Watching all the Gundam

Hell, its up on Youtube.

I actually really liked MS IGLOO. The Graphics (especially in the first two collections) are straight out of a cut scene from a PS One or early PS 2 game and can be more than a bit grating at times, but I really think it did a good job fleshing out the conflict while keeping up the mature tone of the OYW. I'd like to see more stuff like it, as well as 08th MS Team.

inb4 HERP DERP SCHERZO'S A ZEON FANBOY

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

It's not as though MS IGLOO puts Zeon in an especially good light. The protagonists are treated like dirt by their commanding officers*

, and the faction as a whole looks even more Nazi-like than usual what with all the random Norse mythology references and the guy who is essentially an SS officer.

edited 13th Apr '11 6:15:17 PM by Nyktos

I guess it is.

That and the fact that their Super Prototype test pilots are all a bunch of manic-depressive, pill popping madmen. :3

I thought it helped flesh out Zeon as a faction more. It just goes to show how fleshed out the UC universe is, and I'd like to see more of that.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

Just finished Victory!

Is it bad that I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment just from watching a TV show?

I'm already 2 episodes into See D Destiny. A dub is a nice change of pace after all those fansubs.

The first half of Destiny was really cool. The rest...not so much.

@Nyktos

I searched for it way back when, had trouble finding (all) of it and never really tried again. That may explain my woeful ignorance about its availability.

MS IGLOO 2: Gravity Front is not up on youtube, but MS IGLOO and MS IGLOO Apocalypse are on their. MS IGLOO and Apocalypse follows the same set of character throughout the OYW, while Gravity Front is a set of vignettes about Feddie grunts on the European front tied together by the theme of a shimigami.... for some reason. It's still good though as it shows how the little guys fought in the war.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

Just watched episode 1 of Unicorn. Wanted to find the dub, but couldn't because PlayStation Network lied to me.

"badass" doesn't anything in after used end fail be fine.

I have started the first episode of Unicorn at least 4 times, but due to various circumstances I never got more than ten minutes in.

How OK are you with streaming? Because I could show you some alternatives if you want - for that and the other episodes.

edited 15th Apr '11 4:07:00 AM by Iaculus

What's precedent ever done for us?

Streaming's fine by me.

"badass" doesn't anything in after used end fail be fine.

Roger that. Will send a PM.

What's precedent ever done for us?

So here I am, in the first few episodes of Destiny, and Lunamaria flies a RED ZAKU? Seriously?

I had heard there were ZAK Us in the Cosmic Era, but I certainly wasn't expecting Char in a miniskirt. Silly me, I thought that the "mysterious" blond masked man was going to be the CHAR.

That is the one thing not even a clairvoyant person could expect.

Luna's not really A CHAR, despite the red ZAKU. Neo is definitely Char-ier than Luna.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It's a knee-jerk reaction, I see Red Zaku, I think Char.

On a related note, I just stayed up till 4 AM building a Real Grade model of Char's Zaku without adequate tools ( I started at 9, but took a dinner break partway through). That damn tubing drove me insane! So many tiny pieces, a spring that can flick them off at any moment, and snapping the stomach onto the chest was unbelievably difficult. Not to mention the upper arms were total bullcrap.

Still, I'm inordinately proud of myself for finishing my first gunpla since I was 12 (or maybe 10, when did they stop selling Wing models in mainstream stores?) in one night.

Oh! Oh! I always wanted to watch Gundam, but there's just WAY TOO MANY installments so I was 0_0 and stayed off for over two years by now.

Anyone knows which one I can/should start with?

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Johnny "Crimson Lightning" Ridden would be disappointed to hear you say that.

edited 19th Apr '11 3:06:05 AM by Driscoll

WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A DIALOG BOX INTERRUPT GAMEPLAY.

Despite having seen more Gundam than any sane person should have, I still have no clue who Johnny Ridden is. I only know mentioning him makes /m/ angry for some reason. The Other Wiki tells me he was the pilot of one of the Variations models.

Dammit, after 9 full length series an OVA and 3 movies, I should actually get people's references.

Depends on what you're looking for. I wouldn't recommend starting with a sequel for obvious reasons, but that still leaves a lot of choices.

• Mobile Suit Gundam started it all, but is 30 years old, so it's really dated (in more ways than one).
  • The UC OVAs are a good place to start, but are very different. Gundam0080 is six-episode character-driven story that takes place on a neutral colony; 08thMSTeam is as Real Robot as Gundam gets but has a Capulet Counterpart love story that some people can't stand; Gundam0083 has glorious mecha designs and fight scenes but terrible plot and characters.
• G Gundam is a shamelessly Super Robot show with the Hot Blood turned Up To Eleven.
• Gundam Wing has a more political plot with more philosophy than usual (musing about Actual Pacifism and such), but flat characters that are more placeholders for ideals than actual people.
• Gundam X is a good self-contained action-adventure, but suffers from huge pacing issues at the end (it was cut from 52 episodes to 39) and is only available fansubbed.
• Gundam Seed is very similar to Mobile Suit Gundam in the beginning but does its own thing starting around the midpoint of the series; it's mostly a Love It or Hate It thing, though it catches a lot of retroactive flak from its sequel, which is nigh-universally despised in the English-speaking fandom.
• Gundam 00 is the most recent series, but I wouldn't recommend it as your first Gundam. It's pretty meta — you really a working knowledge of Gundam tropes in order to "get" it.

Incidentally, some of these are on Youtube, so you can watch them without having to buy or steal them. I'll post links once I get home from work and I can get on Youtube.

edited 19th Apr '11 9:37:35 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Don't feel bad about it. He's a back story character who was introduced in Mobile Suit Variations. He's a canon character, but he never actually shows up in any of the major shows, only in some of the Gundam manga and games.

Johnny Ridden

The whole butt of the jokes is that everybody (even in universe) mistakes him as Char because he has a similar paint scheme on his mobile suit.

edited 19th Apr '11 9:35:55 AM by Driscoll

WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A DIALOG BOX INTERRUPT GAMEPLAY.

IMO watch the Mobile Suit Gundam movies and dive straight in to the good stuff in Zeta Gundam and go from there. Wing, Seed are also good places to start... just try not to get caught up in the Seed Destiny flack.

Johnny is a real Ascended Extra as he has made it into the Dynasty Warriors Gundam and other games. Even then he is mistaken for Char many times but he uses a dark red mobile suit vs Char's Off Red closer to pink suits.

edited 19th Apr '11 9:43:26 AM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Please, please don't do this. Fanboys worship the ground Zeta Gundam walks on for some reason, and it's depressing and stupid for the vast majority of its run.

Your Mileage May Vary, obviously.

Please note: I'm not saying that Zeta Gundam is bad, I'm saying that it's not a good place to start (even after watching the MSG movies). Zeta's Darker and Edgier-ness and Downer Ending is an anomaly in the Gundam franchise; if you watch it first and like it, then you're going to be pissed that the rest of Gundam isn't like it, and if you watch it and don't like it, then you're going to be put off the rest of the franchise that isn't really very similar at all.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Very much disagree with ya there on many points but I am really not going to get into it right this second.

Besides saying the first Gundam series is really not a worthy watch since it never aged well and everything was corrected in the movies and the next series from there is Zeta Gundam which has aged very well and is very good.

edited 19th Apr '11 10:00:16 AM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

And this fanboy loves the show for the exact same reasons, because it depicts War Is Hell perfectly.

But I do agree, do not watch Zeta Gundam before the first Mobile Suit Gundam. I highly recommend watching the movie trilogy version because it streamlines the story and cuts out some of the Super Robot-yness that still lingered in the original show.

Uh... if you're comparing it to the alternate universe Gundams, then maybe, but most of the Universal Century Gundam shows (especially after the first show) are Darker and Edgier, and most of them have Downer or Bittersweat Endings.

edited 19th Apr '11 10:10:25 AM by Driscoll

WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A DIALOG BOX INTERRUPT GAMEPLAY.