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Arc Hammer posted:Well technically the Garancieres crew didn't participate in the battle they were just on standby to deploy the Unicorn when the Box coordinates were revealed. And the crew didn't really step in to help Zinnerman when he went off on his half assed rant trying to justify the remnants butchering civilians. Yeah, when Banagher started beating the poo poo out of Zinnerman, everybody else just took a step back and let the kid go for it. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Banagher is frustrating in the Unicorn anime because he's almost a good character, but he never quite clicks for me. Someone like Amuro or adult Hathaway is great, and someone like Kou settles into a role where I know I won't care that much about him, but Banagher keeps showing sparks to make me think he could be compelling and fun, which makes the lack of followup all the more frustrating.
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Jul 23, 2023 21:33
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tsob posted:The only part of that not explicit in the OVA is that Marida had her womb removed, and even then it's at least acknowledged for people who'd know it from the novels with the line "you've had that dead weight removed, right?" and implied on it's own as is because her hand goes to her belly afterwards. As to why it's in, along with Fukui leaning a lot on rape/tragedy as a backstory for his characters generally, it's probably there at least partly because it somewhat mirrors Lalah's backstory (the child prostitution part; not the womb removal) as Tomino established it in the mid-90s using the novel Secret Rendevous: The First Meeting of Amuro & Lalah. The novelizations in Gundam tend to use those kinds of things an absurd amount really. I say it's probably at least partly that because despite being friends with and even collaborating with Tomino in the past, Fukui is a huge Tomino fanboy and Unicorn as a story is basically a "UC: Greatest Hits" album cover in a lot of ways, with almost everything being either a reference or a homage of some kind. The difference here is that Fukui uses the tragedy as nothing more than set dressing, he wanted a tragic female just like Tomino did, but because he lacks actual ideas beyond the UC wallpaper he cannot reasonably give an answer to why the back story should exist except for banal tragedy. Lalah shows the difference between the aesthetic that Zeon tries to portray, that of the knightly or aristocrat guiding the lowly to a higher station. Char rescuing Lalah as well as him saving Amuro when he gets stuck in his space car. Versus what Zeon actually is, a mad self destructive force with a veneer of civility glossing over it's use and abuse of anyone or anything that can be of use to it, unto that persons destruction. Zeon Zum Deikun thought should tell us that we should allow the Newtypes to emerge and guide humanity, Char instead presses Lalah into military service to out match his opponents and gain an edge over the federation. He rescues her only to put her in an even more perilous position. He laments that she could've been a mother to him, and yet he leads her, however unintentionally, to her destruction; just as the people have done to the Earth pre colony, and just as Char will try to do again in CCA. Lalah doesn't really have any interiority, at least from what I can recall, but as symbol she is necessary for the execution of the Tominian Messaging of early UC at least. Fukui is like one of those AI programs, he sees tragic woman, he adds one in, he sees psuedo chivalry, he adds it in, he even attempts to copy Tomino in messaging. And in all of this he fails because like AI he's too blind to understand why Tomino would say or do what he said or did. Banana's "Even So" feels totally false because the writing has done zero work to support Banana's belief. The only parts that feel real about Fukui's writing are the revisionist Zeon histories and fascist apologia, probably because that's the only poo poo he actually believes in.
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Jul 24, 2023 23:31
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Gaius Marius posted:Lalah shows the difference between the aesthetic that Zeon tries to portray, that of the knightly or aristocrat guiding the lowly to a higher station. Char rescuing Lalah as well as him saving Amuro when he gets stuck in his space car. Versus what Zeon actually is, a mad self destructive force with a veneer of civility glossing over it's use and abuse of anyone or anything that can be of use to it, unto that persons destruction. You mean like how Full Frontal uses Marida as a pawn to fight the Unicorn knowing she'll probably die but not caring so long as it'll possibly activate the La+ program and how Zinnerman for all his apparent goodness still uses the pretext of attack to slaughter civilians as revenge for his own family's death? I'd also question the reading of Zeon, even aesthetically, as trying to "guide the lowly to a higher station". It don't even think that applies theoretically to Zeon Zum Deikun's vision of Zeon, never mind the Zabi's vision of Zeon. Then again, I also disagree that Fukui is a fascist apologist. He's outright stated in interview that he thinks the kind of villains he uses in his works have a dangerous idealism that can be appealing to modern Japanese people (i.e. populism basically), and he uses that kind of villain in order to show why they're a bad thing. I can certainly agree that he's not very good at getting across why they're dangerous because he's not a particularly great writer, but I don't think that makes him a fascist or fascist apologist. Nor do I even think he's close to the worst Zeon revisionist in terms of Gundam writers. It's also worth pointing out that every Gundam OVA introduces some revisions of the One Year War. Gundam 0080 had Side 6 untouched in the war, despite the original show having the narrator explicitly note that most of the colonies at Side 6 had been destroyed (hence why they were so adamant about ships keeping the peace in their airspace), and given that Tomino has noted in multiple places that Zeon deliberately targeted and attacked the civilian Sides, who does that absolve of the destruction of those cylinders? Gundam 0083 has Delaz leave A Baoa Qu after Gihren's death with the implication that it may have turned the tide of the battle, and then portrays the Federation as at least dancing up to the line of the Antarctic Treaty by developing a nuclear Gundam. A nuclear Gundam with an evil face, at that. While also portraying Gato and Delaz as romantic figures. 08th MS Team has the Federation developing GMs and even Gundams months before the RX-78-2 launched in Side 7. It's not Zeon revisionism in it's case, but it's absolutely a revision of the One Year War. I don't even think Tomino is immune to it frankly, because you'd never tell from any post-0079 works that the vast majority of Sides had been completely destroyed (and ZZ explicitly has some colonies that have survived the One Year War in Sides that the original show explicitly described as completely destroyed), and again, who does that white wash if not Zeon? I imagine he did it mostly because working with a setting where the Sides had been almost completely destroyed was inconvenient, but he still did it and it's not even like it'd be impossible to make a narrative work in that scenario; just harder. Also, going off the original 0079 novelization, which is the only place that Zeon Zum Deikun's views on Newtypes were notably expanded on for the original story (the Zeta novelization has a bit more of him), Deikun saw Newtypes as a secondary concern and his main ideals were around humanity completely abandoning Earth in order to preserve it and the Sides becoming independent nations in space. He mentions Newtypes as a consequence of what moving to space will cause, not as the reason to do it. The reason was still, ultimately, because the Earth is sacred as the home of humanity. He didn't mention them guiding humanity at all, only that Newtypes would be better adapted to life in space than normal humans and that Newtypes would flourish in space because of that. The implication being not that they would lead humanity but that due to Newtypes being so well adapted, all of humanity would become Newtypes. And honestly, the idea of Newtypes "leading" humanity is probably more fascist than anything anyone else has ever done in the franchise, even were it to be true, since it'd make them ubermensch leading the untermensch for their own good. It would be, ironically enough, the kind of poo poo a lot of people who misread the new type clause in Unicorn accuse it of promoting i.e. Newtypes being elevated to a special position of authority within the Federation simply for existing. tsob fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 01:11
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Sander posted:For what it's worth, I wasn't all that hot on Fukui's Yamato 2202 either, especially compared to 2199 which AFAIK didn't have him. He was brought on for 2202 and onwards and while 2202 has a lot of issues that aren't just the writer's fault, good lord the ones that are.
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Jul 25, 2023 07:16
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I am what you could call a pro Fukui person since I like both Unicorn and Narrative (yes really) but despite thinking Yamato 2199 had an argument for being the best show of the year it came out him taking over for 2202 just lost me almost immediately in it's first arc with the way he actively wrote virtually everything original 2199 introduced out of the show immediately, and in pretty lovely ways in some cases. Even if it or it's following sequels got better, I was just deflated on the whole thing and completely lost interest in finding out 
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Jul 26, 2023 03:47
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i'm a big fan of the unicorn ova but i have no idea how much of what i like about it is fukui's doing people sure seem to only bring him up for the parts i really did not like
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Jul 26, 2023 14:50
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My biggest problem with Unicorn is that the conspiracy stuff isn’t well-written or executed, so something that isn’t even that complex feels a lot more complicated, and the Wow Cool Robot scenes are so long, they help drown it out as well. I’m enjoying it so far (I still need to watch the final OVA), but I’m checked out on the story.
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Jul 26, 2023 14:59
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I think Unicorn has a lot of really interesting ideas even if it doesn't pull them off. The focus on the ideas of symbols vs reality is actually a good one to use in Gundam, where the Gundam itself is often held up as a symbol. Having a machine that transforms from a GM-ish look to a Gundam look and associating that look first with the corruption and destruction of peaceful ideals and then later to the embodiment of those ideals for real is also neat. Using Full Frontal as an empty hollow figurehead based on a popular character who is effectively being used to espouse whatever philosophy people want from him is a potentially interesting take on the idea of Char himself and the way he's used in the setting and metasetting. Even the final resolution, where Banagher can either go on to become a literal sentient symbol or choose to abandon that path and become a person works well. Likewise the Laplace Box works well in this concept where the actual text doesn't matter, it is only valuable as a symbol and the meaning assigned to that symbol is what gives it value. (Thus why Mineva's thing is revealing it but using her own symbolic status to assign it something besides a cause for more war.) Riddhe and the idea of a Gundam Protagonist who grew up in the wake of the OYW and how it changes how they view things and what they hold dear is really cool. He's the rare case of a character being written with the UC setting in mind and I like the idea of exploring a 'failed' Gundam protagonist. The closest to that is like Flit Asuno and Riddhe is much better executed. Marida is a really good concept for a character. Someone literally born to be a war machine who never had any choice but to be one whose defined not by her fighting abilities but by the friends and family she makes and whose final moment is throwing off the shackles of "I was created to use my powers for war" to instead become a true Newtype who is able to achieve empathy and understanding even with someone who hates her is really nice. The fact that she died for a dude sucks from a 'this trope is worn out and crappy' perspective but the actual plot behind it handles the idea of the Purus better than the series itself did and Marida's death is way better than Puru II's. Banagher is likewise a strong concept for a character even if he isn't well executed. A kid who sees injustices in the world and absolutely refuses to accept simple answers or 'it has to be that way' comments is fine. People like to make fun of "even so" but it's a fine idea in theory. If someone is claiming the world has to be that way and it's only logical and sensible to accept bad things, you respond "even so." It's basically refusing to accept that you need atrocities and people suffering to have peace. It means that his opponents sound like they have things together more but the point is that Banagher is being somewhat childish and refusing to accept "bad things happen" because otherwise the only thing on offer are shuffling atrocities around so different people are oppressed. (This is also a callback to the Tomino novels where the ending is "and then the Spacenoids started to oppress the Earth Folks who earned the name 'moles'" Unicorn's specific reference here is a pretty blunt 'and that poo poo isn't acceptable either' comment.) It's why the big ending is Full Frontal going "bro, all that awaits at the end is entropy and darkness' and his response being "gently caress you, I refuse to accept that" and then from Beyond The Time come the ghosts of Newtypes who exist to show Full Frontal that even at the end of everything physical there's still potential for something more. Unicorn could do a lot better but I think a lot of its flaws are more that it fully expects you to buy into Bullshit Newtype Peace Through Understanding Optimism harder than even Gundam Wing. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Jul 26, 2023 |
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Jul 26, 2023 16:39
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You aren’t the first person to bring up Marida being better than the Ples, and I will agree I don’t like how Ple II was handled (I had to look up if she actually died, it was a Poochy-rear end moment), but she’s going to have to do some heavy lifting in the final episode to beat Ple I, who’s easily a top 5 Gundam character for me. A war machine not understanding family but growing close to a brother figure because she finds someone like her? Good enough that Witch from Mercury borrowed it and executed it well, too.
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Jul 26, 2023 17:15
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to restate an opinion i'm pretty sure i've given in this thread a number of times: the broad overarching plot of unicorn sucks eggs. pandora's box is really stupid and i don't think anyone is invested in anything about banagher. on a scene by scene basis though, unicorn is incredible. the animation is amazing, the soundtrack is excellent, and the actual conversations that characters have reflecting on the world and their politics and their reasons for fighting are very well done. everyone loves "guy who owns a diner" and for this reason it's a little hard for me to say that unicorn's writing is bad. some of its writing is very bad, which drags the whole thing down. but actually sitting down and watching an episode of unicorn is a great experience
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Jul 26, 2023 17:25
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Even knowing the wtf original version of the story I still hold episode 4 of Unicorn as one of the best things to come out of the franchise. It hits on those themes of generational conflict, the lies we tell ourselves to justify our actions, some rock solid character moments and a very memorable fight scene. Toning down the stuff with Loni into a more general Zeon revenge story was for the best, I think, since it speaks to a more universal theme of resentment for past hurts than the weirdly specific "USA wants to kill Islam and take our Oil" take of the novel. It's the peak of the show for me. I also find the scene where Riddhe learns the truth from his dad, proposes to Mineva and is rejected and then he rushes off crying on horseback to be really funny. Drama queen. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jul 26, 2023 |
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Jul 26, 2023 17:35
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Arc Hammer posted:Even knowing the wtf original version of the story I still hold episode 4 of Unicorn as one of the best things to come out of the franchise. It hits on those themes of generational conflict, the lies we tell ourselves to justify our actions, some rock solid character moments and a very memorable fight scene. Toning down the stuff with Loni into a more general Zeon revenge story was for the best, I think, since it speaks to a more universal theme of resentment for past hurts than the weirdly specific "USA wants to kill Islam and take our Oil" take of the novel. It's the peak of the show for me. Movie 4 also has the scene with Audrey and the aforementioned dude in the Diner who does a really excellent encapsulation of a lot of UC's baggage and has a surprisingly striking potted summary of Char that's stuck with me. ImpAtom is completely correct, Unicorn on the whole is full of really fascinating alternate takes and interesting ideas, but ninjewtsu is also totally correct in that those good scenes and good ideas don't come together as a whole. Gundam Unicorn is simply less than the sum of its parts.
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Jul 26, 2023 17:52
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But most importantly, robots get hosed up real good in Unicorn.
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Jul 26, 2023 18:35
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X-Ray Pecs posted:But most importantly, robots get hosed up real good in Unicorn. Oh absolutely. And it's always a fun unit to use in SRW. Shoutouts to Z3 where you can bench Riddhe and put Camille in the Delta Plus until you pick up the Zeta in the mid-game.
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Jul 26, 2023 18:37
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I’ve just started my first Super Robot Wars game (I went with X just for Gurren Lagann) and I can’t wait until I get to the Gundam stuff I have seen, unlike G-Reco and F91. I don’t really know about switching the pilots around, does that affect the story in any meaningful way?
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Jul 26, 2023 18:41
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No
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Jul 26, 2023 18:44
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this Wing clip is going around https://twitter.com/MechaGirlOTD/status/1684052871308869632 God. I love Gundam so much. even when it's a bit poo poo it can be so... 
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Jul 26, 2023 18:50
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Treize rules (and Wufei drools)
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Jul 26, 2023 18:59
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Wufei sucks so much but he's hilarious in the dub.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:00
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The only good Wufei bit is when he goes all Big Boss in the battle with Heero in EW. Well, that and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jl64zgBsxE
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Jul 26, 2023 19:05
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When the Unicorn does the magnum the sound is so good
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Jul 26, 2023 19:16
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Arc Hammer posted:Wufei sucks so much but he's hilarious in the dub. Having his VA do Durandal in SEED Destiny was a good call because the dude clearly has trouble with emoting and Durandal never does that. Ramie posted:this Wing clip is going around Wing is a very silly show but that response from Treize is legitimately brilliant. I love it so much.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:18
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on rewatch of wing even though i hate wufei i kind of love every scene he's in he's a good character in that he makes every scene funnier by sucking, he's a jerid in that respect
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Jul 26, 2023 19:19
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X-Ray Pecs posted:I’ve just started my first Super Robot Wars game (I went with X just for Gurren Lagann) and I can’t wait until I get to the Gundam stuff I have seen, unlike G-Reco and F91. I don’t really know about switching the pilots around, does that affect the story in any meaningful way? Not at all, the story will ignore it completely and force pilots into their proper robots if needed for a stage. It just means you get to customize stats to a limited extent, and hear different voice lines.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:21
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Waffleman_ posted:When the Unicorn does the magnum the sound is so good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDbz_2tDpjk
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Jul 26, 2023 19:30
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Waffleman_ posted:When the Unicorn does the magnum the sound is so good It's pretty understandable why Banagher fell so in love with the weapon he designed the world's stupidest mobile suit in order to continue using it.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:44
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It's called the Silver Bullet Suppressor because it was designed to suppress Banagher's urge to continue piloting the Unicorn just for the sake of using the magnum.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:47
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https://twitter.com/Petsuchan/status/1529911756071620608?lang=en does anyone have the actual source on this btw
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Jul 26, 2023 19:50
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I couldn't take banagher seriously in his argument w zinnerman because he kept on saying "sadness" like dang use suffering or misery crack a thesaurus.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:50
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He wants to grow up to be the kind of man who can live with that unhappy state of emotional discontent.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:52
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WrightOfWay posted:It's pretty understandable why Banagher fell so in love with the weapon he designed the world's stupidest mobile suit in order to continue using it. I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks that Silver Bullet Suppressor was designed by someone high on the smell of their own farts.
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Jul 26, 2023 20:35
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LuiCypher posted:I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks that Silver Bullet Suppressor was designed by someone high on the smell of their own farts. Everyone thinks that. It just depends on if you find it hilariously stupid or stupidly hilarious.
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Jul 26, 2023 21:31
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I keep saying this but the next Build series needs to have someone with a custom unit based on the Silver Bullet Suppressor but just uses the extra arms to Rocket Punch people, bonus points if it culminates in an homage to the 100 Rocket Punches scene from Shin Mazinger Z
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Jul 27, 2023 00:03
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Which comic had it where it was just a Gundam Mk2 with a giant right arm to handle the magnum recoil?
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Jul 27, 2023 00:03
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Arc Hammer posted:Which comic had it where it was just a Gundam Mk2 with a giant right arm to handle the magnum recoil? Oh it was dumber than that, it didn't have a giant arm they just stapled a second forearm onto it
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Jul 27, 2023 00:08
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drat I wish it was a giant arm. Like putting a Mastar Grade arm onto a High Grade.
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Jul 27, 2023 00:12
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ninjewtsu posted:i'm a big fan of the unicorn ova but i have no idea how much of what i like about it is fukui's doing At least some of the blame lies with the director, Furuhashi, too. When planning the ending of the OVA, Fukui wanted the "travel to the end of time" thing to be purely a vision, while Furuhashi wanted it to be literal, since in his view, if the psycoframe can move stars (note: the word for stars in Japanese is more like "stellar body" so far as I know, and can include things like asteroids) that it shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for it to allow time travel. They eventually compromised, but the compromise is honestly dumber in my opinion, since in Fukui's words what happens is that they experience the memories of the universe or something silly like that. Fukui doubled down on it after the fact in NT, but Furuhashi is responsible for at least one thing people tend to hate about the finale. Arc Hammer posted:drat I wish it was a giant arm. Like putting a Mastar Grade arm onto a High Grade. The Gundam Dantalion from an IBO manga can equip a giant arm if I recall. The Astray Red Frame too. tsob fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 00:48
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The Astray Red Farme has a giant suit of power armor for itself that it eventually simplifies down into giant loving arms.
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Jul 27, 2023 00:53
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gonna be real i liked the magic time journey, that was fun stupid
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Jul 27, 2023 03:38
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I like the end of it. Seeing all that, not changing his mind one bit and Full Frontal finally goes "gently caress this"
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Jul 27, 2023 03:46
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