It's a Gundam thread!

The Gundam EX is the (presumably evil) Gundam from the new Netflix Gundam anime, Requiem of Vengeance.

Can't say I'd expect a GM EX, since it sounds like the EX is just a custom version of the original Gundam. It'd be like expecting a GM version of the Ez-8.

That said, I wonder if the anime would have G Ms in it at all. The Gundam EX is supposed to be the slasher monster, and having weaker versions of it feels like it'll deflate the tension. Zeon will get their mook quota in by killing Type-71 tanks, I reckon.

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 25th 2024 at 2:47:42 PM

Tanks are barely a mook-level threat—Zeon was crushing pretty much everything the Federation threw at them until the RX-78 and the GMs. Zakus should be the 'unstoppable slasher monster backlit by flames' in this equation.

So unless on the off-chance this is intended to be in-universe Zeon propaganda playing up the 'white devil' angle, applying that role to a Gundam seems... weird, knowing the greater canon context. The ethnic supremacists chanting "Sieg Zeon!", gassing inhabited space colonies, and then dropping them onto inhabited cities have to be the scrappy heroes, I guess.

Edited by Chortleous on Mar 26th 2024 at 7:46:19 AM

Everything about the prerelease info seems to be going that way. Zeon is the scrappy underdog. Presumably, the titular requiem for vengeance is referring to the Zeon main characters. Apparently, they're getting vengeance for... the Gundam EX wrecking their shit?

Like, this isn't terribly new or surprising stuff. Zeon fanboys have been running the asylum for a while. And the trailer is clearly on Zeon's side. It's not "11 months ago, they gassed their own people in order to commit a genocide as a first strike." It's "11 months ago, Zeon launched a war for independence."

And yeah, anything less than a GM isn't really a threat. But we only see Type-61s and Core Fighters in the trailer so I could see them downplaying use of G Ms (and thus not having to animate them), thus saving mecha-on-mecha action for climaxes while still giving the Zekes something to kill in droves.

I know they're trying to portray the protagonists as "scrappy underdogs," especially given that this is apparently focusing on a Zeon infantry unit, but considering the original Gundam, Guncannon and Guntank were active as early as mid-to-late September, there might have been enough time for some GMs to gone through the rollout.

What's probably gonna happen is that the protags here are initially deployed to one of the quieter fronts, before the Gundam EX shows up and wrecks their shit.

Given the trailer dialogue includes something along the lines of "I bet you've never seen a Zaku before" that's probably true.

I can't emphasize enough how much of a motivation the creators have to include as few mech-on-mech fights as possible. That's considerably harder to animate than tanks and jets.

So with Gundam Seed Freedom confirmed for US theaters on May 7th, you can rewatch all of Seed and Destiny before then if you average about three episodes a day. So... I decided to do that. No idea if I'll stick with it for the entire month, but let's give it a shot.

I'm watching the new dub on the HD Remaster blurays, since I haven't seen those yet. I've watched the original dub more than once, but it's been years since the last time, so I'm probably not going to remember much in terms of 1:1 comparisons.

I started yesterday and I've watched up through episode 8, which is Lacus's first appearance. A few random thoughts:

I had forgotten how hard they throw the Bloody Valentine at you. It's mentioned twice (and shown on-screen) in the cold open of the first episode, before the OP, and then again for the first couple "previously on" segments (since that just does the setting introduction again until episode 4). It's mentioned repeatedly in dialogue as well, and of course episode 7 shows the whole event in flashback while the Archangel crew are scavenging its wreckage for supplies. Will be interested to see when the April Fools Crisis (which killed something like 100x as many people) rates a mention. Probably not until they're on Earth and have to explain the n-jammers there.

The early episodes have a lot of talk from a number of different people (Kuzzey, Mu, the commander guy in Artemis, Flay) about how Coordinators are just Built Different, and it really feels like we're meant to just take it at face value. Will be interesting to see how this contrasts later when Kira downplays the importance of genetics in light of the whole Ultimate Coordinator thing. I personally prefer the idea that most of that reaction is a mix of propaganda and superstition, but the early stuff at least doesn't give us much reason to question it.

The new dub is... kinda rough. Performances are mostly fine, but it makes a lot of weird choices. A lot of the dialogue feels overly literal. One example I remember off hand is someone saying "as you command" in response to an order, which isn't wrong, but probably should have been "as ordered", or even just "yes sir". Le Creuset also referred to Patrick Zala as "your excellency" once, which has to be either -sama or -dono, but makes it sound like he's supposed to be King of ZAFT. They've also changed pronunciation of a lot of the character names, which range from "minor corrections" (Kira's last name as Ya-ma-to instead of Yam-a-to, for instance) to "what the hell were they thinking?" (Lacus is pronounced La-coos now for some reason??? that's never not going to be weird). Basically the entire cast also uses the word "freakin'" a lot, which has to be some sort of Japanese politeness levels thing, but it ends up sounding silly more often than not. Also, the one notable and unfortunate exception to "the vocal performances are mostly fine" is that Lacus's singing is bad. Not just compared to the Japanese, just... in general. I get that not everyone can be Rie Tanaka, but damn.

The visuals are generally good, and some shots are legitimately gorgeous even on my 4k TV (it's not 4k video, just 1080 HD), but some of them are also very obviously upscaled from the original standard definition broadcast rather than actually redone in HD. I know that some shots got replaced wholesale (the one I remember off the top of my head was a relatively chaste shot of Cagalli in a bathtub at Waltfeld's headquarters being swapped out for an extremely leery one of her in the shower instead), but nothing like that has stood out to me in what I've watched so far.

Probably won't keep posting about this every day, but it mostly depends on if I notice anything interesting to talk about. I guess we'll see!

The Yokohama Gundam has stopped exhibiting, but Bandai will undoubtedly make a new Gundam animatronic elsewhere. I'm hoping for Aerial or Calibarn to get the next statue, just so they can show off their Permet shell light shows.

I thought this thread should probably know, Char Clone is about to be cut so if people think it's worth preserving, chime in at TRS while you have the opportunity.

Some things I ran across I have questions about:

Anime & Manga:

• A common criticism levied at the main Universal Century or "UC" setting of Gundam is that nothing ever seems to get better for anyone regardless of what happens, especially later on. The Earth Federation is a corrupt and inept oligarchy verging on a fascist dictatorship that oppresses those living in space and only seems to prop up its existence by pissing off groups who are worse than them (such as the Principality of Zeon or Cosmo Babylonia and the Crossbone Vanguard) and sheer dumb luck. Even in endings where the Earth Federation does eventually collapse, it's only because they were either replaced by something worse (like in G-Saviour, Reconguista in G and Mad Wang), collapsed into chaos and infighting (such as in the end of Crossbone Gundam) or experienced an apocalyptic event (∀ Gundam). The peak of which being...
  • Mobile Suit Victory Gundam is considered one of the darkest Gundam series. Countless good characters die nearly every episode. The main bad guys are some of the most irredeemable and hypocritical scum imaginable, and regularly get away with it. And the heroes trying and failing to accomplish.... much of anything for most of the story, especially stopping, and saving their loved ones from, said bad guys makes this one of the most depressing Gundam series in the franchise.

Victory fits, but given UC remains the most popular/successful and revisited continuity I doubt fits as a whole. Maybe it only counts past a point in the timeline (post One Year War or post Zeon?) or because of the Foregone Conclusion Victory onward have set?

YMMV.Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom:

• Badass Decay: The Destroy Gundam went from a serious threat in Seed Destiny that only top of the line MS's could actually take it on without much issue to it being defeated without much by a Non-Nuclear powered Freedom and Justice. By the 2nd and last Blue Cosmos battle, they use a damaged Destroy that's missing its backpack weapons/cannons and an arm.

Likely valid, but this ignores that the non-nuclear Impulse was able to take them on (1st time would have won if not for Shinn realizing Stella was piloting, later admittedly with nuclear MS help) and the Rising Freedom and Immortal Justice were major upgrades over the Impulse, it was the same Ace Pilots defeating them using their established weakness in close combat, and how much of the Decay started in Destiny reducing them to protagonist cannon fodder (upgrading mechs seems less an excuse than missing a majority of their weapons). I'm not sure if the last one counts for the line as a whole given the aforementioned handicap. Wondering if Memetic Loser fits as well/better and if also in Destiny given they remain as WMD effective against everything without Plot Armor rare high-end MS/pilots able to get exploit their weaknesses?

Characters.Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Main Characters, Kira's folder:

• The Reveal: Throughout the first two series, Kira was referred to as the "Ultimate Coordinator". It's revealed in SEED Freedom here that he isn't an "Ultimate Coordinator", but a failed Accord. However, it might just be a taunt from the Foundation's side.

The last part was recently added. The spoiled former is being mentioned elsewhere on this wiki so we should clarify the matter before possible incorrect info becomes widespread. Is it Kira's not/a failed "Ultimate Coordinator", the "Ultimate Coordinator" was only a prototype to the Accord's, or only not the "Ultimate Coordinator" compared to Accord's superior enhancements? Or is it too ambiguous/unreliable a source to say? Should we wait until the dub/widespread release gives more solid material to clarify?

I've been steadily watching more Gundam Seed. I'm up to the halfway point, right after they reach Orb. More random thoughts in no particular order:

The show still hasn't mentioned the April Fools Crisis by name, or the mass casualties that occurred. They do mention in a flashback to the ZAFT Supreme Council meeting arguing over whether to use the n-jammers or not that they'll cause "economic instability", but that's as far as it goes. It annoyed me enough that I actually went back and checked the clip show from the SD version — which the Remaster skips entirely. The clip show also doesn't use the name April Fools Crisis or mention the death toll in narration, but it does have the shot that I very distinctly remembered — immediately following the n-jammers landing on Earth, it cuts to a ruined city with corpses littering the streets and people huddling around campfires, which is a pretty shocking image for something that apparently gets literally zero narrative attention.

Speaking of, watching the SD version for a bit was a good comparison to the visuals of the HD version and damn does HD look way better in comparison. Like, obviously that's not a huge shock or anything, but I was legitimately kind of surprised at just how stark the difference was. Even the relatively-bad looking parts of the Remaster look better than the best parts of the original. If I was just watching the original I wouldn't be like "wow this looks like shit" or anything, but the difference between the two is huge.

Anyway, one of the things that's happened in this string of episodes is Kira has started going seed mode. Seed mode remains the dumbest thing in the Cosmic Era setting. They never really explains what unlocks it, how it works, or even what it really is. It's just a plot device that confers main character status on you. That's the long and short of it. The dumbest part is that you don't even need to make that an explicit ability! All it really does is make them pilot mobile suits better. You can just have them... be better pilots??? They don't need a weird, poorly-explained superpower for that??? Anyway, it amuses me that when people complain about Seed and Destiny, they never complain about seed mode, which is dumb and bad.

This string of episodes also contained all of Andy Waltfeld's first appearance. The way they treat this guy is really weird. They put a lot of effort into making him likable (he's just a regular guy! he has opinions on coffee and doner kebabs! he's easy-going and has a cute girlfriend!) but still have him do really vile shit. He burns down a good-sized town^note deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime, by the way, explicitly destroys all of their supplies as well, but warns the residents first so they survive. But like... now there's thousands of people just standing in the desert next to where their homes used to be, with no food or water or ability to go get food or water. That isn't better! He also blows off the idea of ambushing the resistance fighters when they come running to protect the town... but then deliberately takes his time returning to base so that the resistance will be able to catch up to him before he does. Then when they catch up and attack, he declares it self-defense and slaughters them. The whole thing is just... weird? Best I can tell, the show genuinely expects us to like him because of all the friendly and charming things he does, but it really doesn't work.

The middle bit of the series here is the part I always have the hardest time remembering, for some reason. I like the Cagalli's voice acting in the new dub — she does LOUD AND ANGRY very well, which is like 80% of her lines so far. The episode where Cagalli and Athrun end up stuck on a deserted island together is pretty good — they're both visibly struggling to reconcile the fact that they don't want to hurt the human being standing in front of them with the knowledge that that person is an enemy who opposes the cause they genuinely and whole-heartedly believe in. I wasn't a fan of the fact that the only thing that stops Athrun from immediately stabbing Cagalli to death was the fact that she's a girl, and I could do without the awkward teenage sexual tension in general, but can't have everything, I guess. The very next episode picks up with the Archangel being forced into Orb territory by the Le Creuset team attacking, which is weird because a few episodes earlier they explicitly mentioned that there weren't going anywhere near Orb on their route to Alaska, so I guess they just changed their minds without telling the audience.

Anyway, as of the halfway mark, I'd call Remaster the better opinion over the original. The visuals really are just a staggering improvement, and the dub is more even overall. Weird name pronunciations aside, nothing in the new dub is really bad except Lacus's singing, while the old dub had some real jank to it at times. I will miss the real standout performances from the original dub, though — particularly le Creuset and la Flaga, both of whom were absolutely fantastic.

Sounds like Tough Act to Follow applies to the SEED re-dub. Before adding that any thoughts on if this is also the case for Destiny?

While it looks like Char Clone will be cut, I moved the page quote to Quotes.Expy and asked about creating Characters.Gundam Recurring Archetypes (I know it has many others) or other places to salvage what we can of it to. Any thoughts about that or places we can move the Char Clone page image.

Again, thoughts/agree/disagree on Too Bleak, Stopped Caring applying to the Universal Century as a whole (I believe its success argues against or disqualifies)? Or does it only apply to certain installments like Victory or past a certain point in the continuity?

Shame though for the Ocean peeps. I know (heard from other peeps) that some of the voice actors in Vancouver have either moved away or aren't just active anymore. Vanessa Morley isn't around anymore while I have heard from someone that Lisa Ann Beley is living somewhere else (not sure if it's with the rest of her family).

The original dub had a lot of kind of lackluster performances and a few really fantastic ones. The new dub is kind of the flipside of that — almost everyone is at least decent, but none of them really stand out as great. I would say that the new dub is better on the whole, but the old dub had higher highs and lower lows. I can't speak to Destiny at all since I haven't watched the new dub on that one yet. If I can keep up this pace, I'll be there in about a week.

Since I'm here, might as well post my impressions up through episode 28. This batch includes the infamous "Kira shot first" scene and the episode after it where Aegis self-destructs on the Strike. Honestly, I can't say much that hasn't already been rehashed endlessly, but the HD edit is just flat-out worse. Ironically, just before the scene, I was thinking to myself that Nichol is honestly a better pilot than Yzak and Dearka are. Whenever the four of them are fighting together, Yzak and Dearka always get taken out first. Nichol knows how to avoid overextending himself... until he has no choice in order to save Athrun.

One thing that was interesting is that Dearka immediately shifts into the peacemaker role on the team. Up until now he's been kind of a shit, and almost always sided with Yzak. When they get back to their carrier after losing Nichol, Yzak and Athrun get into a shouting match about it and Dearka is the one who intercedes to get them to calm down.

The next episode has some fantastic fights, though. The Archangel is close to reaching Alaska's defensive umbrella, so it's ZAFT's last shot at them and everyone goes all out. Duel loses a leg and is left behind, Buster is disabled and Dearka surrenders because he landed in range of Archangel's guns, and Athrun kills Tolle then blows himself up at the Strike. Honestly, Tolle's death is the worst part of the episode — it's just too neat, too perfect a mirror to Nichol's death. It's also a blatant fridging — Tolle dies solely for Kira's character arc (and Miri's, to a lesser extent). In contrast, Nichol's death feels like a culmination of Nichol's own characterization — he was always the kindest and most compassionate member of the Le Creuset team, and him sacrificing himself to save Athrun is him going out on his own terms.

Randomly got fed a scene from the new dub via Youtube recommendations and, despite the comments insisting Cagalli's voice was giving them cancer, Waltfeld's voice was awful.

Maybe it's an act (it was the doner kebab scene) but the guy sounded like Foghorn Leghorn's more awkward cousin.

Yeah, that scene was one of the more awkward ones in the original. imo both Cagalli and Kira are better in the new dub, but Brian Drummon as Waltfeld was another stand-out performance in the original, and the new dub can't quite capture the shift from casual friendliness to quietly menacing that he does.

I feel like the whole April Fool’s crisis caused by the N-Jammers was something they added after the initial planning. As in, by the time they stopped to consider what the N-Jammers would do on such a massive scale to the earth’s energy grid, they couldn’t add that into major faction motivations anymore. So it was left as background detail.

It's actually kind of impressive Rau Le Creuset managed to gain a position of such authority among the Coordinators. Rau isn't even just a normal human pretending to be an augmented human. He's a human with severe genetic defects that cause him serious problems pretending to be an augmented human.

Rau's a clone of a guy who had some of the best genetics in the setting and most of those carried over, hence why he can keep up with the Coordinators and use Coordinator style Mobile Suits no problem. The defects that are killing him are separate from that.

Honestly, Rau's performance is probably the strongest argument in favor of "actually Naturals and Coordinators aren't that different". As far as , there's nothing to really suggest that Al da Flaga was "genetically superior" in any meaningful way? He was just a raging narcissist and wanted a clone instead of a son because he wanted his heir to be a copy of himself, not a blend of himself and his wife.

I don't recall anything saying that Al da Flaga had superior genes.

I mean, he probably said that, but he's biased.

and You forget that Mu, Rau, and Rey are Cosmic Era's Newtypes and it couldn't have been a random thing. Chances are, they got those abilities from Al.

Even if it's true that Al da Flaga had "newtype genes" that were inherited by his son and his clones (which Al doesn't seem to have been aware of, seeing as the only thing we've seen newtype powers do in CE is sense the presence of other people with newtype powers), that doesn't explain how Rau and Rey can pilot Coordinator-use mobile suits not just competently, but skillfully enough to be considered ace pilots.

The difference between Naturals and Coordinators using mobile suits is typically said be a function of reflexes and reaction time, which suggests one of two things. Either the level of ability needed to use a Coordinator OS is wildly overstated and the reason the Natural test pilots struggled so much with the Gundams is because their test OS was just that bad until Kira fixed it (which is supported by the fact that Kira had to fix it before he could use the Strike effectively, despite being a Coordinator himself), or else the level needed for a Coordinator OS is above average for Naturals but not more than any Natural could ever have, so that Rau and Rey have good enough reflexes to do it despite being Naturals themselves.

For better or for worse, Coordinators aren't perfect, or even necessarily better. They're just modified. It's the whole point of Kira being the Ultimate Coordinator, he's literally the only one that they actually got exactly what they wanted. By extension, we know that literally every other Coordinator had unplanned, possibly detrimental attributes.

We have Coordinators that are Blind Without Them, for example. So Rau having some wrinkles that he needs medication for isn't the hugest thing in the world, especially with Destiny revealing that he's got a buddy in Durandal.

Him being incredibly good at something could be enough to convince others around him that he's a Coordinator at face value. It's not like Coordinators are any different visually and I can't remember if there's even a way to genetically check whether someone is a Coordinator or not.

You could, theoretically, go around saying "yeah, my parents Coordinated me to have a dimple and instead I have weird lines around my eyes. Crazy, right?" and AFAIK there's nothing anyone can do other than go "huh, that's weird." Considering he conjured up an identity out of thin air, doesn't seem like it would be a stretch to make it a Coordinator.

IIRC, there is one acknowledged case in-universe of a Natural being able to pilot a Mobile Suit prior to the OS rewrites, so it's not that it's impossible for a Natural, just very difficult.

Edited by DarkHunter on Apr 8th 2024 at 3:16:05 AM

One of the things that I've been paying particular attention to in this rewatch is how people treat the difference between Coordinators and Naturals, and basically everyone treats it as established fact that Coordinators are just better than Naturals — all Naturals, categorically — in basically every way. They're faster, tougher, smarter, stronger, have better immune systems, and for all we know their farts smell like roses. This idea has been repeated by a variety of people, both major characters and nameless people just there to provide exposition.

There have been exactly two things that have pushed back on this idea at all as of episode 28: when George Glenn gave his speech revealing the existence of Coordinators to the world, he described it as humanity living up to its potential rather than exceeding their limits or the like (which can be read as suggesting that Coordinators are all on the high end of the bell curve of normal human distribution, but aren't any better than the best Naturals), and a brief conversation between Kira and Cagalli where Kira points out that Coordinators aren't just born with their skills — they have to learn and practice and train just like anyone else. Both of which are very mild comments compared to the much more numerous and stronger statements we've gotten about Coordinators being objectively superior to Naturals.

The difference between Coordinators and Naturals becomes a more prominent theme later in the show, so I'm waiting to see how much they comment on it then. But as of now, the show very much expects you to buy into the idea that Coordinators are just better than Naturals.