Mobile Suit Gundam AGE showed me many things, and is still showing more – things I did not expect it to do or pull off – but more importantly, and perhaps most importantly, it just showed me what Gundam is really about as a franchise, after 30 years; beyond all reasonable doubt.
This is no new thing. We’ve seen the Gundam protagonist to spare the lives of enemies since who knows when? But who’s the first to make it a point to do so? Was it Amuro himself? When exactly? Was it the mature Amuro when Char counterattacked? If so, the writing was really, really on the wall.
The Gundam is the ultimate machine for creating peace out of chaos, that God-like thing that dominates others through the skill of its pacifist pilot. That final battle between all the powers that be is the very pulpit wherein the Gundam and its pilot will preach its doctrine of peace.
Once the franchise “broke free” of the constraints of the Universal Century, the first order of business was to make the battles less lethal by design. The whole mechanism of the Gundam Fight makes battles ritualized and gentlemanly. It made casualty an accident, a truer tragedy. Only the truly evil may then desire the death of their adversary. The second order of business was to name the main character “Heero” and transform him from a cold-blooded killing machine to a paragon of pacifism. Gundam has never really looked back. What it did was progressively make the most powerful mobile suit in its TV anime more and more capable of settling the main conflict peacefully – its weapons: beam rifles, funnels, beam sabers, particles are used to disarm the adversary at the very least, and speak directly into one’s thoughts at the most.
Mobile Suit Gundam AGE revealed the AGE-FX, and it has very powerful funnels – that it uses to precisely and safely remove the cockpit of the adversary, and thereafter shield it from aimed or stray gunfire.
It is the biggest inauthenticity imaginable. My hate for it is intense. I am here not to bury this show, as it is a show that has shown good and at times exceptional quality, and will continue to do so until the end. I am here to eulogize the passing of my hopes and aspirations for the future of Gundam stories, and accept that the best of what I love about this franchise belongs firmly in its past, and the only things that I can truly look forward to are reproductions of its violent, glorious past.
Here is the anatomy of the inauthenticity: a decapitation is extremely violent, and deadly. It is a sure kill. Headshots are decisive hits. The Gundam AGE-FX C-Funnels are enabled by the X-Rounder powers, and the skill of Kio Asuno to make the cleanest of decapitations, preserving the life of the adversary and yet displaying the thrilling spectacle of violence that is decapitation. But it is only deadly in the metaphorical sense, or rather, synecdoche – as Kio is killing violence itself; he’s chopping its fucking head off.
It’s how this whole franchise washes its hands of the killing and violence that got it here; the death, blood, and destruction that strung me along for hundreds of episodes. This is beyond Gundam AGE. This is Gundam Unicorn as well, the re-presentation of what the Gundam has always been about, and what it is for. I can only dearly wish that Banagher Links and the RX-0 does not do it so rudely and crudely as Kio Asuno and the AGE-FX does it, as deplorably as Setsuna F. Seiei in his 00 Raiser and QanT did it, as ridiculously as Kira~¶ Yamato in his Strike Freedom did it.
The shows let so many characters act like violent heroes and ruthless adversaries, paying little mind to casualties and even wishing to cause casualty. Captain Grodek, Flit Asuno, the many examples from the UC OVAs – South Burning, Anavel Gato, the members of the Londo Bell Tri-Stars, and so forth. These characters are assets to the franchise even as they get treated as blights, as sins to be cleansed. Critical deaths, heroic sacrifices, all these unacceptable things that galvanize the leads in their magic Gundams and wash the sins they do indeed.
Gundam is a show that teaches peace! It is a show that actually condemns the same violence it portrays graphically and gloriously for hundreds of episodes. Really, it does. Look at the commitment it puts in the culmination of its stories.
Flit and Grodek are the bones thrown at the fans who yearn for characters like Cima and Gato; for characters like Haman Karn, for Char Aznable himself.
But they are, in the end footnotes, they are points of view to be corrected. I am the spoiled viewer who threatens to stop watching the shows because of this bullshit, thinking that the war cannot be waged without an audience to watch it. But I’ll be BRIGHTSLAPPED back into submission. I want to be piloting a Gundam, and it makes sure there are more than enough variants for me to sulk lustfully into. I’ll take my lumps and gaze back into the tears of time.
[There is no panel this week. There are no images. There are no jokes. Gundam is serious fucking business. You are all welcome to discuss the rather amazing Asuno family reunion in the comments. As I said, there’s so much to love in Gundam AGE, and even in this episode. But as a viewer I am selfish and care deeply about my own aspirations for the show and franchise, and so this post.]
We Remember Love 
Well, if Gundam Age was ment to be a revision of the franchice, the Seed-ification of the last arc was inevitable.
If only Desil were still alive, he would show Kio that some people can´t be (or shouldn´t be) saved.
And thus one of the reasons why I wished that Desil wasn’t killed off for real by Asemu in the second arc. Le sigh…
WE STILL HAVE FATASS
Fatasswhatshisname, seems to be the last truly evil Vagan. Too bad he sucks at being evil.
It´s a shame that under this “conflict can be resolved through understanding” logic, we can´t have more characters like Girghe or Nike (Break Blade).
I don’t think it’s a revision. Each TV show does two things: tell a story using familiar Gundam elements, then mix-up those elements to literally present an alternative to the original story.
It is the trend to have the decisive weapon be an instant disarmament method. This is what I am infuriated with.
me personally, having been a seed fan first, and then realized the -truth- (that gundam really just sucked ballz for everything except its workable designs and save a few ideals)
AGE has shown us that kira is indeed fucking gay, and that Kio > Kira 100%
its ok, kio’s cool. but gundam itself has seized to be such (a long time ago actually)
to quote a random blogger i found on the internets “because it is gundam, it automatically recieves a 8/10 regardless” <- note this guy was actually quite serious in the rest of his review.
i'm gundam for the designs, the stories, regardless of its origin, save the original gundam series (made before fucking 90s) are complete shit, and even some of the ones from before 90s were pretty fucking shit. At least when tomino was around he trolled your face off by killing ALL of the purus at the same time. take that lolicons, a huge slap to the face that was. Only AGE remembered to kill off its lolis, i'm very please and at the same time sad that this was actually the only redeeming factor of the show.
oh and, yea, wtf weapon verses garbage machines, why does it always end up like this? why does the main character ALWAYS get the most powerful weapon these days??? i remember back then, Amuro actually had problems against char's torso spray cannon even with all of his funnels out there pew pewing, and that was cuz char moved like a fucking boss, the grunts actually did their job back then too and didn't just sit around to be hit by the funnels like they do now days. I'm sick and tired of the over powered main character meme, I want my GUNDAM back. oh also, there was a heavy arms AGE 1 in the mix, this ten episodes is gona be a fucking blast to the face.
Lets hope AGE redeems the past instead of making it worse.
It’s Char’s fault. He made sure Amuro got the overpowered Nu Gundam.
When I saw Kio harmlessly beheading all the Vagan mobile suits, it struck me that this here episode is the whole entire reason the design team put cockpits in the head in the first place. Even with that highly convenient placing, I reeeally don’t buy that Kio is suddenly all super-skilled and a fantastic pilot enough to pull this off perfectly EVERY SINGLE TIME. I know you mentioned not liking Asemu’s super pilot schtick last post, but I find it more plausible than a thirteen-year-old whose survival in battle has solely been due to 1. being in a fantastic MS 2. actual experienced pilots watching his back and 3. battle precognition is suddenly able to constantly make precise, clean not-kills while everyone is shooting at him. Whenever he runs into someone with a better MS, X-Rounding, or just years of pure skill and trickery, like his dear ol’ dad, he gets his butt handed to him. Which would be fine because he’s been a kid playing in sims up ’till he got the Gundam, but the show talks him up like he’s hot stuff and “the machine can’t keep up” when he’s blatantly not.
I think Gundam has kind of boxed itself in with the pacifist hero. They started with people like Amuro or even Domon, who always fight but either get shellshocked and have to figure out how to deal, or don’t make apologies for their warrior nature and figure out how to use it without being destructive. But now the all-understanding pacifist pilot is what’s expected. And it can be done right, like with Loran and Banagher, but when it’s done wrong it’s just preachy because all the suffering Kio’s going to do is some sparkly space tears that will be inspirational for everyone, not raw psychological wounds like the Wing boys or even the 00 crew had to try and patch up while still fighting.
I think the writing in this episode was sort of a trainwreck, although there were things I liked. The reunion between Kio and Asemu was good, because Kio told him off for letting everyone think he was dead all this time and he really had no excuse for that. But then Ezelcant has a clone and there’s a new Vagan gal and who knows who she is and even after thirteen years Romary can still only ever say “Asemu!” plaintively and… I have lots of thoughts on this episode. I will say that I hope Fram doesn’t get killed right off in the next episode and I hope Natora has the guts to tell Flit that no she is not going to fire the not-a-nuke at Luna Base.
Yes, exactly.
They did this with Asem as well, much to my disappointment. He became a SUPER PILOT, but how exactly? He just became better because he wanted to, instantaneously, and overcame the Vagan X-Rounders. In 00 the Gundam Meisters were exposed to be overdependent on superior hardware, and the Innovators to be completely dependent on Veda. Here, no real explanation as to how Asem became superior to X-Rounders.
And now Kio just became this superior being in all respects, maybe just because he chose to “fight his own way.” Awful.
Yes, and it’s the execution that I’m most concerned with, and mostly how the decisive weapon just makes it look so sanitized and easy.
Yeah, Asemu suddenly turning into a SUPER PILOT in Gen 2 was pretty inexplicable, at least after the “YOU KILLED MY BETTER DAD” thing wore off. (Although rereading your post there, even that was a little too choreographed for just berserker rage.) But I can accept it now because at this point he’s been piloting for about 25 years, which Kio and probably the Vagans he’s been fighting have not.
The AGE-FX is way too easy (repeating my comment to someone else below). I mean, it’s not like Kio even said to Rody “hey, can you ask the AGE system to give it a precision weapon?” He just lucks out in that the computer decides that X-Rounder = Funnels. Loran and Banagher work because they had to work to subvert the intended design of their MS, which was specifically to be an unstoppable war-beast. AGE-FX is just. No effort.
I haven’t seen the episode yet, but from the new OP (what a cool theme song too!) I got the sinking sensation that this is what was coming. Do you think this extreme devotion to violent non-violence as shown in the conclusion to SEED, 00, Unicorn and now, finally, AGE, is a reaction AGAINST the series longstanding and continuous dramatization of hyper-violent (and perhaps, dare I say it, realistic) portrayal of space war carried out with weapons more powerful than any we’ve seen in actual human history? If this extreme aversion to showing preaching “technical pacifism” is a reaction to Gundam’s bloody past (and indeed the past of most all mecha shows), then I think we’ve reached the point where it has become trite and meaningless. It’s no longer different – it’s the expectation.
Conversely, do you think this recent turn for the worst in Gundam shows is the softer generation of parents teaching their children that violence is always bad, regardless of the reasons behind it? Beyond that – do you see this as a larger and more specifically Japanese phenomenon? That is, a revisionist outlook toward war? I’m not trying to politicize this, but we can’t forget that anime is a distinctly Japanese product, and there may be things at work whic people outside that culture truly do not grasp or at least not fully. While the Japanese have never shied away from depicting violent death as a result of war (Muv Luv being a good recent example and The Cockpit, or heck, even The 8th MS Team, being a smattering of good older ones within this same genre), it must be said that this current generation of kids is so far removed from the realities of the world (due to their upbringing at home and by society) that perhaps not-killing in Gundam is simply a sign of the times.
However, I can’t say that I did not see this move coming for Gundam AGE, though I, like you, lament it, not because I’m an extremely violent person who only wants to see people get killed for amusement, but rather because I too feel this storytelling device (or even theme, as you put it) is the height of inauthencity. It simply reeks of falsehood. In war, people die and it is never pretty.
Over the past few days I’ve been watching “Blue Comet SPT Layzner”, one of the old guard of Sunrise mecha shows. People die – named characters, mind you, and right from the start too – and the story has a definite impact almost immediately because of it. These were likeable people, just kids really, who were part of a group made up of representatives from all different countries who meet up on Mars for the purpose of fostering understanding and goodwill between the nations of Earth. Well, turns out the Grados Empire doesn’t care where you’re from, Earthers gotta die. Layzner also has a pacifistic pilot – Eiji Asuka/ Null Albatro doesn’t want his friends among the Gradosians (humans from a far away planet) to kill the humans of Earth (still locked in the Cold War in 1996) because that’s his ancestral home – he’s half Gradosian and half Earthling due to his dad being a long-lost deep-space astronaut. Eiji manages to fend off a few attacks from the Grados troops (and there are some spectacular fights too) without anyone being really killed, mainly due to the fact that, initially, his buddy Gail, who commands a contingent of Grados’ best and brightest, didn’t want to kill Eiji either (Gail’s getting married to Eiji’s sister, see, and he’s also a pretty good, fair sort of guy who doesn’t like needless killing). Eiji doesn’t want to fight because he personally knows all the people involved and had to work hard, for years with the Gradosians and through several harrowing encounters with the Earthlings, to get either group to accept him due to his mixed heritage. In this sense, he’s an awful lot like Turn A Gundam’s Loran Cehack. However, Eiji DOES kill two Gradosian pilots and threatens to shoot others. The difference? Eiji didn’t actually do the killing himself, since the ultra advanced AI aboard his prototype robot takes over in moments when the pilot can’t or won’t make the best decision (Yukikaze, anyone? Gundam the Blue Destiny, anyone?), which is, of course, to shoot for the cockpit. Eiji is quickly learning that the consequences for not killing are more than he bear (as in Break Blade, right?) and I think the show does a good job of showing the viewer at least a somewhat more realistic depiction of why pacifism in the face of an enemy who, right or wrong, wants you and those you care about dead is just a bad idea.
It’s a bad idea in real life and it’s a bad idea for Gundam. The difference is that Gundam has to sell model kits, presumably to kids. This is, after all, the stated purpose of Gundam AGE – to make a new generation of Gundam fans. However, I think the turn of events that take place in this episode as you describe them is proof that Gundam as a series has finally gone over the edge. It’s time we all became “oldfags”, because that’s the only place we can find the truth of “war is hell,” which is the only acceptable thing to do when a show’s whole appeal is the depiction of violent, mechanized conflict. There has to be some kind of sobering thought associated with the glorification of violence, and so long as Gundam eschews this responsibility, it will continue to perpetuate this callous inauthenticity.
I endorse this post. Well said!
Damn man. Just… damn. I definitely agree that the turn towards pacifism in Gundam is heavily influenced by their post-war demilitarisation. It reminds me a lot of Patlabor 2’s description of war as something incomprehensible to modern Japan; of the huge disconnect between the generation of post-war kids and those reared during the days of the economy boom, and their children (who are currently watching AGE).
There’s a signifigcant difference between glorifying conflict – by saying “humanoid death machines are awesome” and then showing innocent people getting slaughtered by them – than there is with something like Fist of the North Star, where we are openly invited to take a cathartic pleasure in the butchering of the innocent and the subsequent justified punishment of evildoers by the divine retribution of Kenshiro. Tomino started off in 1979 wanting to show children that war is terrible and that people die regardless of morality or justice. The giant robots were only there to make sure they got enough money from the sponsors to tell that story.
The average Japanese kid can’t even comprehend what it’s like to have your country at war, and it’s mutated the original Gundam concept of “War is Hell” into the noble if morally inauthentic “END ALL WAR WITH THE POWER OF YOUR PACIFISTIC DEATH MACHINE!!!”. It’s all well and good to emphasise the sanctity of life in your a war show intended to sell toys to children, but shying away from the realities of death (even in a fantastical context) in favour of an unreasonable, hypocritical AND patronising standard of pacifism (KIRRRAAA!!!!) is the height of moral irresponsibility.
I’m not sure where Gundam is going from here, but unless the franchise is able to move on from this nominally pacifistic mould it’s been shunted into it will make premature Oldfags of us all, you’re dead right. If all we can look forward to is homages to past glories and reflections on what we used to love, then Gundam may entirely end up the preserve of old men who grew up when it was still about everybody dying in agony.
And yes, Layzner is fucking awesome. Old school grimdark done right. If only /m/ would finish subbing it.
I heartily agree. What fantastic battle scenes that show has! I couldn’t believe how DECENT the whole thing was. I like it better than Zeta Gundam so far ^.^ As I wrote in my lengthy comment, what I appreciate most about the show is how it portrays what I perceive to be the the obvious problems (almost a fallacy) associated with Eiji’s insistence on pacifism/non-violence in the face of an enemy that is bigoted, desperate, motivated, and in some cases sociopathic (it’s the mecha combat version of true morality vs lip-service moralism). We know the reason he doesn’t want to kill the Grados soldiers, but we also know that people equally important to him will die if he doesn’t fight. His only recourse, it seems, is his ability to “lean on” the sentience of Rei (ALICE from Gundam Sentinel, anyone?). I think he’ll eventually have to give up on relying on Rei as the scapegoat for killing when killing is necessary. Should be interesting.
Also, and in complete contrast to my usual shallow self, I absolutely love this show in spite of the fact that can’t stand the majority of the mechanical designs. Dat Layzner cockpit, yo.
Let’s just say things go from bad to disastrous. It makes Gundam look sunny by comparison The second half of the show is kind of like Hokuto no Ken if Kenshiro piloted a real robot and with V-Max standing in for Muso Tensei.
The titular SPT’s cockpit is amazing, the only time Okawara came close to aping Kawamori’s variable fighter stylings and doing so decently. Shame they never animated the Layzner MK. II, that thing looks amazing in motion in SRW J.
The MKII is sick. I saw that in some videos on youtube the other day. I like plausible transformation sequences 🙂
I also really dig the fact that SPTs are not completely gigantic at roughly 9-9.5 meters. That’s just the right size. I also like the simplicity of their armaments: just that one laser rifle (with adjustable output and diffusion, of course), the occasional missile or backpack particle cannon and the electro-shock knuckle thingies. Any time a real robot can get in a good old fashioned dust-up, I’m for it 100 percent.
Matt, thanks so much for bringing up Patlabor 2! I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I first happened upon the idea that the recent turn in Gundam of favoring pacifist-in-name-only plots and heroes is a reflection of the distance the Japanese seem to place between themselves and their own violent history. The kids who grew up in the war, like Tomino, had no problem showing how awful war really is (but it’s also very exciting), while the kids of that generation and their kids moved further and further away from it. I think that’s why few action-oriented animated tv shows produced in the West feature actual (human-vs-human) war themes since “we’ve” been in some wars since THE War “we” never really forgot, as a people, what it looks like and feels like to know veterans or the families of those who had loved ones die in harms way.
First please tell from where you watched/download (blue comet spt layzner) because I’d love to see it. Second I’m not liking the coming of Kio “Jesus” Asuno but i really can’t feel the rAGE over it. Perhaps it’s because I spent all my rAGE back in AGE2 when Asemu became superhuman in all but name. However I perfectly understand the rAGE felt by others. It’s a longing for the time when Gundam was a War Drama and the GUNDAMs themselves were at most high performance prototypes. And a Lamentation for Gundam’s lost soul. Over the decades Gundam has slowly become the very super-robot show that the Original Series grounded/deconstructed.
Man, goddangit I had a lengthy reply to your post. I specifically lauded your observation about Gundam being the original deconstruction of the longstanding tropes associated with the super robot subgenre. Nice job picking that one up, sir. I think there’s material there for a whole blog post and much lengthy discussion.
But anyway, head over to animehere.com for the first 23 episodes of SPT Layzner. It’s a really good website and the Layzner videos stream super fast and in HD. Check it out.
And just like that I can finally watch Macross 7 through Frontier on a site that isn’t vevo. Thanks man!
You sure can. They have VOTOMS, Galient and others too, if I’m not mistaken.
I don’t know the Japanese psyche, even if its history directly affects ours — we were a occupied nation, almost a colony after all. But I can’t comment on the reasons that make Gundam the way it is at present. All I know is that it is deeply unsatisfying.
The best treatment of this is delivered by Broken Blade. Seriously, that show is the antidote to all of this foolishness.
yea… who ever the fuck said gundam needs to show peace is a retard. the past taught us so much more with randomly killing off people and such; such is life, such is the real world’s past, its random yea, its anticlimatic, yea, but that’s exactly why i loved old school gundam. so what if some dumbass says it should get low rating cuz its bad, the badness actually made it seem fucking real.
gundam unicorn ep 3-5 was a huge disappointment imotbh, too much emo, the action was cut down and there wasn’t really anything THAT good (the moments where dendrobium Macross missiled a bunch of zaku was way better animated, fyi 90s) other than a few grunts – oh the sadness, we’re back to the grunts. coming from the studio that made legends, they really gona kill this franchise for another ten years pretty soon.
but you know what, at least it wasn’t half as bad as seed. loled. also, farsia coming out next episode, lets see if the makers of AGE has any fucking ballz or were they just pretending to be manly.
I completely disagree with your take on Unicorn episodes 3-5. That shit was fucking brilliant.
we’re not in the god dam 90s anymore bro and the animation quality went wayyyyy down. thats why I still qq about it. the emo parts lasted about 5 minutes so I can actually completely ignore its existence unless I have to recall it. but yea, animation quality, bad, no feel behind the motion, too much CG, ez mode, too little work.
oh… actually, let me put it this way. in unicorn, there was no try at making the grunts actually opposing the elite suits in anyway other than falling over and dying instantly on sight. also, sinanju’s face is distorted for a good part of first two eipsodes thanks to bad animation quality, yea, pretty lame, volcans were just square meshes. and look, nehel argama loses 80% of its fighting power, yea, lets keep staying in this sector cuz its cool is their response. that was episode 1, ok lol wut? tatical brain fart yo. then there’s the base jabbers magically stopping in mid air in episode 4 so the guy could shoot down a zeon gruntie; god what were these guys thinking? the saving throw of the entire OVA is Kai appearing along side of Bright Noa, a picture of Amuro and a bunch of retarded asshimar wanabes getting completely facerolled by a ship that can barely pose a threat. yes, Unicorn did good for some parts, but it was also pretty god dam bad as a whole, that goes true for almost all gundam that isn’t a movie – scratch that, include the movies as well, just that some are LESS bad and more awesome. What the hell man, its twenty twelve, this shit is unbelievable, they seriously can’t put a few extra thousand into a bit here and a bit there to make sure that Unicorn gets elevated to God tier instead of making toys so they get ez cash flow? I buy these kits, so I’m actually quite happy about base jabbers coming out, but it would be AWESOME, if Unicorn was derp free so that when i pose something on the base jabber, i don’t sit back and go like, yea, that was pretty stupid scene back there.
they obviously don’t give a fuck. at all.
Thanks for commenting, but you’ve lost me at derp free.
Not being as huge a Gundam fan as you, or your commentors, I don’t have much to compare this to. What this feels like to me is a reflection of world history from the 1940s to the present. You have Flit, who is the old school industrial complex war monger, you have Asemu, who represents a sort of Cold War mentality, and you have Kio, who has a very 21st century approach to conflict. I was in a way, hoping for a decisive victory from the Earth Sphere, wiping the Vagan military from space. But it looks like all that I’ll be left with is a resolution around a conference table.
It would be wonderful if the outcomes of more wars went down this way, but as we all know it hardly ever, if ever, happens in “real life”. Granted, nobody’s accusing Gundam AGE of representing “real life” ^.^
I, however, think the Vagan animals need to be exterminated. You don’t blow up your own colonies so that “only the strong survive.” That’s just terrible.
But it’s not all the Vagans who are doing that. It’s Ezelcant and whatever secret agents he sends to blow up his own colonies, probably less than 500 people out of a population that’s much more than that. The overwhelming majority of Vagan citizens are just trying to survive another year in a miserable environment.
You’re seeing broad themes, and these things are okay. They happen often enough in mecha anime. What I and some others object to, is how the ultimate Gundam turns out to be this machine that MAGICALLY AND PEACEFULLY disposes of enemies without effort, and then the pilot is given so much credit as a skillful fighter and hero.
After Ezelcant repeated the same old super human race agenda from the past Gundam shows, I’m already thinking, “Whoa! Deja vu!! Can’t they even try something new??” I was expecting something much more than this whole nonsense cliche. The “Ribbons Almark” he is creating in this episode further ruins the tastes of the anime show right down to the bottom.
Like you, gohstlightning, I’m also getting worn out by the triteness and lack of genuine creativity of the modern-era Gundam shows. Having a Kira Yamato and those two goddamned “Freedom” Gundams is already awful enough, and now they are making another! “Peace” has become a slogan – a tool for Sunrise to sell toys from the Gundam franchise now…! I just hate this whole “Jesus” Gundam pilot thing, while the entire point of the shows are merely to show off the glory of Gundams rather than devising a true realistic means of promoting peace.
Speking of war and peace, the Gundam franchise nowadays is just scratching the surface of the problem (stopping the war behavoirs and that is all), completely forgetting that the true way to solve war problems is to find and destroy its cores – that is, to kill the causes of war rather than just being a pacifist and avoid killing soldiers.
That being said, MS Igloo really gives these Kira Yamatos a big bad slap in the face!
That’s because UC = real Gundam, which will always be grim and dark.
I don’t mind this. I like Gundam for giving me Gundam things, but not magic peace powers.
I am not worn out by this so-called triteness you say. I don’t think of these things as trite (impractical, fanciful, absurd, but not trite). I am very precise with what I object to. I think Gundam AGE is an otherwise solid show with flashes of brilliance. What I lament is how this one thing regarding super magic peace powers is ruining it for me.
I am fine with robot shows making the robots awesome. I am, after all, a robot anime fan. I have differences however, with how Gundam presents its idea of awesome.
No panel? NO! You crazy fool! Now would be the perfect time.
Don’t give up hope! There’s still a chance that us old fags will get to see our “tears of time”. There’s still a slim chance that the red sun that is the spirit of Kill ‘Em All will come back over the horizon to smite named characters and melt away their plot armor. Believe! Believe!
You’re deluded.
Meh at least Flit is going to pilot a heavy armour AGE 1. There will be murder and it will be AWESOME!
Speaking of murder and awesome, I might outline that Flit is the hardest cynic out of the three protagonists, Kio the biggest idealist and the most naive of the three, and Asemu the realist that doesn’t stray too far to either sides.
I desperately hope that my favorite Gundam AGE pilot will deliver. But then I’m sure Kio’s going to rain on Flit’s parade. %$%$####$%
Well apparently Flit will have to deal with a ressurected/cloned Yurin. This will be interesting.
Are you sure? I think it’s more likely that it’s a clone of himself, since it looked male to me and he did have long hair in his younger days.
…I’d add that it wouldn’t make sense for them to have Yurin’s DNA after they threw her in the trash by letting Decil have her, but this show. Things making sense. Yeah.
That wouldn’t be Yurin for me — it would be another “Ribbons Almark” god-knows-what-his-name-is.
THIS IS THE BONE I’M COUNTING ON. SUNRISE, PLEASE THROW ME THIS, THIS ONE THING.
BUT NO.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IS FLIT’S BEAMS WILL BE STOPPED BY C-FUNNELS, WHICH THEN DECAPITATES FLIT’S TARGETS, WHICH IS THE CUE BY WHICH KIO LECTURES HIM.
…AND THEN HE ACKNOWLEDGES KIO’S RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND WE CAN ALL TEAR OUR HAIR OUT.
what if flint fires the plasma torpedo at that farsia instead and lols? cuz you know, plasma torpedo, OP, explode = everything flater than those A cups.
actually, seeing as how retardedly retarded shit turns out in this series, i’m gona go for choice C, the choice NOBODY expected. which would be marriage and a high school AU just to troll our faces.
So who is going to be piloting that green vegan hyaku shiki rip off we see in the opening I am guessing Deen???
This sums the whole issue up quite well – it’s not the concept of pacifism and wanting to end war that is bad but the execution in the form of infallible protagonists and the utter lack of tension in how it’s invariably handled. Really taking the moral high ground should make life difficult – not make fights proceed even more in a flash of drones and everyone not dying.
It’s also still consistently amusing how Gundam and mecha in general pushes the UNMANNED WEAPONS HELL YES angle despite them no longer being quite so science-fiction and definitely not as elegant in real life.
This is the money quote.
not really, what if AGE trolls us by having the same thing happen to the pilots who were rescued as crossbone did? execute them all for incompentenance and waste of resources? of course that won’t happen, AGE is still pretty kiddy, but that was one thing that made crossbone dam cool. cuz they trolled seed while seed was going.
I wasn’t really surprised that Kio now fights the way he does with such a godlike new Gundam, considering his encounters in Vagan space. I can already tell that Flit isn’t like it one bit. And yes, slow claps for you, ghosty, for that analysis with how Kio was operating the AGE-FX by “sparing lives by decapitation”.
As for Asem finally revealing his reasons for being a pirate, I felt that it was rather weak. All he does is just prolong the war as long as he thinks that the balance between the Feddies and the Vagans is still there, and with that, he’s also saying that if the Feddies (including Flit, Kio and the Diva crew) are tipping the scales, he had to fight against them too. Don’t get me started with Asem not having the balls to tell his family all about it in the last 13 years.
Lastly, Flit continues to be a mad old man, and I like that it stays that way (for now), as a counter to Kio’s way of fighting the war. Heck, if he’s THAT good, he can still go toe-to-toe against the AGE-FX with the AGE-1 and that upgrade of his and tell Kio how his war should be fought in his own terms.
The final arc of AGE excites me more than ever.
Yeah Asem’s reasoning is not as strong as I’d like, but I’m glad at how he just stood there, not offering an explanation to poor Romary.
SINCE WE’RE PRACTICALLY RUINED, JUST GIVE ME THE HISSATSU TRIPLE GUNDAM ATTACK VS. SOME SUPER MOBILE ARMOR OR SOMETHING.
Oh yes. That’s is definitely going to happen. They’ll do that at the last battle in the most epicly cheesy way, cut to credits, then an epilogue 10 years later with Kio married to Wendy and now has a kid.
DUN DUN DUN
Your mistake is forgetting that Kio isn’t main character of AGE, but only one of main characters with Flit being THE main character.
Not to mention, Kio himself acknowledges he does crazy thing. He isn’t some asshole who fucked girlfriend of his friend and realized that he can be a messiah. He is just kid with soft heart desperately wanting to help whoever he can.
Pacifist who doesn’t kill is one of archetypes of Gundam hero, the other two are Soldier who wants to win (Flit) and Neutral who is against 2 sides (Asem)*. OP shows it clear, to win war three different Gundams and three different viewpoints have to work together. Nothing will ever change that without Flit there would be no Asem, and without Asem there would be no Kio.
The question is what happens next. Here Flit should take role of final antagonist and this is perfectly fine. He is tragic, sympathetic and much more complex than Ezelcant ever could be. Main character turning into final enemy is something what Gundam never did (closest thing to it was Char), and this allows to show that war is bad, because it can corrupt even pure heroic kid into mass murderer.
*Pacifist and Neutral are mostly this same person aside from Kamille who was against Titans and Axis and wasn’t Pacifist, but whatever.
We have 10 episodes, maybe Kio will be thwarted. But that’s hoping for too much.
What I’m really upset with is how the thing will be resolved in a BIG BATTLE, but in such a way that MAGIC PEACE POWERS will save everyone’s lives. Char’s Counterattack was the only acceptable resolution of this type.
If Flit is the final antagonist, it’ll be awesome… but for chrissakes let him die fighting and not being spared via C-Funnel decapitation. GOOD THING HE PILOTS A GUNDAM WITH A TORSO COCKPIT.
“What I’m really upset with is how the thing will be resolved in a BIG BATTLE, but in such a way that MAGIC PEACE POWERS will save everyone’s lives.”
There is no GN Particles in AGE ;P
If Kio is going to accomplish something, he will rather make Vagans like Zeheart realize that they should turn against Ezelcant. AGE protagonists are allowed to have one own idea that fully worked out (Flit uniting Zalam and Eula, Asem stopping Downes), in other situations they were good only when they followed their elders. And so far Kio failed with his every single idea.
“If Flit is the final antagonist, it’ll be awesome… but for chrissakes let him die fighting and not being spared via C-Funnel decapitation.”
Please, we still have to see Kio using this on boss enemies and outside of Final Gundam Debut Episode that gives Plot Armor +100.
For Flit I would rather see him sacrificing himself to stop his own madness, because he realized that he is like Ezelcant dragging everybody into war that only he wants.
Or provoking Kio to fight with him to the end, to teach him that if he wants something, he must be fully dedicated to it.
But according to ED they will kill’em all 😛
“And so far Kio failed with his every single idea.”
Forget to add that with AGE-FX he already made Flit realize that Kio will not grow up into his ultimate savior, so he has to start using nukes and stuff.
I can understand this judgement. But, I still think that before the end of the gundam franchise can be declared just yet, I want to see how the Origins project treats the original source material. In which direction it takes, the future of the franchise will be resting.
The Origin, even if it doesn’t change the ending in a significant way… wherein the antics of the White Base and its crew really form a side show for the OYW — which is to me, the most effective portrayal of War is Hell (individuals don’t really matter as much), only fulfill our thirst for what has passed. Will Gundam again try to win the children it failed to convert with AGE? Will it focus on us oldfags? The oldfag strategy has always been OVAs ever since the fandom started ageing in 1989.
That seems like it could be the case. But, I have never seen a remake that wasn’t a product of it’s time. It is a fact of nature that gundam now is very different from gundam as it existed in the past. It is possible that they might be making this as a way of appealing to the older UC fans. But, they could be targeting it specifically at AU people, or making it specifically to attract new fans. Any fandom will die out without fresh blood, and starting the story at the beginning is appealing to those who have been curious but never checked it out. I understand the urge to call it a nostalgia fest, but I don’t think that’s set in stone yet.
Someone pointed this out.
The first generation(Flit) is a reflection of the early Gundam series, about winning wars by shooting the enemy.
The second generation(Asemu) is a reflection of the OVAs of the Gundam series, where the conflict is much more personal.
The third generation(Kio) is a reflection of the recent series, where war is ended by understanding.
To me, AGE putting those 3 eras of Gundam into one and turning each era into a character is a brillant idea. It shows how different their ideals are and creates a situation where Kio, Asemu and Flit could argue over their way of handling the war which would be like each generation of Gundam having differences from each other that causes the fanbase to split.
The ED gives me the feeling that Flit and Asemu is going to die and their ghosts will guide Kio in his final battle.
but AGE-FX is destroyed too in the ending….
don’t say it will be like SEED where every MS is destroyed in ending but a flawless victory closing the stage 😐
Judging from the ED, Kio may follow Kira’s footstep and ignore the damages on AGE-FX, charge to the final enemy with Flit and Asemu’s ghosts being his co-pilots and kill the final enemy, with the explosion rendering the AGE-FX completely ruined.
The ED of SEED seems to show that nobody wins in a war, hence the destroyed Gundams, I personally like the destroyed Gundams, one scene that really touches me is the children playing on the ruins of the Aegis in SEED Destiny, war machines reduced to nothing more than playgrounds for children.
LET THE FINAL ATTACK BE A VERSION OF THE WATERMELON SPEAR WHICH TURNS KIO INTO A VEGETABLE AFTERWARDS. BEST ENDING.
if they do that, AGE will go down in history as god tier. end of fucking discussion.
if they don’t we lol and walk away as usual. same old same old.
I like that point with how the three generations of AGE are supposed to be as.
Found this on /m/
“My theory on the AGE system was that during/shortly after the Silver Chalice treaty and Asuno was all ‘what if crazy shit happened and we couldn’t fight back because we locked all our awesome weapons up’? And created the AGE device to surreptitiously access the EXA-DB when needed.
However, in order to prevent the AGE device from simply downloading WMDs and shit and restarting the colony wars s/he made it a black box and designed it so that it would only access equipment based on the specific situation that whoever has the AGE device is facing. That way you can get a powerful weapon without essentially unlocking the whole
EXA-DB and going back to square one.”
Makes sense to me.
I saw it differently
Gen1: gundam’s spirit of adventure, ie the beginning when everything is new and the hero must face an unknown enemy while growing up. Learns that war is hell.
Gen2: Gundam branches out to focus more on how a different approach can be taken when the enemy is known. Reach an understanding/reflective level with a now humanized enemy.
Gen3: Fucking SPACE MAGIC! cue funnels/bits, pin point beam spam, magic fairy dust. PEACE THROUGH SUPERIOR FIREPOWER. RAWR IF I BREAK ALL YOUR WEAPONS IT SHOULD DEMORALIZE YOU INTO WANTING PEACE RAWR, HO HO JUST AS PLANNED, FLAWLESS LOGIC!
That right there pin points the death of “real robot” in Gundam. I goes from being a large war setting, to more of a personal duel, then gets crazy with wackiness.
Actually if there was an Gen4 is would be like Gundam Wing/ 0-00. World is relatively stable, then terrorist gundams are sent some where force people into a train of thought. Either the central government can’t respond fast enough or they’re behind a tech curve. Insert AI/mobile dolls (finally something even pacifist can blow up without thinking).
Ansem’s logic is flawed. He’s just dragging out the war, causing each side to try and develop even more devastating one shot weapons so they don’t have to deal with their logics problems. Ironically, if he had a evil 2nd in command, it would be easy to usurp those resources (pirating for 13 years? gotta have a ton of tech) and create a “3rd” faction that plays, “lord of war” that profits by making sure neither side gets an advantage over the other but dealing with both.
Seriously, Romary… guy fraking knocks you up and then vanishes for 13 years then he’s leaving again with no word on if he’s coming back….Yeah, guy seems like a real winner. At least Flit knows his son is a complete and utter failure (I’m sure he always dream about how awesome his and Yurin’s kid would have been instead of having to “settle” for the non dead chick.)
Any how, the funnels are meh, seriously is that an evil clone, obligatory “but you can’t use that WMD on a base that’s filled with the enemy”, thus saving the lives of your comrades who would otherwise die having to clear the base corridor to corridor.
Personally I think that Flit is stupid for wanting to nuke the base not wrong. After all why set out to destroy a resource that you can take for yourselves.
Yeah, otherwise every Gundam series would be a sequence of people blowing the crap out of each other with WMDs.
I will say this. I may be a blank slate, but that will not change the fact that I love gundam and anime. I know AGE has its ups and downs, and to you guys some of those things are a lot less forgiveable than they are for others, but I believe that, despite the series drawing a bit too heavily on previous continuities than it needs to, that AGE will pull through somehow and it is worth holding out hope for.
It all depends on the cost of taking the resource. If it would take upwards and over 50% causalities, is the base really worth taking? Does the base have any other value other than cutting off the Vegan’s supply lines? At this point Filt’s and the high commands opinion is that it’s more important to remove the moon base as a launching point for the Vegan invasion of Earth.
It’s of high strategic importance meaning the Vegans will probably have heavy defenses making a take over costly. UNLESS the Feds had a spy in play in the base that could reduce the risk. Ie someone opens a less defended back door for them etc.
This is fine, what I really object to is the tension-free resolution of conflict due to the magic peace powers of Kio and the latest Gundam.
You are a man after my own heart.
Amuro never spared anyone, neither did Kamille or Judo. However it doesn’t mean they kill in cold blood – they moan the death of their enemies, that is the best thing about Tomino Gundam. However that has changed, and it isn’t limited to AU Gundams, shows like 08th Gundam and Unicorn does the same.
And thanks for acknowledging that Unicorn is suffering from the same blood-washing pacifism as I’ve pointed out way before. I’ve compared Banagher to Kira preciously because of this. It’s a damn shame that none of the new Gundams can escape what I find to be the most shameful losing of its main theme – forget the “ugly gundams” (which is highly subjective anyway), forget the dumbing down of the political twists of war strategies, my view is that the true dumbing down of Gundam comes from this trivialization of no-kill pacifism by giving the protagonist the power to do so and actually *achieves* this goal. THAT feels cheap to me, and damn it AGE has let me down in this regard again. I’m glad that AGE still has Flit to take us back to reality of the war, however if at the end AGE washes Flit off his hatre I would REALLY be disappointed.
Unfortunately, the washing out of such hatred is to be expected, judging from the direction Sunrise has taken in SEED and 00. What you pointed out s the trivialization of no-kill pacifism is the reason Gundam SEED is the point this franchise started to go DOWNHILL.
I’d argue against your comparison of Unicorn and SEED for a pretty simple reason. Kira’s gundam is his sword, a tool to carry out his pacifist notions with “safe” violence. The Unicorn, up until the last episode, has been something actively fighting against Banagher’s intentions. The ideal of pacifism itself is not the problem or else none of us would have anything good to say about Loran. It is the execution. Effortless pacifism sucks. Pacifism through effort is perfectly fine.
I’ll concur to that. I think the Jesus Yamato distinction came more from the super overpowered mobile suit than from hatred of his idealism. Loran was badass because he wanted to find a peaceful solution to the conflict and did his damnedest to see it through, no matter how tough the situation. So yes, Loran’s effort and resolve displayed his dedication much better than Kira, who was in a mobile suit that NOBODY could oppose.
Also, Jesus refers to the pilot, not the suit. The pilot was inherently overpowered. The Strike Freedom was just pure abuse.
Yes, this is what the biggest problem with Kio’s pacifism is. Loran and Banagher are surrounded by obstacles, and in Banagher’s case one of the biggest is his own mobile suit. And Loran doesn’t just not kill people, he actively finds benevolent uses for the Turn A, like laundry and livestock transport.
Kio just sits around and waits for the AGE system to spit out a new Gundam; doesn’t even think of going with his dad to try something different for both of them. He’s just lucky that the AGE system decided that improbably precise funnels were necessary for his X-Rounder powers. There’s no obstacle anymore. The AGE-FX is the biggest easy button he could possibly want.
Well you haven’t read the novels so I don’t blame you and I’m not going to spoil it. but let’s just say in the end Banagher tames the Unicorn and made it his sword for pacifism just like Kira did with Freedom Gundam.
So in the end the effect was Banagher was also given the unstoppable power which Kira got, except the only difference was Banagher had to learnt to wield that power, but then this is actively no different than Kira having to abandon his inferior Strike Gundam and seek for more power in the form of Freedom Gundam and control his shots such that to be able to carry out his no-kill policy. Thus the end result is exactly the same, Banagher had to learnt to tame the over-powering beast that is the Unicorn and turn it into his *own* power to carry out his no-kill policy, and they both chosed to wield it in EXACTLY the same way, which is why I compare them to be the same character. They are really no different.
Also I don’t consider this as spoiler because from ep4 of Unicorn you can already see that they had laid the groundwork in showing that Banagher is “taming” the Unicorn and making it bend to his wills.
Also not to mention Kira’s motivation was to support Lucas, and Banagher’s motivation was to support Audrey, while neither of them has any goals of their own except to not kill the enemy so their pretty princess won’t get sad, the parallel goes so deep it isn’t funny.
I’ll see this when the time comes, and figure it out.
You seem to miss my point. The fact that you admit to his need to “tame” the unicorn and re-purpose it in the first place makes that execution far more palpable to me. Obstacles, both mental and physical (Banagher’s physical push back against the cockpit switching into NTD mode) makes a clear distinction between Unicorn and SEED.
Excellent.
I think you misunderstand GL’s opinions of Unicorn’s pacifism elements. For the most part GL’s opinion on Unicorn’s pacifism elements has been positive, though granted he did have some issues with ep.4. IMO Unicorn’s execution of its pacifist elements has been pretty good however the route its taking is a very difficult balancing act to follow and with the introduction of the FA unicorn in the ep.6 Unicorn is approaching the point where the the execution will make to break the series for a lot of people. Also the Kira and Banagher comparison really only goes skin deep, something I think GL pointed out.
I should also point out that Kira’s reason for fighting was NOT because he wanted to support Lacus. In the first half of SEED he fought simply to protect his friends. In the second half he fought once again to protect his friends, who were under attack at the Alaskan base. The other reason was because he wanted to stop the war which was motivated by the tragic events that occurred between him and Athrun. Lacus didn’t start getting involved until after the invasion of ORB arc.
It is as Zetatrain says, but not to completely disagree with you.
I’m holding out for Unicorn to avoid resolving the conflict with MAGIC PEACE POWERS. As R042 says in this thread, the path to the desired result coming from a moral high ground should be difficult. Magic peace powers make it easy, and cheap for us viewers to behold.
Well, I respect the point of a fan of the series, and your logic is valid, which makes me wonder about myself. I find myself easily swayed by such arguments on topics like anime and swaying one way or the other when I do not wish to, and this makes me wonder if I am a true lover of gundam and anime, or a sociopathic blank slate. But enough about me. I too saw a call back to gundam seed with Kio’s pacifistic approach, along with some noticable points. One, Kio doesnt try to make his comrades adhere to his style, and even acknowledges the theoretical foolishness of what he is trying to do, but decides that he will do it anyway. This is a point that I feel can redeem his Kira-esque characterization in this episode. Flit and Asemu’s talk was a tad interesting, and though the forcing a stalemate angle is in a way no better than Kio’s reasoning, it’s MUCH better than just joining pirates to kill off federation traitors while making no meaningful change. Flit is definitely going in a bad direction. While he is correct in his assertion that the Vagan are still fighting for Ezelcant even if they don’t know the truth of his plans and thus should be defeated, dropping a pseudo-nuke on the base is simply too much even for a hardliner. I too hope Natola decides to take a stand and stop him before he does something truly irredeemable, but I also hope that taking the moral high ground doesnt end up the same way for her it did for Natarle Badgiruel (ouch). All in all, I think I can muster the courage to see the series through to the end and make a judgement on it for myself.
As R042 said, the path to the end coming from a moral high ground should be a difficult one, and having magic peace powers is the opposite of traveling a difficult path.
You know who the best no kill protagonist in mecha is? Nekki Basara. He won’t even shoot to disable if it can be avoided. And that’s a source of narrative conflict – his strategy doesn’t just work, requires superhuman skill and most of all is risky and selfish. But he’s principled and works towards that, making his victory all the more satisfying.
That’s because the POWER OF ROCK N ROLL can do anything. Gundam doesn’t care about magic music. It also doesn’t care too much about selling model kits because AGE has some of the worst mecha designs in recent anime history. I think we need to wait on the Origin to see just where the franchise as a whole is going. Funny how we have to go back to the start to see the future.
I disagree on the design point – AGE3 for one is lovely. Also Zeheart seemed to be in a Fire Valkyrie lookalike for a while.
Well, there are always some standouts. I should have clarified. AGE 1 is decent, AGE 3 is amazing, Zeheart’s MS are ok (if a little too SRW-ish for me) and my personal favorite is the good old sorry-arse Genoace 🙂
Well, at least the tails serve a function in combat instead of being purely cosmetic, so the fashion over function argument is belayed, because flashy features with no functionality are one common negative against any mecha series. The Original Gundam’s module transformation had quite a few crying foul, or at least the dude on MAHQ. But the Vagan units are my favorites just because of the design quirks. Animal Motifs + functionality = Win.
lol he was still a moron who got in the way of combat and it only worked out due to his voice causing space orgasms or something. If Gundam pilots could cause all their enemies to orgasm in the middle of combat, it would probably stop the fighting, no funnels needed just and speaker pods 😉 Oh and at least he never pretended to be anything else other than a selfish freaking hippie.
A selfish AWESOME freaking BADASS.
What, hippies can’t be awesome and badass now?
YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES.
ITS… KIO JESUS ASUNO! Someone else that sounds kinda like Kira Jesus Yamato? Oh wait, Kio didnt survive the selfdestruction of an Aegis in front of his gundam with the hatch being open… Hey Zeheart, how about you get youreselve some Aegis Gundam? XD
LOL
First half of this episode had me hoping that Flit would be the final antagonist of the series and die a tragic death facing off against his descendants. But looking at Kio following in the footsteps of Kira~¶ crushed that hope.
Ugh. Ezelcant is going to die before meeting his monster, Flit?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
LOLOL
OH LOOK AT ME IT’S FAIL TROLL KLAC AGAIN, I ❤ SEED AND GSD SOOO MUCH
good grief so indeed show has FINALLY reach “jump the sharks” knew this show was failed due such as
1.lack of characters develop with most get we hardly knew ye or put on a bus or whatever.
2.short series in 3 part give reach more eps give more balance.
3.yea so PG to watch.
indeed only GS era come back it would been SAVE_US of gundam era of this generation.
Starting from Gundam Seed, the Gundam franchise has completely lost all the creative magic the old Universal Century series has. Such is my view toward the franchise as a whole since it has completely broken off from the reality of war and gone way too idealistic to me.
Well, Non-UC isnt necessarily bad. Turn A and 00 were amazing series, idealism aside.
I actually said “starting from Gundam SEED”; G Gundam and Gundam Wing are at least somewhat plausible, and Turn A Gundam is reasonable as well since Tomino himself knows what war is like.
As of 00 things were going good until the movie ruined the entire saga.
I thought the movie was pretty cool actually. At the very least, they avoided using actual humanoid aliens. And I won’t write off Gundam, ever. Huge idealistic overtones aren’t going to make me run home. And while I agree that real world demilitarisation and political climate are influencing the series, it can’t be helped. At least till we see what this ‘Origins business is all about.
WELL I TOLD YOU SO I AM A CONFIRMED HATER TROLL SEEDFAG NAMED KLAC. really after reading mention latest on this really age experiment gundam is a FLOP yet this stunt indeed tropes it did JUMP THE SHARKS.
besides if only stick more like
1.more characters develop & showing with it and not making most of them filler, put on a bus, we hardly knew ye, cannon fodder, etc.
2.stop making too many long time skip really wasted a lot to show.
3.lack of voices in show give series got hmm good names voices they were put short time & not much hearing really wasted a lot to hear.
really list keep on going every thing went SINKING so much since 00-ver rated was start of DECAY of gundam series.
yea either next series get WOMAN MAIN LEAD GUNDAM PILOT or we go back to GS era to SAVE_US.
What the HELL are you trying to get across?
you know, at least I don’t rant with full caps. just saying.
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