Char-clone #50: A Gundam thread

[estragon]

I forgot how vile basically everything revolving around Flay was in SEED. Obviously the 70s and 80s Gundam shows have their own share of misogyny and dumb gender nonsense, but, for me at least, when a Tomino show is being weird about gender, it's often either so old fashioned or so idiosyncratic and bizarre that it kind of just rolls off of me.

In SEED, I think the portrayal of Flay is probably the worst it's even been in the franchise, which is really saying something. Flay's whole arc of being the evil whore who attempts to sexually control (and sexually assault) the protagonist to use him as her weapon, and who then is narratively punished by being captured and presumably sexually abused herself and then is killed is just a mess. Finally and bizarrely, she ends up getting a redemption after her punishment by very perfunctorily assuming the traidtional Gundam role of the girl who protects the protagonist as a ghost. I hope the final elment there is a one-off for the last episode of SEED and not a re-ocurring element that also shows up in Destiny (which I've never seen). I could imagine a version of this relationship that could be interesting, but Gundam SEED is biting off way more than it can chew with an extremely loaded psycho-sexual drama that's completely underbaked and never given the weight or time needed to be anything more than pure shock value.

King Gainer

That looks really cool! I think I'm going to take a break from release order Gundam for a bit once I finish 00, so I might try some that and Brainpowerd after that.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

for me at least, when a Tomino show is being weird about gender, it's often either so old fashioned or so idiosyncratic and bizarre that it kind of just rolls off of me.

That looks really cool! I think I'm going to take a break from release order Gundam for a bit once I finish 00, so I might try some that and Brainpowerd after that.

I don't necessarily want to discourage you from watching Brain Powerd... because I think it's got enough interesting things going on, and I firmly believe that it's always best for people to experience something and make up their own minds about things themselves. But I feel compelled to give a severe and ample warning here:

I think Brain Powerd is an extremely interesting watch, but I don't know if it's good. And specifically because the show is very intensely, from a core thematic level, Tomino waxing philosophical about gender. And it's not great. So just brace yourself. Because any of his weirdness with gender you've observed in other works is amplified here, and is a lot harder to shrug off when it's the narrative focal point.

In SEED, I think the portrayal of Flay is probably the worst it's even been in the franchise, which is really saying something.

I have yet to see SEED (I'll watch it someday, but I'm not exactly eager to given everything I know about the show already) so I can't exactly do a qualified comparison. But I find it hard to believe SEED's handling of gender is worse than Iron Blooded Orphans.

 

[Adrenaline]

Flay doesn't show up in Destiny from what I remember, but there's a new weirdly handled female character instead

 

[estragon]

Flay doesn't show up in Destiny from what I remember, but there's a new weirdly handled female character instead

That's a relief, even with the caveat that there's more where that came from. I don't think I could have stomached slotting Flay into a Lala type role. The bit in the last episode just felt like they noticed at the last minute that they forgot to tick a box to meet the minimum requirement of Gundam tropes and arbitrarily assigned Flay to that one.

I have yet to see SEED (I'll watch it someday, but I'm not exactly eager to given everything I know about the show already) so I can't exactly do a qualified comparison. But I find it hard to believe SEED's handling of gender is worse than Iron Blooded Orphans.

I'm talking chronologically in terms of release order (i.e. worst as of 2003), and also I've never seen IBO. So no comment on that. But I think it's definitely possible you might be unpleasantly surprised if you ever get around to SEED. It's quite bad, and I say this as someone who (if I recall) often disagrees with you on the worth of depictions of sexual assault in fiction. I belive I have much more permissive standards on this topic compared to a lot of members of this community, and nonetheless for me Flay's portrayal in SEED is just bottom of the barrel.

We'll see how IBO goes for me when I get there... After 00, everything but G-Reco (TV version) is New To Me. I might also skip around a bit after my post-00 break, because then I'll be caught up or more or less caught up with the Great Gundam Project podcast and also 00 was my first Gundam, so watching it with franchise context will be a good full circle stopping point and also leave me in a place where I'll feel excited to pick up Gundam watching again when I'm ready. Also, whenever I get back to Gundam after a break, I might break away from release order and start to prioritize shows I'm interested in that GGP won't get around to for years at 2 eps/week. I also have the Hathaway novels and the Gundam Unicorn comic sitting around, which might happen before I get back into any more post-00 shows...

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1750627227463516588

 

[estragon]

So technically I actually broke chronology a while ago by watching Superior Defender Gundam Force in parallel with the other shows. Its early 2000s 3DCG TV animation style didn't appeal to me, so I watched it on a tablet while doing house chores, because I didn't think I had it in me to watch 52 episodes of a show aimed at such a young audience with my full attention on a TV. In addition to that disadvantage for me, it also exists in a genre I think should probably be illegal: a children's show about how These Toys You Can Purchase Are Literally Your Friends. Despite going in with this double disadvantage (or maybe because of it, because my expectations were low?), in the end, it surpisingly ended up being easily my 2nd favorite AU as of the time it came out, only behind Gundam X (which has the huge advantage for me of basically being a What If? story about the Universal Century).

SD Gundam Force is a show for very young children, so there's no official subtitled release. And that's really too bad, because I was able to track down the Japanese language version and experience it that way, and it has an extremely stacked cast of voice actors (Ikeda Shuichi, Otsuka Akio, Kamiya Hiroshi, Park Romi, etc) who really carry the show, especially in the slower parts of the first season. I think this show could have a stronger reputation if it was available subtitled. This isn't to demean the dub, which I've never listened to, but anyone over tween age watching this show is probably doing it for fan service and/or Gundam completionism reasons, and the Japanese voice cast is a delight to anyone going in with that purpose.

Also, I have to say, although it makes a weak first impression, over time the show starts to look a lot better. The style doesn't change too much, but I would guess one advantage of 3DCG is that, with the gradual accumulation of various character models and assets overtwo 26 episode seasons, by the latter half of the show it starts to get extremely dynamic and large scale. I never love how it looks, but accepting that this was probably the style they had to go with, they eventually do execute it successfully.

One that that really became clear finishing SD Gundam Force around the same time I was finishing up SEED was how thoughtfully plotted this show is, both in terms of larger structure and in terms of giving all the major characters meaningful arcs. It does feel at first like it's a bit of a monster of the week show, but it really comes together in the end to build to a satisfying resolution, but also not one that's so neat that it leaves the viewer with the image of a static and perfect world where all problems are solved.

I don't want to oversell it: It's definitely for very young children. Also, I can't speak to the quality of the English dub for anyone who can't watch with the Japanese voice track. But if you can go in accepting that it's a children show that has a bit of a slow start, I think it's an enjoyable one to watch more or less like I did: in the background while doing chores. Or, if you have kids, it might be worth showing to them and seeing if they latch onto it. There are definitely worse children's shows than this out there!

Reservations: The first season is extremely short on women or girls in major roles, and the women who are there are fairly stereotypical. The second season still doesn't have a lot, but it is a little better in this regard. And The Girl on the team, while yes literally a princess, is a pretty fun character once she gets some development. (This is also an area where the show benefited by being compared to SEED... Is SD Gundam Force a show full of amazing women and girls? No, not really. Is it still way better than SEED? Yes.)

Also, it has some great OPs (available on youtube only in extremely low quality, because apparently no one cares about this show):

edit:

also, this ED

 

[estragon]

As of Episode 12, I'm honestly really enjoying SEED: Destiny?????

It's still definitely a sequel to SEED with a lot of the same people on board, so there are a lot of fundamental problems that remain based on the basic setting and the perspectives of the creative team. But I don't see how this gets a reputation as being worse than SEED, yet.

It makes a much better first impression for me by:

1) Not kicking off with an very direct, multi-episode homage to a much better show, serving as a constant reminder of how much worse SEED is than Mobile Suit Gundam.

2) The opening retcons Kira Yamato's Infinite Rainbow Beam Spam of Nonlethal Pacificism that always disarm everyone while harming no one with perfect accuracy into actually having been extremely lethal.

On the other hand, I've definitely absorbed from somewhere the idea that even people who like this show think it falls apart later on. So, maybe I just haven't reached the reasons everyone hates it.

Also, the cuts to brief scenes of deific images of Kira and Laucus staring off into the distance are not giving me confidence that the creators fully understand the implications of point #2 beyond how they impact one character's feelings about Kira. It should retroactively transform the whole back half of SEED into self-parody, which for me is actually a huge improvement over just having been dramatically inert. But I think the intention is just to create one character with a grudge.

 

[estragon]

lol posted exactly too soon, in the very next episode kira is back as an ubermensch doing perfectly nonlethal disarming blast beam spam

oh well

there's potential for something interesting to come out of the shinn/kira tension, at least. if SEED fans were mad about this, maybe i'll like it? we'll see...

i don't even hate "what if the AEUG had a super gundam that could instantly perfectly disarm everyone on zeon and the federation in any fight without ever hurting anyone*?" as a Gundam AU premise. but i think a good version of this would probably be extremely earnest like a good Superman story (not necessarily upbeat or light, but earneast), but SEED approaches the premise with a little too much of a post-Evangelion Not Your Daddy's Mecha Anime sensibility to pull it off. (also Naturals vs Coordinators is just a much less interesting premise than an enormous economic underclass being forcibly deported into space—SEED is like just the parts of X-Men as minority metaphor that work the least, but created 40 years later so there's no historical precedent to blame...)

*except Shinn's whole family, exactly one time

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I really know nothing about SEED except its reputation. But what I do know, is that the show's Director/principal story guy -- Sunrise tapped that dude later to make "Cross Ange" which might be one of the most loathsome, awful, offensive shows I've seen in a while.

 

[Kirin]

I actually watched all of SEED and Destiny back in the day, but I remember like zero details of the plot (that aren’t just standard Gundam plot anyway).

 

[estragon]

Got to episode 19 yesterday, and SEED: Destiny is the the most "it's over-->we're back-->it's over" show of all time. It's atrocious in many ways, but sometimes it's at least atrocious in ways that are interesting and it more frequently produces an episode that more or less works as 24 minutes of television. The absolutely bizarre worldview of the creators constantly looms in the background, though. For example, in episode 18 of Destiny, 68 out of 100 episodes into SEED, they finally produce a coherent set piece action sequence. It's the first competently staged and thematically interesting battle in the entire series, with a strong sense of geography, interesting character dynamics, and clear stakes. Easily the best thing SEED has ever done. It ends with something that seems to be an homage to that time Amuro lost control of himself demolishing a Zeon base in the lead up to Odessa Day in a way that's was actually counterproductive to the Federation's strategic aims for Odessa Day.

However, unlike original Gundam, this hot headed pilot going wild in an enemy base is not losing himself with bloodlust—he's liberating a population of enslaved laborers. And the way the episode tries to show the dark side of what he did is with scenes of the slaves rising up against their captors and killing them, freeing themselves from slavery. This is hilarious, because the previous 18 minutes of our protagonists killing earth alliance soldiers with both sides in mech suits is heroic, but as soon as human slaves shoot their captors in the head to free themselves from their slavers, suddenly the show treats it as ominous and suggests maybe the whole operation was wrong. Maybe these nebulously middle eastern people (not depicted as stereotypically middle eastern caricatures, but that's where they are and what the architecture is like) shouldn't have been freed, because they're an uncontrollable mass who are going overboard for killing their former slavers with guns. In Tomino shows, there's a frequent beat where mech pilots struggle to kill a human being in person, or who they can see the figure of through the cockpit, even though they kill people in their suits the whole time, emphasizing the way that mobile suits depersonalize killing and so dehumanize the pilots. But, in this show it's not confused teenage fictional characters but the real life creative team who seem to have deluded themselves into thinking that killing people in mobile suits is less morally compromised than killing a person right in front of you.

It's just an extremely confused and often baffling show, but in a way that's can be extremely funny because the worldview of the creative team is so nonsensical that they're constantly biting off way more than they can chew with their No Thoughts Head Empty attempts to make profound statements about post-9/11 interventionism.

I really know nothing about SEED except its reputation. But what I do know, is that the show's Director/principal story guy -- Sunrise tapped that dude later to make "Cross Ange" which might be one of the most loathsome, awful, offensive shows I've seen in a while.

I have morbid curiosity about Cross Ange, but I definitely will want a long break from Fukuda shows after Destiny before going anywhere near it.

I actually watched all of SEED and Destiny back in the day, but I remember like zero details of the plot (that aren’t just standard Gundam plot anyway).

This indicates that you have healthy psychological defense mechanisms. I'm doing this out of misguided completionism and because there's a podcast I enjoy encouraging that bad instinct, but it's best to just forget.

 

[Kirin]

Actually I lied, one thing I *do* remember is that Flay's whole arc was seriously fucked up.

And also the meta-context with Destiny that the fans apparently didn't take to the new characters as well so they end up playing second fiddle to characters returning from the first series even when that didn't seem to be where the plot was going. Like, the seams were pretty glaring as far as "this was plotted by committee, and on top of that the committee was looking at fan mag popularity polls while the show was running".

 

[estragon]

Actually I lied, one thing I *do* remember is that Flay's whole arc was seriously fucked up.

And also the meta-context with Destiny that the fans apparently didn't take to the new characters as well so they end up playing second fiddle to characters returning from the first series even when that didn't seem to be where the plot was going. Like, the seams were pretty glaring as far as "this was plotted by committee, and on top of that the committee was looking at fan mag popularity polls while the show was running".

Flay not being in Destiny is one of the main reasons I'm enjoying it more. There's bad stuff in Destiny too, but everything about the portrayal of Flay was just repulsive to me in a way that nothing in Destiny has matched so far.

I don't know production information, but, if that's the case, then it's definitely one of the ways I feel like I don't understand the SEED fanbase at all. Shinn is the major character I've liked the most in the entire show, because he's written as if he has a perspective and a personality, instead of being a vehicle for platitudes like Kira and Athran. He still seems central now, so I will definitely be sad if he fades into the background as it goes on.

In vanilla SEED, I liked Laucus because a young woman who allows people to think she's stupid because she has traditionally feminine qualities as cover to do elaborate schemes is a fun character type, but in Destiny she's not been given a chance to be interesting so far. Laucus feels very "demoted to just being Kira's supportive girlfriend" in at least the first 1/3 or so Destiny. I wonder if they'll wait until the last dozen or so episodes to let her do anything again, or if she's just permanently in the supportive woman position now.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I have morbid curiosity about Cross Ange, but I definitely will want a long break from Fukuda shows after Destiny before going anywhere near it.

The first episode starts with the title-character getting thrown in jail for reasons, and ends with her getting forcibly sodomized by the jail staff.

There is a version of Cross Ange that exists out in the multiverse where the same basic plot beats are made into a show that's actually somewhat progressive. But that is not this show. Because that scene - and many others like it - are framed with copious amounts of male-gaze as if I'm supposed to be turned on by the main character getting raped.

The whole thing tries really hard to be so-absurd/stupid-it's-enjoyable like Code Geass, but the layers of misogyny Cross Ange is baked in is just too much. I usually advise people who are open minded to give anything a try just so they can make their own opinions up about it, but everyone should stay the fuck clear of this show.

 

[Daikaiju]

The first episode starts with the title-character getting thrown in jail for reasons, and ends with her getting forcibly sodomized by the jail staff.

There is a version of Cross Ange that exists out in the multiverse where the same basic plot beats are made into a show that's actually somewhat progressive. But that is not this show. Because that scene - and many others like it - are framed with copious amounts of male-gaze as if I'm supposed to be turned on by the main character getting raped.

The whole thing tries really hard to be so-absurd/stupid-it's-enjoyable like Code Geass, but the layers of misogyny Cross Ange is baked in is just too much. I usually advise people who are open minded to give anything a try just so they can make their own opinions up about it, but everyone should stay the fuck clear of this show.