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Kanos posted:It was definitely the point and not necessarily a black mark on the series's writing. I'd say it was definitely intentional on Tomino's part, but I'm not sure it was really the point. Unless the point is "everyone's kind of an rear end in a top hat, but that's okay" or something, which it could possibly be but I don't think that was really something Zeta was shooting for. I haven't seen it in years though, so I may just be forgetting some fundamental stuff. Regardless, I certainly found it off-putting. I actually enjoyed that Kamille was a hothead with no foresight or restraint for a good chunk of the show because it made him an interesting lead - I just hated that everyone else was basically an rear end in a top hat too. Unlike 0079 or other shows there was no real feeling of camaraderie on the Argama. It felt like these were people who were only working together because they were left with no choice and who actually hated each other and had no desire to be there at all even though the major power in space was gunning for them and that should have created a rather oppressive "us versus them" feeling and caused people to bond purely based on overwhelming odds and shared experience. Outside of a handful of moments like Kamille bringing tapes back for Roberto and Apolly though, the crew of the Argama never really feels like they get at all. Gyra_Solune posted:Katejina being the char makes a hell of a lot more sense tbh I saw someone saying recently that Chronicle is the Kycilia of Victory, not the Char, which makes a fair bit of sense. They wear similar masks for similar reasons and both characters are acting out of love of family as much as anything else.
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Oct 18, 2015 01:30
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Droyer posted:I feel like everyone being assholes is Tomino saying "War draws bad people towards it, and makes good people worse", which ties into the anti-war message that's common in Gundam The thing is, everyone that is an rear end in a top hat starts the series as an rear end in a top hat and stays pretty much the same as far as I can recall, while Kamille, Fa and Emma, the three characters introduced to the war either stay the same or actually get better in the case of Kamille. At least on a social and personal level, so it's kind of hard to see that as true. Droyer posted:The V2 is probably my favorite protagonist Gundam. It's like the giant robot version of a sports car and I love it. I think the Gerbera Tetra is probably the closest Gundam gets to a sports mecha, if not mecha in general gets to it. It looks like it was designed by Ferrari - though there is also the actual Ferrari Gundam from, I believe, a G manga fan competition. Gerbera Tetra  Ferrari Gundam 
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Oct 18, 2015 10:43
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Tae posted:CCA wasn't approved until about halfway through ZZ. I've never actually seen any kind of source for that, beyond someone once linking to MAHQ's ZZ summary, which I wouldn't take as a source personally. I know Mark has worked for Sunrise, but any other information he's given on series production has been sourced from Gundam books like the various bibles and encyclopedias that the franchise has generated, meaning I doubt he has any personal knowledge on that side of things unless otherwise stated.
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Oct 21, 2015 20:11
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I really like that the conflict is resolved not so much by fighting as by Mineva going on television and saying "You know what? Zeon is kind of retarded. Let's not do that poo poo again, because it's not really worth it and I don't want anyone using me as an excuse for war". Char's Counterattack definitely has the more iconic finale for Zeon, but I prefer Unicorns, because I think it's more reasonable that a speech by a representative of a faction that denounces that faction and it's ideals ends up being the final grave of Zeon, than Char's own soldiers turning on him in a split second and then no-one ever questioning the cause again despite nothing really being disproved about it. Yea, Unicorn's finale is kind of stupid, but so is Char's Counterattacks in several ways and I at least prefer the base idea of Unicorns to be honest.
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Oct 22, 2015 11:03
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I've no idea what arguments were in the old thread since I didn't read large chunks of it, and this might get me probated I suppose, but I'm going to put the argument out anyways, because the way the end of Char's Counterattack is often touted annoys me.Kanos posted:I really can't stop harping on this. The Axis Shock is an effective ending to early UC because of it basically being the world's collective reply to Char's nihilism. Char, in a state of nihilistic despair, says "gently caress the world, humanity sucks too much rear end to ever improve on its own, I'm going to force them to move on" and humanity as a whole, collective entity says "No, gently caress you, dickhead. There's still hope for all of us to work together". CCA has a myriad of problems as a production but the ending is not one of them, it's one of the most effective and strong endings in Gundam. Everyone, everywhere, including Unicorn and apparently the CCA novels, says that the Axis shock is the collective will of humanity and I just think it's absolute bollox. You can harp on about it all you want, but I don't see how it's the collective will of humanity any more than Unicorn's newtype magic is. To me, the finale of Char's Counterattack is the collective will of perhaps a few dozen people, several of whom only decided to help on what looks like a moment's notice and give no acknowledgement that they've just betrayed their apparent cause to do so. And honestly, I don't even think it needs to be more than that. The Axis shock being caused by all those pilots willing to sacrifice themselves to achieve the impossible out of sheer desperation is good as it is. The Neo-Zeon remnants helping is good too, though I think they could at least acknowledge their change of heart on the matter. Apparently they don't need to though, because according to /m/ they did it because they heard Amuro's will thanks to his newtype powers and they're only acting because of that, which is also the reason all the Federation pilots do it according to the same people and I loving hate that. I hate it at least partially because there's literally nothing in the film to substantiate the idea that any of those people heard, felt or otherwise sensed Amuro's desire or idea, but I mostly hate it because to me it devalues their actions to suggest they do so. Amuro decides to push back Axis out of sheer desperation, Bright tries to do the same thing using the Nahel Argama a few seconds later and gives that exact reason (we can't just sit here and watch the Earth be ruined), and then not long after several squads of Feddie pilots arrive and immediately dive in to help Amuro. Bright's point sums up the feeling all of them were having, so why the gently caress would they need Amuro's direction to need to do the exact same thing Amuro himself just did? And I like the idea that that's what changes the Zeon pilot's minds. Zeon soldiers have often been portrayed as passionate idealists who act for a cause they believe in and in opposition to Feddies who are just guys doing a job and maintaining the status quo by doing so. So to me, their decision to help is much more effective if they do it because they see all these Federation soldiers suddenly willing to lay down their lives for an impossible act out of sheer desperation, because that speaks to an ideal that they can empathize with and gives the Federation a humanity in their eyes that was missing all along. Saying that Amuro gave them newtype feels and they suddenly changed their mind because of it is just cheap in comparison. That chain of events to me is already a good ending that puts the lie to Char's nihilism on it's own. It doesn't need to be the collective will of humanity. And I don't see the collective will of humanity in it. Most of humanity is apparently unaware it even happened according to the ending, because a minute or two later you see people going about their lives like normal and wondering what they're seeing. We get no scenes of people in desperation wishing for Axis to be averted, we get no scenes of anyone hearing Amuro's voice, we get nothing to connect even the people on the nearby ships to the event by having them hoping that Amuro's wild plan comes off. Nothing. So how is it the collective will of humanity? Yea, all of those things would be cheesy as gently caress, they'd also probably be hamfisted, but it's a cheesy and hamfisted message so that's kind of unavoidable if you want to actually put across the idea that all of humanity caused the miracle to happen in the first place. Saying that it's the collective will of humanity would seem to imply that the psychoframe is able to passively collect the unconscious desires of all humanity across thousands of miles regardless of whether they're even aware of what's going on or not. And if it can do that in Char's Counterattack to fuel the Axis shock, then gently caress it, it can do it in Unicorn to fuel Banana and Riddhe's poo poo, because it's the same stuff in both sets of suits. There's also the fact that as Amuro and Char are arguing Amuro makes reference to wanting or needing to show humanity the light of the human heart in response to Char's nihilism. Which I think is what the final shots of the film of all those people looking up are. Amuro wasn't just able to act as the catalyst for a miracle, he was able to show people the light of the human heart by doing so thanks to the psychoframe. You can't have it both ways though. You can't have all of humanity acting in concert and then needing to be shown why they should be acting in concert in the first place. What's even worse though is that you say that Unicorn sucks because it has no effect on anyone but the characters involved, which in context would imply that you think Char's Counterattack's finale has an effect on more than the direct cast and that's just nonsense. F91 is set only 31 years after Char's Counterattack and is not only not mentioned or even inferred in any way, it's basically the start up of a new Zeon movement under a different name. Not only does everybody forget it even happened in the immediate aftermath, but it also has no effect in either the long or the short term really, because nothing changes for at least a few thousand years. So exactly what effect did it have? It might sound like I'm very down on the film, but I actually like the finale of the film and even agree with Kanos that it's one of the most effective and strong endings in Gundam. I think a lot of the stuff leading up to it is kind of mediocre, but the ending itself is very memorable. I just don't think it has anything to do with all humanity or that it actually had any real effect on things, either within the show or in the franchise as a whole. Why I like Unicorn's ending, at least as an idea, is that I don't see how the events of Char's Counterattack would have had any effect on Zeon sympathizers not directly involved in the Axis shock itself. Nothing Char ever did acted to disabuse any of his followers of Zeon's cause. Quite the opposite, his plan to gently caress Earth gained him more followers, not less. Nor did any such sympathizers who weren't there see or know anything that would disillusion or dissuade them of wanting to follow those ideals in future. Mineva's speech might not have been a great dissuasion, but it's at least something. And I like that, because it makes more sense as a reason why the Zeon flag would never be raised again in future. Another flag idealizing much the same thing might be, but Zeon at least wasn't. And that's fine. I don't have a problem with that, because Unicorn didn't try to say it was ever going to be about anything but the death of Zeon, so another cause taking advantage of people is in line with both Tomino's vision of Gundam and people in general. Edit: Somewhat related, but this is also why I wish that Char's Counterattack had never been made in the first place and we'd just gotten the original Zeta Part II instead. The end of that, with the majority of people moving off Earth and in to the colonies with Judau going to Mars to help colonize it implies that any successive series would have moved the setting on a bit and introduced a new conflict. Instead of Earth versus the Lagrangian Colonies, we'd presumably have gotten Earth and the Lagrangian Colonies v Mars, with Judau as the Martian Deikun. It's not a massive change in direction for the franchise, but it would have been an interesting change none the less in my opinion and I wish we'd gotten that version of events instead. tsob fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 15:10
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Droyer posted:I want to live in your world, where 30 years of peace is basically nothing. Also the Crossbone Vanguard is completely different form Zeon in ideology and aesthetics so calling them Zeon by another name is incredibly dumb. 30 years of peace isn't what Amuro was aiming for though. Amuro wanted to prove that people could change and move beyond. Whether that beyond is beyond conflict over nationality, byeond conflict over newtypism, beyond their short-sighted mistreatment of Earth or what, 30 years of peace and thousands of years of war doesn't change that people never did thanks to the way the franchise works. Also, Cosmo Babylonia were a group who took over one colony and declared their independence from Earth before trying to force their way in to the control of the rest of the colonies using the backing of the Jupitarians and had ambitions on Earth, which they cloaked under the guise of nobility. Which is basically the Zabis. They used newtypism as well to get the people of their side to support them, but they were mostly protesting how lovely the Federation were to get followers. There's very little difference between them and Zeon.
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Oct 22, 2015 15:41
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ImpAtom posted:The argument of "there wasn't a giant instant shift in humanity, ergo everyone who has any form of optimism is wrong" is really silly and ignores that nobody expected people to change overnight. Amuro has a semi-famous speech where he says people can't change overnight and he doesn't expect it. You ignored quite an important part of that line of argument, which was that it wasn't just in the short term that nothing changed, but in the long term too. Shows like G-Reco and Turn-A demonstrate that even after literally thousands of years, nothing has changed. The Earth is still being hosed up by humans and technology, control of it is still the center of a lot of conflict, newtypes never stop just being mere soldiers in wars and so on. I would in fact say that both Amuro and Char are wrong. Amuro is wrong because humans don't really change or learn any of the stuff he's arguing about Char with in the long term and Char is wrong because both Turn-A and G-Reco show that living in space is kind of lovely and Earth is a much nicer place on the whole and people want to return to it. People also didn't evolve in to newtypes by living in space. Or if you go by Turn-A's supplemental material, they did, then left the Solar System entirely and a newtype society was so focused on war it produced the Turn-X. Which is no better regardless. I'm also not against optimism. In fact, I much prefer optimistic shows on the whole. Turn-A is one of my favorite shows at least partly because it's optimistic. Nor do I even have a problem with Char's Counterattack for having an optimistic ending. I just think it's kind of silly to act like the end of the show had some great effect, because it ultimately had none. Nothing to do with it is ever mentioned again, and both F91 and Victory might as well take place in a new setting for all the difference it makes. Which comes back around to a problem I have with the early UC stuff as a whole, which is that Zeon never amounts to anything and Char's Counterattack basically ends with a big reset button. The various wars never had any noticeable effect on the society of UC, so once you lose the name Zeon, there might as well be a big reset switch pressed. Especially since by the time of F91, there's no named characters left around to give any kind of sense of continuity. It's part of why I wish we'd gotten Zeta Part II instead of ZZ and Char's Counterattack. It at least ended with Earth being left behind by the majority and colonization moving out to Mars. It gives some kind of lasting effect for early UC that can be played off for later shows. As is, there's really nothing, which is kind of sad. This would all be fine if Char's Counterattack was the final UC entry, because you can extrapolate out from the ending as you wish at that point, but it isn't, and the other entries suffer because of how Zeon has no legacy. As is, Char's Counterattack has a great ending, but I'm not going to pretend it had any effect on the franchise or setting just because it was great. Lemon Curdistan posted:Cosmo Babylonia's ideology is basically the Zabis' stance on power and nothing else, i.e. without any of economic or ecological policies that were the core of Deikun's Zeonism if you read all the supplemental material. The problem is that the "main" Gundam shows don't actually talk about those policies all that much, so Zeon is usually reduced to "independence from Earth, fascism, warcrimes, 19th century aristocracy," and Cosmo Babylonia fits at least three of those. I don't want to quote the whole thing for the sake of space, but thank you for answering this far better than I ever could. Kanos posted:CCA represented the effective death of Zeon as a serious military entity capable of challenging the Federation. After Char's Neo Zeon was broken in CCA, Zeon/Axis as a unified government and military force was destroyed forever; the only successors to Neo Zeon are scattered terrorist/guerilla groups like the Sleeves and the few crazy assholes who went and formed Mars Zeon. The late UC villains like Cosmo Babylonia, the Jupiter Empire, the Crossbone Vanguard, and Zanscare have absolutely nothing to do with Zeon. In fact, the legacy of CCA in the Universal Century is that after CCA happened large scale war between the colonies and Earth pretty much stopped entirely. War only returned in force when assholes from Jupiter and the Asteroid Belt came back and tried to conquer everything. Why did it represent the effective death of Zeon though? Nothing that happens in the film actually represents a reason that Zeon sympathizers around the Earthsphere should give up on Zeon. A handful of remaining Zeon pilots are given some reason to do so, but the cause it represents is never publicly defeated such that we could reasonably expect people who weren't there but take issue with the Federation would go "Yea, Zeon isn't the answer". And if Degwin, Haman and Char can all rile up armies and sides in the past to support them, there's no reason some future Zeon poo poo-stirrer can't do the same. Which is why I prefer the fact Unicorn ends with a speech decrying both Zeon's methods and the Zabis and their image as a central point for resistance. It's not as iconic, it's not even as emotive or well executed, but I prefer it regardless. tsob fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 17:56
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boom boom boom posted:Did you not watch G-Reco? There had been peace for a thousand years, and in the end humanity rejected war again. They mostly had peace on Earth because the planet was so hosed ecologically that everyone was more concerned with where to get the next meal than who was running the show. Hence the cannibalism. Which was precipitated according to the show by hundreds of years of conflict during the UC. And which was followed by wars between the various power blocs that did spring up, like Ameria, Gondwana and so on. They even mention Ameria having been at war in the show and that that's why Klim is more experienced at combat than the Capital Army dudes he defeats in the first few episodes. We've never had any indication that I'm aware of that Towasanga or Venus Globe was completely peaceful for all of that time. ImpAtom posted:For one, it's absolutely pointless to hold other shows in a franchise against it, especially ones created afterwards. The themes of a story do not suddenly get retroactively 'ruined' because someone published a lovely sidestory to sell a new model kit. And even beyond that, those shows do the opposite of what you've said. Both G-Reco and Turn-A demonstrate societies that are significant less warlike than those that came before. Turn-A in particular is a minor skirmish in the scheme of things. The idea that shows that have conflict in them demonstrate that the idea is wrong is silly because it doesn't contradict it at all. It just means that if peace comes, it is a peace that won't have mobile suits and won't have war and so won't be a very interesting show for people looking for those things. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Never said it ruined any of the shows, only that it made it silly to complain about how Unicorn had no effect when Char's Counterattack itself had none either. Unless you want to count 31 years of peace. In which case, Unicorn had the effect of 25 years of peace. Yea, it's not as great, but it's basically the same thing. tsob fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 18:09
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Kanos posted:Well, for starters, Neo Zeon was utterly crushed militarily despite being headed up by The Red Comet Himself(and a Zeon led by Char has been the dream of a lot of Zeon supporters since the Zabis bit the dust, as shown by how some people were willing to follow Frontal). That's a pretty good reason! After Neo Zeon's complete defeat in CCA, Neo Zeon ceased to exist as an independent government power. The only stirrings of Zeon for the remainder of recorded time that we're aware of(so until UC 150+) are random tiny groups of terrorists before they fade completely away and are never mentioned again after Mars Zeon gets stomped. This suggests that the vast majority of people who were willing to actually pick up a gun and fight in the name of Zeon's ideology are either dead, have changed their minds, or have decided that it's not worth dying for. At the end of the day, the highlighted part is what it comes down to, because I don't think the death or defeat of Char is enough to destroy Zeon as an ideal in the setting. Zeon rose up in the absence of Char at least twice more in setting even after the Zabis (Axis Zeon and Neo-Zeon), and there's no reason in my opinion why it couldn't rise up again despite his death or defeat. All the other stuff about small terrorist groups was true before Unicorn, it's true after Unicorn, it's just given another reason by Unicorn. boom boom boom posted:The cannibalism was hundreds of yeas beforehand. And "wars" between Ameria and Gondwan were just stealing the resources spheres from each other, like the pirate stuff in the first episode, and had only started recently. That's why even the "experienced" Klim Nick was completely inexperienced. The completely inexperienced Klim certainly seemed pretty damned experienced, at least compared to the actually inexperienced Capital Guard/Army for being someone completely inexperienced in that case. Especially for a side that had lot of spaceships, mobile suits and soldiers and yet apparently no battles. That also doesn't discount that the show specifies the reason SU-Cordism and all it's restrictions came to prominence in the first place because UC had had wars for hundreds of years.
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Oct 22, 2015 18:25
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NotALizardman posted:The Astray Out Frame just being a giant photojournalist robot is cool as all hell. I've never read it, but I do like the the fact that it has a giant backpack that's actually just living quarters for the pilot. I'd love to see an adventure series with a similar mecha, even down to to photographer angle, about a guy or gal travelling around and living in their giant robot.
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Oct 25, 2015 02:06
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Gyra_Solune posted:tbh that's not too hard to believe, Kamille doesn't start off opposed to the Titans or anything he just ends up hijacking military equipment to bully a soldier who called him names and this was very convenient to the aeug at the time so they brought him on board. Kamille's first reaction upon seeing Titans in the spaceport in episode one is rather hostile, even before he realizes that one of them acted shocked that he had a girls name. He also clarifies to Char in episode two that he hates the Titans. Every time he meets them throughout both episodes he acts like he has a fundamental problem with them, rather than just being in trouble with them and not wanting to be there. I would imagine he had a problem with them because he hated the fact his parents worked so hard and didn't seem to have time for him and that they worked for the Titans if nothing else, but if I recall he also mentions hating they way they act in general and treat people at some point early on too so I think it would take more than simply removing Jerid to make it work. It was the MP who bullied him in the interrogation room he shot while using the Mk II by the way, not Jerid, since you seem to have conflated the two.
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Oct 25, 2015 16:10
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Omnicrom posted:Basically. It also doesn't help that Franklin Bidam was a scumbag, but ultimately it was a combination of being a Teenager, having the opportunity, and Jerid pissing him off that lead to Camille ending up with the AEUG. He was more pissed off at the random MP than he was at Jerid. Kicking Jerid and fighting with the other Titans there is the reason he ended up in the interrogation room, but the random MP being arrogant and kind of douchey in his treatment of Kamille is the reason he decided to hijack the Gundam Mk II and then defect with the AEUG. Which is weird because while that MP was kind of a douche, he didn't really do anything beyond be a douche to upset Kamille so. The most violent thing he did is throw a folder at Kamille, which was prompted in the first place by Kamille shouting at him about how he'd been frightened by the intimidating officer even after he had been released from custody. It says to me that Kamille had a low opinion of the Titans as an organization and the way they acted and treated people in general, rather than those specific instances (Jerid and the MP both). Yea, a good chunk of it is definitely down to him being a teenager and seeing them through that lens along with the fact his parents worked for them, but he does seem genuinely aggravated by the arrogant attitude of Titan officers and the way they walk all over everyone else like they're entitled to as well as that and so I don't think something as simple as removing Jerid from the equation would be enough to get him working for the Titans because of it.
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Oct 25, 2015 16:50
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Blaze Dragon posted:Kamille had problems with everyone though. I can't think of a single person in the show that he didn't want to pick a fight with. In the first two episodes alone he shows respect and admiration for both Bright and Emma, along with continuously allowing Fa to call him Kamille with no more than a plea for her to stop doing so since it'll allow others to know his name if she keeps shouting it publicly. He never does more than ask despite her constantly shouting the name though. He also simply runs away when his karate club leader slaps him for skipping practice right at the start, implying he has some degree of respect (or possibly indifference) towards the guy. closeted republican posted:Kamille is angry enough that the calling him a girl would piss him off more than the Titans being super-evil. He doesn't though. He gets more pissed at the MP who acts and speaks arrogantly than he ever does at Jerid. Jerid is just a spur of the moment thing, but he goes out of his way to plan and execute the theft of a mobile suit to shoot the MP so that he can give him a taste of what it's like to be harassed by someone bigger and stronger than him. And the MP really didn't actually do that much. He asked him some questions about the AEUG, assuming someone who attacked a Titan must sympathize with them, and then said Kamille was being an obstinate poo poo for not talking before leaving him be alone for a while since he wouldn't talk, letting him go when his family lawyer showed up and finally throwing a folder at him half-heartedly when Kamille talks after being released. It indicates frustrations with them that go beyond the actions of that one MP or Jerid, especially when he reacts with such distaste upon spotting the fact that there's Titans at the space port at all.
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Oct 25, 2015 18:02
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What I like about Jerid is that he's basically an older Kamille at the start of the show but let's the worst tendencies both share (impulsive and quick to anger) develop in to full blown obsessions that ruin his life and that it's not entirely his own fault. One of the main reasons that Kamille becomes a better character throughout the show is that while the Argama is chock full of assholes they're assholes who at least watch out for each other on occasion and have some genuinely good intentions, while Jerid is part of the Titans and the few people around him who have any empathy are killed (often by Kamille), leaving him alone to deteriorate further and further since the only people left are all selfish assholes who are more concerned with power than making sure their soldiers have good morale and so on. Jerid starts out wanting to improve the Titans but becoming obsessed with restoring his pride by defeating Kamille before he can continue up the ladder to actually make those improvements, while Kamille starts out with no real goal beyond satisfying his own pride and then starts to learn to see the bigger picture and ignore even the death of close friends to focus on the things that really matter. They play nicely off each other, and him almost nonchalantly offing Jerid and moving on rounds that out well.
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Oct 25, 2015 18:27
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Well they did have another confrontation after Jerid kills Kamille's mom, which is probably the best interaction between them in the show and sets the tone for their relationship pretty well. Jerid himself is shocked and kind of upset that the capsule he shot upon orders held a person and that he had killed someone, because he had assumed it'd be a bomb. Despite that though when he meets Kamille and Kamille is understandably upset he can't bring himself to be humble and apologize and has to try and act like a dick, giving the most insincere apology possible. Which Kamille then turns around nicely on him by saying that he can't really blame Jerid since Jerid is just a cog in the machine and obviously had no idea what he was doing, so that he leaves with the upper hand and Jerid exits more upset than Kamille if I recall.
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Oct 25, 2015 18:45
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I've seen some mention of Dianna having a ring from Will Game in Turn-A Gundam that might be the one she's wearing in the finale and was flicking through the relevant episodes earlier on to see if I could find if she had taken the ring off, thrown it away or kept it on since I don't recall anything to do with the ring myself having last watched the series about two years ago. I didn't see anything flicking through the episodes (or the one directly following that arc's conclusion) but I may just have missed it or she may have done something with it in a different episode. He doesn't even appear to give her a ring during the scene where he proposes though, so I'm beginning to think people may have just flat out made that up on /m/. Does anyone know if she actually does chuck a ring or what? Turn-A is probably my favorite Gundam show and trying to unpack the ambiguity of the finale is a bit of a hobby I guess, since I personally feel that there is a note of romance between Dianna and Loran throughout the show, though I can definitely see why others would find it a more servile relationship. Kanos posted:I'm just mad that the show ended in a bunch of newtype farts and the main villain was actually defeated by the main character being petulant. To be fair, that problem isn't really unique to Unicorn and in Gundam alone you also have Kira running in to the same problem at the end of SEED, and there's probably other examples out there beyond Gundam too - though I can't think of any off hand. The writers give the villains big monologues about how awful people are and how pointless everything is and then give the heroes nothing but empty platitudes to answer them with. It comes across as the writers wanting to have a big, optimistic ending but not really understanding or being capable of communicating a sense of optimism, only cynicism. You'd think Banagher would have plenty of experience of why there's no reason for such extreme nihilism too, given that he's recently fallen in love, has made friends with several former enemies and despite seeing a good bit of death comes across as someone who understands that those people were sacrificing for what they felt was the greater good in many cases. He also spent a good bit of time with both sides in the conflict and understands where both are coming from as well as what both want, and that neither is bad, just opposing. It's just sad that they couldn't come up with a half decent response on his part to Full Frontal, or have him hijack the newtype vision to show Frontal some of his memories to show why he's optimistic or give his own view of what the future might hold. ImpAtom posted:He's not a likable character in that he is a tremendous douchebag but he is a well-realized character with mostly sensible motivations. I don't know. I think he's probably the most likable character in Unicorn for the first 3 or 4 episodes and still pretty likable even after that point. He's just a guy doing a job and trying to be a good person for a good stretch of the show, helping Banagher's friends early on, sneaking Mineva off to try and help prevent the conflict from escalating and trying to stop the Shambo from going out of control when he thinks Banagher is incapable of doing it. Sure, we know the pilot is a decent person in a lovely situation, but he has no idea of that and just wants to prevent more death. DamnGlitch posted:One of my favorite things about Shinji in Rebuild is how Shinji DOES get the lowbrow, shounen "I *WILL* save the girl!" moment at the end of 2.22, and it's pulled off in a really impressive and powerful way, playing off the shinji we remember from EoE, and then it turns out that he not only failed but caused the deaths of countless thousands in the process and turns back into dead eyed EoE shinji. That's basically Shinji all over though. One of the most memorable moments in Eva tv for me is Shinji actually getting some self-confidence and trying to show off by attacking Leliel only to immediately get psychologically hosed back right back down to his episode one self over the course of the episode. Any time Shinji actually manages to get some self-confidence or work up some decisiveness because someone else is in danger life pretty much immediately shits on him and puts him right back in the cage from what I recall. tsob fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 01:11
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Shinjobi posted:Yeah, the only real "link" between Wing and X is that the character design is pretty damned similar. I imagine it's the same person, but I'm too lazy to check. Well there is also the fact that the Gundam designs in X share a good deal of similarity to those in Wing and may just be leftovers from Wing itself, same as how the Gundam designs in Wing are based primarily on rejected G Gundam designs that got cleaned up a good bit.
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Oct 28, 2015 01:14
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Lemon Curdistan posted:It looks like we might be getting a Thunderbolt OVA: http://gundamguy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/mobile-suit-gundam-thunderbolt-anime.html Given the complexity of the designs I'd put good money on it being CGI. Not that I mind personally. I've never gotten the fuss a lot of people kick up about it.
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Oct 28, 2015 21:39
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Lemon Curdistan posted:I find it looks cheap and ugly compare to cel animation. I like to watch old Japanese tv shows and Chinese films with ropey practical effects, and old Japanese cartoons filled with rather terrible art so I guess I've just gotten used to things looking cheap I guess.
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Oct 28, 2015 22:38
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I like it, but I still prefer the original Barzam just for being so odd looking. It makes it stand out more, where that one just looks like a modified Mk II.
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Oct 30, 2015 00:39
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I thought it was a thruster, not a laser?
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Oct 30, 2015 02:04
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MonsieurChoc posted:I was mostly speaking of Chars that are Chars (so Char, Full Frontal and Affranchi, msotly), not all the Char Clones. Cause we were talking about the Char. I think even Full Frontal is a better pilot than Char to be honest, because Full Frontal is a partial clone who tried to mimick the image of what people thought Char was rather than mimicking the actual Char. He tried to become what he thought people imagined Char was so he concentrated more on being a pilot and strategist than on all the revenge and newtype neurosis and such that defined Char in reality. It's why he was able to come up with a plan like the Sides Co-Prosperity Sphere that had a high chance of working, but was kind of cold and calculating, as opposed to Char who came up with a riskier plan that was pretty insane but did fall in line with his and his father's beliefs regarding Contolism.
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Oct 31, 2015 13:05
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TheManSeries posted:Char by the time of CCA has spent more time being a politician and figure head instead of a regular pilot. You this when you get to the final duel between him and Amuro. The duel between Sazabi and Nu Gundam is almost hilariously one sided and Amuro is running circles around Char. I've never seen it as that one-sided personally. Char and Amuro both make each other use up all their weapons or destroy the others and both land nearly lethal strikes that do a bit of damage. Once they seriously engage it's very short, but very efficient and effective on each side until Amuro get's the upper hand. Literally. He manages to land the first real advantaging strike, which is to take off the Sazabi's arm, after which Char really has no way to win given that neither have any weapons left and it's just a punching match. And you can't win a punching match if your opponent has twice as many arms as you really. Char still makes Amuro work even to win that though, with Nanai's distraction being what allows Amuro to decisively end it.
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Oct 31, 2015 19:18
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GimmickMan posted:I agree that the battle itself is fairly even until the end, but before that Amuro was leading Char on a wild goose chase through all of Axis. Even when Amuro was in the ReGZ alone against Char and Gyunei, they couldn't take him down. Char ultimately messed up that first encounter because he didn't use his funnels, but Amuro was still a guy in a ReGZ against a Sazabi and a Jagd Doga that did use its funnels. While I agree that Amuro is a better pilot I don't think it's by that much, but I can totally see why people do think so yes, because the fight is pretty short and the end, with Amuro smacking the one-armed Sazabi around tends to warp perceptions from what I've seen. That said, Char clearly wasn't interested in fighting Amuro seriously when Amuro was in the Re-GZ, hence why he didn't use the funnels in the first place and was so ready to retreat when given the excuse. Which makes sense, given the fact he leaked the psychoframe to Amuro. He obviously wanted a one-on-one duel where both were in their custom suits and to beat him at his best, not to beat him with help when he was handicapped by a weaker unit. I also don't think Amuro was leading Char on a wild goose chase prior to that point, at least, not entirely, because Char was more interested in defending Axis itself from nuclear missiles and what not for part of the battle, so neither was really committing to it for a time.
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Nov 1, 2015 01:39
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That seems a little unduly harsh on the Hyaku Shiki. It wasn't even around at the start of the series and was built during testing for the Zeta so can't be that far off the curve. It's obviously below the Zeta in terms of performance, but I doubt it's by a huge amount and it has a decent selection of weaponry and stuff too. It seems like it's main detraction compared to the Zeta is an inability to transform and the straight line speed that allows. Those things are nice, but not exactly essential.
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Nov 1, 2015 04:10
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Kanos posted:The Hyaku Shiki is like the Methuss in that both are both simply testbed units designed to test specific mobile suit design quirks to be incorporated into later mobile suits. In the case of the Methuss it was transformation mechanisms, and in the case of the Hyaku Shiki it was the wing binders; I'm pretty sure that's not true. The Hyaku Shiki was meant to be a new Gundam but wasn't able to handle transformation and because AEUG needed units they had to push it out in to the field as was instead of re-engineering the design to be able to handle transformation since that could/would take too long. They gave it the anti-beam coating, possibly to test that but I've never seen anything to suggest it's primary purpose was testing the wing binders. The explanation in universe apparently reflects the real explanation that Tomino felt Nagano's design wasn't streamlined enough to be the lead unit but did like it, so they made it the second unit for the show. It even has an in-universe designer named Dr. Nagano to reflect that according to the fluff. It's not an upgtweaked Mk II, it's a downtweaked Zeta. It even looks a lot closer to the Zeta than the Mk II, if you ignore the backpack on the Zeta. The only thing it apparently has from the Mk II is the movable frame and is otherwise more closely related to the Zeta in terms of armor and design. They even get the Hyaku Shiki in show at the same time that the flying armor is delivered. When the MkII is being given an upgrade to help keep up with the curve in episode 10, the crew receives the Hyaku Shiki while it's another 10 episodes till they received the Zeta, which would put it about the half way point between the MkII and the Zeta. The fact that it was supposed to be the lead Gundam, both in and out of universe until a structural problem developed and they made a new version to fix that says that to me that it was far from some piece of poo poo immediately outdated.
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Nov 1, 2015 14:16
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Nasgate posted:As far as i ever saw or knew, the Shiki was a baller suit, but like the Methus, had jack for armor. It makes up for that by being a fast mobile suit. This works when you have an Ace pilot, but as seen with the Methuss it doesn't work out that well with non-ace pilots. Being gold is rad, and the beam coating seemed kind of irrelevant compared to the power output and the pilot. Armor is already starting to become kind of pointless in Zeta, where evasion is the order of the day due to the proliferation of beam weapons. The problem with the Hyaku-Shiki isn't that it lacks armor, since it has the same type of armor as the Rick Dias and Zeta Gundam (Gundarium y armor), and is never stated to have notably thinner armor - it's that it lacks a shield. Which doesn't really seem to inconvenience it all that much frankly. The gold paint seems to have been a preliminary step to tackling the fact that beams kind of make armor redundant given that they tear through almost any thickness with little difference, but not a very effective step in the end.
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Nov 1, 2015 19:16
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The only thing I really remember about Relena is that she finishes off Endless Waltz by deciding that absolute pacifism was a bad idea, and leading a civilian revolt against the Marieamia (however the gently caress it's spelt) army to finish things, because their passive refusal to fight was what enabled that army in the first place. Which I thought was a pretty nice way to finish out her character given her advocacy of pacifism prior to that point.
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Nov 5, 2015 12:36
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ImpAtom posted:I have never hear anyone say the second part. The closest is people (including myself) saying it didn't need a full 52 episode run which I stand by as true and also apply to every other Gundam series. Then let me be the first and say that I think G-Reco would have benefited enormously from being a normal 50 odd episode Gundam series, with the proviso that I actually like filler in some cases and Turn-A is my favorite Gundam series, at least partially because it's so slowly (but in my opinion well) paced. I want filler with the characters just putzing around in Towosanga or the Venus Globe so that I can actually get a feel for what life is like in these places and see more than just the absolute bare minimum needed to convey the story. Both of those locations looked amazing, but I have no idea of anything about them beyond the most superficial details because the characters basically went there, talked to someone and hosed off as soon as they were done. Which to me is a problem, because when I see a place that cool looking I want to see it explored a little. I feel it would also have given the plot and characters room to breathe by having more episodes, so that relationships and interactions are more firmly cemented in the viewer's minds and it is easier to convey certain story or character elements. I've watched Turn-A 3 times completely and several episodes more than that and still notice new things about it when re-watching odd episodes that change certain aspects in my mind. A lot of those details I think people missed because they're small and easy to miss, leading to some conflicting interpretations of events in viewer's minds when done with it (was Dianna dying, who did Loran end up with, is Turn-A weak for losing to a Zaku, did it have nanomachines all along and so on), not because they're stupid or not paying attention and G-Reco has half the run time and more to convey making it even more of a problem. It's not the only problem I have with G-Reco, but it is the biggest one by a long way. tsob fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 16:38
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ImpAtom posted:There is literally not a single 50-episode Gundam series that doesn't have terrible pacing. Even if G-Reco got an extra 12 (which is already a huge increase over the current lineup) would be more than enough. It would be awful if they had to pad out the series to literally double its length. That's nice. I disagree. I think Turn-A could have actually used a handful more personally, much as I love it, just because I would have liked to see a bit more of Corin's story and more time to do a longer epilogue but don't actually want any of the existing content cut and that AGE would have benefitted from at least another 26 or so episodes, not less. It would also need a far, far better writer to make use of those episodes, but trying to cram 4 generations in to a 52 episode series was just asking for trouble and I like the idea of those 4 generations. Sure, there'd be filler. And I'm okay with that, because filler is the best place to do world-building in my opinion. It can be done in line with the main story, but having filler allows greater freedom to explore it and I'm okay with the trade off that all of the content might not be about the central story.
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Nov 11, 2015 16:47
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ImpAtom posted:That would have utterly gutted Turn-A's already meandering pacing. That is good if all you want is more of the world but terrible for it as an actual show. I want both, and I think Turn-A managed both really well by having such a slow pace. It's one of my favorite things about the show and if it didn't have such a slow pace then I don't think we'd have gotten some of my favorite moments, like Dianna working at the war hospital (including the washing machine scene) or Anis' Cow. And I'd like to see more shows that allow that room to breathe personally. You might think it's poo poo pacing, but it's pretty perfect in my opinion and I'm not obliged to agree with your view on it since it's just an opinion at the end of the day, not some kind of objective fact. Edit: Also, I think the word gutted there is pretty hilarious, given that implies taking something out and making it less than, when I'm talking about adding a small bit more.
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Nov 11, 2015 16:58
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Srice posted:50 episodes is like 20 hours or so. If a writer needs more time than that for their story to be good instead of bad, they're not a good writer. Or they're a writer who wants to convey more than just the bare bones of a story. Or they're a writer who wants to convey a very long and/or complex story. Or probably other poo poo too. That's a very arbitrary definition that actually disallows some of the most celebrated stuff ever made as being defined as good, including most of the most beloved tv shows of any kind ever made.
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Nov 11, 2015 17:03
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Srice posted:I think a good baseline to consider wrt to worldbuilding and such is that the expanded editions of the LOTR trilogy clock in at a little over 9 hours, so a 50 ep series is over twice that So what? Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad and plenty of others have 50+ hours of content and they don't even take place in fantastical worlds that require world building. Babylon 5 is a series that did require world-building and even counting only the second, third and fourth seasons (i.e. the generally accepted good ones all written by the same writer and with not much in the way of bad content) that's still roughly 60 hours of content there alone. While those shows do have their problems, you won't find many critics or fans saying their length or pacing is the big one I would wager. Even just confining it to anime there are shows like the previously mentioned Monster that make good use of their length. There are plenty of bad shows that are long. That doesn't mean that being long is bad or that no show should be more than an arbitrarily defined length or else it's writer is by definition bad. That's just silly. There are also plenty of bad short shows, many of which struggle to fill even 12 episodes with content and whose stories would probably benefit from being more complex or lengthy, not less. Not to say that the episode order needs to be longer in all of those cases, only that the actual story could use more content. I think One Piece makes a really good example here, since the story is quite literally all about the journey. Oda could knock out a story that is done in 10 volumes or 26 episodes or whatever arbitrary length you want to set, but it won't be nearly as good since it won't capture that feeling of adventure and by the time they get to Raftel it won't feel earned since it would be impossible to make it feel like a difficult journey only the main characters are capable of in that short a time frame. The anime definitely has a lot of pacing problems, but there is no way fitting it in to 26 episodes would be a better choice and it being longer does not make Oda a bad writer. Droyer posted:don't do this. it makes you sound like a passive-aggressive rear end in a top hat. I am a passive aggressive rear end in a top hat. It's one of a long list of related but minor problems that have come up in counselling for much bigger behavioral issues over the past 6 months. On the other hand there is at least one poster in this thread that is advocating that all anime should be held to his arbitrary standard for pacing or the writer is by definition bad, so a bit of sarcasm or snippiness feels warranted.
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Nov 11, 2015 18:37
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Droyer posted:Literally no one has done this, and the gundam thread is not the place for you to air out your psychological issues. Oh gently caress off. If you didn't want some kind of talk about passive aggression, then you shouldn't have brought it up over a two word phrase in the first place. Also Srice said literally that on this page. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 11, 2015 18:54
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closeted republican posted:why Agrippa took over while Dianna went off on her boondoggle quest to resettle Earth (or was that because of the poo poo subs I had?). The impression I get was that Agrippa, Gym and their families have always been the real source of power on the Moon and that Dianna (and presumably her family) have always been political figureheads whose only real purpose is to give flowery speeches that pacify the population. Dianna got sick of this after several centuries in and out of cryostasis and so decided to try and re-settle the population on Earth because life on the Moon in general is kind of poo poo, which Agrippa and Gym took advantage of first to try and gently caress up her plans by making things more violent (sending Corin down) and then by outright killing her when she was proving to be somewhat successful and kind of an obstacle to what they wanted. Agrippa thought Earthnoids were savages and wanted nothing to do with them or any ideas about settling on Earth since he thought the Moon was fine (this despite 10 million odd people having to be in cryostasis at a time) while Gym just wanted a war for him and his army to fight.
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Nov 28, 2015 02:22
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Yeah, a big part of the series is that all the factions are pretty much playing at war with no real understanding of it anymore. Don't look at it with a modern understanding of combat, think more like World War 1 where they saw shellshock and PTSD as simply "cowardice", expected the whole issue gone in a year, and people were joining up to go to give those drat foreigners a jolly good kicking because they were clearly the better folk That might be the most unrealistic thing in Gundam ever: the idea that a society could go hundreds of years without a war of any kind is just mind-boggling. Also, I'm pretty sure the second and third part of that statement could apply to any modern war, not just World War I. Shell shock was still seen in general as cowardice in World War II as far as I know as well.
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Dec 5, 2015 01:19
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Droyer posted:You do know there are nations in the real world that haven't been at war for 100+ years right? G-Reco implies that the major powers weren't fighting for something like a thousand years though. And that coming out of a major crisis that created a lot of resource problems. Which seems like the kind of thing that'd create conflict. I am not, by the way saying that the show is bad for using this scenario because the show justifies it which is all that's important - just that any scenario where the whole world is at peace for something like a millenia is more unrealistic than 20 meter tall robots, psychic space conversations and so on to me.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:35
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Tomino wanted to have a character called Elbow Smash for the original version of ZZ Gundam that he outlined. Sadly, Elbow Smash was left on the cutting room floor when it was changed in to the ZZ that we got. Gundam has had a lot of fun names over the years, but that's the one that got away.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:42
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Did we ever find out if Noredo was related to the Space Pope since they share the same name actually?
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Dec 5, 2015 03:51
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DamnGlitch posted:It hadnt been a long time since there was a war; its just that youth is the one that always fights war, and young people dont know poo poo about dick. I was watching Ken Burn's documentary on World War II a few weeks back and when they were interviewing the surviving American soldiers who signed up just after Pearl Harbor all of them had rather ignoble reasons for wanting to go to war. One guy just saw it as a way to see foreign lands and get some excitement, another guy thought it was his means to finally learn to fly planes like he'd always dreamed off, a third joined because he'd just gotten in trouble and thought joining the army was a way of escaping it while another ran off and joined the army because he thought the girl he had a crush on didn't reciprocate his feelings. Which is all the more tragic in his case because she did, waited several years while he was away fighting for him to return and then his family got a letter saying he died, after which she waited another year before meeting someone and was due to get married only a few days after he finally returned from the war. There were some servicemen who did have more noble reasons for joining, but the only ones who come to mind (within the realm of the documentary at least) were either the citizens of Japanese descent who wanted to show that they were as American as other citizens or people who joined up long after the war had started and wanted to do their bit for their country going by their own words. All the ones who joined at the start though seemed to be doing it for more personal reasons, perhaps because at the start everyone thought it'd be done in less than a year where after two years or more of American soldiers getting slaughtered en-masse, especially in the Pacific theatre, public sentiment and thus reasons for joining changed massively.
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Dec 23, 2015 23:31
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