And again, and again, and again…
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The Universal Century would best be left in the past. No more series. No nothing. No more. Most of its ideas ought to be left behind so that new alternate universes are not burdened by them. There are so many inherent problems with it that unless Sunrise decides to grow some balls and actually do something new (hasn’t happened in the last 11 years since 08th MS Team) subsequent productions will just repeat them. The Gundam franchise refuses to learn from its own “mistakes caused by youth” and suffers incredibly for it. I am a huge UC fan, its series still count among my favorite anime series of all time. But it’s been reduced to a sad, repetitive, rehash whenever it attempts to move the timeline forward, as in Gundam Unicorn. This is done both in undue, overused references and in the general repetition of the overall storyline and characters. And outside of UC, AUs are weighed down with some sort of requirement to rerun the tropes of UC. Either the entire creative staff and series outlook needs to be fundamentally reexamined, or UC should just be left to rest in peace.
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Reiterating what I said before, but I love UC Gundam. The setting is great, and everything in the timeline up to the end of the Gryps Conflict is great. I could go on and establish my credentials, but I’m sure my love for it comes through if you’ve ever read a post of mine dealing with it, even tangentially, or if you’ve seen my MAL or talked to me about mecha on Twitter. One other thing I wish to establish before diving in further is that I’m far from being that popular online term, an oldfag. There are some great old series, there are some terrible old series. And I’m far from old enough in the fandom to have been watching when most of the ‘classics’ aired. Change and innovation is good and welcome in my book. So don’t take this as a baseless criticism coming from someone who hates anything new. In fact, I’m arguing for something new for a franchise I love.
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UC Gundam Has Become Endless Eight on a Grand Scale
…then we should stop making more series.
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There’s a fine line the size of a superhighway between references and rehash, and Gundam Unicorn just rolls over it with a tank, sets the line on fire, and then pisses into the fire. In one scene, one scene(!), we have “Char Aznable”, “red comet”, the Char kick, “three times faster”, and the ‘adults are evil’ schtick force fed down our throats. WE. GET. IT. There are good ways to make references, and then there are ones like that that make you facepalm out of embarrassment no matter how much you love the series being referenced. Contrast this to Macross Frontier, a reference-heavy treat for fans of the older series, where the references are either off-hand, appropriately in-context, or something that shows you instead of tells you. Or instead of beating you over the head with a gigantic neon “DID YOU NOTICE?!?!” sign. And there’s the staples of all Gundam series that are included like it’s the law or something. Young Gundam pilot who hates war and ‘adults’, masked villain with blond hair, stolen prototype suits, etc. But severe lack of subtlety and creativity aside, this would only be an annoyance if it weren’t for how this approach plays out for the story and the characters. Indeed, all of these elements could be put into a new series and still be great if they weren’t adhered to so dogmatically.
The biggest problem is that on top of repetition of potentially good or neutral elements, with all the rehashing (‘homages’ if you’re feeling blindly optimistic) is that the mistakes of previous UC series come with them. Instead of taking a critical eye to the mistakes caused by unstable episode counts, writing screwups, and LOLTOMINO mood swings/emotional baggage (mind you some of the latter is what makes Gundam so great), everything carries over. The production staff seems to have either no idea how to pick and choose the best from the old shows and leave the rest, or they aren’t granted the latitude to do so. In either case you get the worst of past series coming back. And since there were a lot of errors and inconsistencies in earlier UC shows, the cumulative effect is terrible. We get the same storyline, again. Another Neo-Zeon movement led by nobility in gilded mansions that somehow claims to fight for the common man, again. Conflicts morph over time, but yet this could easily be the year 0079 or 0087 or 0093 all over again just with newer technology. The same ideas about transforming humanity through some sort of near-magical Newtype power, again. The same white Gundam vs red custom suit (a stolen prototype even!), again. We’re reminded of the wreck that was ZZ without clarifying much about it. This would be a perfect spot for some revisionism to post facto correct some of the messy timeline, but alas not. Then comes the ‘adults are evil’ stuff again, something that was so tired and worn out that it was old even by the time of Zeta Gundam. And then the one theme that has been done in the past so well, that wars and ideals and good guy-bad guy aren’t objective things, has so far been done with no real maturity or depth.
Some of you may hate on Gundam SEED or Wing or 00, but at least they had some willingness to bravely venture beyond being Puru Puru clones of their predecessors.
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Macross Learns From and Corrects Its Mistakes. Why Not Gundam?
Rising above its past faults.
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Comparing Macross and Gundam is difficult. The former has fewer series and has retained much of the same creative staff over the years, as well as only having one brief AU (Macross II.) But even so, Macross would be a great example for Sunrise to learn from. Macross 7 was terrible, but even the few good elements of that show were salvaged and made their way into Macross Plus and Frontier while the bad was left behind. But without the heavy-handed delivery of the references in Unicorn. You see the historical influences of past events in Macross and how they played out over the years, so it feels natural when you encounter Bilrer’s Minmay obsession or the key difference between the prototype Ghosts and Luca’s. Meanwhile the dissonance between the past and present has just grown in UC Gundam series. Even my beloved Zeta had some hints of this, though it kept it to a low enough level to be interesting. But then it increased in Char’s Counterattack with yet another Neo Zeon led by nobility in gilded mansions. It almost could have happened independently of anything that came before until you got to the main attraction, the final resolution of Amuro and Char’s continuous conflict. Now in Unicorn it has reached its peak and become intolerable. Unicorn could exist COMPLETELY independent of the previous series. The only traces of the past having an impact on events are little hints barely distinguishable except by the biggest fanboys and fangirls. The past is almost not even there. Contrast this to history having a big role to play in shaping the Macross sequels. In such a strange way Gundam parrots its predecessors, but never really remembers their place in the narrative. The history is missing, which is convenient if all you’re doing is repeating it over and over. A franchise, like a generation, that forgets its history has no past – and no future.
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UC Was the Cradle of Gundam, But One Cannot Stay in the Cradle Forever
You’re still awesome, Riddhe.
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So how does UC Gundam, and the franchise in general, go on? This is my (not so) modest proposal: let UC go and make an alternate universe that’s not chained down by Earth’s gravity having to take verbatim all the traditional Gundam elements. For all that I find wrong with it, Gundam Unicorn has amazing production values, both in technical and cinematic terms. Harness that skill to a new AU. And equally important, stick with it instead of abandoning it after a season or two like Wing, SEED, and 00. Recruit from outside the inbred and myopic pool of Sunrise staffers; that’s what made the UC sidestories as good as they were. Pick and choose from what has made Gundam unique and great. Accidental teenage pilots? It’s not a problem unless you make it one. A masked villain? It could work, just for god’s sake don’t make him another Char clone. Give him a new look, stop with the red, 3x faster, kicking mobile suits. Or how about concentrating more on making his ‘mask’ one of complex personality, secrets, or assumed identity? Drop the mask, that artifact which seems like a child’s safety blanket they’ve long outgrown, and do something more. Newtypes? If you must, but put a spin on them like genetic engineering in SEED or just make it hyper spatial awareness. Forget all that Instrumentality Project bullshit about unifying humanity that never really makes sense or works out, but has spread like a contagion even as far as 00. And how about taking Gundam beyond just Earth, the moon, and colonies? Mars is just sitting there, waiting for a great story, not to mention the outer planets or even other solar systems. There’s nothing wrong with the iconic images of a franchise, like the Gundam’s V-shaped crest or color scheme, or the ‘war is morally neutral’ message. But when an entire franchise is held prisoner to them, it’s clear that there’s a problem.
There’s been some experimentation. SEED wasn’t perfect, but it did do some things differently. Same with 00, which was no favorite of mine. But even in those cases the albatross of Gundam tradition weighed around the series’ necks. SEED followed the attempted-Gundamjack -> flee colony to outpost -> big orbital fight and reentry -> desert fight (you know the rest) format of the original series for a long while. But it put a new spin on the Newtype/Coordinator thing and also changed the geopolitics by making the colonies sovereign and pretty much the good guys. 00 tried and failed miserably to make its AU relate to our world, but at least it tried instead of taking the easy root of reproducing the EFSF-Zeon conflict that’s been recreated so many times now. Sure, there are fun, well done UC sidestories lately like MS Igloo, and the One Year War and Gryps Conflict were big enough to hide plenty of little skirmishes and personal battles. But I’d rather see that effort directed into something new. Not that I have any say whatsoever into how any future series will be made, except for my one vote among millions with my wallet as to which model kits I buy, but I felt that it needed to be said.
59 Comments
I suppose that explains why I was able to follow along with Unicorn despite my relative lack of familiarity with the Gundam franchise as a whole. I’d venture to say that perhaps I’m part of the demographic that Sunrise is attempting to reach by having many of the iconic themes self-contained within this iteration of the franchise, but if what you say is true I don’t suppose it excuses the slave-like adherence to what Gundam was built on as opposed to constructing upon it.
Either way, the incoming $#!tstorm is going to be an interesting one…
I’m not sure whether the primary intended audience is new viewers or very old ones, but I’m guessing it’s the latter. While I’m glad that someone new can follow along with Unicorn and get a taste of UC, you’ll see how much it repeats if you continue on to older series. I could take it to a point, but with Unicorn ep02 it’s reached critical mass for me.
Contrast this to Macross Frontier (as I’ve already pointed out, but it’s such a perfect comparison.) I saw that before any Macross series and was able to jump right in. But after watching the rest of the series, I could see how Frontier stands on its own while embracing the best of its franchise. The various iterations of Macross have all done their own thing while remaining true to what makes Macross Macross. Gundam unfortunately keeps taking its past elements and directly plugging them into new series without adjustments or variation.
As for a shitstorm, I’m actually pleasantly surprised by the comments thus far, both in agreement and opposition to my views. I’m actually surprised that a lot of people seem to be agreeing with my sentiments.
@EO-sama Sunrise just wants the cash they could get from producing this novel into an awesome anime. (UC Gundam animation and music is great, epic to be exact) but the story, as you’ve pointed out gets boring in the long run, only if, the viewer like us knows the UC story already. Repeat, repeat, repeat and another clone. Thank you, Sunrise-Bandai.
PS: the ED song for UC Gundam, Everlasting, really fits episode02 indeed. well, I’m just pointing it out, nothing interesting.
and yes, Riddhe is indeed, awesome. a la Mu La Flaga.
Something that impresses and then depresses me is how damn good the animation, music, and cinematography is in Unicorn. There’s obviously a lot of talent and a budget to back it up, now if only it would be freed to do something different.
EHHHH
I want more UC, not less. Unicorn is everything I wanted UC to be… finally (SO FAR). If there are resources to be devoted to remake the old titles with better production values, I’m all for it.
I’m not against AU either, the much hated Gundam 00 is my Gateway Gundam.
No maturity and depth? A work has as much of these things as you’re willing to grant them. Some are easier to associate with maturity and depth than others and this show is precisely this, more than most Gundam shows.
And we’re not even talking about the most important thing about Gundam shows: robot battles. You may watch it for maturity and depth, but I do too — I want maturity and depth in the portrayal of robot combat: with both beauty and verisimilitude. War in The Pocket has it, Stardust Memory has it, 08th MS Team has it, and thank goodness Igloo 2 and Unicorn kept bringing it.
Do I want the things you want? Yes. I want more new stuff. But I want this too, I want more of all kinds of Gundam. Denouncing one at the expense of the other … I guess that’s your paradigm.
Oh btw, Trailblazer of the Meteor should be available soon to appeal to your desire for the new.
Denouncing on at the expense of the other? While I enjoy a good HAET within a series, a sympathetic anger that I put on as I imagine myself in the world of a series, this isn’t that kind of angry. This is on the out-of-universe, real world level where there are finite resources and where I’d rather see them being put to what I feel is better use. If only so much budget will go to Gundam, I’d rather that it let UC rest in peace instead of repeating the same mistakes. At this point the damage is too severe and the ship needs to be scuttled.
As for maturity and depth, the way Unicorn ep02 just decided to throw in a scene like “The Federation does this! Oh yeah, well Zeon kills people too!” just felt shallow. Granted, it may be able to improve on this later and I’ll give it credit for improving on it a little with
Char’s Zech’s Mr. Bushido’sFull Frontal’s talk about how Banage just reacted in combat when he killed. But the politics as of now remain stale since its just a simple “another man’s freedom fighter” argument going on. If Unicorn expands on this, arguing the merits of Federation stability and organization vs Zeonic ideals and revolution then I’ll change my opinion as facts change. (And I’d really like to have to change my opinion later, but so far it’s not looking good in my opinion.)Let’s hope Trailblazer actually blazes some trails. Though since I mostly kept watching 00 out of a combination of loving to hate and wish death upon the main characters and cheering for the ‘bad guy’ secondaries, I’m keeping my expectations in check, heh.
While I somewhat agree with some of the points. I tend to side with ghostlightning more in this one in that I would want to see more UC. That said I do agree that Unicorn tends to try to bluntly hammer the references in alot while forgetting the subtle world-building that Kawamori and co. have done in Macross. Also, while I do enjoy the overall setting of the last decades of the first Universal Century, I do wish they’d do more in that great gulf of time between that and Victory. Save for F91 and a few manga, we’ve seen nothing of what may prove to be an interesting part of the timeline. Also, another idea would be to follow the timeline of the Z movies instead and build a new continuity. How would things in the 0090′s progressed had the events of the Z movie taken place instead of ZZ?
Following the Zeta movies would be an excellent idea. Even if some good gets dumped with the bad, undoing ZZ and starting something new from that point would be a great move. But unfortunately Unicorn confirmed the events of ZZ. They could have used the opportunity to say something like “there were all sorts of weird stories from those years, no one really knew what was going on” or words to that effect. It would casually wipe out the horrors of ZZ and be a nice, subtle nod to the older fans who suffered through ZZ.
Let me guess, you didn’t watch ZZ Gundam all the way through?
What are the words I’m looking for… Let’s have our cake and eat it too? I get the sentiment about wanting to explore new things, I really do, and inevitably things do have to change if they’re to survive. But I don’t believe the past is unimportant in moving forward either, that traditions don’t still have something offer or even something new to show us in the end. The UC has and always will have the definitively established history behind it, not other alternative iteration has yet to come close to matching that, and for me Unicorn does what I have always hoped and wanted in a Gundam series, built upon the past success of its legacy while reinventing itself at the same time, the nostalgia effect is just an added bonus in my view. Btw, is Crusader going to be putting up an article at some point? I’d like to think he’d be a bit more sympathetic, not that I don’t still enjoy your writing :p
My issue with Unicorn is that it feels like its beholden to its past instead of continuing the story based upon it. The long timeline of UC is something I really like about it, as so few franchises continue for so long. It gives it a chance to see changes over time and the development of new politics, new technology, and new roles for older characters. But it’s hard for me to get onboard with it when the same conflicts with very similar characters just keep being repeated, with tons of “did you notice?!” reference dumps this time around. Maybe things will change later on in the series, maybe this is just a low point full of obligatory rehashes. I’d really like for this to be the case, but I’m really doubting it at this point.
As for comrade Crusader, he definitely enjoyed episode 02 and ought to have a more sympathetic post out soon. Thanks for reading and commenting on mine, even if you disagree. It’s good to see your interpretation of it, and honestly I hope your more hopeful interpretation is the one that wins out by the end of the series.
One of the things I specifically liked about Unicorn was beyond the superficial shout-outs there was a subtle reference in the beginning of the first episode regarding the sickness that has overtaken the hope/potential of the Universal Century, and how it makes a specific reference to trying to right the course of humanity at last. That in my view has helped set the stage, of not exactly resolving every conflict/dispute in the UC timeline, but of at least taking the steps needed to do so. In every iteration and every conflict we’ve, as you pointed out, repeated the same grievances over and over, but I think that’s perhaps the biggest point to be made. At the end of every battle the systematic problems within this era are never fully addressed, Zeon Daikum’s NewType theory is continually hampered or misused, and differences between spacenoids and earth are never bridged, only covered up. That fact is what makes me want to believe that it will be finally dealt with here, surrounded by the motif of the mythic Unicorn and the God known as possibility, whose overall themes and metaphors I find an rather enchanting addition to the political/personally driven agendas in the past iterations, going back to the One-Year War.
I do sincerely hope that Unicorn will end up trying to right some of the past wrongs of the disjointed UC timeline. Or better yet, do what Turn A Gundam was supposed to do for the franchise, but instead just for UC: give it one final conclusion and then end things there. But we’ll have to see how it goes. As it is I’m very disappointed with Unicorn at the moment.
Oh c’mon, at the very least Full Frontal is the first LEGITIMATE clone of Char to have ever graced the series, got to give it some credit for that I think. Plus, Bangaher was actually trained from childhood to pilot the Unicorn so he isn’t like your run of the mill Amuro/Jesus Yamato. It has its variationsI tell you! :p
So I guess Unicorn is raising the old ghosts from the dead in order to play the forbidden sonata again, whereas Macross continues to progress to the point where ideal differences are aged and settled as time progresses?
That, for some reason, is going to hamper my intention to watch the UC Gundam series…
I actually disagree with that assessment about Unicorn, if anything I think its trying to settle the ongoing dispute between The Neo-Zeon movement and the Federation and right the course of the UC as it put it..
And then what? Reopen the wounds in Hathaway’s Flash?
That was always more of a side-story thing though, and ultimately un-related to the continuing conflict b/t Neo-Zeon and the Federation. Of course Unicorn isn’t going to solve all the problems, but I think it’s taking the right steps to help breakout of this ongoing cycle in the UC time-line.
I wouldn’t consider Hathaway’s Flash to be a part of the animated UC continuity. The next conflict after Unicorn is F91 less than 30 years later.
Actually, Unicorn is pointless, because in the end, the same conflict arises (Earth vs Space) with people even WORSE than the Zekes (Crossbones and Zanscares). All of the sacrifices that have (and will have) ocurred (poor Daguza, Gilboa, Loni, Kirks, Norm, Marida (she dies, btw, you can tell that from a mile away), and so many, many others) will be for nothing, as the Federation will STILL oppress the Spacenoids and leave them in poverty, and aristocratic groups claiming to fight for the “common man” will continue to arise and execute genocide throughout the people they claim to protect (not to mention their enemies, obviously).
Unicorn is a pointless peace of crap that should NOT have been done at all, and will be viewed in the future by the sane anime fans as one of the worst Gundam pieces of schlock ever that will never (and I mean NEVER) live up to its other OVA predecessors, like 0080, 0083, 08th MS Team, and the like.
At least Gundam X is different, but with enough shout-outs to other sister series to make your average UC faggot squeal.
Don’t let this ruin you on the older UC series though! There’s so much great stuff in the timeline, especially between the years 0079 and 0087 (Original series (best viewed as the compilation movies), 08th MS Team, 0080, 0083, and Zeta as well as the short MS Igloo sidestories.) But yes, Macross seems to know how to grow and change, whereas Gundam can’t seem to get comfortable with deviations from the original. Macross reinterprets core elements like personal growth, love triangles, the power of song and culture, and the environmental destruction of war in different ways each time, but Gundam doesn’t seem to make much in the way of changes in most cases.
“00 tried and failed miserably to make its AU relate to our world” What?? It is based on are current reality/world, give or take a few centuries. Lmao something tells me he didn’t finish nor gave 00 a real try like so many or he really doesn’t understand economics and the political turm-oil of our times.
I think you are the one who is fooling yourself, anyone who actually looked beyond the changing headlines started waving bullshit flags rather early on.
As for a few centuries your…either some prophet or simply full of yourself, the Tamil Insurgency has been crushed under the weight of Sinhalese heavy artillery, or did that headline pass you by like so many others? Solar Power is only viable if you have the means to store all that energy, and right now we’re looking at a shortage of the rare earth metals needed to make our current generation of batteries, or did you assume that Big Oil is sending out hit squads to prevent knowledge of the water powered car from reaching the masses? EO finished Gundam 00 that much I can assure you, and to be honest he has a better grasp about the reasons why the world is fucked up than most. A lot of people expected a lot from Gundam 00 but then it failed to live up to the talk of Zero Sum game long before the Gaga Rush and the Clone War.
I for one call bullshit on the idea that Iran is going to become a monarchy led by some weak willed woman any time soon or for the long term for that matter. If you or the Gundam 00 team had more knowledge of Muslims and the differences between Persians and Arabs you would know this. But you instead you cling to the rather mistaken notion that Gundam 00 is some how prophetic of the ills to come. As for all of the Middle East becoming the second Africa after the collapse of oil it is a possibility if regional tensions don’t boil over first. One war can drastically change the geo-political landscape as it did in 1967, and 1973. As for peddling information WikiLeaks does it for free, and the facebook/twitter oriented society we have now means that hardly much is a secret anymore if one were patient enough to sift through the inane babble and idle musings of the average person.
Gundam 00 was supposed to be more intelligent than the rest but it did not live up to that, the politics was piss that college undergrads spout when they have but a fraction of the picture mixed with anti-establishment, we know better attitude. I highly doubt that there will be a true Atlas Shrugged scenario when all the “smart” people leave to come back to take over the world under the guise of righting the ills of the world. Moreover political shifts are notoriously treacherous it is a losing exercise to predict what will happen over the long term the best you can do is deduce how national actors will behave based on a range of factors, energy being but one of many variables. And then you have national leaders that aren’t necessarily rational, and if you think human foibles can’t turn nations well then WWI says hello.
the thought of of 4 self rightous pansies in over powered machines making the world a better place through terroist attacks is laughable at best. one reason is because you would have to be completely stupid to entrust a multimillion dollar nuclear aircraft/ mech to some little uneducated punk. another reason would be the thought that terroist attacks that can strike any place in the world at any time would help something… hmmm… well call me crazy but if anything I think that would lead to mass panic. Another point though the thought of orbital elevators being built to collect energy and fix the energy crisis is intresting but as crusader said you would need to be able to store that energy, If anything i would think that the future energy source would most likely be hydrogen since it is the most abundant element in the universe. and has such a larger reaction potential. As far as the phyics in gundam 00 im not even gonna begin to rant on that… the post would be way too long. If you think that gundam 00 relates to the world today you are either stupid or ignorant…
Crusader i think your right on the mark and im sad you have not done a rage post of this episode.
Question: Did you just mention GUNDAM and PHYSICS in the same sentence?
@ ectholion
Pansies? You must be talking about SEED with that overkill amount of angst and melodrama in super robots *cough jesus yamato cough* Guess what Gundam has always been about young teens finding giant robots and magically being able to master them, but unlike SEED the pilots in 00 were actually trained to be professionals with this task. No, mass panic would be overboard, since most of what was going on was not public knowledge and celestial being were not invincible nor gods. Yes do argue about psychics in anime I would love to see this. And so the bottom line, Gundam 00 doesn’t relate to our world one bit you say… wow.. so then it must be. And if it is, then that must mean it sucks, cause again you say so, so it is. amirite?
@ Gundam 000
Actually you are the one saying it relates to reality …..
“It is based on are current reality/world, give or take a few centuries. Lmao something tells me he didn’t finish nor gave 00 a real try like so many or he really doesn’t understand economics and the political turm-oil of our times.”
As you can now see it does not… yes trained profesionals cosplaying to work calling themselves Mr. busido…. and clone armies….. these are professionals???
On the comment about ‘angst’ are you sure you really saw through the characters of 00? They were full of angst! They only had vague ideas of what they were doing and when questioned further, they resorted to basic replies and ‘That’s just who I am’ kind of crap. That is angst! Its not principled character. Kinda like being given a gun in the middle of a free-for-all: you shoot cause you’re afraid to be shot and that’s it.
@ Crusader
You just had way too high unattainable expectations of 00. Gundam UC and Seed were never sophisticated either might I add, my point is he could barely give out many reasons to criticize 00 without making it overtly biassedly opinionated. “Failed terribly, but tried” right? Well If I remember right Seed and Destiny was the most dumb downed piece of shit excuse for a gundam anime that didn’t even “try”, just resorting to melodrama prejudice, woes me I’m a superhuman born in this unfair world.
Gundam 00 wasn’t meant to perfectly replicate our current reality, if it were to be so then in the first place there wouldn’t be giant humanoid robots being piloted by just pedals and a joy stick for fucks sake. So whose to say they didn’t have enough metal? You? Or the writers? They used parallel issues like religious tension, race feuds, border disputes, energy crisis and even looked past oil to see what realistic issues may be brought up. I can say 00 was not a masterpiece but Failed terribly? I think not. Tell me what gundam anime besides UC met your expectations?? O knowledgeable one.
They raised expectations hell at the end of S1 and the first few eps of S2 they looked as if they could have sealed the deal after dropping some of the baggage you term realistic which I call simplistic. Your vaunted religious conflict was side stepped as a simple misunderstanding between liberals and conservatives that was solved by returning Princess Poverty to the throne with a gaggle of kids, your racial tension had Jihad-kun and Marina talk in the middle of the night, your energy crisis was solved by installing a communist system to give every one energy. Nationalization does not go well hell you can look at Hugo Chavez and see how much a smooth a ride it has been for those who have to live under him.
As for AU Gundams that met or exceeded expectations, Turn A was solid, G Gundam was EPIC. They brought a lot of issues up they just resorted to dumbing them down to the point of stupidity, burning one coke field will solve the drug problem, killing a few suits on both sides will end an insurgency that had gone on for 70 years, the IRA will lay down its arms after being shown a Gundam. You claim to understand but you seem to forget how woefully simple they made it out to be. Also SD Gundam Brave Battle Warriors is thoroughly enjoyable and has exceeded expectation.
Take a look at a geological survey of the rare earth metals and you will see where most of it is. Resources are finite rare earth metals used for batteries are very finite. In the end the promise of the Zero Sum game spirit was not met it qualifies as a failure in that regard, it was decent but a failure to live up to the promise they so boldly declared when it premiered. You yourself declared that it was based on a reality give or take bloody century. Just because it was decent doesn’t mean it was the fulfillment of the promise they boasted. Expectations ran high because they hyped it as such, but in the end like my home team they sputtered and failed me on plenty of counts and delivering in a few.
So tell me at what point did they not dumb things down? Where did they show how complex a world we live in? Was there ever a problem that Gundam could not solve? It did not replicate our reality it pretended to be serious as somewhat real but in the end we got a Gaga rush and a complete write off of Princess Poverty’s continued occupation of Kurdistan. It did not err toward the plausible it went full blown fantasy pixie dust and all. Gundam 00 was a failure when it did not have to be so, they tried to be sure but there was no will to force a superb execution that in the end they betrayed expectations and went the way of CE. I was let down and it was all the more lamentable because Gundam 00 had a solid chance to be all that was promised, but in the end like my home team the 49ers they have a knack for finding a way to fail. Gundam 00 is to me like my 49ers I want to love them and on some level I do love them but good God it is hard to watch when they fall short of greatness or even competence despite moments of brilliance.
yeah i have to agree. aside from a good soundtrack and some absolutely badass battle sequences (the final battle between setsunna and ribbons was pretty sweet) the story is kinda mediocre at best. The characters had potential to be really deep (Setsunna could have learned to open up to the world and let go of his need to do battle, Saji could have manned up a little more). With Marina, it would have been fun to see her idealism get brutally stamped on and have her undergo a serious “Break the Cutie” (a tvtropes term for when a happy lovable wide eyed idealist character becomes broken due to a lot of bad shit happening to them.) There were the potential for good ideas in there (Setsunna the kurdish guerilla meeting the leader of the nation that fucked up his country had the potential to go far. Also, they could have had Setsunna be disillusioned by the fact that the unknown pilot he worshipped for years was in fact a psychopathic monster of the worst kind who spared him due to ego alone.) Not to be rude, but what would your version have looked like if you had a clean slate except for the basic premise (the names remain the same, there is a group called celestial being and they do things similarly)? Just curious.
My comrade pretty much covered my points, but just to add my own note to things, Gundam 00′s geopolitics are laughable in the extreme. If sudden surgical strikes on militaries and structures could just end wars then the US wouldn’t have the slightest care in the world. All our precision guided munitions and stealth aircraft haven’t ended conflicts even when we have used them to intervene (Bosnia/Kosovo, anyone? Those didn’t end until thousands of ground troops went in. Even Gulf War I, the triumph of high technology in popular perception, wasn’t decided by the air war.)
Not to sound immodest, but I’ve got a pretty good grip on current and developing geopolitics, and the degrees to back it up. 00 was terribly uninformed and simplistic about politics, history, and general human nature. It projected a single simple mindset onto the whole world’s population, one not borne out by history. The one way in which 00 might relate to the real world is as a cautionary tale of how not to perceive the world and the use of force to change it. Simplistic concepts like easy interventions and instant peace and stability are the kinds of things that informed the planning of the Iraq War. And we all know how that turned out…
Last but not Least @ EO
No SEED’s nonexistence of geopolitics or any politics in depth is the laughable in the extreme of Gundam. Go back and look at how a gundam fared against the mobile weapons in the beginning of 00, Celestial Being would have succeeded if it wasn’t for the fake pseudo GN Drives being released and Mass Produced. Plus in the end Celestial Being’s main mission wasn’t to end war but to effectively unite mankind to find against the ELS. Yes you may have a good grip on geopolitics, but you do not have a good grip on your blatant bias, again 00 being simple is your opinion and in my opinion is a lie, 00 was at least much more political then many AU’s ever “tried”. The gundmam meisters, celestial being and Aeolia Schoenberg all known too well how hard it would be to end all war and fight against human nature that’s why they became martyrs and became the evil that the world had to rid by ending disputes with each other and unite. You actually believe people can change countries, nations and worlds to not war with each other without using force? How naive and childish. Nothing easy was attainable in 00, intervention was the first step but instant peace and stability were things to come long after, the Iraq war was based on a lie, to establish peace? no just the opposite.
I would just like to say that I fully agree about many of the sequels and many of the AU’s seemingly being rehashed original Gundam in this article. (00 imo escaped that.) But I cannot agree how so many can justify believing SEED was some remaked godly masterpiece adaption(which did not escape the rehash-ness) and rag on 00 with some sketchy BS reasons to the point of it being just nitpicking.
The same people who rushed on that same bandwagon worshiping Gundam Unicorn for it just being in the UC timeline.
I ask this, the point of the articles was to bash the rehash-ness right? Was 00 a rehash of the original Gundam ? No. So I don’t understand the point of the bashing.
SEED has its problems and its rehashes too, though I give it more credit than 00 because its new features were done much better than the new features in 00. But both fundamentally were beholden to the same baggage that I’m arguing is pulling down UC and the overall franchise. SEED followed a lot of the actions/locations pattern of MSG for the first half of the show, but it had the friend vs friend conflict (whether you enjoyed it or thought it lame and angsty aside), reinterpreted the Newtype conflict by making it genetic engineering and the colonies an independent haven for those who were genetically engineered (plus expanded on the theme with the Blue Cosmos’ operations.) 00 rehashed less from MSG than it did from Wing, but I give it credit for trying a few new things even if I feel that they were terrible failures. Though it still suffered from some Gundam baggage by making Graham Aker a masked anatagonist for no real reason, and by having to try and graft a Newtype destiny element into a story that didn’t really need it. CB could have just united the world without some sort of unwieldy human evolution angle.
Just as an aside, I really don’t ever see anyone who considers SEED a godly masterpiece. I think I probably hold it in higher regard than most Gundam fans, even as I acknowledge its faults. Most people seem to either mildly dislike or outright hate it, at least from the people I talk to.
“Celestial Being would have succeeded if it wasn’t for the fake pseudo GN Drives being released and Mass Produced.”
Just because the plan almost worked in-universe doesn’t make it any more likely to relate to what works in the real world.
“Plus in the end Celestial Being’s main mission wasn’t to end war but to effectively unite mankind to find against the ELS.”
Code Geass ending? Just saying…
“Yes you may have a good grip on geopolitics, but you do not have a good grip on your blatant bias, again 00 being simple is your opinion and in my opinion is a lie”
What sort of bias ought I to have? Really, I’m only biased against oversimplifications that disregard and even disrespect the complexities of the real world (and make for an intolerably unrealistic story to boot.) It does no good to the world to put out a message that strength can solve everything. A theme often tackled in Gundam (and that I don’t mind seeing repeated because it’s universal) is a main character who feels powerless, gets (military) power, and then realizes that it’s not as easy to solve things as he figured when he aspired to gain that power. Which is completely absent from the simplistic 00 universe.
“00 was at least much more political then many AU’s ever “tried”.”
See: Zeta Gundam. Zeta had some of the most realistic political dealings and plotting of any anime other than Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Unless by political you mean relating to specific, recent real world issues. In which case I don’t really feel that Gundam is the vehicle for addressing such topics.
“You actually believe people can change countries, nations and worlds to not war with each other without using force? How naive and childish.”
Worked for the European Union. No one ever fought anything for the sake of bringing peace to that group of former enemies. External threats from the USSR helped, as did the destruction caused by WWII, but neither the Soviets nor the Nazis fought to change the way Western Europe thought about each other. Diplomacy, statecraft, security guarantees, economic integration, trust building, and a shared desire (along with the US early on) to maintain a peaceful status quo in Europe accomplished that.
“the Iraq war was based on a lie, to establish peace? no just the opposite.”
No, it really was, as naive and simplistic as that thought was. The Neoconservatives really did think that tearing down Saddam’s regime and setting up a democracy would be easy enough and that Democratic Peace Theory would ensure long-term peace in the region. This, right here, is why I dislike idealistic and simplistic views of international relations.
Personally, 00 always struck me more as an attempt to make a modern, “relevant” version of Wing, what with the pretty boys in Gundam’s thing.
That said, since Unicorn ep.2 has gotten you into a frenzied state of NERD RAEG! Howa about cooling down by watching something else… like GTO which you blog on the episodes past 5 I’ve been waiting for for some time now.
GTO is on hold for now while I’m going through the soon-to-graduate-job-hunting process. I needed to redirect a good part of my free time to finding employment, so I’m only covering one and a half series at the moment instead of two and a half (Amagami and my part of the Kuragehime posts at the moment.) Once I’m no longer having to take lots of time searching for and apply to jobs, I’ll restart GTO.
Is it a bad time to admit that I liked the Gundam works set late into the UC, like Victory and F91?
Nothing wrong with that, lol. I’m just saying that at some point the repetition needs to stop. Unicorn ep02 was the 100 ton steel beam that broke the Zamel’s back for me.
To be honest, UC should end, at least for the anime/ova/movies. Manga side stories are ok ,probably light novels to, but we should keep on with new stuff and enjoy all types of new works instead of staying stuck in the past with the same boring stuff repeated again and again.
Manga is a lot easier to dismiss from the canon if need be, but honestly I think UC should just end completely and make a clean break. The proliferation of so many manga and light novels just makes it harder to coordinate a franchise when all these different things are supposed to be occupying the same timeframe. I much prefer the more controlled, fewer media concept like in Macross. Sure it means less volume for us to enjoy, but it helps keep the universe more coherent.
EO you speak the truth.. i facepalmed at so many of the references… though all and all i liked the episode. could be the lack of mecha thses days, could be the hope of seeing the bad ass old dudes who we saw in the breifing fighting in the next episode… scenes that had to go the hostage situation, the three times faster, the captive at the having dinner with some family of urchins. and the most unforgivable thing about it is the adults cant be trusted bull shit… i mean come on enough is enough
The dinner with the urchins could have been (maybe will be later? I hope) a good jumping off point for the prominent Gundam anti-war theme. But as it was, it just didn’t feel like enough to give it meaning. But I’m with you on the 3x faster and ‘adults are evil’ things. The former is just unnecessary, and the latter plainly immature and not befitting this kind of series. Sure, it’s a teenager saying it, but it’s said with no nuance and no distinction from the thoughts expressed by Amuro all those years ago. I could see each character having similar thoughts, but when they come out the exact same way every time it makes me feel like I’m watching the same show over again. It also continues to set up a black and white adults vs children argument that just doesn’t mesh with the grays that Gundam puts forth when it’s at its best.
Actually I really love Mecha Series but Somehow I feel tired with this GUNDAM show…
Meh… Newtype>Coordinator>Innovator, Sometime I wonder what if Sunrise make main characters that dont have super strength/HAX Powers, Yeah… Just A normal Pilots (Human)
Too many Masked Opponents (For Gundam 00, I was Quite Passionate with Graham Aker as a Flag Fighter with Great Skill but 2nd Season sunrise served me with Cosplay Graham Aker) Now We Have Full Frontal
and At last Too Much Emo Pilots lol it means Sunrise Should get Rid of em ^_^
I understand what you mean. I’m no fan of Newtypes beyond just a ‘sixth sense’ to adapt to life in space either. But I think all these elements can exist in a series if they’re done right. Graham Aker in the first season of 00 was a good way to reinterpret an older, more experienced, charismatic rival character, and one with no mask at that. Too bad he never posed as much of a threat as Char because the 00 main characters were invincible. Season 2 Graham Aker just felt like they added a mask for the hell of it.
On Newtypes/Coordinators/etc, SEED really did do something different with it, and it made for some good stuff. It created a new social and geopolitical framework with the colonies and Earth, and it made for some damn good identity crisis and moral issues in SEED Destiny (you know, back in the first 20 or so episodes of that series, when it was really good…and then Kira showed back up and all that good plot and characterization went to hell thereafter.)
I think all these iconic Gundam elements can exist in a series that is new and innovative. It’s all about the approach the series creators take to it. Now if they’d just venture forth from the shallow end of the pool, they’d realize that they really can swim on their own!
A nice list of arguing here. Reminded me of why I thought 00 was a total disappointment- not because I knew of the hype around it, but because I found it really hard to interpret any good meaning from actions of the main characters despite its apparent attempts to be real-world relevant or surreal. The ‘most’ real aspect I got from 00 was that the 4 CB meisters were all new-age sociopaths disoriented by our mass-production modernity or suffered some other psychological disorder, hence none of them showed any real character.
Gundam 00: I find it difficult you could see any real-world political value from 00? Or lesson or message or analogy. Like what politics? If you care to elaborate a few concise points you may be able to persuade me to re-watch 00. Last time I tried I stopped at episode 6 (season.1) because fuck, Set-fucking-suna is such a non-character and Marina is just an excuse to have your stereotypical war contrast. Another non-character.
EO: I agree with everything you’ve said about Unicorn- and even though I’ve left most my UC knowledge behind me, I still felt the old themes have been conveyed rather superficially or banal or artificially. But thumbs up for pointing out integration of the ‘friend vs friend’ conflict in SEED which I enjoyed; and the perspective reversal in Destiny. I mean, Gundam doesn’t always have to be about war and politics. Right?!
Here’s an idea for Sunrise, why not do a series in the UC-verse about the INFANTRYMAN? Like, a legit full-length series. If you want to say war is bad, war is hell, no one suffers more than the infantryman. A pilot eats well, sleeps well, and operates a multimillion dollar machine. An infantryman fights in the trenches, labors with his own body, and is never respected enough by his superiors.
That aside, I really do agree with this post. Aside from my outright rejecting Gundam’s holistic ‘war is evil’ theme, I had a number of problems with Unicorn, almost none of them technical. The first is that Gundam has, at this point, officially dropped any attempt at being a Real Robot series. More and more, protagonist suits are essentially run by burning spirit and win on a deficit of tactical skill or pilot proficiency. Brainwave machine or not, the fact that a small boy with experience in only commercial machines could outfight trained professionals is an insult to the dedication required to be a pilot, in real life AND in universe.
My second problem with Unicorn is how painfully obvious it was that the creators were attempting to be topical. Characters throw around the word ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’, but there really isn’t any evidence shown to indicate that the current conflict is anything but an outright shooting war. Not only do Neo-Zeon possess their own standardized equipment and machinery, they posses obvious bases of operation and centers of production.
My last problem that I care to share is how Unicorn, and a lot of Gundam series in general, utterly fail at convincing me that anyone involved is in the armed services. Discipline is terrible. People launch whenever they want, speak out of turn, break prisoners out of the brig, possess outlandish haircuts, and fail to understand even the most basic tactical principles. Case in point, Full Frontal’s second, Angelo, refuses to press Sinanju’s advantage for basically artistic reasons. That’s outrageous. How did this guy get his commission?
My basic point is this. Gundam was born on anti-war ideals and the simple concept that robots are machines too. It has, for the most part, lost its way. While one could say that a show about war that sells what are essentially war-toys always secretly glorified armed conflict, Gundam has come a long way from presenting war as terrifying and difficult (see Amuro struggling against two Zaku IIs despite a far superior machine) to portraying the act of killing as so cartoonishly easy as for Banagher to accidentally off a mook in the middle of a fight with an experienced veteran of maybe four or so major conflicts. In blu-ray quality too. War has never looked more awesome (or less grounded), and the machines have never been less real.
I think part of the problem with UC is that the spaciods KNOW they will always be a conflict with the earth and yet they stay in orbit. We’ve seen very little in spacoids to try leave the earth sphere and try to go else where. I’m not saying settle on Mars but they could just as well build colonies in that planet’s orbit :p
All these UC and clone UC series have the same flaw just like an argument of an abusive spouse trying to to convince everyone that they know that “it’ll never happen again”. BUT IT DOES. Sure AU can kinda get a way with this cause supposedly is “hasn’t happened” before in their universe but UC… It happens every 5 years with no reason other than people want to project power. It’s not even about freedom any more, it’s about “if I can’t have you know no one will.” That was the whole point of CCA, with Char realizing that, “hey you know colony drop… bad idea to make a point.” Because it’s always, “earth versus space” it seem every stale even if both sides are grey.
At least Macross tries to change up the sides, we went from, Zentradi (clone military), to Protodevlin (space vampires, it’s ok to roll your eyes), to Humans (the UN v Anti UN forces), to AI AND Personal (grudge match which turned into people versus AI in +), and finally in Frontier we had “bugs” and some shallow Fleet v Fleet.
My favorite Gundam is still 08th because the sides didn’t really matter it was more about interaction among adults during war. These weren’t civives caught in the cross fire, just about people who were trying to do their job and make it home. At the time it was fresh and a vastly different perspective than “we’re right you’re wrong, tech power up!”. There was a bit of pandering but mostly it was about telling a story of people being people.
I can certainly understand your grievances towards the franchise as a whole. I think that after watching almost every single instance of animated Gundam I’ve just become numb to the idea of Gundam changing its presentation too much. As far as I’m concerned, 00 did an excellent job of trying something somewhat new. The tropes were still there, but it played a little more loose and clever with them. In the end, it was still an amalgamation of Gundam Wing & 0079 & Zeta, but that worked for me.
I think the main problem with Gundam, besides the not learning from past mistakes point that you made, is the fact that every new series attempts to retell the original 0079 story over again. It’s as if they feel they have to reintroduce everyone to the story all over again. How pointless is that? I could understand them doing that with SEED, but is Gundam’s story really that obscure that it needs to be explained to every fan continually?? Maybe the Japanese fanbase is different, they’re the ones that really count. I suppose us American fans are just a healthy bonus to their sales. I would just like a Gundam SERIES to grow up with its fanbase. Sure the holy trifecta of OVA’s (0080, 0083 & 08th MS team) gave good to excellent alternate takes, but they’ve yet to do something that fresh with a series. Like the perfect romance anime series (KareKano *single tear*) I still wait for a truly fresh take on a Gundam series.
Meh, if they drop UC, they may as well drop Gundam entirely. While I can’t rightly disagree with what has been said, every new AU Gundam drags the overall series down another notch. If they could make an AU that was consistently good, they might be on to something, but, as it is, all AUs end up being bad from the start or decent from the start and horrible by the end. I’m willing to cut G Gundam a bit of a break because of its absurdity, but the point still stands.
“Some of you may hate on Gundam SEED or Wing or 00, but at least they had some willingness to bravely venture beyond being Puru Puru clones of their predecessors.”
SEED? Really? of all the examples you could have chosen you chose SEED? Not G? Turn A?
UC Lifer is an anagram for Lucifer.
Just saying.
i have to agree with this, it gets dreary after a while seeing more and more of the same, doubly so when what shows promise gets retooled to be like whats come before and all the potential gets squandered for the sake of selling more plastic kits and keeping the locals happy.
worse still, this ‘cancer’ as you accurately put it, also affects shows outside of gundam, look at what happened to code geass, it started off brilliantly, but come second season it practically mutated into some weird mess that halfway between what it was and being a clone of gundam, and with that carried as much subtlety as a controlled demolition.
one of the problems with this stems from the fact unlike macross which has had the same person writing it from the get go, the author for each gundam story changes each time and said author is more or less bound to the whims of bandais exec’s
makes me kind of happy that votoms and patlabor never really took off, god knows what they’d look like nowadays considering bandai would be at the helm if they did
i understand where you are coming from but other than Wing and a few others everytime they jumped out of the Universal Century we get crap like Seed
I never watched the original UC series. I watched Wing when it came on television in Thailand when I was REALLY young (forgot most of it), 00, and SEED + Destiny. One thing I would point out is that the big neon reference signs in Unicorn makes it hard for new viewers. I could get along fine with Macross Frontier (though I hate the emphasis on AIMOCRAP), but Unicorn makes me confused with all the talk about the past.
What I honestly think about sunrise with Gundam is that they focus on what they know works for the franchise. See with them they don’t take a risk with something new with the show unless they know it would work. They would try new ideas for a different show and not risk damaging there biggest franchise.
See for example Code Geass tried something new and it turned into a very popular hit. In fact there was a few Gundam references in it too. In R2 when Suzaku was fighting those knightmares in the desert for the first time, they actually call him the “White Devil” like what Amuro was called in the first Gundam. In fact sometimes I did see the show wanting to he a Gundam show in some places, but couldn’t because of two reasons. 1. Since the show was bad or too different it would hurt the franchise and lose sales. 2. Having the Gundam name would not attract the same amount of people. As in a anime viewer would look at Code Geass (A new show that never existed before) and would see if it was any good, but if it was called Gundam: Code Geass or something it would repel some viewers off if they knew what Gundam is already and didn’t want to watch it. Also it would repel some Gundam fans off because it was too different.
Wow I rambled too much. Anyways Sunrise is going to stick with the formula they know and love and leave the new stuff for a new show.
We have too many fag protagonists like Banagher, too many douches like Riddhe, too many poor, badly-managed and exploited female characters like Marida, and too many Masked Dudes.
Once Sunrise has the balls to hire non-Japanese writers, or people from GAINAX at least, Gundam will be as decadent as their beloved Federation (and Zeon, and Crossbones, and Zanscare, and Jupiter Empire…).
Want to watch a refreshing Gundam? Go watch Gundam X. Its short, sure, but at least it uses all of the Gundam tropes right, and is original. Of course, IMHO.
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[...] into the ring. While my comrade Diamond 2, aka ExecutiveOtaku, says that the repetition has made Gundam stale he is…correct but only about the Zekes who are full of lose and fail anyways. Otherwise there was [...]