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Lieutenant General Gundam

Amazing. I'm glad I never wrote that essay on things people get about Gundam because Origin is aimed so squarely at nerds. :)
 
I kinda like Ral more in orgins than in the original. At least he looks like he is having some(more) misgiving about severing Zeon
 
So I've started watching G Gundam and Gundam Wing recently.

...how is it G Gundam is the easier one to take the character drama in seriously? :p (Seriously, Gundam Wing is... shockingly poorly edited, and just amazingly wtf in places.) G Gundam went from passable to "I love almost every detail of this crazy show" as soon as Master Asia showed up. (Still rather annoyed with the Neo-Mexico Tequila/Spike Gundam thing... and that episode was also rather boring on top of being kinda offensive.) Gundam Wing, by comparison, is like Gundam 00 only with more insane and younger child soldiers and an even less nuanced take on politics than 00. (Heero Yuy is basically amazing trash though - all of his bizarre actions are kind of amazingly funny to me.)
 
Wing is often clothed in the armour of nostalgia due to its airing on Toonami. As a result it's often not properly assessed by people, whether positively or negatively. I didn't match it until I was both already an adult and already deep in Gundam, and I think it's great. It's just totally surreal (particularly at the start) and has a surprising sense of dry humour. Also the arc where they go to space the first time is choice.
 
Ford Prefect said:
Wing is often clothed in the armour of nostalgia due to its airing on Toonami. As a result it's often not properly assessed by people, whether positively or negatively. I didn't match it until I was both already an adult and already deep in Gundam, and I think it's great. It's just totally surreal (particularly at the start) and has a surprising sense of dry humour. Also the arc where they go to space the first time is choice.
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Ah, I'm someone who has... basically no connection to the show prior to this? I didn't have cable growing up, so I never saw it on Toonami at the time. TBF, at the rate it's going I don't actually hate Wing, I just find it completely hilarious. Especially with the dub, the awkward translation, and Heero repeatedly failing at blowing up his Gundam and himself.
 
Wing is is the art Gundam show to me; they either had no idea what they were doing or way, way overestimated the audience. Some of the vignettes are just so out there it has to be on purpose, but there's really strong stuff in there. Sadly since 00 exists and is way more accessible and way better looking, Wing generally only attracts 'joke' online 'reviews'. :(
 
Sublink said:
Wing is is the art Gundam show to me; they either had no idea what they were doing or way, way overestimated the audience. Some of the vignettes are just so out there it has to be on purpose, but there's really strong stuff in there. Sadly since 00 exists and is way more accessible and way better looking, Wing generally only attracts 'joke' online 'reviews'. :(
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I actually prefer Wing to 00.
 
But you're a wrong-thinker who considers 00 to be politically unnuanced while I'm a partisan of the Sesuna F Seiei Best Space Jesus club, so ... :V

For me, the chold soldier stuff is really strong in Wing which is why the endless jokes about Heero being crazy seem out of place to me. Yes, he's crazy. That's one of the core ideas the show looks at. It's actually really tragic etc etc everyone loved it in IBO etc etc.

Unfortunately, since I watched 00 first and I felt the character work there was better (especially the music), Wing seems to miss the mark. But it seems to me like they definitely tried, and I can respect that.
 
Wing was probably the first show I came back to after five or eight years and thought "holy shit past me, what we were you thinking". It is a show of great potential, on numerous points, but it usually only delivers at a passable level and occasionally just disappears straight up its own fundament. First-season 00 is definitely more accessible, and probably a better overall take on the same concept because its setting acknowledges and incorporates a lot of the points that Wing viewers were expected to spend time fanwanking to get.

G Gundam on the other hand...I love this show. I love this show to fucking death. But it was so radically different from anything else in the Gundam franchise that for a long time I didn't feel it was fair to compare them directly. Build Fighters and its siblings changed that, but...well, that's not to Build Fighters' advantage usually.
 
Wing discussion!

I'm definitely one of those guys who has his nostalgia goggles welded to his face when it comes to Wing. For all that I only saw managed to see it on DVD and only managed to see anything past the 'leave to space' arc a decade after I first watched it, it's still my favorite Gundam show.

Little bit of trivia, Wing is thus far the only anime where I actually prefer the dub over the sub. Probably nostalgia, but...

Frankly, the big draw of 00 for me was everything around it pointing to it basically being modern-day Wing as Seed was supposed to be modern-day MSG.

That didn't really last beyond the whole 'innovation' thing, and what looked like everyone in production huffing pixie dust. First season was basically what I was looking for, and then season 2 jumped into the 'let's ape UC again!' and all the 'Newtype' bullcrap that I loathe.

As for G Gundam...I mean, it's alright. No Newtype bullshit. Eh.
 
Wing was so bad I couldn't finish episode 1 the first time I tried to watch it. More specifically, I always got the impression that Wing's problem was that its writers completely failed to adhere to basic principles of writing a story, such as showing a conflict rather than telling it, giving characters believable motivations, etc. Pointedly, they simply skipped over the gundam pilot's backstories in favor of two painful clip shows. In the case of Heero or Duo this doesn't hurt too bad, but Wufei is a completely different character without his backstory. A really, really crazy and incoherent character.
On the other hand 00 definitely suffered when the second season stuck too close to the tropes, so I'm not saying all of Wing's surreality was bad. Endless Waltz can basically be summed up as "Wing, but just the good bits."
 
K-GoN said:
'Newtype' bullcrap
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:whistle:

For me, the lack of explicit backgrounds and motivations added to the texture I associate with Wing. The audience is thrown right into crazy and confusing stuff with insane people and complex, apparently incoherent plotting, and it added to the sense of out-of-control events and the perception that not everything was as it seemed. It struck me as the kind of story where the larger-than-life characters are much more defined by what they do or say than their past, which (since I never finished the show) almost doesn't seem to exist.
 
Wing is unusual in that it feels like it was made almost entirely in a vacuum. Like 00 is very much a post-9/11 work and intrinsically reflects that event, whereas Wing is, what, very extremely loosely styled after Spanish colonialism? And even then only really before OZ takes over. It's hard to link it to the real world in the way that you can link a lot of Gundam. Even G Gundam has a stronger basis in reality than Wing, given that you can link it to the environmentalism that was growing around that time.

Like by sheer coincidence Wing is a commentary on drone warfare some fifteen years early. Otherwise ...
 
Ford Prefect said:
Wing is unusual in that it feels like it was made almost entirely in a vacuum. Like 00 is very much a post-9/11 work and intrinsically reflects that event, whereas Wing is, what, very extremely loosely styled after Spanish colonialism? And even then only really before OZ takes over. It's hard to link it to the real world in the way that you can link a lot of Gundam. Even G Gundam has a stronger basis in reality than Wing, given that you can link it to the environmentalism that was growing around that time.

Like by sheer coincidence Wing is a commentary on drone warfare some fifteen years early. Otherwise ...
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otherwise it was primarily responsible for the creation of western fujoshi, because jesus christ
 
G2BattleConvoy said:
Uh, what is fujoshi?
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Japanese nickname for female fans of male homosexual relationships with some undertones of negativity, from what I understand. And even only eight episodes into Wing, I completely get why it got that reaction. After the bit where it randomly cuts to Trowa and Quatre having a jam session at Quatre's house followed by Quatre really hoping he gets to hang out with Trowa again, the friend I was watching with and I basically concluded there was less unintentional subtext and more just text with those two.

I think one of the things that annoyed me the most with the ending of S2 of 00 was when for absolutely no reason after the already stereotypical end of Anew Returner's plot, the show has Ribbons Almarck insist that she was the only innovator (I know, innovade, but that came in literally the last episode and it never sticks in my mind) to be biologically female as opposed to nonbinary like the rest are supposed to be, just so the show can insist Lockon 2 is completely straight, followed by Ribbons insisting the reason she betrayed them was due to being female.
 
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Man, trying to follow up on Wing in the mid-2000s was...surprising.

I mean, when you're mostly unaware of fanfiction in general, and then you find out, and then you find all the fanfiction about your favorite characters boning each other, it's kind of shocking.

Ford Prefect said:
Wing is unusual in that it feels like it was made almost entirely in a vacuum. Like 00 is very much a post-9/11 work and intrinsically reflects that event, whereas Wing is, what, very extremely loosely styled after Spanish colonialism? And even then only really before OZ takes over. It's hard to link it to the real world in the way that you can link a lot of Gundam. Even G Gundam has a stronger basis in reality than Wing, given that you can link it to the environmentalism that was growing around that time.

Like by sheer coincidence Wing is a commentary on drone warfare some fifteen years early. Otherwise ...
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I'm actually somewhat sure there wasn't much geopolitical relativism in the early Gundam shows - I mean, other than the whole 'Zeon is Imperial Japan' thing for MSG. G Gundam was just a mostly straightforward classic 'super robot' show with the shounen tropes and the tournament and stuff, and Wing was a bit of a perspective flip from MSG and with a setting more focused on small-unit actions and guerrilla warfare, and Gundam X was really more 'say, what would happen if Zeon actually did Colony Bombardment on the Earth?'.

And Turn A was...well, weird...although I guess there was some immigration/imperalism aspects if you looked at it hard enough.

I mean, I only really noticed any real world political influence with 00, and the whole 'terrorism' and 9/11 influence and stuff, and that's really because people pointed it out to me. Reconguista had the whole color of the 'should we rearm SDF into full miltary' discussion going around the Japanese political offices, and IBO is basically all about the horrors of child soldiers and stuff.

I'm not sure about Seed and Destiny, because...well, it was Destiny.

Of course, I'm probably missing a lot of political subtext because I'm always more focused on the 'giant robots' rather than the geopolitical stuff.
 
K-GoN said:
And Turn A was...well, weird...although I guess there was some immigration/imperalism aspects if you looked at it hard enough.
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Gym Ghingham struck me as a riff on Imperial Japan fanboys in the modern day as well as particularly... dumb Gundam fans. Obsessed with the glory of battle, thinks people should keep fighting to awaken their warrior spirits, is dumb enough to use a WMD as a casual military weapon, and is obsessed with his freaking katana even though it's completely irrelevant in the modern day.
 
Being completely honest, I never watched Turn A long enough to get to Gym Ghingham. For the longest time I avoided it because of the common thread on Gundam forums with the typical 'main Gundam one-up-man-ship' being 'and Turn A beats them all'. And really I hate that because it means Wing Zero loses there really shouldn't be an out-and-out 'winner' among the main Gundams.

When I finally did force myself to watch it, I only lasted until around episode 10 when I noped out of it due to just hating all the characters (except Harry Ord) too much.

Also, for all that it's supposed to be the big 'crossing point' of all the Gundam timelines, all that resulted in were a bunch of old UC suits being dug up and a few flashbacks.

Also, I hated the original MS (i.e, 'Moonrace' suits, Turn A itself). Ugliest machinery I've laid eyes on yet.

That said:

gourdcaptain said:
Gym Ghingham struck me as a riff on Imperial Japan fanboys in the modern day as well as particularly... dumb Gundam fans. Obsessed with the glory of battle, thinks people should keep fighting to awaken their warrior spirits, is dumb enough to use a WMD as a casual military weapon, and is obsessed with his freaking katana even though it's completely irrelevant in the modern day.
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I can see that.
 
K-GoN said:
Being completely honest, I never watched Turn A long enough to get to Gym Ghingham. For the longest time I avoided it because of the common thread on Gundam forums with the typical 'main Gundam one-up-man-ship' being 'and Turn A beats them all'. And really I hate that because it means Wing Zero loses there really shouldn't be an out-and-out 'winner' among the main Gundams.

When I finally did force myself to watch it, I only lasted until around episode 10 when I noped out of it due to just hating all the characters (except Harry Ord) too much.

Also, for all that it's supposed to be the big 'crossing point' of all the Gundam timelines, all that resulted in were a bunch of old UC suits being dug up and a few flashbacks.

Also, I hated the original MS (i.e, 'Moonrace' suits, Turn A itself). Ugliest machinery I've laid eyes on yet.

That said:



I can see that.
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While Turn A is my favorite Gundam series I've seen so far (it's one of my favorite anime period, although admittedly the only Gundam I've finished has been 0080, 00, and Turn A) I do agree the "Turn A wins all Gundam fights" argument is kind of annoying. For one, this is assuming a fully equipped Turn A... something that never happens in the series, where it's armed with the occasional Gundam Hammer or other melee weapon, a dinky beam rifle nowhere near as good as the one it should have (that one melts after the first shot due to damage from being buried for so long) and the Moonlight Butterfly. And no fight where the Moonlight Butterfly is fully deployed (the only time I'd call it able to overwhelm all ridiculous Gundams) is a situation where anyone can be said to win. Second off, Turn A isn't about winning fights, and the trump card nature of the Turn A causes Loran almost as many problems as it solves. (And if Loran's piloting the Turn A in a versus scenario, it's going to be hampered by his nonlethel nature, and in a legitimate way for the most part. Loran kills a grand total of two people in Turn A with the mech, and by accident.)

The other thing about Gym Ghingham (spelling that name is so hard) and his faction I love is that for all their claims of being a long line of warriors, yadda yadda, they are fundamentally bad at it. They have no actual experience with war, and anyone who did wouldn't be nearly as crazy about it as they are. The battle tested units of the Royal Guard, Dianna Counter, and to a lesser degree the Milita can just completely stomp their Mahiro suits in a fight (Mahiro's are the most destroyed mech in Turn A, and they only show up in the last ten episodes.) The only reason they're a huge threat is they've got the Turn X and are crazy and stupid enough to potentially destroy everything.

Harry Ord is the best, though.
 
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K-GoN said:
Of course, I'm probably missing a lot of political subtext because I'm always more focused on the 'giant robots' rather than the geopolitical stuff.
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Don't worry; paying attention is a skill anyone can learn. :V. Maybe there is still a need for educational material after all lol

Wing did seem really 'of it's time', in particular in the kind of setpieces they had; shuttle accidents, political theatre, isolated elites and salt of the earth folks etc. It seems more of a ride than instructive, compared to other Gundam shows - there's no leprechaun rainbow, there's no resonant personal tragedy over decades, there's just events happening one after the other carrying the plot forward. It's a different kind of experience. While the show seemed no better at finding screen time for the whole cast as shows like 00, the structure made it a lot more obvious (how many episodes had 'and now this guy is at a waterfall because allegory'?).

And man Gingham is a joke in every Gundam game ever; it's no secret, and I've never even seen Turn A. :)
 
Sublink said:
And man Gingham is a joke in every Gundam game ever; it's no secret, and I've never even seen Turn A. :)
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I'm genuinely curious if there's any particularly amazing examples of it - Gingham bashing is always amazing (the friend of mine who was watching Turn A at the same time and I were continually boggling at the sheer ineptitude of him, his forces, and whatever the heck Merrybell's deal is.) Man's only a threat due to his sheer stupidity and incompetence, afterall.

...also, the ending of Turn A is the one where
the world is saved by an unfrozen probable OZ pilot survivor of a Gundam Wing Zero massacre using an improvised rocket punch to the possibly most destructive mech to possibly ever exist , specifically to the crotch. Corin Nander is a surprisingly fascinating character for me, on top of the stunt I mentioned above. (It's counterbalanced by his rather... sexist dialogue earlier in the same episode. Best excuse I can come up with is trying to keep the young people with a future away from the apocalyptic battle in which Kapools don't really matter, but uh... it's still bad.)
 
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