Gus Hanson wrote:@Blockio I hope this doesn't inconvenience you but in terms of future Seed Discord viewings, i am willing to keep watching only if you allow the Flay scenes to be viewed as well. I honestly don't mind taking the good with the bad. On that note, if we could rewind the eps we have seen only to see those scenes we ignored featuring Flay that would be alright. Just a suggestion.

Oh, no worries about that on my end, we can gladly just watch the rest of the show as is!

Justacrazyguy wrote:I'm honestly baffled at how much hate Tomino is getting here, as if the anti war theme of all the Gundams he made is in any way difficult to understand.You know, the most important part of the shows? We're talking about the director that sometimes has the main characters literally scream the message at the audience.

I have only seen two Tomino shows so far, Turn A and G Reco well, and a bit of 0079 way back when, an endeavor that didn't go great. My problem with Tomino isn't that his themes are hard to understand, it's more that whenever he focuses on those themes, he has a bit of a tandency to forget to also make the show around them fun to watch

I also don't see how him saying some odd stuff on interviews means he's some deranged lunatic. Oh no, he hates space elevators and Victory Gundam, he must be out of his mind!
I'd like to remind there is this guy called Hideaki Anno that seems to really like 0079(no ideia how he feels about Zeta or any of the other shows) and I seriously doubt he likes it just because there are cool robots. I'd also like to point out this Shinji has some similarities to this other Amuro guy.

Well, Anno has gone on record to state that victory is his favorite Gundam show; take that for whatever it is worth

Blockio wrote:
Well, Anno has gone on record to state that victory is his favorite Gundam show; take that for whatever it is worth

That's actually quite surprising. Out of all Tomino Gundams I've seen, Victory(along with ZZ) are the ones I actually don't find surprising at all that people dislike, there is a lot one has to suffer trough to get to the good stuff, and many would argue if that stuff is even worth it.
It does make me now see one particular Victory episode in a different light, as that one has, lets say, sort of eva vybes? Goes a lot into the psychological aspect of characters for a bit, although the vastly different directing style of Tomino makes the similarities not obvious.
Now I'm wondering if that could have possibly had any influence on evangelion? 0079 certainly had, but the close dates at which Victory and Eva aired had made me ignore any possible influence.

Justacrazyguy wrote:I'm honestly baffled at how much hate Tomino is getting here, as if the anti war theme of all the Gundams he made is in any way difficult to understand.You know, the most important part of the shows? We're talking about the director that sometimes has the main characters literally scream the message at the audience.

Exactly, it's really bad. Everything he wrote is structured horribly, it's so scatterbrained and amateurish it's tedious to follow. Like basic rules of story telling don't just because exist because rules are fun or something*. And screaming the message doesn't salvage that in the slightest, quite the contrary, it's another aspect of his horrible sense of story telling.

*not to say you can't break the rules, but maybe try to make your show in a way that's actually enjoyable to follow

Justacrazyguy wrote:I also don't see how him saying some odd stuff on interviews means he's some deranged lunatic. Oh no, he hates space elevators and Victory Gundam, he must be out of his mind!
I'd like to remind there is this guy called Hideaki Anno that seems to really like 0079(no ideia how he feels about Zeta or any of the other shows) and I seriously doubt he likes it just because there are cool robots. I'd also like to point out this Shinji has some similarities to this other Amuro guy.

Anno is also not ordinary in the slightest, the way he communicates should show as much. And considering how many hardcore fans of Evangelion struggle with Depression, Autism or other mental issues and how deeply the show connects with them is also a dead giveaway. The difference is that Anno is a genius in employing the visual medium to tell a story and make you feel things utter than deep bewilderment.

Also I wanna stress, that it dosen't mean they are "bad" people, they are just not in the bell curve, and that's wonderful. Honestly, everybody has dark impulses, and while Tomino's remarks could strengthen the case for him being a lunatic (it does), it also shows he's an honest straight forward person who has trouble reading the room. Or maybe he was just frustrated.
But reading a bunch of his interviews... there is definitely something not right in this mans head. Same goes for Miyazaki btw.

But in the end Miyazaki and Anno are master craftsmen, while everything Tomino touches turns into a turd, that isn't even funny - it's just chore to watch.

Justacrazyguy wrote:I'm honestly baffled at how much hate Tomino is getting here, as if the anti war theme of all the Gundams he made is in any way difficult to understand.

The intent is clear enough, because of the great amounts of "tell, not show" typically going on -- it's the execution that people are arguing about.

There are lots of signature features in classic Tomino, that you either live with or get turned off by, like the boss-of-the-week with his custom mobile suit (also seen in Ideon), or the hysterical females who up and turn coat for the thinnest of reasons -- one way I could tell that F91 was a Tomino Gundam was the presence of that motif (made more jarring by the sudden glitching of the narrative flow to fit in the time allotted). It was also a pleasant surprise in G-Reco to find that signature move absent, or at least just reduced to the lunatic commander in the Dorette fleet, as well as a general lack of bitch-slaps as a result. And of Bright-slaps, too.

hui43210 wrote:This just confirms my suspicions that Tomino is a legitimate lunatic. I'm also of the opinion that Turn A isn't any more profound or better structured than other show he's done, it just looks and sounds pretty and people give a pass for some reason. The only difference I can find from other Tomino Gundams was that it was painfully boring. Even if there are worse Gundam shows, they at least have better entertainment value.

Tomino has had quite a few issues with depression, and as such his quote does not strike me as completely crazy, because when you are very depressive such thoughts do come up and can be very violent. It however does not mean that he would really kill someone, so don't take his remark too literally.

So take Ideon's crazy ending (kill them all, really everyone, forever). Tomino now says he cannot comprehend how he wrote such a thing, but if he were really depressed at the time it would have been logical and a great outlet for his frustrations. Even though it now seems crazy even to him...

Shamsiel-kun wrote:So take Ideon's crazy ending (kill them all, really everyone, forever).

Apocalyptic, yes, but
a) just humans and Buff Clan
b) all given another spin at the Great Wheel on a new world -- free rebirths for everyone

or am I remembering a fix-up from Be Invoked?

Mr. Tines wrote:Apocalyptic, yes, but
a) just humans and Buff Clan
b) all given another spin at the Great Wheel on a new world -- free rebirths for everyone

or am I remembering a fix-up from Be Invoked?

I think a fix up? Ideon ends on , I thought?

Going back to G-Reco for a second. If anyone had seen the two theatrical parts (out of five) released for far, could you tell me how they hold up compared to the TV series covering those same events? Since it is supposed to be five parts, that likely means that the film series altogether will be longer than the TV show. I'm wondering if that translates into a more cohesive narrative.

The TV series is 26 episodes long, so unless the films are 2+ hours each, it won't be significantly longer. From people that have watched them, I've heard both that they iron out all the problems the show had, and that they retain all the original problems, but make the pacign even worse.
Personally, I'm not about to find out in all honesty, as even pacing issues aside, G Reco is an exercise in how to write something that despite lots of things happening amounts to nothing

Shamsiel-kun wrote:I think a fix up? Ideon ends on

SPOILER: Show

the destruction of the universe

, I thought?

That's the SRW bad ending for Ideon, isn't it?

Watched Gundam Char's counterattack for the second time. In general, my impression of the movie hasn't changed much, but it certainly feels less rushed now that I know the characters and what's coming. I actually felt something in most of the dramatic moments this time! It still feels jarring to go from ZZ to this though.
I do think that while the movie is good on its own, it as far more potency seen after all the previous Gundams. It is, after all, the grand conclusion(ignore all Gundams after this one pls).
Other than that, the soundtrack is still one of the best in the series, the character animation, while not on the level of Ghibli and others that would come after, is still quite nice and is easily surpassed by the mecha animation, witch still has that absolutely amazing action. Sure, it can sometimes be a "blink and you'll miss it" affair, but it still is some of the best fighting in the series to me.

And I just love Char, he's such a fun character in many ways.

Had a viewing party with Blockio of Gundam Seed episodes 22 to 24 and the ride is definitely getting better and more interesting. The first encounter between Athrun and Cagalli and them discussing why they fight for their respective sides made for good banter. IDK who to classify as more bitchy, Flay or Natarle because Flay goes for a fanservice skimpy clothes method of taking Kira away from Cagalli when they were in the middle of a deep conversation of why he fights for the Earth Forces and as for Natarle, she quickly wants to declare Cagalli missing in action before a thorough search has been done. Was so glad that Murrue put her foot down and showed some motherly concern for someone other than Kira. Speaking of Murrue, there was a scene of her with Mwu that further develops their romantic bond with him which gave a nice and funny interaction. Cagalli's true identity for now is between her and Kisaka but I do wonder when it's going to get out into the open?

Blockio wrote:IT'S ALIVE

Amazing. Say, I would definitely love it if you commented on your thoughts of our last Seed Discord viewing of episodes 22-24.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. I definitely had fun, Ep 24 especially is one of my favorites from the entire series; looking forward to more

Does the Gundam Wing manga Frozen Teardrop manga ignore Endless Waltz events and act as an alternate sequel to the original tv show? I haven't read too much on the subject yet so I just wanted to know.

Frozen Teardrop is..... it's something.

It pretty much resets all character changes to starting-point-of-the-series-but-slightly-to-the-left either by outright retconning character development or through identical offspring, and the narrative gynastics it does to justify it are more than ridiculous. Heero wants to kill Relena again, except as usual he doesn't, Wufei is an antisocial piece of shit again, Zechs is back to psycho and for SOME FUCKING REASON even goddamn Treize gets bullshitted back to life.
Even the people who still insist that Wing was anything but poorly written think that this manga is an absolute trainwreck.
This thing is Anima tiers of garbage fire

I just got done watching F91 in a movie night - hooooly shit this was bad. I'd say a solid 2/10

the first half I understood just fine, pacing was a bit strange here and there, but nothing too egregious. And then Tomino tried to write a female character. Worse even, he tried to write two of them. It went about as well as one would expect, and the jumps that feel like (and probably were considering the production history) they just skip over two episodes at a time did not help.

Not quite the worst movie I have ever watched, but it's up there. Looks pretty tho.

Yeah, this film is the condensed version of a TV series that was never made. As a story, it falters, but the battle scenes still hold up and the character and mecha designs are pretty good. I really love the designs of the Crossbone suits. I hope that when they get to this era in the UC Next 100 project, they go more into detail with it.

Oh yeah, it is extremely pretty, absolutely. and I mean, for the most part, the story is easy enough to follow, the only time it truly lost me was when Annabelle or whatever her name was spontaneously switched sides, but that doesn't really make the rest of it particularily good. The first third is a really solid start to a Gundam show, but hooo boy the rest