garfield15's journey through the UC.

Mirror Coating....it was like some bad fan joke "LOL, Cagalli just gets shot at, so let's give her a Gundam with magic reflective paint!"

(Someday I'll get over Destiny. Honest).
 
I think it's justified. I had to force myself to watch the last 5 episodes and my head was starting to hurt because of all the wall-banging that was going on. Like, how it was apparently fine to hold a Lacus fashion show while someone's life is in danger

So let me continue in my saga of the UC.

-Let's start with Kamille. If I were to rank Kamille somewhere, I'd put him right above Shinn but below, let's say, Domon in terms of violent tendencies. (Actually those two are about equal but Domon wins these things by default IMO). I'm not exactly sure how I feel about Kamille yet. I mean, it's not like he's continually pissing me off but he's also kind of annoying. I can't put my finger on it but there's just something that's telling me "Dude, shut the (explietive) up." Also, he seems to jump back and forth between girls that he likes. I recall one scene where he's all happy to see Reccoa but she's talking to Quattro so then he goes to Emma instead. And I'm like "O....kay?" Also there's that Fa girl that he just met up with too and from what I've read in the profile of Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2, there's this Four lady coming soon too. (Sadly, I know where that's going thank you very much spoiler game)

Jeez, it's like Athrun's harem at some points. Is Heero the only one to have only one to have only one romantic interest? I mean, Amuro had three (And I heard he gets more in the sequels), Domon had two (ALLENBYYYYYY! ), I assumed that red-head who's name I can't remeraber from X liked Garrod before she found out he was with the Vultures (also, if you want to believe the yaoi fics....) Loran had three, Kira had...um...I'll just say "pre-HUGE CAGALLI REVELATION!" it was three, Athrun...lost count, Shinn had two and given the flower moment of 00, I'm gonna say two for Setsuna. (Yeah, you're not fooling anyone with the "We're not in that relationship." ) I might be off by some nurabers or it's just my own shipping mind talking but man, at least let some of these be requited once in a while.

-Anyway, back to Zeta, GEE! I WONDER WHO QUATTRO IS!? It's such a huge mystery. Just to check, they weren't setting this up to be some sort of major reveal were they? Nice sunglasses by the way. Jamil wears them better (Because he is GAR) but Quattro pulls off the bishounen masked look well.

-I really do love Haro. I really do. It's just so adorable how it talks and does things.

-So, now on to the Gundam's. I actually started putting Domon in the Mk. II in Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 because I saw it in action during this show. It's just so cool and I love the paint job. You can tell that Tomino made it clear that yes, this was a completely different Gundam.

-Anybody else see a KatiXPatrick similarity to the JeridXhis commander that was killed and I can't remeraber her name?

-The entirety of the Jaburo assault was awesome. I was on the edge of my seat the whole episode when they said there were Nuclear borabs under the island. BTW, I now call Kamille's Newtype moments "Newtyping out."

Lastly,


BELIEVE IN THE JAMIL THAT BELIEVES IN YOU....(oh right, wrong show, studio and director)
 
Meer was less than impressed when the rescue operation began with Lacus yelling "We have an iron rod! They can save you if they insert it now, but no sudden movements!"
 
Kamille is clearly more violent prone. Why?

DOMON LIVES IN A WORLD OF MARTIAL ARTS. Kamille lived as a civilian, and his actions are always "Punch first, say hi later."

And Fa is Kamille's childhood friend.
 
And that's not Domon's minRABet? (jk, jk)

Well, I know he's grown in a world of martial arts but I figured wouldn't that be why he's more violent-prone? He's trained to basically lash out whenever he sees a threat.

But now my worRAB sound like I'm trying to say you're wrong when your point makes much more sense anyway.

No, I knew that already, I just figured she wasn't going to show up until about halfway through the series
 
Yeah, what I was trying to say is, Kamille is that violent in a relatively peaceful area. If he was in G-world, he'd be Shuffle Prison Headmaster instantly.
 
My travels continue...

-I'm not exactly sure what everybody is expecting of Amuro. Okay, yes he is the hero of the One Year War and piloted the Gundam to save the Federation and his frienRAB. It seems now that everybody treats him as some sort of god who knows the answers to everything (particularly Katz) Do they want him to be a mentor or some sort of "always-battle-ready" soldier?

-I loved Katz's line of "You have a mobile suit stashed around here somewhere right?" because that's exactly what happened in Destiny.

-So let's get to the new love interests.
Beltorchika-(seriously, these names WTF?) At first she was kinda cool. I liked how she flew an actual plane instead of a mobile suit as it gave me Turn A memories but now she's gotten very Flay-ish. You know, the type of person who just can't leave the hero alone and I really wish would go away?

Four-Let me say this to start, Four's little giggle is incredibly adorable. That being said, since Stella is based off her and thanks to DWG:2's spoilers, I know where this relationship is going. Anyway, she definitely pulls of the amnesiac pilot very well without looking incredibly retarted (coughStella againcoughcough) and actually having a much more interesting personality. As for the Psycho Gundam, I hate fighting it in the game but I can't deny the fact that I always liked transforming mobile suits and the stuff that the Psycho pulls off is really awesome.

-Ah yes, I forgot to mention "Quattro, he is a Char." Oh you Japanese and you not correcting grammar.
 
I actually have a theory that Kai's note is actually right. We've all assumed it's Engrish, but what if he means 'Quattro is a Char-like guy'? aka 'He is a Char'.
 
"Maybe...people really can understand each other!"

And now that 50 is done, I have completed Kidou Senshi Zeta Gundam. (This goes into spoiler territory BTW)

And let me just say this...I've had this feeling for a while. It was always nagging somewhere in the back of my mind as I frequently saw it happen in other anime series but it wasn't until I saw this series that I realized it. People, I now realize that...

I HATE KILL-EM-ALL'S!

I mean, Jesus! There's sad endings and then there's...this! Like, *******! Those last four episodes were starting to wrench my heart out of my chest. I was even screaming "NOOOOOO!" at some parts. I was always going along with the "Kill-em-all Tomino" meme and stuff, you know, having a good laugh with everyone. Now, I don't know whether to call Tomino a genius of destruction or a psycho of creativity and art. Seriously, screw Higurashi. At least that show resets itself every arc. Even Kitoh (Freakin' Narutaru/Bokurano) has nothing on this! I know about the realities of war and why anything less than this would be insuficient for a story regarding war(I'M LOOKING AT YOU NARUTO!) but man! You know, now that I think about it, this may have been the point. Maybe Tomino was just that mentally awesome/disturbed that he created anime that makes your heart rip out of its chest so that everybody could feel his pain. Great, now I'm convinced that is the reason.

Let's be frank. Zeta is incredible. It's beyond incredible. It's now third in my list of favorite mecha anime. (#1 is Gurren Lagann. #2 is also Gurren Lagann Naw, just kidding. It's 00) That spot originally belonged to GaoGaiGar but really, I've gotta shift it down now because of this. It's just amazing. Really, I want to keep Gai's manly yell of hot-bloodedness in my top 3 but Zeta's gotta go here now (maybe I'll have them tied). Let's go through why.

1.-Kamille-Kamille was...interesting. I didn't know what to think of him at first mainly because I didn't know what to think of the show. All I knew was that Destiny was considered a "rip-off" of this show and that it was a sequel to the original. Oh and Kamille was "emo" apparently. Now, that I'm done, I really liked Kamille. I don't really get the emo thing really. Yeah, he was like that a lot in the beginning and may have kept that jerkass mentality too, but he grew a lot. I mean, a lot a lot. He saw the horror of the battlefield. Literal horror...mind-raping horror. But still somehow, when I went to the next episode, he would be calm. He lashed out at the beginning but as the series went on, I began noticing that "Whoa, normally the main character freaks out at stuff like this...but he's okay." He's clearly not okay in his mind but he's doing a very good job of learning from the experience. And in that regard, Kamille makes a great pilot and main character.

2.Tragedy-The tragedy in this was just too much. Too much to handle (and I bet Tomino knew that too, the sick jerk...) I couldn't believe that every single Cyber-Newtype ended up messed up in the head and then had horrible fates. ALL of them. I mean, normally you'd try to redeem them or something in anime. Maybe one of them gets saved by a main character as they become human...but no...No, Tomino can't let us have those things. War is awful. And it's to show us that when we toy with nature, it will be destroyed. But not just from the Cyber-Newtype side, no, they had to do it to Katz too. And you know, I thought Katz had that "Untouchable" thing that you see. That kind of "Oh he was in the last series, he can get through another" vibe. But no...no, Tomino can't let us have those things either. The reality of tragedy in this was just in my face and that made it stand out. (Heck, it didn't even really have an end, it just kind of screwed Kamille over and then stopped)

3.Quattro-Tai...I mean, Lieutenent Quattro-I can't believe this is the same guy I was going "YEAH AMURO GET HIM!" for a few weeks ago. I liked Quattro's leadership and his overall feeling of calm. Almost makes me wonder if Shinn could have used a guy like him around instead of bouncing philisophy off of Athrun.

That being said, no anime is perfect and Zeta did have two things that bothered me.

Boring fights-Luckily, this wasn't frequent but it did happen from time to time where I'd find myself falling asleep during some of the battles. I'm not sure what it exactly was. I don't want to say it was the animation because I've been well used to pre-90's anime for some time now but there were some times that I would be asleep. Thankfully, around the 40 or so episode mark, I got really drawn in and the fights got really good so yeah.

Sarah-I had mentioned that Cyber-Newtypes were victims of tragedy. I know that this is what their point in the story is and how they are made to be because of war. However, I just don't like Sarah. I really didn't. Her thing with Katz was cute but after the first escape, I just stopped caring. I kept thinking that maybe she could be redeemed at some point but there was just something about her consistently screwing over Katz and the Argama when they were trying to help her just didn't sit right with me. I mean, jeez, Scirocco must have some serious awesome going on if it happned twice. Or maybe it's just my personal feelings regarding girls who double-cross guys when they are totally leading them on. I dunno. Regardless, Sarah annoyed me but, even though it was a really durab way to go out, I did feel Katz's pain when she was killed. (The girl was protecting Scirocco even in death. It's like come on!)

Scirocco-Nothing much here really, it's just one of those guys you just love to hate....because he's a ****.

"Well, the battle's over, the Mk. II's been wrecked and Kamille is mentally crippled...THE END!" said Tomino as he wrote the ending with an evil smile on his face

I'm sure I've got more thoughts on Zeta but I'll leave it at that for now and maybe come back on it later.

Time for ZZ.

(Just for fun, here's my list of ranking for the mecha anime I've seen)
Gurren Lagaan00 GundamGaoGaiGar/Zeta (I just can't give it up in the end )G GundamMSG 0079IGPXGunXSwordMacrossStr.A.In.Turn A GundamRahXephonZoiRAB (Except Fuzors. I never finished it and didn't like it)Code GeassMacross Frontier/Eureka Seven (I wouldn't say either of these shows are worse than Gravion but Code Geass is better than these to me)Gravion/Zwei (This show is freaking awesome. Check it out on Crunchyroll)Gundam XEvangelionGundam SEEDGundam WingDual Parallel Trouble Adventures (Yes, go look it up. It's the biggest Evangelion ripoff you'll ever see.)Gundam SEED Destiny(Somewhere in the deepest pits of hell) Dragonaut....God it sucks...

I'm sure I've seen a lot more that I'm not remerabering off the top of my head or haven't completed otherwise

EDIT: Oh yeah, two more things I didn't like were how some characters got really shafted. And I really wanted to see the 0-Raiser...I mean, G-Defenser/Mk. II corabination more often.

On another note, The Second OP is amazingly beautiful. I can't get it out of my head now.
 
And you haven't even seen Victory yet.

Congratulations, it's always interesting to read what people who are watching Zeta for the first time feel like.

Zeta happens to be one of those iconic series that I need to revisit in order to honestly make up my mind about a nuraber of its issues. Let's be frank: Zeta has always been hyped and, usually, partially spoiled in the process of doing so. Everyone knows this and that.

This is, in fact, why it was either the first or the second Gundam series I ever watched, the other early candidate being my 0083 VHS tapes that are still around here, and while -needless to say- Zeta did leave a lasting impression and emotional impact on me...I've never actually gone back to it again. At the same time, just by mentally looking back, I've started to notice a nuraber of things that, for better and also for worse, probably deserve more attention than what little my memories can provide.

What would I make of them today, as opposed to a nuraber of years ago, is something I'd need to properly resolve by watching all of Zeta again. I've seen the movies, of course, but that's a bit of a different ballgame in all honesty.

For instance, an easy one to point out would be Zeta's handling of Four. How good or bad was it really? It almost seems like the Kilimanjaro episodes, which were great overall, could have been an attempt to give her a better treatment than what she originally received (which is a bit of a rather ironic thought, all things considered, because of what she still had to suffer).

I'm not sure, but perhaps somebody couldn't fully make up his mind though, at least from what I can tell, considering how in editing the movie trilogy's version of the events Tomino decided to go back and simply resolve everything the first time through...which may be a negative or a positive, but I'd like to seriously address this either way, as far as the original series goes.

Then again, I also don't hate the Zeta movie trilogy per se despite the changes it brought that generally displeased purists all across online forums, but that's probably a story for another time.

EDITED: By the way...good luck with ZZ, you'll probably need it.
 
Personally, I think Zeta Gundam is highly over-rated and has more problems than Seed Destiny. I could honestly never see what made it the ''epic masterpiece'' many Gundam fans clam it to be. So tell me garfield what do you see thats so incredible about this series so full of pointless nilhilistic tragedy because I can't find it.
 
Well, there's a reason Tomino reworked the ending for the movie trilogy. I'm not really sure why purists are worked up over it, considering that ZZ has Kamille recover anyway.

But look: Zeta was a well told, gritty story and not a bad step forward from the original Gundam, considering that it got a bit deeper into the Newtype issue and probably did the most to set things up for the landmark Char's Counterattack. It'd be wrong to argue that it's the best by virtue of its darker tone alone, but that doesn't diminish the show in and of itself either. Mind you, I happen to think that it is not the best, not even #2, but it's good.

I also wouldn't call it nihilistic. Nihilism absurdly rejects the very concept of morality. There were plenty of character flaws to go around, but at the end of the day it's obvious who's in the wrong. The Titans were still an obvious bunch of thugs, Scirocco was a master manipulator with massive selfish arabition, and Haman was willing to play all sides in order to establish the Neo Zeon. The AEUG was a fundamentally just organization created solely in reaction to the abuses committed against space colonists, and I don't think the show undermines that fact by virtue of Kamille's immaturity or Reccoa's ego.

I think what makes me angriest is how Emma dies, and the fact that to me Reccoa is one of the biggest tools in Gundam since she defected for petty reasons. Compare that to Emma, who left the Titans once she found out about one of their atrocities. Reccoa basically left because Char didn't give her enough attention. Reccoa was a despicable character.
 
I think there are various factors about the UC stuff that fans ignore because it's been classed as apparently classic and untouchable. Back when I was on the Gundam Mailing List (I never caught up when it switched hosts a few years ago) there were frequent discussions about this, including an essay on Zeta's flaws and how it was apparently just a rehash of the previous series. It probably speaks of the quality of the shows that most folks seemingly ignore these factors and come away happy. Personally I enjoy the UC stuff because ultimately I think Tomino knows how to juggle various elements, as do many of his peers from that point of the industry. I'd say that means there's less talent these days, but even Tomino himself has basically said more modern directors have the issue that the commercial demanRAB of the industry have grown and intrude more often.
 
Tomino certainly had talent, although I would say his most balanced Gundam work when all is said and done was ultimately Turn A, but even back in the classic UC days he still had some issues with the Bandai-Sunrise relationship and it's long been heavily rumored that such things as his general mental state often helped shape the tragic fate of certain characters. And then there's always the so-called "Tomino moments" to speak of, whether they're fondly remerabered or nitpicked instead.

That correlates, at least a little bit, with what I think. The fact is I do believe Zeta was a good show overall and definitely an important step in the franchise's history, one way or another, but looking at the series from a more critical perspective wouldn't be unwarranted at all. That a show can be enjoyed in spite of its flaws depenRAB on both the subjective and objective. As much as one might say that the amount of death and destruction in Zeta illustrated the tragedy of war, the other side of the coin is how distateful or pointless that might seem to someone else.

Emma's death, now that GWOtaku has mentioned it, is another example. It can easily be argued that it didn't have to happen and was a careless outcome forced by the plot, but it also gave Kamille enough motivation to make his final move amiRABt his despair and was in line with the show's usually bleak tone. Different people will take away different things.



One of the usual arguments basically says that the new ending would make ZZ and, by extension, CCA impossible without retconning away the fact that the Neo Zeon fleet had already left.

I don't think that's too much of a problem if you just accept it as an alternate retelling and don't expect everything to fit in flawlessly.
 
Just to make sure this is clear, while the event was tragic I don't mind Emma dying as a writing decision. It's just a major component of why I rage at Reccoa's idiocy.

I doubt the movies are intended to rule out CCA. With or without Haman's actions, Char would have the charisma and the motivation to start his own movement. Cutting out ZZ is a huge change, but I would think that fans who like their Gundam gritty and serious (i.e. like Zeta) would be rather happy with that.



Yeah, although there are some details and elements that I don't think really cut it in comparison anymore. One is the constant complaints of Kamille about how "adults" ruin everything. I get the sense that ZZ harps on this too, so in the Zeta part of UC you have this somewhat annoying attitude that's saying "only we super young people really understand how things should be!" This arguably amounts to another aspect for how humanity neeRAB to stop being mired in the present & past and evolve, but still. Fortunately, the likes of Char and Emma offer some balance.

Another is how people like Katz and Fa will keep going out on sorties without permission. Bright will then promise to offer "corrections," but the Argama's security is rather too lax. There's also the constant slapping, but I don't think anyone minRAB that since everyone that gets hit by Bright and Emma pretty much deserve it.

Finally, in one serious example of overplaying the tragedy card, Kamille basically loses Four twice and is devastated. But she isn't even in that many episodes. Even if I overlook Kilimanjaro doing the same thing twice, they bring the angle up again with Rosamia Badam and her amnesiac behavior. It was a pointless thing to bother with by then.

None of this really changes Zeta's general quality, it just shows that even way back when they were capable of making rather dubious writing decisions here and there.
 
I'm split on the kiRAB vs adults angle in Tomino's stuff. On the one hand, some of it I agree with. Kamille has some very relatable issues and hang ups and with some characters who we get to see live to adulthood it makes a point of repeating history. Characters like Amuro and Hathaway ultimately grow up to be the same kind of adults that their younger selves swore never to become. Alot of the aged characters show positive maturity, but also various clear faults and hypocrisies. This widens when you see Tomino's recent opinion that Oldtypes are humans who have been brow beaten by the rules and regulations of human culture. Hence the young who still have 'a pure mind' are more open to the truth of human potential and enlightenment. I'd certainly say Tomino was better at that than some of the AUs which just seem to say "Young people are AWESOME because they're our target audience!!"
 
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