Watching all the Gundam

If you're going for darkly ironic, Downer endings, I think War In The Pocket did that the best.

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

All UC series have some aspect of downer so and so Zeta was hardly unique in that aspect. I said watch the movies first then Zeta as that set the stage for everything else to come. If you want Lighter and Softer hit up the alternate universes such as Wing, Seed and Large Ham G Gundam. If ya want to keep the same pace stick with more UC. Then top it off with Gundam00 or Turn A Gundam whenever. These two don't really watch first because the really play with other Gundam's tropes at times In A Good Way though some say Turn A is the culmination of the best of Gundam if you can get past the odd mech designs.

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

That ending was a CMOA since Bernie was able to take the most advanced Gundam of the One Year War out of commission in a Zaku II Kai with only a heat hawk, grenades, balloons, and a smoke screen. Not many pilots would be able to brag about something like that. Manly tears were shed though since he didn't live through his accomplishment.

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

Most UC is darker than most AU, true, but Zeta Gundam takes the metaphorical cake.

Ending tropes spoilered:

• Mobile Suit Gundam: Earn Your Happy Ending. Lalah died and the White Base blew up, but the Federation wins, the Zabis die, and everyone makes it out of the final battle in one piece.
  • Gundam 0080: Bittersweet Ending. The colony is saved and Chris survives, but Bernie died needlessly.
  • The08th MS Team: Earn Your Happy Ending: Shiro is maimed and branded a traitor, and Aina had to let Shiro kill Ginias, but they both escape and have Babies Ever After.
  • Gundam 0083: Bittersweet Ending. Operation Stardust succeeds, but no one important dies, and Kou makes up with Nina in the end. For those of us who hated Kou and Nina, it's still a Bittersweet Ending because they both survive, but so do Keith and Mora.
• Zeta Gundam: Downer Ending. Kill Em All, Pyrrhic Victory, The Bad Guy Wins, protagonist Mind Raped.
• Gundam ZZ: Bittersweet Ending. The good guys win, but Haman is Driven to Suicide despite Judau's attempts to convince her to live, and he ends up leaving the Earth Sphere — and all his friends and family — because of the effect the war had on him.
• Chars Counterattack: Bittersweet Ending. Neo Zeon is defeated and Earth saved, but only at the cost of a Heroic Sacrifice from Amuro himself.
• Gundam F 91: N/A. It has a non-ending since it was basically the first of a compilation movie trilogy for a series that doesn't exist.
• Victory Gundam: Bittersweet Ending. The good guys win, but it's pretty much Kill Em All outside the main couple.

And let's compare the AUs just for fun.

• G Gundam: Earn Your Happy Ending. Domon goes through a lot of shit, but gets the girl and saves the day in the end.
• Gundam Wing: Happy Ending. Good guys win. World peace is achieved. Until the OVA, anyway... then it's re-achieved, but for real this time.
• Gundam X: Happy Ending. Stupid jerks get themselves killed. Good guys live happily ever after. Garrod is awesome.
• Turn A Gundam: Bittersweet Ending. The Earth and the Moon make peace, but Kihel stays on the Moon away from her friends and family (except for Harry), and Loran chooses service to Dianna over life with Sochie, despite the fact that Dianna seems to be dying. Or at least that's how I interpreted the ending; it's sort of vague. You could see it as a straight up Happy Ending except for Sochie as the Unlucky Childhood Friend.
• Gundam Seed: Bittersweet Ending. Both sides are bludgeoned into ending the war, but they don't achieve real peace, and several main characters die in the process.
• Gundam Seed Destiny: Bittersweet Ending or Happy Ending depending on whether you think Shinn or Kira is the "real" main character, respectively. For Shinn, Durandal, Rey, and Talia die, and ZAFT is defeated. For Kira, the Destiny Plan is averted and there's now a real chance for peace. For the Earth Alliance, it's a Downer Ending because they got fucked.
• Gundam 00: Happy Ending via Deus ex Machina. GN pixie dust for everyone!

So yeah. tl;dr, Zeta's the only Gundam with a really downer ending.

edited 19th Apr '11 1:08:11 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It was far from happy, but I don't see how you can say the bad guys won. Sure, Axis Zeon ended up in a rather favourable position, but they hardly ruled the galaxy at the beginning of ZZ, and besides that they weren't the main villains of Zeta in the first place. The Titans got their asses kicked, even if it cost the AEUG dearly.

I guess it is.

I have always thought it's a borderline downer ending because well it could of been a lot worse they did win! The Titans are gone and even from Kamile's perspective worse has happened to other main characters. it is the darkest but then so was The Empire Strikes Back.

The Movies though bumped it up to almost happy but slightly bittersweet ending.

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Honestly, some people who focus on the ending of Zeta seem to forget that ZZ is season 2 of Zeta, not just a sequel, and nullified much of the downer ending. Kamille ends up getting somewhat better, Neo-Zeon is defeated despite the AEUG being weakened at the end of Zeta, and the majority of the good guys make it through the show. The only downer part from Zeta that wasn't really reversed was that the AEUG lost a lot of men, and against all odds, Yazan Gable was the only badguy able to Karma Houdini through both shows, though he doesn't have much of a part in ZZ

edited 19th Apr '11 10:26:29 PM by Driscoll

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

One advantage to starting with the original series instead of the compilation movies it's legally streaming at a number of sites.

Myself, I started with Wing, then I saw the DV Ds of the first series, then Char's Counterattack, and then watched Zeta. I wouldn't recommend it, since a few plot points in CCA are dependent on Zeta.

Re: Zeta, how can you say the bad guys don't win? Sure, the Titans are pretty much completely destroyed, but the AEUG is reduced to exactly one ship with one (mediocre) pilot, leaving Axis virtually unopposed in the Earth Sphere. That's why I called it a Pyrrhic Victory.

edited 20th Apr '11 6:04:38 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Because Neo-Zeon only won the battle. Neo-Zeon hadn't accomplished any of it's goals other than eliminating the Titans and weakening AEUG. Neo-Zeon wasn't unopposed because neither the Federation nor the AEUG had been eliminated. It was a downer ending and a Pyrrhic Victory for the AEUG, yes, but the bad guys didn't win because it was also a Cliffhanger ending and the war wasn't over yet.

edited 20th Apr '11 6:27:01 AM by Driscoll

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

Taking into account ZZ that's true, yes, but that's only because of the Enemy Civil War that takes place during ZZ. If we go purely by were things stand as of the end of Zeta, Axis just won thanks to an Enemy Civil War. The Federation basically split between the AEUG and the Titans, and then they proceeded to fight each other more than Axis. The Titans were virtually wiped out to the man, and the AEUG had literally one ship with one pilot left. It's only the events of ZZ (you know, a new Gundam and another Newtype to pilot it) that salvaged things at all.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

One problem I had with the end of Zeta was that it didn't feel like an ending.

Of course, this was because ZZ was a direct continuation. ZZ really dragged in the middle, IMHO, when everyone was wandering around the Earth for eternity.

I actually wouldn't recommend that someone new to Gundam dive into UC right away. I'd recommend starting with Wing and then moving on either to Seed or the movie trilogy for the original. From there on, one should have a pretty good feel for the franchise and be able to move onto pretty much anything.

Me? I started with 00, then SEED, then Wing, and then I started watching the UC stuff.

Wow, I bet that was... really confusing. The first season is basically Gundam Deconstructed, and then the second season is Gundam with the trope-o-meter turned Up To Eleven. Neither works very well unless you're already familiar with the standard Gundam tropes.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

This I agree with S1 really was Gundam Deconstructed and S2 was the Gundam Reconstructed. (This is the reason why people liked S1 more than S2.)

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Not really no. Then again I understood FLCL the first time I watched it, so maybe I'm just an anomaly.

You understood FLCL?

Even the people who made it didn't understand it.

ZZ has nothing to do with it. I find it inconceivable that a Cliffhanger ending can be considered a bad guys wins when the story was obviously not over yet. You don't even need to take ZZ into account in this reasoning.

Heh, most people seem to have a problem with the first 20 episodes of ZZ because of the extreme mood whiplash. I found the entire show enjoyable because I had a heads up about it and enjoyed those episodes the same way I enjoyed watching G Gundam.

I only saw part of FLCL. I did, however, enjoy Space Runaway Ideon and understood it.

Started with Wing on Toonami. I got into UC Gundam because I mentioned to a friend of mine that I didn't care for the nigh invulnerability the Gundams in Wing had. He busted out a copy of the VHS English dubbed movie trilogy and I haven't turned back from UC.

G Gundam I watched and enjoyed mainly on a So Bad It's Good premise. I tried watching SEED with a friend of mine who said "Don't watch it without me because I'll do Mystery Science Theater 3000 comments for you!" I tried watching it with him but I found it so boring we dropped it after just a few episodes. I may give it a try again in the future. Haven't seen anything of 00 or any of the other Gundam shows yet.

edited 21st Apr '11 12:07:30 AM by Driscoll

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

Re: Zeta as Cliffhanger: How do you figure? The story ends with the Titans completely destroyed, the AEUG mostly destroyed, and Axis getting off relatively lightly by withdrawing from the battle early. The good guys have nothing left, while (one of) the bad guys is left in a strong position. It's basically an extended Bolivian Army Ending — the heroes are faced with a fight that they can't possibly win, but have no intention of surrendering. Taking into account the existence of ZZ, I see your point, but looking at Zeta by itself it's definitely a Downer Ending.

I don't think I'd go that far. They didn't really change anything in order to have it make more sense, they just threw in as many tropes as possible. I'd say S2 was less Gundam Reconstructed and more Gundam Trope Overdosed.

edited 21st Apr '11 7:15:18 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I figure it's self explanatory why, but I'll explain. The show never gave us an epilogue like the original MSG did.

In MSG, we see all of the leading members of the Zabi Family killed off and it is explicitly stated that the war was over. The Principality reverts back into the Republic and all of the individual plot lines were finished, including Char's ambition to take revenge on the Zabi's. The entire story was completely finished and there was little hint that MSG was even going to get a sequel (Tomino's Kill Em All tendencies was partially because he didn't like to make sequels, ironically), other than Mineva and Zenna Zabi escaping. Zeta Gundam is much different. It has no epilogue explaining how things turn out. The only thing we get is the Titan forces getting wiped out by the Colony Laser, Scirocco getting impaled, Kamille getting Mind Raped, and a shot of Char's Hyaku Shiki with the hatch popped open. Neo-Zeon pulls out to let AEUG and Titans wipe each other out, but we know that some of AEUG survives and Karaba on Earth is also still around. The military forces of the Federation that didn't go over to the Titans did not participate or support them in the last fight, so they still have some forces left over. Wong Lee and all of the financial backing and manufacturing capacity of Anaheim Electronics are still around. We also know that Neo-Zeon's forces are substantially smaller than the other factions, which necessitated their tactics to let them duke it out. I think that it is quite obvious that Zeta Gundam has a Cliffhanger ending because we are left with the story not finished and we do not know how this will play out.

edited 21st Apr '11 1:27:49 PM by Driscoll

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

Wasn't there a decent amount of Retcon ing around Mineva as well?

edited 21st Apr '11 1:30:21 PM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

If you're speaking about the manga Char's Deleted Affair, it pretty much follows the ending of MSG with the exception that M'Quve didn't die at Texas Colony, which was actually left out of the MSG movies.

Edit: Actually, I think I know what you were talking about. At the end of ZZ Gundam, you find out that the Mineva Zabi is a fake and that the real Mineva disappeared sometime between Zeta and ZZ. I think one of the Playstation Gundam games had a scene where it was implied that Char and a group actually kidnapped Mineva and that Char was sorry that her life ended up the way it did.

edited 21st Apr '11 4:31:27 PM by Driscoll

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

As of late, I've noticed a lot of hate for Zeta Gundam (Hate-a Gundam, if you will). As recently as 2008, it was held up as the gold standard. Maybe these things are cyclical.

Also, I'm pretty sure about half the American Gundam fans had Gundam Wing as their starting point, since it was the first Gundam to air on American TV. It's not a bad place to start, really.

It's just different groups of fans. The people who think True Art Is Angsty love Zeta, while the ones who are Just Here for Godzilla hate it.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Zeta is one of my favourite Gundams and I don't even like angst most of the time.

I guess it is.