Still sounds like a better time than IBO
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Char-clone #50: A Gundam thread
- Thread starter Mightyblue
- Start date
Man you really hate that show
I watched both those shows all the way through when they were new ‘cause it was a time when I was just watching a lot more anime, and I didn’t hate them. But yeah, I couldn’t really tell you a damn thing that happened in the whole Age trilogy, it’s just a blur of comfy Level-5 character designs. I don’t think there’s much “there” there. I honestly kind of forget it exists when thinking of the various spin-off Gundam timelines if someone hasn’t brought it up recently.
I hate IBO almost as much as IBO hates women
Gundam AGE: Memories of Eden correctly identifies the sublimated homoerotic tension between Asemu (2nd gen protagonist) and Zeheart (2nd gen protagonist's rival/Char clone) as the one interesting thing about the show and makes a whole recap special centered on this. Unfortunately, it's two and a half hours long and there's only enough BL-adjacent material for maybe an hour or so, so it's padded out with a bunch of decontextualized mobile suit battles and snippets of charcter arcs with no payoffs and doesn't fully commit to the ostensible premise of focusing on Zeheart's perspective. Still, it's funny that this series got a recap movie focused on the middle of the show's three arcs and that devoted a good chunk of its budget toward new animation on sequences like Romary taking Asemu and Zeheart on a trip to the beach.
A funny post someone has probably already done somewhere if AGE has any kind of ongoing fandom is a bunch of screen caps of Asemu, Zeheart, and Romary from this movie with the caption "Challengers (2024)."
Great Gundam Project isn't getting to IBO until the summer of 2026, and I don't think I'll jump ahead for it. Based on reviews from other people with taste similar to mine, I predict that I will find the treatment of women in IBO to be less grating than either SEED or AGE and probably will like it just fine. We'll see. I always try to keep an open mind. I was prepared to be the contrarian SEED or AGE defender before watching them, but the shows actually were just very bad and extremely bland, respectively.
A funny post someone has probably already done somewhere if AGE has any kind of ongoing fandom is a bunch of screen caps of Asemu, Zeheart, and Romary from this movie with the caption "Challengers (2024)."
Great Gundam Project isn't getting to IBO until the summer of 2026, and I don't think I'll jump ahead for it. Based on reviews from other people with taste similar to mine, I predict that I will find the treatment of women in IBO to be less grating than either SEED or AGE and probably will like it just fine. We'll see. I always try to keep an open mind. I was prepared to be the contrarian SEED or AGE defender before watching them, but the shows actually were just very bad and extremely bland, respectively.
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Women in IBO are pretty much only allowed to be accessories to the men in the story. Which in itself is not unusual for anime or to a lesser extent Gundam. But I personally found it particularly grating that:
1) The overarching slant of the franchise, and especially from the Tomino-side of things, was to become increasingly inclusive of women. And IBO decides nah let's go back to the stone age in that respect. This was especially insulting as IBO came out right on the heels of G-Reco which was probably the best the franchise has been to that point regarding inclusivity and equality in the various shows narratives.
2) Without a lick if irony, IBO posits to the viewer -- you know what's really cool? Harems. Not in the typical anime sense of juvenile wish fulfillment where a bunch of girls crush on the same guy. No, I mean in the classical, middle eastern sense of cloistered, enslaved concubines. Also child brides and teenage pregnancy. Gundam has been a lot of things, but all of the best ones are tied together with a strong moral core, and scripted in a way that is keenly aware of the creative responsibility of modeling good behavior and values for an impressionable, young audience. And IBO is like nah what if we just dive head first into championing toxic masculinity and gender roles from the middle ages.
Watching IBO as it happened live was like if I was watching a new Star Trek show that decided you know what, maybe sexism, and racism, and capitalism is really cool. Or watching a new Star Wars thing where it was like you know what maybe we need a little fascism once in a while. It just felt like a huge betrayal and invoked a very strong emotional response from me.
2) Without a lick if irony, IBO posits to the viewer -- you know what's really cool? Harems. Not in the typical anime sense of juvenile wish fulfillment where a bunch of girls crush on the same guy. No, I mean in the classical, middle eastern sense of cloistered, enslaved concubines. Also child brides and teenage pregnancy. Gundam has been a lot of things, but all of the best ones are tied together with a strong moral core, and scripted in a way that is keenly aware of the creative responsibility of modeling good behavior and values for an impressionable, young audience. And IBO is like nah what if we just dive head first into championing toxic masculinity and gender roles from the middle ages.
Watching IBO as it happened live was like if I was watching a new Star Trek show that decided you know what, maybe sexism, and racism, and capitalism is really cool. Or watching a new Star Wars thing where it was like you know what maybe we need a little fascism once in a while. It just felt like a huge betrayal and invoked a very strong emotional response from me.
In a move that was unbearably exciting to me, Hiroko Moriguchi announced on Friday that she will be releasing GUNDAM SONG COVERS -ORCHESTRA- as an "encore" to the GSC trilogy of albums on June 18. As the name implies it's her doing her thing to new orchestral arrangements. The tracklist includes six songs that she covered on previous albums, plus four new ones, including Flying in the Sky. Finally, justice for G Gundam!
It's unclear if this is the order of the final tracklist, but here's the order in which they were revealed on the livestream:
I listen to the original three albums all the damn time so this is a day one purchase for me.
As it features in Super Robot Wars Y which I'm currently playing, I decided to revisit Endless Waltz for what must be the first time in 15 years. It's largely incoherent as a whole, but something about it still appeals to me -- I enjoy "getting the band back together" stories, and its soundtrack, flashback sequences and Christmas setting all conspire to give it a rich, nostalgic atmosphere.
As I said the plot is mostly nonsense, but there's one line in particular I've never understood. Early on, Duo is talking to Sally and Noin over the radio as he and Heero are going on ahead to infiltrate a base, and he's jokingly talking about it like it's a Christmas party. "Don't blame us if we eat all the food before you get there!" he says. Then later, Sally meets up with him again and calls back to it by saying "Thanks, Duo. You left lots of little treats for us." And Duo is like "If you're joking, that's cruel. But if you're being sarcastic, that's even worse!"
What... is the actual semantic difference between those two possibilities, in terms of what she said? She's obviously giving him grief for not finishing the job after boasting about it, I get that. But the difference between "joking" and "being sarcastic" seems like impossibly precise hair-splitting. What is he even talking about? Duo's such a frustrating character because every one of his lines is animated and delivered like he's saying something funny, except they forgot to write an actual funny thing for him to say. Like it's all placeholder dialogue they meant to go back and replace with jokes but then they just forgot.
Anyway it all pales in comparison to the ending, where the Wing boys all learn the completely wrong lesson from their experience. At the end of the last conflict, they ditched their Gundams into the sun because they figured they weren't needed anymore now that we're entering an age of peace. And in Endless Waltz, they barely manage to recover them in time to stop the emergence of a previously unforeseen threat.
Audience: Ah, so the lesson is that maintaining peace requires constant vigilance.
New Mobile War Chronicle Gundam Wing Endless Waltz: Nope! The lesson is we didn't destroy our Gundams thoroughly enough last time! Let's blow 'em all up right now because no one will ever want war again!!!!!
Audience: But--
TWO-MIX: I FEEL YOUR LOVE REFLECTION, MITSUMEKAESU HITOMI NI ♪♪♪
Audience: ...never mind
As I said the plot is mostly nonsense, but there's one line in particular I've never understood. Early on, Duo is talking to Sally and Noin over the radio as he and Heero are going on ahead to infiltrate a base, and he's jokingly talking about it like it's a Christmas party. "Don't blame us if we eat all the food before you get there!" he says. Then later, Sally meets up with him again and calls back to it by saying "Thanks, Duo. You left lots of little treats for us." And Duo is like "If you're joking, that's cruel. But if you're being sarcastic, that's even worse!"
What... is the actual semantic difference between those two possibilities, in terms of what she said? She's obviously giving him grief for not finishing the job after boasting about it, I get that. But the difference between "joking" and "being sarcastic" seems like impossibly precise hair-splitting. What is he even talking about? Duo's such a frustrating character because every one of his lines is animated and delivered like he's saying something funny, except they forgot to write an actual funny thing for him to say. Like it's all placeholder dialogue they meant to go back and replace with jokes but then they just forgot.
Anyway it all pales in comparison to the ending, where the Wing boys all learn the completely wrong lesson from their experience. At the end of the last conflict, they ditched their Gundams into the sun because they figured they weren't needed anymore now that we're entering an age of peace. And in Endless Waltz, they barely manage to recover them in time to stop the emergence of a previously unforeseen threat.
Audience: Ah, so the lesson is that maintaining peace requires constant vigilance.
New Mobile War Chronicle Gundam Wing Endless Waltz: Nope! The lesson is we didn't destroy our Gundams thoroughly enough last time! Let's blow 'em all up right now because no one will ever want war again!!!!!
Audience: But--
TWO-MIX: I FEEL YOUR LOVE REFLECTION, MITSUMEKAESU HITOMI NI ♪♪♪
Audience: ...never mind
The American idea of "sarcasm" is a foreign concept to Japanese culture. We understand and employ sarcasm as a form of humor. But Japanese humor doesn't work by those rules. And most Japanese people will, when confronted with sarcasm, simply interpret it as being a jerk instead. Which to be quite honest, is a fair evaluation. It's a very adversarial and frankly mean spirited form of humor. Think about it. When you boil it down to its core, sarcasm is basically telling somebody an insult. And the joke is that the insult is true. IMO it's one of the many sick facets of our culture.
I got roped into playing the brand new Gundam TCG game. It's neat! And I'm prone to additive behavior and have fond memories of card collecting as a kid so I've jumped in. I love Gundams and gambling so this is a nice fit. This initial phase of the game is focused around 0079, Unicorn, SEED, Wing, and Witch from Mercury. Logical choices to launch your game with the franchise's most popular entries. Since I've seen all of those except one, I figured now would be the perfect time to start covering my blind spots and finally buckle down and watch SEED.
So far (6 episodes deep) I see a lot of annoying stuff that lines up with common criticisms of the show I've heard over the decades. But I'm also seeing a lot of what I presume to be reasons why it was also very popular. A lot of the Gundam spinoffs do a really bad job of world building or capturing any of the essence of what made the original show a sensation. And while I don't really like how blatantly SEED is just rehashing 0079 so far, it's also kind of a breath of fresh air to have an honest to goodness Space Opera back in Gundam for once. Recent shows like IBO or WfM just really don't nail the scale necessary for a Space Opera. They feel small and confined by contrast. There's plenty of time for my opinions to change/evolve, and I anticipate they will. And maybe it helps that my expectations were below the floor, but I'm pleasantly surprised that so far this isn't the worst Gundam I've seen, or even anywhere close to it.
Also holy balls is this an ugly show. The early CGI/digital mastering not only means that we're stuck watching this show in SD forever, but that all of the CGI they're using is highly experimental and not particularly well executed. There's a lot of digital effects that feel like they're there for novelty sake but don't look good at all. Or at least, haven't aged well. I appreciate the growing pains here and how it's a product of its times. But man oh man is this an immediate and severe step down in visual artistry compared to its immediate predecessors. It also doesn't help that Hisashi Hirai's character designs are kinda ugly.
Okay, so bearing that in mind, what's the answer to my original question?
Sally: "Thanks, Duo. You left lots of little treats for us."
Duo: "If you're joking, that's cruel. But if you're being sarcastic, that's even worse!"
If Sally was making a joke, what she meant was ______________________________________, which is cruel.
However, if Sally was being sarcastic, then what she actually meant was _____________________________________, which is worse.
It's Duo examining/commenting on the intention behind what she said. Did she say what she said with the primary intention of humor and to make people laugh, or with the intention of casting aspersions/throwing insults?
That said, I'm also pointing out how the entire concept of sarcasm doesn't translate for Japanese people, and thus there's a decent chance there's a lot being lost in translation to begin with. Do you have a time stamp for when this gets said in EW?
That said, I'm also pointing out how the entire concept of sarcasm doesn't translate for Japanese people, and thus there's a decent chance there's a lot being lost in translation to begin with. Do you have a time stamp for when this gets said in EW?
I just finished The Witch from Mercury. I was skeptical about it being a school show since part of why I like Gundam is it's usually about war, but I thought it was pretty solid overall. They did a good job of mixing high school politics with interplanetary megacorp politics in a way that made sense. This universe's Char being the protagonist's mother was also interesting.
I've got a lot of strong complaints and criticisms about WfM. But ultimately it was an entertaining show that managed to both break boundaries and most importantly expand the audience of Gundam in ways most shows can't/won't.
If I could make one edit to most dramatically improve the show, it probably would be to erase the Prologue episode from existence.
If I could make one edit to most dramatically improve the show, it probably would be to erase the Prologue episode from existence.
I finally caught up and finished watching all of the G-Reco movies.
I'm honestly gobsmacked. These might be Tomino's best movies???
The amount of self-reflection and improvement upon common critiques of the TV series is honestly super fascinating and impressive for someone who is renowned for being a stubborn asshole.
Nearly every line of dialog in these "recap" movies has been rewritten and re-recorded. If you have a careful eye, you'll be able to spot all the reused animation. But there's so much new stuff, and it's been so thoroughly re-edited that it's almost unrecognizable as a product.
The plot flows much more naturally, every event, every character motivation, every relationship in the show, and every dramatic theme is carefully considered and portrayed to the audience. To the degree that it would be far more accurate to call the G-Reco movies a full blown remake.
The amount of labor put into these five films over the course of an entire decade is just impressive, full stop. To the degree I would be tempted to call this his magnum opus (if Turn-A didn't exist, it would be a much harder decision). I don't think these films are the best thing he's ever made. But I'm just kinda blown away at the craftsmanship on display here.
I still have a very soft spot for the G-Reco TV show. But I think it's easy to say these films are now the definitive version of the story, and what any newcomers should watch instead. If you bounced off the TV show, or had a lot of commonly cited problems with it, give the films a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I'm honestly gobsmacked. These might be Tomino's best movies???
The amount of self-reflection and improvement upon common critiques of the TV series is honestly super fascinating and impressive for someone who is renowned for being a stubborn asshole.
Nearly every line of dialog in these "recap" movies has been rewritten and re-recorded. If you have a careful eye, you'll be able to spot all the reused animation. But there's so much new stuff, and it's been so thoroughly re-edited that it's almost unrecognizable as a product.
The plot flows much more naturally, every event, every character motivation, every relationship in the show, and every dramatic theme is carefully considered and portrayed to the audience. To the degree that it would be far more accurate to call the G-Reco movies a full blown remake.
The amount of labor put into these five films over the course of an entire decade is just impressive, full stop. To the degree I would be tempted to call this his magnum opus (if Turn-A didn't exist, it would be a much harder decision). I don't think these films are the best thing he's ever made. But I'm just kinda blown away at the craftsmanship on display here.
I still have a very soft spot for the G-Reco TV show. But I think it's easy to say these films are now the definitive version of the story, and what any newcomers should watch instead. If you bounced off the TV show, or had a lot of commonly cited problems with it, give the films a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I rewatched this over the weekend to refresh myself for The Sorcery of Nymph Circe, and my issues above pretty much stand. Also, while Gigi is established as being very observant and correctly deduces that Hathaway is Mafty, her stated reasoning makes no sense. She says that he lost it when he saw the criminals misusing the Mafty name, but that's not what happened. He quietly cooperated with them until they started executing people for no reason, then he took action. It just seems like a bit of convenient narrative expediency (to have her become part of Hathaway's inner circle early on) that Tomino hopes you won't examine too closely.