It's a Gundam thread!

I mean, Char is still on the good guy's side in Zeta. And while he's taken a chill pill since the OYW and hasn't gone off the deep end yet, we shouldn't gloss over his general shittiness.

Also, one of the things that the expanded materials did that I liked is really play up why the Titans happened. Operation Stardust showed us why so many (genuinely decent) people got on board with the Titans; to the populace as a whole, the spectre of Zeon was very real and a genuine (occasionally nuclear) threat.

She's also in Aldnoah.Zero, if it helps.

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 12th 2019 at 9:08:49 AM

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I mean the Dom Trio seem to be little more the Lacus obsessed Psychos For Hire

Would they count?

Not really, as their fanatcism is framed as... basically being right. Rather than showing them as being zealots, it's used more to show just how in the right Lacus is.

It is worth noting that while Tomino is operating from a position of intense political pessimism, his stance in the mid-UC saga isn't just 'only the fascists can save us', but 'if something can only be saved through fascism, is it actually worth it?'. I think it's pretty important that the answer Judau reaches is 'no, it isn't'.

Judau eventually just fucking leaves the Solar System, done with its bullshit.

Honestly that always struck me as super out of character from Judau and I largely chalked it up to Tomino's habit of writing protagonists out of situations so they can't be brought back for sequels.

Judau gets pretty badly beaten down over the second half of ZZ, between Leina's apparent death, the Dublin drop, and a dozen other tragedies, and his final fight with Haman and the Earth Alliance rolling in to take the glory after everyone else had done all the fighting and dying was enough to break him. Seriously, they had enough moments where he was clearly running on emotional fumes that it wasn't really surprising that something would finally push him over the edge.

Edited by Iaculus on Mar 12th 2019 at 1:47:14 PM

And honestly, the Earth Sphere in Gundam Sucks. You got Zeon everywhere and no matter how many times you think the Exterminator got em all, they come back!

Add in the constant colony drops, death, and everything. Really just leaving is probably a smart choice.

I think that position of intense political pessimism is the root of my disagreement with the overall fundamental philosophic premises of the UC timeline. It all well and good to want to drill into viewers heads that War Is Hell but in science fiction, you should show possible alternatives for how humanity can escape it. But Tomino from Zeta to Victory has such little faith in people in general that the alternative presented by Newtypes will never work.

Edited by Xeino on Mar 12th 2019 at 6:56:37 AM

The whole point is that Newtypes aren't actually an alternative to anything. Newtypes aren't magical saviors of humanity, they're just people like everyone else. Some are good, some are bad, some are indifferent.

The broader arc of the Universal Century timeline is at least mildly optimistic, though. First they fight the bad guys, the Principality of Zeon. It sucks, but they win. Then they fight Axis, the survivors of the first conflict, the diehards and fanatics that refuse to accept the failure of their cause. That sucks too, but it results in Zeon being essentially completely wiped out. Then they fight Char's Neo Zeon. None of Char's followers seem to be survivors from Axis or otherwise Principality-associated — he's recruiting disaffected people using a romanticized ideal of Zeon that never actually existed. They're defeated too, and after that the Zeon movement effectively ceases to exist.

They go from fighting Zeon, to fighting the broken remnants of Zeon, to fighting a phantom Zeon based on a rosy ideal and nothing of substance, and the Earth Sphere emerges from each conflict better off than they were after the previous one, until a lasting peace is possible.

(Yes, this interpretation requires you to ignore Unicorn, but I see that as a feature, not a bug. It also means ignoring F91 and Victory, but I always thought those worked better as pseudo-AUs, considered without the baggage of the rest of UC before them.)

Shouldn't you ignore Narrative in that case, as well? Given that it's partially influenced by Unicorn's events and has the Republic of Zeon's forces in that film somehow getting away with masquerading as Sleeves.

Edited by G2BattleConvoy on Mar 13th 2019 at 9:57:11 AM

Yes, I meant Unicorn and all its various related media, not just the OVA specifically.

political pessimism... More like tomino has no faith in humanity in general during this period of his life

I mean Ideon pretty much ends on the note that Humans are just incapable of changing for the better and it be better if the universe and all of existence just stopped.

Tomino of this time is suffering from a bad case of Humans Are Bastards and Misanthrope Supreme

Its kind of a wonder he even created stuff like Xabungle, King Gainer and Brain Powerd.

Eh its a phase

We all go through the EVERYTHING JUST NEEDS TO DIE!!! phase in our lives

And some of us make TV shows while in it.

Vaguely related, what's the deal with Quess' mother? I was browsing the Gundam wiki and it lists only Quess' father as her family. Her father's page lists Katherine as his mistress. No mention on any page mentions a mother. And if she's a mistress, that's a really goddamn blatant affair. Char would be ashamed.

Did someone just have Adenauer Paraya mixed up with Franklin Bidan or something?

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 13th 2019 at 1:51:24 PM

The one thing you got to appreciate about Wing even people who consider the Colony Drop option tend to change their mind with how BAD an idea it actually is... generally having even those who start one turn around and try to stop it or have it be the expendable part of the plan 'Oh No they stop the colony from dropping on are target... good thing we just bum rushed it with our forces... it be kinda stupid for us to have our army right here at ground Zero

going back to Wing Zero's Design, Remember the original idea for the Gundams in Wing weren't for tactical attacks on key installations... They were suppose to be Walking Massacre units after the Five at once Colony Drops in Operation Meteor meant to sow as much death, disorder and destruction as possible

Hence Wing Zero's Design... Fly over a Surviving Military base or Population center... Fire Twin Buster rifle in the middle, Move one

So, in other words, Mobile Armours in the PD timeline are like the AC Gundams, but dialled Up To Eleven, and then some?

I have finally finished collecting Origin.

Got the last 3 volumes, 10, 11, 12 & thus have now completed gathering them all.

Now I just have to find the time to read them all.

Fudge, I should continue where I left off with Volume 5.

So Uniqlo's begun selling its Gundam graphic tees.

I picked up the Z'Gok one. I really like it.

FUNi licensed Build Divers, dubbed it, and the whole thing drops tomorrow.

This came right out of nowhere.

saitamaokpanel.jpg

You know, it's funny. The main characters are so flat and cliche that when I think of them in my head, I hear them in English anyway since I immediately start thinking of the dozen characters identical to them.

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 27th 2019 at 2:11:39 PM

Like Iron-Blooded Orphans, this series has a lot of spin-off potential.

How Team Avalon and the 7th Panzer Division became rivals would make a decent story.