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I can't get behind that read. 0079 is an explicit and direct critique of Imperial Japan and its actions in the war, and Tominio's series at least continue that line of thought to the post-war victors and how they fell into the same traps as the vanquished fascist regimes. On top of that, Tomino's Zeon is pretty inept at the actual business of prosecuting a war. Like, a lot of the historiography you're describing was certainly present in Western literature, though not the only viewpoint represented in the field. While it can seem like there were some of the same traits in Japanese historiography, that's largely a function of the entirety of the Western analysis of Japanese research and writing stemming from one dickhead's book that had been originally published in Japan in the early 50's. The LDP makes a big show of going to Yasakuni shrine, but that's because they're a bunch of rightist assholes themselves, and shouldn't be construed as representative of the majority opinion of a country for fifty-odd years. The Japanese corpus, especially by the Vietnam era when Tominio would have been writing, had published plenty of work criticizing the Imperial regime. The problem is when the franchise got away from him. Like, don't mistake me as being all in on Tomino, 'cause dude's got problems, but accidentally lionizing fascists isn't one of 'em. Even then, Zeon doesn't come out smelling like roses in most of the mainline UC works until at earliest the 90s with 0083, and I would argue more properly in the 2000s, when IGLOO comes around and keeps doing the Dr. Strangelove compulsive heil gesture. And by that time, there was a hell of a lot of researching taking an enormous poo poo all over the kind of Ambrosian history you're describing. That also isn't to say there wasn't side material from the jump that went "hurf, glorious Zeonic
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Jan 26, 2023 06:25
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A month back someone posted that really good video on how Tomino, Fukui and Ohtagaki use the Federation to portray imperialism in different ways. I haven't read all of Thunderbolt but I thought it was very interesting in how it's view of the Federation is heavily inspired by Vietnam imagery and the various US-led NATO excursions throughout the Cold War. Just plant a giant symbol of Federation power over a local culture and let the visual metaphor speak for itself.
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Jan 26, 2023 06:33
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Fivemarks posted:But you don't just get it, Norris is an ace and the 08th Team are just regular pilots because an Ace is just so much better! This is all bullshit. You've decided a conclusion and attempted to work backwards unto it in a very poor fashion. We do see Federation aces by the score for instance, in Tomino series there's a cat you may have heard of called Amuro, he's sorta a big deal, but also peeps like Kayra and Yazan. And non Tomino series flesh it out moreso with Burning, The Tri Stars, Io. Saying that criticism of the federation is tantamount to regression to a previous fascist ideal is a false dichotomy that denies the agency of robust democracy that post war Japan should and sort of does have. To say that rejection of the Federation/US world order is a call for fascist ideals is absurd, Tomino gundam especially goes to great lengths to call for a non polar pandemocratic world, consider the lengths it goes to insure that it's characters are not named with traditionally Japanese names, or the lengths it goes to show that Colony independence is not wrong but totalitarianist rule is. Let us consider the role of totalitarian ideology in Tominian gundam, Zeon, Zanscare, The Titans, Haman's Neo Zeon all fall into civil war because of their ideological basis is purely measured on strength. Meanwhile the Unipolar, Oligarchical rule of the Federation vacillates between rotting to it's core, and slowly sloughing off it's periphery because of it's inability to serve it's constituents, and turning to bribes and kowtowing to fascistical groups to ensure its own survival e.g. Neo Zeon, The Titans. The only positive portrayals of government we see in Tominian gundam is in Reco and Turn A, and both are based on mutual respect and interlocution between the disparate groups comprising humanity.
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Jan 26, 2023 07:00
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this is like the only post fivemarks makes in this thread only it's 3 times longer this time around
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Jan 26, 2023 07:02
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I don't think the problem is with anything Tomino has made, mind you. I'd lay any real problems with this sort of, well, Zeonwank at the hands of the people who wrote stuff like 0083. Note that I never said that Tomino was working from a fascist worldview or has fascist ideals or aims- he was just working off the same (bad) historiography that everyone at that time Period was working on, which is how we ended up with all sorts of myths about Nazi Germany being commonly accepted in the mainstream- stuff like how ADVANCED Nazi Science was, or just HOW GOOD AT WAR the Nazis were. I don't even think Tomino is bad about his ideals. Its later authors who don't really get what Tomino was going for and talk about stuff like the "Light of Zeon" and deliberately heighten the connection between Zeon and the Axis powers while going "no Zeon are the good guys they're noble and tragic" who I think are dogshit. Edit: Maybe its easier to talk about specific gundam series instead of Gundam as a whole? grassy gnoll posted:I can't get behind that read. 0079 is an explicit and direct critique of Imperial Japan and its actions in the war, and Tominio's series at least continue that line of thought to the post-war victors and how they fell into the same traps as the vanquished fascist regimes. On top of that, Tomino's Zeon is pretty inept at the actual business of prosecuting a war. Like, this? This I agree with, absolutely. I Think my take away from gundam is "When Gundam is a critique of fascism and imperialism, its good. When people start using Gundam to glorify fascism, and imperialism, its bad." Which is why I don't really like a lot of the more popular 'non mainline" Gundam works and spinoffs set in the Universal Century and One Year War. Tomino absolutely critiques imperial japan and says without subtextt "This poo poo sucks yo." But then you have later series not written by him in the 90's and it starts slipping away and away, and as you get into more spinoffs and side stories and games and MS IGLOO, it just goes full on into, well, We've seen MS IGLOO. Edit Edit: I should have been more clear. You can absolutely criticize the post war relationship between Japan and the US without being a fascist, and its absolutely the kind of relationship that should be criticized to at least some degree. But you can also totally have criticisms that come at it from a more "wow this criticism seems sorta fashy" way- but that's not the way, in general, Gundam does it. I mean you could kinda squint at SEED and see ORB as an idealized Japan that don't need no-superpower and is one on its own, while also keeping its pacifism and neutrality and not being drawn into America's foreign wars. Fivemarks fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 07:04
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what parts of 0079 do you think are about how the nazis are good at warFivemarks posted:I don't even think Tomino is bad about his ideals. Its later authors who don't really get what Tomino was going for and talk about stuff like the "Light of Zeon" and deliberately heighten the connection between Zeon and the Axis powers while going "no Zeon are the good guys they're noble and tragic" who I think are dogshit. i'm pretty sure those works are reasonably critical of "the light of zeon" and the idea that for these splinter factions zeon grew to a mythological status with tons of desperate hopes pinned to it for lack of another symbol. which is you know part of how how irl fascism festers. also i feel like we've had the "depicting some zeon characters as sympathetic is a more complex discussion of fascism than 'shoot 'em all and feel nothing' and does not actually represent pro-fascism themes" conversation before
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Jan 26, 2023 07:13
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Char becomes a Zeon to kill five Zabis and he only takes down two himself. The rest end up killing each other.
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Jan 26, 2023 07:15
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I dont think tomino was even really going for that "stronk German engineering" misconception if you really want to break it down. The Zaku 1 and 2 are analogous to the Mitsubishi A5M and A6M airplanes more than German designs and they do about as well as those planes did: terrifying at first and then woefully outdated once the Allies/Feddies learned how to fight them. If anything the Zeon to German comparisons more or less follow what we now commonly accept about their manufacturing. They can and do build some really good machines and then immediately find ways to screw them up by trying to build wunderweapon nonsense designs. So many Zeon mobile armors are these supposed war ending doomsday devices and then they get crushed in their very first deployments. The Doms and Gelgoogs are these super scary new mass production suits that end up being complete shitshows thanks to poor pilots, production limits and underpowered armaments for non-beam using machines. You can talk all you want about your super Zeon aces but a Gelgoog will be poo poo if you strap a scared 14 year old into the cockpit and shove a manual into his hand.
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Jan 26, 2023 07:15
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Fivemarks posted:I don't think the problem is with anything Tomino has made, mind you. I'd lay any real problems with this sort of, well, Zeonwank at the hands of the people who wrote stuff like 0083. i think you should give specific examples of the things you are talking about, especially examples that aren't igloo
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Jan 26, 2023 07:16
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Arc Hammer posted:I dont think tomino was even really going for that "stronk German engineering" misconception if you really want to break it down. The Zaku 1 and 2 are analogous to the Mitsubishi A5M and A6M airplanes more than German designs and they do about as well as those planes did: terrifying at first and then woefully outdated once the Allies/Feddies learned how to fight them. i feel like all of this is a very frequently recurring topic of this thread so it's weird to see it glossed over by fivemarks in favor of general "gundam is about how awesome nazi science is" complaints almost makes me question if this conversation is being started in good faith!
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Jan 26, 2023 07:18
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ninjewtsu posted:what parts of 0079 do you think are about how the nazis are good at war I figure that you can absolutely read Zeon's lightning Blitzkrieg attack on Earth, if you squint at it, as being "MAN THE NAZIS WERE GREAT AT WAR" if you didn't look at the subtext and also text saying "Zeon's Blitzkrieg basically exhausted them of resources and didn't achieve their war aims." You can also totally have antagonists and characters who are on the "Wrong Side" be sympathetic without it also going "By showing these characters being good people, we endorse Fascism". Look at Ramba Ral, or, hell, even Char "II never betrayed anyone in my entire life" Aznable. But then where do characters like Anavel Gato lie in that? Are we meant to be sympathetic to him? Because I watch 0083 and he seems like a crazy space nazi who won't admit the war is over.
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Jan 26, 2023 07:19
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Fivemarks posted:I figure that you can absolutely read Zeon's lightning Blitzkrieg attack on Earth, if you squint at it, as being "MAN THE NAZIS WERE GREAT AT WAR" if you didn't look at the subtext and also text saying "Zeon's Blitzkrieg basically exhausted them of resources and didn't achieve their war aims." how did the real life nazi blitzkrieg go, and how did that differ from this? i haven't seen 0083 and everything i've seen of it gives me a very low impression of its writing so probably fair cop there? i don't think that criticism is accurate to unicorn, thunderbolt, or hathaway though
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Jan 26, 2023 07:21
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ninjewtsu posted:how did the real life nazi blitzkrieg go, and how did that differ from this? Yeah that's super on point. I know I'm like, super tough on Gundam, but I really do love most of the franchise. Some of the franchise. But I dunno, there's lots of stuff in the works not made by Tomino that seem pretty hosed up to me. But on actual like, retrospection? Most of my complaints are about shows that are generally considered not good. Maybe I should talk more about stuff I like, like how Graham Aker is a huge badass who actually damages a gundam and forces it to run away while in a non-gundam mobile suit in Gundam 00. Or how just cozy Turn A Gundam could feel at times, and how you really felt this tension that another war could ruin everything for people, especially once the nukes show up.
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Jan 26, 2023 07:25
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ninjewtsu posted:what parts of 0079 do you think are about how the nazis are good at war Extending that, while Zeon serves as a symbol for Spacenoid independence, it is mostly just as a resort to the last thing that stood a chance at fighting the Federation, when Cosmo Babylon gained enough wealth to create their own cult symbol and ideology people were just fine to follow it, even unto exile after it's defeat. Likewise when Maria comes into the focus for her abilities she is immediately pegged as a symbol that can be used to focus the anger against the federation by the Jovians and sure enough in a few short years they've managed to turn a woman who can heal people with her abilities into a figurehead portending mass war and destruction. Anger and resentment is caused by Federation mismanagement of the colonial apparatus and the perceived difference in status between the earth born and the space born, Zeonism is merely the locus it is expressed through in absence of a differing focus.
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Jan 26, 2023 07:25
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Fivemarks posted:But I dunno, there's lots of stuff in the works not made by Tomino that seem pretty hosed up to me. But on actual like, retrospection? Most of my complaints are about shows that are generally considered not good. i would appreciate it if you remember this post the next time you jump into the thread with a hot take about how gundam is actually pro-fascist, or maybe at least have some specifics of what you're talking about
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Jan 26, 2023 07:30
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ninjewtsu posted:i would appreciate it if you remember this post the next time you jump into the thread with a hot take about how gundam is actually pro-fascist, or maybe at least have some specifics of what you're talking about I don't even think Gundam, as a whole is pro-fascist. Just some of the bad ones like 0083 or 08th, and some spinoff material like Code Fairy. Some of the bad ones aren't pro-fascist either, they're just bad for other reasons, like AGE's writing and characterization problems, or 00 Season 2 feeling like it lost the charm of Season 1; or Wing trying to shove all of Char's character arc from two series and a movie into a single series. And I like Wing, too. I kinda feel the need to actually defend not liking Unicorn (I like Hathaway and Thunderbolt), and that saying "yeah I don't like Banagher" or "I don't like the writing or plot in general" or "I don't really like the overuse of sexual assault as a tragic backstory for characters" isn't a good enough reason to not like this thing that everyone says you have to like to be into gundam. Its like Transformers and the IDW Comics. Fivemarks fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 07:35
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Unicron is loving garbage, you don't need to invent narratives to defend your opinion. Opinions are unassailable, it's when you promulgate them to influence others you need to be aware of your offensive and defensive moves.
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Jan 26, 2023 08:23
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Waffleman_ posted:Loving the vibe of there not being enough time to naturally explore the themes so everyone has to say the themes out loud Iron Mask's entire thing being that he's just the most divorced man in the universe will never not be funny.
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Jan 26, 2023 10:55
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Waffleman_ posted:Yeah, that's probably when they ran out of the 13 episodes they had written and were just going off outlines I doubt it. The film's events only feel like they cover the start of a story as is, and interviews have suggested that when making the show a film that events had to be reorganized and new elements not in the script had to be added so that the end product felt like a film and had a satisfactory climax rather than just being the end of an act that'd pick up again the next week. The more likely explanation to me seems to be that Tsunehisa Ito, the film's script writer, recognized that while the opening act of the first 3 or 4 episodes was fine to use with little editing beyond some compression, that the rest of the show's scripts and events would need a pretty heavy amount of change to work as a script where the audience required some closure by the script's end and may not see more for a year or two (or never, as the case turned out to be), so whatever stuff was in the following scripts probably only served as a vague outline at best anyway regardless of how complete they actually were. We do know that Cecily was originally planned to still be part of Cosmo Babylonia at the end of episode 13 for instance, but that Tomino and Ito wanted to have her rejoin Seabook before the end of the film, so she just kind of gives up on Cosmo Babylonia and her family with little reason. It's also pretty unlikely that Iron Mask was meant to be defeated by the 13th episode without really exploring him or his part in the Bugs, so most likely whatever was actually serving as the fight in the 13th episode was discarded and Iron Mask was made the film's final antagonist simply because he was the best choice available at the time. Dorel and Zabine hadn't actually done anything of note that'd make them especially antagonistic by that point in the story, so they wouldn't be suitable final antagonists for Seabook to fight; especially if the final fight involves Seabook fighting to help Cecily and had Bugs involved, since Iron Mask was more involved in that storyline. Fivemarks posted:I actually think that someone did the math, and the official combined MS Kill Count from every Zeon Ace in the OYW actually comes out to two times the total amount of Mobile Suits that the Federation made in the OYW. The issue with that kind of fan work is that it's all fiction and there's just as much chance the number of GMs is "wrong" as that the number of kills is "wrong". There have been several different numbers given for the amount of GMs produced, as well as obviously lots of different lists of how many kills X character got. So which is being measured against which, and what guarantee is there that the numbers invovled actually mean anything? Or will stand for very long? Sunrise could decide to print up whole new numbers tomorrow. Or just mindlessly approve of an author giving new numbers without checking them, because there's so much being produced in so many different media that it's doubtful all of it is checked by hand against some kind of canon masterlist before it's approved. Arc Hammer posted:A month back someone posted that really good video on how Tomino, Fukui and Ohtagaki use the Federation to portray imperialism in different ways. I haven't read all of Thunderbolt but I thought it was very interesting in how it's view of the Federation is heavily inspired by Vietnam imagery and the various US-led NATO excursions throughout the Cold War. Just plant a giant symbol of Federation power over a local culture and let the visual metaphor speak for itself. I vaguely remember that link being talked about, but didn't actually look at it; you wouldn't happen to have it to hand? ninjewtsu posted:i'm pretty sure those works are reasonably critical of "the light of zeon" and the idea that for these splinter factions zeon grew to a mythological status with tons of desperate hopes pinned to it for lack of another symbol. which is you know part of how how irl fascism festers. It's also worth noting that "the light of Zeon" is used to refer to a pre-Zabi time when Zeon represented something other fascism as such and also that the one character who refers to "the light of Zeon" is also a character who turns on Zeon and helps the protagonist fight back against the Sleeves. The whole "the light of Zeon" thing is used to explain why seemingly good characters, which have existed as a part of Zeon since the original show, are drawn to and fight for Zeon despite the fact they're good people. Which is something the original show largely lacked, because it's an element of the story that Tomino just wasn't interested in. Why Ramba Ral was fighting for Zeon was less important than the fact he was, and that the enemy could have good people fighting for them despite the system they fought for being abhorrent. It's not something Tomino ever really examined, but I do think it's nice that something eventually did some work to explain that reasoning. Fivemarks posted:I figure that you can absolutely read Zeon's lightning Blitzkrieg attack on Earth, if you squint at it, as being "MAN THE NAZIS WERE GREAT AT WAR" if you didn't look at the subtext and also text saying "Zeon's Blitzkrieg basically exhausted them of resources and didn't achieve their war aims." I mean, Ramba Ral is really just a pastice of Rommel aka "the good Nazi" and I don't even think society in general had started to re-examine that view by the time the show was written so it was probably meant to be genuine, but ultimately characters like Ramba or Dozle are sympathetic because they display sympathetic qualities while Gato doesn't. So I'm not really sure why it's a hard question to grapple with. Ramba and Dozle act to help and save their men and their families and display fundamental humanity in their interactions with others (Ramba recognizing Amuro as a Federation soldier but buying him food regardless, Dozle laughing at his awkwardness around the baby Mineva etc) where Gato is honorable but barely feels human because everything about him is so geared toward "I must fulfill my ideals!". Which, maybe Takahashi wanted him to be written as a more flawed and sympathetic human character, but certainly doesn't come across regardless because he has no real interactions or moments in the show where he's allowed to be a person instead of a soldier. A lot of the Zeonic characters in the original show seem like fundamentally good people caught up in a bad system, which the original show gets away with in a way that a show like Stardust Memories doesn't because the original show lays down the implication that a lot of Zeon's military is conscripted where the Delaz Fleet are all in it by choice years after the war had ended. It's possible to understand why Gato is doing what he's doing and how he got from point A to point B, but the fact it's understandable doesn't inherently make it sympathetic because what he's doing is so monstruous and the dude has no moment where he stops to consider what he's doing and whether it's warranted, or even really awareness that he's doing something heinous. It's good for his ideals and that's the end of it, basically. Fivemarks posted:I kinda feel the need to actually defend not liking Unicorn (I like Hathaway and Thunderbolt), and that saying "yeah I don't like Banagher" or "I don't like the writing or plot in general" or "I don't really like the overuse of sexual assault as a tragic backstory for characters" isn't a good enough reason to not like this thing that everyone says you have to like to be into gundam. Its like Transformers and the IDW Comics. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few people on this board who actually likes Gundam Unicorn (though I do agree on the overuse of sexual assault), and even then, I'd never insist someone has to like it (or any specific Gundam show or movie) to be a fan of the franchise. I think about the only consensus opinion you'll find on the board in regards to Gundam is that both Gundam SEED: Destiny and Gundam AGE are pretty much dogshit, but I don't even think there's a consensus opinion on what parts of the franchise are good as such because most posters have different viewpoints on which shows or movies are better than others. I don't like Zeta Gundam, Char's Counterattack or Iron Blooded Orphans all that much for instance, but I know that there's a good few people on the board that really like them. I don't think they're bad by any stretch; they just don't really do much for me despite recognizing the craft in them or some effective moments. I feel like Char's Counterattack has really emotive and effective climax for instance, but I don't think the journey there is great. I'm sure the things I love like the G Gundam or Turn A have detractors here too though. The original story tends to be pretty universally beloved here I guess, but there seems to be a split in whether it's good as a show or as a set of movies.
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Jan 26, 2023 13:55
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Fivemarks posted:I kinda feel the need to actually defend not liking Unicorn (I like Hathaway and Thunderbolt), and that saying "yeah I don't like Banagher" or "I don't like the writing or plot in general" or "I don't really like the overuse of sexual assault as a tragic backstory for characters" isn't a good enough reason to not like this thing that everyone says you have to like to be into gundam. Its like Transformers and the IDW Comics. not liking unicorn because you don't enjoy the writing and saying unicorn is fascist are 2 different things you can just dislike something, it doesn't have to be pro-fascism to justify your dislike
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Jan 26, 2023 14:21
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At least Marida isn't defined by her tragic backstory. It's dumb how her relationship with Zinnerman is built upon a Rape of Nanking allegory that makes less and less sense the more you think about it but the actual meat of their father/daughter connection is compelling enough on its own that it's easier to push the backstory to the back of my mind.
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Jan 26, 2023 14:28
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The dumbest part of Marida is how much emphasis they place on her being forcefully made sterile (for no reason given than just "you don't need that"), though I appreciate that she seems to not personally care about it and it's all other characters being shocked on her behalf.
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Jan 26, 2023 14:34
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I can't really read 0083 as having a pro-Zeon stance, like, at all. The Federation is written to be incredibly corrupt and incompetent in it, but the entire Zeon faction is full of insane zealots(Gato, Delaz), suicidal no-hopers(Kelly), or treacherous backstabbers(Cima). Basically no one is written to be positive and admirable in it besides relative bit players like Keith and Moira. Gato's final moments are deliberately turning down a chance to escape to Axis in order to rush into a completely doomed suicide charge that achieves absolutely nothing at all. If you squint incredibly hard at it you can maybe pull out a "look at how noble this is...." read, but I think the more obvious read is "this stupid rear end in a top hat killed himself for no reason to achieve nothing at all".
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Jan 26, 2023 14:43
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I like Unicorn 
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Jan 26, 2023 15:02
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ninjewtsu posted:The dumbest part of Marida is how much emphasis they place on her being forcefully made sterile (for no reason given than just "you don't need that"), though I appreciate that she seems to not personally care about it and it's all other characters being shocked on her behalf. There's a bit more of a reason than that, and unfortunately, it's exactly as horrifying as the characters believe it is. She had her internal reproductive system removed as a necessary medical procedure because her career as a child prostitute damaged it beyond repair.
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Jan 26, 2023 15:31
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i don't know if i feel better with this information or worse UPDATE: i am leaning on much worse ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 15:43
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Fivemarks posted:I kinda feel the need to actually defend not liking Unicorn (I like Hathaway and Thunderbolt), and that saying "yeah I don't like Banagher" or "I don't like the writing or plot in general" or "I don't really like the overuse of sexual assault as a tragic backstory for characters" isn't a good enough reason to not like this thing that everyone says you have to like to be into gundam. Its like Transformers and the IDW Comics. You can like stuff without agreeing with or engaging with other people who like it and that may be your best option if you feel persecuted for not enjoying popular things.
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Jan 26, 2023 16:05
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ninjewtsu posted:i don't know if i feel better with this information or worse Oh it's bad, no doubt about it. Unicorn has some pretty rough stuff regarding women. Marida has the aforementioned sexual assault background and then there's just everything to do with Martha Vist Carbine and her whole "use your feminine wiles to control men, sweetie" talk with Mineva. It definitely feels like women written by men. Not as outright weird as Tomino got but still some pretty iffy writing. Like you said it feels like it's there more to shock the audience with the depravity of the villains than it is for the sake of the characters themselves. Marida would be exactly the same character if you took the child prostitute angle out of it and just made her an abandoned war orphan. The psychological torture she takes when they reactivate her Puru 12 conditioning is enough of a personal violation without the needless child molestation. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 16:20
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Unrelated to hot takes like "Gundam is fascist, actually" which just lmao, but I'm slowly making my way through Zeta and I was a bit surprised by this That English is definitely better than I anticipated lol I was looking away from the screen and almost missed it but I couldn't help but go back and pause it for the brief moment Hayato is looking at it, because the first thing I thought of was that computer in Gundam Wing using text from something like a readme.txt for a Photoshop plugin 
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Jan 26, 2023 17:07
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I also paused during that bit. It really recontextualized a lot of "this character is a Char" jokes I've heard on the internet over the years. I started Unicorn the other night. After Witch was over, I needed more Gundam in my life. It seems pretty good so far!
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Jan 26, 2023 17:58
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Stark Jegan pilot got robbed.
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Jan 26, 2023 18:09
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Professor Wayne posted:I also paused during that bit. It really recontextualized a lot of "this character is a Char" jokes I've heard on the internet over the years. My take on Unicorn is that it has both some impressive highs and unfortunate lows. On the whole I like it more than I dislike it, but it has both and I think that's the only solid point of consensus on it. I'd definitely be curious to hear your take on it.
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Jan 26, 2023 18:24
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Arc Hammer posted:Stark Jegan pilot got robbed. Stark Jegan pilot never stood a chance. Marida was just cautiously testing him before obliterating him as soon as she had his measure. The ways she just stopped his big death-or-glory charge dead in its tracks with her thrusters really drove that home. Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 18:31
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Darth Walrus posted:Stark Jegan pilot never stood a chance. Marida was just cautiously testing him before obliterating him as soon as she had his measure. Dude had balls for being an unnamed grunt (albeit a better grunt) going up against a named character. Once she hit him with the backwash from her thrusters he was done. But dude put up a good fight.
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Jan 26, 2023 18:34
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Good soup! posted:Unrelated to hot takes like "Gundam is fascist, actually" which just lmao, but I'm slowly making my way through Zeta and I was a bit surprised by this Put "Captain Quattro, he is a CHAR" on my tombstone.
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Jan 26, 2023 18:36
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Arc Hammer posted:Dude had balls for being an unnamed grunt (albeit a better grunt) going up against a named character. Once she hit him with the backwash from her thrusters he was done. But dude put up a good fight. He did better than his reference in G-Witch Prologue did at least. That guy just got executed.
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Jan 26, 2023 18:39
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Popy posted:Put "Captain Quattro, he is a CHAR" on my tombstone. Possibly the first time a mysterious inscription on a grave marker actually was for ritual purposes.
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Jan 26, 2023 19:15
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I wouldn’t necessarily say 0083 is pro zeon as much as it is that it’s pro excusing people for their involvement in Zeon. It’s a story that posits “just following orders” Is actually a good excuse that absolves you of participating in evil, because being Honorable is more important than following your own cogent moral framework. Gato and Delaz may be ardent zeon hardliners but they didn’t directly cause all the atrocities zeon did, they’re just idealists following the dream of spacenoid independence! Compare that to Cima, who the narrative treats like absolute dogshit for making the entirely reasonable choice of selling out the delaz fleet before they can do operation british 2.
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Jan 26, 2023 19:16
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Correction: selling them out after giving them the means to do Operation British 2. Cima is a really stupid person, and she deserved everything after she gassed her home colony given she continued fighting for Zeon for the entire rest of the war. The reason that people view Gundam 0083 as pro Zeon is because while Kou is the protagonist, the show treats Gato as the hero of the story. He's the one fighting for idealism, which the show glorifies, he's the one who gets all the wins, he's the one Nina throws everything away for etc. His final stand is also treated as more of a climax than anything that Kou does, and the scene is clearly framing it as a sad that Gato died at all. There's very stirring, emotional music following Gato talking about how they have to make it to Axis. Nina pleads for the ship to give Gato a few more minutes, and then he rams the Neue Ziel into a Federation ship to take out several other ships in order to buy his men more time to escape. It's all very sad. There's nothing even close to as emotive for Kou or anyone on the Federation side.
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Jan 26, 2023 19:28
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| # ? May 24, 2024 01:47 |
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The audiovisual language of 0083 absolutely wants us to sympathize with Gato. He's got the stargazing soliloquys of a warrior poet while his followers listen in awe. He gets a mournful trumpet sounding his heroic attempt to escape the trap set by his enemies and betrayed by his allies. He's fighting against a corrupt foe that violates treaties that retroactively justify his actions against them. His final death is observed and mourned by the Zeon Fleet. If the show wanted us to hate Gato and call him out for being the wannabe nazi attack dog that he is, they'd have done it. As it is, interpretation lies with the viewer while intent is the realm of the director. Gato is like Ulysses from Fallout New Vegas where the director clearly intended for us to engage with him a certain way.
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Jan 26, 2023 19:42
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