that OVA?) are trying to get her help to work out an issue on the Neue Ziel. Nina, in an utterly baffling decision, decides to not only help them, but gets them to dock at the La Vie En Rose. She then fixes it and confronts Gato again. And she genuinely comes across as crazy.    This is now the second time that Gato has told her to piss off, which you'd feel would be enough, you'd feel with everything else they changed, they'd change the confrontation in the colony control room. Nope, we're still on track for Nina betraying everyone for Gato, shooting at Kou and basically being firmly on the side of 'Bad Person'. Good to see the one thing that absolutely should have been changed, remains the same. So... overall... I like it? It's better than the whole OVA, I think it's worse than just the first 7 episodes of the OVA, some of the changes are good (Yay! More time spent with Cima) but there's a lot of eyerolling gladhanding over MSV and expanded universe stuff. But in the end it's still fuckin' Stardust. Which means the heroes never accomplish anything and a stupid love triangle that shouldn't be there is choking the god damned life out of the story.
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Nov 17, 2019 17:49
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Huh. The newest G Generation has the ELS Quanta from the very very end of the 00 movie as a playable unit and I gotta say its animations look drat freaking cool. Makes me wish we saw it actually animated.
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Nov 17, 2019 19:38
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I got a random question about your views of the themes of Gundam. "Pacifism!" or "we gotta understand each other!" has become a meme attached to Gundam but perhaps a better way to describe Gundam would be antiwar. But is it even that? Ever since I got into the series folks have stressed how this is an incorrect reading of the franchise, especially UC or Tomino Gundam. They unabashedly take the stance that some people just need killing. Gihren, Char, Scirocco - these people are going to kill billions or trillions if they are allowed to continue to exist. Sometimes " understanding" doesn't work because all you "understand" is how inhuman the other person is. And I've been thinking about Gundam 00 and how its message in the first season was that terrorism is the answer. Gihren, Char and Scirocco all started the fight so you can think of everything done in response to them as self-defense. Celestial Being started their terrorist campaign to create a one world government . They're not defending themselves, they're actively attacking others to accomplish a political end. 00 gets compared to Wing semi-often, especially back when I got into the franchise, but the Wing Boys and Celestial Being are pretty different. Wing stresses how ineffective and even counterproductive the Wing Boys' violence was. Very different from 00 where Celestial Being triumphs in the end and their methods are successful. It has been awhile since I watched 00, I might be misremembering things. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Nov 17, 2019 |
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Nov 17, 2019 21:48
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A preliminary point to be made before talking about the themes of Gundam is that Gundam has been made by a lot of people in a lot of eras and aimed at a lot of different audiences. What Gundam is varies hugely by season, setting, and author. Tomino's Gundam to me has always been pretty downbeat and fatalistic about war. Yes, people like Gihren, Scirocco, Haman, Glemy, Char, etc. absolutely need to be stopped, but stopping them doesn't really address the underlying problem. There's a rot in the heart of Universal Century that makes war return over and over again. Every generation will have their Gihren or their Char, somebody there to fan the flames and kick it back off again and it really doesn't even matter who or why or what, War will come back and there will be more death and more trauma and more pain. UC's Society is damaged and scarred in such a way that the wounds of the past simply never heal because fundamentally that's what war is, a method of interaction that brings pain and harm. War may have to be fought, but it never solves the issue people are fighting over. As long as nothing changes fundamentally in the people of the Universal Century there never will be an end to war. If people truly understood each other as peers them perhaps there wouldn't be war, or at least there would be the potential to heal from war and truly progress, but there's really no hope of that in the near term. Is there an end in sight? Yes, but the means to get there are truly horrific. Forcing a better world was what Char said he was trying to do by dropping Axis, but of course there's so little reason to believe in Char not to mention the cost in lives that would be paid for his "solution". Still, even if he was lying about his motives he may well have been right. In Tomino's Gundam it literally took the end of the world to disrupt the cycle and create a better world. Gundam Wing from my viewing was that the real failure of the Gundam Pilots was that their random acts of terrorism didn't actually inspire real change. Their attacks actually worked in service of OZ, allowing them to consolidate power and demonstrate why the colonies needed to be repressed and controlled since they were sending down crazy terrorists to blow people up. They only started make headway when they united and started working more collaboratively with anti-OZ forces, and after Zechs went off to be a bigger, worser threat. Gundam Wing suggests that war could be avoided by having the biggest, ugliest, worst war in the world to make people understand and viscerally sick to their stomach at the thought of further violence and by keeping vigilance against the people who still haven't had enough of it. Gundam 00 looks at that ending of Wing and concludes that it'll work for maybe a generation, until the memories of the war fade or get romanticized and until the Preventers pass on. 00 is much closer to Tomino UC Gundam in perspective, but utterly different in conclusion. 00 season 1 has Celestial Being work to unite the world against them, but the plan gets hijacked by enemies within CB as well as without who want to rule the new unified world. It's explicit that their work is only partly done, and that this was just the first step even if their agenda of interventions had gone perfectly to plan (which they absolutely had not). 00 Season 2 ends the A-LAWs and Ribbons' illuminati, but while Celestial Being is triumphant, in the movie Saji explicitly states they've made only a short term gain. Remember, Saji reunited with Louise but she's still suffering from the trauma of the conflict, that scar hasn't faded. Yes, the war was absolutely vital, but the world hasn't changed and conflict is just around the corner unless something totally changes in mankind. The big difference between 00 and UC is that in 00 something does totally change in mankind. Innovators actually existing and being understood and accepted as being a real thing that can be measured and quantified as happening and as something that will continue to happen to most people means that 00 goes in a vastly different direction from UC. Innovators in 00, by virtue of being widespread and coming about in a relatively revolutionary and harmonious period of history (United Nations formed, A-LAWs kicked out, alien invasion retracted with many of the casualties from it un-casualtied), can actually achieve the dream of peace and understanding that Newtypes tragically never could. 00's supplemental material says that there was at least one more major conflict between the ELS giving an apology flower and the Sumeragi launching to go be Star Trek, but it still reflects a positive change in the status quo of the world. Ultimately I think Gundam is an anti-war show, but its stance varies by season between being idealistic, (IE, we can avoid war if only we could stop this now and try and understand each other) and forlorn (we can't ever understand each other, so we make will war)
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Nov 17, 2019 23:09
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So, when it comes to Gundam and being Anti-War, I think that an important part of an Anti-War work is that War has to feel miserable. The reason I'd say Gundam SEED, or Gundam AGE fail as works of Anti-War, is because War Is Cool! You want to be a pacifist? No problem, you can just beam spam on the battlefield and disable people! It's all the benefits of getting to pilot a cool robot without any of the downsides! 0079 encapsulates a feeling of being loving miserable. No one in the OYW is having fun, no one professes to a lofty ideal of holier-than-thou attitudes, they're all stuck in a shitheap of a war in which any moment they can die screaming for their mother or lover. There's a scene I absolutely love at the very end of 0079, it's when Kycillia is with Twanning in the Dolos and she goes "Why are our Mobile Suits moving like absolute poo poo?" And Twanning has to explain that everyone who knew how to pilot and was skilled, was dead. So the pilots are just trainees who're fresh from the academy. "But don't worry, they have love for the homeland and that'll carry them through." Not a second later one of them is being blown up and he's not screaming "Sieg Zeon" he's screaming for his mother. The reason pacifism and understand usually ring so god damned hollow in other works of Gundam is because usually, they're magical fixes to a problem. Despite the romanticized notion of a newtype in Tomino Gundam, the truth is that Newtypes can hate and reject one another just like normal people. Kamille rejected Haman and Scirocco, despite all three being Newtypes, Char and Amuro reject one another, in fact it's rarer to find newtypes who bind themselves together than it is to fight Newtypes whom fight. It's kind of why I've a deep hatred for Fukui UC (Along with most OVA stuff) There's a fundamental failure to grasp concepts Tomino introduced and treat them properly. Tomino introduces the concept of "Zeon has humans on their side too" and certain writers interpret that as "Zeon are Space Samurai and the soldiers who never surrendered after World War 2, and the Republic of Zeon are cowards." with such feverish nationalistic pride that is never loving ONCE rejected. In summation Tomino never depicts pacifism or understanding as solutions to war, but shows that war itself is a miserable experience which leaves everyone who touches it chewed up and spit out. War isn't cool, it's not fun.
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Nov 18, 2019 02:18
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Onmi posted:So, when it comes to Gundam and being Anti-War, I think that an important part of an Anti-War work is that War has to feel miserable. The reason I'd say Gundam SEED, or Gundam AGE fail as works of Anti-War, is because War Is Cool! You want to be a pacifist? No problem, you can just beam spam on the battlefield and disable people! It's all the benefits of getting to pilot a cool robot without any of the downsides! I'm not sure I really agree with this. Both those shows are pretty blunt about war being an horrifying and awful thing nobody wants to experience except crazy assholes or fundamentally broken people. They don't really say it *well* but they say it pretty bluntly. Like taking Age for example, the first two generation protagonists have their entire lives dominated and ruined by war and the cycle of violence that comes with war. Almost every character who has an actual personality is someone who has had their life ruined by the war or by the corrupt governments behind the war. Kio is the closest to having Happy Pacifism but even then almost every single person he stated he wanted to rescue is slaughtered. Grandpa Flit pulls back at the very last moment from genocide. Asemu is forced to kill his best friend. It has a happy ending in that the war stops but it is pretty blunt about the fact that war sucks and Kio's big success is saving a single person. SEED, likewise, may have cool robots doing pew pew but it is a series about broken scarred people who commit ever-increasing atrocities against one another. Every person who enters in the war leaves it dead or scarred and the only people who seem happy about it are awful racists who want the excuse to do something terrible to people they fear and hate. (As a small side note, Blue Cosmos and Murata Azrael feels far less cartoonishly implausible in 2019.) By the time the war is over both sides have lost an absurd number of people and have come literally an inch away from nuclear annihilation. The protagonists save the day but literally none of them succeed at saving the people close to them except Cagalli who has to talk Athrun out of suicide-by-nuke. SEED Kira in particular does not have an easy time with his pacifism because people he spared come back, kick his rear end, and murder people close to them until he's forced to kill one of them. Destiny kinda sours this but even Destiny is pretty blunt about the idea that war has consequences and isn't 'fun' for anyone. Shin is a broken wreck of a person because of the first war and no matter how cool his robot is it doesn't change the fact he's a pretty broken individual due to the scars of war. Neither show really shows pacifism as the ultimate ideal. It has characters who want to be pacifists and probably get too much leeway from the story, but in the case of SEED pacifism (even shoot-your-limbs-off pacifism) eventually fails. AGE is a bit worse here because it allows Kio to glow blue and actually save someone from an unsavable situation but that's Age for you. Most Gundam shows are pretty good about showing both that war exists, war is stupid, war is sometimes inevitable, and the end result of war is people being broken either physically or mentally or both. Even when you get happy endings it's rarely without scars and a trail of corpses. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Nov 18, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2019 02:33
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Onmi posted:0083 is the implication supposed to be that the reason she acts...like that later on, is cause of brain damage now.
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Nov 18, 2019 02:37
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GulagDolls posted:is the implication supposed to be that the reason she acts...like that later on, is cause of brain damage now. Wouldn't be the first time that plot point came up in Gundam.
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Nov 18, 2019 02:46
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GulagDolls posted:is the implication supposed to be that the reason she acts...like that later on, is cause of brain damage now. I don't think so but honestly like... the way she's drawn is like a crazy person. apologies for image spam of a scene.         The worst part is that the manga makes it clear, their relationship lasted for like... 2-3 months? So she's this torn up about a guy who she only kinda sorta dated. And then there's the scene she has with Kou, which really comes across as emotionally manipulative because she's just tried twice to get back with Gato. Like she enters his room and kisses him and then it's just...        And all this would be... fine, it would be acceptable... If we didn't still wind up in the same loving ending.  And it's so funny, like actually hilarious, because Kelly gets a moment with Gato where he realizes that Gato is full of poo poo and to swear him off. Basically, when Kelly hears that the Colony is going to be dropped on Von Braun, he wants to use the GP-03 to stop him, hence why Kou and Kelly are piloting it together, when the Colony is bounced back to head to earth, they confront Gato who's basically like "Kelly, why did you betray us to the federation? Why couldn't you trust me." When the entire point is that Gato didn't tell Kelly about Stardust's true purpose, and was the person who did the betrayal, Kelly was just trying to stop it to protect Latuera. And the thing is Kelly didn't tell the federation anything, and so, for Kelly, he realizes Gato's just a monster now, and should be stopped. Kelly is Gato's long time friend and he's more mature about the situation than Nina who knew him a couple months.        This manga... it's so weird, I do think it's better than the OVA, but holy poo poo is the handling of the latter-half Nina stuff still the pits.
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Nov 18, 2019 03:09
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I refuse to believe Gato's dick is that good, c'mon Nina.
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Nov 18, 2019 03:26
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Omnicrom posted:Ultimately I think Gundam is an anti-war show, but its stance varies by season between being idealistic, (IE, we can avoid war if only we could stop this now and try and understand each other) and forlorn (we can't ever understand each other, so we make will war) That ignores how Tomino shows tend to reach a climax when the protagonist goes "Oh. I understand you perfectly. You need to die now." Paptimus, Gihren, Gym Ghingham, and the like aren't cases of tragic misunderstanding. They're cases of people who make what they want very clear, and who therefore need to be stopped, usually with lethal force. Amuro is shown to be what a man should be in Zeta because he only fights when he has to... but then he does the job. War is because people can choose to be terrible. The hope in the shows comes from the fact they can choose to be something else, too.
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Nov 18, 2019 03:34
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chiasaur11 posted:That ignores how Tomino shows tend to reach a climax when the protagonist goes "Oh. I understand you perfectly. You need to die now." This doesn't necessarily contradict what I said, both because the fact people can't understand each other is why people like Scirocco and Gihren are able to marshal armies in their name to march off to war, and because people like Scirocco and Gihren are beyond the point of peaceful coexistence.
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Nov 18, 2019 03:53
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