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ImpAtom posted:The Gundam was a big deal because it offered a battleship-strength beam in handheld form. (Though the beam was smaller) I know that was what Char thought when he first witnesses it, but it's not really true. We see a Musai pierce through a colony in one shot with a volley of mega-particle beam cannons in the opening prologue of the first dozen episodes of the show, but the Gundam's beam rifle is never shown to penetrate a colony despite fighting in and around them mulitple times later in the show. I'd say the ZZ's high mega beam cannon is probably the first mobile suit mounted one that'd even be close to powerful enough to do that, and it was exceptionally powerful for it's time; draining the suit of all power for a short period after use. Gaius Marius posted:I believe we see them deploy a sort of anti beam gas at some point, but my memory is failing at when. Other than that we finally see them adopting Beam Shields onto ships during the Zanscare era. The Federation use an anti-beam field at A Baoa Qu (it may have been used at Solomon too; I'm not sure), launching it from missiles carried by Public class ships; but it doesn't come up again until Unicorn. Gripweed posted:I believe at this point there were canonically over 100 Gundams before the Mk2. I believe there was maybe a dozen Gundams in the One Year War, bar the Ground Gundam; which there were about 30 of, but which was also more of a fancied up GM in some ways, and that there were only a handful (like the GP series) in the 6 years between the One Year War and the Gryps War. It's only if you start counting oddball things like Hidden Shadow of G, the ninja Gundam story, that things start to climb, so far as I know. Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:deploying a battleship scale I-field is all well and good until people start shooting you with nuclear bazookas and anti-ship rifles loaded with HEAT shells, neither of which is going to be stopped by an I-Field. That's kind of a silly argument, because you're basically going "it's not worth trying to protect yourself against incredibly common vectors of attack at all, just because other types of attack exist". It'd be like arguing soldiers needn't bother with body armor at all, because a mine will kill them anyway. Or that phase shift is useless after SEED, because it's all beams now. Just because other possible dangers exist doesn't mean it's not worth protecting against one common form. What might make it not worthwhile is the actual literal economic cost. I-fields were never common after all, but that's a different argument. Kanos posted:This might protect the ship from counterbattery fire but it will do nothing against a determined mobile suit attack; even if the mobile suits don't have kinetics to use(which is extremely unlikely, since up through at least CCA most suits had secondary grenades etc), they can pretty much just carve you like a pumpkin if your own defensive screen fails. It's also a lot more common for ships to shoot down physical ammunition like missiles or even grenades, because they travel slower and are more predictable than beams. The anime never bears out that i-fields are power or maintenance hogs either, since there's so few units that use them and they're never shown to be a problem on those units. I think the Big Zam, Neue Ziel, Dendrobium, Kshatriya, Unicorn units and Xi and Penelope are the only animated units to have i-fields, and the idea that any of them had power issues or required extensive maintenance due to it is solely from data books and the like, so far as I know. The Big Zam only launches at the tail end of Solomon in the anime because Dozle has no faith in it as a military platform before that point for instance, dismissing it as inferior to a squad of Rick Doms when he receives it and launches mostly to buy time for his men and his family once he realizes the battle is lost. The idea it only had 20 minutes of power is from Gundam Century, a data book released in 1981. tsob fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Mar 1, 2022 |
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Mar 1, 2022 21:20
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If we're at the point that people don't like Al I'm expecting some AGE Stan to show up. He is the entire emotional core of 0080, the show doesn't work without him.
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Mar 1, 2022 21:20
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ImpAtom posted:Chris turning Bernie into hamburger isn't as effective if nobody knows and having her know Bernie is in there drastically changes things. I agree Chris and Bernie knowing they're forced into a fight neither really wants would have drastically changed things, but not the ultimate message, and because they're adults they can actually appreciate the horror of the situation which only really dawns on Al after it's all done. Everything that 0080 accomplishes it can do without having us see it through a poo poo of a kid character, but that isn't the production choice they made. Gaius Marius posted:If we're at the point that people don't like Al I'm expecting some AGE Stan to show up. He is the entire emotional core of 0080, the show doesn't work without him. It could work just fine focusing on the actual actors with agency and giving them the connection to be exposed in the finish to tragic outcomes. We didn't need to have a lovely kid be the focus. My distaste for 0080 is well established at this point. It's okay that i don't connect with the lovely kid the way y'all do. He sucks, and his story is not as compelling to me as the one they told behind him. I would much rather see Chris and Bernie develop something that comes to a head instead of the "only the sad child knows the true tragedy of these events". I understand what 0080 is doing, i just dont like it. The Notorious ZSB fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Mar 1, 2022 |
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Mar 1, 2022 21:20
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tsob posted:I know that was what Char thought when he first witnesses it, but it's not really true. We see a Musai pierce through a colony in one shot with a volley of mega-particle beam cannons in the opening prologue of the first dozen episodes of the show, but the Gundam's beam rifle is never shown to penetrate a colony despite fighting in and around them mulitple times later in the show. I'd say the ZZ's high mega beam cannon is probably the first mobile suit mounted one that'd even be close to powerful enough to do that, and it was exceptionally powerful for it's time; draining the suit of all power for a short period after use. Even if we restrict ourselves to just OYW designed and/or built designs and not the full "before MK II" range that was the original parameters there's still definitely way over a dozen different Gundam designs during that conflict, with those parameters it probably goes over 30 or higher
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Mar 1, 2022 22:03
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Ok, what are they? Bear in mind, I was including the Ground Gundam myself; though whether you want to count it as one or dozens is up for debate. Cause as far as I know it's basically the RX-78-1 through RX-78-7, the Alex, the Pixy, the Ground Gundam and probably a few others. Some of them, like the Full Armor are variants that were either never actually produced or built off (or onto) existing frames too
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Mar 1, 2022 22:11
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What kind of story would 0080 be telling if you took the child's eye view out of it? Yeah you could make a compelling story, sure, but it wouldn't be 0080 without Al.
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Mar 1, 2022 22:31
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al sucks but his perspective is what makes 0080 great. his natural childhood escapism being twisted into something both heartwarming and tragic is the entire story gundam definitely could use more low-scale stories exploring adult characters though, i can see where the appeal of removing al comes from
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Mar 1, 2022 23:09
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It helps that the adults are often some of the most compelling supporting characters. But it's hard to justify it when a core tenet of the entire franchise is that adults are the enemy and the youth hold the fate of the future.
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Mar 1, 2022 23:24
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Yeah I feel like "the older generation are horrible fuckups who have foisted all their problems on upcoming generations with the care or effort to genuinely support them" is not something Gundam should be moving *away* from.
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Mar 1, 2022 23:33
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ninjewtsu posted:gundam definitely could use more low-scale stories exploring adult characters though, i can see where the appeal of removing al comes from This is why the best part of Hathaway's Flash was the sequence where they were trying to find a place to hide from the mecha fight.
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Mar 1, 2022 23:39
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah I feel like "the older generation are horrible fuckups who have foisted all their problems on upcoming generations with the care or effort to genuinely support them" is not something Gundam should be moving *away* from. i think you could still make this point with an adult protagonist
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Mar 2, 2022 01:30
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ninjewtsu posted:i think you could still make this point with an adult protagonist Not in the same way. And Al being a regular kid getting slammed with massive PTSD from peripheral involvement in the war has a lot more thematic weight than a regular soldier getting hit with the same thing. To put it simply, if unfairly, the soldier getting traumatized is just part of the job.
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Mar 2, 2022 01:46
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It really needs a child perspective because without it the whole conceit falls flat. It's the same old "a million is a statistic, one is a tragedy". Operation British is an appalling act but we cannot really comprehend billions of people dying in a month without our brains snapping like twigs. But we can watch a young guy like Yuki from Gundam Origin desperately crawling for help as he and his girlfriend succumb to a gas attack while Zeon murders his colony. Soldiers are just people, but the life of a soldier in the age of industrial warfare is so far removed from the experience of an everyday person, much less a child. Things soldiers are expected to do and deal with are unheard of in civilian life, so when that conflict comes to your doorstep, how do you process it? How does a child process it? That's the question that 0080 poses, and Al has to come to terms with the sheer gravity of the situation as his ignorance of the world is violently ripped away. Despite Gundam being anime, Side 6 has always been distinctly North American in every appearance. There's lots of media about children in wartime and their countries of origin definitely influence depictions. But American and Canadian children have never had to live under threat of firebombings, soldiers destroying their towns, killing their parents, and having their lives turned upside down by a conflict on their front step. Al's home is in the archetypal smalltown USA. Visually it's rather shocking seeing the war on the homefront. So it's not only a question of how a child perceives war, it's a question of how a child coded as American perceives war. And you get that with the naivety of Al and his friends arguing over who has cooler looking mobile suits, guns and uniforms, because Side 6 isn't a target. The war is far away. Side 6 is neutral, but those suits sure are cool. Oh, and now the school got blown up by a drunken Russian rear end in a top hat. Sweet, we get to go play! The juxtaposition between Al being a jerk kid with no clue what life has in store for him to a traumatized wreck hits harder with me because of its "what if?" elements depicting a war on north american soil and how that specifically would play with children who live under the American regime where war is just something that happens elsewhere. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Mar 2, 2022 |
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Mar 2, 2022 02:02
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I don’t care for Al but I wouldn’t want him removed. I liked his relationship with Bernie, I just think he was too much of a little poo poo until right near the end. The biggest weakness of Al is he is a cocky little poo poo and a liar when introduced. Makes it hard to root for him when he’s mean to everyone including his two friends. That said, Al is like seven so he gets a pass for being a cocky liar. Kids do that. It’s not unrealistic, and it does make for a good contrast to how he is at the end of the series. I also get that him not having a close relationship with his parents or his schoolmates makes his relationships with Christina and Bernie more significant. But he never endeared himself to me and I think his arc could have been done better. I wanted to like 0080 more than I did.
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Mar 2, 2022 02:06
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chiasaur11 posted:Not in the same way. And Al being a regular kid getting slammed with massive PTSD from peripheral involvement in the war has a lot more thematic weight than a regular soldier getting hit with the same thing. To put it simply, if unfairly, the soldier getting traumatized is just part of the job. to be clear, i'm talking about some hypothetical new gundam show and not changing 0080
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Mar 2, 2022 02:07
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Maybe I'm just thinking more on this now because of well, everything going on at the moment.
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Mar 2, 2022 02:15
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anime is a teen's world
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Mar 2, 2022 02:25
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Al would be fine if irritating because most children characters are if the ost wasn’t so mediocre and grating when he’s on screen.
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Mar 2, 2022 03:42
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PringleCreamEgg posted:I don’t care for Al but I wouldn’t want him removed. I liked his relationship with Bernie, I just think he was too much of a little poo poo until right near the end. The biggest weakness of Al is he is a cocky little poo poo and a liar when introduced. Makes it hard to root for him when he’s mean to everyone including his two friends. He's around ten. That said, it's pretty clear he's acting out at first because he's afraid that his parents are going to get a divorce. It leads into a nice bit of irony towards the end, where he gets the good news that dad is coming back home... right as home is going to be annihilated in atomic fire.
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Mar 2, 2022 04:56
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Adult protagonists I think genuinely make Gundam hard to tell in a way that feels distinctly Gundam. You can make it work with sidestories or backstories being fleshed out but at its heart Gundam is always about the consequences to the next generation from the previous ones because that is one of the most central ideas of what makes Gundam Gundam, like how music and its impact on people is a central part of what makes Macross Macross. Yeah, you can have an adult protagonist, but if you're doing that you still need the younger cast around and being active or else it loses something. Even for something like CCA where Amuro and Char are adults, a massive part of the story is dedicated to how their war is impacting the next generation. And there it only really works (insomuch as it does) because Amuro and Char are established characters we saw grow from teenagers into adults, with Char seeming poised to commit the same mistakes and same abuses that lead to him. It doesn't matter what Gundam show you are talking about, that is the connecting thread. You can frame it as "adults suck" but at its heart it is about the next generation dealing with the damage of the previous. Even the wild and out there franchises cling to this. G Gundam? All about the next generation having to deal with the massive number of environmental wreckage left behind by their predecessors, best embodied in the form of a desperate attempt to fix Earth's ruined atmosphere being turned into a literal devil. Gundam AGE? Literally follows a plucky young youth as he devolves into Grandpa Warcrimes. IBO? Oh you better believe it. I also think the big concern with an adult protagonist is that it tends to have viewers put younger characters in the role of "annoying/useless child" which is like the opposite of the message Gundam focuses on, which again is "We are forcing a lovely world onto these young people, here is the horrors we inflict on them and how they try to deal with it." You can find the protagonists annoying or childish or ridiculous but at the end of the day it needs to be their story for it to work. IBO could star adults but it doesn't work if Mika is a full grown adult, or at least not in the same way. Same for Setsuna and 00, or Loran and Turn-A, or hell even Kira in SEED. Even batshit insane Wing is focused around insane young people having to deal with the hosed up world they were forced into. That isn't to say you can't make a Gundam starring an adult. There are plenty of sidestory manga that are. But a lot of them just feel like they're missing something and at the end of the day if you're interested in telling a story that doesn't focus around the younger generation, maybe Gundam isn't the right choice of franchise.
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Mar 2, 2022 06:22
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Otto's speech in Unicorn is a good thesis statement on Gundam for that reason.
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Mar 2, 2022 07:13
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ImpAtom posted:I also think the big concern with an adult protagonist is that it tends to have viewers put younger characters in the role of "annoying/useless child" which is like the opposite of the message Gundam focuses on, which again is "We are forcing a lovely world onto these young people, here is the horrors we inflict on them and how they try to deal with it." You can find the protagonists annoying or childish or ridiculous but at the end of the day it needs to be their story for it to work. IBO could star adults but it doesn't work if Mika is a full grown adult, or at least not in the same way. Same for Setsuna and 00, or Loran and Turn-A, or hell even Kira in SEED. Even batshit insane Wing is focused around insane young people having to deal with the hosed up world they were forced into. Loran is an adult, though. Yes, he's underage by modern standards, but in the world of the show, he's explicitly a member of adult society, with the privileges and responsibilities attached. He has a job (more than one of them!), a voice in war councils (even if he's still often ignored), and is expected to handle his own business. Hell, he had his coming of age ceremony two years late. That was kind of a thing for all of the 90s Gundam shows, really. While you dismiss Gundam starring adults as something for "sidestory manga", all the 90s Gundams after Victory had some trace of the idea. Stardust Memory, 08th MS Team, and G are the most up front about it with their age-of-majority protagonists (19 for Kou, 20 for Domon, and 23 for Shiro), but Turn A, Wing, and X carry more than a little of the same DNA. In all three of those shows, the protagonist's ages were just a number. They may be teenagers (Heero even attended school!) but these were adult professionals with training and experience when we first met them, given explicit missions and the equipment needed to carry it out. Where the White Base crew, and even Kamille, get emphasis on how this isn't what kids should be doing, Wing and X just kind of assume it's rad to send cool 90s teens to get things done. SEED continues the trend. Where Amuro was a kid going against adults, Kira's opponents are a trained, elite commando unit... of people his age. It's not some shocking thing that young teenagers are being drafted, a sign of the cruelty of the age. It's just kind of what people do. (Contrast with Cyclops team, where Bernie was unbelievably raw new meat at nineteen.) Gundam almost always has teen protagonists, and it often gestures at adults being the worst, but the protagonists being qualitatively different from the baseline of soldiers is unevenly applied. (Also, I'm not going into depth here because this post is running long already, but Iron Blooded Orphans is really interesting in its handling of youth and maturity in a way that contrasts with the series baseline.)
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Mar 2, 2022 07:13
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Nevermind I don't like how I wrote this post.
Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Mar 2, 2022 |
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Mar 2, 2022 07:22
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The core characters don't need to be children for the theme of the next generation inheriting the ghosts and curses of the prior ones and how do they try to move beyond it. Yes thats an easy way to frame it quickly, but it is absolutely not a requirement. 0080 is even a great example, Chris and Bernie are both very young and there are plenty of older "veterans" who can be the old view they are stuck between and ultimately forced into tragic conflict by (it's kinda what happens anyway). 08th MS Team is another one, you have characters that come to not subscribe to the old thinking/their training & orders, and fight against it for the "war is bad" outcome. It does not need them to be literal children for it to have impact and the larger themes to be represented. Shiro has that exact same growth pattern as most Gundam protags and he is not a child, but he is a naive and that may be the more necessary quality for someone in the core cast of most Gundam series, so they can outgrow it and ultimately fight for their own vision for the world. Domon, Loran, not children. Gundam has plenty of adult protags and those still get the core message across. The Notorious ZSB fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Mar 2, 2022 |
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Mar 2, 2022 17:12
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More gundam shows with protagonists like domon please
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Mar 2, 2022 17:17
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Yeah I was going to say that "features children/teenagers" is not a hard and fast requirement for illustrating a story about conflict between generations. G Gundam is the big standout because every single important character in the show except Sai Sici is an adult, but it slams on the "the older generations have constructed a magnificent poo poo sandwich for the current generation" gas pedal with both feet. You could have done a show like IBO's themes fairly closely with everyone being an adult. You'd lose the grimdark shock factor of "literal children being enslaved, cyborged up and used as cannon fodder slaves", but a world where young adults have no future hope or prospects in a system that exists to grind them to paste so their only option is to sell themselves as cannon fodder isn't far behind.
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Mar 2, 2022 20:12
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Wouldn't mind another show like G* where the whole "war sucks" aspect of the franchise isn't exactly missing, but it's a secondary or even tertiary theme at best in terms of importance and prominence *that isn't a Gunpla series
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Mar 2, 2022 22:08
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Loran is 17. He is not an adult. I don't think I need to explain why "but in his culture" doesn't qualify there. You can wave your hands at Bernie or Kou but they are *19*. They are only adults in the most technical sense. When people talk about adult protagonists they are not usually referring to 19 year olds and it feels massively disingenuous to say they are.
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Mar 2, 2022 22:31
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I think the preponderance of teenagers as a stand in for the next generation that inherits the currents problems are also thrown into stark relief by the political awareness of the 2010s and now 2020s that we're experiencing the cracks in a foundation laid by people three to four generations back. Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z have all inherited issues baked into the fabric of society by Baby Boomers. They largely have had little opportunity to break this mold because the oldest generation is still firmly entrenched in the power structure, so you have a cohort of people between 12 and 50 years old all struggling with problems that are sourced from a bunch of octogenarians. This starts getting deep into political science and survivorship bias. Why are the boomers like this? Because the working class ones all died and left the capitalist ghouls to entrench themselves. But it also means that older viewers are looking at teenagers and children and going "these are my problems too, why are we trusting the solution to teens? And furthermore, why is it alluding to the fact that I'm part of the problem!?" Gundam could actually stand to be a bit more explicit in that the problems that adults create are in part caused by the fact that the people who know better all get killed by the previous cohort.
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Mar 2, 2022 22:54
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ImpAtom posted:Loran is 17. He is not an adult. I don't think I need to explain why "but in his culture" doesn't qualify there. You can wave your hands at Bernie or Kou but they are *19*. They are only adults in the most technical sense. When people talk about adult protagonists they are not usually referring to 19 year olds and it feels massively disingenuous to say they are. honestly even Domon is a stretch given his immaturity, even if it's something he works on over the course of the series
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Mar 2, 2022 23:14
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Personally I think chiasaur11 was on the right track here. Heero Yuy might be 15 but this number means nothing to the narrative and how the narrative frames things is what really matters in discussion like this. I've had way too many people try to say "Final Fantasy VIII is a deep critique of child soldiers." No it's not, it's about a 17-year-old who goes to cool military high school. There is absolutely no further thought put into it than that. For JRPGs, a common joke is "take their listed age and add 10 years." It works here, too. Heero would not change one lick if you made him 25. The only thing that would be lost is he'd be outside the target demo for Gundam. In at least some Gundams, it does seem very much like the numbers are just that, numbers. They don't really impact the characters at all.
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Mar 2, 2022 23:57
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You say that like the numbers for people's height in IBO doesn't matter. Some of those Martian kids are hitting NBA heights.
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Mar 2, 2022 23:59
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I'm just here chewing on the fact that the oldest protagonist in a 'main' Gundam series is the one from the first show to just try being a shonen anime.
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Mar 3, 2022 00:02
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NikkolasKing posted:Personally I think chiasaur11 was on the right track here. Heero Yuy might be 15 but this number means nothing to the narrative and how the narrative frames things is what really matters in discussion like this. I've had way too many people try to say "Final Fantasy VIII is a deep critique of child soldiers." No it's not, it's about a 17-year-old who goes to cool military high school. There is absolutely no further thought put into it than that. FF8 literally had scenes where Cid regrets using children as soldiers.
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Mar 3, 2022 00:04
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NikkolasKing posted:I've had way too many people try to say "Final Fantasy VIII is a deep critique of child soldiers." No it's not, it's about a 17-year-old who goes to cool military high school. There is absolutely no further thought put into it than that. lmao what
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Mar 3, 2022 00:07
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The blonde kid with the gun blades whole deal was that he was still working off a child's framework and so tried to become a sort of knight like in a fairytale. And the juxtaposition between Rinoa's childlike idea of being a soldier contrasted to the more serious conception held by Squall and the Seedlings
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Mar 3, 2022 00:08
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ImpAtom posted:Loran is 17. He is not an adult. I don't think I need to explain why "but in his culture" doesn't qualify there. You can wave your hands at Bernie or Kou but they are *19*. They are only adults in the most technical sense. When people talk about adult protagonists they are not usually referring to 19 year olds and it feels massively disingenuous to say they are. Ok fine I want more "young adult" protagonists where "why isn't this guy in school instead" isn't a question
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Mar 3, 2022 00:20
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ImpAtom posted:FF8 literally had scenes where Cid regrets using children as soldiers. The narrative doesn't. Cid is never presented as anything but a nice guy. (even as he flees and leaves his students to die but ya know) And of course we have to overlook how FFVIII is all about a stable timeloop where Cid and Edea always knew they would have to raise Squall to kill Ultimecia. Even the protagonists themselves are like 'so what? GFs take my memories? Whatever. I get to kill things." But that is all rather immaterial I'd say. The presentation is the key and Balamb Garden is never once seen as a bad thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1hePBCcJ3o There's just little kids running around, a library where folks study, a hidden make out point.... Contrast with Galbadia Garden which actually looks like a military institute as opposed to a standard high school.
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Mar 3, 2022 00:21
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FF8 in general is a game that has a lot of things that could be themes, but never really comments on them so much as just... has them. It could be a game about child soldiers, just like how it could be a game about time travel. But instead it's just a game WITH child soldiers and time travel. Still a really neat game, but not one that really knows how to have meaning.
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Mar 3, 2022 00:28
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Yeah this isn't the place for deep dives into FFVIII. I was just trying to draw a parallel with Gundam Wing. Wing does have critiques and themes it's trying to explore substantively but I don't think child soldiers is among them. We ourselves can critique child soldiers in Wing or FFVIII or anything else but that's a different matter. Specifically in the case of Heero, if he was a 25-year-old who was raised as a child soldier, not too much would really change in terms of his issues or how he tries to deal with them.
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Mar 3, 2022 00:40
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