Gundam Show Thread - MSG thru Witch from Mercury

[dizman]

New Thunderbolt episode is out! 

 

[seti88]

awesome!

[Marzan]

When it comes to mecha action, the Gundam franchise keeps on climbing to heights that I fear Macross will never reach. Thunderbolt is simply sensational.

[seti88]

 

[Marzan]

The exercise in masochism continues.

[Hikuro]

I know........they've really been cutting people down left and right in the last 2 months now. I mean almost every episode someone is getting the Tomino character treatment.

[Beltane70]

I'm actually quite glad to see that they didn't go

Spoiler

for the cliche of having McGillis betray Tekkedan by arranging Orga's death. Instead, it appears that Nobliss Gordon is the actual culprit.

 

[SuperHobo]

It's interesting that in the end,

Spoiler

 Mcgillis the guy who is known for betraying his friends and organization never sold out Tekkadan, yet Tekkadan was the one who folded on him. I hope Nobliss somehow gets blown to bits. Mcgillis' death was well handled, but man his plan sure was half-baked. Funny thing is the only reason I watched S2 of IBO was because of him. lol I'm a little disappointed with how ill-conceived his overall revolution was. I kept expecting some kind of gimmick to come from Gundam Bael, but really it was just a fast gundam and a figurehead of gjallarhorn. 

 

Strangely, I was more hyped about seeing this week's episode over the finale next week. Maybe it's all the death and doom and gloom giving me a somber feeling going into the finale. Will it be satisfying enough? Will there be a surprise announcement at the end? 

[Keith]

On 3/25/2017 at 1:55 PM, Marzan said:

When it comes to mecha action, the Gundam franchise keeps on climbing to heights that I fear Macross will never reach. Thunderbolt is simply sensational.

Yeah, the new Thunderbolt episode was pretty amazong. Can't wait to see what comes next. Speaking of whuch, are we getting more The Origin rhis year too?

[dizman]

Yup the next Origin movie is coming out Fall 2017 followed by the final episode in 2018 last I heard. After that they are perfectly set up for a full MSG remake for the 40th anniversary.

[seti88]

Spoiler

They went for an iconic end instead of a total wrap up. Guess that's keeping it real, hope there will b a next generational story, they built up the world and characters quite well till here. Thanks for the ride IBO...

 

Edited April 2, 2017 by seti88

[Archer]

Spoiler

Not a happy camper with how that ended. Really wish that they didn't introduce Dainslefs in the second season as a catch all dues ex machina. 

I mean, if they had dainslefs with orbital drop capabilities, what was the point of making Gundams to fight Mobile Armors? They could just obliterate any mobile armors from space. And on that point, what at all was the purpose of even introducing that plot-point (mobile armors)? 

Also, Rustal now promotes democracy? After being the stalwart of the Gjallarhorn status quo for the entirety of the last few episodes? Makes no sense to me. I might have bought it if Gaelio was put in charge or something....

IBO had a lot of potential, but it really fell off near the end for me. I'd put it squarely below 00 and UC, maybe a few others I'm not recalling right now. 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2017 by Archer

[Marzan]

34 minutes ago, Archer said:

  Hide contents

Not a happy camper with how that ended. Really wish that they didn't introduce Dainslefs in the second season as a catch all dues ex machina. 

I mean, if they had dainslefs with orbital drop capabilities, what was the point of making Gundams to fight Mobile Armors? They could just obliterate any mobile armors from space. And on that point, what at all was the purpose of even introducing that plot-point (mobile armors)? 

Also, Rustal now promotes democracy? After being the stalwart of the Gjallarhorn status quo for the entirety of the last few episodes? Makes no sense to me. I might have bought it if Gaelio was put in charge or something....

IBO had a lot of potential, but it really fell off near the end for me. I'd put it squarely below 00 and UC, maybe a few others I'm not recalling right now. 

 

 

Agree with most of your points. I don't know what the heck happened in the last 10-12 episodes. This series was shaping up to be one of the best Gundam TV series since the vintage UC years and then it all dropped off.

Ever since Lafter was killed, it seems to have become an exercise in masochism. I don't know what Okada was going for here. I assume it was meant to be karmic retribution for Tekkadan for daring to dream above themselves and their station ( the whole king of Mars thing). Children should know better and assume their place in the social hierarchy.

Was this was she was going for? I don't know. All I know is that making the child murderer Rustan Elion survive without a scratch and having the insufferable Julieta not only survive but get to be the one that kills Mikazuki makes for bad storytelling. It's downright trolling the viewers. And the Mobile Armor plot that was introduced was completely forgotten. What was that about?

Like I've mentioned before, I have no problems with the "hero" dying as long as it's handled well and with purpose. Here it was neither. As a result, I will not purchase IBO season 2 when it comes out

[SuperHobo]

That ending is certainly going to divide fans. Nevertheless, I'm on the side of enjoying the ending. The intensity of it all was on par with the mobile armor conflict. The music was extremely well placed and I was holding on to my cereal spoon for a long time because I could not look away. Season 2 has been overall been enjoyable ride and at least for me is the first time a gundam show became more entertaining in it's 2nd season (2017 is a strange year indeed).  I Applaud Sunrise for trying some new things. Did they all work out? No. But I appreciate how they sought to make IBO different from the rest of the cookie-cutter gundam shows. I will remember IBO as a polarizing experience where I greatly disliked season 1, but stuck it out to enjoy a roller coaster ride of season 2. 

Spoiler

Well, god damn Mika and Akihiro went out with their last bloody breaths and it was fantastic. Iok being crushed was incredibly satisfying. While it would have been nice to see Julietta face off with Mika one more time, Mika was already half dead and knew he was satisfied in the world he helped to shape. Rustal using is overwhelming advantage as the main antagonist of this season was fitting and refreshing. There was little to no openings where he just let our "heroes" take advantage of him. He set out a goal to reform gjallarhorn and he did it. I never got the feeling that Rustal wanted to become a dictator, I think he just wanted order restored to the areas they governed. It makes sense to make peace with the citizens of mars because his main opposition is out of the way and it would improve the approval rating of gjallahorn itself. Keeping the human debris, child soldiers and other acts of enslavement would be going against what Rustal was trying to do in the first place.  Still at the end of the day, Rustal is a murderous, underhanded dick. BUT an effective and efficient dick. And that piece of garbage Nobliss got what he deserved too, stewing in his own blood and crap.

 

Edited April 2, 2017 by SuperHobo

[seti88]

Sayonara IBO...till there is a season 3 perhaps?? 

Edited April 3, 2017 by seti88

[Keith]

I really like how the last ep of IBO was handled, it raised my opinion of the series as a whole.

Edited April 5, 2017 by Keith

[Kelsain]

I watched it late last night. I'm still chewing on it. It went pretty much how I expected it to, but

Spoiler

I'm still not thrilled with Rustal & Julieta making it through to the end AND being the leaders of goodness and equality after the second half of this season. It feels off. But I'd need to go back and review their characters and motivations a bit more. I'll admit, I was hoping that Barbatos' tail would snake back and impale Julieta as he died. She just got away with too much and killed to many of our heroes for this to be satisfying. I also thought it would've been nice if Mika's kid would have addressed Kudelia as "Mom." While I do feel that Atra earned carrying his child more than Kudelia - in a narrative sense, it'd be cute if they both considered themselves his mothers. They were always more of a trio that loved & supported each other, and that should continue.

OTOH, I did like how they wrapped up the child slavery/human debris issue. It was the most disturbing aspect of the series, and was also at the core of our heroes' journey.

Crushing Iok was nice too.

 

[dizman]

I loved the last episode! 

Spoiler

It did one of my favorite things a series can do which is a large time jump so we can see how everyone gets to live in the world they helped create. Everything made sense to me except Gaelio in the wheelchair, did they remove the neck thing that allows him to connect to Ein? Maybe he pushed the system too hard and it paralyzed his legs? The kill on Iok was great, I'm glad he didn't get away in the end.

Now for the series overall, I'd rank it as an upper mid tier Gundam show. Sure it had a some downsides, I think the biggest problem was that the series was too long. Maybe a more concise 35-40 episode run would have eliminated the need for a few of the episodes with either nothing happening or the battles with no point. Another smaller criticism would be that most of the MS designs never got a time to shine, the Vidar only got used twice in combat and one of those battles ended with running away.

As for positives I'd say the best thing in IBO may have been the worldbuilding, it's the best I've seen in an AU Gundam series with no Tomino involvement. So many clever ideas all packed into one series, I'd be surprised if they don't go back to show off the calamity war at some point. I'm not sure on a sequel, maybe a whole new cast fighting the new governments oppression with some of the old cast coming back in supporting roles?

All that said I'm not sure I'll go back to rewatch IBO anytime soon, I'm kinda in the mood for a Zeta rewatch now that I'm thinking of sequels.

[seti88]

As for the length, am of the opinion, they could have stretched the end a tiny bit more, and focus on a long glorious 2 episode fight of barbatos thrashing everyone.

But that being said, i agree with the world building, and that the character development is topnotch, you really feel for the cast throughout the journey. In a sense i felt it was watching the godfather saga done in anime form, esp the orphans being forced to do something they were born into.

The rawness of it all. Yes, i hope it spins off a calamity wars series, or explore the future fate of gallahorn.

 

[dizman]

Another great episode, though I would recommend reading the manga of this part too as the art is phenomenal and the way it plays out is more interesting. I hope they don't skip Io's backstory, maybe they are saving it for the last episode.....

 

[VF-1A Grunt]

Hi folks,

I spent a lot of summers in Japan as a kid, but somehow I never paid attention to Gundam. I'm interested in watching it to learn a little about the series, but I'd like to start from the beginning. Is this the original MSG?

 

Mobile Suit Gundam (First Gundam) Part 1 DVD Collection https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014LHPGVK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_mLpbzbY2BF4MM

 

Are there other places to watch the original series? Thanks!

[dizman]

Yup that's the original MSG, you are starting off in the perfect place (though I would recommend the blu-ray as it looks better). The Gundam Info youtube page rotates gundam series all the time, they have the compilation movies of MSG up at the moment which are a great alternative if you want to quickly jump into the story. They are also currently uploading Zeta Gundam which is the sequel to MSG. 

 

[Primus1X]

According Japanese Wikipedia, M-MSV was published in SD Club with the title "モビルスーツコレクション 大河原邦男MS最新設定集", does anyone have evidence of this (e.g. a page from SD Club that shows this exact sequence of characters?).

[dizman]

Will this help at all? Found it here at the bottom http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/FA-007GIII_Full_Armor_Gundam_Mk-III

[dizman]

Found a recent Forbes interview with Yasuo Ohtagaki, writer and artist of the Gundam Thunderbolt manga. Pretty interesting stuff, especially the stuff about the views on getting Gundam in the US. https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2017/03/12/yasuo-ohtagaki-on-creating-the-jazz-infused-retro-future-of-gundam-thunderbolt/#5b86daa34f9a

 

[dizman]

Spec ops Acguy, never thought I'd see the day.

 

[seti88]

Macross should be doing something like this...even gundam is using music but without any idol singing, could b a cool change for macross...

Yea those acguys r way cooler than i tot possible...AND m looking forward to possibility of HG/MG thunderbolt gouf flight MS!

Edited June 1, 2017 by seti88

[abbadon]

 

[Marzan]

ooh, that trailer! Wonderful stuff. The Gundam franchise keeps on pumping quality stuff the last years.

[hal9000]

This news makes me quite happy. 

 

http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2017/04/22-1/mobile-suit-gundam-0080-war-in-the-pocket-gets-first-blu-ray-release-in-august

[davidwhangchoi]

twilight axis episode 1:

 

[anime52k8]

I'm very much confused by twilight axis. wasn't axis completely destroyed at the end of CCA?

[Hikuro]

24 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

I'm very much confused by twilight axis. wasn't axis completely destroyed at the end of CCA?

split in half. not too mention Char's Sazabi should of been in pieces as well. This was a horrible episode, no flow what so ever.

[dizman]

I wasn't expecting much from a 3 minute episode but man that was rough, I think I'll just wait till the whole thing is out.

[kajnrig]

Even Stargazer had 45 minutes to tell its story... How many episodes does this one have again? Five? Six? Times 3 minutes each and that's still less than a single broadcast episode. And this is no Makoto Shinkai, they don't know how to tell a galaxy-spanning epic drama in 25 minutes. AND this first episode was more a trailer than anything else.

Shame. Cool Tristan design, terrible execution all-around otherwise.

EDIT:

...or is this actually just a preview and not the first episode proper? That would certainly explain a few things. (But it aired a couple hours ago, aka 12pm Japan Standard Time, 23/6/17, same date as the air date...)

Edited June 23, 2017 by kajnrig