Gundam Thread 5: That's no Anime, boy! No Anime!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Gundam Thread 5: That's no Anime, boy! No Anime!

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MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Midjack posted:

Gaia Gear with didgeridoo accompaniment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPOj58fNwrA

# ¿ Nov 14, 2015 17:53

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 03:45

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Also Tomino portrays characters that are pretty varied in personalities and differ a lot from the Anime Norm, so a lot of people have trouble grasping the characters and characterize them as "weird robots" or what have you. I don't think that's true, but I also think it's good to have watched/read stuff outside anime to really "get" Tomino's characters.

Anyway, all the Tomino Gundam shows are great, although only Turn A and G-Reco are lighthearted and only G-Reco is energetic. His non-Gundam shows vary a lot more in quality, and in how dark they are.

Edit: Kanos is right about the lack of exposition. I think the original Gundam is the only to get a big narration at the start (one of the best).

MonsieurChoc fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Nov 27, 2015

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 03:06

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Another way to describe Tomino is that he's 70s as gently caress. Even his later shows still have that 70s feel.

closeted republican posted:

I found that most of Tomino's Gundam shows are pretty comprehensible intros from a newbies POV.

MSG has the luxury of an intro that straight-up tells you "there is a war in space where evil space dudes with giant robots are killing people and chucking giant space stations at Earth", Zeta makes it drat clear who the bad guys are off the bat because there are dudes with black uniforms that grin like gangsters and establishes Kamille as a "troubled youth" because of his little temper tantrum rampage on Jerid and the Titans MPs, ZZ intro is easy to understand because of how simple it is, and F91's colony attack makes it super simple to figure out that the dudes piloting the gas-mask robots are evil and that the Federation is incompetent. Tomino's shows don't have some dude popping up and saying "Hello, I am from the Titans/Axis Zeon/Crossbone Vanguard and here is exactly what we are trying to do" in the first few episodes, but it's easy to figure out the basics of the story just by watching.

I think Tomino does stumble with revealing motivations at times, like how the only talk we get about Jamitov's true intentions is some speculating Paptimus does at his Pimp Pad with Sarah about Jamitov wanting to bankrupt the Federation (which turns out to be true in the novels), exactly why Glemy wants to overthrow Haman, and 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?).

Victory, though, is very much in the G-Reco mold in regards to exposition.

The Colonel posted:

If you like the character designs, that person also did the designs for Eureka Seven and Overman King Gainer, the latter of which is a Tomino show that's apparently supposed to be very similar to G-Reco.

And Eureka Seven is one of my favorite anime ever made. I think it's very good.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 03:23

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Amuro is a canadian hero. :canada:

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 07:57

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Lemon Curdistan posted:

Not any more! The Origin makes him Mexican, which is nice.

I refuse to accept these enemy lies. :colbert:

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 17:06

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Arcsquad12 posted:

The Ocean dub of DBZ Kai to see the light of day? A Gundam series with Scott McNeil as the protagonist and not just a supporting character? More Space Australians from the Dobsons?

A dub of Turn A.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 17:33

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Everybody do the Monkey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc0rW5fsfxA

# ¿ Nov 28, 2015 05:58

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Budget doesn't quite translate to battle quality though. Look at Victory: terrible budget, amazing fights.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2015 23:33

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Gundam shows still usually have pretty good fights. G Gundam used over-the-top moves and characters to carry the show, Gundam Wing had bad fights but amazing still frames (very stylized), I can't remember a single fight in Gundam X but the fun characters was basically the only reasons to watch the show (not enough Mad Max in this post-apoc anime) and the problems with most post-2000 shows have already been mentioned. The rest are usually good.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 00:46

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Or Kai Shinden kicking down that Zaku.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 03:03

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh3iG61loYg

# ¿ Dec 16, 2015 05:03

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

I just felt like listening to Star Children. Gundam should embrace it's 70s roots more.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2015 05:32

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

One of the reasons I love Origins so much is that it fully embraces the 70s sci-fi look. It has a place next to my Moebius and M�zi�res comics.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2015 06:23

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Droyer posted:

Gundam Sousei

Gunota no Onna

The Plot to Assassinate Gihren

The Plot to Assassinate Gihren is really good. It would have been m top choice for the OVA.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2015 08:23

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

My favorite page in The Plot to Assassinate Gihren has surprisingly little to do with the plot.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2015 19:58

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

It is good to see Zeon scum get their just desserts.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2015 22:26

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Azubah posted:

I like how they were upset that someone had the audacity of taking down one of their own after sniping the poo poo out of their opponents.

I don't feel any pity because they're all assholes.

They're literally sitting in the grave they made of their opponent's home and feeling righteous.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2015 03:33

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Darth Walrus posted:

Remember the artificial limbs, the talk of weird experiments, and the fact that they're literally called the 'Living Dead'? These guys are just as much victims of the war as the Moore Brotherhood. Getting slowly murdered by a Gundam is just the runny sauce on the poo poo sundae that is their lives.

Later in the manga, they're willing to blow themselves up rather than suffer the "dishonor" of being made prisoners. One of the federation dudes makes a big speech about how they should stop murdering each other, but it only stops like four of them. The rest keep fighting till the end.

Fascism is a hell of a drug.

Edit: fixed spoiler bracket.

MonsieurChoc fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Dec 27, 2015

# ¿ Dec 27, 2015 05:26

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Darth Walrus posted:

I know, I've read the manga. And the Feds don't come off too well in that scene, either. It's basically a few decent, sane people making a brief connection before a bunch of angry hardliners pull everything straight to hell.

That interpretation works only if the Zeon soldiers hadn't already been planning to blo themselves up when they saw that the ship wasn't exploding.

And the Federation has a much better track record of following the Antartic Treaty/the Geneva Convention than Zeon too.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2015 05:52

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

I feel like Tomino was watching a lot of european war movies when he made F91 and Victory. It very much feels like one of those, except in space.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2016 08:05

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8LtNBpqc_M

# ¿ Jan 2, 2016 10:07

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Reds posted:

Zanscare are the most crazy out of the UC Gundam factions. They're completely insane.

As it turns out giving independence to the colonies was a bad idea because with they keep installing monarchies and cults as their leaders.

They're basically Space Isis.

Hmm. There's seventy years between the One-Year War and Zanscare, much as there was seventy years between WWII and Isis. It checks out.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2016 06:32

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

I dropped IBO when the creepy space harem was introduced. From what I looked at the episodes that followed, I'm not sure I made the wrong decision.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2016 22:19

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

ImpAtom posted:

The character interaction in those episodes are good. Naze is not and at best exists to facilitate some interesting character interaction.

I'm also not sure why you think IBO isn't my kind of show? Like the worst criticism I've had of it is that I think the villains are kinda crap so far and that Naze's a pretty lame character. Neither of which I think is a particularly unfair criticism. I'm not as positive as it as other people but I don't hate it at all.

I mean I'll flat-out say that, to date, I find Mika one of the better Gundam protagonists and absolutely the best iteration of the Tragic hosed Up Child Soldier archetype to date. He's a big part of why I enjoy the show because they're pretty dead-on about doing interesting things with him and having actual consequence to his actions. I also really enjoy the battles which work very hard to give actual weight and meaning to the violence and which have thus for not descended into meaningless battles just for a fight of the week. The show has a lot of extremely strong moments and there's stuff that I can't really judge because it's hard to tell where it will go. (Kudelia is a big shining example here.)

But Naze Turbine is a dumb character unless they do something interesting with him later that retroactively changes how I feel about him.

Yeah, except I didn't find Mika and his crew that good. They were alright, but not interesting enough to get me to watch through these episodes all about some nerd's creepy fantasy to have his perfect space harem.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2016 08:16

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Darth Walrus posted:

The writer's Mari Okada. She might want a giant space harem of adoring women, but it's not something I'd immediately assume.

Surely, there's more than one writer on the show?

It's just that it's so unrealistic and fantasy and it's a focus for some time and urgh. Why couldn't they just stay on Mars? The first few episodes were good but it quickly dropped to "meh" and I just can't get why. The space harem is just a good marker for the moment I dropped it.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2016 09:52

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Ka0 posted:

They haven't shown him or talked about him enough to arrive to this conclusion. I think a lot of people are overreacting.

Maybe I am. I'm just looking for a reason why I'm not liking the show when I was looking forward to it and it seemed to start good. Kinda bummed out about it.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2016 18:08

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Darth Walrus posted:

08th MS Team has a similar gritty wartime aesthetic, plus the same sort of OVA production values. Iron-Blooded Orphans is much more traditionally shonen anime, and also much lighter on fight scenes but has a similarly unnerving protagonist, a similarly dark, uncompromising tone, and similarly brutal, horror-themed action choreography (though it's on a TV budget, without that lovingly-crafted OVA glitz). Outside Gundam, Cowboy Bebop and Armoured Trooper VOTOMS may also scratch Thunderbolt's itch.

VOTOMS, aside from being a pretty good show, is also pretty funky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dwUlEoQqT8

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 03:23

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

It's pretty unfair to compare ANY char to Harry Ord. He's in a class of his own.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2016 11:05

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

You know, a shot of Side 2 falling over Sydney would make an amazing promotional poster for a Gundam movie.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 10:41

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Like I said a couple pages back, fascism is a hell of a drug.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 12:19

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

G-Reco is amazing (though not perfect, it needed a few more episodes to breathe and a few less battles) and people who hate have bad taste.

Like, more than half of the complaints about G-Reco are nonsensical and the rest are weird over-reactions.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 00:44

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Droyer posted:

Please don't do this. I agree that g-reco is good but going "if you disagree with me you have bad taste" just leads to arguments.

You're right, of course.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 01:14

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

The last ride of the Reinforce Jr is probably the best scene in all of Victory Gundam. It's also a complete reversal of the usual Tomino battle of the generations, with the older folk sacrificing themselves for the younger people.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 07:42

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Reasons why Turn A Gundam is the best Gundam:

- It has some pretty great characters, that get fleshed out over the series
- It has a pretty unique and interesting setting
- It has great animation and designs
- It has a slow, deliberate pace that makes it very much a slow journey rather than a "must-know what happens next" race
- It is probably the most coherent of all the Gundam series
- It has an amazing soundtrack by Yoko Kanno.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlITPE_k90k

"Everyone, come back! The Earth is a nice place!"

The thing is, if you go in thinking it's a normal Gundam show, you'll hate it, because it very much not one. It foregoes a lot of the "standard" Gundam tropes.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 12:25

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 15:09

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Lanz posted:

I can't remember, does After All turn up in the series or was that a movie only track?

Cause goddamn is that song beautifully melancholic.

It's the ending credits song of the first movie, and it's loving beautiful.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2016 21:47

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

oohhboy posted:

The MC Belleri has functionally no character development. He is the same half formed construct(An Idiot) going in as he is going out. The only permanent thing that ever changes for him is that he stops hitting on his Sister. Has the worse A CHAR in Gundam history.

The battles are anti-SEED. Everybody fights because fighting, not really for any solid goals most of the time(Not even for SALT at times), there aren't any clever plans unless you count hostage taking or proper limitations to produce tension. Gundam will literally pull out BS super power out of thin air to get out of a situation and it's never mentioned again. As much as everybody bags on Kira "Jesus" Yamato, he goes through a lot of character development to get to where he is, which is something you will not see in G-Reco for anybody. Watch G-Reco only if you like flashy lights, it is the only Gundam series I wouldn't recommend for anybody.

None of this is remotely true if you actually watch the series and pay attention. Some of these are so plainly wrong I can't fathom how anyone could think them.

Edit: Like, all factions have clear stated goals, Bellri has a lot of character development, Mask is great and even if you don't like him he does plenty of stuff that puts him above the worst chars, there's quite a few clever plans and seriously are you just outright lying at this point?

MonsieurChoc fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jan 19, 2016

# ¿ Jan 19, 2016 12:00

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

I still don't get the common complaints about Tomino characters being weird. Do you, like, know real human beings? Who act on emotions and make mistakes? Cause that's usually what all these complaint boil down to.

It's like all those complaints about people not acting like emotionless player characters in movies: it's loving nonsensical.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2016 20:40

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Dangerous Person posted:

I really should stop watching these Zeta episode previews because of how spoilery they've been getting but I can't get enough of how angry the dub narrator sounds at the end of each one

"You will see the tears of time!"

It's like he's threatening me

I loved the intro with the soul definitely not a peace. Shame it's not on youtube.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 07:10

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 03:45

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

When people say Kamille was one day away from becoming a school shooter at the start of Zeta, it's not actually a joke.

Joining the hosed up space war actually did him a lot of good.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 09:10

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Gundam Thread 5: That's no Anime, boy! No Anime!

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