Gundam Show Thread - MSG thru Witch from Mercury

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, kajnrig said:

I wonder if it wouldn't have been more successful (storywise, not in terms of merchandising, god no, this show sold gangbusters) if it'd been an original show altogether. Nothing takes me out of a Gundam show more than the way characters react to the Gundam.

Yeah, I could kind of go for another serious Gundam series where the Gundam isn't so OP that the enemy mooks start crapping themselves when they see one.  "It's a Gundam!" followed directly by messy death has become such a thing in the Universal Century, After Colony era, and Anno Domini era that you have to wonder why mooks stick around to obligingly get mulched by a Gundam after spotting it instead of more sensibly legging it and nuking the thing from orbit like a certain bad guy figured out recently.

It does kinda look like a more near-future version of Five Star Stories... especially with those wasp waists.  The Kimaris especially looks like an A-TOLL Swans and Cobra type, and after upgrading to the Kimaris Vidar, it looks like it's trying pretty hard to be a LED Mirage (Mirage D1).

 

 

12 hours ago, seanami said:

The worst part of IBO is its super blatant death flags, annoying and ruined any surprises

Not nearly as blatant as the ones in 00... after all, they hung a lampshade on it and actually called the guys collecting death flags like they were going out of style "Flag Fighters". 

[kajnrig]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, I could kind of go for another serious Gundam series where the Gundam isn't so OP that the enemy mooks start crapping themselves when they see one.  "It's a Gundam!" followed directly by messy death

This is a really petty and minor complaint, but the whole "X character sees a Gundam's face on a monitor and mutters, 'Gundam...'" shtick makes me want to pull my hair out, and it plays a significant role in why I can't stand this franchise. The definition of a Gundam changes from show to show, from universe to universe, and yet without fail, someone will see the V-fin or the face on a monitor and immediately know the name. Like how!? Why!? Gundam Wing's Gundams are defined by their mother duckin' armor material, how could you POSSIBLY know what is or isn't a Gundam without shooting it first? Gundam Seed's Gundams are just operating systems!

It's a bit more understandable in the Universal Century because surely the Gundam's image has a lasting legacy, but even Gundams that bear not the slightest resemblance to the original - the GP02A, the Zeta, ZZ, the Nu and Hi-Nu - people will see that stupid V-fin and swoon, whispering, "Gundam..." under their breath. And they'll look at other things with V-fins and faces like the Zeta Pluses, the Deltas, and they know, they just know, to not be scared of those. Because reasons.

Like, in Macross this isn't a problem. The Valkyrie refers strictly to the VF-1, but characters and fans alike have used the name as an umbrella term since, and it's fine because it consistently means the same thing - a Fighter/Gerwalk/Battroid transformer.

The only such consistency with Gundam is a meta-aesthetic (and even then it's been shirked plenty of times, as in the case of the Ez8, Turn-A, et al.), and Gundam canons want simultaneously to contrive alternate reasons for the term existing in a particular universe and inject the Gundam meta-aesthetic into said universe.

Edited November 30, 2017 by kajnrig

[electric indigo]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It does kinda look like a more near-future version of Five Star Stories... especially with those wasp waists.  The Kimaris especially looks like an A-TOLL Swans and Cobra type, and after upgrading to the Kimaris Vidar, it looks like it's trying pretty hard to be a LED Mirage (Mirage D1).

There are quite a few mods of the kits around to bring them even closer to the FSS universe.

https://twitter.com/GNkacchan/status/722093182633181184

[Seto Kaiba]

40 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

There are quite a few mods of the kits around to bring them even closer to the FSS universe.

https://twitter.com/GNkacchan/status/722093182633181184

Hmmmm... if I'm not careful, this'll end up another slippery slope like when Mr March encouraged me to get a DX Chogokin YF-30 Chronos.

 

 

59 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

This is a really petty and minor complaint, but the whole "X character sees a Gundam's face on a monitor and mutters, 'Gundam...'" shtick makes me want to pull my hair out, and it plays a significant role in why I can't stand this franchise. The definition of a Gundam changes from show to show, from universe to universe, and yet without fail, someone will see the V-fin or the face on a monitor and immediately know the name. Like how!? Why!? [...]

I know this is one of those things most Gundam fans don't like to think about, but what with Tomino establishing back in ∀ Gundam that all the Gundam AUs up to that point (pre-SEED) were all various historical periods in the same shared universe there may be something going on there related to the way the same design aesthetic keeps getting applied to uberpowerful mobile suits that emerge right before some utter berk digs up a mobile suit equipped with a Moonlight Butterfly system and resets the frigging world.  Genetic memory is a load, but there may be something cultural going on after a half dozen or so apocalypses brought about by suspiciously similar-looking robots.  After someone sporting the same look ends your civilization for the fifth time, that look might be intrinsically associated with BAD THINGS.

They do seem to have finally kicked the habit once the cycle is broken in the Correct Century and the second millennium of the Reguild Century brings about something approximating lasting peace and prosperity under the AG-Tech taboo until Towasanga and the bloody idiots at Venus Globe go and screw it up by sharing the Rose of Hermes blueprints.  Nobody in Reconguista in G goes and wets themselves in fear after seeing the G-Self, no matter how many mooks Bellri shoots down... that story made the G-Self into just a rejected prototype and nobody seems that intimidated by it until it starts acting on its own under the Rayhunton Code.

 

Quote

Gundam Wing's Gundams are defined by their mother duckin' armor material, how could you POSSIBLY know what is or isn't a Gundam without shooting it first? Gundam Seed's Gundams are just operating systems!

Granted, but in Gundam Wing the only mobile suits built with Gundanium armor are the five mobile suits built for Operation Meteor until like 2/3 of the way through the show when the five doctors all get caught by OZ and forced to build the Mercurius and Vayate.  Until that point, and the rollout of the Virgos based on them by Tubarov's men, the Gundams had plenty of time to establish that the iconic aesthetic derived from the XXXG-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero as "The Gundam" while they had more or less a free hand to wreck OZ's sh*t.

It's been bloody ages since I last tried to watch Gundam SEED (another attempt to get through it is pending once I finish rewatching Gundam 00), but IIRC isn't Kira like the only one to actually call a mobile suit a Gundam?  He gets a dumb look from Lacus for saying it too...

 

Quote

It's a bit more understandable in the Universal Century because surely the Gundam's image has a lasting legacy, but even Gundams that bear not the slightest resemblance to the original - the GP02A, the Zeta, ZZ, the Nu and Hi-Nu - people will see that stupid V-fin and swoon, whispering, "Gundam..." under their breath.

Dunno 'bout that, they've all got some pretty similar structural aspects 'round the head.  They just look like more complex or angular riffs on the RX-78-2.  Plus the Feddies and AEUG keep painting the damned things in that iconic yellow, white, red, and blue.

At least Celestial Being had the decency to not only announce that their fancy mobile suits were called Gundams AND write the word "Gundam" all over 'em like a first-year marketing major.

Edited November 30, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[dizman]

10 hours ago, kajnrig said:

people will see that stupid V-fin and swoon, whispering, "Gundam..." under their breath.

Funny enough even some in universe stuff makes fun of that, in one of the Crossbone Mangas (I think it was Steel Seven) there's a part at the SNRI Research base where the head developer of a new MS says he will have to tweak the design to be more Gundam-ish so it'll be an easy sell to the Federation.

Edited December 1, 2017 by dizman

[tekering]

14 hours ago, kajnrig said:

The definition of a Gundam changes from show to show, from universe to universe, and yet without fail, someone will see the V-fin or the face on a monitor and immediately know the name. Like how!? Why!?

There are a myriad of reasons for this -- marketing being the most prominent, of course -- but one most Western fans may be unaware of is actually an expression of pent-up frustration.  Most writers, mecha designers, character designers, animators, and just about everybody else involved in the production is a big Gundam fan themselves, and they know how bloody ignorant the average Japanese person is when it comes to giant robot shows.  To most Japanese people, every giant robot is a Gundam; they are unwilling or unable to make any distinction, and it bugs fans and industry professionals alike.

Living in Japan, I experience this "Gundam prejudice" on a regular basis:

   "Hey Ted, cool Gundam."

Thanks, but it's actually Char's Z'Gok.  

   "Really?  What about those white Gundams there, the ones that turn into jets?"

Those are Macross Valkyries.  

   "Ah, but that red-and-blue one that transforms into a truck...  That's a Gundam, right?"

Dude, do you even know what "Gundam" means?  

   "Of course, I'm Japanese.  Everybody knows a Gundam is a giant robot."

Okay, do you know what a Mobile Suit is?  

   "A mobile what?"

Every mechanical designer wants to live in a world where people can distinguish one humanoid robot from another (if not one Mobile Suit from another), but it's probably unlikely their own wives could make such distinctions.  Every writer on Gundam assumes that characters living in that world would be able to tell the difference, and rightly so; but they probably feel a little personal vindication every time a character makes such a distinction in dialogue.

And if you lived in Japan, you might, too.  

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, dizman said:

Funny enough even some in universe stuff makes fun of that, in one of the Crossbone Mangas (I think it was Steel Seven) there's a part at the SNRI Research base where the head developer of a new MS says he will have to tweak the design to be more Gundam-ish so it'll be an easy sell to the Federation.

A few shots were also taken at it in Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam: Skull Heart.  Umon Samon had customized his RB-79 Ball to look like a Gundam head (jokingly called the B Gundam), which raised impressive amounts of completely unintentional hell in the Battle of A Baoa Qu when part of Zeon's forces (incl. Anavel Gato's 302nd Patrol Squadron) mistakenly believed it to be the severed head of Amuro Ray's RX-78-2 Gundam and left their position to investigate, allowing Federation Forces that had launched from White Base to slip through the lines while other, more observant forces noticed the scale was off and created a persistent rumor that the Federation had built a GIANT Gundam... resulting in Axis Zeon wasting resources on completing another Zeong in Char's Deleted Affair.

 

 

5 hours ago, tekering said:

There are a myriad of reasons for this -- marketing being the most prominent, of course -- but one most Western fans may be unaware of is actually an expression of pent-up frustration. [...]  To most Japanese people, every giant robot is a Gundam; they are unwilling or unable to make any distinction, and it bugs fans and industry professionals alike.

Has anyone let them know we get the same damned thing here in the US, except everyone mistakes every robot for something from Transformers?

[Kelsain]

56 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Has anyone let them know we get the same damned thing here in the US, except everyone mistakes every robot for something from Transformers?

Coworker looks at VF-1S on my desk, "Is that a Star War?"

[Focslain]

On 11/30/2017 at 2:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

It's been bloody ages since I last tried to watch Gundam SEED (another attempt to get through it is pending once I finish rewatching Gundam 00), but IIRC isn't Kira like the only one to actually call a mobile suit a Gundam?  He gets a dumb look from Lacus for saying it too...

Correct and if I have it correct it's the name of the operating system. In SEED Destiny Kira starts upgrading his allies suits with the OS to make them just as good, to a point of course.

[Beltane70]

4 hours ago, Kelsain said:

Coworker looks at VF-1S on my desk, "Is that a Star War?"

A few months ago when I was selling my house, the realtor complimented me on my Star Wars toys. Problem was, I didn’t have any. What he saw was the Gundam 00 Raiser, Gundam Dendobrium, and Shin’s VF-0A with Ghost Booster. 

[electric indigo]

In all fairness, I feel the same level of indifference when I look at Trek shows/ships...

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Focslain said:

Correct and if I have it correct it's the name of the operating system. In SEED Destiny Kira starts upgrading his allies suits with the OS to make them just as good, to a point of course.

Yeah, Gundam SEED was kind of a "fun with acronyms" moment on that front, coming up with a couple different meanings for GUNDAM IIRC.  (My friend Jack Verse is a big Gundam SEED fan, so I've absorbed a bit of information about the series that way, despite having never been able to get through the first half of the first series myself.)

 

5 hours ago, Kelsain said:

Coworker looks at VF-1S on my desk, "Is that a Star War?"

Maybe I just have more pop culture-conscious coworkers?  I've had a few coworkers at FCA identify my desktop collection of Valkyries (a VF-4G, VF-2SS, VF-171, VF-25, and lately a VF-31J) as being from Macross, a few others who hazarded Robotech as a guess based on the Super Packs, but the majority confuse them for Transformers.

(A pretty chill bunch, regardless... I've been using my lunch breaks to speed up my rewatch of Mobile Suit Gundam 00.  I've finally gotten to the point where the 00 Gundam has the 0 Raiser and isn't useless anymore.)

Edited December 1, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[kajnrig]

On 11/30/2017 at 1:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

I know this is one of those things most Gundam fans don't like to think about, but what with Tomino establishing back in ∀ Gundam that all the Gundam AUs up to that point (pre-SEED) were all various historical periods in the same shared universe there may be something going on there related to the way the same design aesthetic keeps getting applied to uberpowerful mobile suits that emerge right before some utter berk digs up a mobile suit equipped with a Moonlight Butterfly system and resets the frigging world.  Genetic memory is a load, but there may be something cultural going on after a half dozen or so apocalypses brought about by suspiciously similar-looking robots.  After someone sporting the same look ends your civilization for the fifth time, that look might be intrinsically associated with BAD THINGS.

I always thought the implication was that, if each show was connected, they were separated each by at least several millennia. It's a dubious enough idea to begin with - that all these stories with all their literally world-shaping events take place in the same timeline in the same general region of space - that is only really interesting in a metanarrative sense. You'd also expect that humanity wouldn't exist anymore, at least not relatively unchanged; we would almost assuredly have either sub-speciated or speciated entirely.

On 11/30/2017 at 1:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

They do seem to have finally kicked the habit once the cycle is broken in the Correct Century and the second millennium of the Reguild Century brings about something approximating lasting peace and prosperity under the AG-Tech taboo until Towasanga and the bloody idiots at Venus Globe go and screw it up by sharing the Rose of Hermes blueprints.  Nobody in Reconguista in G goes and wets themselves in fear after seeing the G-Self, no matter how many mooks Bellri shoots down... that story made the G-Self into just a rejected prototype and nobody seems that intimidated by it until it starts acting on its own under the Rayhunton Code.

Is G-Rec a canon sequel to Turn-A? I never watched it, though I liked some of the mecha designs.

On 11/30/2017 at 1:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

It's been bloody ages since I last tried to watch Gundam SEED (another attempt to get through it is pending once I finish rewatching Gundam 00), but IIRC isn't Kira like the only one to actually call a mobile suit a Gundam?  He gets a dumb look from Lacus for saying it too...

The only part of Seed that I deign to remember is this:

I'll never not bring that up. Everything about it summarizes my feelings about Seed.

16 hours ago, dizman said:

Funny enough even some in universe stuff makes fun of that, in one of the Crossbone Mangas (I think it was Steel Seven) there's a part at the SNRI Research base where the head developer of a new MS says he will have to tweak the design to be more Gundam-ish so it'll be an easy sell to the Federation.

I was also gonna mention the Ball Gundam, but then Seto beat me to it. Crossbone sounds like it would be a fun taking-the-piss manga to read.

11 hours ago, tekering said:

Every writer on Gundam assumes that characters living in that world would be able to tell the difference, and rightly so; but they probably feel a little personal vindication every time a character makes such a distinction in dialogue.

And if you lived in Japan, you might, too.  

That's a really dumb assumption to make, if true. In the majority of Gundam shows, the Gundam is never widely known before it starts wrecking crap on a mass scale. What basis would these people have to understand what "Gundam" even refers to? Sure, they might know what a mobile suit is, but not what a Gundam is. And even if it weren't, the execution on the idea is still consistently bad frustrating.

 

20 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

In all fairness, I feel the same level of indifference when I look at Trek shows/ships...

I'll be honest, the only things I recognize from Trek are the big... starships? The Enterprise, Voyager, etc. I can't tell the difference between them, just that they're Trek-y. I also constantly get Stargate stuff mixed up with... any other Western sci-fi show that has spaceships.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

I always thought the implication was that, if each show was connected, they were separated each by at least several millennia. It's a dubious enough idea to begin with - that all these stories with all their literally world-shaping events take place in the same timeline in the same general region of space - that is only really interesting in a metanarrative sense. You'd also expect that humanity wouldn't exist anymore, at least not relatively unchanged; we would almost assuredly have either sub-speciated or speciated entirely.

Exactly how much time occurs between each case of some jerk finding a Moonlight Butterfly-enabled mobile suit and resetting the world is unclear.  The only example we can put even a rough figure on is the Universal Century, implied to be the last one which had finally broken the cycle.  Per the character bios in Mobile Suit Gundam UC, the Earth Federation formally changed over to using their Universal Century calendar on the 1st of January, 2045 AD.  The events of ∀ Gundam can tentatively be placed via an in-universe history text that put an approximate number of years between itself and the "present day" in the Correct Century as somewhere in the early 7000s AD, with Reconguista in G somewheres around 8160 AD based on my math.

Given that the Gundam shows usually point to development of ESP as the next big thing in human evolution and ESPers are always wiped out in whatever Gundam timeline's conflict du jour, that may be an evolutionary roadblock (in addition to a few millennia of a technological step back having undone some of humanity's post-civilization progress).  As far as "relatively unchanged", it's hard to say if humanity is or not in some of them.  Quite a few characters evidence odd traits that aren't part of our normal gene pool, like an explicit acknowledgement that spacenoids have weird hair colors, or apparent super-strength or super-agility on the part of a few otherwise normal people.

 

8 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Is G-Rec a canon sequel to Turn-A? I never watched it, though I liked some of the mecha designs.

"Sequel" might be stretching it, but Tomino has indicated that Reconguista in G is set in the same timeline as ∀ Gundam, just five hundred years or so further down the road.  Ameria and several other things from ∀ Gundam are also mentioned, there are a few Gundams that have moonlight butterfly systems present (e.g. the G-Lucifer, the G-Self w/ Perfect Pack), etc.  Some horrible stuff apparently went down around the time the moonrace started trying to resettle Earth, ending in sanctioned cannibalism and other atrocities that were only ended by the AG-tech taboo and the Space Umbilical Cord orbital elevator.

 

8 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

The only part of Seed that I deign to remember is this:

... is he... in anguish... or what?  Last time I heard a person make a noise like that, it was a friend's college roommate who was having an episode of explosive diarrhea after being tricked into eating half a dozen MRE servings in a single sitting.

[dizman]

2 hours ago, kajnrig said:

I was also gonna mention the Ball Gundam, but then Seto beat me to it. Crossbone sounds like it would be a fun taking-the-piss manga to read.

Crossbone is a ton of fun, it's what happens when you take a serious UC setting and drop a few super robot characters in to mix things up.

As far as G-Reco being a sequel is concerned, I remember hearing that Tomino has given conflicting answers saying it's a prequel one time and a sequel the other. I still like to think Turn A is the end all but oh well.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, dizman said:

As far as G-Reco being a sequel is concerned, I remember hearing that Tomino has given conflicting answers saying it's a prequel one time and a sequel the other. I still like to think Turn A is the end all but oh well.

Initially, when Reconguista in G was being promoted he'd said it was a prequel to ∀ Gundam but once the series was out he started asserting it was a sequel to ∀ Gundam set ~500 years after it.

The latter makes more sense, IMO, given that the Earthnoids in ∀ Gundam couldn't possibly have built that orbital elevator on their own when they could barely build copies of archaeotech mobile suits.  Their ignorance of the Moonrace's existence in the Correct Century also wouldn't fit if they'd spent several centuries dependent on the Moonrace's lunar colony of Towasanga and the photon batteries it produced for their entire energy infrastructure.  It fits better if the troubled times of the early Reguild Century occurred after the Moonrace started trying to recolonize Earth and then gave up for a time to support its recovery before planning their reconquest of the planet.

[renegadeleader1]

Every time I see someone talk about SEED, I'm reminded they never made any model kits outside of a crappy non grade for the Strike Dagger. That and SEED is a mostly an annoying rehash of Original Gundam from 1979 with more obnoxious characters and idiotic factions.

[dizman]

19 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Initially, when Reconguista in G was being promoted he'd said it was a prequel to ∀ Gundam but once the series was out he started asserting it was a sequel to ∀ Gundam set ~500 years after it.

The latter makes more sense, IMO, given that the Earthnoids in ∀ Gundam couldn't possibly have built that orbital elevator on their own when they could barely build copies of archaeotech mobile suits.  Their ignorance of the Moonrace's existence in the Correct Century also wouldn't fit if they'd spent several centuries dependent on the Moonrace's lunar colony of Towasanga and the photon batteries it produced for their entire energy infrastructure.  It fits better if the troubled times of the early Reguild Century occurred after the Moonrace started trying to recolonize Earth and then gave up for a time to support its recovery before planning their reconquest of the planet.

I still don't get how Reconguista couldn't come before Turn A at any point before Earth got a moonlight butterfly technology reset. There is even the shuttle slingshot (can't remember it's name) still floating in space that could fulfill a similar purpose to the orbital elevator. Tomino is a strange guy, I wouldn't be surprised if he just said it's 500 years later so a show he thought didn't turn out great at least had something interesting to talk about.

[tekering]

22 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

Every time I see someone talk about SEED, I'm reminded they never made any model kits outside of a crappy non grade for the Strike Dagger.

Okay, despite your broken syntax I think I understand what you were trying to say now...

"...they never made any model kits of the Strike Dagger, apart from a crappy non-grade."

What you meant by "non grade" is still open for debate, however.  

Edited December 3, 2017 by tekering

[Kelsain]

I think he’s lamenting the lack of an HG Strike Dagger. Which I’d agree looks pretty cool.

[renegadeleader1]

Sorry guys, I'm usually more articulate than that. It's peak season now and I'm putting in 60+ hours a week so the few times I've been able to post here have been when I'm on break or on the verge of falling asleep. 

Anyways this is the kit I'm talking about. I've built it and it's not very good. I do have to disagree with Kakarot that if you want a HG Strike Dagger you should get the 105 or Slaughter Dagger instead. The kits while being descended from the Strike have too many different parts, it would be like telling someone who wanted a HGUC ground GM before it was released to build the HGUC Blue Destiny Unit 01. Yeah its close to it, but its not it.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

19 hours ago, dizman said:

Tomino is a strange guy, I wouldn't be surprised if he just said it's 500 years later so a show he thought didn't turn out great at least had something interesting to talk about.

A strange guy indeed, though in this case I think he probably had second thoughts about where to put Reconguista in G after writing began in earnest and he realized there'd be a huge plot hole or ten if he kept it as a prequel to Turn A.

I'm launching my latest effort to get through Gundam SEED today... I fear this will be another doomed expedition into the wilds of the darkest Cosmic Era.

[BlackRose]

On 12/1/2017 at 6:34 PM, kajnrig said:

The only part of Seed that I deign to remember is this:

I'll never not bring that up. Everything about it summarizes my feelings about Seed.

+1.  So much angst in that show.  I thought Amuro was kind of whiny in the original series but Kira makes him look pretty butch by comparison.

The thing that bugged me most about it was how the art style made everyone look exactly the same except for their hair.  I know anime gets poked fun of for having characters that look a lot alike but this is a whole other level.

[Marzan]

Seed was fine as a way to introduce new generation to Gundam, but it’s really a poor outing compared to most UC series.

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, Marzan said:

Seed was fine as a way to introduce new generation to Gundam, but it’s really a poor outing compared to most UC series.

Well, whatever it was in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED that appealed to that new generation of viewers, it seems I'm either oblivious to it or immune to its dubious charms.  I'm watching Phase 8 right now on my lunch break and I have yet to find a single character in the series that I genuinely like.  I can stomach Mwu La Flaga and Rau Le Creuset, but it feels like 2/3 of the cast only exist to make some exaggerated sad faces and sit in awkward silence with each other every time Flay lets rip with that casual bigotry or Lacus has another one of those moments where her IQ seems to drop fifty points.

I'll say this for it, I'm definitely having an easier time getting through the subs-only HD remaster of the series than I did when I tried watching the dubbed broadcast edition a decade ago.  If I get to episode 13 I'll have lasted longer on this attempt than any previous one.

The mechanical design works for the series are all right, though I confess the structure of the PLANT colony modules bothers me.  How do they have gravity in a setting without artificial gravity tech and an incorrect axis of rotation for simulated gravity?

[dizman]

Last Battlogue for now, with a new Build Fighters project in February.

 

Edited December 8, 2017 by dizman

[Seto Kaiba]

Do the battles in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ever stop being one-sided?  I'm 13 episodes in, and it's feeling more like New Mobile Report Gundam Wing in here with ZAFT's four GAT-X series machines effortlessly spanking legions of Earth Federation mobile armors and shrugging off fire from multiple capital ships like it's nothing.  Once Kira and the Strike launch, the fights are just one-sided going the other way.

[Focslain]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Do the battles in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ever stop being one-sided?  I'm 13 episodes in, and it's feeling more like New Mobile Report Gundam Wing in here with ZAFT's four GAT-X series machines effortlessly spanking legions of Earth Federation mobile armors and shrugging off fire from multiple capital ships like it's nothing.  Once Kira and the Strike launch, the fights are just one-sided going the other way.

In SEED? Not really, I think there is a small bout where Kira is pushed to an almost even fight about 2/3 the way through. But that fight iirc ends in a draw.

[azrael]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Do the battles in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ever stop being one-....

Wait till Freedom shows up.

No one spoil it for him.

[Seto Kaiba]

15 minutes ago, azrael said:

Wait till Freedom shows up.

I have a sneaking suspicion that is a "it's about to get a whole lot worse".

 

15 minutes ago, azrael said:

No one spoil it for him.

Well, I already know Kira's memetic status as a godmode sue of the very worst order... my old buddy @Jack Verse  is a huge fan of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, so I've picked up a few things by osmosis over the last fourteen years or so.

[azrael]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, I already know Kira's memetic status as a godmode sue of the very worst order... 

One doesn’t know the true meaning of godmode spamming until one experiences the spamming of Kira “Jesus” Yamato.

And once you think you've experienced it from SEED, SEED Destiny says "Hold my beer."

[Focslain]

13 hours ago, azrael said:

One doesn’t know the true meaning of godmode spamming until one experiences the spamming of Kira “Jesus” Yamato.

And once you think you've experienced it from SEED, SEED Destiny says "Hold my beer."

Not to mention:

Kira: I'd like you to meet my twin brother Shinn

Shinn: Not that I look up to you, baka.

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, azrael said:

One doesn’t know the true meaning of godmode spamming until one experiences the spamming of Kira “Jesus” Yamato.

And once you think you've experienced it from SEED, SEED Destiny says "Hold my beer."

... so I was understating it when I guessed you meant it was going to get a whole lot worse?

 

49 minutes ago, Focslain said:

Not to mention:

Kira: I'd like you to meet my twin brother Shinn

Shinn: Not that I look up to you, baka.

Watching this is enough to kinda realize that Gundam Musou 2 spoiled very little when I played it earlier this year and did the Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny campaigns.

(I have to say, though, I am oddly looking forward to firing the game up on the PS3 and brutally beating the stupid out of Yzak, Athrun, and Kira.)

Today's lunch break "entertainment" (torture) is PHASE 15: Burning Clouds of Sand.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[Sandman]

On 12/8/2017 at 11:22 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

 

I'll say this for it, I'm definitely having an easier time getting through the subs-only HD remaster of the series than I did when I tried watching the dubbed broadcast edition a decade ago.  If I get to episode 13 I'll have lasted longer on this attempt than any previous one.

 

 

I personally hate the HD remake. They are like the SW special editions. Needless changes for no real reason. Also, they swapped out the ending song with the remix version which has different timing. This wouldn't normally be a bad thing if the ending song only played during the credits. But in Seed the music starts playing a little while before the credits roll (one of the things that I initially liked about Seed). So the different timings change the feeling the original scenes had or worse like having the vocals come on at wrong times and overpower the dialogue. It was such a dumb move that it's hard to believe anyone could have looked at the finished product and sign off on it, really amateurish. This leads me to believe that no one looked at the final editing of swapping the songs before committing to it. Definitely a sub-par hack job. Sunrise and Bandai should be ashamed.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 minutes ago, Sandman said:

I personally hate the HD remake. They are like the SW special editions. Needless changes for no real reason.

What all did they change in the HD Remaster of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED besides the music?

(Remember, I've only previously attempted to watch the series in its painfully bad, edited-for-TV American broadcast release.)

 

7 minutes ago, Sandman said:

[...] Definitely a sub-par hack job. Sunrise and Bandai should be ashamed.

With the best will in the world, I would have to argue that's a fair description of the Gundam SEED as a whole based on what I've seen of the series thus far.  It feels like the show's pitch meeting was "Let's remake Soldiers of Sorrow but everyone has a Gundam and nobody has any positive character traits."