#my favorite uc shows are Unicorn and Origin

[vivi-mire]

hii i just watched the two episodes of the witch from mercury bc the stuff u were reblogging looked interesting so i figured why not check it out And. wowie .i feel like this is going to destroy my brain (in a good way).kindof obsessed with these gay people (ive known them for 40 mins. i forgot their names .the red one is eri i think and i would give her the world) ive never watched any gundam before so this is very cool and i cant wait for more episodes .lesbians win !that being said um. if someone were to hypothetically get into gundam what would u recommend they start with next. Asking for a friend

Love won! In space.

Also woo! my gwitch posting worked. Yeah I can tell already that this one's gonna fuck me up.

As for recommendations- this one is a bit tricky lol. I would first recommend just watching gwitch as it comes out so you're not juggling series.

So, gundam is all about timelines. Gwitch is it's own brand new timeline, so there's nothing right now in that same setting.

Personally, I would say maybe Iron Blooded Orphans? Its the most recent mainline series after gwitch. it will also fuck you up so that's a bonus. it's in it's own timeline as well so you don't need to know anything to start it.

Gundam 00 is also a pretty good starting point. it's also in it's own timeline. If you like a lot of political drama it's pretty good for that. There's also some gender going on. as a treat.

The universal century timeline is the very first one, so there's a LOT of parts to it. But some of my favorites are in it so if you really feel like delving in it can't hurt to start from the beginning. Just a word of advice though- watch the compilation movies for the og show. they compress things very well and you don't need to sit through too much questionable 1970s animation. After that you can be free to move onto the normal episode style for zeta and beyond if you want. If you want to start with something more modern for UC then tbh the Origin OVAs work just fine, and are really fun to watch

[afpwestcoast]

The UC Theatre, Berkeley, CA, 12/31/23

As I was about to board my flight from Portland down to Oakland who should run up - after boarding was well in progress - but Amanda Fucking Palmer herself, with a large bag from Powell’s Books over her shoulder, which is so on-brand it’s not even funny. The whole crew was on the same flight with me. Cosmic coincidences.

The inimitable Kat Robichaud dominated as Mistress of Ceremonies, and she brought along some friends from the Misfit Cabaret, so this promised to be a great night from the start.

Kat kicked things off with her original song Charade, then The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence provided a series of short, pithy blessings for the new year that managed to be funny, touching, and queer in equal measure.

Snatch Adams did an amazing burlesque routine involving a leaf blower and a giant balloon that she somehow got completely inside … and then removed her clothes.

Another original from Kat, and an extremely sexy dance from Aurora Rose, and it was time for the Dresden Dolls.

In 2017 Amanda did an NYE show a week after having a miscarriage and barely made it through the show. This show was similarly performed amidst some personal tragedy. Amanda had just learned that a good friend from New Zealand - whom she was actually en route to go visit - had died suddenly and tragically. And the longtime landlord / den mother of the artist collective Cloud Club, where Amanda “grew up” as an artist, was in hospice on his death bed (he passed early on the 2nd). While she did talk about this a little on stage for the most part she just powered through and delivered a killer show.

My favorite way to ring in the new year is with Amanda and/or the Dolls, and this show went a long way towards explaining why. Flamboyantly talented people providing astounding spectacle; who could ask for anything more? Halfway through the show my friend Nikki turned to me and said, “I can’t imagine being happier than I am right now!” I couldn’t agree more.

Annotated Set List:

Good Day (Brian on guitar to start)

Sex Changes

Gravity

Modern Moonlight

My Alcoholic Friends

Shores of California

Welcome to the Internet (Bo Burnham cover) - Before this song Amanda often asks, “Are there any young people in the audience?” and she typically chooses one to serenade during the ‘Waiting for YOOOOOU!’ bridge. Tonight this turned into a bit of a bidding war in which we started at 18 and worked our way down to 5. At one point Brian became an auctioneer, “I’ve got 16 here do I hear 15? 14! 14 going once, can I get … 13 over here!”

Mandy Goes to Med School

Amanda said she wanted to repeat the collective primal scream they had done last NYE, and while that’s true the tradition actually started at the very first solo show Amanda did in the States post COVID in August of ‘22.

“Close your eyes, and on the count of three I would like you to scream as loudly as possible to release the good, the bad, the ugly, the better, the unfulfilled, the loneliness, the whatever you fucking went through last year it’s now gone and you’ve got about an hour to sit with it if you wanna be sad or happy and then it’s all gonna go away and we’re gonna go into 2024 into a bucket of unicorn dreams!”

PRIMAL SCREAM!!

Mister God

Amanda said that she and Whitney had come up with a working title for the new Dresden Dolls album: Downer Bangers (“That was my nickname in high school!” quipped Nikki.)

“I found out this morning that a really good friend of mine from New Zealand just died really suddenly and tragically, and I’m in the middle of losing someone else in my life, and it’s just one of those days where you’re like, ‘This is happening, and I still have to play a show.’ This has happened to me enough that I know how to do it, but I’ve gotta tell you that it’s still really weird to get up in front of everybody while I’m going through what I’m going through. And here’s the great thing about being in the Dresden Dolls: I have a song for that! So I’m gonna play it.”

Houdini

Another Christmas (Brian on guitar, Amanda on jingle bells)

Amsterdam (Jacques Brel cover) (Brian on guitar, Amanda on beer) - At the beginning of the second stanza Amanda lost track of the lyrics. “In the port of Amsterdam, there’s a sailor who … ”

“Dies!” I helpfully yelled

“Dies … sorry, Tom.”

Hey don’t apologize to me; I live for this shit!

Missed Me - Brian has taken to really going all out on this one, often performing entire melodramatic vignettes. Tonight he just … left. Got up, left the stage, disappeared. He has played with briefly “leaving” during this song, but this time he was just gone. And Amanda had no idea what was going on. She was talking to the crowd - he’s really gone, I’m all alone, what do I do? sort of thing - when a large, potted plant crept up behind her. As Brian was creeping about the stage hiding behind the plant like a cartoon villain Amanda said, “This is the same guy who during soundcheck was like, ‘Let’s keep the intro really short.’” The antics went on so long that Amanda got flustered and got confused about where they were in the song. She looked at me and asked, “Is this right?” I gave her a big thumbs up.

Backstabber

Astronaut (A Brief History of Nearly Nothing) (Amanda Palmer cover)

Mrs. O - Quick restart after Amanda thought she detected a medical issue in the crowd, something that happened at both the LA and SD shows earlier in the month. It was a false alarm, and the band played on.

Delilah (featuring Kat Robichaud AND Whitney Moses (the OG!)) - Double Delilahs for double the pathos. Before starting Amanda entreated the crowd to sing along. “I want you to sing this song tonight for someone who needs it. And that someone might be you.”

Sing - Amanda was keeping one eye on the clock and the tempo on this one was a bit faster than normal so they could get it in before …

MIDNIGHT! Balloon drop! General pandemonium!

(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) (Beastie Boys cover) - Everyone on stage!

Coin-Operated Boy

War Pigs (Black Sabbath cover)

——

Girl Anachronism

Photo Gallery: Preshow family portrait.

Destiney performed as a living statue before the show.

Snatch Adams, ladies and gentlemen.

The Dresden Dolls!

Welcome to the Internet

Another Christmas

Amsterdam!

Sometimes you just can’t see the drummer through the trees.

Dual Delilahs!

MIDNIGHT!!!

Submitted without comment.

Good night!

Traditional selfie with Whitney Moses and post-show family selfie featuring Michael!

[silencedrowns]

Hello hello! I started watching Witch from Mercury and I'm 5 episodes in but fully entraced by the show. I've never watched any Gundam before but would like to give it a go. I've taken some of your suggestions before for things (like Nier!) and have never been disappointed. Do you have a recommendation on what to start with for Gundam? Do you have strong opinions on sub v dub?

Thanks much Diana and give your cats a pet for me

omg thank you so much

if you like Gwitch, well, it’s very different from every other Gundam but you can’t go entirely wrong with giving yourself brain worms by consuming the main plot line UC series (original/0079, Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Char’s Counterattack), since every other series is taking heavy inspiration from these and it’ll give you a strong foundation even if ZZ is. well. It’s ZZ. Gwitch took a lot of cues from Zeta in particular. Try watching the original and if you’re struggling to get through it, the movie compilations are a good primer. Honestly I think almost every fan of anime in general should watch Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), whether in the original TV or the movies. It’s one of the most heavily riffed on and referenced series to ever exist. A Western equivalent is it’s like watching sci-fi without having seen Star Wars, watching detective media without seeing any film noir movies, or watching horror without having seen Halloween or Psycho. You’re missing part of the storytelling language.

The other thing about asking me in particular is that I had one of the most insane Gundam viewing orders of all time and still turned out okay, in that my first was Wing (disliked) and my second was Turn A (adored to an impossible level, changed my life, top favorite anime of all time). Ideally Turn A should not be your first. However. It is a masterpiece. And unlike almost every other fan I genuinely believe if you can’t connect to the others, but Turn A turns out to be your shit, just watch Turn A. Something I believe about Gundam that is NOT the mainstream opinion is that while a lot of the series are best watched after others, you probably can pick any Gundam that speaks to you and start there, even if some of the grognard type fans will yell at you for it. Even if some of the series are objectively kinda terrible starting points (please don’t pick Narrative as a starting point because even if they tried to market it as such you’ll get nothing out of it without Unicorn first and also it sucks ass), what’s most important is that you enjoy what you’re watching!

Oh yeah, side note. Since you mentioned you like Nier, I’d do 0079 and then add in 0080. It’s six episodes! It’s heart breaking! You’ll have a miserable time (positive)!!!

For Gundam in particular, as a franchise, I tend to vastly prefer the subs except for Wing because that’s what I watched since I am a seiyuu fan and you have NO IDEA how many other series will be riffing off any major Gundam actors’ roles, especially if they cast the people who played Char and Amuro.

bonus side note: you won’t get as much out of it unless you’ve seen the UC stuff I don’t think but Build Fighters (first season) is an absolute love letter to the fandom as a whole and delighted me for the whole show. highly recommended but like, as a fandom celebration sort of show.

ps here’s a Mishka

[doctor-orbagels]

ONE SENTENCE REVIEW FOR EVERY GUNDAM PROPERTY I HAVE EXPERIENCED

Like i said in a previous post, it’s basically everything that you can watch on a screen from 0079 up to IBO. A few manga here and there and one light novel.

NOTE: Don’t take this too seriously, most of these are meme answers. Most of my strong negativity is said in jest. (My positivity is genuine tho)

Starting with UC:

•0079

Absolute classic but i prefer The Origin manga

•Zeta

Well done dark tone but kinda boring at times

•ZZ

Fuck you, the goofball stuff was great and a welcome change of pace

•08th MS Team

Probably the best down-to-earth mecha war story ever

•0080: War in the Pocket

*weeps profusely*

•Sentinel

Really compelling with a great cast, plus the idea of “other ways to emulate being a newtype” is still kinda unexplored both at the time this was written and to this day

•0083: Stardust Memory

Pretty damn good all things considered

•IgLoo

Zudah was a cool idea, too bad the tallgeese did it first and everything else about the show is boring af

•IgLoo Apocalypse

The best of the IgLoo trilogy but still around a 6.5/10

•IgLoo 2

Shinigami are canon to the universal century, 0/10

•Thunderbolt

Amazing in almost every way, plus the most effective usage of a sociopathic fed vs a well meaning zeon

•Twilight Axis

Meh

•Char’s Counterattack

The Resurrection F of UC

•Unicorn

Best anime i’ve ever watched

•Narrative

I just like that Unicorn got a direct sequel goddamn it

•F91

I so badly wish this was a series and not a movie

•Crossbone

Completely validates my opinion on F91

•Victory

Phenomenal use of character death, and I remember nothing else

•Reconguista in G

My favorite anime that i cannot recommend to anyone else on earth

Now for pre-2000’s au timelines:

•G Fighter

You cannot get more funny-bad in the entire Gundam franchise, it’s awesome

•Wing

I didn’t get the hype, but i still had a great time at points

•Endless Waltz

Much better mecha, slightly cooler plot

•X

I’m so sad this was rushed bc it’s by far my fave 90’s Gundam

Post 2000’s au timelines:

•SEED

Very cool pseudo-shounen remake of 0079

•SEED Destiny

Something good almost could have happened here, but no

•SEED Astray/R

Love all these goobers, really good

•Astray X

Worst official localization for any manga i’ve ever read, but there was still some cool stuff

•SEED Stargazer

*weeps profusely, but in the Cosmic Era this time*

•00

Behind the fujoshi bait is one of the smartest and well done mecha stories this side of Code Geass

•00 Awakening of the Trailblazer

… why aliens?

•AGE

I know that it’s my fault but I couldn’t even bring myself to get past the first generation

•Iron Blooded Orphans

I have never cried this many times or this hard over anime characters dying

•Build Fighters

Legit a 5Ds tier Toy Battle anime

•Build Fighters Try

A bit generic but still palatable

•Build Divers

Didn’t go far enough

•Build Divers: Re;Rise

Went way too far in the best way possible

And if it wasn’t clear already, Unicorn is by far my favorite Gundam and favorite anime overall, while IgLoo 2 is both my least favorite Gundam and my least favorite anime i’ve ever seen.

[the-stray-liger]

Hey!! lets say your posts about Gundam have gotten me interested in Gundam. I'm mostly interested in shows- got pointers on where I might start? n>n

It's always so funny getting this question sndnnsnsj *sits down* ALRIGHT you may start by going on nyaa.si and typing "Gundam" in the serch bar. Lmao jk but I do pirate all of my gundam content

Gundam can seem intimidating bc it's been trucking and fucking for more than 40 years and there is A Lot of content, but it all boils down to whether you're interested in getting into the Universal Century timeline.

To clarify, the UC is the original Gundam timeline, which spans 0079, Zeta, ZZ, Char's Counterattack, Hathaway's Flash and other spinoffs like the 08th MS Team and Stardust Memory. BUT there are other Gundam timelines that aren't linked to the UC, they're their own original stories that keep the recurring themes of gundam (i.e. war bad)! So any of those is a good point to start with Gundam if you're not ready for the long term commitment of UC.

For example you can start with Gundam 00, my absolute favorite! It's actually 00 that made me get into the rest of Gundam. It was written to reflect what was happening irl during the 2000-2010s, so it gets really serious and it can be extremely emotional

Another good entry point is Gundam Wing, which is probably the first Gundam media most ppl on this side of the puddle got exposed to. It's really good, but very Rule of Cool. I like thinking about it as a mexican telenovela with robots and I enjoy it a lot!

If you have really low standards or the ability to turn your brain off like I do, you might enjoy Gundam Seed. The writing is questionable at certain points and the animation can get wonky but it's fun and dynamic, there's lots of action and there are a few characters that are actually well written

Now if you can't stomach anything too serious and you're just looking for a good time, there's the Gundam Build series which is the best way to get people to buy gunpla. It's genuinely lighthearted fun, it includes easter eggs and cameos from other Gundam series and nobody dies!

Ah and there's Iron Blooded Orphans I guess

But if you're really interested in getting into the UC, an interesting starting point is the Origin OVAs that came out in 2015. They give a really good base for understanding 0079's historical context and they're beautifully animated!

A lot of these series can be found on crunchyroll and Unicorn and Hathaway's Flash are on netflix too!

Anyway. I hope that was helpful and if you do get into Gundam and feel the need to yell my inbox is always open!

[fostersffff]

The Big Gundam Watch, Part 5: Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

After a short break, I’ve returned to my Big Gundam Watch project with Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, a 7 episode OVA series that released its first episode 22 years- to the day!- after Char’s Counterattack.

I mentioned at the end of my post on Char’s Counterattack that I decided to skip past all the Universal Century side stories like War in the Pocket and The 08th MS Team, as well as alternate settings like Wing and 00 for the time being so I could get caught up to Hathaway, which as of this post is the newest entry in the franchise. That’s not to say that I was just watching Unicorn to get it out of the way; in fact, before I decided to go all-in on Gundam, I considered testing the waters by watching Unicorn first, because of how well regarded it is and its relatively short length.

In hindsight, that would have been a tremendous mistake, because a lot of what makes Unicorn so good is how intimately it builds on the stories that came before it- specifically Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, and Char’s Counterattack- to provide what I would consider to be the perfect ending to the story of the Universal Century. And... although I just gave away my opinion of the series, we can still go through and break down what makes it so damn good.

THE STUFF I LIKED:

I adore that the central philosophical conflict of Unicorn is whether it’s better to languish in a stable but unfair status quo, or push for optimistic but uncertain change that will 100% threaten that stability, and that both the Federation and Zeon are technically on the same side of the conflict. I imagine there are some people who rolled their eyes at all the talk of “a god called possibility”, and it is a very melodramatic way of saying it, but as a result it’s also the most hopeful and uplifting conclusion that any of these stories have had yet.

I assumed, after Char’s Counterattack gave it nothing more than a brief nod, that Gundam ZZ was going to be treated like the red-headed stepchild of the Universal Century’s continuity. To my delight, Unicorn paid plenty of respect to my favorite original UC show, both by prominently featuring the Nahel Argama, and much more importantly, in the form of Marida Cruz, who’s easily one of the best characters in the series and one of my favorite kinds of characters: the ultra capable, singularly-focused, and devastatingly sympathetic woman who gets voiced by Tara Platt in the dub, while also being intricately connected to one of my other favorite characters in all of Gundam, Elpeo Ple.

Spoilers don’t bother me as much as they do some people, and going into Unicorn I already knew a couple of them, like how Full Frontal was a clone of Char, because of an ancient tumblr post talking about how ridiculous his name is, and halfway through Zeta I was 100% confident that the girl on the cover was going to turn out to be Mineva Zabi, if it was even going to be a secret at all. What I did not know, and was actually really bummed about getting spoiled on, was Marida being one of Ple’s clones, which I learned from- of all the fucking sources- a cryptocurrency meme.

At least it’s accurate.

Banagher Links is a Certified Good Boy™, second only to The Boy™ Amuro Ray himself. The arc of a dispassionate teenager who’s just kinda drifting through life being suddenly stricken with purpose, and overcoming adversity to adhere to that purpose and the beliefs he comes to develop is really fucking good and executed immaculately, culminating in him literally defeating nihilism to try to usher in a better tomorrow for the whole Universal Century.

I also love that Banagher is the first protagonist (I’ve seen) to rightfully talk shit about my mortal nemesis, Anaheim Electronics. You’re right dude, they did invent the mobile suit maintenance equivalent of USB to better facilitate their war profiteering!

Seeing Mineva Zabi come into her own as a character in Unicorn after existing mainly as a tragic background element and bargaining chip in Zeta and ZZ was an immensely satisfying payoff, and that’s only with me starting Gundam last year; I can’t imagine how fucking cool it must have been for longtime fans to see. The fact that she’s a great character in her own right- shifting from wanting to prevent war at all costs, at least partially due to the generational guilt of being a Zabi, to choosing to believe in and pursue a better future no matter the consequences- is icing on the cake.

MY MAN BRIGHT NOA reaping the benefits of his character development in ZZ so that every single time he’s on screen, he’s being the Hugest Man there’s ever been. I was also thrilled to see that his character design in Unicorn flawlessly bridges the gap between the TV shows and Char’s Counterattack, where he has very faint sclera and very dark brown eyes, so they’re not as cartoony as they were back in the day, but also not... wrong like they were in CCA.

Speaking of character designs: one of the things I noticed- and liked- about Unicorn was how the characters in this series look like they fit alongside characters from the original TV shows, rather than fitting in with design trends of the era it was made. Specifically, it was when I noticed how voluminous Micott’s hair is, and how you don’t really see that too often except when the designer is older, like Akira Toriyama designing Android 21 for Dragon Ball FighterZ. As it turns out, I was dead-on, because the character designer for Unicorn was Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, the original character designer for Mobile Suit Gundam! It’s a very refreshing return to form after Char’s Counterattack felt like it “standardized” all the characters, and as a result, it feels more special.

Full Frontal wound up being a very pleasant surprise. I had low expectations of the character based on the concept of “Char, again”, but they actually do the most interesting thing with that concept, where he’s less who Char actually was and more who Char presented himself as and what people believed he was. As a result, he’s a very different antagonist than the man in CCA, and a damn good one to boot.

Rapid fire character and group compliments because this segment is already too damn long!

The Nahel Argama crew are really well portrayed, where on the surface they appear to be as incompetent and heartless as any regular Federation military personnel we’ve seen before, but the more time spent with them the more they reveal that they are, in fact, actual multidimensional characters.

Same goes for Zinnerman and the Garencieres crew, where they’re the most fleshed out any Zeons have been since the original series. Also critical that they exist as survivors of the Federation military’s own war crimes, which have always been implied, but not explicitly detailed (unless you count the Titans, which I don’t since they were considered a separate faction).

I was surprised it took until Unicorn for a Charfucker to arrive in the Universal Century, in the form of Angelo. Despite not loving the character archetype of “subordinate who’s overly protective of and in love with their superior”, he gets a pass on account of the fact that he’s the first (Lalah and Quess don’t quite hit this same kind of archetype, but there are similarities).

Considering how often I complained about the way they were handled in the last three stories, I was glad to see Anaheim Electronics assume an explicitly antagonistic role, with Martha Vist Carbine being The Biggest Bitch In The Earth Sphere.

All the mobile suits and armors are great, top to bottom, and they do the thing I like where they don’t mix and match design elements so each side is distinctly Federation or Zeon, but I specifically want to talk about the Unicorn Gundam. This was the first time that my opinion on the titular mobile suit actually changed over time, going from “man this thing looks kinda lame” to “oh fuck I actually really love it”. It was specifically the shutdown sequence in Episode 2 where you see a clear, straight-on demonstration of each part as it goes from Destroy Mode back to Unicorn Mode that I started to appreciate it, especially in Unicorn Mode. I’m not crazy about the way modern mobile suit color schemes seem to have become more muted, sticking to one solid color instead of an assortment of accented pieces, but it makes thematic sense for the Unicorn.

Also, as someone who really loves the way shields are standard issue equipment in the Universal Century and the concept of bits/funnels/omnidirectional remote weapon systems, the Full Armor Unicorn having what are essentially shield bits is The Fucking Coolest.

One of the neat things about being an OVA series released over four years is that each episode has its own theme song, but the winner by a county mile is Episode 2′s Everlasting.

Starting with Unicorn, all of the English dubs for Universal Century stories have been done by the same studio- NYAV Post- and as such, I decided to switch over to English. It’s a solid dub through and through, but I want to give special kudos to Keith Silverstein as Full Frontal and Char and Ellyn Stern as Martha Vist Carbine. The two of them are perfectly cast as these characters, with Silverstein just feeling right in the way Steve Blum just was right for Spike Spiegel, and Ellyn Stern has the ultimate “old white businesswoman” voice, where she’s emphasizing the wrong words or wrong parts of words and constantly sounds like she needs more air, but despite that is still crushingly haughty and condescending.

Something I noticed about Gundam Unicorn is that, in addition to all the Universal Century stories that came before it, it also has the spirit of my (still) favorite Gundam story, Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Everything from the surface level comparisons like the main Gundam having a super mode activated by out-of-control emotions that is later harnessed into a much more effective one by reigning in and controlling those emotions, the final enemy mech being an absolutely titantic one with a smaller, regular mech as a head that can “infect” and manipulate others, and the protagonist being able to summon the Gundam by calling for it, to more thematic ones like the emphasis on the relationship between the main male and female character being critical to the narrative (Domon and Rain, Banagher and Mineva), the nihilism of the antagonist as a direct result of humanity’s actions (Master Asia realizing how fucked the Earth had become due to the Gundam Fight, Full Frontal coping with the fact that nothing changed after the Axis Shock), and the fact that the final enemy mech is literally defeated by the power of Human Emotion made manifest (love in G Gundam, hope in Unicorn). And of course, both series feature a unicorn!

THE STUFF I LIKED LESS:

Truth be told, it’s slim pickings for this section. Originally, I had a whole big, scathing segment written about how fucked it is in Episode 5 that Zinnerman calls his daughter’s name instead of Marida’s after she falls out of the Banshee’s cockpit, and that I thought it was bad writing- up to that point, Zinnerman had shown nothing but genuine concern for Marida herself, so it felt out-of-character and hackish for him to suddenly think of her as a replacement like that. But then no, it turns out that was actually setting up the next episode where Zinnerman is agonizing over whether to side with Full Frontal or Mineva, because he’s not completely able to let go of his anger towards the Federation, even after everything that happened at Torrington. It’s still a weaker story beat, one that might have been stronger if there were more scenes featuring Marida and Zinnerman interacting up to that point, and I still felt it spoiled the high-flying mood that the rest of the climax of Episode 5 had built up, but this is all much more mild criticism than I had planned.

Another mild, almost joke criticism: the scene where Micott says the insane line about knowing when other women are lying and Takuya remarking that even in 0096, women be shopping... that was kinda bizarrely funny when it clearly was not supposed to be. I get it- after the tense scene where Micott grills Mineva about how she didn’t actually do what she said she was going to do on Earth, the way Mineva handled Full Frontal gave Micott some measure of faith in her, but it’s still expressed in such a bizarre way.

Also, Mineva cut the ship’s intercom before telling Full Frontal the final coordinates, so Micott shouldn’t have even been able to hear her lie. I honestly probably would have never even noticed this continuity error if not for how ridiculous it is.

I enjoy most of the fanservice in this series, but there was one real groaner. When the Nahel Argama is being occupied, the Zeons remark about how weird it is that the Federation stores their mobile suits upright, and one of them goes “only people who’s souls are weighed down by gravity would do that!” Again, I get the sentiment- if gravity isn’t a consideration, it makes way more sense to lay them down while on standby, but don’t use that wording just to get the line in there. It’s like someone talking about the evils of capitalism because the price of their coffee went up by a dollar: they’re not necessarily wrong, but it’s an overblown response for the particular situation.

I do have two actual problem characters, at least in the way that the narrative ultimately winds up framing them: Alberto Vist and Riddhe Marcenes. It’s the same issue for both, in that they fall on the side of being good, but they never actually make up for being Tremendous Fucking Dirtbags.

It’s clear that Alberto has feelings for Marida, in no small part due to the fact that she saved him from being sucked out into space during Episode 3. He’s uncomfortable and conflicted about what Martha does to recondition her back into Ple-Twelve, and I got the sense that once Martha entrusted her to his care, he was going to subvert his aunt somehow, possibly by trying to get some kind of backdoor into her conditioning that would allow her to easily break free. Instead, the next time we see him, he’s working as her handler without a second thought, regularly patching in to reinforce his control over her and her Ple-Twelve identity. Worse yet, he tries to fucking hit on her, which is played off as comical because she’s been conditioned to only follow orders, but it just completely saps any goodwill Alberto may have had, especially when you consider her backstory. Worst of all, he does eventually subvert his aunt… in order to get Riddhe in the Banshee out to Industrial 7, with special instructions to recapture Marida so she can be reconditioned again, presumably this time into a waifu for him. At least he had the fucking decency to call her “Marida” in the end and not “Ple-Twelve”.

Also: I have literally never had this issue with a Gundam character before, but I could not remember Alberto’s name. I would get Alonso, Adolfo, Rudolfo, Arturo, but I regularly needed to consult something to remember “Alberto”. Even writing this I was thinking “am I sure it’s Alberto?”

Riddhe is actually one of my favorite kinds of antagonistic characters: the person who thinks he’s the protagonist of a story, and is then beaten down over and over with the fact that he isn’t until he snaps. It starts with him attempting to mad dog Mineva for being the Zabi heir, but she effortlessly and embarrassingly shuts him down. There’s also the incredibly cringe moment where he tells Bright not to treat him differently than the rest of the crew, only for My Man to sweep his leg by asking him why he’s assuming that he would get special treatment in the first place. After Mineva rejects his ultimate plan to just lock themselves in a room and spend the rest of their lives coddling each other while the world outside goes to hell, he goes full antagonist, dropping his Anime Protagonist Good Luck Charm and submitting to the Banshee’s NT-D so he has a shot at killing Banagher for cucking him on multiple levels. He does finally come to his senses and actually starts helping at the end... but the problem is, coming to his senses required him murdering Marida, and it sits wrong with me that no one seems to hold that against him.

You may notice both of these have to do with the treatment of Marida, and you would be right! While Marida ultimately gets a much more meaningful and appropriate send off than Ple or especially Ple-Two, I’m still upset that she died in service of character development for these two characters, who as a result are treated like good guys when they really aren’t, they just opted to do the right thing in the end. Plus, and maybe I’m looking at this aspect of it too deeply, but the fact that she seems so much more at peace after death is like… odd, almost like she felt it was her purpose to die. And maybe that is the intent of the narrative, because she is, objectively, a relic of the First Neo Zeon War, much in the same way Full Frontal is a relic, and in death she’s able to exist freely, warn everyone about the Colony Laser, and help guide both Mineva and Banagher on a more personal level. Again, I don’t really have issues with Marida’s role in the story at the end, it’s more just being a little salty about how my favorite characters keep fucking dying.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

We’ll begin this section with the BRAVO, SUNRISE KINO AWARDS for excellence in making me clap like a seal:

In the first episode, I took a screencap of Mineva eating a hot dog, because it was that classic bit of “girl with a high-class upbringing has never eaten junk food and is delighted by it”, but then I noticed there’s multiple scenes of Mineva eating, or about to eat. Like, maybe I’m the weirdo for noticing, but I thought it’s definitely also weird that they have a lavishly animated sequence where she makes herself a roast beef sandwich (see above). And then, in the process of writing that, I realized that the reason she makes it into a sandwich is because she’s thinking about Banagher, which makes her remember the hot dogs they ate on Industrial 7. She even holds it with the meat up like a hot dog! BRAVO, SUNRISE.

The first half of Episode 2 is almost beat-for-beat recreation of Episode 2 of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. It starts with one of the crew of the Nahel Argama saying that something is approaching them three times faster than any mobile suit could, it’s revealed to be a red mobile suit, comments about how absurdly powerful the Gundam’s armaments are compared to the standard issue, the Char smugly noting that the power doesn’t matter if they can’t hit him, and of course, THE BIG BOOT. But the really impressive part here isn’t that they did it, it’s that they did it and it didn’t feel hackish or uninspired, so BRAVO, SUNRISE.

I was writing a note about the scene in Episode 5 where the Unicorn Gundam first turns green, and the words I wrote were “when Banagher links the two ships” before I realized what I had just written and felt like I was about to explode. That led to a cascading realization that Banagher was both literally linking the Garencieres to the Nahel Argama and figuratively linking Zeon and the Federation, or more generally, spacenoids and earthnoids. He’s even being guided on one hand by the ghost of Daguza, and on the other by the ghost of Gilboa. Fucking BRAVO, SUNRISE.

The restraint involved in not having Bright Noa slap Banagher Links at any point in their interactions in this love letter to the Universal Century must have been massive, so with all sincerity I say BRAVO, SUNRISE.

You know how a lot of the time in Japanese media, there will be things with names that seem interesting until you find out they’re named incredibly literally, like how Stands in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are called that because they stand behind the user? Apparently, the Sleeves are named that because their mobile suits all have fancy patterns... on their sleeves. Although, maybe “Cuffs” would have been a more appropriate name by that logic.

Thumbing through character pages on the wiki tells me that for as good as this OVA series was and for how heavy it can get, they cut a lot of stuff for content from the original light novel- like, Marida having her womb surgically removed is actually better than what happens in the novels, and most of Loni Garvey’s story was cut out, if her father’s page is anything go by, which appears to be “hey what if the ethnic conflict from Gundam ZZ was even more of an ethnic conflict”. Makes me hope that we’ll get an official English release of it someday.

Speaking of the novel, I’d again like to pay compliments to Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, because all of the character designs for the series originated from his art for that, and I really love his work with watercolors. I also appreciate that, mostly due to stylistic differences, Banagher and Mineva look less babyfaced, and Mineva actually bears a familial resemblance to her aunt Kycilia thanks to her much narrower eyes.

You know how sometimes there are just scenes that kick around in your head despite being relatively unimportant? This scene from Episode 4, where the Shamblo’s scatter beams just obliterate an apartment complex and this lady and her baby enter freefall is one for me. Like, it doesn’t even look like she’s being propelled by the explosion, she was just already moving in that direction and the building was deleted from beneath her feet.

Another minor but similarly memorable scene to me is Marida and the Garencieres crew attempting to take Mineva back in Episode 1. Both because Marida’s outfit is impeccable and also because this is when I first noticed that a lot of the show is painted-over 3D models. Just look at the way Marida animates as she hops over the railing and how smooth it is, compared to the guys, like, buffering as they hop over (and that’s not because the gif rendered poorly)

The other reason this sequence is memorable is because Banagher programming Haro to pretend to be a bomb is the absolute funniest tech in this franchise, even more than the inflatable dummies.

My exact note on Banagher throwing up inside his helmet when the Kshatriya punches the Unicorn’s cockpit was “yuck, but yeah that checks out”.

I’m going to make it my mission to find every instance of a looping spin in Gundam from here on out, because after Quess and the Sazabi in CCA and the Unicorn and Kshatriya’s lock-up in this I feel like there must be more.

It took until this series but there was finally an example of the Newtype ability to understand one another preventing conflict, when Banagher stopped himself from destroying the Kshatriya’s cockpit and killing Marida once he saw her life before his eyes, and then they both just reflect on the tragedy of the situation without either of them needing to die.

Last but not least was the scene when Bright was talking to the picture of Amuro about his plans for helping Banagher. I didn’t expect it to feel so emotionally intense, but it made sense that it was once I started to think about how we never really got to see Amuro and Bright interact casually as adults. I’m sure there’s something somewhere, maybe in untranslated supplemental stories, but it was really touching to see that Bright still thinks so fondly of Amuro.

IN CONCLUSION:

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn serves as the perfect denouement to the Universal Century. It almost makes me want to not watch on to the next things I have planned because it’s just such a beautiful bow on this story, which is funny considering the entire reason I skipped ahead to it was to get to Hathaway sooner than later. Naturally, it gets the most enthusiastic recommendation of any of the Gundams I’ve covered to date, with a glowing red asterisk that there’s roughly 60 hours worth of anime you should really watch beforehand to get the most out of it. Believe me when I say it’s 100% worth it: to this point, the experience of getting into Gundam has been incredibly rewarding.

Next up: Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis - Red Trace! I’ve avoided compilations up to this point, but considering the nature of the source material, the compilation seems like the best possible shot this story will have...

[zerochanges]

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative - One Night Movie Premiere

If you told me ten years ago that I would be able to regularly watch anime movies on the big screen in theatres I would have surely not believed you. Besides maybe a few Pokemon movies or an occasional film in some mega franchise I don’t particularly care for such as Naruto, the prospect would probably seem alien to me even. So it’s funny how times have changed and how anime screenings in theatres is becoming increasingly more common in North America. Just last month I was able to watch the phenomenal Dragon Ball Super Broly film in a packed theatre with a ton of other nerds and it was a delightful experience. Before that I got to see the fun anime version of Die Hard known as My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, and before that a love letter to Go Nagai known as Mazinger Z Infinity! Now only a month after Broly I get to watch an honest-to-God Mobile Suit Gundam motion picture in a theatre too? I feel like the luckiest guy alive. 

If I am being honest, I actually hate going to the cinema most of the time, and spent many years avoiding doing just that. I was always the type of person that was happy enough to rent a movie once it released on DVD/BD and that was the extent I would need out of cinema at large. The only exception I started to make was when Disney purchased Star Wars, and that was more out of fear that ravenous fans online couldn't keep their mouths shut than it was about anything else. Over the years however I started to develop a greater appreciation towards movie theatres at large and a lot of that has to probably do with anime. As I began to become a serious collector of anime and made the transition from my old DVDs to crisper BDs I realized I was at the point where as a fan I wanted the most out of my all time favorite movies--because these were not just my favorite anime movies but my actual favorite movies, and that’s when I realized I truly wish I could have seen them the way they were meant to be; on the big screen, with an insanely powerful surround sound system, with fans all gathered around cheering at the best moments. I will probably never get this experience for Akira, or Galaxy Express 999, or the many other films that mean the world to me now, but I can get the experience for future movies, so I don’t want to miss out ever again.

Gundam is one of my favorite franchises from my childhood. As a young kid I fell in love with the amazing robot designs and was blown away at the prospect of an anime that just felt so different from DBZ, which besides Pokemon was probably my only real understanding of anime at that age. As a teen and young adult especially the franchise became increasingly important to me and left a lasting impression on my psyche. I can’t tell you my favorite Gundam series nowadays because the answer will probably be different every time. Maybe I’ll say the original Mobile Suit Gundam, warts and all, it’s everything I love about anime from the 1970’s and to this day I still love the original Ocean Group dub from Canada. This dub while wooden and showing its age terribly will forever be etched in my mind as the definitive voices for most of the Universal Century characters despite Shuichi Ikeda buttery smooth, ecstasy inducing voice in most of the Japanese series. Maybe I’ll say Zeta Gundam as Kamile was a character my younger self identified a lot with and the series as a whole left a very strong impression on me. Maybe I’ll say Turn A Gundam, a beautiful psychedelic series that displays some of the best writing from series creator Tomino. 

So yes, having a chance to see any Gundam film in theatres was something I couldn't miss. Even if said film ended up just okay it wouldn't matter, as not in my wildest dreams did I actually think I would get this opportunity. I figured the closest I would ever be to seeing Gundam on the big screen would be if I happened to be in Japan for some reason around the time a new Gundam OVA or film was being screened. When Gundam Narrative tickets went on sale for North America I bought them the day online orders were opened and was even the first person to buy a seat at the theatre (thanks to reserved seating I could see nobody else had bought a seat yet). It didn't matter to me that I had to drive 45 minutes to the cinema, nor did it matter to me that I honestly knew nothing about Gundam Narrative, I just wanted to experience Gundam this way at least once in my life. And so last night I made the trek across the city and finally got to see Gundam like I never have. Now I have decided I want to share some of my thoughts and impressions about it. This won’t be a formal review, nor is it meant to be, as more or less I’m just expositing some of my thoughts, off the cuff.

First a little background information. Sunrise’s current "UC NexT 0100" project that tackles the next century of Gundam’s UC (Universal Century) time-line as well as their ambitious promise to deliver a new theatrical Gundam film every 1-2 years from 2018 onward is something to behold, so it’s no big surprise to me that the first film to kick off both of these initiatives would be a sequel to the highly acclaimed Gundam Unicorn OVA series. Saying Sunrise is kind of on a Unicorn kick right now would be an understatement after all. I actually don’t mind this so much however like a lot of people seem to, as Unicorn deserves all the praise it got and there is no two-ways about it being a pivotal factor behind Sunrise’s returning commitment to the UC time-line again after releasing nothing major in it for nearly a decade. Gundam Narrative serving as a sequel to Gundam Unicorn is something I am totally neutral about. 

My greater concern going into the Gundam Narrative film was more that Gundam and films have a pretty rocky history. Honestly most Gundam movies tend to be more on the awful side. If I had to rate all the ones I've seen I would probably only say Gundam Thunderbolt: December Sky and Gundam Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower are fantastic, the original Mobile Suit Gundam film trilogy is an excellent compilation movie series and a good enough replacement for its own television version, the Zeta New Translation films are incredibly disappointing and omit too much, Char’s Counterattack is a hot mess that barely makes a lick of sense, Gundam F91 would have been a fantastic TV show but as a movie it makes me sad, A Wakening of the Trailblazer is okay but also undone by its own weirdness, Endless Waltz is what you would expect out of Wing, the Turn A compilation movies are pointless, and G-Savior sure was … a thing that exist.

Well I am happy to say Gundam Narrative is among the rare films for the franchise that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish! A lot of this has to do with the scale being relatively small versus the usual scale in Gundam films that are way too big for their own good. Narrative’s laser focus on chasing after the missing Unit 03, the Golden Phoenix sibling to the two Unicorn and Banshee units we've seen in the previous Gundam Unicorn series allows it to tell a story largely separated from politics and the world at large--and let’s the characters become the main focal point of the film like any good movie should. 

This aspect alone is missing from so many other Gundam films and is partly why so many fail at being a good viewing experience. I’d say the few that do find that focus, mainly the Thunderbolt series of films and the original trilogy of movies made from the 1979 TV series are the best in the franchise’s filmography. A ton of other Gundam films tend to be bloated as well with rather boring middle sections, so the brisk fast pace of this 90 or so minute runtime for Narrative was a welcome relief. There are some awkward cuts to the film sure, but honestly I felt this beat sitting in the theatre for two and a half hours bored at the long winded middle section that goes nowhere like some previous Gundam films are especially guilty of. This was just enough time to tell a story of this scope properly. Of course the characters and scope of the story isn't enough to carry an entire film so the fantastic soundtrack from returning Unicorn composer Hiroyuki Sawano helped to sell a lot of scenes in the film as well.

The biggest factor that made Narrative for me however had to be the film’s focus on the more metaphysical aspects of Newtypes. Despite my disliking of a lot of Char’s Counterattack I still find the more psychedelic (so to say) aspects of it to be fascinating, just as I always have when such spiritual topics have shown up in prior Gundam works by Tomino and the many teams at Sunrise. While far from perfect I always enjoyed this kind of kooky spiritualism to the Gundam universe, a sort of new age 80’s science fiction interpretation of the soul would be the best way I can describe it but there’s no real way for me to do it justice nor to make it not sound ridiculous. Since Tomino has left a lot of Universal Century Gundam series have focused more on everyday soldiers instead and not so much on Newtypes, the future evolution of mankind, and the soul. In fact I always felt Sunrise somewhat shied away from a lot of these aspect to Gundam since then, so when we got to see this aspect return near the very end of Gundam Unicorn it was a nice treat to me personally. Having it permeate almost the entire runtime of Narrative’s story had me over the moon. A lot of people disagree, and more power to them, but I just can’t get enough out of the spiritual aspects seen in Narrative. 

Gundam Narrative being a modern UC time-line production means it of course has references and lore connections to a ton of other classic Gundam series and moments. I really enjoyed most them even if they were just silly fan service moments. I love that we got to see the famous Colony Drop drawn with modern day high budget animation and it wasn't just reused old footage. Getting to see clips of the Psycho Gundam ravage Hong Kong City was a joy on the big screen even if it lasted only about 10 seconds. I loved that we got to hear some of Char’s Dakar speech again in Narrative--this gave us an opportunity to hear Keith Silverstein, the modern English voice of Char since 2010 handle this legendary speech of his from Zeta Gundam. 

Speaking of the English dub my favorite performances were definitely Griffin Puatu’s portrayal of the protagonist Jona Basta that had to carry a lot of the emotional weight of the film and Stefan Martello’s portrayal of the off-the-walls insane Zoltan Akkanen who was just a pure fun villain that ate up every scene he was in. The Narrative Gundam itself being a reworked prototype of Amuro’s Nu Gundam from Char’s Counterattack four years ago was also a fun way to fit another Gundam into this time frame and I love it gave us such a classic looking Gundam in the Unicorn era of the franchise.

I had almost zero expectations for Gundam Narrative, and all I really wanted was the big screen experience for Gundam. As someone that loves the psychedelic spiritual aspect of Tomino’s old works, and someone with zero expectations that a Gundam movie can really be all that good anyways I walked away from that theatre last night loving what I saw. Gundam Narrative has me personally excited for the future of Gundam films, especially if it means we may see more theatrical screenings in North America for said films. This is probably not a film for everyone, and is definitely heavy on both your love of Gundam Unicorn and your love of some of the craziest stuff Tomino would whip out in his heyday of working on the franchise, but if you’re like me I think this one will be a lot of fun, even off the big screen. 

[darthveda]

JESSE’S GUNPLA SHOWCASE #31

PERFECT GRADE GN-001 GUNDAM EXIA

ORIGIN: MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 00 PILOT: SETSUNA F. SEIEI ACQUIRED FROM: LOST WORLD OF WONDERS DATE KIT WAS ACQUIRED: MARCH 2018 DATE KIT FINISHED ASSEMBLY: SEPTEMBER 2018

It was only a matter of time...

...before i took the next step. I’ve been a gunpla builder for 8 years now, and before this year, I’ve strictly been a HG and MG guy with a 1/100 kit here and there. But I never had the chance to build myself a Perfect Grade kit. Part of it was due to insufficient funds, and the other was an intimidation factor. MG’s can be quite a time consuming hassle as it is, so how in the world would i ever get a Perfect Grade finished??

Well, this year I finally wanted to step up to the challenge. I just did my first custom as well as my second custom painted kit, so why not take the next step? So I went to my favorite Anime / Comic and most importantly, Gunpla store in the city of Milwaukee, Lost World of Wonders.

It seems like the gunpla section gets bigger and bigger every time i go there. When i made my first trip back in 2011, there was one shelf of all the gunpla. Now there’s two shelves of HGs and NGs, two racks of MGs, another rack for Bandai Star Wars kits and *aggravated sigh*......Super Fuminas, and of course, a rack of a few PGs and other Mega Size kits.

I looked around that area for a bit if that surprises any of you guys, and i really liked the selection. A good variety of HG’s from UC, 00, AGE, and IBO, and there was also this....

I was incredibly tempted to grab this guy, that is until i walked around and found the PG section. I then found the kit I never thought i’d see in a store around here...

There it was! Right here! If I was gonna build my first PG kit, it was gonna be this guy. So I took her home with me. She had to wait a bit however, for i had to catch up on my backlog with my Lightning Star Warrior custom build, HG Quebeley, and painted 1/100 Graze. But by late July, I was ready to tackle the challenge.

First thing to put together is the action base. Yes, it comes with an action base! look at the size of that thing!

The articulation of the inner frame is absolutely incredible. Not too many ways that i can’t pose the guy.

Inner frame took about two weeks to assemble.

“Cause it’s a Thriller! Thriller Night! Ain’t no one gonna save you from the Beast about to strike!“

 It looks so weird without the armor covers, which was the next step.

“I put my pants on like everyone else. One leg at at time.“

That step took a couple days to do in between my work schedule. The best perk of a PG is the fact that 85% of the armor parts are undergated, so even if you aren’t a great builder, you won’t have to worry about nub marks or white stress marks.

And finally on September 21st, the main body was completed.

...and it didn’t take long for him to scare the other tiny HG’s in my gunpla family.

I managed to finish the weapons the next two days, and then finally....she was completed on the 22nd.

This fella is absolutely incredible. The detail and articulation is worth the time and the price, and i also love being able to open up the armor as well.

Aww look, she’s waving at us...

Oh? Is there something you wanted to show us?

Wait, what are you doing? Are you trying to take your head off? Wha-...

!! 😱 !!   I can’t believe it! You really are Gundam!

-- Yeah I was having some fun. Don’t judge me, i saw this on Twitter. --

In all seriousness though, This may have been one of my favorite kits to date. It lives up to the title of Perfect Grade. I’m glad that Exia was my first PG, just as it was my first ever MG eight years ago. 

It’s weird holding the MG now. It looks so small in comparison, and i feel like i’m holding an HG.

I’m not sure where i’m gonna put this big fella, but for now, Exia will guard my one of my most oldest and most sacred treasures...

This will probably be the only PG kit i get. They’re not cheap by any means, but if i ever get another, it’ll be the Unicorn Banshee. And for anyone who was wondering, no the store didn’t have the LED version and i’m completely okay with that....

.. BECAUSE PERFECT GRADE EXIA LOOKS GORGEOUS EITHER WAY.

-- This kit has been approved by the Gunpla Meister --

[bonerhitler]

Super Robot Wars V is spectacular.

A while ago I briefly spilled some word soup about Super Robot Wars, and mech anime in general, and one day I'd like to dig in deep and write more about giant robots because oh snap do I love giant robots. But for now I'm going to talk about Super Robot Wars V because I am still playing this game and loving every minute of it. Hours, really. Stages are taking an hour or more to complete now and it's eating my life away.

So, what makes V in particular so great is that it has an English translation. Bandai has been doing a thing lately where a lot of their series that would otherwise never get localized have been getting English subtitles for their SEA releases, which is fantastic if you're not adverse to paying crazy import prices. Quality of these translations has been a bit rocky, another SRW game “Moon Dwellers” wasn't the best in terms of translation quality, but V's translation is generally decent. There are a few names that are mistranslated such as the Doven Wolf from “ZZ Gundam” being hilariously called the Dooben Wolf. Generally, however, the translation is fine. It's refreshing to be able to play through an entire SRW game where the whole story is translated, as prior to these releases there were only a handful of complete fan patches.

Gameplay-wise V is much like any other of the recent SRW games with a few streamlined quality of life changes. Now you can use Spirit skills directly from the pre-combat screen whether you're attacking or defending. On one hand it's nice to be able to save a unit if you're the victim of an unlucky one-percent hit that nearly wipes them out, but on the other hand it does make the game a bit too easy when you can ensure that every character that gets attacked can always protect, evade or heal to survive an attack.

The only other major change from the typical SRW Format is a fairly large one; pilots don't earn skill points anymore. Before you would have to level up each individual pilot and teach them skills and enhance their stats one by one and it was all very tedious and rather uninteresting in all honesty. That has all been replaced with the “TAC” system, you gain TAC Points by killing enemies, meeting certain requirements (usually events based on the canon-storyline of the stage) and then spend them how you see fit. They're used to buy extra parts for your mechs, such as boosters to add more mobility, or to customize your pilots. And boy howdy has pilot customization been expanded.

Previously you would just upgrade your pilot's stats and that was that. They would learn skills as they leveled up, but nothing too involved went on. Now with the TAC system you can do that by spending your TAC points to level their raw stats. Or you can spend those points on pilot skills. These skills range from the more simple ones such as “Proud Ace” which lets you earn the Ace and Great Ace titles ten kills earlier, and “Save Energy” which lowers energy consumption by a small percentage based on how many ranks you put in. To the hilariously broken like “Attacker” which adds twenty percent to your attack once your pilot gains high enough focus, and “Full Counter” which always lets your unit attack first. You're given more than enough slots per-pilot that customizing them in almost any way you see fit is possible, the only limit is how many TAC points you can save up and spend. Whether you want to dump all those points on your specific favorites, or spread the love to the whole team is up to you.

Otherwise gameplay is largely the same. Each mission you're given an objective, a failure quota and a bonus objective. You gain bonus money for meeting the side objective but it's not required, and you're tasked with hitting your objective whatever it is. Usually it's just to kill all the dudes that show up. Sometimes it's just to kill one dude, and any others that show up are bonus cash and TAC Points. You're given a list of available mechs and choose who to launch and have at it. This game heavily favors the UC Gundam cast, and I love it for that. You quickly get the “Crossbones Gundam” stars Tobia and Kincade  and eventually build up a star cast of Judeu (Zeta Gundam), Hathaway (from the novel series Hathaway's Flash), Amuro (Mobile Suit Gundam, ZZ Gundam, and Char's Counterattack) and even Kamille (Zeta gundam) as well as Banagher from “Gundam Unicorn”. Meanwhile the cast of Getter Robo: Armageddon make an appearance as well with Ryoma in his Black Getter serving as an excellent unit for a third of the game before being replaced by the amazing Shin Getter and later the Shin Getter Dragon rears its head as well.

Stealing the show, however, are the Mazinger Z units. Starting with designs straight out of “Mazinger Z: The Impact!” you have the famous Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger which later upgrade into the Mazinger ZERO, from it's own titular manga series, and the Mazin Emperor G, a new mech created just for this game which they went so far as to produce new figures of timed with the game's release for some boost in marketing. Visually speaking a lot of the game's effort and budget went into designing and animating these two monsters alone, and it shows with how fantastic they look when doing their special attacks.

Other series that make appearances are Martian Successor Nadesico (based on the movie rather than the excellent series), Cross-Ange, Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Full Metal Panic, Neon Genesis Evangelion (The rebuilds, rather than the original series) and surprisingly Brave Express Might Gaine.

There's not a whole lot to say about the plot, for the most part it's an adaptation of a few core series' plotpoints with a decent focus on Cross-Ange, Gundam Unicorn and Space Battleship Yamato while the other series slot in when and where they can. But one really interesting thing this game in particular does is that it improves the endings of several of them vastly. Without spoiling it, I'm just going to say that it doesn't end on the dreary would-be teaser that the Nadesico movie does, and Unicorn doesn't just end on a lame note with the villain vanishing into dust because he was literally nothing but a ghost. Even Evangelion gets a better ending because it doesn't leave players hanging on for a sequel that might never happen for a few years. So in some ways, it's incredibly satisfying to see better endings for series, and especially a few key characters, than the original series ever bothered to.

As a final note I'd like to say everyone should go watch Getter Armageddon because it's amazing, it's second opening theme is spectacular and it plays every time one of the getter machines gets into a battle and I love it. If you at all like Super Robot Wars or have ever been interested but found the lack of localization difficult then this is an excellent chance to hop in feet-first. It's got all of the series mainstays, a ton of good music, the gameplay is pretty peak and there's just no going wrong with any of the cool  mechs and characters on display here.

[full-vernian]

IBO was my first Gundam and I'm almost finished with Zeta, I gotta say Zeta is my favorite. Any other recommendations you have? I've only seen those two, the original, and Unicorn.

Before I vomit my opinions everywhere, here’s /m/’s guide to gundam shows. There are some points I disagree on, but it’s a fairly good overview for the IP.

Readmore because long post

As for my personal recommendations:

You Should Watch These

- Gundam: The Origin. It’s one of two ongoing UC titles right now, and is a prequel to/remake of Mobile Suit Gundam. Good animation, decent character writing. I would really recommend reading the manga for this one, too.

- Gundam Thunderbolt. It’s the other current UC series, and it’s notable for being the only Gundam since 0083 to be hand-animated. Excellent ‘mech designs, fights, and animation.

- 0083: Stardust Memory. Easily my favorite entry in the series. Easily the best animation afforded to the franchise, top-tier mechanical designs, a coherent and engaging plot, and some pretty well-written characters. Notable for being the court of my eternal space queen, Cima Garahau.

- 0080: War in the Pocket. A more down-to-earth side of the One Year War. It’s my annual Christmas movie, owing largely to the fact that it’s a happy story from start to finish.

- 08th MS Team. The Vietnam war, but with 30-meter-tall robots. Everyone’s favorite.

- Char’s Counterattack. This is why Unicorn exists. The last hurrah for the old guard of the UC timeline, featuring amazing fights, solid robots, and one very annoying character.

- Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Gundamball Z. Get drunk, make some nachos, and marathon it with friends.

- New Mobile Report Gundam Wing. This is why most people my age like this stuff in the first place. It’s absurd, but very enjoyable.

I Like These a Lot but They’re Kind of Contentious Overall

- Gundam Reconquista in G. Tomino’s swan song, and the current canon ending to the UC timeline. It’s obvious that Tomino struggled with fitting his vision for the show into the Bandai/Sunrise episodic format, which is sad because there’s a lot of solid writing at its core. I love it, personally, but your mileage may vary.

- Turn A Gundam. The one with the Mustache. Easily my second-favorite Gundam series, and by far the strangest.

- Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ. Evidently this one pissed enough people off to be popularly considered non-canon. Regardless, it’s got some surprisingly decent content, once you get past just how incredibly 80′s the entire show is.

-Mobile suit Gundam Formula 91. The only good Late UC entry, IMO. The best animation I’ve seen outside of studio Nue (Macross: DYRL). Shame about it being squeezed into one movie.

-Mobile Suit Gundam 00. The first season is solid.

I Don’t Like These At All

- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. SEED was pretty watchable, all things considered. Destiny, on the other hand is why people are hesitant to watch anything outside of the UC timeline. It’s bad, arguably the worst title in the franchise.

- Mobile Suit Gundam AGE. I have to level with you, this show is explicitly designed for children. It’s a kid’s show. Do with that what you will, but don’t expect it to hold up to any kind of reasonable criticism.

- Mobile Suit Victory Gundam. There’s a good show here somewhere, buried among the building evidence that something is not entirely right in the mind of Yoshiyuki Tomino. Solid mech designs, and good fights to boot. It’s just distressing on some kind of fundamental level.

[historyman101]

Mobile Suit Gundam (Toonami Promo)

In preparation for the premiere of Gundam Unicorn on Toonami this saturday night, I’ve been going back to some of my favorite Gundam series. While everyone remembers Gundam Wing as their introduction to anime, for me, it was the original Mobile Suit Gundam.

I’ve said it before, but the Universal Century (UC) timeline has always been my favorite of the franchise, and the first Gundam series is among my favorite mecha anime ever. 

Gundam was a revolutionary anime series for its time. Before Gundam’s premiere in 1979, giant robot anime were more fantastical. The robot was often sentient and served as a protagonist’s friend, and those anime were often chipper and adventurous in mood. Then comes Mobile Suit Gundam, which changes the whole dynamic. It’s no longer fantasy but hard science fiction. The show asks the question: what if giant robots were used as weapons of war? 

This show pulls no punches and does not make light of the fact that these robots are weapons, and when Gundam destroys an enemy Zaku or any other Zeon mecha, it’s killing the pilot as well. At its heart, MSG is a war story, but it’s a very human one. It showcases how war affects people. It turns them into pawns, victims, monsters, and unwilling participants. Morality is grey and everyone is fighting for a reason in the One Year War; there is intrigue, backstabbing and corruption on all sides, and no one is immune from criticism. 

The best example of this is the show’s primary “antagonist,” Char Aznable. The Principality of Zeon’s ace pilot, a decorated soldier, and the rival of protagonist Amuro Ray. His main fight is actually not against the Earth Federation or Amuro, but against the scheming Zabi family that governs Zeon. Without spoiling too much, his father and mother were assassinated in a political maneuver by the Zabis to seize power, and Char is only fighting as a means to kill off the whole family. He’s essentially Gundam’s Count of Monte Cristo, and I fucking love him for it.

Despite this show being lightyears ahead of others for its time, there are some aspects that don’t hold up as well 40 years later. The animation was good for its day, particularly the blocking of robot fights, but reused cels and some less than precision artwork makes it look outdated. There are some needless filler episodes which hold the overall plot back. But in the larger scheme of things, those are small gripes when you are watching an engaging story with well-rounded and complex characters.

If you want to watch a piece of anime history, this title comes highly recommended from me.

[thatothercosplayer]

i want to watch the uc gundam timeline. there are many animes in this timeline. some people say to watch in cronological order others say to watch in production order. i am overwhelmed.

Eeeeeeh. It’s six dozen one, half dozen the other. Personally, I recommend watching in production order, simply because 

Everything builds off each other and the themes contained within logically follow up on ideas introduced in prior works

It can be rather jarring if you’re watching chronologically to go from stuff like 08th MS Team and Stardust Memory to Zeta Gundam, or MS Igloo to 0079, etc. Animation quality jumping all over the place drives me nuts. 

Little cameos from characters (EG: a certain waifu’s cameo in the middle of Stardust Memory

Having context from at least the UC Trilogy, CCA, and Unicorn goes REALLY FAR when it comes to the good majority of the UC timeline sidestories (seriously there are so goddamn many One Year War stories) 

Watching the animation and mechanical design evolve is absolutely thrilling

Now, that said, there are some major UC installments you can watch independent of everything because they’re really self-contained: 

MS Igloo: The Hidden One Year War + Apocalypse 0079. MY GOD. The CG may be a bit aged but the characters in this make this one a strong contender for my favorite One Year War sidestory. You get to see a lot of cool experimental Mobile Suits (❤︎ Hildofr❤︎ Zudah❤︎ Big Rang❤︎) and the writing is AMAZING. Bring tissues, it’s sad as hell. Speaking of sadness….

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. While this is another OYW sidestory, the thing is that….after the opening sequence, this takes place ENTIRELY on/around a single colony. For the first OVA series that Gundam ever had, it is HIGH QUALITY and Chris is still one of my favorite Gundam pilots SOBS BERNIEEEEEE ;W;  

Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team. This, right here, is in the contender for top 3 most beautifully animated UC installments (Stardust Memory was the king of this until Unicorn came along). It’s about a Federation ground team in the Southeast Asian front, and has the single most hotblooded Gundam pilot in the franchise’s history, save for maybe Domon Kasshu himself. Also, did I mention said pilot is voiced by Nobuyuki goddamn Hiyama, Mr. King of Braves himself!? NO?! WELL NOW I HAVE. (Also be sure not to miss the short film 08th MS Team: Battle in the 3rd Dimension, set between the 9th and 10th episodes….which is a convienent buffer if you’re watching 08th through the compilation movie, Miller’s Report). 

Gundam Thunderbolt. I need to sit down and watch this one, honestly, but FUCK I just can’t get over the interpretation of the Full Armor Gundam in that series. WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST USE THE ONE FROM MS-V!? Sunrise what’s your fucking deal. Hanging shit off a Gundam doesn’t always make it cool. AND THAT PSYCHO ZAKU. GODDAMN THAT BACKPACK. But, uh, mechanical design gripes aside, I have heard nothing but good things about this- whether you watch the compilation movie or just the series itself. 

Twilight Axis. I still need to get around to watching the other episodes, but honestly I am waiting on a compilation movie given how fucking incoherent and disjointed the first episode was (I mean, swapping repeatedly between two points in time kind of does that), but the animation and music is so fucking beautiful that I’m gonna watch it. Look, I cried actual tears when I saw that final trailer. I was fucking hyped.

Mobile Suit Gundam the Origin. Actually a prequel to 0079, but it has a SHITLOAD of spoilers that would kind of ruin what parts of 0079 hasn’t been turned into It Was His Sled territory. 

Mobile Suit Gundam F91. It’s set 20 years after Unicorn, and 23 years after Char’s Counterattack. It’s so far removed from the UC timeline’s major events that, honestly, you don’t need to worry about continuity. Though I insist you watch it because a) this movie is fucking beautiful and b) Seabook and Cecily are great. Yeeeah it has its hiccups due to the fact that it was meant to be a TV show and it got converted into a movie, but it’s worth the watch.

G-Saviour. Look….let’s take a step back from the odious reputation this film has. Yes, it was written by someone who had no experience with Gundam prior. BUT there are a few things that go into enjoying it a bit more. For one: it’s good popcorn movie. Like, Godzilla ‘98. Watch it with some friends and riff it if you have to. The score of the film is brilliant, and the idea behind the G-Saviour’s mechanical design is actually pretty good itself (a skeletal frame that gets its shell exchanged depending on what environment it’s fighting in). If you absolutely can’t deal with the movie and you happen to be Japanese, I recommend picking up the novels. Much more faithful to the UC timeline, and you get a detailed description of a colony drop. Now, as for the supplementary material: there were several audio dramas released on vinyl that were prequels to this movie. They were 3 stories that kind of expanded on the backstory of Mark Curran (the Gundam pilot), and two other characters in the film. And, of course, there’s the badass PS2 game, which contains the equally badass G2 Saviour and G3 Saviour. Give them a chance, honestly. You might be surprised by how much you enjoy it. Not to say the film is perfect; far from it. There are little to no Mobile Suit battles (only at the end), the CG is stiff and makes the designs feel like tech from the One Year War considering how slowly they move, and the majority of the characters are hard to follow and rather generic. Oh, yeah, and save for like 3 most of them are unlikable. So, again, not perfect, but I bet with some booze and a few friends it’d be a blast. 

Now, given there are compilation movies out the wazoo and shit, there are honestly multiple ways to go about watching pretty much every major UC installment save for ZZ (WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY COMPILATION MOVIES, MAN) but I’ve got a handy guide for you here: 

Gundam 0079: Watch the TV series and the movies. Why? Because while the movies take out the goofy things (read: everything related to Clover pushing Tomino to put out stuff so they could make toys. RIP Guntank) and actually add bits to the story that would be acknowledged as canon, you don’t get to experience some of the things that made the tv series so good (EG: THE ENTIRETY OF THE DESERT ARC, FUCK YOU SUNRISE RAMBA RAL DESERVES BETTER). 

Zeta Gundam: TV series first, and you can come back for the compilation movies later. The movies are in a separate timeline due to how the ending is so radically different that basically ZZ doesn’t happen, and as such it can be a bit more of a palate cleanser/pick-me-up after you watch Zeta or 0080 just because your ass is gonna get destroyed with feels. 

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory: Just watch the OVAs. They crammed the whole series into one two hour movie. As you could imagine, 6 hours and 30 minutes of footage and story being condensed into that did not go over well. Characters disappear without any reason (only clear if you’ve seen the OVAs), not much new animation was put in (even if 0083 has aged spectacularly in the animation department), and just….look, man. You miss out on the homoerotic bonding sequence between Kou and Kelly Layzner. You gonna tell me you want to ignore Stardust Memory living up to the memory of it’s spiritual predecessor (Top Gun)!? PLAYIN’ WITH THE BOYS (YEAH) 

08th MS Team: Both the OVAs and the compilation movie. They took a much different angle to this, and instead of doing a straight-up compilation they added a new substory. Miller’s Report is really only a compilation of episodes 1, 7, and 8, anyways, so you’ll be missing out on a lot of stuff regardless. Since you’re going to be at it, just go ahead and throw in Battle in the 3rd Dimension because hot damn modern animation for a series already known for looking really damn good. 

Gundam Thunderbolt: Considering how short the series’ episodes are, honestly you’re not missing out on much with the compilation movies. The new footage just extends the fight between the two main characters and that’s about it. The new music for it is nowhere close to the awesome jazz they used in the series anyways. 

Gundam Unicorn: Look. Unicorn is really good. Treat yourself. Watch the OVAs and RE:0096 because. Treat yourself. Like. Really. You get to see old, obscure designs kick ass and have their day in the limelight, Banagher and Audrey are fucking adorable together, and you get sexy Mobile Suits like the Unicorn, Banshee, and Sinanju. If you’re a mechanical design nerd like me you’re going to be salivating the whole time. Just. TREAT YOURSELF.