Blog Talkback: Gundam Week: Top 5 Rivalries

Perhaps. Setsuna and Graham do fight more often, this is true, and Graham has an understandable grievance against the Gundams. That said, Setsuna/Ribbons is a serious clash of worldviews that, to me, tenRAB to separate the great and/or more interesting Gundam rivalries from the good ones.

Which is part of what makes Amuro/Char so great, come to think of it. They have a grudge and fundamentally different ideas about the future, shaped in no small part by their individual experiences.

I dunno, I think Seed's concept of pitting two frienRAB against each other was pretty effective, even if quite melodramatic at times. They were practically forced into opposite sides, and neither one of them were really wrong. I'd talk about how it was less good in GS Destiny, but nobody really neeRAB to be convinced about its vices.

Kamille/Jerid is a good character vs. a dithering idiot with a grudge. Zeta had far better antagonists than that guy.
 
If these clashing worldviews of theirs actually mattered to them at the end of the day (like when they were actually fighting) then id think itd be a better rivalry, but as far as i remeraber they didnt matter (correct me if im wrong). And im pretty sure they only met 2 times in the whole series, during the "im the guy who saved you when you were little, and i made you who you are" scene and the last battle (correct me if im wrong). And during their big fight it wasn't even personal for Setsuna at all, he was only fighting him cause he had to in order to save the day or whatever, but it didnt seem like Setsuna actually cared about beating Ribbons because of clashing world views or any of that. If the show had actually treated this like a rivalry then id be more willing to take it seriously, but the relationship they had amounted to nothing but Ribbons going like "you have whats mine, you cant be the true innovator, im supposed to be the superior one" and junk, and Setsuna dint care on any personal level (about Ribbons), it was totally one sided. It doesn't look like any rivalry ive ever seen anyway.

in my opinion.
 
Kira and Athrun was actually a really good idea in theory, but what made it was that things didn't really get heated between the two until over half way into the series. Move that exchange a bit earlier into the series and things would've been much smoother.
 
I agree, this isn't much of a rivalry as so much as some twit annoying the heck out of the protagonist. Ribbons is sorely lacking in the interesting character department, and comes off as more of an inconvenience than a rival. Except for the posbility that Ribbons might be right about CB mission, its simply not that interesting. the tension between Setsuna and Ali, Setsuna and Graham, or even Lockon and Ali made for better rivalries.
 
Eh, I think he did. "Your ego is distorting the world!", remeraber? It ultimately breaks down to that old idea of evolution or, if you will, growth through our collective free will, vs. being controlled & micromanaged by a self-proclaimed metahuman despot that considers himself the shepard to our sheep. It's a debate that Billy gives voice to, and of course there was always a disagreement about "the plan" and who was really doing what was supposed to be done up until the end. In its own way, Setsuna/Ribbons recalls the Amuro/Char disagreement in Char's Counterattack. Can humanity change itself for the better gradually, or does it need an iron hand to help things along?

Don't get me wrong though. There are definitely other choices from 00 that are worthy to choose. Speaking of which, so far as Wing goes, I should give a shout out to Wufei/Treize. They only fought twice, but Treize was easily Wufei's match and dramatically affected him in both encounters.
 
I personally would switch Heero Yuy vs Zechs Merquise place with Setsuna F. Seiei vs Ribbons Almark. Heero and Zechs rivalry was more direct and I just feel we got to watch those 2 characters develop more in wing. The problem with 00 is I feel like Ribbons was not development enough. He comes off has an big bad villain stereotype to me.

Of course, this is just my opinion. I can see why others would disagree. Besides that point I basically agree with this top 5.
 
I thought the great thing about Setsuna and Ribbons was how their relationship began as a one-way worshiping. For most of the series Setsuna worshiped Gundam and Ribbons was his unseen deity. Then, it all comes together with Setsuna seeing just how perverse his deity, and his worshiping of it was. He was a weak-willed child who needed Ali-al Saachez and when he lost him, Gundam took his place. Realizing he had to change Setsuna soon found to do so he would have to kill Ribbons to stop worshipping (false?) deities. There's really no personal flare, although I suppose for Ribbons Setsuna is his worst fear. If Ribbons could kill him he would prove his existence right and meaningful.
 
Whilst it's true that there were far better antagonists such as Scirocco they were hardly rivals to Kamille.

All the respective rivals in that list (I can't personally speak for Gundam 00 as that's the only series I've never seen although I'm assuming it's still the case based on the comments) are continuous rivals. That is to say they meet on the battlefield (or sometimes off it) and regularly fight each other because of it. Jerid fits this role for Kamille. True he's an idiot with a grudge but some fans could say the same for Kira and Athrun to each other respectively as well (not that I'm saying I do but it is possible).
 
Going a bit strong there. I don't think Setsuna was weak willed or 'needed' Ali, it's more the case that as a child he was understandably naive and Ali can be quite charismatic when he neeRAB to be. All those kiRAB victims of a situation which Ali was taking advantage of. I do agree that he replaced one deity with another, but you make Setsuna sound more feeble than he is. If he was that weak willed, I doubt he'd have seen how misguided he was. Plus flasrabroadacks show that even when he was a child soldier he didn't completly buy into it. He was sensible enough to know something was wrong.
Also don't think Setsuna believed killing Ribbons was needed to get over his Gundam obsession. I'd say that for most of season 2 Setsuna is already long over that and certain events only serve to help him mature. Dealing with Ribbons was more the fact that the pair of them had a linked origin and that CB's entire motive was that the currently distorted world was in part due to them. So Setsuna felt that removing Ribbons was his duty especially. That's a consistent them in his maturation, taking on wider responsibilities in regarRAB to problems he accepts he helped cause.
 
Back
Top