It's a Gundam thread!

Generally if you liked CE as a whole you'll love this. If you liked Seed but hated Destiny you'll like this if you can overlook Destiny out of your mind. If you hated everything to do with CE however this isn't really gonna change that since it's more of the same just without Destiny's production problems dragging it down.

Short letter from Kenichi Suzumura about the movie's reception and Shinn.

So based on model kit reveals, we've got good looks at some of the other mecha.

I have to say the Mighty Strike Freedom and the Infinite Justice Type II are among the most boring upgrades I've ever seen. I do believe they're literally identical except for the backpacks, and those are both incredibly lateral moves in my opinion. If they're not actually identical, they're close enough that me, someone who has built kits of them, can't tell the bodies apart at a glance. Oh, and Strike Freedom gets a katana. I don't like the Rising Freedom and Immortal Justice much but at least they're... something.

And then the Gyan Storm, which has to be easily my least favorite of the CE-ified Zeon suits.

EDIT: Okay, the Type II has a beam horn. I take everything bad I said about it back and now want that kit. It's so stupid. I love it.

Edited by Larkmarn on Jan 29th 2024 at 9:42:23 AM

The main bodies are slightly different actually, though very visually similar.

With Nitter limiting instances on certain X/Twitter posts, especially this Tweet, I'll have to summarize it because if I just quote it directly, it's just as short, so here it goes: Australia-based Sugoi Co. will release SEED Freedom in Australian theaters on March 14.

Edited by HallowHawk on Jan 29th 2024 at 9:02:29 AM

They’re supposed to be the same with peripheral improvements. Their backpacks are new. Even the Destiny gets the same treatment but without changing backpacks.

, I assume that's the case but it's functionally no different. If it's so similar that I can't tell the difference without literally having the lineart side-by-side it's boring as hell.

From what I hear at least one main bug if you find it as such is the movie of course is overtly focused on Kira and his own personal regrets while Athrun is barely in it apparently.

I can’t comment on exactly how much screen time he has but he does play an important role.

I was randomly thinking.

I kinda really hate SEED's naming conventions... or lack thereof.

Like, take the first five G-Units. Other than Buster, they're basically just random conflict names assigned at random. Strike, and Blitz are irrelevant but not specific (if either of these names were assigned to any of the other G-Weapons, then they wouldn't stand out at all). Duel is... a bit less general, in that if its name was given to something like the Blitz or the Buster it would be weird. Aegis is just... aggressively non-indicative.

Then you have the ZAFT Gundams. Them being Gundams aside (and shedding any ZAFT naming conventions aside), Freedom, Justice, and Providence are kiiiiiiiiiiiinda good names. Vaguely cohesive, similar feel.

Except for the fact that Providence is an angelic name. And it's the Feddies who have been using the orders of angels for their naming conventions. Until the final act when the Providence and Dominion are united by merit of being against the protagonists. They synergize well solely because the writers knew they'd functionally be on the same side by the end. It's like the Titans using the Hi-Zack. I get why the writers did it, but the use of the shorthand rubs me the wrong way.

Then you have the Federation's second generation Gundams that are just "Card-Carrying Villain Gundams." Which also just feels lazy.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 5th 2024 at 5:17:38 AM

Everything about Cosmic Era does feel typical because it was made to be more marketable for those born in the 1990s to watch and buy the kits afterward.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=613tfgow7bhcop323d75yaew&page=5#comment-104

I stumbled on this G Gundam thread.

Honestly, Aegis is the only one that's really out of place, since it doesn't have any specialized defensive or protective equipment that would justify naming it after a mythological shield. Out of universe, though, it's been said in interviews and such that the names Strike and Aegis were meant to invoke the unstoppable force vs immovable object paradox (the Japanese version of which is a spear that can pierce any target vs a shield that can withstand any attack).

So, I was hoping the users here could help me find a fan-made document I've been trying to track down. I think it was mentioned on one of the forums I frequent at some point, but it also could have been brought up here; I'm not sure which is the case and my search skills are weak. From what I can recall, the document was written in Japanese and appeared to be a pretty comprehensive rewrite of the SEED setting and show complete with detailed illustrations and sketches.

Some of the characters and mecha were changed in ways that left them barely recognizable, but the mechanical designs were pretty interesting. From what I remember, the Duel Gundam had armored shells on the forearms that would lower to protect its hands when it punched stuff, and there was a chart showing the effective operational ranges of each prototype.

Several of the characters also had their appearances and ethnicities changed; one of Kira's classmates was rather portly, Muruta Azrael was an incredibly villainous-looking Middle Eastern guy, and IIRC Lacus and her father were black. One of the people commenting on it mentioned it was nice to see someone remember there's more ethnicities in the world than ambiguously white/asiatic.

If anyone knows what I'm talking about, I'd be happy to hear it!

Then name the Strike the Aegis. Which makes more sense thematically since even when it doesn't have a shield, it's spending the first half of the show as the shield of Archangel. And "Strike" sure sounds more fitting for the high-speed attack suit with a giant built-in cannon and four beam sabers.

... hell, that's how it goes out at the end of the series.

Strike isn't a bad name, but it's not, you know. Specific to this suit at all. It's a complete generic name that could be attached to almost any Gundam in the series.

The Calamity, Forbidden, and Raider were my favorite out-of-pocket Gundam names from SEED. At least the Abyss, Chaos, and Gaia had a cohesive Theme Naming scheme to them!

Honestly the Aegis is kind of an incoherent design to begin with. Duel was the basic testbed for all the tech that went into everything else (the basic mobile suit frame, phase shift armor, beam weapons) and the others all have clear combat roles (Blitz is stealth, Buster is heavy fire support, Strike is adaptable with its mission packs). But what is Aegis for? It transforms, but there's no real point to the transformation.

The only thing I can think of is a transformable fast-attack anti-ship suit.

It transforms primarily to use its beam cannon. Which is only usable in mobile armor mode. Because... ??? ^note To make it clear I'm not a CE hater, weapons inexplicably unusable in certain modes can be forgivable or it can be the absolute dumbest thing... like the Unicorn Gundams, that gimp their beam sabers in Unicorn mode for literally no reason. Christ, whatever you think of the MS aesthetics in Unicorn, they absolutely are basically Fridge Logic in mobile suit form

Actually, keeping in mind that they're testbeds, thinking of it as just being transformable for the sake of transformable does make sense. It's just loaded with features for the sake of testing a lot at once.

Buuuuuuuuuuuut that's purely fanwank and completely contradicted by the fact that in canon, the Aegis is a commander unit. Because if there's one thing you want in a commander unit is... the ability to leave its units behind and strike behind enemy lines.

I point to "needs to transform to use its cannon." Because that means it can't aim without repositioning the whole suit. And the whole point of the MA mode is it's a high-speed form. It doesn't position as well as it would in MS mode.

... Christ, Aegis, I love you, but you are duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumb.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 9th 2024 at 2:29:47 PM

Maybe it's the commander unit because it can use its cannon at long range. That way the pilot can command yet still contribute directly.

It can't use the cannon in MS mode because the cannon is apparently pulled inside the frame then. Now obviously this gets into "but why did they build it like that?" but it's positioned in a point where it can grab someone with the MA mode and fire the cannon point blank. It pretty much never does this, the main time Athrun tries the Aegis runs out of power, but that's the intent. Now I guess they could have mounted the cannon in a spot that could be exposed in MS mode but also point blank shoot someone in MA mode, but I'm not sure where they could put it without completely changing the whole transformation mechanism.

Is there a way to search inside this specific thread? I’m trying to find something here and I’d rather not have to manually look through nearly 1k pages.

Edited by Valiran9 on Feb 14th 2024 at 11:22:48 AM

... well yes. We know, physically why it can only use the cannon in MA mode. We're asking for any kind of a justification for that decision.

Especially since "why, to fire it point blank!" is the most nonsensical explanation possible. Know what would work point blank? A regular beam cannon. Hell, just a tiny beam blade. If it had that, it probably would have just been able to destroy the Strike without self destructing.

As you say, it's basically built around the scene where it and the Strike go down together. The out-of-universe reason is that they envisioned an epic clash necessitating that Athrun develops his fetish for self-destructing units to rival Heero Yuy. In-universe, I can't conceive of an explanation, same with the unit's name or the other naming conventions that are just wonky if you think about them for a second.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 15th 2024 at 9:47:45 AM

Good news! I posted images of a GINN and CGUE redesign found on the MAHQ discord to a forum I go to, and it jogged someone else’s memory enough to find the site I was looking for!

https://web.archive.org/web/20171128032055/https://okisutoro.sakura.ne.jp/wowo/design/seed/index.htm

So, I just realized.

OZ is the Organization of the Zodiac. All their units were named for signs of the zodiac. The very first mobile suits OZ ever made after coming out into the open were a set of paired units with identical bases differing only in their weapons and colors.

They somehow didn't call them Gemini or some such instead giving them random made up names.

... did some wires get crossed here or what? That is frankly bizarre now that I think of it.

Speaking of which, I do feel like the OZ units did a fairly good job of unifying Theme Naming without feeling like they started with the name and worked backwards. It helps that they only had about half a dozen suits and the Zodiac theme-naming is pretty broad. But I can, say, look at the Virgo and not think "that's kinda a clever name" without thinking "the designers thought of a name and designed a mobile suit around it." Basically, it feels like they fairly realistically fit the suit to the name when they could (IE Cancer, Virgo) but didn't kill themselves to make a zodiac-themed suit.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 20th 2024 at 2:30:13 PM