Gus Hanson wrote:^ Yeah, I read about how in particular Loran ends up with Dianna instead of Sochie which didn't sit right with her last time we see her in the show. Tomino really cannot write good romance to save his hide!

Is it as bad as in Zeta Gundam where characters fall in love in less than an episode to have the female half end up dead somewhere along the way, and where there are recurrent discussions between characters about men and women where no matter who the characters are the women always spew nonsense about (not) being able to be women and complaining about male characters not letting them be themselves and the males spewing more nonsense about which gender should do what? It became especially ironic when one (female) character complained about men only thinking in traditional roles and being sexist after she talked at length about such roles for herself...

The only good romance in Zeta had both halves end up dead...

Other lessons learned from Zeta:
- Don't date female (Cyber-)Newtypes. They're all nuts.
- Don't skimp on investing in good locks for your rooms/cells/hangars/command centers/Mobile Suits.
- If a character shows repeated tendencies to fuck up in major ways, don't keep them piloting your mecha. Bonus points if the fuck up in question involves spying and/or defecting to the other side.
- But do invest in some research on Newtype powers, so you can be genre-savvy about their reactions instead of keeping guessing all the time.
- Also do the research on how this "plot" armor thing works. And fire the imbeciles that designed armor that withstands massive damage in one episode while it fails from minor fire in the next.

It's also quite amazing how if an ace pilot dies everyone has psychological issues, but they don't get those issues when the rookies piloting the grunt mechs die by the dozens (well, except if your name is Jerid).

Shamsiel-kun wrote:Is it as bad as in Zeta Gundam where characters fall in love in less than an episode to have the female half end up dead somewhere along the way, and where there are recurrent discussions between characters about men and women where no matter who the characters are the women always spew nonsense about (not) being able to be women and complaining about male characters not letting them be themselves and the males spewing more nonsense about which gender should do what? It became especially ironic when one (female) character complained about men only thinking in traditional roles and being sexist after she talked at length about such roles for herself...

Not at all actually, it's just that it felt kinda flat and anticlimactic

I think some of the fast developing romance in Zeta can at least partially be blamed on the fact that a few of the characters are Newtypes and Cyber newtypes and can thus skip some steps and be in love really fast; and as such you can excuse it with newtype magic nonsense. Can't say it bothered me much when I saw Zeta, but it's easy to see how it could bother some.

And I'm going to disagree in the ending of Turn A being rushed. Unlike some other Tomino anime, it actually gets a small epilogue. That said Tomino doesn't seem to be a fan of long conclusions. Once the conflict is over the anime he makes end quickly with little celebration.

I remember in the original MSG trilogy ending where Amuro is reunited with the escaping White Base crew and the peace treaty between the Federation and Zeon is only mentioned in narration, roll credits.

Justacrazyguy wrote:And I'm going to disagree in the ending of Turn A being rushed. Unlike some other Tomino anime, it actually gets a small epilogue. That said Tomino doesn't seem to be a fan of long conclusions. Once the conflict is over the anime he makes end quickly with little celebration.

I'm not just talking about the epilogue itself; the last few episodes in general were comparably surface level in favor of moving the plot along, I wish they had gne into more detail there especially for the last fight;

I watched the first episode of G Reco just now - is this what drugs feel like

In the most literal sense of the word, every single line of dialogue in there felt like it was written by a neural network. What the fuck is this show.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be a long 26 episodes

EDIT: Ep2 was surprisingly alright. Dunno what went wrong in the first one, but it went wrong hard

Watched G-Saviour in a bad movie night just now;
It's surprisingly... not awful
Not bad enough to be bad, not good enough to be good
I have no idea what was actually going on plot-wise, it's all a mess
But the CG looked pretty impressive for a movie made in 2001

Blockio wrote:I watched the first episode of G Reco just now - is this what drugs feel like

In the most literal sense of the word, every single line of dialogue in there felt like it was written by a neural network. What the fuck is this show.

Wait until you watch the first episode of Double Zeta...

It's a clip show/quiz/extended episode 2 preview with tons of trippy 1980s computer effects every few minutes - really feels like someone just got (access to) a nice powerful new computer and wanted to show it off - with two insert songs, one of which is the opening song recycled. The whole thing looks and feels like it was produced on drugs (too much sake? ).

Every time I listen to the ZZ theme song, I keep hearing the "anime ja nai" ("It's not an anime") line as "anim nationale"

Anyway, ZZ episodes 1-16 watched, and although the first episode is a trip with quite bad visual quality (apparently all the other episodes were restored, but not the first one) in general the series is less bad than people make it out to be. The first few episodes are a bit boring because they lack an overarching plot and some of the villains are stereotypical animated series villains, but after that it picks up. Even the MoonMoon episodes are quite decent (I expected MUCH worse).

Been watching some more G Reco; it's nothing like the first episode was, this is genuinely good so far.
Cinematography is awesome, artstyle and music are great and the story and characters both work; dialogues are still barely comprehensible, but eh.

I'm looking forward to more of this

New Hathaway Flash movie delayed due to covid. Not surprised.

Got tired of having to *ahem* sail the high seas for Gundam X, so I finally bought both DVD sets; should be here early next month

ZZ episodes 17-39 watched. There are quite a few filler episodes in this part, some of which have very formulaic plots and annoying continuity errors. These probably match with the period Tomino had to retool ZZ after getting the green light for Char's Counter Attack. It starts getting better with the Elpie Ple episodes, although there still are some continuity issues (characters ignoring their character development from the previous episodes...).
The art in the first part of the second half of the series is uneven compared to the first half, with characters being rather off-model at times and the mecha often looking straight out of a series by Ashi Pro (i.e. Obari-style). Sometimes they also looked positively Mamoru Nagano-ish, and the second opening resembles the original Heavy Metal L-Gaim opening quite a lot (e.g. the "geyser of stars" at the start). Makes me wonder if both were made by the same people...
Then, by episode 35 or so, the series gets darker fast. The colony drop has some interesting imagery during and after the impact that is more akin to the consequences of a nuclear explosion depicted in all of its horrifying glory

Also, although I have generally found the previous unstable psycho loli newtypes mostly annoying characters, Ple has converted me. Puru puru puru indeed.


Edit: Episodes 40-41 viewed, and we're back to the goofy plots, almost. Episode 41 is a nice example of how a single animation error can completely ruin the drama. Debris falls on ground, character lying on ground 2 meters away dies. Everyone is shocked/crying/outraged, while the viewer can only laugh at the absurdity of what they just witnessed.
Unless it was meant as a jab at special effect failures in cheap Hong Kong martial arts movies...

Shamsiel-kun wrote:Sometimes they also looked positively Mamoru Nagano-ish, and the second opening resembles the original Heavy Metal L-Gaim opening quite a lot (e.g. the "geyser of stars" at the start). Makes me wonder if both were made by the same people...

Nagano worked on Zeta and is credited as "Design Works," which meant that he worked on ship designs and other equipment (I know he at least designed the Argama) but I don't know if he designed any Mobile Suits. As many design aspects of the show carried over into ZZ, it would make sense to see the similarities. I don't know about comparisons to L-Gaim though as I've only seen a few episodes, and that was many years ago.

Watched some more G Reco, I'm pretty much on the home stretch now - why is anyone doing anything in this show

None of these assholes have any degree of tangible agenda
What the hell is happening in this show

cyharding wrote:Nagano worked on Zeta and is credited as "Design Works," which meant that he worked on ship designs and other equipment (I know he at least designed the Argama) but I don't know if he designed any Mobile Suits.

He did the Qubeley and quite a few other suits, e.g.:

https://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=2014589
https://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=235388

He has also drawn "Nagano-ised" versions of various MS for Newtype Magazine and other publications.

However, what I meant by my comment was whether the same animators (and/or subcontractors) had worked on both projects.

The bits that remind me of Ashi Pro work use a very particular, almost organic, bulbous and very detailed art style for the mecha that's really quite different from any of the other art in the series. Seeing they also only occur in episodes that may be considered filler, they're likely from a subcontractor...

Edit: Finished ZZ, and overall it's a lot better than people say. The ending also contrasts with Zeta in a good way, I think. While Zeta basically goes all out in showing war is horrible, ZZ does that and also gives a message of hope.

Aaaaand G Reco is done.

final verdict: 3/10 what is this show
Pros: It's pretty and has one really good character
Cons: Feels like a non-story, barely anything is ever explained in sufficient depth and at the end of the day it's utterly pointless.

Two messages from my live reaction chatlog I feel sum the experience up the best:

It feels less like a story than it does like reading the cliffnotes of a talk you didn't listen to

In response to someone calling the show 'peak Tomino' wrote:I was under the impression that Tomino was actually good at what he's doing

I'm just gonna start G now, I need something that's actually good after this garbage fire

A shame you didn't like it, but not unexpected. The show was very divisive even among fans of other Tomino stuff.

I did like it, but I think it's probably the weakest Gundam thing Tomino ever did.(although I enjoyed Victory and ZZ, so take my opinions on his work with some salt) I've said this before, but it clearly should have had at least 10 more episodes or something like that.

I do wonder if the movies they're making now will be better received once they're all out?

Today I watched Char's Counter Attack for the first time in a long while. After watching Zeta and ZZ the plot is easier to follow, but the movie really suffers from some bad Tomino info dumps early on where the Neo-Zeon characters basically have barely comprehensible disjointed exchanges filled with non sequiturs. Not only it makes Char look like he just thought "Oh fuck this shit" with regards to Earth and the Federation, but it causes several other characters to be effectively characterised by seemingly completely illogical thinking (worst offender: Quess... ) due to the large amount of inconsequential phrases they utter. Reconguista in G looks good compared to this shit. Did Tomino take drugs while writing that dialogue?
Another issue I have with the movie is that the art, while very good looking, also changes the character design of some characters so much they are barely recognisable (Char and Astonaige, mostly).

Yeah, I've heard similar things about the movie from most people who weren't rather obviously seeing it through rose-tinted glasses

Watched the first episode of 0083 recently and while I had an inkling that there was an English sung version of "The Winner" that I just found out in that viewing was called "Back to Paradise", the lack of info on the English song credits on the Right Stuf Blu Ray left me bummed. I did find out that it was the same Miki Matsubara of "The Winner" who sings the English version as well through research on the internet based on the only English name on the Japanese credits I could find which was Linda Hennrick who wrote the song. That said, I do enjoy "Back to Paradise" more than "The Winner" because it still retains an 80s feel to the melody while the latter was more 90s style.