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What’s the most anti-war Gundam series? Is it War in the Pocket?
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Dec 26, 2022 09:52
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Steve Yun posted:What’s the most anti-war Gundam series? Is it War in the Pocket? It depends on how you define anti-war. In general, Gundam thinks war sucks, but it also accepts that it's sometimes a necessary evil. War in the Pocket might be the most tragic, but if I had to pick the most anti-war... maybe I'd go with Stargazer? The war in the pocket is good people trying to do the right thing, but the nature of war and the involvement of bad people higher in the chain means it's all a tragic waste of human life. Stargazer, meanwhile, is human bitterness and cruelty trying to destroy something beautiful, with the heroine's greatest victory being forgiving an enemy rather than killing him. But again, it depends on your definitions, and how much show you want.
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Dec 26, 2022 10:56
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0080 is the series that addresses the "Wow! cool robot!" issue most directly
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Dec 26, 2022 11:36
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I think Gundam does fit pretty well the "ambiguity of violence" thing that François Truffaut gets at in his interview where his "there's no such thing as an anti-war film" comes from.
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Dec 26, 2022 15:45
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chiasaur11 posted:It depends on how you define anti-war. It was pointed out to me a while back that the character with the most principled anti-war view in '79 is probably Amuro's mother, and while she's shown very sympatheticly, it's not surprising that Amuro isn't receptive to her.
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Dec 26, 2022 15:59
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thunderbolt is probably the most focused on how fighting in a war will twist your basic humanity against you in a nonstop congaline of suffering, but has a lot less focus on the broader politics of whether war is justified or not (its approach is more "the people who get to make that decision aren't the ones who will be suffering for it, so does it really matter?"). war in the pocket is going to be the one with the most to say about how the pop culture perception of war leaves civilian individuals tragically unprepared for what war actually entails. 0079 probably has the most attention paid to how war is conducted and perpetuates itself but is also probably one of the more "justified" wars (at least from the federation's end). idk. every gundam is fundamentally about war and at least attempts to be a pretty complex discussion on it and its effects. hard to measure "most" without defining what anti-war specifically means to you. does it mean war is never justified? does it mean war fundamentally solves nothing? does it mean there are always better alternatives that should be sought after instead? does it mean war really really sucks to experience? like if you wanna discuss whether or not pacificism is a good alternative i'm not sure many gundams delve into that nearly as much as gundam wing does but i'd also certainly hesitate to call gundam wing "the most anti-war" ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 17:51
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it's simple, really. pacifism is what you do when your assassination attempt against your father's killer fails.
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Dec 26, 2022 18:01
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Schwarzwald posted:It was pointed out to me a while back that the character with the most principled anti-war view in '79 is probably Amuro's mother, and while she's shown very sympatheticly, it's not surprising that Amuro isn't receptive to her. Not really. Amuro’s mom isn’t anti-war, she’s conflict avoidant, she hates seeing violence happen but she has absolutely no ideological, political, or practical answer to stop it from coming about. She scolds amuro for killing the two zeon soldiers inspecting the camp but has no answer when he points out that if he hadn’t shot them, they’d have probably killed him without a second thought.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:06
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i think it'd be accurate to say she's a pacifist who hasn't thought it through much at all, but has strong moral opinions on it anyway
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Dec 26, 2022 21:13
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Thanks for the feedback. To be honest I hadn’t thought much of the term “anti-war” beyond “war bad” so I guess I have something to chew on Guess it’s time to check out Thunderbolt!
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Dec 26, 2022 21:13
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Is Layzner worth checking out?
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Dec 26, 2022 21:14
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Steve Yun posted:Thanks for the feedback. To be honest I hadn’t thought much of the term “anti-war” beyond “war bad” so I guess I have something to chew on december sky is excellent and a nice, hour-long fairly self contained story this is because it's effectively a prologue to a larger story, which bandit flower is part 1 of [who knows] on there is no animated follow up to bandit flower and at this rate seems unlikely there ever will be. so you can stop at december sky satisfied with what you have or continue on to bandit flower for a story you won't see the rest of without reading the manga.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:22
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ninjewtsu posted:december sky is excellent and a nice, hour-long fairly self contained story the manga is really really good.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:24
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ninjewtsu posted:i think it'd be accurate to say she's a pacifist who hasn't thought it through much at all, but has strong moral opinions on it anyway Yes, I should have been more specific in my wording. I'm mostly in agreement with Babysitter Super Sleuth. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 21:30
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Arc Hammer posted:Is Layzner worth checking out? The story takes a pretty interesting turn in the second half, but I wouldn’t say the overall show is great. The opening does rock though.
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Dec 26, 2022 22:16
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I'll put out the Prologue to The Witch From Mercury as having some interesting takes on "war sucks". It's got a big speech against autonomous weapons intercut with a 4-year old bonding with a Gundam, blowing up some mobile suits, and laughing at the fireworks. Meanwhile the kid's father is sacrificing himself so his wife and child can escape. Very hosed up in combination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGW2JRxWUU The actual series is, through six episodes, more of a high school with MS duels show, but at least it's good at that.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:04
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Ethiser posted:The story takes a pretty interesting turn in the second half, but I wouldn’t say the overall show is great. The opening does rock though. Yeah Layzner has issues but you can definitely see why SRW likes using it a lot(beyond it being a Sunrise series that is probably very cheap to get the rights to)
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Dec 27, 2022 01:22
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I think Layzner sucks pretty bad. The first half of the show sets up an interesting premise and a clear goal for the protagonists(survive and get word of the alien invasion to Earth so they can prepare for it), but is hampered by Eiji being one of the most awful battle pacifists I've ever seen in an anime. Even when confronted by Gostello, a literal convicted mass murderer who delights in torturing people to death, he refuses to fight - even when Gostello is going to shoot a bunch of children. This leads to a bunch of awkward bits where Eiji has to get knocked out or disabled so the Layzner's AI can take over and do the fighting for him, which sucks. This pattern continues until the end of the first part, where it's revealed that it's too late and the invasion already happened so the whole goal of the first half was pointless. Whoops! The second half gives us a huge time skip and what amounts to a completely new setting, alien occupied Earth. Eiji is a guerilla and has a cast of guerilla buddies fighting largely disconnected-from-the-overall-plot guerilla resistance missions against the occupation. This part introduces a better rival for Eiji than Gostello in Ru Kain, the smarmy smug alien prince. The show does a decent job setting up an Eiji/Ru Kain rivalry and builds up to them having a climactic final battle...and then the show just kind of ends because they ran out of budget.
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Dec 27, 2022 02:29
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Arc Hammer posted:Is Layzner worth checking out? I'm with Kanos here. I saw the OVA version, so I can't provide a full verdict, but the character work is thin, the plot doesn't hold together well, and the basic dynamic of the fights makes them inherently less interesting than even weaker Gundam shows. It's got some cool designs, but overall it's not very good.
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Dec 27, 2022 02:34
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True the best way to experience Layzner besides playing one of the SRW or ACE games it's included in is probably just watching this MAD of the opening; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rDLigCs0xI
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Dec 27, 2022 02:42
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:Not really. Amuro’s mom isn’t anti-war, she’s conflict avoidant, she hates seeing violence happen but she has absolutely no ideological, political, or practical answer to stop it from coming about. She scolds amuro for killing the two zeon soldiers inspecting the camp but has no answer when he points out that if he hadn’t shot them, they’d have probably killed him without a second thought. I always saw that scene, that episode, as much more condemnatory of Kamaria Ray than celebratory of her. She's portrayed as naive and irrational, willing to claim that she hates her son for defending himself and others. It's also, to me, a bit loving rich to have the reading of "Zeon invaded earth and did a ton of warcrimes, but these feddie soldiers are drunk, so Kamaria is right to condemn Amuro for killing Zeon soldiers in self defense" be a thing.
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Dec 27, 2022 04:42
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Fivemarks posted:I always saw that scene, that episode, as much more condemnatory of Kamaria Ray than celebratory of her. She's portrayed as naive and irrational, willing to claim that she hates her son for defending himself and others. As brought up in the Gundam thread a little while ago in response to the ongoing Gundam Pulitzer manga (which is quite good), Kamaria Ray really was a lovely parent. The manga tries to paint it as a tragedy and that the wore tore them apart, but reading between the lines it was completely her own inaction that alienated herself from her son. It's been implied very strongly a couple of times (and basically flat out confirmed in that manga) that she was having an affair and that might've been a big reason she separated from her family and stayed behind on earth, and G Pulitzer says she made no effort to get in touch with her son after the war. Amuro sent her a letter after the OYW and by her own account in G-Pulitzer Kamaria sat on it and did absolutely nothing with it. No wonder Amuro wrote her off after Gundam 79. As for Layzner, one of the somewhat interesting things about it is that Eiji is just not a very good pilot in the scheme of things, and is certainly nowhere near good enough to try and pull the technical pacifism he's aiming for. In theory it's possibly interesting to have an idealistic protagonist who just can't measure up to the kind of convictions he wants to hold himself to, but the show doesn't really make use of it well and it just grates. Really its greatest legacies are one or two SRW appearances and a shoutout in SaGa Frontier. Omnicrom fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Dec 27, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 06:48
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drrockso20 posted:True the best way to experience Layzner besides playing one of the SRW or ACE games it's included in is probably just watching this MAD of the opening; I love when SRW includes more obscure series, doubly so if they're rad as hell, but then you go back and watch the series and it's nowhere near as good. See also: a lot of the brave series which can lend themselves to really fun interactions, but just don't always hold up.
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Dec 27, 2022 08:13
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The Brave series with the best characters (Da Garn) isn't actually in SRW yet.
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Dec 27, 2022 08:17
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Speaking of: have the Brave Saga games ever gotten any kind of fan translation?
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Dec 27, 2022 08:25
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Fivemarks posted:I always saw that scene, that episode, as much more condemnatory of Kamaria Ray than celebratory of her. She's portrayed as naive and irrational, willing to claim that she hates her son for defending himself and others. Yeah, uh, I have no idea how anyone could watch that episode and assume the show is trying to paint Amuro's mom and her opinions in a positive light. Tomino's Gundam is very consistent about war sucking rear end but it being 100% necessary and good for people to use violence to fight back against shitheads.
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Dec 27, 2022 10:59
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Dec 27, 2022 16:51
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https://twitter.com/VoltesVLegacy/status/1609224839906168833
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Jan 1, 2023 18:29
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That's the one being made in the Philippines that's doing that odd half English half Tagalog acting right?
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Jan 1, 2023 22:11
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Why does everyone in VOTOMS have huge dump trucks
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Jan 2, 2023 06:56
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It'll probably end up better than any recent attempt at doing a new Voltron.
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Jan 2, 2023 07:19
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Watched giant robo. It's...fine? Visually it's cool but the story and characters was kinda poor for how much it wants me to care for the ipo side.
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Jan 12, 2023 14:23
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https://youtu.be/UBr2d-rSbAo
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Jan 22, 2023 20:20
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mildly NWS https://twitter.com/faiththegemini/status/1620668914425532416
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Feb 3, 2023 05:12
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What I'm looking for might not exist. And no Votoms and Dougram, please. I like both but I'm looking for something new. I'd like a show or a manga where the protagonist pilots a mecha that isn't a super death machine. Where they're part of a crew rather than a chosen one. Where the suits are chunky Kunio Okawara style heavily military rather than spindle legs and backpack wings. Where it's a conflict between nations with messy politics that are mostly irrelevant to the experiences of the characters. Where the characters are adults rather than kids. I don't think there's an anime out there that really covers this kind of storytelling (Voctoms excluded), so I'll take any manga recommendations where things can hopefully get some more variety. Looking for a real robot mecha war story that rejects almost all of the conventions of a genre made for 10-16 year olds is a very narrow pool.
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Feb 5, 2023 20:17
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Arc Hammer posted:What I'm looking for might not exist. And no Votoms and Dougram, please. I like both but I'm looking for something new. Is this where you tell us that 08th MS Team is the only 'good' Gundam because its 'Realistic'? But seriously, try Argevollen for a bit of that. There's also a bunch of stuff that also falls into it from the 90's, such as (arguably) Blue Gender and Gasaraki, but there's also the Front Mission Games, and FLAG from the 2000's. Fivemarks fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Feb 5, 2023 |
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Feb 5, 2023 20:33
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See the Gundam thread for my thoughts on 08th MS Team. I saw Garasaki because I enjoyed Votoms, it was alright. Blue Gender sucked, and I couldn't get into FLAG, even though it felt pretty close to what I was looking for. I might try out Argevollen, it's worth a shot. I guess an easier way to describe it would be to take a setting that typically doesn't involve mecha and apply a mecha portion to it. Like how Metal Gear Solid does espionage and then you get a walking tank, or how Ghost in the Shell does cyberpunk that occasionally crosses over with military mecha hardware. It's part of those settings, sometimes even a big part of it like Metal Gear. Like the opening of Patlabor 2. I could watch an entire series built around that kind of "mecha as a tank platoon in Laos" depiction, but as far as I know, nothing else quite like that scene exists in a full series format.
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Feb 5, 2023 21:17
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Heavy Object is pretty middling overall, but the worldbuilding concept is good - the mecha("Objects") in the show are basically titanic 100m+ nonhumanoid land battleships rather than 20m humanoids, they're so powerful that it's generally accepted doctrine that only other Object can defeat an Object, and they're so expensive that generally a country can only afford to assign one Object to a particular combat theater. The initial hook is that the protagonist and his sidekick are poor bloody infantry who are forced into a bad situation where they need to figure out how to take down an Object without friendly Object support.
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Feb 5, 2023 21:29
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Arc Hammer posted:What I'm looking for might not exist. And no Votoms and Dougram, please. I like both but I'm looking for something new. Xabungle meets most of those qualities, but not from the direction you’re thinking
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Feb 5, 2023 21:32
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OBSOLETE, maybe? They're more power suits than giant mecha.
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Feb 5, 2023 21:36
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