Gundam Reconguista in G

After rewatching the show on GundamInfo, that's not really what happens. Bellri goes off with Aida because the Capital's intelligence chief has given him a not-so-subtle nod of approval, and he wants to gather information on their new taboo-breaking enemy. After that, a string of skirmishes occur, which I'll break down:

Shortly after arriving on the Megafauna, Bellri gets blackmailed into deploying in the G-Self when Klim threatens Noredo and Raraya. Despite this, he still doesn't want to fight his own people, and immediately tries to surrender so he can hand over his intel. Unfortunately, Klim, being the charmingly amoral little shit that he is, misinterprets this as an I Surrender, Suckers tactic to distract the enemy, and after the Montero piles into them, Dellensen's team is forced to agree. They attack the G-Self and its automated self-defences kick in, brutally mauling several Catsiths while Bellri can only watch in bafflement and alarm. End result - his stock's fallen with his own nation, but risen with the Megafauna crew, who are impressed by his willingness to help them against his former friends.

The second time, Bellri sorties of his own free will. He says it's because of his growing guilt over killing Aida's boyfriend, but it's not clear on whether he just planned on heading off the fighting by surrendering again. Either way, it immediately becomes irrelevant. The battle's already started, making communication impossible (thank you, Minovsky physics), the Megafauna is under indiscriminate attack, putting Noredo and Raraya at risk, and, most importantly, the Capital Army strike team, the enforcers of the taboo his mother has dedicated her life to supporting, is being led by a taboo-breaking monster that eclipses anything the Amerians have developed, the Elf Bullock. Bellri can't have that, so he cripples the Bullock and drives the Army off, improving his reputation further with the Megafauna crew.

By this point, he feels things have gone too far. He wants out, so he plans an escape with Noredo and Raraya. He volunteers to go out on patrol so he can nab some pics of the Amerian fleet, smuggles the girls aboard his Fry-Schop, and plans on forcing the Schop's pilots to take him on a beeline to Capital Tower. Then another Elf-series suit jumps him, and Bellri has to destroy it to defend himself (and is quite willing to, because it's a taboo-breaking monstrosity that his country absolutely should not have). Boom, Dellensen's dead, and Bellri's hit the point of no return.

The fourth skirmish is very simple - Klim's irresponsibility has put Raraya in danger, and he needs to rescue her. By this point, he and the red Elf Bullock have basically got on each other's 'shoot on sight' lists - there's no negotiating there, even if he might want to after the Dellensen thing.

Fools, don't you know reconguista isn't for you (or people who passed Spanish 101?)

Admittedly, I've only seen the first two episodes and wasn't blown away. The protagonist is another yuppie prepubescent, amnesia girl had to be the most annoying thing on my computer screen that wasn't malicious software. Also, blowing enemy to smithereens was jarring after relatively little effort it took to simply capture an enemy mobile suit. And if the cockpit is in the torso, doesn't that mean the pilot of the suit whose head he blew off is still alive?

Whatever, I didn't stick around for SEED either. In fact, the only Gundam show I've seen to the end was G-Gundam, which I wish I hadn't(once that game is over and it gets "serious" it goes to pot. The ridiculous national stereotypes were all the fun, but throwing a hoolahoop in an actual war like situation was too much). I figured this was going to be a G Gundam type show, that those admittedly cool looking robot designs were going to be rushing at each other while their pilots shouted "Gundam Fight! Ready, Go!" oh well.

If this does inspire the political activism the author intended, good for him. At this point I'm just interested in seeing if any of those robots show up in the next Gundam Battle Assault game, should one come out.

This might be of interest

To me, the plot writes itself.

Someone with a gun won the last Gundam fight, so all the giant robots became about shooting stuff, hence the reflector and whatnot.

The protagonist Gundam is being used to advertise a new, cleaner/renewable/better power source, that will become law if he can win for his country. While the sanctioned fights are going on, there are also firefights with space pirates who have a similar goal but less legal methods. The government in power tries to use the pirate activity to turn public opinion against the new power source, which is why a Gundam using that same energy early instead of more proven but wasteful methods was entered the first place.

You get your environmental message out, you ensure the creation of a new Metroid game feature gigantic robot suits and people like me will be pacified by "Gundam Fight! Ready, GO!" still being shouted.

Whoever this guy is, he's man enough to admit his mistakes at least. Gotta give him credit there.

edited 25th Apr '15 3:10:05 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

I'm bummed about Tomino's thoughts on G-Reco. It reminds me of how Walt Disney became ashamed of "Fantasia" after it tanked at the box office. It seems he doesn't hate the show so much as he hates the fact that it failed to connect with a broad audience. For what it's worth, I'm still a G-Reco fanatic!

edited 24th Apr '15 6:28:32 PM by reconguista

Don't worry, being a G-Reco fan is not that bad. Being an AGE fan, now that's not having any self-respect.

I don't think Gundam G-Reco was bad. I think it was pretty boring actually.

Just watched episode 9 on Youtube.

What the fuck did I just watch? Seriously, I couldn't make a damn bit of sense out of that. The Megafauna heads to the Capital Tower because Aida's dad wants to ask the Space Pope some questions, and Bellri's mom arranges the meeting because sure why not.

Apparently Bellri isn't the only one in this show who has no concept of the fact that enemy forces may in fact seek to do you harm.

As Wilmit spells out, there's now two factions in the Tower - the dovish SU-Cord loyalists of the Capital Guard, and the taboo-breaking belligerents of the Capital Army. Negotiating would involve sneaking past the Army with the assistance of the Guard to contact the Capital's leader, His Holiness, because the Army are (a) completely rabid and (b) no longer representative of their country (although since she's a devout SU-Cordist, she assumes that His Holiness can fix that once he's briefed on the situation). She wants to negotiate because Aida's dad has just provided very good evidence of a military buildup by the providers of the photon batteries, the baddest, most technologically-advanced dudes in the Earth Sphere, which justifies Ameria's taboo-breaking and radically alters the current conflict.

Sure, I got that much. But I guess my problem is that the amount of ire between the various factions doesn't seem to match up. In all, we've got:

• Space Pirates: I don't think we've actually seen any legit space pirates, but they thought Raraiya was one (though at this point I'm betting she's actually from the spacenoid faction) and the Megafauna was pretending to be some (though they're actually Amerian). The Capital Tower seemed pretty eager to kill and/or capture them, since the Capital Tower is presumably their main target.
• Capital Tower: They were initially set up as the main good-guy faction (a la the Earth Federation), at least in that the main character is from there. They provide the photon batteries that allow for advanced technology, but control their distribution to prevent things they don't like. Two subfactions:
  • Capital Guard: the defense force for the Capital Tower, to keep other people from just showing up and stealing their photon batteries. Bellri was (is?) a Capital Guard cadet.
  • Capital Army: a new, offensively-minded Capital Tower military force. I'm not entirely sure how long they've been around; at first I was under the impression that they were newly created since the beginning of the series, but now I'm less certain.
• Ameria: a nation that gets its photon batteries from the Capital Tower. Is rather unhappy with having to rely on them (and abide by their restrictions on research/technology). Have been fighting with another nation in much the same situation, whose name I can't remember at the moment.
  • The Megafauna: An elite Amerian military unit posing as space pirates. They've been fighting with the Capital Army, but don't seem to have any actual military objective beyond "test our cool new toys".
• Space Guys: provide the photon batteries to the Capital Tower, presumably. Not much else has been said about them yet, except that they're massing military forces, which they're apparently not supposed to do.

Now, here's my problem. The Capital Guard (as represented by Bellri and his mom) seem to be friendlier with the Megafauna (who initially appeared to be space pirates, but it's now clear that they're Amerian) than they are with the Capital Army, who are at least nominally on their side. Yeah, I get that there's internal politics going on, and there's always the Interservice Rivalry thing, but you'd think they'd be more sympathetic to guys who are fighting for the Capital Tower but disagree with you on how, than to the people who are actively hostile to the Capital Tower as a whole. (I mean, shit, Aida's dad called the Capital Tower evil to the Space Pope's face.)

But instead, Bellri (an SU-Cordist and Capital Guard cadet) went off with a(n as-far-as-he-knew-at-the-time) space pirate — supposedly to "gather intelligence", but he made zero attempt to actually get any information about them back to the Capital Tower — and shows no hesitation in fighting (and killing!) Capital Army forces in the meantime. Even when it becomes clear that the Megafauna is a) actually Amerian, and b) flagrantly violating the taboo that appears to be the core tenant of SU-Cordism, he doesn't really seem to care. Then Aida's dad and Bellri's mom show up, the former presents evidence that the Space Guys are doing bad things, so the latter agrees to escort the Megafauna (a freaking taboo-breaking Amerian warship) through Capital Tower territory in order to talk to the Space Pope.

It's been said in here repeatedly that the characters do dumb things because they're not really soldiers. I can buy that to an extent — pretty much every pilot (with the exception of Dellensen and Mask) are terrible soldiers. Aida is reckless and cares more about proving herself than getting the job done. Klim is arrogant and overconfident, which gets him in trouble repeatedly. Bellri (even ignoring his going AWOL/defecting/"intelligence gathering"/whatever) is happy to blow mobile suits out of the sky without a moment's hesitation, but says flat-out in episode 9 that he can't bring himself to fight if he can see the enemy as a person.

All of that I can handle, based on the "bad at war" premise. But the very very most basic idea of war is "they're the enemy, fight them", which no one (except the Capital Army, now that I think about it) does with any consistency. The Megafauna is happy to take Bellri in as one of their pilots, despite the fact that as a Capital Guard cadet he should be their enemy as space pirates or Amerian military. Bellri has no issue blowing away Capital Army mobile suits (as long as he can't see the pilots, anyway). His mother has no problem allying herself with the taboo-breaking Amerians after taking them entirely at their word (and a single still photograph) that the Space Guys allied with the Capital Tower are actually up to no good.

Basically, nobody considers Ameria a serious threat. Wilmit and the Guard assume they can just turn off the power and starve them into submission, while the Army reckon they can roll over them with pure military might (and/or lots of expendable Kuntala soldiers). Both factions so far seem to have a point. Certainly, in the latter case, the Amerians have only one (irreplaceable) suit that can match an Elf Bullock in an even fight without literally falling apart mid-battle (I'm not counting the Montero here because it's fairly obviously pure pilot skill ensuring Klim gets mauled rather than instagibbed every time he goes out), and the Army's mass-producing Bullocks (plus other, similarly scary stuff). The Army guys' 'dude, it's the weekend' response this episode when Cumpa asked them if they were running patrols was the perfect encapsulation of this. Yes, they lost Dellensen and most of his squad, and that's unfortunate, but most of the other casualties were Mask's Kuntala brigade, who absolutely nobody cares about. To them, this is just a border skirmish.

On the other hand, the Army is a serious existential threat that Wilmit's faction can't use their traditional weapons against. If the governing authority designed to prevent taboo-breaking warmongering becomes a taboo-breaking warmonger, that's the entire system of control of the Reguild Century gone in a flash, and according to SU-Cordism, if that system goes, it's the cue for the apocalypse. Also, their suppliers in space might get annoyed and cut their photon battery supply as well. 'These brave men and women are fighting to protect you' is absolutely the line that the Army is using to drum up its support, but if you're a devout SU-Cordist, it's more likely to push you away.

From the Megafauna crew's prespective, do remember that the Capital kids were initially treated as prisoners, and Klim blackmailed Bellri into sortieing because the G-Self was a powerful weapon that only he could pilot. Then Bellri lures the pursuing Catsiths into a trap and unhesitatingly obliterates half of them (translation - tries to surrender and then has his suit's automatic defences kick in when Klim screws things up), admirably demonstrating his trustworthiness, and they start giving him and the girls a bit more slack. Cue Bellri being forced into defending himself from enemies he can't reasonably negotiate with (because of Minovsky particles and/or his friends being in immediate danger) a few times, and he's a trusted crew member.

On the photo thing, that felt like narrative shorthand. We can assume that Gusion provided Wilmit with enough evidence that she thought she'd best check with her boss, and they seemed to have a close enough professional relationship that she was willing to trust his word (she mentions they'd met at a few conferences before, and they had an obvious mutual respect during their screentime together).

I suppose that's a reasonable explanation of things based on events as they've occurred, but it really doesn't match the way the show has felt as I've been watching it. The impression I get is... well, what I said a few posts up, rather than what you said. Your reading of things is logical, but the sense I get from the show itself is more than the character (Bellri especially) do things for the sake of moving the plot where Tomino wants it to go rather than out of any internally coherent motivation.

Bumping this thread to point out that the series is now available on Hulu (which is presumably why it was removed from the Gundam Youtube channel). It does require a subscription to watch, but between that and the fact that Hulu's also simulcasting Iron-Blooded Orphans, I'm totally willing to throw a few bucks a month their way.

I watched on Youtube up until they made it unavailable in the US; I'm sure I'll be commenting more in this thread as I get to watching it on Hulu.