The Gundam Thread

WMD said:
Indeed that was really useful. It's pretty surprising that I've gone so deep buying so much of a show I've not really watched any of. It was almost a relief when it turned out to be so good!

I'm probably going to to mix watched other stuff in between Gundam Series rather than binge all of it in one go.
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That was me and blind buying Bakemonogatari. A show I was also very happy turned out to be amazing
 
Vincentdante said:
That was me and blind buying Bakemonogatari. A show I was also very happy turned out to be amazing
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The monogatari series is so good. The next part Nise is the most awkward/uncomfortable to watch but after that it's all amazing. Well worth watching.

I actually wish it had a dub as theres so much happening visually and so much random text on screen! It's a show I've bookmarked for a full rewatch as I'm sure theres a lot of details I missed
 
Great that you like the show. :) It has so many memorable scenes that I am still suprised how many got stuck in my subconsciousness.
I have recently re-watched the Origin I - IV too, due to the re-release of the UK Blu Ray. The true value of the show and the absolute showstopper in my opinion is the Zabi family. They are such a great cast of "villains" which is obviously also shown in the Origin movies.
Diverse, like- and hateable and with slick looks :D

NHK has released a documentary about making the original show about 1 month ago. Maybe that is the perfect fit now.
Making Gundam - The inside story
 
WMD said:
The monogatari series is so good. The next part Nise is the most awkward/uncomfortable to watch but after that it's all amazing. Well worth watching.

I actually wish it had a dub as theres so much happening visually and so much random text on screen! It's a show I've bookmarked for a full rewatch as I'm sure theres a lot of details I missed
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Yea I stock piled a number of monogatari shows. Pretty much the entirety of season 1 actually, and I intend to buy that season 2 boxset which was very conveniently announced as I got to that stage. I ended up watching the Kizu movies after Bake and I'm moving onto Nise next. I will see how awkward it becomes :p
 
Bannion said:
NHK has released a documentary about making the original show about 1 month ago. Maybe that is the perfect fit now.
Making Gundam - The inside story
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That was a fascinating documentary. So much happening during the making of the show. It was pretty tragic when the animation director essentially said "Back then nimators died all the time" like it's normal to be so overworked drawing stuff is daily battle to survive.
 
WMD said:
That was a fascinating documentary. So much happening during the making of the show. It was pretty tragic when the animation director essentially said "Back then nimators died all the time" like it's normal to be so overworked drawing stuff is daily battle to survive.
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Indeed, if people are literally dying to make your cartoons maybe ease up work schedules. Japanese business standards and work ethics has never been the gold standard to aim for though. Poor Tomino was driven to depression over it too.
 
You really have to appreciate all the effort that went into these shows. After watching the documentary I always wondered what content might have been cut. I mean they had plans to produce more episodes, so it would be great to know what arch was dropped or changes have been made...but I guess we´ll never know.
 
Mobile Suit Gundam vinyl soundtrack pre-orders @ Zavvi:

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King Records - Mobile Suit Gundam-II: BGM Collection Vol. 2

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King Records - Mobile Suit Gundam-II: BGM Soldiers Of Sorrow

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King Records - Mobile Suit Gundam-III: Meguriai Sora

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Two soundtracks that are up for pre-order at Righstuf are missing ("Gundam On The Battlefield" and "Original Soundtrack").
 
Finished Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam so thought I'd give some thoughts on it

Loved the bug picture stuff. How the factions have changed, the political manoeuverings, the state of play of the solar system and how it changes in the series. It was also (mostly) fun to see how old characters coming back had reacted to those changes. Bright, Emma, Quattro and Four were great and really enjoyed their characters and stories. Also thought the animation was good, a nice step up from the original amd some of the action was amazing, and the music was also better.

On to what I didnt like. And here I'll say the first series was such an unexpected joy that it essentially raised my expectations too high but I feel in their attempt to be different from series 1 they went too far or trying to have new character types as we went from sympathetic characters to characters I hated. Unfortunately typified by the main character whose self pitying, self agrandising, ignorant, selfish, woe is me attitude wound me up no end. I could go on about this all day but all I'll say is it did, unfortunately, affect my enjoyment of this series.

Hopefully ZZ finds a better balance. How do others feel about Zeta?
 
WMD said:
Unfortunately typified by the main character whose self pitying, self agrandising, ignorant, selfish, woe is me attitude wound me up no end.
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Yeah. I mean I get that a great deal of Gundam's general message is "War is Hell" but Kamille really is not an easy guy to sympathise with. For me it was that, plus the rather repetitive nature of the plots that made Zeta feel a little underwhelming after hearing so much praise for it. I hold to my opinion that it would have been a great series if it had been half the length.

ZZ is a lot of things, I'm not sure "balanced" is one of them. But I certainly liked the protagonist a lot more.
 
ayase said:
Yeah. I mean I get that a great deal of Gundam's general message is "War is Hell" but Kamille really is not an easy guy to sympathise with. For me it was that, plus the rather repetitive nature of the plots that made Zeta feel a little underwhelming after hearing so much praise for it. I hold to my opinion that it would have been a great series if it had been half the length.

ZZ is a lot of things, I'm not sure "balanced" is one of them. But I certainly liked the protagonist a lot more.
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The "war is hell" message is fine and worked great with Amaro who has a character arc in first season. But Kamille doesnt change. Hes the same at the start as at the end. I think that's why he gets quite hard to watch after a while.

I think you may be right about it working better if it had been shorter. A fair amount of stuff could've been cut without really affecting anything and on apersonal note I'd remove Katz (sp?) entirely.
 
when it comes to Zeta Gundam, maybe it is just me but I remember a lot of characters screaming "KAMILLE" xD , woah that name...

Other than that I also really like the series overall. I am a fan of the hyaku shiki suit and was always eager to see him being send off. :)
The opening is also top notch in my opinion. I wish they kept the original intro for all episodes.
I think the part I disliked the most was the ambivalent girl "four".
 
Watched quite a lot of Gundam recently but will stick to MSG ZZ for this post. I'll try and blank out spoilers though I'm assuming most people in this thread will have seen it.

I guess this series splits quite nicely into 4 parts: Shangri La, Aimless in Space, On Earth, Back in Space.

Found the first part really interesting and it was fun to see a slower pace start. MSG and Zeta both start with the main character joining the fight more or less straight away. I liked that here the main character already had a life he was getting on with and activity didnt want to join the war. The lighter tone also worked well in these episodes for that reason.

Part 2 was pretty terrible to be honest. The story was meandering and didnt really lead anywhere. It didnt feel like there were any real stakes even though they were in the war now. The comedy stopped working. The traitorous acts of Dastardly and Muttley got old and boring real fast. It wound me up that Bright accepted them back. Glemy is a total dork of a villian. And the sister kidnap story felt endless and pointless trapping the main character in a development limbo.

Ironically it wsnt until they landed on Earh that this series really took off!

Parts 3 and 4 were excellent. The story mattered. There were real stakes and consequences of war. The comedy was dialled back. Kamille came back more or less as a mute which did him wonders. The political machinations were back in play. The art was great. Had a mostly satisfying conclusion though I thought it was a massive cop out that the sister had actually survived for no reason. I also feel the main characters mental state, which was touched on could've been dealt with in more detail. It was also really interesting to see how this bunch of kids never really became soldiers and retained a much greater independence that in the previous seasons

Overall I'd say tha while not perfect and not as good as the original series it was a massive, massive improvement on Zeta. It's well worth getting through the nonsense of the first half as the second half is excellent and just as Gundam should be.
 
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