Gundam Thread

[ResidentSeagull]

Yoasobi are doing the opening?

Interesting choice.

[AmADo VII]

watched the prologue of Mercury Witch.

I wonder how Eri would keep her body and mental using Arayashiki+Zero system.

[ResidentSeagull]

Me waiting for Evolution to show up on Steam:

[pinetree]

I watched the prologue, really strong episode.

I hope the conflicting morals in regards to Ochs are going to be properly explored though. I mean, medical enhancements are cool but it's weird that they've been acquired by a military company and are actively developing weapons of war, and yet they're still framed as the victims. The old doctor's argument just doesn't hold with a massive mobile suit in her garage.

Sure the ex-military guy seems like a problem but then he's fighting against someone whose first action was to instruct her 4-year-old daughter to murder three people instead of fleeing what the fuck lol

[pinetree]

So the prologue and some gunpla I got recently convinced me to finally go back and finish ZZ and Char's Counterattack and I gotta say... They're so fucking awful. Why are these character driven narratives so bad at character writing?

ZZ being terrible was already evident and simply continued to be true throughout the entirety of the show. Half the characters are unsufferable and the other half are forgettable. Plot might as well not even be there with the amount of meaningless episodes that only exist to pad out time by resolving articificial character conflict that I don't care about.
I could go on and on about how bad this was but I gotta talk about Char's Counterattack, because even if it is better than ZZ, it's a lot more disappointing.
What the hell even was this? the conclusion to this narrative is cheap, underdeveloped drama between some new kids I couldn't care less about? I cannot comprehend the thought process behind the script of this thing. Just awful in every way.

I'm going to buy a Sazabi gunpla because this is the coolest design I've seen so far, but that's the only real positive I can take from this.


Honestly, I think I'm done with Tomino stuff. All the things I've complained about in regards to character writing were already there in MSG but it has gotten progressively and exponentially worse as I've progressed through Z, ZZ and CCA. Especially the women, Jesus Christ.

I want to like gundam beyond the cool toys but this is a lot of time I've sunk into garbage. I need recommendations because so far the only great gundam thing I've watched is War in the Pocket.

Does Tomino improve at some point? Are there Gundam shows with actually consistent character motivation/actions and proper build-up to relationships? Do Beecha and Hathaway ever suffer the consequences of their war crimes?

[Mattias]

After CCA there isn't a lot of Tomino series left. F91 is a series turned movie so it's a mess, but less than two hours to get through. Victory is terrible, but it's so grimdark it circles around back to funny. Turn A is super weird for a Gundam show, but really interesting because of it. Reconguista in G... also exists, I guess.

As for ones with consistent character building? 8th MS team is pretty good for that. G Gundam and Iron Blooded Orphans too.

The newest OVA series is about Hathaways son becoming a terrorist, so maybe that counts as consequence?

As for recommendations? I'll always shill Thunderbolt, but it's only two movies so there's not a lot there to sink your teeth into.

[AmADo VII]

Wing is meme but fun to watch.

[ResidentSeagull]

Yeah I agree with pinetree with more or less everything he said here, although I still haven't watched ZZ so I can't comment on that.

CCA is such a bizarro ending for one of, if not the most, iconic rivalries in anime and it baffles me that people don't talk more about it. There are only like 20 minutes in the movie which I consider actually good and which have, you know, actual substance to them (most of them being in the finale). Rest of it is mostly just following characters to who you have no attachment to and who cannot get any meaningful development in a movie runtime. Just a mess overall.
Also as a sidenote: I love how the very last exchange between Char and Amuro, these two legendary characters, is Char admitting that he projected his mommy issues onto his dead former-prostitute-slave girlfriend, and Amuro only being able to reply with a "....what?". It is morbidly fitting to the point of being hilarious.

But to continue with the recommendations that the others mentioned, I'd personally say that X is the way to go. IMO it for the most part lacks any egregious Tomino-isms (or any other -isms, for that matter) which permeate the franchise, while having pretty cool character development and novel spin on the "war is bad" formula. It's still pretty 90's, but not to Wing's drinking game levels. Also it's only 39 episodes.

- - - Updated - - -

Also forgot to mention for anyone who gives a shit: Evolution's Steam version isn't available in Europe.

Go fuck yourselves Bandai.

[Skull]

If you want to, would seriously recommend giving Hathaway’s Flash a try or at least Unicorn if you want to stick to the UC timeline before branching out into the AUs.

Otherwise, I would second the Gundam X recommendation as it’s my personal favourite of the TV series.

[Spartacus]

00 is very consistent with characterization imo

[Laserman]

I recommend Gundam 00 too.

[pinetree]

I was joking about Hathaway and Beecha but it's actually hillarious that Hathaway became a terrorist.

Right now I'm pretty done with trying to stay in UC since I'll probably not complete it anyway, so I'll probably go with Gundam X, 8th MS team, Turn A, 00, Unicorn (maybe?), Hathaway and IBO. Though I won't get to the latter ones for a long time. At least now that I'm not doing closely related series I can drop them freely.

Wing being meme but fun doesn't sound good when it's 52 episodes long.
Also, any opinions on Stardust Memories? I heard it was good before, and it's only 13 episodes so I might throw it in there.


I'm interested in Reconguista, mostly for the MS designs, so I'll probably watch the compilation movies for that once they finish releasing them.

[Laserman]

Gundam Wing is really popular in the west, and was a lot of people's introduction in the west to Gundam. I don't know what they're talking about it being a meme though.

[Skull]

The other thing about Wing is that it's basically just OG/Zeta/CCA all condensed into one series with the roles of the Earth and Colonies flipped so you might get burned out trying to watch it straight after CCA.

Stardust Memories is okay. It's a bit like War in the Pocket in that its so removed from the rest of UC that you do kinda get the sense that its filler, especially with the Federation erasing all records of it happening. Although IIRC there is that one humorous scene in Unicorn (might have been novel only) with one of Banagher's classmates going all conspiracy theory and insisting that Operation Stardust Memory really did happen.

Just a word of advice, it's not strictly necessary but I would advise watching Turn A before Reconguista since despite them largely only mentioning the history of UC in Reco-G, the setting won't make much sense without an understanding of Turn A.

[AmADo VII]

Wing has 5 MC, those young boys did lot of ridiculous things that later became meme in Japan.

but wing also has the best Princess in whole Gundam Series.

[pinetree]

...Okay, Wing will go to the bottom of the list then lol

And I don't really care about it being "filler" in the larger context fo the franchise since I'm not going for completionism. War in the Pocket was great, so I'll give Stardust a chance.

Also, I'll definitely get to Turn A before Reconguista. It'll be at least an year until the last two movies come out in blu-rays, so I've got time.

[AmADo VII]

at least I can recommend the movie, Endless Waltz.

[Desann]

I'm interested in Reconguista, mostly for the MS designs, so I'll probably watch the compilation movies for that once they finish releasing them.

If you want character consistency I don't think you will like Reconguista. It's kind of similar to Victory in that area, and both are worse than ZZ - characters behave like they have random generator installed in them, plot just jumps here and there and sometimes you feel like you skipped several episodes because you don't understand what characters doing and why. Well, unless they changed it in movies, but I doubt that.

I really do like all those 3 series (Judau is even my favorite UC protagonist), but even I can say that there is no consistency in them.

[pinetree]

My mindset going into Reconguista is different though, I just want to see the mobile suits in motion since it seems to have some of my favorite designs from what I've seen.
If it's that bad I'll just stop watching the movies.

[AmADo VII]

G-Reco had a Masked man constantly yelling name of a girl it was annoying and hilarious.

ZZ had Hamann, enough said.