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ImpAtom posted:It is amazing to me that the Astray franchise is *still loving going.* Kanos posted:Astray has outlasted its source franchise as a story, which is hilarious. Or at least good compared to SEED and Destiny?
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Feb 19, 2019 03:36
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Raxivace posted:Is Astray any good? AFAIK, it's dumb fun that knows it's dumb fun and revels in it.
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Feb 19, 2019 03:41
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Raxivace posted:Is Astray any good? I only read the first bit, but the main guy wants a sword for his Gundam, so he finds this meteor made of alien metal and takes it to a swordsmith and tells him to make a sword out of it. The swordsmith asks how big he wants it, and the guy insists that he just use all of the metal, as big as possible. The end result is a sword that is as big to the Gundam as a full size katana would be to a MG gundam kit. So he makes giants arms to put on his Gundam so it can hold the sword
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Feb 19, 2019 03:42
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Raxivace posted:Is Astray any good? It depends a lot. There are a lot of Astrays of varying quality. You need at least some tolerance for the flat-out loving stupid/ridiculous to enjoy it but it can be fun . X Astray is someone's Newtype story they just shoved into the CE but it's one of my favorite sidestory manga if just for the resolution. It's the only story I can think of where a Newtype 'wins' by showing empathy and caring for his opponent and acknowledging their pain and suffering while showing a genuine desire to help them.
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Feb 19, 2019 03:42
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ImpAtom posted:It is amazing to me that the Astray franchise is *still loving going.* According to the artist's twitter, him and the writer genuinely just enjoy making the Astray series.  Gripweed posted:I only read the first bit, but the main guy wants a sword for his Gundam, so he finds this meteor made of alien metal and takes it to a swordsmith and tells him to make a sword out of it. The swordsmith asks how big he wants it, and the guy insists that he just use all of the metal, as big as possible. The end result is a sword that is as big to the Gundam as a full size katana would be to a MG gundam kit. So he makes giants arms to put on his Gundam so it can hold the sword That's Astray R though, which I personally feel isn't quite the best representation of the series as it's drawn by a different artist. The regular artist for the series is Koichi Tokita, who is really good at adding throwaway background jokes and incidental scenes. RillAkBea fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Feb 19, 2019 |
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Feb 19, 2019 03:59
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if anybody sees me at NT tomorrow, i’ll have sour punch straws so come say hi
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Feb 19, 2019 04:11
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I wouldn't be averse to an Astray that focused on Kira & his friends if it kept the same sensibility.
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Feb 19, 2019 04:14
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Airspace posted:Here's hoping it was better than the one based off the Gamecube(?) game (Lost War Chronicles). It's possible. The one based on Encounters In Space wasn't bad, after all. Speaking of bad, up through episode 7 in 08th MS team, and yeah. It's not good. I know, I know. Why would I say something so controversial and yet so brave? But I started watching with all the hope and enthusiasm in the world. 0080's top shelf, just like I was promised, and even if 08th was slower paced, I've got Turn A and IBO on my favorites list. I thought that I'd be in for a decent time, at minimum. But I was wrong. I'm going to finish it, just to be able to say I did and be sure it didn't all come together in the end (the last two episodes of Gunbuster moved it from "This is something I am watching because it has historical significance and because Diebuster looks cool, why does everyone love it?" to "Huh. That was maybe the best ending I've seen?") but I'm not optimistic. The heroes are less badass than in any other Gundam series, as promised. This is mostly because there's hardly any proper MS fights. Iron Blooded Orphans might have spaced them out, but in return it went hard when it got back to combat, with massive episode long showdowns. War in the Pocket spaced them out, but it went heavy for the emotional stakes, with every fight that mattered past the first one being dramatic tragedy, good people dying for no gain. This isn't how 08th handles things. Instead, we get episodes focusing on loving Eledore and half-assed fights against flying things. Fights that rarely have those little moments of genius that separate the decent from the great. And then there's the plot. I know the romance has been discussed enough that I don't need to go into detail, but it's so bad. One meeting and he's not just in love, but fine with high treason and willing to shrug off the hideous deaths of everyone he loves? Pull one of the other ones. They've got bells on. Shiro doesn't feel like he ever hated Zeon, to the point where I think the story would flow better if he outright said he wasn't the hating type, that even though he knew, objectively, he should want revenge. Aina, meanwhile, doesn't work as a sympathetic Zeek because she doesn't do anything sympathetic. A tip to writers? If you want people to think "Well, she's working for the baddies... but she's not a bad person", you don't have them look at a woman and her sick child being denied medicine to preserve opsec before being gunned down and just feel vaguely bad about it. You should, at minimum, try to offer some help within the situation. Hans Gruber does that, and he's, you know. Hans Gruber. The military situation is similarly bad. There's no feeling of a coherent front. The heroes just vaguely go out and shoot Zakus. A Zeon officer in episode 7 just drops a random bomb that lets him kill a GM squad at Odessa no problem, something typically shown as the work of an ace or a specific superweapon, not just a bit of scene setting. I'm not impressed.
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Feb 19, 2019 04:18
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TenementFunster posted:if anybody sees me at NT tomorrow, i’ll have sour punch straws so come say hi I won't be at your theatre but hi anyway.
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Feb 19, 2019 04:27
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Yeah I’ve always gotten the impression that people are more into the idea of 08th MS Team (I.e. Gundam in Vietnam, grunt heroes, no Newtypes etc.) rather than the series itself. I honestly don’t think there’s a huge difference in quality between it and something like 0083 that people often criticize the writing of. Also thanks all for the Astray impressions, I think I’ll check out what I can find of it. Raxivace fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Feb 19, 2019 |
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Feb 19, 2019 04:28
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Raxivace posted:Yeah I’ve always gotten the impression that people are more into the idea of 08th MS Team (I.e. Gundam in Vietnam, grunt heroes, no Newtypes etc.) rather than the series itself. It sells the sizzle, not the steak.
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Feb 19, 2019 04:39
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The weirdest part of Astray (well, one of them) I that it's used as a vehicle to explain an event in SEED that the show itself never bothers to actually elaborate on namely how Kira survived having the Aegis blow up in his face. Which, I mean, you have to have some draw for your manga, but this is Halo novels level of not explaining things except in the ancillary material, and the writers for SEED weren't nearly good enough for that to work well. Once the later sequels started going into the really absurd stuff I rapidly lost interest. (I'm looking at you, Frame Astrays) Astray R is ugly, but it's not in the same universe of gently caress-ugly as the main SEED and Destiny manga by Iwase. Those have some of the worst art I have ever seen, bar none. Plastic_Gargoyle fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Feb 19, 2019 |
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Feb 19, 2019 04:46
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08th MS Team holds significance for its aesthetic and grounded nature, which meant that for the longest time a lot of us held it up because it was at least trying to be different from normal gundam nonsense. The trouble is, the show is pretty much obsolete with regards to the elements that made it stand out. IBO and Thunderbolt both do what 08th MS Team did, only they do it better (especially Thunderbolt). The Gouf Custom fight is held up as one of the greats, but it has nothing on the Full Armor / Psyco Zaku duel in terms of ferocity, inventive tactics, and presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWXPIfSI6ZE The back half of the OVA also loses its stride thanks to the director change, and boy does it show. Everything from the hotsprings on Everest episode onward is really dodgy stuff and varies wildly in quality. The best episode of the series immediately follows the low point of the Everest episode, but it can't make up for how nonsensical the rest of the show gets. If you power through to the end, skip the final episode. It's not the worst episode in the series but it has nothing to do with anything else in the show and exists solely to reference newtypes.
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Feb 19, 2019 05:50
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:The weirdest part of Astray (well, one of them) I that it's used as a vehicle to explain an event in SEED that the show itself never bothers to actually elaborate on namely how Kira survived having the Aegis blow up in his face. If Frame Astrays was the dealbreaker for you, you missed a bullet and you are a lucky soul. VS Astray is some bullshit and this is coming from someone who thinks Gundam Wing Frozen Teardrop is a grand romp.
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Feb 19, 2019 05:59
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I’m going to see NT tonight too! It’ll probably be bad but...But Gundam...
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Feb 19, 2019 11:16
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taichara posted:If Frame Astrays was the dealbreaker for you, you missed a bullet and you are a lucky soul. VS Astray is some bullshit and this is coming from someone who thinks Gundam Wing Frozen Teardrop is a grand romp. Got my wacky sidestories mixed up, VS Astray is the one I meant. "Let's move parts around," what brilliant design work.
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Feb 19, 2019 13:00
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Arcsquad12 posted:08th MS Team holds significance for its aesthetic and grounded nature, which meant that for the longest time a lot of us held it up because it was at least trying to be different from normal gundam nonsense. I’d say neither IBO or Thunderbolt have the boots on the ground grunt point of view that people see in 08th. The main characters are ace pilots who tear through the battlefield and pilot tricked out custom suits. People like the Gouf fight because it is so one sided and an example of what it would be like to fight an enemy ace pilot which isn’t really how I’d describe the end of Thunderbolt.
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Feb 19, 2019 13:15
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The pilot's eye video of the first time they see the Thunderbolt Gundam definitely does though. 
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Feb 19, 2019 13:36
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Now I'm torn between keep on reading Crossbone gundam or, plow through 15+ years of astray side-story manga.
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Feb 19, 2019 15:08
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Ethiser posted:I’d say neither IBO or Thunderbolt have the boots on the ground grunt point of view that people see in 08th. The main characters are ace pilots who tear through the battlefield and pilot tricked out custom suits. People like the Gouf fight because it is so one sided and an example of what it would be like to fight an enemy ace pilot which isn’t really how I’d describe the end of Thunderbolt. You get a very similar thing when the Full Armor Gundam first shows up and massacres all the Living Dead snipers, down to seeing how horrifying it is from their perspective. You also get something of it when the Feddies try to smoke out the snipers for the first time. Honestly the "ace pilots in tricked out customs duking it out" is only the very climax of the show.
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Feb 19, 2019 15:17
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Ka0 posted:Now I'm torn between keep on reading Crossbone gundam or, plow through 15+ years of astray side-story manga. You'll hit a wall eventually with Crossbone since I don't think Ghost is fully translated, much less what came after (if it is, do tell me, I'd love to get back on that). So you may as well continue Crossbone until Ghost then switch to Astray. Reading Astray is one of those things I keep telling myself to do but never do. But I'll do it! Eventually!
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Feb 19, 2019 15:29
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The Gouf fight scene in 08th MS Team has such care put into the weight and size and momentum of the machines and the use of the scenery as part of the fight its no wonder a lot of people think its amazing. The Best Fight Scene Ever crew are definitely people that saw it when they were children and it was the first pyrrhic victory they'd ever experienced in their media so it left a big impression, but its still really good. The final Thunderbolt fight obviously has more "ferocity" because it's something of an even fight. The Gouf fight isn't, its desperate rather than ferocious and the fights are trying to show and tell completely different stories. The scene you should compare is the FA Gundam vs the sniper crew rather than the grand finale. Thunderbolt gives the Gundam a huge tech advantage on top of the pilot difference whereas in 08th MS Team the fight is more obviously decided purely by skill. They're different fights telling different stories and to say that one is obsoleted by the other is ridiculous.
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Feb 19, 2019 19:49
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Ethiser posted:I’d say neither IBO or Thunderbolt have the boots on the ground grunt point of view that people see in 08th. The main characters are ace pilots who tear through the battlefield and pilot tricked out custom suits. People like the Gouf fight because it is so one sided and an example of what it would be like to fight an enemy ace pilot which isn’t really how I’d describe the end of Thunderbolt. EthanSteele posted:The Gouf fight scene in 08th MS Team has such care put into the weight and size and momentum of the machines and the use of the scenery as part of the fight its no wonder a lot of people think its amazing. The Best Fight Scene Ever crew are definitely people that saw it when they were children and it was the first pyrrhic victory they'd ever experienced in their media so it left a big impression, but its still really good. The final Thunderbolt fight obviously has more "ferocity" because it's something of an even fight. The Gouf fight isn't, its desperate rather than ferocious and the fights are trying to show and tell completely different stories. Machine to machine, the Gouf and the Ez8 are an even match. The point of that fight is to show off pilot skill. Io and Daryl are an even match, both in souped up customs. I rewatched the Thunderbolt fight, and all I really see is a bog-standard Gundam final fight. Yeah, there's more space junk floating around, and the suits have more arms, but that isn't really anything to write home about from a fight choreography standpoint. You've just got more swords per capita. Packard just outright outclasses the 08th team. He's been fighting in mobile suits longer than they have, in more engagements than they've seen. That fight also has a different objective from other Gundam fights, which is that Norris is only fighting the 08th team because they're stopping him from taking out the Guntanks. I suspect he'd gently caress off back to the base if he'd managed to kill the third tank without having to do a suicide attack. So the flow ends up being vastly different than a traditional Gundam vs Gundam rival match. Packard does everything he can to avoid engaging the 08th team until Shiro forces the issue, at which point Shiro gets clowned on because of the experience gap. The reason the Gouf vs Ez8 fight still holds up is precisely because it isn't a 1v1 parity fight between two evenly matched opponents. Packard has more experience, the 08th team has numbers, and the objective is to destroy/protect the Guntanks.
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Feb 19, 2019 20:25
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The Thunderbolt boss fight is at least an extremely cool piece of animation to look at, if nothing else. I did like how Bandit Flower has Io in a regular GM for the big battle at the end though, it's nice to see that he can wreck shop without a high-end custom MS to fall back on (unrelated, but Bandit Flower also seems to show him as slightly less of a bloodthirsty psycho overall, which I think is a good character arc for him). My only problem with the Gouf/Ez8 fight, and this might even be deliberate on the part of the writers though I'm not sure I want to give them credit, is that Packard does his dirt to protect the transport, and then it gets one-shotted anyway by some rando GM Sniper that shows up in the next episode. I'm not sure if that's on purpose to show how pointless sacrificing yourself in a war is, or if it just undermines the impact of what he accomplished there and gave the Feddies an easy out. It still rules watching the entire 08th team poo poo their pants over this dude and his extremely cool-looking mobile suit.
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Feb 19, 2019 20:37
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The thunderbolt final fight is pretty and has interesting choreography as the fighters utilize the terrain to fight each other, but unlike every other fight in December sky it's very much a "turn your brain off and watch the spectacle" kind of scene. Because, you know, that's exactly what the two fighters are doing as well.
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Feb 19, 2019 21:37
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Warmachine posted:Machine to machine, the Gouf and the Ez8 are an even match. The point of that fight is to show off pilot skill. That's what I'm saying. It's good!
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Feb 19, 2019 22:14
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Raxivace posted:Yeah I’ve always gotten the impression that people are more into the idea of 08th MS Team (I.e. Gundam in Vietnam, grunt heroes, no Newtypes etc.) rather than the series itself. While 08th MS Team has no Newtypes, Shiro and Aina's romance is basically a Newtype element in all but name. They instantly fall in love and overcome all obstacles through the power of feelings, as well as achieving functionally impossible things because of their relationship. I wouldn't even say 08th MS Team is a particularly good grunt showcase either, both because Shiro isn't much of a grunt pilot and because the climax of the show is the main protagonist and his love interest against a single enemy. Even the penultimate fight, the one everyone remembers, is resolved by Shiro facing an enemy alone, and the team are all but useless for the entire thing. Shiro isn't a grunt though; he's a shonen hero. Even in the first episode, he uses an under-powered suit and innovative tactics (a Ball harpooning a Zaku I so he's in a constant firing arc with it) to defeat an enemy that should have killed him because he absorbs about a thousands shots and his unit is just invincible enough to beat the Zaku. Then he has a flashback about how evil Zeon are before immediately rushing to help a Zeon soldier because he saw that she had a slight wound and then finishes the episode giving a speech about how he's going to Earth and is going to Ethiser posted:People like the Gouf fight because it is so one sided and an example of what it would be like to fight an enemy ace pilot which isn’t really how I’d describe the end of Thunderbolt. Norris isn't so much better than the 08th MS Team because he's just a better pilot than they've proved to be though; he's better because they're all flat out retarded for the entire fight. As above, Shiro beats a unit dozens of times stronger than his Ball in the first episode and has seen lots of combat since then but when he's facing Norris, he starts acting like a complete newbie who's never been in combat before. He closes his eyes when firing so that literally every bullet from multiple guns misses a guy standing right in front of him and almost shits himself simply because the Gouf wasn't destroyed when a section of highway fell on it. The entire team do similarly stupid things. Karen fires one extremely lazy shot at the Gouf while it's standing on top of a building in the open, and Sanders approaches it at one point with no weapons drawn for some reason. Warmachine posted:The reason the Gouf vs Ez8 fight still holds up is precisely because it isn't a 1v1 parity fight between two evenly matched opponents. Packard has more experience, the 08th team has numbers, and the objective is to destroy/protect the Guntanks. The numbers mean nothing, except a chance for everyone to job so that the narrative can build Norris up for the 1v1 fight against Shiro at the end.
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Feb 19, 2019 22:37
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Taintrunner posted:I’m going to see NT tonight too! It’ll probably be bad but...But Gundam... also my theater is sold out of non-awful seats, which is hilarious. the last time I did one of these fathom single-showings was over a decade ago for Castle of Cagliostro at a theater in the suburban Dallas hellscape, and there were maybe 6 other people there for a top 10 movie of all time in the medium. 2007 was a dark time. the animes were bad, my dudes. also sup midjack.
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Feb 19, 2019 22:47
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TenementFunster posted:bring butterfinger bites. those things rule. I'll be there as well!
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Feb 19, 2019 23:21
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tsob posted:The numbers mean nothing, except a chance for everyone to job so that the narrative can build Norris up for the 1v1 fight against Shiro at the end. Even Shiro is jobbing. He can't hit the guy. The only reason Packard goes down is because Shiro is being just obnoxious enough to keep him off the target, and from his chair, that tank has to die now. Packard isn't getting out alive, and he knows that. That's why he sent up a red flare. If Shiro and the 08th team was his objective, Packard would have dusted them. They weren't. Norris won that fight. I mean, Shiro spent half of that fight as a hostage before managing to get his suit back up and running and try to beat the Gouf to death with his own arm. Norris' line sums it up pretty good, after Shiro's dumb machine gun burst: "Well, that looked impressive." Taintrunner posted:I’m going to see NT tonight too! It’ll probably be bad but...But Gundam... I'm heading out to my own theater now. Gonna grab a cocktail in the lounge to take the edge off.
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Feb 20, 2019 00:23
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tsob posted:Norris isn't so much better than the 08th MS Team because he's just a better pilot than they've proved to be though; he's better because they're all flat out retarded for the entire fight. As above, Shiro beats a unit dozens of times stronger than his Ball in the first episode and has seen lots of combat since then but when he's facing Norris, he starts acting like a complete newbie who's never been in combat before. He closes his eyes when firing so that literally every bullet from multiple guns misses a guy standing right in front of him and almost shits himself simply because the Gouf wasn't destroyed when a section of highway fell on it. The entire team do similarly stupid things. Karen fires one extremely lazy shot at the Gouf while it's standing on top of a building in the open, and Sanders approaches it at one point with no weapons drawn for some reason. Yeah, the more you look at the Gouf Custom fight the less the choreography holds up because so much of it depends on the 08th going completely braindead. This would make sense if the fight was early in the series before the 08th had time to gel, but it isn't; it's at the climax of a long series of desperate battles, but all of them behave like complete rookies. It's especially egregious that Shiro, the guy who, as you mentioned, faced down a Zaku with a Ball mano y mano and won, is now squeezing his eyes shut before firing at an approaching target, and then somehow managing to miss a literally stationary target while firing all of his guns. Seriously, the iconic "Ez-8 slides down the silo while firing" shot involves a bunch of bullet streams going around a completely stationary Gouf Custom.
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Feb 20, 2019 02:12
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tsob posted:While 08th MS Team has no Newtypes, Shiro and Aina's romance is basically a Newtype element in all but name. quote:Shiro isn't a grunt though; he's a shonen hero. Maybe its people only partially remembering the aesthetic/seeing the series on Toonami like 15 years ago or whatever, Idk. Raxivace fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Feb 20, 2019 |
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Feb 20, 2019 02:25
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While I said the show is rather obsolete, I don't think it's a bad show. It's mostly just an average entry in the franchise with a lot of good moments but it's brought down by a weak second half and one of the worst supporting characters in the franchise. gently caress you, Michel. Monsha might be a psychotic jackass but at least he was competent in combat.
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Feb 20, 2019 02:27
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I did like that Shiro admitted he wasn't fighting for his friends at the end, he just wanted to live and also marry the nice girl he met.
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Feb 20, 2019 02:31
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Kanos posted:This would make sense if the fight was early in the series before the 08th had time to gel, but it isn't; it's at the climax of a long series of desperate battles, but all of them behave like complete rookies. A major problem with it I saw someone point out a while ago is that 08th MS Team presents as a team based show, and there's several episodes building them up as a team but it never really pays off and the climactic battle of the show against an enemy that's been building up over the course of the story is instead about Shiro teaming up with Aina and not his own team. Shiro facing Norris one on one to complete a narrative tying him to Aina makes some degree of sense, but the fight against the Apsalus III really should be the entire team getting a chance to show off how much they've grown and working together to take it on; not Shiro bucking them to go with Aina. I guess the acoustics guy plays a minor role in the Gouf Custom fight, but the entire thing is such a poo poo show and his directions don't actually make a difference so it's hard to see it as pay off for even that one guy; never mind the whole team.
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Feb 20, 2019 02:32
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I could have been worded better. And delivered better.
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Feb 20, 2019 02:32
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That little OVA where they fight a Gouf Flying type was a better team fight. (go watch it)
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Feb 20, 2019 02:34
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EVEN SO
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Feb 20, 2019 02:35
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ElBrak posted:That little OVA where they fight a Gouf Flying type was a better team fight. (go watch it) Karen got merc'd hard in that short.
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Feb 20, 2019 02:36
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Midjack posted:EVEN SO NT does this too and I had to laugh.
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Feb 20, 2019 02:41
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