Gundam (In All Its Incarnations) Mk. II

[The Killer of Heroes]

I've watched all five G-Reco movies finally.

I think the movies are better than the show overall. The feature film format allows things to flow more smoothly, and I think I had much less trouble following the factional politics for the most part watching the movies over the last several days than I did following the TV series as it aired from late 2014 to early 2015 (Though I still think things get kinda overdone once the G-IT Lab guys come into the picture). However I have to say a lot of the other problems I remember having with the show still exist here- namely the series just not having a strong sense of drama in general (A lot of events that should be major just get kinda elided over, from Raraiya recovering from her amnesia to some major deaths in the ending battle and epilogue), and individual character motivations still not making much sense to me. Like I still don't get where the fuck exactly that Mask's absurd turbo hatred of "gradeskipper" Bellri is coming from (I mean thinking he's a privileged little shit is one thing, but "THE BLOOD OF DICTATORS RUNS IN YOUR VEINS!!!!" or whatever it is he says toward the end is fairly extreme), and that's one of our main antagonists. Manny is cute and all, but how she keeps going back and forth on whether she wants Mask and Bellri to be friends or for Mask to just kill the fuck out of him is also kinda whatever to me. And there's a lot of things like that throughout the story for multiple characters.

I wish I liked these more because the visuals were a strong point of the show to begin with and they're still good here. There clearly wasn't a lack of effort in putting these movies together compared to say the Turn A movies. I'm just still left fairly cold by the whole thing.

[Blockio]

Yeah, that was my fear for the movies as well; scene to scene, they looked a lot better then the show, but no amount offixing individual scenes can address structural flaws, which G Reco kinda has a lot of.

But I will say, the reshoot of the Photon Torpedo scene is terrifying on a visceral leve, that was SO GOOD

[The Killer of Heroes]

Yeah. The only real structural change I think they make is that they try to make Bellri come off as like less unintentionally psychopathic than he sometimes was in the TV series (Like in the show when he finds out that Aida is his sister, he goes on weird rampage in that one episode whereas in the movies he cries about it a bit and has a few conversations with others about it), but that arguably makes that Mask stuff I talked about make even less sense in the movies.

Idk. Maybe in 30 years somebody will do G-Reco: The Origin manga and third time will be the charm.

[Blockio]

Yeaa. You can really tell that G Reco exists primarily to show off the cool world that Tomino made rather than having a story it wants to tell; it almost feels like a sidestory to a main work that doesn't exist.
The world is definitely really cool, but the roadtrip of a plot does not actually match the story that is nominally going on

[The Killer of Heroes]

I think there is something of a story about dangers of remilitarization of Japan that Tomino is trying to get at (Which I guess makes the horrors of the Universal Century an allegory for World War II), but the road trip undercuts it a fair amount I think at least by time they go to Venus and we're not only so far removed from the main conflict around the Earth, but we get weird DieBuster-esque plot points about potentially moving the entire Earth to a different solar system and such that goes nowhere too.

There's just too much in the show. Like its hard not to compare this to another modern Gundam like Witch From Mercury and how much more focused that show is with a lot of the same ideas. People playing at war, economic inequality and privilege, horrible assholes from outer space etc.

[Blockio]

we're not only so far removed from the main conflict around the Earth, but we get weird DieBuster-esque plot points about potentially moving the entire Earth to a different solar system and such that goes nowhere too.

What the fuck, that was a plot point? I have precisely zero recollection of that ever being brought up in the TV cut (also the hell is this supposed to achieve in the first place???)

[The Killer of Heroes]

The Venus Globe people wanted to amass photon batteries and build one of their weird ring structures around the Earth so they could move it to a solar system with a younger star, as the Sun won't last forever.

More is made of it in the movies but its in the show too as one of those one-off dialogues, so I don't blame you for forgetting lol. It's another G-Reco thing that's talked about without actually being used in significant fashion. The Sun will explode eventually but its not like G-Reco makes much use of it being a galactic ticking time bomb.

[Blockio]

Oh right, that. On some level I get it, but at the same time, for a show allegedly about (among other things) why space elevators are a bad idea, it feels staggeringly out of touch to propose that as a sane option

[Blockio]

Finally sat down and watched CCA; did not expect to like it nearly as much as I did. Solid 7/10, plays to Tomino's strengths a lot more than most of his other work. Still wobbles whenever there's Deep Character Thoughts going on, but the low density of those make the whole rest a lot better.

[The Killer of Heroes]

I have mixed feelings on CCA because the animation is fantastic and I think Char's characterization here actually kinda works, but pretty much none of the other mains really work that well for me. Like I see what Tomino is going for with Quess and Hathaway and such but it doesn't really land for me. Even Amuro is in his least interesting incarnation here I think, compared to the proto-Shinji of 0079 and even Zeta to an extent.

Still a 7/10 is about what I'd give it too.

[Blockio]

Char being completely off his rocker tracks, yeah. Quess and Hathaway... well, they're stupid kids with too much self-importance, so while I hate both of them as people, they're pretty good characters. I do actually like Amuro, I think he's a pretty good depiction of someone in his position; competent, respected and a functional person, but very much not over it all and thinking that he has to make it all his responsibility.
But in a sense, my opinion on CCA is that it's a lot better a war movie than a character piece; the characters are fine, but that's not the aspect in which I think CCA really shines

[Dr. Nick]

My remarkably lukewarm Witch from Mercury take: there are just too many disparate show ideas in it, so it doesn't cohere into a satisfying whole. Which is a shame because there's some tremendously good character stuff amidst it all, and I loved how there were two completely separate antagonists both enacting their chessmaster plans at the same time, pulling the Asticassia kids in different directions. But consider what the show tries to juggle all at the same time:

- There's the cyberpunk story with corpo intrigue, class warfare and transhumanism
- And the show is doing a pastiche of sorts of Shakespeare's Tempest
- On top of which there's also a generic witch / fairytale layer, which one might think is just window dressing, until the ending happens, wherein the show also seems to tie into Universal Century style metaphysics
- On top of which there's the entire school life angle with its own social dynamics, and the school is in space, so it's also physically removed from all of the nasty business down on Earth
- Plus it's a yuri romance (albeit not a very bold one)

It's not incomprehensible like G-Reco, but all that is just too much everything for 25 episodes, especially with a named cast this big. If the show was longer, around 50 episodes or so like the older TV Gundams, maybe all of this could've worked within a more rigid arc structure (that's how Metal Armor Dragonar got away with its batshit Fist of the North Star / Shaolin temple antics), but I have my doubts. As it stands, G-Witch reminds me of Gundam Wing of all things. I've seen some very articulate anime essayists make the case that out of the whole franchise, Wing actually has one of the most unique and best thought-out overarching ideological conflicts. It just doesn't register when you're watching the damn things because the other elements of the show are in such a cacophonous disharmony, undermining what the story is trying to say. Whereas Wing is a slapdash mess, G-Witch is mostly just overstuffed, but both are less than the sum of their parts.

A thing that puzzled me about G-Witch's ending:

SPOILER: Show

I can understand Nika doing time because she likely wants to do some atoning, even if Miorine could easily just pay the right people off to bail her out (although 3 years seems like a lot for a self-imposed thing). But why would the powers to be ever let Prospera of all people out of prison? Big time terrorists don't usually get compassionate releases.

[Alaska Slim]

It's not incomprehensible like G-Reco, but all that is just too much everything for 25 episodes, especially with a named cast this big. If the show was longer, around 50 episodes or so like the older TV Gundams, maybe all of this could've worked within a more rigid arc structure (that's how Metal Armor Dragonar got away with its batshit Fist of the North Star / Shaolin temple antics), but I have my doubts. As it stands, G-Witch reminds me of Gundam Wing of all things. I've seen some very articulate anime essayists make the case that out of the whole franchise, Wing actually has one of the most unique and best thought-out overarching ideological conflicts.
[/spoiler]

My conflict is that Relena needed to die but didn't. She was insufferable as a stuck up rich girl. She was insufferable as a peace(craft)nik.

You had one job Heero. Fired in her direction 3 times, and missed. Worst assassin ever.

But also, didn't quite buy a popular movement arising trying to bring Monarchy back after most places in question already being democratized. In limited cases, that happens, sure (Serbia), but worldwide?

[Dr. Nick]

Rewatched Gundam Wing: The Endless Waltz, and it truly is the Wow Cool Robot (Meta Version) the Movie. This is, or course, perfectly in keeping with the TV show. Both deal with genuinely big-brainedly smart ideas and themes (I alluded to this piece of analysis in my post above), but the execution is so self-defeatingly muddled that it just collapses into an absurdist circus. In Endless Waltz the protagonist boys are supposedly following a strict no-kill policy, but it depends entirely on the scene, and sometimes dudes are getting straight-up vaporized. Are moral continuity errors a thing? And of course, it's really convenient how seemingly nobody lives in the global capital of Brussels, because otherwise the civilian casualties would have been out of control. It's not like the final battle is restricted to some sort of National Mall area or whatever, it's all residential buildings and churches being shredded by autocannon fire. On Christmas Eve.

If you really take this thing apart, there's actually some of the thematic backbone of Nolan's The Dark Knight here, in how Gundam as a symbol can be a much stronger force for good than any nuts-and-bolts Gundam could ever be, and our heroes are fighting with that actively in mind. But it's not like it's some sort of organic takeaway from the viewing experience. As usual, I found this particular (and smart!) nugget by trawling through various comment sections. The sacrifice play aspect doesn't work at all because the Gundams are super robot strong and the pilots are oozing with plot armor. Regardless, Endless Waltz is by far the peak Wing experience, and thanks to the amazing production values it can be enjoyed quite unironically. And Relena even renounces her total pacifism in a true fan service moment by slapping the brainwashed kid, and that's a moment almost worthy of an extra star all by itself.

A question I've been pondering is should Gundam Wing be remade? My current take is that it should not, because the end result would probably "make more sense" and feature less stock footage but lose the idiot charm, and probably some of the actually great aesthetics too, like it might have more Code Geass inspired uniforms or some awfulness like that. In a similar vein, should Gundam X be remade, considering its episode count got slashed and the show has admittedly cripplingly bland aesthetics outside of the character designs? Again, it's a no in my opinion, as I fear the humanistic low-key ending might become a casualty.

[UrsusArctos]

Popping in very late... I have the impression that G-Witch in particular was written for a 39-episode series, but landed up being chopped down to 26 at the last minute, which would explain the abnormal rush at the last third of the second cour. There's nothing else that I can think of that would explain the set of issues that Dr. Nick so well described.

[C.T.1290]

So a new Gundam series has been announced: Gundam Quuuuux. Apparently, it’s being made by Studio Xapa. And even Anno himself is involved in it.

So far, there’s have been some mixed reactions, such as the design of the new Mobile Suit. The Gundam looks more Evangelion like if you ask me.

[JoelcrNeto]

There's a thread about Gundam GQuuuuuuX and you can get more information there.

[movieartman]

The live action Gundam will no longer be on Netflix and is no longer being directed by the Kong Skull Island director who I thought was a great choice.

Jim Mickle will direct instead, I really liked his neo-noir quasi modern western vigilante film Cold in July (RIP Sam Shepard) but he has never done anything on this scale before.

[The Killer of Heroes]

Not familiar with Jim Mickle or any of his work, but after some quick reading about him I not sure any of it really translates well into doing Gundam. I liked Kong Skull Island a lot (Best of Legendary "Monsterverse" films imo) and thought Vogt-Roberts had decent shot of translating Gundam into Hollywood blockbuster. Oh well.

On related note, I have watched fair amount of Gundam myself the past few weeks due to GQuuuuuuuX hype.

SEED Compilation movies: These were okay. They do decent enough job translating SEED into film trilogy form from what I can tell. Not too much to say about them, though I was sad to see the hilarious "If I got serious, you wouldn't stand a chance against me" scene cut.

SEED Destiny Compilation movies: Its been longass time since I've seen the TV series, but I think these are pretty decent improvement over the show from what I can remember, editing the show down to four films. Sure some silliness you can't exactly edit away (I.e. Poor Stella dancing off the cliff like an idiot, or pretending Yzak the civilian killer from SEED is like a cool guy now or whatever), but as a whole I think paring the show down, zeroing in on Athrun as a main character etc. really does help this a lot. Not to say its suddenly a masterpiece of storytelling or anything...but its better. The first movie that covers the beginning of the story through Kira first (re)launching in the Freedom I think is honestly just solid Gundam stuff, though even with improvements I think the endgame of the compilation films is still a bit shakey.

I gotta say though, I don't quite understand why the EVA allusions are made here. I think I've brought this up before, but why are two of the ostensible antagonists genderbent expies of Asuka and Rei? They even have the same names! Why does the ultimate bad guy have a weapon named Neo(n) Genesis? If GSD is trying to say something about EVA and its relationship to Gundam or whatever, the specific message is still lost on me after all these years.

SEED Freedom: If nothing else, it provides the Cosmic Era characters the closure they've BADLY needed for nearly 20 years now. Kinda think this would have worked better as like a 12 episode cour though, it could use more room to breathe at parts (Especially in regards to new characters that are just suddenly around, or with stuff like Shinn now working under Kira etc.), but I did enjoy it overall. Kinda hard to believe this came out the same year as Fukuda's Grendizer U, which was much sloppier IMHO.

Gundam Reqiuem for Vengeance: Basically the third coming of IGLOO not only in terms of being bad CGI (With side dish of bad English voice acting! Apparently English is the original language for this series so I watched it with that audio track) but also unapologetic Zeonwank (Is this term anyone uses anymore?). Its always been kinda gross to me this type of Gundam "fan" is catered to at all, and this is far cry from the actual good Zeon POV stories like 0080 that actually do try to humanize Federation side to some extent despite Zeon POV being more privileged, to say nothing of civilian POV represented by Al that is so central to that OVA.

Requiem has none of that, instead being on how those damn Feddie bastards are such horrible monsters for defending themselves from uh, us invading Zekes? It really is comical how one sided it is until the MC woman realizes the monstrous Gundam that has been terrorizing her the last few episodes is piloted by a child and gasp, he's just like her child back home that she's fighting so desperately to return to! Only for the Gundam kid to get iced during attempt at communication that feels like it came straight out of Tomino's 0079 novels. Yes it may be presented as tragic, but only because the child is a child soldier- its evidence of Federation's evils, not evils of fucking invading Zeon colonizers trying to actually kill him and his allies. When the Gundam pilot says if he lets the Zeon live long enough to escape that they'll just come and kill again, he's right. The protagonists here really don't deserve much sympathy.

This leads to even more ridiculous conclusion where the MC decides to KEEP fighting the war on Earth afterward to uh, save children like the Gundam pilot? Like the idea of Federation willingly deploying child soldiers is seen as horribly monstrous of them (From what I can tell, this being their modus operandi is more result of modern retcons in series like Thunderbolt trying to demonize them, as opposed to original series where White Base having largely young crew was result of specific and tragic circumstances ...caused by Zeon attack on Side 7 lololololol). There is of course irony that Zeon themselves has been actively using child soliders as part of the "canon" willingly since Lalah Sune at very earliest, to say nothing of later cyber newtype tragedies like Ple/Puru series. Requeim for Vengeance doesn't interrogate or explore any of that though.

A more sympathetic reading of this show would be as some kind of satire, like this is the kind Oscar-bait satire that a left-wing Zeon filmmaker would make about their own history. Obviously depiction isn't endorsement but I really don't think this show was written with that kind of self awareness to be the kind of thing where you find that ultimately Zeon protagonists ARE largely delusional true believers in self-destructive space fascist ideology. I really doubt random souls that are unfortunate enough to discover this series as their first Gundam will have that kind of takeaway anyways too. It plays like completely straightfaced honorable soldiers being killed by bastard Gundam kaiju, with twist being merely that he is mere child soldier, not that the Gundam was right to kill these fuckers to begin with.

Idk. It was interesting to watch this with SEED stuff still on my mind. Like for all its flaws, Gundam SEED Destiny does far better job of exploring how and why people fall into fighting for violent dictatorships than Requiem for Vengeance without saying characters like Durandal or whatever was actually right, or that it was good to nuke Earth or space colonies or whatever, and that series is hardly the best Gundam has to offer.

[C.A.P.]

Halfway into the original 1979 (and seen every episode of Ideon).

Any negativity I have towards Tomino in the past is gone. I'm a believer now.

I got nothing indepth for now until I feel confident talking about him seeing every episode. But now I get the Anno/Tomino connection. I'm sure it'll click even more the deeper I go.