My apologies in advance, this post is not going to be very readable. I actually doubt that there’s a lot of value here. Those of you who haven’t seen Mobile Suit Victory Gundam let it be enough that I don’t recommend it. The content of the post after the jump is full of spoilers.
It’s also going to be more or less the real-time log of my experience of the last six episodes of the show. This is my third attempt to watch V, starting in earnest in mid-2009. It took me almost 2 years to finish, which is indicative of my inability to connect with the show. For those who do not wish to inflict the horror of the rest of the post on themselves, here’s the tl;dr version:
Despite likable characters, an interesting setting and milieu (and within the Universal Century), a rather dark and violently grim story and elements, a great wealth of violent battles, and the direction of the franchise creator Tomino Yoshiyuki, I do not recommend Mobile Suit Victory Gundam.
The villains are comical (especially near the end, oh god), the misogyny is through the roof, the mechanical designs are mostly ugly, the battles are wild and poorly thought-out (and rife with all sorts of annoying habits), and Tomino Yoshiyuki’s propensity to put out LOLTOMINO is in fine fettle.
With that out of the way, on to my descent into Tomino’s hell.
The least compelling masked villain in the Gundam franchise; yes at least Neo Roanoake made me laugh hysterically.
Episode 46
Episode 47
I can say a lot of nice things about Uso, but I won't. I'll say he almost got torture-raped by a crazy naked woman with calipers in a bathtub and he had to escape a camp full of soldiers butt-naked with his 13-year old penis letting it all hang out. Later on he headbutted a bikini-clad girl in space with his Gundam.
Episode 48
I can say a lot of nice things about Uso, but I won't. I'll say he almost got torture-raped by a crazy naked woman with calipers in a bathtub and he had to escape a camp full of soldiers butt-naked with his 13-year old penis letting it all hang out. Later on he headbutted a bikini-clad girl in space with his Gundam.
http://twitter.com/8C/status/26801439443525632
Episode 49
http://twitter.com/#!/BenDTU/status/26815378634051584
http://twitter.com/#!/Kherubim2k/status/26819729708556289
Episode 50
http://twitter.com/#!/DonKangolJones/status/26823397132472320
Tomino wrote an essay on women called Mobile Suit Victory Gundam. Katejina Loos is the killer quote.
Episode 51 (finale)
http://twitter.com/#!/schneiderheim/status/26844930236227584
And so ends my tortuous journey through V Gundam. I really can’t say I enjoyed it, despite it being Mechafetish’s (the co-founder of We Remember Love and the person who really got me into Gundam) most favorite show in the franchise, as well as enjoying such high regard among mecha fans in general.
I can’t even say I love to hate it, the way I do for the SEED franchise. It’s a matter of elevated expectations meets the LOLTOMINO grinder, of what I feel that I should find awesome but instead see mostly wastefulness. And being such an involved fan of the franchise, I can no longer be indifferent to any of its shows. I’m going to feel strongly either way. In any case, I feel that I need a long break from what’s left of my Gundam backlog.
Good thing I have Unicorn to look forward to the next 2 years.
We Remember Love 
>>I feel that I need a long break from what’s left of my Gundam backlog.
Thank god. I was about to appeal to you to please put a halt to your mandated watching and just for the next couple months watch nothing but great anime that you wil definitely like.
If I try to watch Wing Gundam again over the next 6 months, fucking kill me.
Happily.
Yeah, I think you owe yourself a break. Ryvius and Tetsujin 28 are both goooood!
That said… LOVE ME USSO
Schneider is right, Testujin 28 (2004) is fantastic. I think I’ve been trying to get you to watch this one for a while now. Hopefully you’ll take our combined recommendation.
In time, like I told him I’m in this SRW mood and I need my robots dark and carnage-y. Tetsujin 28 inspires something different, and while I do have a taste for that, it’s not what I’m up for right now.
Dammit I should’ve started Ryvius already! But fuckit my Voltes V retromarathon has gotten me in the good parts — I didn’t realize it was only 40 episodes! I kind of expected all shows to exceed 50 in the late 70s-early 80s.
I don’t think I’m ready for Tetsujin 28 yet. I’ll need to be in a different, non-SRW mood.
Wait…you’ve been abusing yourself with shows like Gundam Seed, V, School Days etc and haven’t been spending enough time with pretty good shows like Ryvius?
Your masochistic tendencies are surely revealing themselves to anyone who reads your blog/twitter on a regular basis.
Sigh.
Believe it or not, there’s also this thing I have when I’m too pissed to appreciate truly good stuff that I haven’t seen before (another reason why I rewatch a lot of shows). I’ve gone into many Gundam shows I now currently love with that kind of mood and wasted a lot of my time watching then dropping them — only to watch again and love them later on. It happened to me last year with Legend of the Black Heaven — which is a show that I’ve no doubt I’m going to love under better circumstances.
I put V on hold for a long time thinking that I was just in one of these moods, but I wasn’t prepared for it to fail so spectacularly at the very end.
I got a ton of robot shows waiting on the wings after I watch Ryvius (finishing VOTOMs, then watching Dunbine, Dougram, and a bunch of others like Yoko) I just didn’t feel like starting them until I got V off my back.
Yeah, a lot of the characters in Victory were just plain unlikeable and irredeemable, especially Katejina. It’s amazing just how far she spiraled into batshit-insane territory from her first appearance. If there was anyone who deserved to be dead dead DEAD, it should be her… But no. The Japanese apparently think that living with your sins is much better than dying for them (see: Sergei Smirnov and the soon-to-be-Missus Crossroad).
The villains from Zanscare weren’t nearly as sympathetic as past Gundam villains and those to follow, but I find it extremely hard to criticize characters like Shakti and Odelo for simply trying to survive and live peacefully with the people and things they care about.
Though this is an all angry post so I don’t really expect people to even pay much attention to these ultimately neutralized thoughts on the characters. Rage on then.
That’s an interesting thought… the good villains get dignified exits, or at least death releases them. Katejina just flat out surprised me. I mean, as late as ep 48 I had no idea how she’s going to turn out. No idea.
Then BAM. Unfuuckingbelievable.
Usually I associate LOLTOMINO with Xabungle and King Gainer.
Though to defend Tomino, at this point, he was really, really depressed. Gundam had become nothing more than a Bandai cashcow. It seems easy to blame him for phoning it in, but let’s face it. He was depressed over what Gundam became. He’s still not happy about it.
Speaking of those shows, hop to it. You deserve it and you probably not done with either show.
Silly Tomino is best Tomino.
I’ve seen all of Gainer, and Xabungle isn’t fully subbed. Gainer I liked enough, though I find it difficult to write about with any sense at all. It’s kind of like a homeless bum’s Turn A Gundam. You could add Heavy Metal L-Gaim to your list as well. I got 5 eps deep into that before I figured out that I wasn’t ready for this kind of stupid Tomino.
I’ve seen far worse posts, believe you me. Better to own up to simply not enjoying something and feeling unsatisfied than to take perverse pleasure in being all angry and hateful about a show while also hinting at dis-ingeniousness intentions and making me wonder what the fuck the motivations are.
Again, myself not being someone who at all gets the whole raeghate post thing or why people do it. This post by comparison seems….I don’t know…brutally honest, to the point, and close to the authors heart. I like brutally honest, even when I think it sells a show far short by only giving impressions of the last few episodes. However saying as much beforehand does a lot to explain where the post is about to go and what to take from it and I’m perfectly okay with that myself.
My Gundam SEED and GSD posts and especially my Gundam 00 posts are very clear about what they’re up to, and what I’m up to. Let’s keep this about me because I don’t want to turn WRL’s comment section into a forum for criticizing other bloggers.
If you read the GSD post, the point is very clear: haters gonna hate. I hate GSD, even if my hatred for it is rather shallow compared to ZZ, I enjoy hating on GSD because it’s fun. Other people enjoy hating on something because it’s fun.
Now, if it happens to be a show you’re a fan of, just live with it. We have nothing to do with you. You obviously hate people who do these things and struggle to associate my behavior with your ideal of what kind of fan I should be. That’s okay. Hate on, hater.
All of which raises a question in my mind: what does one say to people (not you obviously, but they exist) who watch all of “Gundam ZZ”, all of “Gundam 00”, all of “Gundam SEED” and “DESTINY” and finally “Victory Gundam”, but completely refuse to watch “G Gundam” because ‘it’s too Super-Robot’.
Such fans confuse me.
Never met such a person myself. Typically people I know who watched those shows you mentioned (airing years apart and being a cross-section of what Gundam has to offer and all) will be inclined to watch all of the entries the franchise has to offer. Have NEVER met a fan who watched those shows but refused to watch yet another one that aired on American TV. I’m sure such a fan would confuse me too if I ever ran into one.
I get it, believe it or not.
It’s because Super Robot anime is an entirely different kind of show.
When the buttfail Gundam shows stink up the real robotness of Gundam, it can be accepted as failure to achieve an authentic intention to meet expectations of the convention (Real Robot anime).
Super Robot shows flaunt such rules any time they feel like it. The very attitude towards the ideals and aesthetics of Real Robot anime isn’t something realfags are interested in. It turns them off really.
Now the interesting thing is, the SEED, Wing, and 00 (and even ZZ) sub-franchises’ multitude of failures also indicate a desire to be more super robot. Just look at the superprototypes! They’re invincible, inspire heroic awe reserved for Super Robot hero mecha. They have super powers revealed in the timeliest of moments, etc. etc.
But their fags are willing to believe that these transgressions (if they ever own up to these as failures in the first place), are still done in the spirit of real robot anime.
See I’m not one of those people that believes that because someone out there finds fail in something it means I have to find fail in the exact same thing.
Obviously I’m not a rigid realfag who demands that all Gundam shows follow a strict checklist of things they can and cannot do in order to met some unclear set of standards about what constitutes real or super. Obviously I pay some attention to those things, but I prefer to look at the bigger picture and to go by how the show presents itself in terms of overall plot/character portrayal and goals.
That said V Gundam didn’t seem to have much of a goal other than to depict humanity at it’s worst and most destructive with all the chaos that ensues from those tendencies. Even Usso gets in on the chaos for a little while, but ultimately his and the League Militaire sides story ends up being largely about just trying to make it out alive as a bunch of madmen make war on humanity. It’s like Tomino wanted to depict the end of the world with this one or something, and even though the good guys win in the end it really ends up feeling likea….hollow victory.
Most people I know couldn’t watch Victory Gundam all in one sitting because of the constant character deaths and just overall grim atmosphere that never lifts and only continues to build as time goes on and more characters get offed at an increasingly rapid pace by crazed villains who only seem to want to watch the world burn.
I wish they had gone deeper into exactly what motivated Katejina to switch sides and become what she became. That would have been an interesting subplot that could have done a lot for the Zanscare side which as it stands is about on the same level of depth as the Earth Alliance from Seed Destiny.
You are right when you mention what I think was a huge mistake in how the Zanscare side was handled in that they killed off pretty much all of the sympathetic Zanscare pilots early on, leaving only the crazies to run the show in Side 2 and wreck havoc for the sake of havoc with nobody to question if it was at all worthwhile.
There have been arguments made that the Zanscare Empire represents the ultimate evil in the Gundam universe, but I prefer to categorize them as Chaotic Evil in the D&D character alignment scheme. If Zeon was lawful evil in being ordered and generally composed of decent people doing bad things for an otherwise noble goal (I know I just upset at least one person by saying that) then Zanscare was definitely as stated Chaotic Evil, being composed of crazy people like Katejina, Lupe, Fuala, Kagatie and Duker that almost exclusively build weapons of pure destruction like Keilas Guilie, the Motorad fleet and Angel Halo, concoct plans like sending half-naked defenseless women after children piloting Gundams, and just want to end all life and cause as much damage to the Earth as possible. What gives? Is the descendant of the Jupiter Empire actually worse for the Earth Sphere than the Jupiter Empire?
Maybe Tomino was trying to make some point about the Cold War and where things had been going, that humanity was ultimately going to destroy itself out of what he must have seen as it’s inherent evil, but V Gundam came out in 1993, well after the fall of the Soviet Union so I don’t think that’s the case. I think he was just really depressed, disillusioned and lost, and it came out in how V Gundam ultimately played out.
On the positive side I liked characters like Shakti and the whole gang of kids. Shakti’s personality and beliefs in general had me really pulling for her to survive her almost series long ordeal in being a captive of Zanscare and after Odelo bit it right near the end I was starting to worry whether any of them would make it out okay, but the fact that most of them did gave me some solace in the otherwise incredibly bitter ending. Also the score for Victory Gundam is my favourite anime score ever. To this day I make sure to carry it around with my in some form wherever I go so that I can just pop it on and listen if I feel so inclined.
Lastly I don’t care what other people say, I really like the mecha design for this series. Especially the V2, Zanneck and Rig Contio. There’s a reason I bought the V2 Buster Gundam model at the same time I bought the Unicorn Gundam (Unicorn Mode) model. Shame it turned out to be a crappy 90’s model kit that barely holds together….but that’s another story for another time.
I like butt-ugly mecha designs too like the Zeong, and the Big Zam. So by all means enjoy your ugly suits. Btw, I don’t think the Gundams in V are ugly, they’re just small.
They’re small because of the downscaling they did on mobile suits during the start of the second universal century. You see the Crossbone Vanguard and EFSF figured out that you don’t need a honking huge mobile suit to be effective, you can have a suit about 2/3 the size and focus on speed instead of armor and still achieve good results.
See the thing is mobile suits tend to get one shotted really easy, so the focus eventually became on how to avoid getting hit entirely. Things like beam shields which melt incoming projectiles and a smaller target help in that regard.
But wait though, if you don’t think the MS in V Gundam are ugly, why are you telling me to enjoy my ugly suits? Is this a recommendation to buy a Leo or even worse a Zakrello model (do they even make those?), cause the next one I’m planning on is still the ever so fabulous and glittering Knight of Gold from Five Star Stories. 🙂
By the way, I don’t think I ever showed you how that crappy 90’s kit turned out (by crappy I don’t mean the suit design, I mean shitty plastic molding), and with such a relevant topic I share my V2 Gundam model pics:
http://img59.imageshack.us/i/imag0042p.jpg/
http://img715.imageshack.us/i/imag0051w.jpg/
http://img191.imageshack.us/i/imag0053af.jpg/
http://img291.imageshack.us/i/imag0046u.jpg/
http://img408.imageshack.us/i/imag0045s.jpg/
http://img546.imageshack.us/i/imag0048.jpg/
Alas I do not have any bikini babes to go along with it.
Sorry I assumed you liked other MS besides the Gundams. I like the Gundams ok enough, though nowhere near my favorites. The non-Gundam MSs are the ugly ones.
Basically, the Gundams shrunk to VF sized mecha as opposed to Mazinger-sized robots.
Dear god, V gundam almost finished me when i sat through it. It made me so depressed at the end (partly due to a 17 episode marathon to get the damn thing over). Immediatly after i was done, i put in the first dvd of SEED, watched the opening, and felt a 100 times better. It was so colorful and bouncy compared to the drabness of V. And you know a show is painful when SEED makes you feel BETTER after watching it.
LOL, that’s like using piss to wash out the taste of shit in your mouth.
Unless, you think of it as painful in a successful narrative sense — that it met its goal of portraying tragic stories. I don’t give it that much credit.
I’ve been under the impression that if you claim to like this show, you either a) haven’t watched it and are trying too hard or b) think that GRIMDARK = god tier, and that blowing up cackling shrews with space bazookas = GRIMDARK
Regarding a): That’s funny, I’ve used the exact same phrasing in “trying too hard” to describe people that claim to vehemently dislike certain shows. To me you have too try far harder to build up enough of a reservoir of hate over a piece of media to write about it in that capacity on the internet than to just cut your losses and say “whatever, I have little to say about this cause it does nothing for me”.
For example, I’ve let people know everything I’ve had to say on certain episodes of certain series or certain series in general just through having little to say in conversation regarding them.
Regarding b): Maybe some people like Grim and Dark, maybe some people don’t. There’s plenty of ways in which to call people’s taste in question though, that’s for sure.
I do think there are some people exactly like those kinds, or at least, I can imagine them existing.
Well you deserve a break after all that ghost, and in the name of regenerating your now exhausted brain-cells I wanted to hold a brief discussion a few of the new UC gundam manga series I’ve just read, among them Gihren’s Assassination, Char’s Deleted Affair, and Char’s Counterattack Beyond the time (as much of that as there is available anyway, still can’t find chapter 1 though, other then in spanish) I’ll put aside Ecole for now, due to it being both out of print and on hiatus back in Japan. For now I’d like to focus on Gihren’s assassination, the only one among them that is currently finished and one I know you were checking out at some point to get some of your thoughts, especially since I know you aren’t as much of a follower of the story as you are for the animation, but personally I thought this was a rather good outtake in expanding and touching on a lot of different plot points within the UC franchise myself now.
Gihren Assassination Plan is a fun piece of retcon manga. Ark Performance draws both characters and MS beautifully, I really do think so. I wrote about it some time ago.
Which is why I mentioned it, but I from what I initially saw of the post you were only just starting to read it at the time. By now I wanted to get your thoughts on the context it created as to the political situation in Zeon at the time and the fascinating intrigue that it draws in that regard. Of particular interests was the discussion held in the Zeon Parliament and the Opera Scene.
oh lord! It hurts so bad! I might have pulled an ab muscle laughing at this post. You’ll have to forgive me for deriving pleasure from the murder of your eyes and the rape of your logic. Honestly, I’m not even gonna attempt to defend the show. I pity the poor fool who has this as their Gateway Gundam because things are so dark, so ludicrous, so skewed in comparison to everything that came before it that you may not have a fair view of anything else Gundam again.
Go to this link: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=61888
I started a few threads for the series and actually completed almost two years ago exactly. I wonder if my somewhat positive thoughts would actually stand up to a rewatch, or if (most likely) I was suffering from a case of “at least it’s not ZZ.” It’s very similar to how I’m eternally grateful to Gundam 00 for showing up after SEED Destiny.
“Sometimes you don’t realize you’re being abused after you’ve been tortured.”
Gundam Stockholm Syndrome. Cool theory bro (I mean it)!
At least this post should go far to show that I’m not some UC elitist that unilaterally hates on AU shows.
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Apart from some dubious characters and charactermoments I really liked Victory Gundam
I was wachting gundam victory the same time/after NGE. So I was in a KILLEMALL!!! mode/mood at that time. Notable other killemalls at that time: Berserk / Legend Of The Galactic Heroes / X1999
Yeah I was really a buff for this thing. As long as death = death forever, I´m happy.
But dont get me wrong, its just one of many facetts of my vast preferences 😉
BECAUSE the best Gundam Show for me is: “Turn a Gundam”, man I really liked the characters, setting, feeling and especially the music (“Moon”!)
Watch Space Runaway Ideon or at least the movies whenever you’re in this kind of mood again :3
Hmm, I just had a thought about a comment you made before Ghost concerning the UC application of improbable close quarter duels. Given the propensity of scattering Minovsky particles during a battle, and hence mitigating long-range bombardment/attack, wouldn’t this provide an amicable reasoning for the application/use of close quarter weaponry like beam sabers?
I would say so yes. Minovsky particles have always been a facet of why close quarters combat ends up happening in U.C Gundam series. It’s so much easier to hit something without fully functional radar and tracking when you’re up close and have a melee weapon. Legend of the Galactic Heroes had a similar concept for why ground combat is typically fought with axes instead of guns, except with the Zephyr Particle it’s that firing a gun with them around will literally cause them to blow up in your face.
Of course all of the above depends on whether one is feeling amicable about a concept and portrayal I suppose. If you like your battles a certain way and CQC is not one of those things you like then nothing is going to change that I suppose. For example say you don’t like the idea of mobile suits making improbably consistent pinpoint accurate shots to the cockpit over and over again in pitched battles. I wonder if people know which entry I’m talking about…..lulz
But one of those things that leaves me appreciative of the fact that they added that little facet to supplement the material to begin with in any event. Well, that’s generally been true of warfare in general when weighing the merits of close quarter and long range combat, with the latter winning out due to sheer volume of shots that are now able to be put out rather then their actual effectiveness in hitting the target, which will almost always have a greater chance of connecting with your attack the closer you are to a target. That and laser fire seemed to be as effective as shinning a flashlights when dealing with Armored Grenadiers and the FPA counterparts, unless you shoot the visor anyway.
Well, one thing I’ve always shared the same sentiment with you Kaio is that when you go into any story or setting its more often dependent on the audience adjusting their perceptions and tastes if they’re going to be able to fully appreciate it. If they can’t then they can’t and they’ll move on to find something they do like.
Believe it or not it’s Gundam Wing that actually deals with that whole idea of close quarters endangerment versus long distance combat more so than any other Gundam series. At least IMO.
On one side you have Treize who firmly believes in the ideal of the soldier placing himself in harms way for a cause by fighting straight up close quarters on the battlefield. He designed Epyon around that ideal and he also designed his own suit the Tallgeese II around it as well. There’s a huge difference between a leader that says “go out and win this battle for my sake” and one who says, “Let’s go win this battle for our cause, follow me men”. Treize reminds me of the Kings of old in that regard….the ones who would go out on campaigns with their soldiers and inspire them to victory with their own acts of great bravery.
Anyway, of course on the other you have Romefeller that wants to distance itself as much as possible from the dangers of the battlefield, and they come up with the mobile doll concept that would mean a soldier no longer has to place himself in harms way because a mobile suit A.I can do it for them. The argument between Treize and Romefeller that ultimately leads Treize to resigning his commission ends up being over Treize’s belief that by taking the soldier out of the battlefield you end up taking what little humanity there is in war out of the equation and thus it ultimately becomes empty destruction for the sake of destruction with no real need for limits, kind of like Zanscare.
Both sides had good points about how they wanted wars to be fought and how their way was better, but both sides also knew there were sacrifices that had to made if they were going to push forward with their agenda.
See: funnels.
The thing is, a suit will or should be shot well before reaching sword range. Why risk getting that close anyway when one can safely shoot from a distance? The time you spend chasing and NOT attacking can be spent firing. All things being equal, it’s a wash. Z Gundam is the WORST offender here given its WILD propensity to have MOBILE SUITS HUGGING EACH OTHER IN SPACE.
Still, if accuracies going to always be an issue I don’t see much reason as to why you shouldn’t go for a more guaranteed kill if its going to be a crap-shoot, or trying to close the distance against enemy fire at times. In a sense Minovsky particles become the closest equivalent to invisible cover, and that’s not even adding into consideration the openness of areas like space in conjunction with the maneuverability of mobile suits to dodge. I’m mostly just putting out general theory here rather then analyzing every seemingly improbably moment in Gundam, and trying to make an overall point as to the reasoning behind the necessity for CQC at times in Mobile Suit warfare. And wasn’t that a more signature propensity on Jerids part then an actually serious attempt at depicting combat? I think you’re a little too hung up about it ghost, especially since he’s dead and we’ll never have to witness it again.
I see your point. Flanking is one way that close quarters combat could be portrayed realistically and there are all sorts of angles whereby one could flank from in space. Flank the enemy MS position, save ammo, potentially minimize casualties.
It’s sort of true though that close quarters battles in Gundam seem to end up occurring when two mobile suits approach from up front and draw their sabers well within shooting distance of one another. That is not proper flanking to be sure, that’s just cocky bravado.
On the other-hand, If in the middle of a fire-fight with several other enemy units around you, the upfront approach does take on a bit of tactical sense in order to minimize your exposure to fire by the other enemy units through moving in front of the enemy unit you’re about to engage in their line of fire.
Going head to head also has a speed, shock, and awe value to it in order to disrupt your opponents ability to react beyond pulling out their own close quarter weapon to block at best.
There really isn’t any reasonable reason why battles get up close and personnel in the majority of Gundam shows. Especially when combat takes place in wide, open areas, such as space.
Some small justifications exist, but they are largely irrelevant. The real answer is always: because it looks cool. Why do the Rozenritter from LOGH uses god damn AXES in combat against men with guns? Because it looks cool.
Yes.
Exactly.
Charging at a firing mobile suit makes you a target for far longer. If the opponent is standing still long enough for you to approach, that same opponent can be shot. Lasers, bullets, are far quicker than mobile suits last I checked.
I’m mostly focusing on the UC universe myself and its reasoning more then anything else. And I already provided my justification for LOGH, Zephyr particles and laser rifles that may as well be as effective as shining a flashlight against the armor of the Panzer Grenadiers and their FPA equivalent, not even adding the use of Zephyr particles. Working within the context of the universe itself can bring a small bit of sense/justification as to how the writers/author give context to the universe they create.
Alright, that’s it ghost, I’m going to take you on with this at some point in a more detailed post (hmm, could it be possible for me to submit an article at WRL in that case?) but some how and someway I’m going to prove the tactical application of CQC in the UC universe, you’ll see. Oh and bullets/lasers fire on a linear trajectory, while being dependent on the reaction speed and aiming ability of the pilot, while a mobile suit is more maneuverable and has the equal advantage of its pilots being able to read the firing trajectory of their adversary, not to mention their added armor and shielding. Combined with the fact that beam weaponry is generally single shot along with the amount of continuous fire bullets need in order to do damage and I see ample opportunity for CQC like in the days of musket fire in a pseudo combination with WWI/WWII fighter pilots.
Go for it! I love the idea. If you need help with diagrams I’ll make myself useful.
Thanks but primarily I only have rudimentary computer skills, so splicing images off of videos (like the 0081 video I posted prior to now) will be my main challenge. If you could help me in that regard I think I can get something up that’ll be worthy of the blog.
Sure no problem. How it will mostly work is if you can give me the approximate time stamp of the sequence you want captured and I’ll do it. I have most of the Gundam shows archived (even Wing lols) so I should be able to find them. I’ll send you an email and my google talk ID so we can discuss in earnest.
I interviewed Tomino at the New York Anime Festival in 2009 and I had asked him if he considers any one of his Gundam works a favorite and he said he said that he doesn’t like a particular work more than the other but he said, “What strikes me are the failures. It’s always the failures that call back to me. And in particular, Victory Gundam is a series that I truly regard as one rife with errors.”
After reading all your twitter posts it looks like you came to the same conclusion. I’ve seen a few Master Grade models come out for the series, and they look decent, but knowing what series they came from always leaves me hesitant to pick them up.
Take it from someone who built one of the better model kits from the V Gundam line….they aren’t well made. The Master Grade Master Gundam isn’t coming out much better either (why do I need these screws on the arms and legs that have no tracks when the thing holds together of it’s own accord just fine….you know what does need screws…the damn shoulder and ankle pieces which otherwise sit loosely on top of the arm parts) and it’s from around the same time period so I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that the older model kits had issues.
I know that Bandai has been all about advertising the fact that they have a new method for manufacturing and molding model kits. One thing they’ve tried to get rid of are the multiple colours in the same piece that tend to run together (the V2 Buster Gundam model doesn’t have this fortunately). All I know is that the HG-Unicorn Gundam (Unicorn Mode) I built has turned out by far the best of any of the kits I’ve built so far with the possible exception of my 00-Raiser which is probably my favorite kit so far. The HG-Unicorn Gundam (Unicorn Mode) is also the only one that can support it’s own weight and stand upright (as in not needing to be propped up by or against anything) due to not being top heavy (see V2 Buster Gundam and 00 Raiser when the Raiser parts are attached) or having a high center of gravity on account of cheap low-density plastics (V2 Buster again).
I think V Gundam is striking for its failures in that it’s almost a decade older than Z Gundam, which had a lot of error — I thought of these as great steps backward from the quality achieved by the movie trilogy. It’s not a matter of budgets either. In Z you start seeing the nerfing of beam weapons, variable damage and plot armor, and the infernal HUGGING ROBOTS IN SPACE, etc.
However, being as old as it is, and possessing narrative power as well as a stellar cast, it is not only far more easier to forgive, it is also my favorite among all the Gundam shows.
Wait…so why were there girls in space 4 times the size of a gundam?
On second thought, maybe not knowing is better.
Hehe, they were miclones, not even wearing normal suits (bikinis!). Just as schneider said, one got squished when the Gundam headbutted it. Another one was swatted by a beam saber. It was interesting how the body withered and charred into nothing.
V Gundam isn’t just paimful to watch, it’s boring. I don’t care about Usso, his mother, the Shrike team etc. How am I supposed to care when for 37 episodes the only real thing they do is telling Usso to be careful, bitch on him, whine etc just before going into battle and getting killed. I didn’t even care that Usso was a better pilot than all of them despite his age.
In addition it has some of the shittiest “earth episodes” in all of Gundam. No sense of scale or realisism in depicting the cities (and don’t get me started on military realism). That was my main problem with the Dublin arc of ZZ.
Yes. Boring as hell, which enrages me because there’s so much fighting and mobile suit action. HOW CAN GUNDAM FUCK THIS UP AND MAKE IT BORING?
It did.
The mobile suit designs (GIGANTIC TYRES ROLLING IN SPACE), the beam shields, the sunglasses… ughly as hell.
The capital ship combat: 2 of them going headlong into each other all guns firing, NONE HITTING. NONE. ZERO.
Jacking mobile suits: to be expected? sure. BUT NOT IN MID AIR, WHERE USSO OPENS THE COCKPIT AND BEATS THE CRAP OUT OF THE ADULT PILOT INSIDE AND THROWS HIM OUT.
There’s more, but I’m tired.
I stand by my opinion that attacking an enemy suit with girls with bikinis and jetpacks is nothing short of absolutely brilliant.
It is however, still absolutely bizarre and I have no idea how anyone thought of it.
Tell that to the girls who got smashed.
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I still loved Victory. It was so terrible. The misogyny made me rage quite a bit, but the ladies of Turn A (which I watched a while before Victory) persuaded me that it was one of those things Tomino got over while in therapy. Also, a lot of what surrounded it was so absurd that I couldn’t quite take it seriously anyway…
Fun fact: Tomino’s blurb on the DVD box for Victory basically said “Don’t watch this, it’s terrible.”
I’ve often wondered whether that boxquote harmed or boosted sales.
People might have bought it out of ghoulish curiosity. Or a desire to paradoxically annoy Tomino.
Though I suppose, realistically speaking, most people bought it out of a completist’s desire to own every Gundam title.
victory gundam……..nvr watched it but still, the v2 gundam in gundam vs gundam next plus fails, only had a beam gun, vulcans and a bazooka(all of which deal moderate damage). the only good weapon it has was that armor like thing, which had much better weapons FOR 100 SECONDS. and after the 100 seconds, the armor doesnt recharge, its doesnt come back(except when u die and respawn), its a 1 time use stuff. anyway, ur twitters made me loled so much.
Games and game mechanics are a different matter, and I can’t really comment on that here. That said, I don’t think there’s much in the different Gundam games or the SRW franchise that’ll interest you in watching this show.
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lol it was so bad that it was good. So fucked up that you wish you never lived, so torturous that you think you might become sadistic. so lame at points that you wish you could just erase your memory of gundam and go straight back to macross. so terrible to women that it makes you wonder why this was even allowed. so dam long and tedius that you think it might just be worse than the newer series.
stop right there-
to be perfectly honest, if some one watched all of it back to back, it probably is worse than all of the AU combined. yea.. people in victory really had NO BRAINS. Tires in space, LOLWHY! motorbikes on earth when you can fly LOLWHY! why wear such a badly made mask you fool! WAI!!!!!!!!!!! why you scared of gundam when ALL OF YOUR COMMANDARD SUITS R HAS RE-GZ FACE!! LOLWHY!!!!!
but then, out of nowhere, uso owns someone with the lols and wtf and all was forgiven. that is only if you watched it piece by piece. for the love of the god, don’t watch it all at once. also, ever given a thought on why everyone in the show suddenly becomes hysterical when the entire gundam forms? even though that its simply the core fighter that identifies the thing as a gundam? i found it dumber than seed and 00 logic, and i won’t deny that i have said that. the only reason why it was relatively any good was because instead of one victory they had a whole god dam fleet and more in the trunks – what also made it bad was the fact that they had no need to transport the dam thing by land when they could’ve just flew it since it was faster than any of the Zanscars air units.
it makes me wonder, wonder quite a bit too.
then again, same creator had amuro’s dad come in and say that a piece of junk is an upgrade for rx78 unit 2. maybe it was one of the things that he used in an attempt to destroy the universe he created? bleh, screw that, i don’t want to remember everyone suddenly going hysterical over the completed gundam. its like flay from seed. must tune her out, i no remember you flay, flay be not exist.
but yea watching V gundam made me appreciate life. i shit you not.
I watched it in chunks… never all at once, and it took me more than 2 years to do so. If I didn’t marathon the final arc, I would never finish it.
It has great ideas just executed BADLY and the good stuff in it wasnt expanded on more.
Believe it or not it could have been one of the best, it just needed to be arranged differently.
1. use better Art
2.better mobile suit designs
3.add more detail and personality to some of the chracters
4.Give it a little of that upbeat feel that the openings give off, into the story
5. only kill off 38% of the characters or half but not to many of the interesting ones
6.add kamui gian and make her a possible love interest to uso.as well as her Black v2 gundam
7.add the zanspine suit so Katejina at least has a chance.
8.with katejina and uso, they could give them that whole Sasuke x naruto rivalry thing to a small extent.Also explain how these to actaully met and became friends to begin with considering how they come from very different backrounds.
9.alter the story abit and take out some of those annoying kids.
10.Maybe add the V3 gundam?…probably not.
It has great potential they just need to really put in the effort to truly make it shine.
Maybe… but probably not.
I did it! I finished all 51 episodes of this show. Soon I’ll watch G-Savior and after that I will never EVER watch anything that Tomino has touched ever again. When I watched Zeta Gundam I thought “Man, that wasn’t very good” but then I watched Double Zeta and I thought ” Fuck me, this actually makes the first Zeta look good by comparison” Then I watched F91 and I thought “This is bad *and* it doesn’t make any goddamn sense!” and when I thought it couldn’t get any worse I watched Victory Gundam, hands down the absolute worst series in the UC timeline. I thought maybe VG would get better after a few episodes like ZZ but no- it just kept on eating shit right to the very end.
Uso is a terrible hero. I don’t like him, I don’t like how whiny he always is and how he never grows the hell up. What the fuck was all the bullshit about “Not being able to blow up enemies because of the environmental impact” WTF you guys have been blowing up mobile suits and battleships for years but all of a sudden you can’t?? Do you know how frustrating it is to watch battle after battle with the heroes forced to fight with one hand tied behind their back?
Shakti only exists to get captured and rescued over and over again. Why does she keep thinking that if she just sneaks into the enemy base and *trys really hard to convince them* that they’ll actually listen to her? God that is so *annoying* “Hey guys-yeah Shakti snuck out again to try and convince the Zanscare military to not kill us. Yeah I know it isn’t going to work, c’mon lets go rescue her again. If we’re lucky only a couple of us will die getting her out this time.”
Karlmann! Scientific studies have proven that a baby crying is one of the top 10 most irritating sounds to human beings, so of course Karlmann has to bawl his brains out every other episode for an extended period of time. It got to the point where I had to mute the video as soon as I saw him. I think I hate babies now and it’s all Karlmann’s fault
And that climax! That ending! I don’t even know how to begin describing how fucktarded it was, Seriously I’m trying to piece together details and every time I do my head starts to hurt.
This show suuuuuuucked.
This show isnt good. But it is Tomino through-and-through. Thusly, it is a classic.
😉