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Lieutenant General Gundam

Honestly, while the animation looks cool, and there's some really interesting stuff going on with the mech designs (why the heck the GM beam saber racks are underslung in this version, I have no idea), the characters look off.

And that's not even getting into the specifics of the story, because... I dunno, the way they framed certain things is kinda bizarre.
 
Now, I havent done any rigorous scientific test with a stopwatch yet, but I am pretty certain the GMs in Requiem last longer than GMs in most other side stories against monoeye suits. Usually they'd just explode whenever a monoeye looks at them funny.
 
Snort. Funny. Though personally, I think the reason that those GMs lasted so long was because they were armored in Luna Titanium. I.e the stuff that allowed the original RX-78 Gundam to tank hits from enemy Zaku IIs like they were nothing. On another note, I actually like the whole beam saber rack on both the GM and the Gundam. It allows for more than one saber to be carried, and that also allows for that neat modular shoulder mount for the heavy weapon. I thought the Origin's own Modular Mount/Backpack was interesting, but I think I actually prefer this version.
 
3 episodes into 00.
"We shot up some troops and carpet-bombed a forest! Finally, we've ended The Troubles AND drug trafficking!"
This show is carrying the spirit of Wing pretty well. Though at some point it's gotta pull the boys out of their Gundams so they can start interacting with people.
 
Greener223224 said:
"We shot up some troops and carpet-bombed a forest! Finally, we've ended The Troubles AND drug trafficking!"
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I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the show is fairly interested in interrogating that perspective rather than taking it as a given. Whether or not it lands for you is up to you, but 00 is aware 'the killing will continue until the killing stops' is not actually a viable solution persay and wants to say stuff about it.
 
I bounced off 00 at first entirely because it took a few episodes to get to the meat of what they were trying to say (arguably all of season 1), but it worked a lot better for me once I powered through that and could appreciate the main plot while finding other things to hate about the character subplots.
 
I mean, 00 was my first proper foray into Gundam about 10 years ago, and I still love it to pieces. It may seem batshit insane when you look at it as a whole, but it really does ask the question of what achieving peace really means.

Even from early on, the members of Celestial Being know that what they're doing is wrong on some level, but they also understand that it's almost necessary to wake up the world from the cold war that's still ongoing between the three superpowers.
 
I wathed Requiem for Vengeance and I have to say it is fun watching a EFF force that does actual military wstuff like roadblocks, ambushes and not running away every five seconds. Also if you are a Feddy Grunt in that show then the Gundam must've been like a major bro to you. Like let's think about it

- It helps out with every mission it can do from frontal assaults to even helping out the lowly infantrymen clear out low priority targets.
- If you are in trouble it will happily abandon it's quest to kill the main protaginist in order to give you fire support or bail you out.
- You don't have to deal with child soldier screaming
- No one got naked Newtype visions
- Even when it dies it's still a bro by not exploding and by making sure EFF forces were still able to overrun Zeon positions

Also I'm kind've a bit salty by the fact that shooting the HLV's is considered a bad thing even though that is a perfectly legal action on acount of those forces not surrendering. In addition later lore reveals that Zeon used the forces it got off of earth to further dig in so is the EFF was able to destroy all the HLV's it would have made the final battles of the OYW less brutal.
 
Someone copied a beat from 08th MS Team without understanding it. The GM Sniper shooting down the hospital ship was bad because...it was a hospital ship. That's been a warcrime since the invention of battlefield medicine. Shooting down retreating enemy forces is a lot more nebulous, although of course context is still important.
 
Nerdorama said:
Someone copied a beat from 08th MS Team without understanding it. The GM Sniper shooting down the hospital ship was bad because...it was a hospital ship. That's been a warcrime since the invention of battlefield medicine. Shooting down retreating enemy forces is a lot more nebulous, although of course context is still important.
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Though I'm pretty sure when you have a Hospital ship you aren't supposed to be putting military materials on there and I remember that at minimum the ship had MS on it, thereby making it a military target and I am around 40% sure it was also loaded with scientists and data the Apsalus project had?
 
The secret sauce of the One Year War is that both sides were committing warcrimes constantly. Zeon certainly hit much higher peaks but looking at any sidestory OVA in a vacuum is usually scummy behavior on both sides and 08th's good romanticized ending is not the Federation winning, but the hero deserting, for a reason.
 
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G2BattleConvoy said:
...What's that got to do with two of the most grounded installments in UC you can find?
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He's referring to the epilogue episode, Last Resort, which is pretty disconnected from the rest of the show in plot and tone and a lot of people didn't like it for that reason. It also never got broadcast in the US as part of the Toonami run, although I'm unsure of its status as far as media legally available in the US.

Personally I think it's a real damn weird conclusion considering the rest of the show but at least it's nice to get a confirmation on Shiro and Aina's status instead of being left in canon limbo for decades like Char and Amuro after the end of CCA.
 
Nerdorama said:
He's referring to the epilogue episode, Last Resort, which is pretty disconnected from the rest of the show in plot and tone and a lot of people didn't like it for that reason. It also never got broadcast in the US as part of the Toonami run, although I'm unsure of its status as far as media legally available in the US.

Personally I think it's a real damn weird conclusion considering the rest of the show but at least it's nice to get a confirmation on Shiro and Aina's status instead of being left in canon limbo for decades like Char and Amuro after the end of CCA.
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Personally I think a better ending would have been something like this
- One of the characters just after the OYW goes around in the village to find out where Shiro is. They do find him but he doesn't really want to go back to the EFF and says that things are probably going to get worse and that something might need to change.
- Flash's forward to the Gryps War and the 08th MS Team is surprisingly enough together again while defecting to fight Titans in cambodia. Though with only GM II's against Titans MS they are on the back foot until a AEUG cell arrives with Nemo's and defeats the Titans. This AEUG group brings them to their leader and it's revealed that the kids and women of the village formed this AEUG cell with Shiro and Aina as their leader and he wants the 08th MS team to fight together again(Shiro and Aina also have their kids)
- Then flash forward to CCA era where a group of EFF top brass decide that thanks to his actions in the Gryps War he is officially cleared of all charges and 'coincidentally' anything related to the HLV incident will be destroyed(read- they want to brush aside the Titans as quickly as possible and really so not want anyone looking into certain events or people in the OYW who have clear parallels. Shiro getting innocent s just a side effect)
 
Balmung1 said:
Though I'm pretty sure when you have a Hospital ship you aren't supposed to be putting military materials on there and I remember that at minimum the ship had MS on it, thereby making it a military target and I am around 40% sure it was also loaded with scientists and data the Apsalus project had?
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Hey, are we talking about 08 MS TEAM? Because boy howdy, do I like talking about 08 MS TEAM.

That very memorable (and probably for a time, controversial) chapter at the conclusion of the OVA, intended to add a little bit of body to the old truism "Hate begets hate and violence begets violence," does not involve a "hospital ship" by pretty much any stretch of the imagination, and both sides know it. What was shot down was the Kergeren, part of Zeonic Space Forces' highly versatile Zanzibar-class "mobile cruisers" (or in the Federation parlance, "assault carriers", which admittedly doesn't do much better of a job to describe its mission type specifically), which no one could confuse for a "hospital ship" any more than it could be confused for "a mobile power planet" (which is what it was being used by Zeon for until its ill-fated launch). What it was, most literally, was an example of a heavily armed light cruiser capable of carrying mobile suits...that happened to be loaded with Zeon's evacuated wounded (and at least one flight type Gouf, because the Zanzibar-class can do that while launching). Obviously the Zeon knew that, because they launched it. How did the Federation know? Because that's what the Zeon told them, when Aina plead for a cease fire in the middle of a weeks-long siege in the Southeast Asian theater towards the end of the war. It doesn't meet the reasonable definition of hospital ships, but it is an example of "armed cruiser that happens to be loaded with wounded and is hoping to leave the area of combat" which isn't the same thing.

Why did the Federation (i.e. regimental commander Ryer and base commander Kojima) order a Ground GM Sniper to shoot it down, something everyone on the Zeonic side knew was immediately possible (why is why Aina made her whole dramatic gesture in the first place)? Because Gineas, the actual pilot of Asparas, fired on a number of Ground GMs behind the very recent and very informal frontline, shortly after the ceasefire. Which promptly ended the ceasfire. Ryer is, very clearly, supposed to be a major league asshole, which is why he bites the bullet whereas Kojima, disgusted with his behavior, survives. He was almost certainly looking for a reason to shoot down the Kergeren, literally a Zeon space crusier at its most vulnerable point, and may've done so at any point frankly. It just happens that the actions of his enemy, after a gesture of good faith, gave him a perfect reason to do so. Ryer is a very typical example of a Federation military bureaucracy monster, but Gineas is the principle antagonist of the OVA; even Aina repudiates him, her own brother, after the Kergeren is shot down. Circustances just gave Ryer a perfect opportunity to do what he wanted to do, and might've done anyway, because in his mind Zeon perfidy and a few Ground GM pilots are probably more than justification for killing thousands of Zeonic wounded, much less than hundreds or dozens loaded on the cruiser. And shooting down the cruiser itself is his job (certainly a less politically controversial part that "killing enemy wounded admid evacuation"). 08 MS TEAM did earn some controversy for once again highlighting what barbarity the Federation could be circumstantially capable of (just don't read the novelization, hoo-boy), but that's only against a background of the OVA presenting Zeon as a bunch of hopeless, drug-fueled holdouts capable of the same atrocities or worse. There's part of the fanbase ("Not muh Federation!") where that's not good, but too bad for them, since the OVAs that followed hardly take it much easier on the Good Guys in Grey, and what Origin presents--canonical incompatibility the original pre-OYW narrative aside--is that for whatever barbarism the Federation might show Zeon, you really shouldn't care that much, because frankly, they do worse to their supposed constituencies (Earth and the rest of Earth-Sphere under federal control), who aren't capable of overthrowing them in something resembling a war of extermination. Because they can. That's one of the things that makes Thunderbolt and Hathaway's Flash interesting--the suggestion that there are organized threats to Federation hegemony that, at least temporarily, might justify their tyranny that aren't really the fault of Zeon....so much as the fault of the failures of Federation political rule.

Great OVA though. The Ground GM and Ground GM Sniper are chef's kiss and I'm glad they've been getting minor cameos in other OVAs lately.
 
I mean I never really buy many attempts to invoke grey vs grey conflict when Zeon is involved because honestly they're Zekes, fuck the Zekes

"Waaah, the Earth Federation is being mean to us" you caused the deaths of half the human population and gassed spacenoids so you could steal their colonies and use them to turn cities full of civilians into craters
 
Greener223224 said:
Where are you getting your spelling from? The subs I used spelled them "Ghinias" and "Apsalus".
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The Gundam wiki. Though admittedly, upon checking they spell "Ginias" without the e, which I didn't remember, and I swapped the p and the s in Apsaras. It's been a while, and U.C. Gundam has always had that problem.
 
Synthesis said:
Why did the Federation (i.e. regimental commander Ryer and base commander Kojima) order a Ground GM Sniper to shoot it down, something everyone on the Zeonic side knew was immediately possible (why is why Aina made her whole dramatic gesture in the first place)? Because Gineas, the actual pilot of Asparas, fired on a number of Ground GMs behind the very recent and very informal frontline, shortly after the ceasefire. Which promptly ended the ceasfire. Ryer is, very clearly, supposed to be a major league asshole, which is why he bites the bullet whereas Kojima, disgusted with his behavior, survives. He was almost certainly looking for a reason to shoot down the Kergeren, literally a Zeon space crusier at its most vulnerable point, and may've done so at any point frankly. It just happens that the actions of his enemy, after a gesture of good faith, gave him a perfect reason to do so. Ryer is a very typical example of a Federation military bureaucracy monster, but Gineas is the principle antagonist of the OVA; even Aina repudiates him, her own brother, after the Kergeren is shot down. Circustances just gave Ryer a perfect opportunity to do what he wanted to do, and might've done anyway, because in his mind Zeon perfidy and a few Ground GM pilots are probably more than justification for killing thousands of Zeonic wounded, much less than hundreds or dozens loaded on the cruiser. And shooting down the cruiser itself is his job (certainly a less politically controversial part that "killing enemy wounded admid evacuation"). 08 MS TEAM did earn some controversy for once again highlighting what barbarity the Federation could be circumstantially capable of (just don't read the novelization, hoo-boy), but that's only against a background of the OVA presenting Zeon as a bunch of hopeless, drug-fueled holdouts capable of the same atrocities or worse. There's part of the fanbase ("Not muh Federation!") where that's not good, but too bad for them, since the OVAs that followed hardly take it much easier on the Good Guys in Grey, and what Origin presents--canonical incompatibility the original pre-OYW narrative aside--is that for whatever barbarism the Federation might show Zeon, you really shouldn't care that much, because frankly, they do worse to their supposed constituencies (Earth and the rest of Earth-Sphere under federal control), who aren't capable of overthrowing them in something resembling a war of extermination. Because they can. That's one of the things that makes Thunderbolt and Hathaway's Flash interesting--the suggestion that there are organized threats to Federation hegemony that, at least temporarily, might justify their tyranny that aren't really the fault of Zeon....so much as the fault of the failures of Federation political rule.
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You know that makes me wonder how you could play it out differently with a commander who is still brutal and pragmatic but not absolutely trying to piss everyone off.

And I personally saw 08th MS team as biased in Zeon's favor.
 
Synthesis said:
That's one of the things that makes Thunderbolt and Hathaway's Flash interesting--the suggestion that there are organized threats to Federation hegemony that, at least temporarily, might justify their tyranny that aren't really the fault of Zeon....so much as the fault of the failures of Federation political rule.
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The basic rule of thumb for me, regarding the Federation, is that they kinda suck but rarely does the Federation as a whole descend to the level of evil and cruetly that Zeon's upper echelon leadership operated on as its baseline.

Edit - Anyways just binged the new miniseries on Netflix. The plot and dialogue is about as cliche as it gets. But the action was great. And I do absolutely LOVE the way the Gundam was treated as a horror movie antagonist for the first four episodes.

First episode feels like you're watching the front and back halves of Predator XD

Amidatelion said:
I mean I never really buy many attempts to invoke grey vs grey conflict when Zeon is involved because honestly they're Zekes, fuck the Zekes
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Zeon v. the Federation is Black v. Grey.

Zeon Soldiers v. Federation Soldiers things start to get murkier to the point that I view it as a bunch of poor bastards desperately trying to stay alive and motivated by varying, often vague notions of what the war is for.

Balmung1 said:
Also I'm kind've a bit salty by the fact that shooting the HLV's is considered a bad thing even though that is a perfectly legal action on acount of those forces not surrendering. In addition later lore reveals that Zeon used the forces it got off of earth to further dig in so is the EFF was able to destroy all the HLV's it would have made the final battles of the OYW less brutal.
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Nerdorama said:
Someone copied a beat from 08th MS Team without understanding it. The GM Sniper shooting down the hospital ship was bad because...it was a hospital ship. That's been a warcrime since the invention of battlefield medicine. Shooting down retreating enemy forces is a lot more nebulous, although of course context is still important.
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My reading on the whole situation was that Iria was not really making a rational appeal as a soldier but as a human being just looking for some way to save her comrades without being forced to kill the Gundam's (child) pilot and likewise articulating the fact that most of the soldiers and both sides don't really want to be killing each other. Naratively the only reason shooting down the HLVs was treated as 'bad' was that protagonists were Zeon characters.

Synthesis said:
Because that's what the Zeon told them, when Aina plead for a cease fire in the middle of a weeks-long siege in the Southeast Asian theater towards the end of the war. It doesn't meet the reasonable definition of hospital ships, but it is an example of "armed cruiser that happens to be loaded with wounded and is hoping to leave the area of combat" which isn't the same thing.
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I'd need to watch it again, but IIRC, the underhanded part was that Ryer agreed to the cease fire with the intent of drawing the ship out where it could be destroyed and to buy his snipers time to line up a shot on the mobile armor. It's one thing to gun down a retreating rather than surrendering enemy, it's quite another to gun them down after explicitly accepting the terms of a ceasefire just to draw them into your gunsights.

It's also not the first time Ryer did this. Kojima suspects, and it's almost directly confirmed by Ryer himself, that Ryer is being wreckless with deploying the GMs in hopes that one of the suits getting destroyed will trigger a reactor breach and go off like a mini-nuke inside the mountain so he can get around the terms of the Antartic Treaty.
 
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