Gundam AGE

I think it is covered under Don't Think, Feel and Charles Atlas Superpower, honestly. And I don't really care about how Asemu defeated the X-rounders, he is still my favorite character!

Mine as well.

Don't Think, Feel is basically the entire idea behind Asemu's super pilot thing. X-Rounders don't have superhuman strength or agility or anything. They're low-key telepaths. Their combat advantage comes from reading their opponents surface thoughts and knowing what they're gonna do, so the X-Rounder can properly counter it.

Since Asemu fights on instinct, rather than thought, they can't read him, so it becomes a battle of pure pilot skill, and Asemu happens to be a damn good pilot.

You know what?

I totally love how Asemu - When he was the ONLY pilot not incapacitated by Girard Spriggan - did absolutely nothing.

Flit: "Aaargh!" Fram: "Ugh!" Zeheart: "Ow!" Kio: "Uwaaaa!" Asemu: "Huh?"

Yeah. He could've won the war right then, and...Did nothing.

I literally can't see how he can outthink telepathic enemies through sheer force of will. It's a cool thing, but it makes no sense.

It's not force of will. He fights without thinking. It's like when you put your hand on a hot stove. You don't think "oh boy this is hot, I should take my hand off", you automatically take your hand off without thinking about it.

Admittedly, this style of fighting doesn't make much sense, but it is pretty cool idea, IMO, so I can forgive it.

Okay, how about this. How many of you are Halo fans. How would you feel if sometime during the upcoming Forerunner Trilogy. A regular UNCS soldier was introduced that was shown to be fighting on par with the Master Chief. A highly trained Bio and Cyberneticly enhanced Super Soldier with Decades of Combat experience; Every Single one of you would call "BULLSHIT!". What made the Spartan Super-Soldires special was that they did what even the ODST(Orbital,Drop,Shock Troopers) the Baddest Assess of UNCS Military couldn't! If a regular UNCS Marine through "HARD WORK AND GUTS!" could achieve the same feats as the Spartans; then there would be no point to having them in the story.

You want to know who the True Badass Normal of GEN-3 was Seric Abis! He beat Godom Tyneham by outsmarting him! Not Shonen Rage! Or Anti-Psychic powers. He out thought him! Seric was Sherlock Holmes in a Mobile Suite; that man I cheered for and accepted his victory with little question.

Asem Asuno through sheer outrage gained the unexplained ability to outperform X-Rounders who were shown to possess Super-Reflexes via Combat Clairvoyance. Which he conveniently lost for a little while when he tried to fight SID and could only slow it down; because of his familiarity the SID's attack patterns, which is a believably reason for him not getting smacked down.

Being second was the defining element of Asem Asuno's character.

He was the child of Flit's second choice.

He was the second choice Romary Stone, she wanted Zeheart.

Because of his failure manifest X-Rounder abilities. Can't truly take up his father's mantel. Or go toe to toe with his rival.

If you want to have a normal man as your Hero then follow through with it. When it comes times for him to take down the Superhuman threat. You either give the man powers of his own(Flit) or you have him win as normal man(Seric). Don't half ass it buy giving him powers with out giving him powers e.i. the Super Pilot Schtick.

edited 30th Sep '12 11:22:02 AM by Fomar

I disagree, but let's just leave it as that.

I would also nominate obright has one of the true badass normals, in that he fought in an (almost) mook suit and won against two good X-Rounder pilots despite his opponents not waiting around to be destroyed.

You are saying that being a low level psychic pilot, is equal to training since childhood, genetical engeneering, biomechanical upgrades and being encased in a physically enhancing suit? Your analogy doesn't work. It stretches out to fit your idea of comparison. I find understandable your grievance, but let me tell you this: Not all things that media perpetuate have to be realistic, and whether something is good or bad storytelling is defined by the societal norms around it, we can agree on some things being good writing and some others bad writing. Asemu's victory over Decil is something I most definitely agree is not bad writng, it is a properly thematic conclusion to his character growth arc. It doesn't come out of nowhere, and it doesn't change anything about any character's personality to fit in the story.

But for the love of god, a dude using instinct to defeat a psychically superior opponent, is not the same as a dude using guts to defeat a physically superior opponent. It's not the same, it's similar, but it's not the same.

edited 30th Sep '12 1:38:41 PM by vandro

I'd agree with this, but I'll note that I get where the other guy is coming from. At times it really does feel like "Asem's a psychic and we just aren't telling you."

I know where he is coming from. I understand his grievance, exemplified by batman being the goddamn batman and stuff. But that's where I draw the line, it's not bad storytelling, a character that is human and thriumps over his superhuman opponent while remaining human is something that I consider a good moral, "realistic" or not.

Normal people beating supernatural beings is a derivation of the generic case of people overcoming their weakness with their ingenuity (see david vs golias). It usually comes about by having the protagonist exploiting a flaw in their antagonist (usually overconfidence due to pride). The problem is that Asemu beats the super powered protagonist because the plot requires for the opponent to become weaker, with the exception of Kio.

It's not that Asemu doesn't have skills, though. But ironically, they only show up only if he loses(vs Sid, Ezelcant, Zeheart before part III), making what he stands for a broken aesop of sorts.

How many super powered enemies does he defeat via the opponent becoming weaker? The guys that pulled the stunt of Decil on kio? Those were grunts. Decil? Decil is full-on instinct, the guy is fully dependant on his powers. I guess this is where I see one thing and you see another. I see a guy being a rabid dog getting killed because of his own idiocy.

Even if you see it like that, it's not so much an argument for Asem being great as for Decil being a moron. Gundam has done Badass Normal well at times. One of the things that made me like Yazan Gable so much was watching him outmanouvere and outthink Kamille, who was vastly superior to him in terms of raw ability.

Asem never plans or exploits weaknesses, or at least we don't see it. He just overpowers his enemies. Now that's not inherently a bad thing. La Flaga managed to do that late in SEED and there weren't a lot of complaints. The difference is that SEED didn't make a huge deal out of the fact that he was a Badass Normal, whereas AGE constantly stresses the fact that Asem doesn't have any powers. It's a fairly key plot point, actually. Unfortunately, that means that it becomes much more noticable.

Funny Thing,I actually find Obright's victory a lot more acceptable than Asem's not shore why though?

X-Rounder powersand the Spartan Super-Soldier enhancements both serve the same narrative purpose, providing the hero with abilities above and beyond those of the common man. And my problem isn't because a normal man is beating a Superhuman. It's because, they half-assed it by turning Asem into the Super-Pilot. Asem being psychically imperceptible only really came up once;when he killed Desil. During fight with Zeheart, Asem isn't Invisible to Zeheart's sight. He's flat out fighting him evenly. Zeheart even says something along the lines of"How is he flying like that? I thought he hasn't an X-rounder". Asem has become something more than human, though we the audience are never given a a real explanation as to what he is;beyond the Super Pilot line. And Asem despite his more than human ability is still being portrayed in universe as a normal man.

I got some bad news for you. via Word of God Newtypes exist in the Cosmic Era, and Mu La Flaga is one of them albeit a very week. With his NT strength in about the same area asChallia Bull. And Even if Mu wasn't his heightened Spatial Awareness, sets him apart from the normal pilot.

edited 1st Oct '12 8:59:30 AM by Fomar

Not really, the narrative purpose of X-rounders is to have newtypes in A.G., the purpose of the SPARTAN II program is to give a player an excuse of how the hell can the playable character run so fast, how can he whistand higher falls than humans unsasisted and having a HUD that looks like it is a projection on the helmet, all there to have justifications for first person shooter conventions. The narrative purpose is there for the X-rounder, but for the Spartans is an incidental afterthought. And to be honest, I can't buy that X-rounders are above and beyond normal humans. The magicians 8 were struck down like flies by Woolf and Asemu who by that point isn't the "SUPAH PAIROTTO". Flit didn't even have to bother with his X-rounder powers to have Decil be at a stalemate with the Diva. During the second generation the X-rounder corps of the vagan were outmaneuvered during the big ring fight with merely tactics. The closest thing to efficient X-rounders were the phantom three, and that one was because they were ambushers, not direct combat types at all.

Nobody's saying that X-Rounders should be invincible against X-Rounders. The point is that they have an inherent advantage that must be overcome, be it with tactics (zanald) and/or better piloting skills (wolf) or even playing their flaws against them (seric), rather than having said advantage simply disappear when it's convenient because if so, it was never overcome in the first place.

edited 1st Oct '12 3:43:16 PM by luislucas

But Asemu does the same thing as Woolf. Daredevil style piloting. Besides, wasn't it stated in the pilot assessment tests that Asemu had a big deal of potential as a pilot(lack of X-rounder powers notwhistanding)? His potentials as a pilot were held back by his inferiority complex.

edited 1st Oct '12 4:52:23 PM by vandro

Technically Mu wasn't really a Badass Normal. He had modified genes like the Coordinators, I think.

No-one was really a normal pilot in that show, which kind of hurt the equality message a little.

He didn't have modified genes. Rau had modified genes by his very nature as a clone.

Even Le Creuset's genes weren't really modified. He's got shortened telomeres, but that doesn't give him any advantages in a fight (just the opposite) honestly.

SEED never claimed all people were equally good at everything, just that all people deserved to live. Not quite the same thing.

@1540: You realise that some people have better spacial sense than others right? I have terrible coordination. That doesn't mean athletes, who have great coordination, are some sort of mutants, just that they're better than me. In any case, the point I was trying to make is that no one really cared either way with La Flaga because his normalcy or lack thereof was not a plot point the way that it was with Asem, and that point still stands.

Not really. We see Woolf having to dodge, manouvere like crazy, and get the drop on opponents. Asem just attacks them head on and it works out somehow.

edited 1st Oct '12 8:47:51 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Translated Interview with Hino from Newtype November 2012 - he regrets killing off Woolf in Gen. 2 and explains why Yurin was so important to Frito.

"The female staff didn't understand it[...] but I felt it was realistic."

That's worth a laugh.

edited 8th Oct '12 5:30:21 AM by vandro

Yeah, really. You don't say.

Well, he seems earnest and sincere about the whole experience. However the answers he gave during the interview also show how he missed the point on why there were a lot of complaints to begin with.