EPT[G]Sentenal's Guide to Gundam - Page 4
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Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
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Wrongspeedy
United States1655 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + On April 30 2012 06:59 Sentenal wrote: On April 30 2012 04:21 Wrongspeedy wrote: Dude stop the Char dissing crap. He is the definition of someone who actually had to work hard to become who he was. Amuro and just about every other main character was someone with very little experience and a shit ton of talent that let them survive long enough to become who they were. Char and his other "personalities" were always someone who had to work extremely hard to get to the position they had. He fought and fought and fought and fought until the universe feared him onSIGHT. He is the most realistic character in all of the stories because of that alone. You don't become better at something just because your talented, you are good at something because you have talent, and you work harder than the person next to you. Chars characters were always the inspiration for the main character to progress and become the pilots they became. Nothing made him a good pilot except the sheer will power and hours he put into becoming better than those around him. So you can shit all over him if you want but he is the only reason the main characters have to work hard at all, and the only reason they become anything more than just naturally talented pilots. His reputation came from his work ethic and his ability to survive any battle he got himself into. Most realistic character in all of the Gundam series, stop shitting on him please. I wasn't shitting on him, I was saying that he wasn't a godly pilot. And he wasn't. 100% of Char's fame as an ace pilot comes is him blowing up an bunch of practically defenseless Battleships at the Battle of Loum, before the Federation had any Mobile Suits, and didn't even field Balls at the time. Is he a good character? Yes, hes a great character. He is iconic? Yes. Does he work hard for what he has? Yes. Is he a top tier pilot? Hell no. On April 30 2012 04:53 Endymion wrote: I feel like zeta was so unrealistic, the kid just abandon's his family and his nation for no reason other than some pilot insulted him, then he is just some super gosu pilot and blows tons of military pilots out of the sky.. Admittedly, the first part of Zeta, along with one brief arc towards the end, are parts that I felt were done poorly. Zamille's reason for joining the AEUG were done very poorly. The reason was that virtually everyone in the colonies really hate the Titans, and the thing with Jerid and later the interrogation pushed him over the edge. And he was already an autistic, angry kid. The series didn't do a good job conveying that. Also, Gato was in CCA? When? I must have watched CCA and Stardust Memory together >.< Its been years since I have seen either. | ||
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Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
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Wrongspeedy
United States1655 Posts
On April 30 2012 14:46 Sentenal wrote: Yeah, I'm like 99% sure that Gato was only in 0083. Almost completely sure his debut was in 0083, and CCA came out before it. Yeah and CCA happened UC 0093 storyline wise, and Gato died in UC 0083 ; ) It was my mistake, still my favorite character. Maybe even a better pilot than Char ; ) eheheheheheeheh | ||
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robaq
Poland186 Posts
On April 30 2012 07:17 Sentenal wrote: Well, Zeta and 08th MS Team are different anime, so you shouldn't really expect one out of the other. One is a short OVA side story about Grunts in the field, the other is a 50 episode series detailing an entire civil war. Anyway, the first few episodes of Zeta are done poorly, but trust me, it gets tons better, and quickly. Yeah, but the thing that bothers me is that even though 08th MS Team is a side story about faceless soldiers, it does a better job telling it than Zeta does. I mean, the characters are all grunts, but there is a lot of diversity among them. You can literally believe that they are some random guys thrown into the same team and the relationship between them is developing throughout the entire series. The way the characters were presented simply made me care about them. And then I'm comparing this to Zeta, where main character is a emotionally unstable pilot kid which feels so one-dimensional that like 100% of his actions are easily predictable, and other characters are just 'meh' minus a few exceptions. I can accept that Kamille's feelings are severely hurt because of what he suffered, but he is still just a bad main character. The only way of justifying this is that this anime is aimed towards a younger audience, but hell, when i was a kid i wanted to see lasers and huge robots smashing themselves to pieces, not some kid sobbing for the half of the episode. I'm not bashing Zeta in any way, it does a great job at telling a story of a civil war involving a lot of factions and political intrigue between them, but It's hard to believe that this is the best Gundam out there. | ||
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Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Zeta_Gundam#Reception Everyone will have differing opinions about what is the best and what not (for example, SEED is my favorite, and some people loath that show), but its a fact that Zeta is probably the most critically acclaimed one. How far are you in Zeta? Because Kamille does develop nicely as a character, especially once you get onto Earth. | ||
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robaq
Poland186 Posts
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EchOne
United States2906 Posts
I had a fair few hundred words of complaints after I finished Zeta Gundam, but none of those were actually about Kamille. For me the gestalt of Kamille's character ended up being far more interesting and textured than Shiro Amada's. Maybe it's just an issue of scale; 08th MS team only had 11 episodes to work with, and if you compare the first 11 episodes of Zeta Gundam with all of 08th MS team, yes the latter show ends up being more economical with its character development. Overall I preferred Zeta for a number of reasons: 1.) The romance with Four felt more suspenseful and less arbitrary. Four has the momentary freedom from almost total slavery, Kamille has a less intense freedom but still a change of social contexts (return from military to civilian setting for a boy who was civilian for 99% of his life), and they both have the connection of Newtype + Cyber Newtype. They're also both mentally adolescent at the time, so love at first sight might not be a surprise. Shiro and Aina have a completely unromantic encounter, and then the second time they meet in person, BAM, love at first sight. Btw they're fully grown well adjusted adults, but somehow it remains completely predictable that they're going to disregard literally everything for this newfound relationship. Four of course is a psycho killer so the entire show you never know wtf is going to happen with them. (Rosamia felt unnecessary entirely though.) 2.) Kamille is stuck proving himself and trying to escape boyhood through his entire show. Shiro is a grown-ass man and after a couple sick operations and learning not to be an idiot in this new terrain, he pretty much commands as much loyalty as he's going to get, with only more nods to heroism and backstory to come. The scale of challenges Kamille or characters like him contend with make some people go "Wow look at all this shit he does when he was previously a complete newbie. This is completely unrealistic." Fair enough. A hero's job is to defy the impossible, but the execution is important: it has to be engaging, not arresting. I would argue the execution was great in both shows. I really enjoyed Shiro's multiple fights with Norris and his noble sacrifice against Gilnias. I enjoyed the way Zeta Gundam handled Kamille's trials even more. Consider Shiro handling his mates dying. Norris finally kills a third nameless Guntank crew and "K that's it. I'm gonna ragequit the military." Obviously it wasn't exactly like that and he must've had other reasons, but the execution made what should've been an intense, somber moment, border on humorous. Compare that with the dozens of deaths of named characters Kamille contends with. How stressful are those situations, before, during, and after? How much history have they built and now lost? How can Kamille respond, how does he, and why? He even needs to deal with the enemies he killed through the vengeance of Jerid (albeit laughable in his own way.) 3.) The factional power play in Zeta Gundam was miles more engaging. You have the original Deikun Newtype Theory, Char's Dakar treatise on the environment, the Titans' ascendancy plus differences within it through Bask and Scirroco, Neo-Zeon dynastism through Haman and Axis, the antiquated Earth Federation now doing silly things like imprisoning Amuro, Karaba now doing silly things like giving Amuro a mobile suit to kill all the things with... On the other hand Gilnias had to have been one of the most one-dimensional and stereotype-evil archvillains ever to play in Gundam. The unarticulated brinksmanship of the general who tries to have Shiro executed isn't much more developed. This last field is probably outside 08th MS Team's intended focus, but I feel like the time they did spend articulating factions, leaders, and motivations could have seen improvement. | ||
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Dullahan
United States248 Posts
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Ack1027
United States7873 Posts
I watched a ton of anime when I was younger and had more time but honestly Gundam was one of the few I could never get into. Maybe it was because I tried it pretty much immediately after Evangelion. I'm not well-versed at all even after reading your whole guide but I was just turned off by war-politics and fictional space politics. The few series I tried watching I fell asleep or kept checking the time of the episodes to see how long it was gonna take to end. I think character development is one of my favorite parts of anime and lots of people recommended various gundams to me but all the characters I watched were whiny or uninteresting. Anyway, I had a sour experience with it but your guide is really great and I hope it encourages people to watch gundam. If it tells you anything I just liked the silliness of G Gundam cuz it didn't really take itself seriously plus master asia is a hilarious character compared to like heero yuy or some other gay shit. | ||
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robaq
Poland186 Posts
On May 01 2012 05:02 EchOne wrote: Try watching films from before your parents were born and then complain about oldschoolness. I don't see why should I do this since i have clear difficulty watching an early 80s anime. I always thought watching movies is about enjoyment, not "hurr i'm watching 100 years old films, i'm such an connaisseur". The thing is, in my opinion (which shouldn't be something that important to you, since you're a bigger Gundam fan than me) Zeta hasn't aged well, and through its oldschoolness I can't appreciate things that you can. And holy shit, just let me finish the series so I can have a more developed opinion (ep15 now). | ||
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Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
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GhostOwl
766 Posts
Both the original and the sequel. Kira, the main character, always crying about killing and then doing it anyway, and then beats down his opponent because he's a special kind of human. The OP is wrong about there being character development...the characters were incredibly shallow and same. I found it really difficult to like Kira, he snatched his friend's girlfriend away from him and then beat him down physically. But the audience sees him as a good guy. The only thing redeeming about Gundam Seed was only the Gundams itself, they look decent. Kira was probably the worst main character of all gundam series. I could bear even Shin more than Kira. EDIT: Lol at OP getting super pissed, asks me a question, then bans me from his blog. I wasn't even trying to insult him and he takes it offensively. I'm sorry I dissed a series you like but you should realize people have different tastes. You got anger problems man... | ||
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Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
On May 02 2012 15:00 GhostOwl wrote: Gundam Seed was trash. Both the original and the sequel. Kira, the main character, always crying about killing and then doing it anyway, and then beats down his opponent because he's a special kind of human. The OP is wrong about there being character development...the characters were incredibly shallow and same. I found it really difficult to like Kira, he snatched his friend's girlfriend away from him and then beat him down physically. But the audience sees him as a good guy. The only thing redeeming about Gundam Seed was only the Gundams itself, they look decent. Kira was probably the worst main character of all gundam series. I could bear even Shin more than Kira. "OP's opinion is wrong" Please, spare me. I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with my opinion, but when they start spewing crap like this, then we have a problem. Kira was forced into a war, and killing his own people, fighting against his own best friend, because if he didn't, both him and his other friends would die. If that isn't cause for sorrow, then I don't know what is. Its ridiculous for you to complain about Kira's reaction to the situation he was placed in. Do you want a soul-less, boring, killing machine, rather than a human being as your MC? Kira wasn't a trained soldier, wtf do you expect out of him? Characters were shallow? How are they shallow? How are they the same? Lets just take 6 major characters from the story, shall we? Kira, already talked about him. Fllay, nothing like Kira. Lacus, nothing either of those two. Athrun, Cagalli, Mu La Flagga. Every single character is distinct. Outside of Lacus, who didn't have nearly the screen time as the others, each one of those got enormous amounts of development as the series went on. This isn't even counting other characters like Miriallia, Dearka, Yzak, Natarle, or Murrue, all of which developed as well. Now compare them to characters like Apolly, Reccoa, Henken, or Katz. You say he beats his opponents down because his a special kind of human. How is that any different at all from Amuro or Kamille? Or Judau? Or hell, even Banagher in Unicorn. Just as much of their piloting skills comes comes from being Newtypes, as Kira's does being a coordinator. I assume that since you are singling out SEED in particular, you must like other Gundam series, like UC, right? And for some reason that bothers you in SEED, but doesn't bother you in those, even though its handled exactly the same way? And with Fllay, maybe you missed the whole thing with her being completely obsessed with revenge, the fact that she didn't give a shit about her "boy friend", and how she was going out of her way to manipulate Kira into killing as many Coordinators as possible? I mean, this was a really crucial plotpoint, and was extremely obvious to the viewer, but from how you describe it, you must have missed it somehow. "Beat him down physically"? Sai attacked him. What was he supposed to do, let it happen? Not to mention, "beating him down physically" only amounted to restraining him (twisting arm behind back), and throwing him to the ground. Oh yeah, he really whopped the poor guy's ass. | ||
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imMUTAble787
United States680 Posts
im an anime newb, but im gonna go back and watch the main gundam line now. + Show Spoiler + so far my favorite gundam moment was in gundam wing when the 4 pilots are fighting the remote mobile dolls and qatra and dorothy both realize at the same time who is coordinating each. so awesome. | ||
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KazeHydra
Japan2788 Posts
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Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
On May 02 2012 16:54 KazeHydra wrote: Sent reminding me I actually enjoyed watching SEED even more than I recall (I blame Destiny). Kind of want to re-watch it now. The SEED remastered version is still airing right? I think I'll marathon that when it's done :D Wait, actually that'll be awhile...hmm, guess I can watch the older ones while I wait for it. Yeah, SEED HD Remaster is still ongoing. Looks like the Official Youtube stream for that is to episode 19. Of the actual HD broadcast, its up to like... 16 or 17, but subs have been falling behind on them. Its hard for me to want to rewatch it with the HD Remaster though, not after they ruined the first ED  | ||
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Wrongspeedy
United States1655 Posts
You can watch SEED and some of the other series there. I actually kind of like Brave Battle Warriors lol | ||
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Jayme
United States5866 Posts
I've seen like all of these but I've somehow missed Unicorn. Holy god the way this show looks is just...astounding. I liked SEED. However, I have a really difficult time seperating SEED from Destiny. Kira really did develop as a character in SEED. He was a bit of a whiny bitch for me but he did develop and actually grew a spine as the series went on. Shinn however. Dear god I hated that character. On May 02 2012 15:00 GhostOwl wrote: Gundam Seed was trash. Both the original and the sequel. Kira, the main character, always crying about killing and then doing it anyway, and then beats down his opponent because he's a special kind of human. The OP is wrong about there being character development...the characters were incredibly shallow and same. I found it really difficult to like Kira, he snatched his friend's girlfriend away from him and then beat him down physically. But the audience sees him as a good guy. The only thing redeeming about Gundam Seed was only the Gundams itself, they look decent. Kira was probably the worst main character of all gundam series. I could bear even Shin more than Kira. I think you missed the part where Fllay you know...used sex, charm, feminine wiles, whatever you want here to manipulate Kira to kill coordinaters so SHE could get revenge. I dunno. I think most hate for SEED makes some sort of sense but you seemed to just miss the entire concept of the series. | ||
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Rapture_FBGM
United States36 Posts
+1 million respect, brownie, and Mario Party points for this thread. Awesome read and guide, got my jimmies rustled in the very best of ways. Great post OP! | ||
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