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dogsicle posted:IBO doesn't do much for me overall The Graze is brilliant, top tier grunt suit. Even little details like the yellow reactor tell you a lot about the setting. I mean, I know everyone's got different tastes, but the ways it builds up a unified aesthetic for the setting is really neat. Every Mobile Suit has an Ahab reactor in the torso. It can be thin like a Shiden, bulky like the Rodi family, even have three of them like the Vidar, but the core power system is common to all MS in the show, giving them a shared design vocabulary. (Like how the Hloekk Graze, despite being a monkey model, has a new Ahab reactor, showing that Gjallarhorn is getting into the same escalation cycle as everyone else). I like the Graze by itself, but what it does for MS design in general really elevates it.
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Feb 27, 2022 05:09
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You know what's cool: the full armor Gundam
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Feb 27, 2022 06:14
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I just re-watched 08th MS Team for the first time in like 20 years. I happy to report that I still love it, but I I never realized how few episodes the EZ8 is in. My favorite Gundam 'types' are the retconned RX-78s that they keep shoving into the early part of the timeline. Everything from the Ground Units to the Atlas in Thunderbolt. Modern sensibilities applied to the classic suit.
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Feb 27, 2022 10:17
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Bandai put up both Gundam Thunderbolt movies on their youtube channel, this is just edgelord gundam isn't it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2b0kS4Ij18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js42OATfNAE
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Feb 27, 2022 14:33
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It's edgxtremely good, my lord
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Feb 27, 2022 14:54
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Is it edgy to say war is bad
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Feb 27, 2022 16:48
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No it's edgy because there are child soldiers shown getting slaughtered by ace units in a war where one of the first things we're told is that the armies are drafting kids as young as 14 to fight and the Federation and their allies being amoral is too on the nose. I still don't know why people get annoyed at Thunderbolt's casual cruelty as if it's somehow an outlier in the franchise. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Feb 27, 2022 |
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Feb 27, 2022 17:08
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Reminder that the original Gundam went from opening to 'child crying over her parents in a field of corpses' in about five minutes. I feel like 'Edge' as we know it doesn't really have useful meaning in this context.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:12
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honestly thunderbolt gundam is a return to form in a sense (if you ignore IBO and pretend AGE was the most recent)
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Feb 27, 2022 18:47
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Stairmaster posted:honestly thunderbolt gundam is a return to form in a sense (if you ignore IBO and pretend AGE was the most recent) I don't see how or why you should ignore IBO, considering that it and Thunderbolt seemed to have so much thematic/aesthetic crossover. There was also significant continuity to those two from Build Fighters (innovations in music and action choreography) and G-Reco (innovations in mechanical design).
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Feb 27, 2022 19:27
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The United States posted:Bandai put up both Gundam Thunderbolt movies on their youtube channel, this is just edgelord gundam isn't it? The answer that question is "yes, but only if you remove all the negative connotations from the word 'edgelord'" because Thunderbolt is FANTASTIC. Stairmaster posted:honestly thunderbolt gundam is a return to form in a sense (if you ignore IBO and pretend AGE was the most recent) Now I'm not sure I'd go this far, because Gundam has been upbeat (and good) enough times that being gritty and downbeat isn't a default state for the series anymore because Gundam as a franchise has shown it doesn't have to be that all the time. On the other hand, after Unicorn which was the then most recent big UC series and was trying to be positive and optimistic (putting aside how good it was and whether it succeeded or not), it does feel somewhat deliberate that the next UC Gundam thing they put out was something truly excellent that was also just nasty.
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Feb 27, 2022 19:31
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Thunderbolt is bad because it makes the critical error of making everything so miserable that no reasonable person would give a poo poo about any of these characters after realizing what the shows gimmick is. The first episode of gundam may have several hundred refugees getting blown apart in a quick shot but it still feels affecting because Fraw’s family was in there, it feels like an actual tragedy with emotional weight. You could not pay me to give a gently caress about Io Flemming, and as for the kinderbrigade, the show pretty clearly is contemptuous of the whole thing, so why should the audience care either?
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Feb 27, 2022 20:20
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:Thunderbolt is bad because it makes the critical error of making everything so miserable that no reasonable person would give a poo poo about any of these characters after realizing what the shows gimmick is. The first episode of gundam may have several hundred refugees getting blown apart in a quick shot but it still feels affecting because Fraw’s family was in there, it feels like an actual tragedy with emotional weight. You could not pay me to give a gently caress about Io Flemming, and as for the kinderbrigade, the show pretty clearly is contemptuous of the whole thing, so why should the audience care either? When I read that in the manga (I haven't watched the anime movies) I did find it kind of tragic that the one kid we follow was lost in the chaos of war, wondering why no-one was responding to his unit when it goes dark and then opens the cockpit to find the place completely devoid of life, and just the remains of units scattered about. Then the tragic is compounded by him thinking about how he can do the brave thing and go on the attack on his lonesone or something, and in contravention of logic, the compounding completely removes any actual tragedy and just leaves me going "welp  ". I don't know if it's just that it was a step too far on it's own, or if it was a case of "putting a hat on a hat" by piling a tragic personal event onto a tragic impersonal one or what; either way I stopped caring as soon as I read it.Or maybe it's that it's tragic when the guy is a lone survivor, and is going to have to come to terms with what happened, the fact he was basically just a sacrificial shield etc, but when no-one is left for me to care about and follow out of those events, there's nothing left for me to care about anyway. So I don't. Plus, I liked Io promising the kids that he'd buy a beer for whoever survived, and gently caress the fact they're all teens. Him getting to follow through on that, and commiserate with one or two survivors who can be secondary or tertiary characters later would have been good characterization for Io as well as giving the manga some levity and still rubbing in the harshness of combat. As is, everyone in the kids unit dying bar himself is tragic and him dying to avenge his comrades in a fruitless attack so pointless we're not even shown it is tragic; but both is just meh.
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Feb 27, 2022 20:33
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:Thunderbolt is bad because it makes the critical error of making everything so miserable that no reasonable person would give a poo poo about any of these characters after realizing what the shows gimmick is. The first episode of gundam may have several hundred refugees getting blown apart in a quick shot but it still feels affecting because Fraw’s family was in there, it feels like an actual tragedy with emotional weight. You could not pay me to give a gently caress about Io Flemming, and as for the kinderbrigade, the show pretty clearly is contemptuous of the whole thing, so why should the audience care either? counterpoint: you're dumb
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Feb 27, 2022 21:21
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Io loving rules and is a top tier Gundam protagonist
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Feb 27, 2022 21:22
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RevolverDivider posted:Io loving rules and is a top tier Gundam protagonist I'd argue that Darryl is the protagonist and Io is the antagonist - not the villain, but the antagonist.
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Feb 27, 2022 21:30
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Naw Darryl's a nerd
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Feb 27, 2022 21:49
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Gaius Marius posted:Naw Darryl's a nerd Are you arguing that makes him less of a Gundam protagonist? Because, uhh...
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Feb 27, 2022 21:50
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Nah the post One Year War stuff especially what hasn't been covered by the show yet makes it pretty clear Io is the lead.
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Feb 27, 2022 21:52
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counterpoint: darryls piloting a gundam now
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Feb 27, 2022 21:53
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They'll hand em out to anybody nowadays....used to mean something damnit
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Feb 27, 2022 21:55
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Gaius Marius posted:They'll hand em out to anybody nowadays....used to mean something damnit Could be worse. Three shows in, they were giving 'em to Mondo.
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Feb 27, 2022 22:00
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Darth Walrus posted:Could be worse. Three shows in, they were giving 'em to Mondo. They drew the line at Monsha though. That said, Jerid was one of the first people to pilot a Gundam.
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Feb 27, 2022 22:04
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Arc Hammer posted:No it's edgy because there are child soldiers shown getting slaughtered by ace units in a war where one of the first things we're told is that the armies are drafting kids as young as 14 to fight and the Federation and their allies being amoral is too on the nose. Thunderbolt is edgy but overall I do think it handles it better than say SEED does, like in the former it feels like it has a purpose for the plot and themes while in the latter it just comes off as gross and unnecessary
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Feb 27, 2022 22:45
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:Thunderbolt is bad because it makes the critical error of making everything so miserable that no reasonable person would give a poo poo about any of these characters after realizing what the shows gimmick is. The first episode of gundam may have several hundred refugees getting blown apart in a quick shot but it still feels affecting because Fraw’s family was in there, it feels like an actual tragedy with emotional weight. You could not pay me to give a gently caress about Io Flemming, and as for the kinderbrigade, the show pretty clearly is contemptuous of the whole thing, so why should the audience care either? "no reasonable person" is a weird thing to say immediately after several people said thunderbolt was good though i suppose "hearing your buddy that we've seen for 2 minutes abruptly get shot" just doesn't carry the same emotional weight as "seeing your family that we've seen for 1 minute explode." if only it was daryl's mom piloting that robot instead, surely that would improve things.
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Feb 27, 2022 23:03
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edge is good imo, more gundam shows should put their whole weight into leaning on the edge like IBO and thunderbolt
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Feb 27, 2022 23:06
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ninjewtsu posted:"no reasonable person" is a weird thing to say immediately after several people said thunderbolt was good I mean, it probably would, because one of the main characters would have a really visceral emotional reaction to it and there'd probably be some follow up in terms of character development. The death of Fraw's family has impact because of Fraw's reaction. As opposed to, I don't know, the death of that one refugee who fled the White Base only for Char to kill him. No-one knew or cared about the guy, so no-one reacted in any meaningful way to it. Nor did the scene or the show as a whole linger on it. Which means the audience has no reason to actually care about it. It's possible to care about Fraw's family though, because Fraw herself reacts to it and that can evoke a sympathetic reaction from someone watching.
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Feb 27, 2022 23:26
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ninjewtsu posted:edge is good imo, more gundam shows should put their whole weight into leaning on the edge like IBO and thunderbolt I disagree, I think. Or... Well, IBO and Thunderbolt are both "edgy", but I'd say they're edgy in different ways. One of the things that makes IBO work is how casual it can be about the grimmer aspects of its setting. You even see someone emptied his bowels when he committed suicide if you pause, but the show doesn't emphasize it. Similarly, Atra is normally a little bundle of sunshine, with her comment about "Oh, don't worry about me. I was tortured much worse when I was a child slave janitor in a brothel" being quick and left to the viewer to extrapolate. Thunderbolt, especially in the first season, is much more aggressive about its edge, and I think it's weaker for it. Where the manga at least tries to frame its child soldier brigade in the setting, the anime just has it as a random atrocity, shoved in the viewer's face as How War Is, then forgotten once it's been shocking enough. It also, unlike IBO's use of child soldiers, doesn't feel organic to the setting, with the past precedent not suggesting that the Federation was (intentionally) sending kids to die in Mobile Suits. (Now, infantry or RB-79s, that'd be different.) Basically, Iron Blooded Orphans, like the original, felt edgy as a natural consequence of the story it wanted to tell, while Thunderbolt feels like it distorts its narrative (which, to be fair, is plenty grim to begin with) to make it feel edgy, especially in season 1. It's basically how teenagers seem less mature when they try to actively convince you they're grown up. Season 2 handled those aspects better (and the treatment of the female cast felt like it improved, which was nice) but I do feel like season 1 is worth calling out for those flaws, just like its treatment of the two prominent female characters is worth addressing. Thunderbolt is fast, exciting, and a hell of a looker, don't get me wrong. It just has enough problems that I can't agree with people who place it as top tier Gundam.
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Feb 27, 2022 23:38
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Darth Walrus posted:I'd argue that Darryl is the protagonist and Io is the antagonist - not the villain, but the antagonist. Nah, Darryl's a Space Nazi. Edit: I think I may be biased because of uh, current events, but I'm not a fan of stories that go "These people were forced out of their home by the other party doing mass warcrimes, and the other party claims to just be defending their homeland, so they're morally equivalent." Sure, it sucks that Darryl got his legs and arm blown off invading earth, but also, like... Zeon are explicitly space nazi imperial japan, with all of the bad that entails. Fivemarks fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Feb 27, 2022 |
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Feb 27, 2022 23:41
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You know the old saying: "The best defense is blowing up the other guy before he can even think of attacking you". For Peace. This message approved by Christopher Smith; paid for by HBO.
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Feb 27, 2022 23:55
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Fivemarks posted:Nah, Darryl's a Space Nazi. Again, 'protagonist' and 'antagonist' are not the same things as 'hero' and 'villain'. Bernie, for instance, is one of the protagonists of 0080, while Chris is an antagonist.
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Feb 28, 2022 00:01
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For example Johnny is the Hero of Karate Kid, and Daniel the villain.
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Feb 28, 2022 00:03
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Darth Walrus posted:Again, 'protagonist' and 'antagonist' are not the same things as 'hero' and 'villain'. Bernie, for instance, is one of the protagonists of 0080, while Chris is an antagonist. Bernie's a good guy, though. I think Walter White and Hank Schrader are better for protagonist and antagonist here, if we're allowed to step away from Gundam. Walt's the worse person by far, but he's our viewpoint character, so he's the protagonist.
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Feb 28, 2022 00:06
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chiasaur11 posted:...Eh? That is the point. IBO isn't defined roles. It is nothing but ridiculous ace suits. The only ones that look crappy are intentionally crappy. G-Redo goes crazy and leads to loving amazing designs like the Mack Knife when shine in animation.
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Feb 28, 2022 00:09
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ImpAtom posted:That is the point. IBO isn't defined roles. It is nothing but ridiculous ace suits. The only ones that look crappy are intentionally crappy. G-Redo goes crazy and leads to loving amazing designs like the Mack Knife when shine in animation. G-Reco will fling a motherfucking flying death pyramid with a laser eye that shoots yggdrasil-shaped lasers at you and I love the show to death for how not afraid it is to toss in weird poo poo to go with the more normal mobile suits.
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Feb 28, 2022 00:22
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chiasaur11 posted:I disagree, I think. Or... My feeling was that the constant, all permeating feeling of shock and misery was the entire point of thunderbolt s1 and its story, and choosing to lighten up would've been a severe detriment to it
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Feb 28, 2022 00:38
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Kanos posted:G-Reco will fling a motherfucking flying death pyramid with a laser eye that shoots yggdrasil-shaped lasers at you and I love the show to death for how not afraid it is to toss in weird poo poo to go with the more normal mobile suits. Yeah, and I think that contributes to the worldbuilding just as much as a unified building world. And G-Reco has that too. Like for example the Rekten is exactly what it needs to be. It is a simple and colorful suit, very plainly not a meaningful threat in any way, shape or form because it's not supposed to be. It's effectively a big toy for a childlike people. Then the Reksnow is the first attempt to weaponize it and it is clearly just bits of armor and a gun stapled onto the existing frame in a way that makes it look both dangerous and silly because it's supposed to be. It'd be like trying to weaponize an AIBO. Now to compare it to something else, the Jahannam is an absolute masterpiece of a design. It's a combo of GM and Zaku aesthetics and it looks far more dangerous at first blush than a Rekten while also telling you at a glance that this is a later UC unit from the time the Zaku and GM effectively have stopped having meaningful differences. And that also makes it clear it is a mook unit, just one from a long-future date. Without seeing the in-between units you know at a single glance what this machine is. Likewise look at the Trinity and you know it is of the Quebely line, the Armorzagen is clearly a Zeonic knockoff MA/MS hybrid, I don't even need to explain the Z'goky. The design sense of G-Reco is so good that you know instantly that all of these units are evolutions from existing units. And then you get the weird one-offs which fit absolutely within the concept of "here is a grabbag of stuff from Gundam shows that don't exist" because of course they do. Here is the random fuckin' Episode of the Week stuff that we never got to see and instead we get the full weird horror of what amounts to a later-stage Zakarello only in the hands of metaphorical and literal children. G-Reco manages to make an absolutely absurd number of cool looking new suits that all none the less tell a unified story of gradual revivals of ancient suits or hodgepodge of new and old technology. It depends somewhat on Gundam knowledge for the full effect but that is unavoidable because it is still in the UC setting. It's also worth remembering that G-Reco is a lot of visual storytelling, with once-off lines or background details actually explaining plot points, and the mecha design is a full-on part of that. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Feb 28, 2022 |
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Feb 28, 2022 00:39
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G-Reco and the weaponized shower curtain
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Feb 28, 2022 01:02
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dogsicle posted:G-Reco and the weaponized shower curtain The Gaitrash owns because "What if we just like, made a super beam saber and had it on constantly as a SHIELD" is exactly the kind of stupid poo poo you get in Gundam and actually fits into the series in theory while also being a great example of the absolute excess of late-stage UC where "What if we made a cloak of beam saber" is exactly the kind of way you evolve from poo poo like the Murasame Blaster
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Feb 28, 2022 01:09
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Fivemarks posted:Nah, Darryl's a Space Nazi. Daryl is not the villain of the story, but zeon extremely explicitly is Thunderbolt doesn't draw a moral equivalence between zeon and the federation, it just says the federation also happens to suck. Zeon starts as bad as the fed's peak, and rapidly escalates from there
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Feb 28, 2022 01:10
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