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Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Neddy Seagoon posted:

While you're generally right, you're reading too much into this part. The thruster legs are very clearly designed for space combat, and they'd be little more than cumbersome dead weight in a ground fight. Especially against a high-speed threat like the Barbatos Gundam, which she was dispatched specifically to engage.

They were, yes, but the Julia was rebuilt along with her after Mikazuki wrecked her, and the manuals explain that inhumanly-shaped limbs are the best way to take full advantage of the Alaya-Vijnana System. It staying the same shape afterwards, and standing on its own two stubby little legs rather than becoming even more monstrous and distorted, is symbolic in and of itself.

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Droyer
Oct 9, 2012

https://twitter.com/Rideth_mochi/status/852024448563650561

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
That's not how you do a Gundam Eye Glow, you need to do it right before killing something.

Kingtheninja
Jul 29, 2004

"You're the best looking guy here."
I still like Frank cho's take on how to draw giant robots. Hell if I could ever find it again.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Arcsquad12 posted:

That's not how you do a Gundam Eye Glow, you need to do it right before killing something.

Kingtheninja
Jul 29, 2004

"You're the best looking guy here."
More like right before losing the feeling in half your body.

AradoBalanga
Jan 3, 2013

Man, I wish I could channel my anger at something into drawing things. Most of the time I just channel it to get other stuff done faster.

Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

Neddy Seagoon posted:

While you're generally right, you're reading too much into this part. The thruster legs are very clearly designed for space combat, and they'd be little more than cumbersome dead weight in a ground fight. Especially against a high-speed threat like the Barbatos Gundam, which she was dispatched specifically to engage.

Mobile suits aren't real.

Guy Goodbody
Aug 31, 2016

by Nyc_Tattoo

Kingtheninja posted:

I still like Frank cho's take on how to draw giant robots. Hell if I could ever find it again.

Just draw a lady with butt and boobs instead?

Monaghan
Dec 29, 2006

Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:

Mobile suits aren't real.

Shut up, they're real in my heart.

Kingtheninja
Jul 29, 2004

"You're the best looking guy here."

Guy Goodbody posted:

Just draw a lady with butt and boobs instead?

It was a Sunday strip he did for liberty meadows way back, around Gundam wing's time in the states. Step one was the basic oval head. Step two was drawing the motion line, step three was "add detail" and suddenly it was wing zero yelling "tetsuo!".

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
Did they end up doing something with the 72 Ars Goetia Gundams in IBO? I dreamed last night about the Gundam Andrealphus sniping a military base on Earth from the Moon.

Sometimes I dream in anime.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

MonsieurChoc posted:

Did they end up doing something with the 72 Ars Goetia Gundams in IBO? I dreamed last night about the Gundam Andrealphus sniping a military base on Earth from the Moon.

Sometimes I dream in anime.

Not really beyond having some of them show up.

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

ImpAtom posted:

Not really beyond having some of them show up.

Plus delivering a little on why they were named after demons. They were designed to fight killer AI 'angels', and demanded a horrific price of those who sought to harness their power.

It says a lot about the Post Disaster era that God and his angels are dead, and the demons are in the hands of desperate, outcast children.

Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Apr 13, 2017

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012
Next on our list:

ASW-G-XX Gundam Vidar



Vidar (both the identity and the Gundam) is Gaelio's vehicle on his vision-quest, an effort to understand his treacherous best friend by becoming him. It soon becomes clear that the name is slightly misleading - he's not so much trying to get revenge as he is trying to get into the mindset of the ruthless avenger who almost killed him. To this end, the Vidar strips away almost all of his original identity. His signature purple has decomposed into pastel blue with splashes of vivid red - he no longer occupies a middle ground, but is floating between two extremes. The bulky curves of the Kimaris are gone, and in their place is the jagged angularity of a Schwalbe Graze, shaped around the Grimgerde's delicate, ultra-light design aesthetic, with a tiny little sword and near-suicidally skimpy armour that allow for unmatched mobility and precision. Even its signature head-crest is gone, with a much more traditional, generic Gundam V-fin expanding to take its place. The only remaining touch of Gaelio's identity is in the design of the sword, and even that shows a striking lack of ego - his main melee weapon has gone from the Gungnir, a massive, elegant weapon with its own name and heroic legacy, to something that is literally disposable.

McGillis isn't the only person who this machine is inspired by, of course. The sections of black and red, the stylised Graze backpack, and the bladed feet all scream out who the Vidar's extra passenger is - even the epee has more visual similarities with the Graze Ein's piledrivers than the Kimaris's lance. In fact, that's telling in and of itself - there are more touches of Ein than Gaelio in this machine, signifying how the former now sees himself as a vehicle for the latter to avenge himself.

Mind you, for all this talk of Gaelio subsuming his identity, there's still foreshadowing of the failure that saves his life - that he doesn't entirely get McGillis, and never will. All it takes from the Grimgerde, the weapon of McGillis's 'true self', Montag, is the fighting style - the aesthetics are almost entirely of the Schwalbe Graze, his disguise as a loyal soldier of Gjallarhorn and the symbol of the false bond between them. More than that, it's a very boxy, functional machine - there's flair to it, in the slide-down scabbards for its swords and the twin pistols it houses suggestively on its crotch like an Old West gunslinger, but nowhere near the wild excesses of the Grimgerde, the only mobile suit to ever rock a wnged helmet, a robo-dong, and a Dracula-style flared collar all at once. This is a suit piloted by someone who'd go into battle in a custom, four-eyed suit of armour, but couldn't even imagine doing so in an evening suit, opera mask, and giant, poofy wig. Gaelio is too sane, to conservative, and too basically decent to throw himself into McGillis's brand of heroic revenge fantasy, and so he cannot prevent the death of his old friend, but can prevent his own. You think the Montag mask would have stopped a bullet?

ASW-G-66 Gundam Kimaris Vidar



The Kimaris Vidar is Gaelio emerging from the dark with a new, stronger identity. The Kimaris is back in its old shape, with a brighter purple colour-scheme, a more elaborate head-crest, and an even bigger lance. That's not all it is, though - it's a symbol of Gaelio's pride in himself and his family, but that pride is more specifically in their role as part of something greater. The KV is a fusion, an ancient, heroic warrior wrapped in boxy modern technology. The purple is bright, but it's encased in crash-test black and yellow, and the boxy, functional feet, legs, and shields have more in common with the iconic modern suit, the Graze, than with any more ancient technology. Not only that, but there are other, more personal influences. The drills and the positioning of the shields are from the Graze Ein. The shape of the shields and shoulders is lifted from the Grimgerde. Finally, and most strikingly, the sword is no longer a European design, but a Japanese katana just like the one Mika used to kill Ein. Gaelio is an ancient hero willingly working within a pragmatic, modern institution. He's an aristocratic warrior of Gjallarhorn, but one with enough humility to learn from and honour lowborn, traitors, and 'space rats'. Of course, this newfound willingness to compromise and modernise has its downsides, too - his lance, the symbol of his family's honour, has become the barrel for a Dainsleif railgun, a spectacularly illegal WMD.

Taken together, the Bael, Kimaris Vidar, and Lupus Rex make for a fascinating trifecta. The Bael is purely an object of heroic beauty, untainted by upgrades or modifications - it stands alone. The problem is that purity is also isolation - inhumanly high standards, an inability to improve, and an inability to connect to and learn from another people. It's beautiful as an abstract ideal, but too cold and fragile to support human life. The Rex is a surrender and regression, using the combined solar system's darkest, most terrible secrets in order to sacrifice yourself for phenomenal power. It's a beast - terrifying, monstrous, and yet full of life and passion, born of a dark, twisted love that remains love nonetheless. The Kimaris Vidar is an embrace of the coming era, a place without the beauty or romance of the past, but the only place where humanity can live and form equal partnerships with each other, rather than losing themselves to toxic selfishness or equally toxic selflessness.

Next up, our last entry, on Tekkadan's two sidekick Gundams, the ASW-G-11 Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City and the ASW-G-64 Gundam Flauros (Ryusei-Go III).

Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Oct 11, 2017

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

"From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.
Buglord
Is there any deeper meaning to the Gusion Rebake being a significantly worse design than the Gusion Classic?

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Improbable Lobster posted:

Is there any deeper meaning to the Gusion Rebake being a significantly worse design than the Gusion Classic?

There's actually a remarkable amount of meaning to both forms of the Rebake, which I will happily spew :words: over when I drop that final post. It's certainly always supposed to look like an ugly, weird-looking mess, but then, that's kind of obvious - any suit with a couple of feet sticking out of its back was not built for elegance.

tsob
Sep 26, 2006

Chalalala~

Darth Walrus posted:

It was largely those custom machines I was thinking of, and I'd argue that any (even most ) of those don't convey the same depth and complexity of information about their pilots as the Gundams in IBO. The various metamorphoses of the AGE Gundams, for instance, tell you basically nothing about the people flying them (especially the AGE-FX - would you get 'saviour-machine designed by a child to end wars without killing people' from that?), with the exception of the Dark Hound, which only really conveys the information of 'is a pirate, likes to use dirty tricks to level the playing-field'.

I imagine the mechanical design of AGE was more about looking cool and being toyetic than anything, but at the same time most of the units in AGE, including most of the Gundams weren't designed with and for their pilots. Flit did design the AGE-1, but he was a literal child designing his first weapon and never intended to pilot it. He designed the AGE-2 for a son he barely connected with, and the AGE-3 for a grandson he had somewhat brainwashed in to his own way of thinking. The AGE-3 is more his own design than Kios. That said I do think you could pull something from the AGE-1 Glansa about Flit, since it's the one unit he really designed for himself, it's new armor covers most of the existing design so that you can barely see what it originally was, it's main armaments are now two huge guns, it's color scheme is a lot darker and so on.

Darth Walrus posted:

The Gundams from 00 are a little more complex, with details like Setsuna's character development being symbolised by the Exia, a little angel made of swords with exposed cabling and an asymmetrical design, being replaced by the 00 Raiser, a significantly bigger, less swordy, and better-put-together angel that relies on the bond between two friends to make it go. I'm not quite sure about some of the other suits, though.

Lockon I normally sorties with a huge cape that protects the real unit from being seen, and his focus on sniping and wish to not carry any kind of melee weapon of his own (though Ian forced him to carry a beam knife if I recall) means he's better at protecting others than himself - which is pretty appropriate, since his character is rather more focused on helping Setsuna than on helping himself. There's probably other details you could see if you went looking.

Darth Walrus posted:

Similarly, in SEED, what do Kira and Athrun's preferences for 'every gun ever' and 'every sword ever' respectively tell you about their personalities and situations?

I would contend that, much like AGE, the units in SEED and Destiny were for the most part not designed with their pilots in mind, at least in show. Much like AGE the units were also designed to be cool and toyetic. Unlike AGE though we know this for a fact, since Fukuda has been stated to have given design directives much to that effect to the mechanical designer, wanted the Freedom to have wings because wings were cool and vetted the designs by showing them to his kids and their friends to see if they liked them. Regardless though, the Freedom and Justice, like the 5 GAT Gundams were not designed with their eventual pilots in mind. The Impulse and Destiny probably had some input from or with Shinn in mind, though the other 3 certainly didn't. Even the Strike-Freedom and Infinite Justice may or may not have been designed with their pilots in mind, since it's never really stated in show and the model kits keep changing their backstory.

Darth Walrus posted:

In Wing, Wufei is Chinese, so his Gundam is hella Chinese, Quatre is North African, so his Gundam is fairly North African, and Duo is a tragic jokester, so his Gundam is covered in images of death and mortality. There's not much nuance there.

I feel your doing a slight disservice to the units there, but they are mostly reflected in their fighting style regardless. Still, you are at least forgetting Epyon, which reflects Treize's ideals by design even in show, with it's weapons and role, Trowa adding a sad clown mask to Heavyarms Kai to reflect his new path in life and so on. The Tallgeese being a more Romanesque unit with a knightly appearance used by Milliardo probably has some parallels too. It's still not much nuance, but it's a little more than you are giving it credit for I think.

Darth Walrus posted:

Its once-smooth head has sprouted a crown of thorns, a warped parody of a Gundam's V-fin.

I'd also question this assertion, since I don't think the Graze Ein's crown is different enough from a lot of Gundam V-fins to make it a warped version. Especially not one that's supposed to reflect any kind of crown of thorns, given that it only has 4 points. The only notable difference to me is that the upward pointing V-fin in it's double arrangement is on the outside rather than the inside like several Gundams (like the 00) have.


Edit:

Darth Walrus posted:

There's actually a remarkable amount of meaning to both forms of the Rebake, which I will happily spew :words: over when I drop that final post. It's certainly always supposed to look like an ugly, weird-looking mess, but then, that's kind of obvious - any suit with a couple of feet sticking out of its back was not built for elegance.

Can you spew some words on the Gusion's original pilot's design out of interest? The two heads of Brewers had some of the worst design in any Gundam show and looked like they belonged in Gundam AGE's first generation or a shonen show or something. They reflected their characters a little too well. Hitler wasn't much better, and I always wanted him to turn out to be a decent guy just so that the sheer obviousness of his design would serve some kind of purpose.

That said, original Gusion and it's froggy design is one of my favorite designs in the show. I love it's weird rocket thruster feet, how bulky it is, the massive war hammer weapon etc. Gundam generally doesn't have many good bulky designs, but that's definitely one of 'em to me.

tsob fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Apr 15, 2017

Droyer
Oct 9, 2012

tsob posted:

I would contend that, much like AGE, the units in SEED and Destiny were for the most part not designed with their pilots in mind, at least in show. Much like AGE the units were also designed to be cool and toyetic. Unlike AGE though we know this for a fact, since Fukuda has been stated to have given design directives much to that effect to the mechanical designer, wanted the Freedom to have wings because wings were cool and vetted the designs by showing them to his kids and their friends to see if they liked them. Regardless though, the Freedom and Justice, like the 5 GAT Gundams were not designed with their eventual pilots in mind. The Impulse and Destiny probably had some input from or with Shinn in mind, though the other 3 certainly didn't. Even the Strike-Freedom and Infinite Justice may or may not have been designed with their pilots in mind, since it's never really stated in show and the model kits keep changing their backstory.

While the Freedom being shooty and the Justice slashy doesn't hold much meaning when you view each robot on its own, I'd argue there's meaning to be found if you look at both of them together. Kira's and Athrun's units both have what the other's lacks, which functions as a metaphor for their partnership.

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

"From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.
Buglord

Darth Walrus posted:

There's actually a remarkable amount of meaning to both forms of the Rebake, which I will happily spew :words: over when I drop that final post. It's certainly always supposed to look like an ugly, weird-looking mess, but then, that's kind of obvious - any suit with a couple of feet sticking out of its back was not built for elegance.

I just really love beefy boys like the Gusion, the Hy-Gogg or The O.

E:

tsob posted:

Can you spew some words on the Gusion's original pilot's design out of interest? The two heads of Brewers had some of the worst design in any Gundam show and looked like they belonged in Gundam AGE's first generation or a shonen show or something. They reflected their characters a little too well. Hitler wasn't much better, and I always wanted him to turn out to be a decent guy just so that the sheer obviousness of his design would serve some kind of purpose.

That said, original Gusion and it's froggy design is one of my favorite designs in the show. I love it's weird rocket thruster feet, how bulky it is, the massive war hammer weapon etc. Gundam generally doesn't have many good bulky designs, but that's definitely one of 'em to me.

Oh wow, I haven't seen the Brewers pilots before (haven't gotten around to watching IBO)

They're so awful

Improbable Lobster fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Apr 15, 2017

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

tsob posted:

I imagine the mechanical design of AGE was more about looking cool and being toyetic than anything, but at the same time most of the units in AGE, including most of the Gundams weren't designed with and for their pilots. Flit did design the AGE-1, but he was a literal child designing his first weapon and never intended to pilot it. He designed the AGE-2 for a son he barely connected with, and the AGE-3 for a grandson he had somewhat brainwashed in to his own way of thinking. The AGE-3 is more his own design than Kios. That said I do think you could pull something from the AGE-1 Glansa about Flit, since it's the one unit he really designed for himself, it's new armor covers most of the existing design so that you can barely see what it originally was, it's main armaments are now two huge guns, it's color scheme is a lot darker and so on.


Lockon I normally sorties with a huge cape that protects the real unit from being seen, and his focus on sniping and wish to not carry any kind of melee weapon of his own (though Ian forced him to carry a beam knife if I recall) means he's better at protecting others than himself - which is pretty appropriate, since his character is rather more focused on helping Setsuna than on helping himself. There's probably other details you could see if you went looking.


I would contend that, much like AGE, the units in SEED and Destiny were for the most part not designed with their pilots in mind, at least in show. Much like AGE the units were also designed to be cool and toyetic. Unlike AGE though we know this for a fact, since Fukuda has been stated to have given design directives much to that effect to the mechanical designer, wanted the Freedom to have wings because wings were cool and vetted the designs by showing them to his kids and their friends to see if they liked them. Regardless though, the Freedom and Justice, like the 5 GAT Gundams were not designed with their eventual pilots in mind. The Impulse and Destiny probably had some input from or with Shinn in mind, though the other 3 certainly didn't. Even the Strike-Freedom and Infinite Justice may or may not have been designed with their pilots in mind, since it's never really stated in show and the model kits keep changing their backstory.


I feel your doing a slight disservice to the units there, but they are mostly reflected in their fighting style regardless. Still, you are at least forgetting Epyon, which reflects Treize's ideals by design even in show, with it's weapons and role, Trowa adding a sad clown mask to Heavyarms Kai to reflect his new path in life and so on. The Tallgeese being a more Romanesque unit with a knightly appearance used by Milliardo probably has some parallels too. It's still not much nuance, but it's a little more than you are giving it credit for I think.


I'd also question this assertion, since I don't think the Graze Ein's crown is different enough from a lot of Gundam V-fins to make it a warped version. Especially not one that's supposed to reflect any kind of crown of thorns, given that it only has 4 points. The only notable difference to me is that the upward pointing V-fin in it's double arrangement is on the outside rather than the inside like several Gundams (like the 00) have.


Edit:


Can you spew some words on the Gusion's original pilot's design out of interest? The two heads of Brewers had some of the worst design in any Gundam show and looked like they belonged in Gundam AGE's first generation or a shonen show or something. They reflected their characters a little too well. Hitler wasn't much better, and I always wanted him to turn out to be a decent guy just so that the sheer obviousness of his design would serve some kind of purpose.

That said, original Gusion and it's froggy design is one of my favorite designs in the show. I love it's weird rocket thruster feet, how bulky it is, the massive war hammer weapon etc. Gundam generally doesn't have many good bulky designs, but that's definitely one of 'em to me.

The AGEs may have (mostly) not been built by their pilots, but their particular gimmick of evolving and re-equipping means that they should at least be shaped by their pilots. The problem is that it doesn't really work out that way. The builds either convey the wrong personality (young Flit is way too serious for the goofy ninja and wrestler builds - which is a shame, incidentally, because if he had been the sort of guy to come up with those, it would have made the first arc more fun) or no personality at all - the Double Bullet, Fortress, and Orbitsl are just 'more guns, more thrusters'.

For SEED, I was mainly thinking of the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice, which were designed by Terminal, Lacus's organisation, as personal machines for their pilots. As is, they're just the same but more, when I feel they could have been a little more imaginative in showing what Kira and Athrun had learned from their setbacks in the first part of Destiny. I guess Kira getting a DRAGOON system does say something, at least - Rau and Shinn taught him the vital importance of maintaining proper control over the battlefield if he wants his fighting-style to work.

The Epyon is certainly one of the most interesting designs in Wing, because it actually has multiple things going on. It's a duellist designed for honourable combat - part bravo, part gladiator - but it's also a demon built as a reaction to the angelic Wing Zero. In other words, Treize created an inherently subordinate symbol of evil that exists to show the goodness of others by contrast. That does indeed say a lot about him.

I called the Graze Ein's head-decs a parody both because double V-fins are rare in the PD era (the only Gundam with a multi-spiked fin is the similarly demonic Lupus Rex) and because of their mobility - swinging V-fins are not unknown in PD (consider the Rebakes), but the elaborate way that the Graze Ein's fins twist around each other as the head reshapes is particularly grotesque.

On the Brewer character designs, it's certainly true that Yu Ito is not the anime's greatest visual asset, but you can somewhat see what they were going for here. It's worth noting that Kudal and Brooke's grotesqueness is a deliberate choice on their part - Kudal in particular is shown to have undergone extensive body-modification. The Brewers are a worst-case scenario for Tekkadan, compared to the Turbines' best-case, and the leadership's abandonment of humanity is a warning of the dark paths that the mercenary life can lead you down (and eventually does lead Tekkadan down). The marginalisation of the outer worlds is degrading, not ennobling, and they've given in and embraced that degradation. Similarly, Todo is kind of a living signpost. He doesn't do all that much in and of himself, but having a guy who looks like Hitler and has a name one letter away from Tojo serve as a go-between for the alliance between Tekkadan and McGillis is a fairly broad hint to the audience about exactly where this story is going.

muike
Mar 16, 2011

ガチムチ セブン

Darth Walrus posted:

Next on our list:

ASW-G-XX Gundam Vidar



Vidar (both the identity and the Gundam) is Gaelio's vehicle on his vision-quest, an effort to understand his treacherous best friend by becoming him. It soon becomes clear that the name is slightly misleading - he's not so much trying to get revenge as he is trying to get into the mindset of the ruthless avenger who almost killed him. To this end, the Vidar strips away almost all of his original identity. His signature purple has decomposed into pastel blue with splashes of vivid red - he no longer occupies a middle ground, but is floating between two extremes. The bulky curves of the Kimaris are gone, and in their place is the jagged angularity of a Schwalbe Graze, shaped around the Grimgerde's delicate, ultra-light design aesthetic, with a tiny little sword and near-suicidally skimpy armour that allow for unmatched mobility and precision. Even its signature head-crest is gone, with a much more traditional, generic Gundam V-fin expanding to take its place. The only remaining touch of Gaelio'sd identity is in the design of the sword, and even that shows a striking lack of ego - his main melee weapon has gone from the Gungnir, a massive, elegant weapon with its own name and heroic legacy, to something that is literally disposable.

McGillis isn't the only person who this machine is inspired by, of course. The sections of black and red, the stylised Graze backpack, and the bladed feet all scream out who the Vidar's extra passenger is - even the epee has more visual similarities with the Graze Ein's piledrivers than the Kimaris's lance. In fact, that's telling in and of itself - there are more touches of Ein than Gaelio in this machine, signifying how the former now sees himself as a vehicle for the latter to avenge himself.

Mind you, for all this talk of Gaelio subsuming his identity, there's still foreshadowing of the failure that saves his life - that he doesn't entirely get McGillis, and never will. All it takes from the Grimgerde, the weapon of McGillis's 'true self', Montag, is the fighting style - the aesthetics are almost entirely of the Schwalbe Graze, his disguise as a loyal soldier of Gjallarhorn and the symbol of the false bond between them. More than that, it's a very boxy, functional machine - there's flair to it, in the slide-down scabbards for its swords and the twin pistols it houses suggestively on its crotch like an Old West gunslinger, but nowhere near the wild excesses of the Grimgerde, the only mobile suit to ever rock a wnged helmet, a robo-dong, and a Dracula-style flared collar all at once. This is a suit piloted by someone who'd go into battle in a custom, four-eyed suit of armour, but couldn't even imagine doing so in an evening suit, opera mask, and giant, poofy wig. Gaelio is too sane, to conservative, and too basically decent to throw himself into McGillis's brand of heroic revenge fantasy, and so he cannot prevent the death of his old friend, but can prevent his own. You think the Montag mask would have stopped a bullet?

ASW-G-66 Gundam Kimaris Vidar



The Kimaris Vidar is Gaelio emerging from the dark with a new, stronger identity. The Kimaris is back in its old shape, with a brighter purple colour-scheme, a more elaborate head-crest, and an even bigger lance. That's not all it is, though - it's a symbol of Gaelio's prise in himself and his family, but that pride is more specifically in their role as part of something greater. The KV is a fusion, an ancient, heroic warrior wrapped in boxy modern technology. The purple is bright, but it's encased in crash-test black and yellow, and the boxy, functional feet, legs, and shields have more in common with the iconic modern suit, the Graze, than with any more ancient technology. Not only that, but there are other, more personal influences. The drills and the positioning of the shields are from the Graze Ein. The shape of the shields and shoulders is lifted from the Grimgerde. Finally, and most strikingly, the sword is no longer a European design, but a Japanese katana just like the one Mika used to kill Ein. Gaelio is an ancient hero willingly working within a pragmatic, modern institution. He's an aristocratic warrior of Gjallarhorn, but one with enough humility to learn from and honour lowborn, traitors, and 'space rats'. Of course, this newfound willingness to compromise and modernise has its downsides, too - his lance, the symbol of his family's honour, has become the barrel for a Dainsleif railgun, a spectacularly illegal WMD.

Taken together, the Bael, Kimaris Vidar, and Lupus Rex make for a fascinating trifecta. The Bael is purely an object of heroic beauty, untainted by upgrades or modifications - it stands alone. The problem is that purity is also isolation - inhumanly high standards, an inability to improve, and an inability to connect to and learn from another people. It's beautiful as an abstract ideal, but too cold and fragile to support human life. The Rex is a surrender and regression, using the combined solar system's darkest, most terrible secrets in order to sacrifice yourself for phenomenal power. It's a beast - terrifying, monstrous, and yet full of life and passion, born of a dark, twisted love that remains love nonetheless. The Kimaris Vidar is an embrace of the coming era, a place without the beauty or romance of the past, but the only place where humanity can live and form equal partnerships with each other, rather than losing themselves to toxic selfishness or equally toxic selflessness.

Next up, our last entry, on Tekkadan's two sidekick Gundams, the ASW-G-11 Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City and the ASW-G-64 Gundam Flauros (Ryusei-Go III).

good work nerd

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE
Todo's last scene was interesting to me. He's an opportunist weasel, but it seems like he had some genuine loyalty to McGillis, or at least liked the guy? There's no way that he didn't saw that chocoman is doomed, but he still took the risk to help him leave Mars instead of ditching him, and to me it looked like he was a little sad about what was about to happen but didn't see a point in trying to argue with the madman and played along.

I dunno, i just like this dumb space hitler side character for some reason.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

RottenK posted:

Todo's last scene was interesting to me. He's an opportunist weasel, but it seems like he had some genuine loyalty to McGillis, or at least liked the guy? There's no way that he didn't saw that chocoman is doomed, but he still took the risk to help him leave Mars instead of ditching him, and to me it looked like he was a little sad about what was about to happen but didn't see a point in trying to argue with the madman and played along.

I dunno, i just like this dumb space hitler side character for some reason.

Todo kinda was too sidelined for me to get a strong feeling over what his actual thing was. I kind of wish he hadn't been because I'd genuinely like to know if he had actual development or just was absurdly good at weaseling out of poo poo.

muike
Mar 16, 2011

ガチムチ セブン
todo was just parallel universe persona 2 hitler

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

muike posted:

todo was just parallel universe persona 2 hitler

So an avatar of Nyarlatothep the Crawling Chaos?

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

tsob posted:

Lockon I normally sorties with a huge cape that protects the real unit from being seen, and his focus on sniping and wish to not carry any kind of melee weapon of his own (though Ian forced him to carry a beam knife if I recall) means he's better at protecting others than himself - which is pretty appropriate, since his character is rather more focused on helping Setsuna than on helping himself. There's probably other details you could see if you went looking.

The Dynames actually has two full-sized beam sabers for melee combat, as opposed to the Cherudim which features absolutely no melee weaponry of any sort.

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE
i started watching Gundam Wing

those are some very edgy boys

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE
also the colonies should've probably told their agents about each other so they don't end up trying to shoot each other and/or destroy each other's expensive super robots

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

RottenK posted:

also the colonies should've probably told their agents about each other so they don't end up trying to shoot each other and/or destroy each other's expensive super robots

The Wing boys aren't following the intended script for Operation Meteor and not all of them were the originally intended pilots of their Gundam.

Xy Hapu
Mar 7, 2004

When a Gundam series starts episode one off in the middle of an operation that's gone tits-up before it even began, with the heero already possessing a gundam and trained on its use who immediately gets shot down then attempts to kill himself, you know you're in for a good ride.

SeanBeansShako
Nov 20, 2009

Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.
Treize is one of the best dressed villains of the franchise.

mthang0851
Sep 15, 2002

Diamonds Are Forever!
Watching Gundam Zeta for the first time, the TV Show. I'm almost half way through ... What happened to the other two Gundam Mk. II's, I assume they were broken down and turned into other Gundams? But I recall seeing all three of them start getting painted. I'm probably on episode 25, just curious.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

MitchFM posted:

Watching Gundam Zeta for the first time, the TV Show. I'm almost half way through ... What happened to the other two Gundam Mk. II's, I assume they were broken down and turned into other Gundams? But I recall seeing all three of them start getting painted. I'm probably on episode 25, just curious.

The other two were sent to Anaheim Electronics to be reverse-engineered

jackhunter64
Aug 28, 2008

Keep it up son, take a look at what you could have won


Improbable Lobster posted:

Is there any deeper meaning to the Gusion Rebake being a significantly worse design than the Gusion Classic?

Gusion classic has a cool hammer, but Rebake Full City comes equipped with Satan's nail clippers which makes it best in show as far as I'm concerned.

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE

Kanos posted:

The Wing boys aren't following the intended script for Operation Meteor and not all of them were the originally intended pilots of their Gundam.

I don't really care about spoilers for this silly show, but I think you shouldn't tell plot twists that (i assume) come later in the story to people who just said that they only started to watch a show :v:

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

RottenK posted:

I don't really care about spoilers for this silly show, but I think you shouldn't tell plot twists that (i assume) come later in the story to people who just said that they only started to watch a show :v:

All that stuff doesn't actually show up in the show. Just in the side-story manga and sequel OVA. As far as anyone who watched only the original series knows, the colonies were just incredibly crap at planning and organisation.

RottenK
Feb 17, 2011

Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE
Ah ok.

Watched a little more.

So our cast of space terrorists is an edgy boy, a less edgy boy, a nice boy, a silent misterious boy and a Men's Rights activist. Can't wait to see what wacky clusterfucks they get involved in.

Also Relena's Animal Adventure is top tier credit sequence.

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

RottenK posted:

I don't really care about spoilers for this silly show, but I think you shouldn't tell plot twists that (i assume) come later in the story to people who just said that they only started to watch a show :v:

Yeah, as Walrus said, that stuff is never directly addressed. It's part of the (insanely convoluted) backstory to explain why five prettyboy teenagers ended up in robots roaming around the planet blowing things up at random.

Wing actually has one of the most ridiculously complex and involved plotlines and backstories in all of the Gundam AUs because the person who wrote it is one can short of a six pack, and it rules.

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Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



gusion rebake full city might be my favorite gundam name because of how silly it is

been watching turn a and it's pretty interesting so far. I think it's a lot more immediately likable than 00 was at any rate. tho it's pretty slow, so I decided to watch thunderbolt in the middle since it's really short; it was good and I like the soundtrack. tho the characters designs remind me of something else but I can't place it

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