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Runa posted:the fash moe game is kind of funny but I wasn't prepared for someone to actually bring actual zeon apologia into the thread I was amused that the Zeon apologia discussion began on January 3rd, which coincidentally was the date the One Year War started (Ya know, where Zeon pretty quickly exterminates half the human race).
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Jan 5, 2024 04:49
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golden bubble posted:OYW is pretty nakedly modern Japanese government (Feddies) VS imperial Japan (Zeon). One of them is corrupt, servile, and completely unresponsive to the needs of the common people. The other one is psychopathic government by assassination with a literal state recognized aristocracy that claims to be an anti-colonialist force at the exact same time it is hyper-murdering the oppressed people it claims to free while engaging in its own special brand of colonialism and suppressing all the local poor with maximum violence. actually the federation is america which is why it goes hard on inverted authoritarianism after the OYW. the republic of zeon is japan
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Jan 5, 2024 04:57
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In this new year I hope we get more Gundam designs with shotguns. That is my hope
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Jan 5, 2024 04:57
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Gripweed posted:Thunderbolt takes place almost entirely after The One Year War The anime takes place half in the war, half after. The manga goes on much, much longer, but who knows when and if that's getting an animated release.
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Jan 5, 2024 06:17
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A weird thing in Code Fairy was how it tried making the group sympathetic by saying that the rest of Zeon hates them because it's misogynistic and looks down on women pilots or something. I know there's some weird sexism in series written by Tomino, but I'm not sure if anyone in UC ever looks down on someone's accomplishments purely because they happen to be a woman? There's the scene in Origin where Saslo slaps Kycilia, but that's more because he viewed her as a brash upstart, iirc.
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Jan 5, 2024 13:41
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Oh so that other poster was being dead serious when they said it was the Gundam equivalent of “hire more women guards.”
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Jan 5, 2024 15:09
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Yes it’s politically incoherent because they’re trying to weld present day liberal Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead sensibilities with OYW Zeon military special forces plots. I choose to read it as campy but I guess some people take it deadly seriously.
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Jan 5, 2024 15:21
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honestly it sounds like if it was deliberate satire it would've been very funny make the framing device be gato pitching an anime to zeon cultural affairs
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Jan 5, 2024 15:45
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I think that’s the Haman Karn office lady manga
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Jan 5, 2024 15:49
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While you do not have to hand it to Zeon, the institutional setting of UC Gundam does not seem particularly explicitly sexist (although many characters sure have, uh, views about women) and it would not seem unreasonable to see plenty of female MS pilots on both sides. The main reason you don't seem to see more is directorial focus; by the end of ZZ Gundam the Gundam Team is one male, two female, with everyone else warming a bench on the ship.
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Jan 5, 2024 15:55
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I think the lack of active female pilots in the OYW in the show is more of just a sign of the times/director than anything in-canon. There was no problem with Sayla piloting the G-Fighter or Lalah piloting the Elmeth. (And if you go by extended stuff there are shitloads of female pilots. Like hell, some of the Zeon groups mentioned in Code Fairy have female pilots!)
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Jan 5, 2024 16:59
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ImpAtom posted:I think the lack of active female pilots in the OYW in the show is more of just a sign of the times/director than anything in-canon. There was no problem with Sayla piloting the G-Fighter or Lalah piloting the Elmeth. (And if you go by extended stuff there are shitloads of female pilots. Like hell, some of the Zeon groups mentioned in Code Fairy have female pilots!) Yeah I think it's mainly a symptom of when the original show was made. Even by Zeta there are plenty of female pilots on both sides, but it still took us decades to get a female protagonist....
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Jan 5, 2024 18:23
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chiasaur11 posted:The anime takes place half in the war, half after. The manga goes on much, much longer, but who knows when and if that's getting an animated release. Zore was referencing recent events from the manga
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Jan 5, 2024 18:43
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Stairmaster posted:actually the federation is america which is why it goes hard on inverted authoritarianism after the OYW. the republic of zeon is japan I recommend learning more about some of the early LDP and proto-LDP leaders like Nobusuke Kishi and Nobusuke Kishi. The Earth Alliance is supposed to be America. The federation is not.
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Jan 5, 2024 23:36
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The Earth Federation is many things and attributing its inspiration entirely to a single real world concept is how you end up with Fukui making the EF into "Literally post 9/11 America in Spaaaaaaaaace"
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Jan 5, 2024 23:49
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Arc Hammer posted:The Earth Federation is many things and attributing its inspiration entirely to a single real world concept is how you end up with Fukui making the EF into "Literally post 9/11 America in Spaaaaaaaaace" Yeah, I had a post about how the EF and Zeon represent different things in different installments, including a lot of aspects that kinda became their own thing as the series went on, but it felt like going into proper detail to justify that would take too long. (Pretty much every faction has heavy aspects of Japan, of course, just like how most American fictional civilizations take a lot from the history and culture of the USA. People write what they know.)
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Jan 6, 2024 00:03
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absolutely. even when it's unicorn style "bush blimpo on the federation council did 9/11" stuff it's in reference to the japanese view of a corrupt government, which is a big unaccountable unelected bureaucracy, rather than the authentically american view of people duly elected just on the basis that they will exact bloody vengeance on some population or another gundam in general isn't interested in actually detailing the political and economic systems of its settings, so anything the shows give you should generally be taken at face value Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Jan 6, 2024 |
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Jan 6, 2024 02:09
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amigolupus posted:A weird thing in Code Fairy was how it tried making the group sympathetic by saying that the rest of Zeon hates them because it's misogynistic and looks down on women pilots or something. I know there's some weird sexism in series written by Tomino, but I'm not sure if anyone in UC ever looks down on someone's accomplishments purely because they happen to be a woman? There's the scene in Origin where Saslo slaps Kycilia, but that's more because he viewed her as a brash upstart, iirc. Honestly I'd be more accusatory if she didn't get slapped since she's getting special treatment. If early UC is consistent about anything, it is people on the same side slapping the poo poo out of each other for little to no provocation
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Jan 6, 2024 02:24
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Caros posted:Honestly I'd be more accusatory if she didn't get slapped since she's getting special treatment. The One Year War, usually there was a pretty emotional situation before it happened. Gryps, that situation was "a day ending in Y".
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Jan 6, 2024 02:35
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Really the one thing missing from the OYW is the nuremburg trials equivalent and decades long occupation of Zeon.
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Jan 6, 2024 02:36
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Burns posted:Really the one thing missing from the OYW is the nuremburg trials equivalent and decades long occupation of Zeon. There were trials, although more based on the Tokyo Trials. It's why Cima is a Class 2 War Criminal.
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Jan 6, 2024 02:42
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There was an occupation too just ask Fukui
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Jan 6, 2024 02:44
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chiasaur11 posted:The One Year War, usually there was a pretty emotional situation before it happened.
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Jan 6, 2024 02:48
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Gaius Marius posted:There was an occupation too just ask Fukui Except that everything else established a lack of an occupation. Then again, the situation with side 3 made even less sense in ZZ, so there's precedent to total nonsense revolving around military occupations of side 3.
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Jan 6, 2024 02:49
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brainwrinkle posted:Mobile Suit Gundam goes out of its way to show that people fight for Zeon for real reasons beyond a fascist ideology. The core ideology of Zeon is co-opted by the fascist leadership. Does it? I can't think of any character in Zeon during Mobile Suit Gundam beyond Char and Lalah who actually give, or even imply, a reason for fighting on behalf of Zeon and both of those are explicitly selfish reasons that have nothing to do with ideology. Char is doing it for revenge, and even implies he wants the Federation to win during his conversation with Sayla in the Texas Colony, while Lalah is fighting purely because Char saved her life in some (at the time) unspecified manner. She unambiguously states that in the Texas Colony, and her final fight involves her lamenting that she met Char first and wondering if she should join Amuro instead. Beyond that, nothing that I recall. The team in "Time, Be Still" do seem to be conscripts as previously mentioned, and honestly, I think that implication underlies a lot of the rest of Zeon (see Ramba talking about taking the mission to get revenge in order to improve the lot of his men or Doan deserting after being ordered to kill a load of kids for instance), and does a lot to explain the motivations and reasons for why people did fight for Zeon if it were true, since at that point many of them wouldn't have really had much choice. No other work, even by Tomino, actually supports that view though. There are problems with the Federation mentioned or implied, but none of them are given by Zeon grunts. Or even Zeon officers like Ramba or M'Quve. The only Zeon people to mention anything of the kind are the Zabis, like GIhren's speech. Which is intrinsically untrustworthy given it's literal propaganda meant to gee up troops, even putting aside that Gihren may not be the most unbiased source of information. Instead, the only people who offer insight into the problems with the Federation are either Federation citizens, like the White Base refugees talking about how the Federation kicked them into space and how they never thought they'd see Earth again, the White Base crew themselves, or actual Federation officers being callous about the war in general. The actual core ideology of Zeon, i.e. Contolism, isn't even mentioned in the show so far as I recall and is only present in the movies from what I remember, with Degwin talking to Gihren during the infamous "Hitler" scene about how Zeon should be waiting for the birth of Newtypes. I don't think that part is in the original show at least. The existence of Newtypes isn't even the major thrust of Contolism going off the Tomino novels though, and what little we get in them impiles Contolism is more about each Side being it's own independent nation while Earth becomes a protected nature reserve no-one lives on. Newtypes are presented more as a consequence of what moving to space would allow humanity to become than the actual core ideology though. That aside, I do think it's worth bearing in mind for any conversation of this kind that the Zabis in the original show did not give a single poo poo about the other Sides, not even publicly. The fact they slaughtered them as the opening move of the war (and it's actively described as a slaughter in several sources like the original series bible) is not presented as hypocritical as it becomes in retrospect because at no point during the original show is it ever implied Zeon, either privately or publicly, is fighting for any Side beyond itself. The speeches GIhren gives are only about how Side 3 is special or deserving of independence, not all Sides. The first time that really comes up as an idea anyone within the Principality expressed during the One Year War is 0083, with Delaz and Gato talking about how Zeon fought for all of the Sides and colonies. A view that has become kind of the default for the Principality within both the fandom and following animations though despite not being supported, and not making any sense within the setting because of the whole "wiping out the other Sides" thing. I think some preceding data books and such may have expressed similar sentiments (a lot of the lore introduced into animation in 0083 is based on the lore from data books like Gundam Century), but 0083 was the first animation to promote it as a view at the least. Gaius Marius posted:There was an occupation too just ask Fukui I genuinely don't get why people have such a problem with that retcon of events, honestly. It makes sense as a thing to happen, and it's not like Unicorn is the first UC animation to introduce some kind of retcon regarding the events of the original. All the animated side stories introduce some kind of retcon, and even putting aside the above retcon of Zeon fighting for the independence of all Sides in 0083, 08th MS Team's introduction of GMs in July before the Gundam was even built seems far more egregious frankly, especially since it's had far more wide reaching effects rippling out into other works. tsob fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Jan 6, 2024 |
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Jan 6, 2024 04:37
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That's kind of the big problem with Zeon in general. Most characters who are shown as being staunch zeon loyalists are so because they're zeon loyalists and such rather than giving them any like, real cause. In UCEngage, for example, basically every story event has been full of NPCs who are blindingly pro-zeon and worship Gato. But the only reason they ever give for why they're pro-zeon and continue to fight the war well after it's ended is because they're loyal to zeon.
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Jan 6, 2024 05:35
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Nuebot posted:That's kind of the big problem with Zeon in general. Most characters who are shown as being staunch zeon loyalists are so because they're zeon loyalists and such rather than giving them any like, real cause. In UCEngage, for example, basically every story event has been full of NPCs who are blindingly pro-zeon and worship Gato. But the only reason they ever give for why they're pro-zeon and continue to fight the war well after it's ended is because they're loyal to zeon. The Arc Performance manga go a bit more in depth, if you're looking for that. It even has plenty of civil wars and internal plotting to force characters to have more complicated opinions. If you ever wanted to see Zeon's parliamentary debates, you don't have many other options.
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Jan 6, 2024 05:41
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Mister Olympus posted:absolutely. even when it's unicorn style "bush blimpo on the federation council did 9/11" stuff it's in reference to the japanese view of a corrupt government, which is a big unaccountable unelected bureaucracy, rather than the authentically american view of people duly elected just on the basis that they will exact bloody vengeance on some population or another theres enough overlap to make this distinction academic imo
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Jan 6, 2024 05:50
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Nuebot posted:That's kind of the big problem with Zeon in general. Most characters who are shown as being staunch zeon loyalists are so because they're zeon loyalists and such rather than giving them any like, real cause. In UCEngage, for example, basically every story event has been full of NPCs who are blindingly pro-zeon and worship Gato. But the only reason they ever give for why they're pro-zeon and continue to fight the war well after it's ended is because they're loyal to zeon. I mean... They're a stand in for Imperial Japan. It isn't satisfying because that sort of blind suicidal loyalty to a garbage cause really doesn't make sense to most modern western audiences, but the only thing that ever felt off to me were all the aftershock wars. Then again, maybe decades of smaller and smaller terror groups might have been the result if Japan had murked its entire leadership before they could properly surrender.
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Jan 6, 2024 06:41
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The zeon apologist guy is dumb and code fairy was boring but also the amount of people who think identifying the bad guys in a childrens cartoon as the bad guys is political insight is insufferable A lot of the inconsistencies with zeon are largely attributable to them being the bad guys of a one off childrens cartoon that then became the basework for a hard sci-fi universe. Just fighting zeon again would be boring (someone tell later uc material this) so zeta flips the script and makes the feds bad also and makes char a protagonist. That is more its concern than the inherent political ideology of zeon. Endorph fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jan 6, 2024 |
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Jan 6, 2024 06:43
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Also people dont do the fascism bad fistshaking when war in the pocket makes us feel bad about bernie being turned into hamburger
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Jan 6, 2024 06:44
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War in the Pocket is extremely clear that Zeon sucks rear end. Bernie's boss is a hosed up guy who looks like a serial killer named Commander Killing who is rubbing his hands together about the opportunity to launch nukes at civilians and Bernie sacrifices himself trying to stop it from happening because Bernie is a nice person who doesn't want to kill a bunch of innocent people. Honestly there's very few official pieces of UC Gundam media that are really intolerably crass rah rah Zeon stuff. IGLOO is the big one and I'm not a fan of Code Fairy. Stardust is okay because while the show is very interested in showing Gato as a brave noble admirable samurai, it does an okay job at showing Gato's precious cause as basically a lovely dead end that produces nothing but a pile of bodies. I don't like Fukui's revisionist occupation stuff but Zinnerman is one of the better characters in Unicorn so on the balance I'm fine with it. Kanos fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Jan 6, 2024 |
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Jan 6, 2024 11:54
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I admittedly haven't played Code Fairy but it doesn't seem to be constantly rubbing the players face in Zeon=Nazi while doing the apologia, so any apologia there must be a million times more tolerable than Igloo
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Jan 6, 2024 12:41
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chrome line posted:I admittedly haven't played Code Fairy but it doesn't seem to be constantly rubbing the players face in Zeon=Nazi while doing the apologia, so any apologia there must be a million times more tolerable than Igloo Also, the protagonists' boss definitely isn't a fan of the Principality's strategy or ideology, and is mainly just trying to keep her girls alive against extremely angry and determined opposition despite her superiors' best efforts to turn the invasion of Earth into a history-book-worthy military blunder.
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Jan 6, 2024 13:24
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tsob posted:Does it? I can't think of any character in Zeon during Mobile Suit Gundam beyond Char and Lalah who actually give, or even imply, a reason for fighting on behalf of Zeon and both of those are explicitly selfish reasons that have nothing to do with ideology. Char is doing it for revenge, and even implies he wants the Federation to win during his conversation with Sayla in the Texas Colony, while Lalah is fighting purely because Char saved her life in some (at the time) unspecified manner. She unambiguously states that in the Texas Colony, and her final fight involves her lamenting that she met Char first and wondering if she should join Amuro instead. Beyond that, nothing that I recall. The team in "Time, Be Still" do seem to be conscripts as previously mentioned, and honestly, I think that implication underlies a lot of the rest of Zeon (see Ramba talking about taking the mission to get revenge in order to improve the lot of his men or Doan deserting after being ordered to kill a load of kids for instance), and does a lot to explain the motivations and reasons for why people did fight for Zeon if it were true, since at that point many of them wouldn't have really had much choice. No other work, even by Tomino, actually supports that view though. First, I wanted to say that I appreciate your detailed reply to my incendiary shitpost. I think Char and Lalah are sufficient evidence for my read since . I think Char is key to my argument. My most significant evidence for this comes from Zeta Gundam and Char's Counterattack primarily. I was referring to Gundam as a series in my posts (apologies for the lack of distinction). I do not believe Char ever expresses regret for furthering Zeon's cause as a soldier. His personal revenge plot is both excellent character work and also a great example of the difference in ideology between Zeon and the Zabis. In Zeta Gundam, as Char fights for AEUG, he expresses a fairly pure Contolism ideology. Char is key to the AEUG's political efforts in Dakar despite not initially wanting to get involved beyond being a soldier. In Char's Counterattack, he is willing to drop Fifth Luna on Earth to advance the ideology of Contolism. The people cheer for him in the subway car. From Zeta Gundam onwards, it's very clear that there is significant Contolism support among the populace outside of the influence of Zeon fascism. It's a little unclear how much the populace cares about Sides independence versus keeping the Earth pure for nature. Both themes are revisited separately in late UC.
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Jan 6, 2024 14:58
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I think the subway car people in CCA could be taken as, basically, revanchist sentiment breaking out. Like it must have been pretty wild if you were just a phlebotomist in a hospital in Zeon since it was like: Zeon Deikum starts a project which is basically nationalist, dies somehow (probably killed by the Feds!), replaced by the Zabis, more nationalist stuff with a more explicit turn towards fascist behavior, your government killing half of the human race and losing the war anyway, some degree of national humiliation whether or not there was a large military occupying presence, an interval of several extremist/remnants groups making decent stabs at conquering the Earth Sphere while your government sat by, and then hey, it's Char! The guy who gave that big speech at Dakar! The hero from the war, the one with clean hands! Hell yeah! Char!
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Jan 6, 2024 22:35
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Yeah, I legit don't care about Code Fairy one way or another and came out of this discussion less convinced that the game is some insidious great evil and more that brainwrinkle was a giant dumbass
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Jan 6, 2024 22:59
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Zeonwank isn't (usually) insidious, it's mostly just dumb, but Code Fairy just mixed its ingredients in a manner that ticked me off. At the end of the day it's just another OYW story about Zeon pilots in the dying days of the war and Requiem for Vengeance will come along and probably do something similar and the cycle will repeat.
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Jan 6, 2024 23:04
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Nessus posted:I think the subway car people in CCA could be taken as, basically, revanchist sentiment breaking out. How do you explain the Angel Halo project in Victory Gundam then? Contolism is a popular ideology even 2 generations past Char.
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Jan 6, 2024 23:07
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brainwrinkle posted:How do you explain the Angel Halo project in Victory Gundam then? Contolism is a popular ideology even 2 generations past Char. Explain how? It was a superweapon designed to kill everyone who opposed Zanscare, much like their previous superweapon designed to kill everyone who opposed Zanscare, the dick and balls cannon.
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Jan 6, 2024 23:56
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