It's a Gundam thread!

It's not a matter of sexist federation officers making it okay. They could simply be trying to avoid a situation where a women would have to lead a bunch of men, since in that situation she wouldn't have that automatic status and would have to prove herself before gaining their respect. Now, this may sound sexist but it is kind of how out it works in business and even in politics, let alone in the military. On the other hand, I would also like to point out how rare it is to have the submissive (Yamato Nadeshiko) kind of women in gundam; all the examples that I recall seem to decide on what they want to do by themselves.

I agree completely. I would even add that a lie is all the more believable the harder it is to be proven false, especially if many people endorse it.

edited 20th Mar '12 3:21:22 PM by luislucas

...Why would they want to reinforce gender roles? Just because it'd make a few chauvinist assholes uncomfortable is not a good fucking reason to keep that system around. Women don't need to prove anything beyond doing their job as good as any other person.

edited 20th Mar '12 4:08:31 PM by Scherzo09

Note that I am not not saying that women can't prove themselves, nor am I saying that commanding officers are not chosen based on their abilities because some guys don't like leading women. It's just that women (much like young people) usually don't have what is called the benefit from doubt. But this is just my conjecture; It probably has more to do with japanese society in general being more conservative, rather than Tomino having anything against women.

...Dude definitely has weird ideas about women. Like Char goes on about how he wanted Lalah to be his mother. :s

Agreed. Tomino was an odd, odd person.

Watching more Zeta...god, this show does not live up to the hype. Fortunately I went in expecting that, so I'm able to enjoy its good points. But seriously—Hayato Kobayashi and Kai Shiden are shilling Char. Are telling him that he should run for presidency of the Earth Federation. Words fail me. I forgive Graham Aker for becoming Mr. Bushido. I forgive Zechs for changing personalities every time I turned around. This is the single greatest act of Character Derailment in Gundam history.

And Kamille, Kamille, Kamille. I know you've been hanging out with the AEUG a lot. I know that Char and the other space=good/earth=bad morons are starting to rub off on you. But seriously? "Can't they understand that rebuilding civilisation here is pointless? It'll just pollute the earth more." Uh Kamille? Your brilliant plan, to move everyone out into space? That would require you to strip mine the planet in order to build colonies. It would require that thousands of people be put onto fuel burning spaceship and evacced. It would require so many provisions I don't even know where they would get them from.

And seriously, this is the AEUG's goal? Not to win their independence, or defeat the Titans, but to force every man, woman, and child on earth to emigrate into space? If it's not their goal, they're doing a lousy job of demonstrating that. And if it is their goal, I'm not sure where to begin. I cannot think of another Gundam series where our heroes have had a goal this reprehensible. SEED, SEED Destiny, even 00? All about the pacifism. MSG and AGE? Trying to end the war in their side's favour. Wing? Not sure what was going on there, but it didn't involve mass deportations. Yeesh.

Again, not saying I hate the show. But there are some issues here people, ones that I think nostalgia/"it's UC so it must be the best" sentiment has coloured.

edited 21st Mar '12 1:15:44 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I've seen bits and pieces of Zeta; seemed a lot more stereotypically 'anime' to me than MSG. My friend has been really disparaging of it, and I've never gotten around to watching it. I always saw the Gyrps Conflict as more of the EF Civil War between Titan-enforced Earthnoid control of the colonies and increased autonomy and representation in the EF by the colonies. I personally prefer my Fanon.

I think that's one of my biggest miffs about UC stuff though; Tomino can't really give a good answer to whether Zeon's ideals are right or not. Often times those who espouse those ideals are portrayed as sympathetic yet ultimately too extreme, while the feddies are shown as incompetent assholes. So what exactly are some of the protagonists fighting for?

On the other hand, this leaves things wide open for future writers to interpret.

Well no, it's clumsy writing and theming on Tomino's part.

I don't know. I like Unicorn's interpretation that Earth-Space relationship is imperialistic and that the space exploration (and also Newtype) promise is reduced to being nothing more than exploitation. On the other hand, rebelling against "Earth tyrany" with a Nazi-esque regime isn't exactly good guy material.

That's pretty much how the EF is portrayed in all Post-OYW material. But I think in the end the protagonists a lot of the time don't really have a 'cause' that they're fighting for. I mean it made sense when the EF was portrayed as a flawed but competent government which just had conflicting interests with the Spacenoids. But later stuff showed the EF hierarchy as being kinda comically corrupt and incompetent; Not to say that the Spacenoids supremacists are any better but it gets to the point that its kinda dismal; the protagonists fighting for the vague hope they can reform the system from the inside out which seems less and less likely as time goes on.

Well, one thing I can say for Zeta—age has improved Hayato. He's not nearly the whiny, resentful little prick he was in MSG. Sadly, the same cannot be said for his wife. Go ahead Frau, lecture Amuro on his responsibilities. You're contributing so much to the rebel cause by being Hayato's babymamma. On a side note, how the heck did the creators not realise how irritating Katz is? I'm going to enjoy his exit a little too much methinks.

EDIT: You know, I was really enjoying Amuro's comeback. Out of all the characters from MSG and Zeta, I've found he's one of the few who lives up to the hype, and the stunt with the cargo plane is truly badass. And then he goes and says he's cool with working with Char. Sure. You know, I understand how we get from MSG to CCA. But don't ask me what Zeta's doing in there. Everyone is so out of character it hurts.

On the brightside, I'd forgotten how much I like Rosamia, screwed up wreck of a human being that she may be. Char being treated as a god? Annoying. Kamille being set up as the freaking messiah? Still more annoying. The constant Newtype hype and "people from earth don't know how to fight" crap from both of them? Unbearable. Rosamia dominating both of them during her first sortie? Totally worth it.

edited 21st Mar '12 4:21:59 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Did Amuro just say he was alright with working with Char or did he actively sing his praises? I could see Amuro being alright with it from an Enemy Mine perspective. It comes back into play in CCA when Amuro's all like "We fought together against the Titan! I trusted you!"

I mean to be fair to the crew of the Argama, Char does have a legacy behind him for being a great pilot and tactician. And his role in trying to kill the Zabis, if it ever got out, would make him be seen like Rommel or Von Stauffenberg. True, endlessly shilling him by calling him a great man and shit would be annoying; but I don't think its too odd that they have respect for him.

I think the thing that irritates me a lot about Zeta is how Sayla is pretty much Put on a Bus for it. Her interplay with Char was interesting and I think it should've been explored more in Zeta, but instead its completely ignored.

edited 21st Mar '12 6:55:23 PM by Scherzo09

Sayla is just weird in general. She shows up a bit in ZZ, but so little it's more or less just a cameo.

It's still weird. With the exception of lines like that, CCA barely acknowledges that Zeta happened, or that Amuro and Char ever contemplated getting past "you killed Lalah."

I would not have a problem with the guys on the Argama wanting Char's help. I have a problem with the fact that he's actually being treated as though he were a goodguy and with the constant shilling. And once again...they made Hayato and Kai shill him. Good lord, I'm never going to get past that. With the exception of Amuro himself, those guys know better than anyone what an SOB Char is. Is it just me or does Tomino suck at "show don't tell." Or more accurately, he's decent at showing, but feels the urge to back it up with far too much telling. I don't need to be told how awesome Char is. I don't need to be told that Kamille is the greatest pilot ever. Just demonstrate it.

Sayla was put on a bus because her VA was unavailable and then died. It's very sad, but I don't think that should have stopped them from using her. Sayla was easily one of my favourite characters from MSG—she was cool-headed, competent, kicked a lot of ass in the G-Fighter, had a solid relationship with Amuro, and I might add, did all this while being a female character in a Japanese show from 1979, which is just mindboggling. Losing her was very unfortunate.

PS-And they didn't have to shill her once. They didn't really do it to Amuro either in the first show. I mean sure, there were lots of comments about "I can't believe he can fly that thing" but he was a sixteen year old flying a superweapon. No kidding they said things like that.

edited 21st Mar '12 8:18:56 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

His later characterizations exposit way too fucking much, yeah, in a really awkward way too.

Though I kinda get the feeling that MSG was much more of a labor of love for Tomino than later series. I get the feeling in Zeta and especially with Victory which I actually have watched all of that he was going through the motions on it, being pressured into into it by Sunrise constrained by editors who wanted to make it more marketable to the masses. My friends biggest beef with the show is how transforming mechs are arbitrarily ubiquitous, which is obviously a mandate from up top to tap into the transforming mecha market that Macross did. Likewise I think the shilling of Char has similar roots; He was a popular character in Japan so they wanted people to reinforce how awesome Char was so the fanboys would eat it up. It's sort of like a retroactive Mary Sue, and I think to the Japanese heaping so much praise on Char would be a form of fanservice for acknowledging how great he is.

I'm not saying Tomino stopped putting effort into his work but I get the feeling he was being pressured by forces beyond his control in terms of creative control and this sort of induced a going through the motions fatigue with him.

And yeah, I don't think its quite accurate to say she humanized Char (It's questionable that Lalah humanized Char) but their interplay was an interesting dimension that I felt was needlessly excised. Actually, the guy who did the Origin Manga recently did a Miniseries follow up focusing on Sayla, Artesia 0083. I'd like to see that translated.

edited 21st Mar '12 8:31:22 PM by Scherzo09

Oh I understand all that (although I have no issues with Transforming Mecha. I watch the show for the story). It doesn't make it any less annoying though.

Yeah, I don't think humanising Char was possible. It would be innacurate to call him a psychopath (for that see Gihren, Yazan, Azrael, Desil, etc) but he's certainly a deeply antisocial personality who's more or less isolated by his own choice. It's because of that that I have so little sympathy for him, and it's why I don't by this "Char should run for president" crock. Char could head up an army, but lead a country? Not on your life.

Honestly, what I miss most about Sayla was interplay not with Char (though I appreciate that, if nothing else, she makes no excuses for her whacko brother) but with Amuro and the rest of the White Base crew. She was a voice of reason, was sympathetic without a pushover, and was a welcome contrast to Frau Bow (who I found utterly useless as both a crewmember and a character) and Mirai (who was cool, but very Japanese, and inconsistently written). I also would have liked to see her relationship with Amuro develop beyond Ship Tease if only because that looked like it could have been an honest-to-god functional partnership, based on something other than "my Newtype powers tell me I love you" and there are far too few of those in Gundam and particularly in UC.

In the original concept, She and Amuro fucked and she got pregnant with his child. I think this was in the novel.

But yeah, I really liked how Sayla mattered to the crew as well. I think her character was pretty much wasted by not being included in later material.

I think the thing about transforming mecha is it just useless clutter in a series where one of the things I appreciate about it is its attention to detail. That's one of the reasons I'm really liking Origin. When they just go "Okay, just throw in some transforming mecha because it'll move model kits", I personally feel that subtracts from the universe. But that's just my opinion on it.

I still think Char is an interesting, almost tragic character, because I do think those antisocial tendencies are justified from a character standpoint; being brought up in an environment where he couldn't trust others and grew to see people as tools for others ends. I think, from what I can tell about Zeta, that while he was using the AEUG to curtail the Titans, I think he did try to connect with them some, which makes his eventual withdrawal from that into a superficial longing to fulfill his father's philosophy and petty quest for revenge against Amuro more sad.

edited 21st Mar '12 9:01:45 PM by Scherzo09

Oddly enough i have the opposite idea. I mean, Victory is kind of a mess, but I have a hard time seeing it as "going through the motions" it's clearly something kinda different (and really, really weird) in theme and even characterization. It feels more like Tomino letting his issues out to play than something he phoned in for the cash.

It's screwed up and kind of disturbing, but it feels very personal to me. In the jagged, ends "not really making any sense but trying to get something across" kind of way.

EDIT: In that way it reminds me of Evangelion in fact. All sorts of messed up, but clearly there's some kind of feeling in there. (even if it's partially disgust)

edited 21st Mar '12 9:08:54 PM by Arilou

Those novelisations were twisted. Pubic hair clippings, Amuro dying...yeesh. Glad the series didn't go that way, especially since that sort of crap seems pretty OOC for both of them. Anyway, totally agree with you about Sayla mattering to the crew, in a way that some of the others did not. Frau Bow, for instance, accomplishes nothing. I could replace her with any other Bridge Bunny and not alter the plot in the slightest. Sayla though, calms Mirai down when Bright is BSODing, makes friends with Amuro and seems to have a calming influence there, takes the lead among herself, Kai and Hayato whenever Amuro is occupied with Char. I liked her character arc. Give me more.

That might be the case with Char, but they don't really address it. As you yourself said, it's really easy to read Hidden Depths into Char when there aren't necessarily any there. I do think it's too bad that they didn't include Kamille in CCA, if only because his reaction to what his beloved Lieutenant Quattro is trying to pull would have been interesting. How do you like that "move'em all into space" philosophy now kiddo?

edited 21st Mar '12 9:09:12 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Heh, all the more proof Char is weird. You should check out the Manga sometime. Its still in the process of being Scanlated, but its pretty interesting nonetheless. The only place the Manga has disappointed me, as I've said before, is how it characterizes Garma. He's much more callous in the Manga, which takes a way from what I liked about him in the Anime; being a somewhat ditzy but otherwise alright guy who just got way over his head.

I don't think his reasons are all that well explained, yeah, but I think he's interesting nonetheless. He isn't really sympathetic though, and I think that more than anything else it what annoys you about people's love for him. He's neither sympathetic or Affably Evil, he's just some gray area in between.

He's not sympathetic, he's not likeable, and he's not (at least to me) particularly impressive. I am familiar with Love to Hate. I get that. Many of the villains I like the most in Gundam (Gihren, Kycilia, Le Creuset, Decil, Treize) get by far more on panache and screen presence than anything else. Char's hyped up as the franchise's original Magnificent Bastard, the guy that all the other MB's in the franchise are trying to be. And he's just not that impressive. Char's too small time for my tastes.

Seems to me its more of Hype Backlash than anything else, as well as the popular interpretation of him far outplacing who he actually was. I think in the end though it really comes down to a matter of taste.

edited 21st Mar '12 9:59:47 PM by Scherzo09

I was ready for Hype Backlash. And that can't be all it is, because I thoroughly liked most of MSG. Amuro gets hyped to the skies as the most badass main character ever, and while that's an exaggeration in my mind, I can certainly see where they are coming from. Similarly, while I don't agree that Bright is the best captain ever, I still like him and find him an interesting character; his development from "stressed out jerk who hits people a lot" (seriously, I hate the Bright Slap meme, so much) to Team Dad is quite well handled and believeable. On the villainous side, Kycilia, Gihren, and Dozle all lived up to their hype too. I went in expecting a Magnificent Bitch, a Love to Hate psycho, and an uber-Badass and that's pretty much what I got. It's just Char who really dissapoints me (and Hayato and Frau Bow, but I wasn't expecting much from them in the first place).

I'll also note that I didn't hate a lot of characters I was supposed to. I liked Kai from the start (maybe because the way he acts his pretty much exactly how I would in that situation) and as I touched on in a previous post, I actually found M'Quve (whom everyone seems to loathe) to be a pretty cool antagonist. I honestly think his duel with Amuro was one of the better fights in the series.

I agree that turning Garma into a prick totally defeats the character. Honestly, it sounds like pandering to the fanbase. Ever since Char called Garma a spoiled brat, there's been a real tendency among the fans to cast him as such, forgetting that Char is, you know, a self-serving lying liar who lies.

I guess I just really didn't have that many expectations of what Char should've been in my mind. So I appreciated what he turned out to be. It may be a stretch but it kinda reminds me of how how a lot of TTGL overexaggerated the series to be a complete testament to Kamina's manliness, but there's a lot more to it than that. I think the idea of Char Clone is based more on how he was perceived than how he actually was. And maybe to you he was just a selfish, unlikable prick, but to me that's what made him interesting in sort of a Light Yagami way, though again I don't want to get too anchored to comparisons.

Yeah you would not like Garma's characterization in the Manga. I'd still recommend checking it out because a lot of the characters are fleshed out more and it pays close attention to details. They just dropped the ball with Garma and it honestly is pretty annoying, even though I do think he still 'works', just not nearly as interesting.

edited 21st Mar '12 10:52:25 PM by Scherzo09

Wasn't the entire point of Garma's character that he was the one likeable Zabi? I mean if we want Zabi family douchery, we've got Kycilia and Gihren for that. We've got Degwin back in the day. Heck, even Dozle's got an arrogant streak. Garma as a prick? That just does not work for me. As I mentioned before, I wouldn't be surprised if it's because Garma has been commemorated for who Char (a fanfavourite) said he was, rather than who he really was.

The Light comparison is funny, because I have an appreciation for Light. I'm not one of those whack-jobs who thinks he should have won, but I like what he brings to the table as a Big Bad and Villain Protagonist. He's petty, vindictive, and utterly selfish, but that works for the show he's in and is arguably the whole point: only a petty, selfish, vindictive person could delude themself into thinking they were god.

Maybe that's my issue with Char at the end of the day. A space opera like Gundam needs big villains, and Char just ain't big enough (though to give the writers credit, they certainly tried in CCA). As crazy as what he wants to do by that point is, it's honestly the version of Char I like the most, if only because a) the story treats him like the horrible, horrible person that he is, b) he's ditched the goofy mask, c) his clear depression makes it possible for me to understand and pity him to a degree if not actually sympathise, and d) his ruthless manipulation of Quess and the other people on his side, while sickening, is at least interesting in a "pogoing over the Moral Event Horizon" sort of way.

EDIT: Char lectures Amuro about his responsibilities. Amuro defends Char to Beltochika by claiming he's not a violent, amoral jackass. It hurts. On the upside, even with that going on, thank god for Amuro Ray. He's the first person to point out the utter stupidity of letting Kamille and Katz be pilots. The show can try and prove him wrong all it wants, but given how things end...

EDIT: If there is a good thing about Katz being in the show, I would say it has to be his interactions with Kamille. For whatever reason, he brings out Kamille's responsible side. He (Kamille) isn't a bad kid and nice to see that part of his personality. I honestly wish they'd kept Amuro around for longer on the show; I vastly prefer his interactions with Kamille to Char's.

EDIT: I repeat—I like Rosamia, psychotic loon that she is. Taking on Kamille and Char at the same time? Again? Girl's got talent.

Conversely, why the Hell is Beltorchika afraid of the sky falling? She better have seen the same colony drop Rosamia did, or I'm going to be deeply annoyed.

For the record, if my post's about Zeta have been confusing anyone, I've seen good chunks of the show before, but not all of it, not in order (though I know the overall plot more or less), and not any time recently. This is bascially my rediscovery of the show for lack of a better phrase.

edited 21st Mar '12 11:53:21 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar