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Reviews Anime / Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

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Kirby0189 Kirby is shaped like a friend Since: Apr, 2019
Kirby is shaped like a friend
03/19/2020 07:39:15 •••

This could have been truly awesome, but instead it's kind of meh.

Now don't jump to conclusions just from the review's title alone. I feel that Zeta Gundam is the kind of anime that has all of the right points to make for an awesome series, and a lot of them do show through. The War Is Hell themes that the Gundam franchise uses are full-force here and do a great job of displaying the horrors of war. I was surprised going into this show at how nice the animation is for something so old. Sure, it's not immune to cases of egregious Off-Model, but the detail put into the art and the designs pleasantly surprised me. I enjoyed characters like Char and Haman, and Kamille started out annoying but got better. And I can't get enough of the soundtrack.

But that said... you know that feeling where you really like some food, but then someone puts some sauce onto it that you hate and it makes eating what you should be loving painful instead? Well that feeling occurred for me with Zeta Gundam because Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is in full force here. My viewpoint on dark works that rely on Trauma Conga Line is that they work because they get us attached to the characters so that we will share their pain when something bad happens to them, and gain immense satisfaction when Throw the Dog a Bone occurs. Problem is that although I enjoy a lot of Zeta's cast, the majority of them are a bunch of whiny jerks. Kamille grows out of his state, but I couldn't stop wanting Katz to get off screen and never come back. And Reccoa's motives later in the series make no sense and get too much focus for my tastes. The end result was me seeing bad stuff happening to a bunch of jerks I couldn't feel sorry for instead of bad stuff happening to sympathetic characters who I would hope for the best for.

Even for the characters I did get attached to, the Crapsack World the series takes place in bends to such degrees to make them suffer that it stops being tragic and just becomes tedious. For instance, the series overuses Stuffed into the Fridge (a trope I normally don't mind) by introducing multiple Disposable Women who all die a few episodes after their introductions to cause the same two characters (Kamille and Jerid) grief and motivate them to work towards the motivations they were already pursuing. By the time Rosammy was introduced, I had caught hold of the formula and couldn't help but cringe at how the same thing was being done again.

With all the crap the unlikable cast was being put through, I ended up rooting for Haman. I hate when I end up rooting for villains, because although she's cool, it usually means to me that I want to go against a work's intended message and see the heroes fail because I can't stand them.

That said, Zeta Gundam is still entertaining. I just think that it could have been better. I preferred ZZ for taking the time to get us attached to the more-likable cast before putting them through the wringer and doing the trauma in moderation as opposed to extreme levels.


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