#Gundam igloo

[gremoria411]

How to get into Gundam

Because fuck it, I was gonna do one of these sooner or later anyway.

So you want to know what this Gundam thing’s about, maybe you like the mecha design, maybe you caught part of an episode one time and want to catch up, or maybe you saw a nice piece of Chamuro fanart and want to go to the source.

But there’s so many shows and timelines that it can be quite daunting on first look, so this guide is intended to give a rough overview.

I would however like to stress two four things beforehand however:

This guide is not intended as “The One True Way” or anything. There’s no harm it coming into it a different way, and these are only my own opinions.

There’s nothing stopping you from just watching one show and leaving it there. You don’t have to watch every single show going, even I’ve only seen most of these, not all. Gundam typically has variations on similar themes - it’s very nice watching multiple shows because they complement one another, but it’s not necessarily required.

I am very much an insider looking out here, so let me know if there’s any details I’ve missed.

I’m not gonna recommend these on a “if you like X, then watch Y basis”, mostly because I don’t personally find genre recommendations helpful, so I’d recommend picking based on promotional material (vibes, if you will).

I’ll be using this chart, supplied by the excellent@l-crimson-l, to illustrate everything.

Gundam as a whole can principally be divided into three sections: Universal Century (or UC), the Alternate Universes (AU’s) and the Build Series.

The AU’s are below the light blue line, near the bottom of the Chart, the Build Series is within the bright green line at the top-right corner of the chart and UC is the big line in the middle. We’ll talk about each of them individually.

The AU’s

The Alternate Universes were conceived as a way to get away from the continuity-heavy nature of Universal Century and provide an easy jumping-on point for new fans. The AU’s are standalone and require no prior knowledge, and are thus an excellent place to start. Honestly, I’d recommend quickly searching some promotional materials (like posters) and just going with the one you find most appealing based on that. They are (in production order):

Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994)

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995)

After War Gundam X (1996)

Turn A Gundam (1999)

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002)

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (2007)

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (2011)

Gundam: Reconguista in G (2014)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (2015)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (2022)

There’s side series and movies and other things besides, but these are the mainline shows, if you will. I have specific notes on a few of them:

Witch From Mercury - It’s of a shorter length than is usual for mainline shows, so consequently it’s a much smaller time investment than the others.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam - While undeniably rad as hell, I would recommend watching another AU first. G Gundam differs from its stablemates in a few key areas, and I find it helps to have a contrast to fully appreciate those differences.

Gundam AGE - is probably the only one I wouldn’t recommend. I didn’t like the art style and the technical explanations just got on my nerves, so I stopped watching.

Turn A and G-Reconguista are technically part of UC as well, but it’s not really crucial information so don’t feel like you have to watch UC first (I’m only including this detail for completionism).

I’ve found all the AU’s I’ve seen to be pretty good, so I’d say that which one you start with really just comes down to personal taste.

The Build Series

Is just kind of doing its own thing. The Build series is basically Buy Our Toys: the series. It’s got a far lighter tone, and I’ve had cause to compare it to pokemon prior. It’s also chock full of references and in-jokes to the other series.

Build Fighters and Build Fighters Try are the ones I’d recommend - they’ve got actual stakes and the fight scenes are really good.

Build Divers and Build Divers Re:rise I can’t recommend - I just find Build Divers aggressively boring. Build Divers Re:Rise is just okay - neither standout good or particularly bad. Its main flaw is that it’s a sequel to Build Divers.

The OVA’s are pretty much bad across the board - I’d particularly recommend avoiding Gundam Build Metaverse.

Universal Century

Universal Century is the big main timeline of Gundam, and is the timeline the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979 takes place in. There’s a tendency among certain fans to place UC as the one-above-all of Gundam, but I wouldn’t really go that far. It’s all pretty good, but I wouldnt really say one timeline is better than another (save personal preference, anyway).

Because UC is so big, it can be subdivided a couple times. The primary division is “Mainline” UC versus everything else. Basically there’s four-five shows in Universal Century from which everything else flows. As long as you know roughly what happens in these shows, then you can watch basically anything else in UC and have a good idea of what’s going on. These are (in order):

Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) - sometimes called Mobile Suit Gundam 0079.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988)

With Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (2010) as a nominal fifth (honestly I feel like you could argue either way).

The rest of the shows are:

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989 Three-Episode OVA)

Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (1991 Movie)

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991 Thirteen-episode OVA)

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (1993)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1999 Twelve-episode OVA)

G-Saviour (2000 Live Action Movie) - nobody ever talks about or acknowledges this one, it’s just here for completionism.

Mobile Suit Gundam MS Igloo (2004-2009 Three OVA’s with three Episodes each)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (2015 Six-Episode OVA, adapted from the Manga of the same name)

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (2015 Eight-Episode Series, adapted from the Manga of the same name)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis (2017 episode, adapted from a light novel of the same name. Later rereleased as Gundam Twilight Axis Red Trace, with additional footage)

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (2018 sequel movie to Gundam Unicorn)

Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway (2021 ongoing movie series, very much adapted from the novel Hathaway’s Flash)

Most of the other series relate to events in the aforementioned “mainline” shows in some way, but a lot of the sidestories set during the One Year War require very little introduction (Thunderbolt, 0080 and 08th MS Team). Similarly, works set in “Late UC” (F91 and Victory Gundam) carry on from the other series thematically but don’t have any plot connections, so they can all be watched without any background knowledge of the rest of the Universal Century.

Compilation Movies

Just a quick note here - many of the Gundam series have compilation movies, where either a whole series or part of one are compressed down into a movie. While each movie compares differently, they usually boil down to this: Compilation Movies usually have worse pacing, but really nice animation.

One of the great things about Gundam is that different shows offer variations on themes, so seeing how different characters react to similar situations, or how different settings change their approaches can make it incredibly rewarding.

I haven’t seen enough of SD Gundam to make any sort of recommendations there, and Manga is something I might touch on another day.

EDIT: Oh hey also: You can watch a good chunk of these on YouTube, for free, officially. The Official Gundam.Info YouTube channel rotates the series shown on its channel periodically. I think it’s got F91 and SEED on there currently? But it’s had Wing, 00 and Witch From Mercury before. Also all of the Build Fighters series are there.

So yeah, that’s a thing.

[nijigasakilove]

MS IGLOO ✅ 7.5/10 Just gonna give all of these a combined score and review. Definitely overhated. Very much worth a watch. Yea the CGI is a bit uncanny valley, but seeing how the OYW was micromanaged on both sides was really cool. Zeon’s experimental weapons, desperation and propaganda in the first two batches and then seeing how the federation fought against Zeon before the Gundam/GMs were a thing in IGLOO 2. It’s insane Zeon didn’t win the war given the huge advantage they had. It’s always nice to see the UC from the perspective of everyday people rather than our cosmic space Jesus MCs. The marine episode and Cadillac’s brother’s episode are actually two of the best stories in the UC.

[robedruby]

HG EMS-10 Zudah

[bagea]

Zudah doodle

tags from on last post, by @miltonlibassistantn1fan

also, the zudah happens to be one of the mobile suits with the most banging theme to it

[slobozan-shitposting]

Zeek girlbosses my beloved

[wyatt000j000barlow]

MS-06S Zaku II Patrol Type

[oywcalendar]

July 26, UC 0079

In Europe, the EFGF have been pushed back to the coast of the English Channel in the north of France. Zeon's Captain Elmer Snell has been making a name for himself as a mobile suit pilot, widely feared by Federation soldiers in the region as "the White Ogre."

After the Federation's 44th Hybrid Regiment are dealt a serious defeat by Snell's unit, Lieutenant Herman Yandell leads a squadron of Type 61 tanks on a night raid to ambush Zeon forces on the battlefield. Yandell harbours a personal grudge against Snell, and although the tanks are able to eliminate the other mobile suits in the Zeon squad, eventually only Yandell and Snell's machines are left.

As the sun comes up, Yandell manages to get the drop on the White Ogre, destroying the Zaku with a pair of close-range shots – but as he celebrates his victory, a newly arrived Zeon patrol destroys Yandell's Type 61 with a missile, killing him in the explosion.

(MS IGLOO 2: The Gravity Front, episode 2)

[kaxtwenty]

Newly updated Gundam rankings. It's getting a bit more complicated to categorize these smaller ones (MttR and RfV are in "Gund" tier for entirely different reasons). GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- will probably be moved off once the show itself is finished, but what I've seen so far has already won me over quite a bit.

[the-witch-of-november]

Nothing to see here...

[gremoria411]

Alright so, new Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance 5-minute clip, looking to be the opening of episode 1. This’ll probably be my last post on the series until it actually comes out, so I’m gonna talk about the clip itself and predictions for the series in general (and maybe a few other things).

Yeah, it looks pretty good overall.

The Good

The mobile suit animation’s nice and smooth, the visuals are gorgeous (I particularly like the redesigned GAW and Dopp aircraft). I really like the look of the rest of the Red Wolves squad’s Zaku’s, and the score sounds nice. We still haven’t seen anything of the plot or any non-Zeon characters, so it’ll be interesting to see how they play this (they seem to be building up the Gundam as this horrifying monster, which is a neat take). We know the team is operating in Romania on November 6, which puts them very close to the Battle of Odessa on November 7th. It’s unlikely that they’ll be directly involved in the battle (otherwise we probably would’ve seen it in the trailers), but it seems likely that they’ll be involved in the fallout as the Federation begins to get its act together. This is also fun as Odessa is the Federation’s first deployment of their GM units (specifically GM Ground Types), which Zeon has no experience against. The existence of a Gundam on top of that is essentially the worst-case scenario for any Zeon Force, so suddenly Iria’s look of horror has some nice context to it. There’s obviously a lot of influence from Gundam Igloo, so it’ll be nice to see that too. I’m personally really hoping we see some space combat, but I won’t be too disappointed if that isn’t the case.

The Bad

Voice acting and lip-synch are looking kinda rough - buuut we kinda already knew that from the previous trailers (like that pink-haired soldier). And honestly, I don’t think it’s really an all-over problem, just a few specific performances - a lot of the bit soldiers were pretty good and, though maybe this is just me, it’s probably going to have a Japanese dub track, so if the voice acting’s flat enough then I’ve no issue watching it subbed (not that that’s a solution I’d suggest for everyone, obviously). It’s also possible that the actors were given poor direction with what the scene was going to be, hence their performances feeling disconnected.

I do feel like it’s suffering a bit with it needing to “set-up” Gundam a bit - the two soldiers conversing where one says “yeah, I’m looking forward to going back to my girlfriend, in space” then gets shot shortly after. Like, if he had been shot by a mobile suit than I would’ve said that was Gundam in its bare essentials, but it does feel like there’s an….. obligation? Towards it? Sorta like “yeah yeah, war is hell and all that, oh gotta mention that we’re a sci-fi property too, that’s important….”. I don’t know, it’s just I can quote multiple scenes that have done a better job of establishing stakes and tone like that off the top of my head, so Requiem for Vengeance’s take just feels pretty flat. Also - and this is very nitpicky - the individual space colonies in the sides have names, like Tigerbaum or Achilles, so the soldier could’ve just said “my girlfriend in the Achilles space colony” or something. Yeah, it’s still a bit hackneyed but it would’ve made more sense. Dang, if only we’d solved Gundam’s need for set up back in 1979, isn’t it a shame we can’t take 20-30 second to be like “Oh hey, Zeon declared Independence and now there’s a war on *shot of operation british*. It’s not going well though”. C’mon guys we already cracked this, what’s the issue?

The character animation’s rather lacking too - I don’t know much about Unreal Engine, so it’s possible that it’s rather tricky to animate convincingly using it and they wanted to use those resources on the Mobile Suits, but several of the Zeon and Federation Soldiers just look like tap-dancing deer in headlights in the opening scenes. The Tanks….. I’m probably remembering IGLOO’s animation as better than it was, but they feel so cumbersome here, and the way that the Federation tanks just line up behind each other when attacking feels kind of lazy - especially since they outnumber the Zeon tanks nine-to-four.

Other stuff

There’s been basically nothing on the characters as yet, so there isn’t really anything to go on in terms of personality. Honestly, it could go either way with them, though I fully expect at least one of Iria’s wingmates to be killed (likely by the enemy Gundam, but it might be thematically interesting if an enemy tank gets them). Furthermore, it looks like one of the tank commanders seen in the clip is going to be a recurring character, which’ll be interesting. It’s unclear as to whether Newtypes will feature - Iria has an explanation on what they are but it’s unclear if this is just scene-setting or not. I’m not really sure how they’d fit into the plot, so I guess it’ll be a wait-and-see affair. I’m also still interested in seeing if we’ll get anymore kits out of this - I can’t imagine there’s any reason we wouldn’t see some more Zaku’s or the new GM, since most of the design work is already done. I’ve noted previously that the “new” Gouf Custom design appears to be so it will require the minimum amount of work to turn into a kit, since it’ll most likely be a variant of the existing one.

Apologies if this posts a good deal more scattershot than usual. It was partially to collect my general thoughts on the new clip in general, and also because I wanted to interrogate my own thoughts a little bit. This is because my immediate thought at the end of the clip was: “Man, Code: Fairy was crap”And I have absolutely no idea what brought that on.

[galactic-johnny]

It's ya boi here, I watched the new Gundam Requiem for Vengeance. I wanted to hate it but it was actually kind of good (with some gripes). I would rather die than make a reddit post/comment about my opinion on media so I'm posting it here. I will be talking about spoilers and a non exhaustive list of thoughts.

I'll start with the bad.

So there's the character (not mecha) animation that many people poiinted out looks bad from all the traielrs. It's still not that good but I got used to it. If you look closely you can notice some animation errors that people have been posting screenshots of, but personally I didn't notice them mid watch so I wasn't bothered. The thing that did bother me was some of the sound design/mixing, like a Gouf is shooting the weakest sounding gatling gun ever. The voice acting is okay but there are parts in every episode where I was like "wow that was kind of a bad delivery". From my understanding the original script/voice recording is in english, and then theres a japanese dub translated back to japanese which I'm told from a japanese speaker also sounds weird.

The main thing I've seen people on reddit complain about, and the thing i have the most thoughts on, is it coming off as too much of a pro zeon stance and making gundam fans pro-titans. I'm mixed on this. So the director is a french guy who was wearing a zeon t-shirt in a promo video and said something like "we're excited to show you a story from the Zeon side of the war" which gave me bad vibes but I wanted to wait and see. The first episode has a part where it's trying to evoke the nazi parallels while a guy is giving a speech, but it doesn't have much more of that after the first episode.

Many redditors have pointed to the "the zaku has saved a lot of lives" line. My issue is: What happened a few hours earlier in context? Why do you think he would have positive feelings toward a Zaku? Discuss with your partner what we can infer about this character's background. My issues with people pointing to scenes like that and zeon soldiers talking about their war for independence is that do you think it makes sense for them to be like "btw our side is pretty fucked up, our guys have committed a bunch of atrocities" "oh yeah Loum, where we completely destroyed Side 5 and killed like 2 billion civilians". Basically I think it makes sense in context for Zeon characters to talk about the war like it's patriotic war for independence.

The problem is that the show doesn't really explain the context of the war that well, and it would probably help some people to mention it. Like mention that thing at Loum, explain the start of the war and the 3 second warning and how they've destroyed a bunch of civilian colonies, or that half the human population has died in this war, why the zeon soldiers hate the federation and the conditions that led to them starting the war, and most importantly at least mention the colony drop. I kind of wonder if they wanted to show the colony drop but they wanted to animate it and at some point in production an exec said "yeah no that's too time consuming and expensive, just skip that", but they really should mention that, its like the opening shot of the original Gundam 79.

The show is trying to be a One Year War side story from the perspective of Zeon soldiers, while also wanting to be an introduction for people have not watched Gundam that should be able to explain the context of the war and not glorify zeon too much while still making people care about the characters, doing so in a span of six 20 minute episodes. It's a difficult task and the creators did not seem up to it. I've watched most gundam TV shows, including all Gundam UC timeline stuff and read some of the manga, so I'm decently informed on Gundam, but if I were to show this to a friend that has never seen Gundam and want this to be their introduction I would probably let them know a few important things (like the colony drop). To be fair it has some things that are probably good for introducing someone to the setting, but yeah its leaving out some important stuff.

That's my take that no one asked for on that particular criticism.

There's also some obligatory newtype mentioned stuff because they want to introduce it to new people, but it doesn't play that much into the story and I'm just glad they didn't make newtypes that are basically jedi (cough cough thunderbolt).

So here's the good stuff.

The best part is easily the mecha battle animation. It's cool. I have a goblin brain which demands violence and likes giant robots fighting. The Ex Gundam is truly a menace every time it appears. The mobile suits weighty and there's a good amount of giant robot gore. The design is divisive but personally I was into it and seeing it may convince more people to be into it. The only thing I'm not into is the weird head and eyes on the model kit, but thought it looked much better in the show. There are some technical aspects of the fights that are a head scratcher but honestly I didn't care that much because goblin brain. Like the Gundam is getting circled by three Dopps, and leaps up and slices one with its beam saber, and like yeah imagine cutting down a super fast jet with your sword but also it was so cool and thats what matters. I also really liked the Zaku, Gouf, and GM. I really hope the Gouf and GM get model kits (not pbandai plz) and I would be the first to buy them. The only mobile suit design I didn't like was the Guntank but that's it. Basically the mobile suit fights are a visual treat and that's what I really wanted to see.

I don't have too much to say about most of the characters, but I thought the protagonist Iria Solarii was interesting as far as gundam protagonists go. She's a mother with a ~10 year old son, she had a husband who died a few months into the war and they were both musicians that were drafted(?) into the war but had a good thing going on before it started. The people around her have grown more bitter and vengeful the more they lose while her goal is to follow orders and survive the war so she can see her son again (I'll get back to this). 6 episodes probably isn't enough for the amount of characters they had but I liked Iria.

It accomplishes being a gritty OYW Gundam war story with cool battles and evoking emotions about the tragedy of war, which is basically the best I could have expected.

The thing I'm most mixed on is the ending/last 5 minutes. So far I've seen people saying they don't like it all. On one hand it's so anti climatic the way the random Gouf pilot, and they quickly show the Ex Gundam pilot was a teenager without much time, and Iria just changes her goal from "i want to see my son again" to "a federation child soldier died before my eyes, therefore I will keep fighting against the federation" and these things are sort of ungraceful.

But to me it also kind of works. Like the Ex Gundam pilot dies so suddenly and without fanfare, he won't be remembered or celebrated, and he's one of many teenage pilots in the federation, almost as though for every amuro and other gundam protagonists, there's another of this kid who's skills and accomplishments didn't matter and died as a cog in the machine. The Gouf pilot can't even comprehend that Solari was upset, all he say was the drone that killed the person he cares about. Solari saw the federation send a child to the front lines to help them shoot down the fleeing Zeons, she sees them as the monsters her friends saw and now feels more righteous killing them than she did before, because there is nothing that below them. The Ex Gundam pilot was just a kid, he felt he was righteous in slaughtering all the Zeons because they started this war and have killed many more of his own side. But his mercy is not rewarded because for everyone else the war has dehumanized and driven a wedge between these people. After the war ends the problems that caused it still aren't addressed which is why for decades it keeps repeating. It made Solari more vengeful than she was at the start so she believes she's righteous in staying with zeon remnants after the war ended.

So I think that a tragic, ungraceful, anticlimactic ending kind of worked with what it's going for. Like yeah it's a pretty bleak note and I think Gundam is better when it's both bleak and hopeful, but overall I'm more for the ending than against it.

[billveusay]

I watched Gundam MS IGLOO and...

So if you didn't know, MS IGLOO is a mini-series of nine OVAs. They are divided into sets of three (The Hidden One Year War, Apocalypse 0079 and Gravity Front) but the first two sets form a cohesive whole, both visually and narratively. So I'll refer to these two as season 1, and Gravity Front as season 2.

This is a fully CGI series that started coming out in 2004 and aims for a realistic art style. Yes, you were justified in raising those bushy little eyebrows of yours, so for once let's immediately talk about the visuals, focusing on season 1 for now. The few times I saw discussions about MS IGLOO, they were either people turned off by the CGI or other people asking them to give it a chance, they just have to get past the animation. But it's really not that simple. In visual mediums, the visuals are not just a dish for the story to be served on, they're an integral part of the story. I'm sure you can think of many moments in cinema, live-action or animated, where you could see a powerful and complex mix of emotions that would have needed 10 minutes of dialogue to be expressed, conveyed through just a few seconds of silent acting. And conversely, no matter how good the story or the voice acting, it's hard to get invested or find a character appealing when he looks like he comes from a PS1 opening cutscene. Which is actually mean to the PS1, Soul Reaver was on the PS1.

And yes, it's more than 20 years old, of course it wasn't gonna look like Secret Level. But maybe they could have checked the calendar and seen what year they were living in before going for full photorealism. That's the most difficult thing you could do in CGI, and there are alternatives that look fine or even great like the Clone Wars art style. The fight scenes are pretty well directed though, especially the tank fight in the second episode, and the CGI on all of the non-human stuff is quite decent, save for a few wonky elements. Doing forced perspective doesn't work if you move the camera, because then the parallax reveals that this dude is the size of a Zaku compared to this camp. But they succeed in giving the series that rusty, gritty look.

So, still focusing on season 1, if we manage to get past the unfortunate visuals, is it saved by the story? Weeeeeeeeeeeeeell no. At least I didn't think so. First, there's the fact that every episode follows the same format with only small variations: They get a prototype that their superiors don't believe in, a guy shows up to pilot it and they also don't believe in him, but after a few setbacks, he proves both his worth and the worth of the prototype, but gets killed or sacrifices himself in the process. Yes, I know it's the intention, but there's zero suspense and it's extremely artificial.

But here's the main problem for me. This is a story that focuses on Zeon soldiers, which has the potential to be interesting, grey and grey morality, everyone's a cog in the war machine, etc. But it looks like most of the time, the writer forgot about the fact that we're following space Nazis and that space Nazis are bad. Or that... you know... war is bad? Which is weird because there's a popular anime franchise that made this point repeatedly, which I'm sure the writer was very familiar with. It's called Gundam. Yes, the tone is very tragic, but it's all heroic deaths, soldiers going out in a blaze of glory, and episodes ending with the protagonist gazing wistfully into space as the Zeon flag appears behind him.

And like... the core of the first two episodes is humanity entering the age of Mobile Suits, so gunners, tanks and big cannons are being abandoned by the high command. But both times, veterans from the old guard prove their worth with a final heroic act, and then they die with a smile on their face because even though their time is coming to an end, at least in their final moment they've shown the world what they and their big cannon/tank were made of. And then white boy (yes, I've forgotten the protagonist's name, what do you want from me?) writes in his report that if it had been given a chance, this prototype could have been so effective, such a shame.

And... Kim, there's people that are dying. You're not gonna make me feel bad for your murder machines because they didn't get to murder enough people.

Episode 3 isn't better, basically the same thing but this time the prototype and the pilot got rejected because his competitors sabotaged his model. But in the end, he proves that it was actually good, yay for the death robot. Episode 4, I didn't even get that guy's deal but he sure was passionate about the sea. And episode 5... well they don't say that child soldiers are cool, but compare it with Thunderbolt. Here, you have teenage rookies sent to fight and everyone is shocked, but then one of them exceeds expectations and fights like a real pilot, destroying several federation balls. And he dies, but right before, he asks blondie if he did a good job defending his homeland, blondie says yes, and it's emotional... and meanwhile in Thunderbolt, when rookie teenagers pilots are sent to fight, they get instantly decimated. And Zeon literally amputates its pilot to turn him into a weapon. A least they don't demonize the Federation soldiers too much in this episode (the Federation are not the good guys anyway but you get my point, it's even worse when it's truly presented as black and white) by having them fight other rookies.

In that episode, they also introduce the guy in full Gestapo costume. And while they don't paint him as a sympathetic, he's not a monster either, he mainly just a... dick. With a weird leather fetish, judging by the way he repeatedly squeezes his glove. But he gets a "redemption" in the final battle by helping the remaining Zeon troops of A Baoa Qu escape. And it's a noble sacrifice, helping their comrades live to fight another day because the evil Federation soldiers were gonna slaughter them, even though they had surrendered. But in the end they all survive, they laugh, they embrace, the Zeon flag floats proudly... and again, there's nothing wrong with a story focusing on the antagonists' side, but that doesn't mean you have to adopt their point of view. You could do a movie about confederate soldiers and how the war sucked for them too, but it would still be weird if the movie ended with a shot of the confederate flag with triumphant music in the background.

By the way, quick aside, this was directed by Takashi Imanishi, who previously directed the second half of Stardust Memory. And yes, while Stardust Memory remains my favourite for now, I'll admit that towards the end, it has the same problems of glorifying Zeon and the noble sacrifice of its soldiers fighting a desperate battle against insurmountable odds. While they had just dropped another colony on earth.

And with the visuals, the plot and the themes out of the way, we're left with a trio of main characters that are... present. The captain is kinda charming, but overall they neither pull the show upwards or downwards. So yeah, I really can't say it's better than F91, so that is officially my least favourite Gundam thing I've seen. It's straight to the bottom of my ranking for this first season.

Yes. Everything I've said so far only applies to The Hidden One Year War and Apocalypse 0079.

Because y'all. Gravity Front... is so fucking good. It's unbelievable. As I said, the first season is dead last on my ranking, that is to say in 16th place. Gravity Front is in 5th. Above 00, Witch from Mercury, Thunderbolt, even 8th MS Team.

I know that for every piece of media I reviewed, I assumed that whomever was reading was already familiar with it. However, this is probably the nichest thing I've watched yet, and because the first season sucks, many people who tried it probably bounced off of it. So for once, I won't spoil and tell you to go watch Gravity Front. It's a major step-up, still hard on the eye but now good enough that you can actually relate to the characters and truly feel their emotions. And if the fight scenes were pretty good in the first season, now they're truly amazing. Dynamic, gripping, with great tactical twists that make them interesting.

Story wise, the jump in quality is equally astounding, if not more. Focusing on feddies already makes it less morally dubious (again, the Federation also sucks but they're not pretending otherwise here) and in this season, war is really ugly, and the gritty aesthetic now fits perfectly. No more "it's sad how this beautiful death machine was rejected" (there's a sliver of that in the third episode but it's pretty minor), in Gravity Front it's all "war sucks, and all of those deaths are meaningless". They really do relish in making them meaningless, especially right at the moment where the characters think they've found a form of victory or catharsis. Plus it's not cheap drama, they do a good job of making each episode narratively captivating with very limited time and new characters every time. I'll just tell you this: the second episode is a retelling of Moby Dick with a Zaku instead of a whale. If that doesn't pique your interest...

There's also a semi-supernatural element, which is... weird, and will probably turn many people off, but somehow I kinda love it. I don't even know why, maybe it's because it's left ambiguous enough to be a mix of hallucinations and poetic licence, it doesn't impact the story, it gives it more personality, and even reinforces the feeling of watching a tragedy. The doomed characters literally see the incarnation of their inevitable fate. However, the design of the shinigami is... why did she have to wear dominatrix boots?

A'ight, that's it for MS IGLOO. Skip the first six episodes, or maybe just watch the second one to get an idea of the rest of the season. Then watch Gravity Front because it slaps, even though it's depressing (but y'know, it's UC Gundam, that's kind of a given).

Next, Gundam Narrative. Shouldn't take long because I'll just be pointing at Unicorn and say "Yeah, it's most of that thing I didn't like". Bye!

My gundam reviews :

> Hathaway's Spark > Mobile Suit Gundam > Gundam Zeta > 0083: Stardust Memory > 0080: War in the Pocket > 8th MS Team > The Witch from Mercury > Gundam Thunderbolt > The Origin > Turn A Gundam > F91 > Gundam Unicorn > Gundam 00 > MS IGLOO > Gundam Narrative > Iron-Blooded Orphans > Gundam Wing > Twilight Axis > Requiem for Vengeance

[temmye-temmye]

HGUC MS-14 GELGOOG for Herbert Von Kuspen

[slobozan-shitposting]

Today we're learning fractals!

[canuckianhawkbi]

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin – chapter 83

The Solomon Offensive was already in full swing.

[oywcalendar]

April 27, UC 0079

As Zeon forces push into Southern Europe, outgunned Federation forces in the region send a newly formed anti-mobile suit platoon to cover their retreat. Led by Lieutenant Ben Barberry, an anti-tank veteran, the squad is to lay in wait in an abandoned mining town to ambush an advancing group of Zakus – though Barberry's team receive conflicting reports on the number of enemies to expect.

When the first Zaku comes into view, Barberry's inexperienced subordinates spring the trap too soon, revealing their position. The team manage to bring down the first Zaku, but the second to arrive eliminates the entire platoon – except for Barberry, who is able to destroy the mobile suit after its weight collapses an unseen tunnel beneath it. Lieutenant Barberry is killed when a third Zaku emerges from a hidden position.

(MS IGLOO 2: The Gravity Front, episode 1)