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So for those of you who don't have Crunchyroll, aside from the compilation movies on Netflix, the official Gundam youtube channel actually has a bunch of shows for free. Right now it has The Witch From Mercury both subbed and dubbed and Gundam Seed Destiny, as well a bunch of the first episodes from the other series. And they just added the Doan's Island movie, too.
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Mar 1, 2025 11:35
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habituallyred posted:Do you mean ZZ? Zeta is so much of a soap opera one of the earth episodes has a shampoo discussion. But ZZ seems to let the writers take a break while the animators take over for the first arc or so. I mean Zeta, I haven’t seen ZZ. Zeta, on a large scale, being concerned with the dread, spiritual barrenness, and political morass of living under post-WWII imperialism (and especially the corruption embodied by “operation paperclip” style policies) is unique among popular media and pretty salient still today. In the rare moments that we see the First Gundam cast, it feels fulfilling to see how they navigate their lives. It’s a thrill to see “broken clock right twice a day” Char. Camille’s story is, in broad strokes, engaging as well. But the actual episode to episode script of the show, not the concept, is much more concerned with strange interpersonal melodrama, clumsily handled cyber newtype stuff, just weird character arcs overall. A funny thing is that the OP of the show (which I think, as it is streaming today, is a new theme added to a re-release) really speaks to the thematic promise of the show more than the show itself ever does.
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Mar 1, 2025 11:56
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I feel like every Gundam show is the same way, though. The series are all generally more fixated on the personal drama of the main cast than the complex, political sci-fi backdrop.
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Mar 1, 2025 17:57
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Sometimes to its benefit, sometimes to its detriment, depending on how willing they are to dip their toes into dealing with wider context topics. For all that Gundam loves talking about the potential of humanity and the ramifications of technology and evolution affecting the species, it can often feel claustrophobic and small when the wider world might as well not exist beyond the main cast and their actions. It's why i prefer 0079 over either of its sequels, because the original show, character focused as it is, does take strides to emphasize that there is a greater conflict happening around the story. Its set within a war rather than being the story of the war. Zeta and ZZ can both feel like the entire Gryps War and Neo Zeon War orbit entirely around the actions of the Argama and her crew. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Mar 1, 2025 |
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Mar 1, 2025 18:37
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Zeta in particular has a lot of characters and arcs which exist to mirror previous characters. The point of this seems to be what I think is the central theme of the work: Which is to question if humankind can change, or if we're doomed to never learn and keep repeating the same tragedies over and over again.
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Mar 1, 2025 22:29
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ZZ is just the Goonies but the kids gave giant murder robots.
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Mar 1, 2025 23:39
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fartknocker posted:Victory is very good, but has some absolutely wacky insanity at times, and Tomino was going through one of his phases. That said, I loved the character and mecha designs, and the music, and while it's not perfect, I think it might be my favorite full length series. He says that the music was inspired by seeing a buxom local outside the gates of Auschwitz and I think that sums up the entire series. War and Pieces fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Mar 2, 2025 |
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Mar 2, 2025 20:11
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Burns posted:ZZ is just IINO: Dear Mr. Bright. We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in the brig for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain… JUDAU & ELLE: …and a junkrat… PLE: …and a basketcase… LEINA: …a princess… BEECHA & MONDO: …and a criminal. IINO: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Newtype Club.
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Mar 2, 2025 20:30
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There is a strong theme in MSG about the White Base crew going from a desperate ragtag of refugees and survivors trying to figure out how to use bleeding edge prototype military hardware to not die, and they usually have friction with the formal military hierarchy once they finally meet up with it. It's not surprising only a few of them actually remain in the military, as far as I can tell. There's a strong theme of how despite the ideals involved, on the ground there's not a lot of difference as far as civilians are concerned. Though Zeta Gundam definitely has a contrast with its protagonist being a maniac with zero chill who picks fights with the fascist space cops and joins a terrorist group at the first opportunity. He's great.
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Mar 24, 2025 05:37
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after an intro to the franchise via War in the Pocket, i've decided to start at the beginning and watch all of Gundam. i'm about ten episodes into the original series. mobile suit gundam is fun, doesn't feel that much different from other contemporary space opera anime so far (although the one thing it doesn't have is a banger soundtrack; the music's fine, but nowhere near the bombast of, say, a Matsumoto show). i feel like there's influence from giant robot shows, but i have no experience with those so it's hard for me to say how much is that and how much is MSG doing its own thing that episode where Amuro spends much of the episode being (understandably!) angsty about being sucked into war and then perks right the gently caress up when Matilda shows up, that was kind of funny though.  "maaaaaaan. war sucks. i don't wanna do this poo poo." "hey. sup. you did alright out there." "omg yes i will get in the robot for youuuuuuu"this isn't me pissing on the show, honest; i can see a 15 year old dude being like that. but it's still kinda funny to me. genuinely appreciate that so far the show doesn't usually go out of its way to have info dumps about the setting, since it can be fun to get that trickle of insights about what's going on in the setting. i know that Minovski particles are a big factor in the setting but the show just treats them as a thing that has consequences and that's fine. we did get a couple minutes of "zeon is a dictatorship whose ruling family wants to conquer all of humanity" which is fine but makes me wonder if the showrunners had a moment of "hmm, maybe we're not being explicit enough that the space prussians* are fascists, we ought to really spell this out in case people get the wrong idea" kind of wonder if the civilian refugees on White Base were what inspired Macross to have a whole town full of civilians on the ship. i will also admit that it took me way too long to realize that the very start of the opening titles, where it looks like the "diamond ring" of an eclipse ending, is (probably??) the moment when that Side slammed into the Earth and not the Sun peeking out behind the Earth (please correct me if i'm wrong) *i think that's what the costuming is supposed to evoke? i could be wrong and/or influenced by my prior experience with Legend of Galactic Heroes
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May 30, 2025 15:12
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also, is the original series also sometimes referred to as 0079, or is that something different?
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May 30, 2025 15:12
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Yes 0079 is retroactively the name of the original series (universal century year 0079).
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May 30, 2025 16:11
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:*i think that's what the costuming is supposed to evoke? i could be wrong and/or influenced by my prior experience with Legend of Galactic Heroes Zeon is actually closer to WWII Imperial Japan in how it operates and its rhetoric, but with a lot of Nazi iconography on top of it for style/to not make the subject of criticism too obvious for 70's Japan. That said, they get even more blatant with the Nazi thing down the line. Which still doesn't stop some people from stanning Zeon as the good guys who did nothing wrong. And yeah, because "Mobile Suit: Gundam" is both the name of the first series and the franchise as a whole, people often use 0079 to specifically refer to the first series.
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May 30, 2025 16:25
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Yeah, the original series will be referred to interchangeably by fans as 0079, MSG, or sometimes ‘First Gundam’ (I think the latter was more a Japanese fan thing, but I’ve seen it in English over the years as well).
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May 30, 2025 16:48
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thanks all! figured that was the case but wanted to be sure this is not important at all and it could just be my brain/memory playing tricks on me or something, but the Japanese words they're saying that get subtitled as "Federation" are not what I remember hearing from other anime space operas that refer to an "Earth Federation"; are there different words in Japanese that are getting translated to the same English word? maybe it's just standing out more to me because the show (understandably) is saying it more since it's so much more central to the plot.
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May 30, 2025 17:13
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Could well just be a translation choice, Japanese has plenty of its own language weirdness. Matilda basically gives the desperate, terrified and demoralised crew the first genuinely positive reinforcement from an authority figure they've had since they had to flee their homes, no wonder they all love her. Also probably based on supply officers being unsung heroes who soldiers in similar circumstances are ecstatic to see, meaning they'll actually be fed and have clean clothes and such for a while. Gundam seems to in general take a 'hit the ground running' approach to storytelling, with relatively little exposition breaks or narration (at least to explain things, the narrator tends to more set the mood) and leaves it up to you to figure things out by implication and how characters talk about them. IMO it also helps bring across the idea of the characters being just small game pieces on a very big board, often who can't even see the edges of the square they're on. Also kinda funny for a 1979 show that's clearly obviously taking influence from both Star Trek and Star Wars (I still reckon the White Base wouldn't look too out of place in a Federation fleet, maybe with a plainer colour scheme) in a way that's an interesting dialogue. Also lol to anyone who thinks you can't have sci-fi that has in-depth storytelling, character development and moral ambiguity AND have spectacular laser battles every episode AND sell tons of massively profitable merchandise.
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May 30, 2025 17:53
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White Base is not something that would look at home in Star Trek's Starfleet in my opinion. i guess as far as anime ships go it might be closer than usual thanks to those big engine nacelles in the back. the overall design feels like a sphinx to me, with "legs" on the bottom and a ship superstructure on top, to the point where i'd be a bit surprised if that wasn't at least partly the intent. edit: not to say it would look totally out of place in Star Trek, just that I don't think it'd fit as a Starfleet ship
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May 30, 2025 18:01
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From what I understand the White Base design was recycled from an earlier project and designed as a toy first. It really shows in my opinion, thing looks extremely out of place with the rest of the Fed ships. Tomino has publicly complained about it a lot over the years. Even the name is probably a Tomino complaining about it, he wanted it a different color but the sponsors demanded white so it's just called White Base instead of having a real name. Later takes on the design like the Argama and Albion fit a lot better. Lazy Fair fucked around with this message at 19:40 on May 30, 2025 |
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May 30, 2025 19:33
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Zeon ships are mostly just Enterprise turned upside down.
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May 30, 2025 19:36
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Lazy Fair posted:From what I understand the White Base design was recycled from an earlier project and designed as a toy first. It really shows in my opinion, thing looks extremely out of place with the rest of the Fed ships. Tomino has publicly complained about it a lot over the years. Yeah, White Base (and also Haro) were both recycled from Daitarn 3, which had a much more Saturday Morning Kid's Show vibe.
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May 30, 2025 20:53
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Come to think of it, the White Base does remind me of a flying sphinx. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLkCC3EfD7M Although I'd always liked how the design stands out and has some sense to it, barely. For one, unlike most other Gundam spaceships, it's actually designed to land, and having 'legs' positioned so that mobile suits can deploy right onto the ground makes sense, like WW2 landing craft. That said, the battleship style in the original were always silly, especially given how many characters died from direct hits to the bridge, and the mobile suits themselves specifically have the cockpit in centre mass and rely on cameras, so clearly the technology is there.
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May 31, 2025 04:17
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