| @23feanor Yeah, the worldbuilding is a problem. Feels like you need an encyclopedia just to keep up with all the various factions and where they're at in terms of power at various points in time, and it's almost all delivered through exposition. I agree that Stardust Memories does a good deal to fill in the gaps here, but if we're taking this series on its merits prior to the release of Stardust, it's not a good look. There's definitely more of an emphasis on showcasing the mechs than on making the story coherent. @kekekeKaj That's a good point about Char's line. Hadn't really thought about it that way. More clunky lines that showcase what could be strong moments feeling off as a result of how they're delivered. Also, from what I've gathered, Karaba is basically the Earth-based AEUG, which is headed up by Hayato. Episode 16 Even in the grand scheme of Gundam romances, this whole thing between Beltorchika and Amuro seems forced. There's just nothing here. We're told early on in the episode that Amuro is haunted by his past, partially his role in the death of Lalah, which led to him submitting to what was basically house arrest as he didn't want to fight anymore. But I guess a kiss is enough to get him back out there and fighting like normal. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly a fan of sadsack Amuro and I think his interactions with Char and Kamille this episode were at least interesting, but if you're going to include an emotional hurdle like this as a means for giving your character some growth, maybe make it just a little harder to jump over it. This just makes all of his feelings seem superficial. So the team splits into two, with half led by Char and including Katz heading up to space and the other a last minute alliance between Kamille and Amuro to protect them on their journey. We get a pretty decent fight where Amuro gets his groove back and wins the day, ending the life of one of a character we haven't really gotten to know much, even if he had some decent lines. He might make a good mentor for Kamille yet. There's also a scene of Amuro giving Katz the very gun he used to fight Char at the end of the original series. Its use in this episode to "force" Char to take off without Kamille is so-so, though I don't think Char recognizes it and I'm not really sure it matters since Amuro and Char are on the same side for now. Maybe that will come into play later. Maybe I should be taking it from the same perspective and just nixing world politics and character motivations, but the series feels the need to thrust them in my face so much that they're hard to ignore. |
whiteflame55Oct 3, 2023 9:14 AM
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| Episode 5-16 Gundam Zeta is better than it's first season, of which it's a true continuation in terms of cast and time line. A decade after the one year war, the Titans are in charge of Earth and just like Zeon they like to act and look like Nazis. Agreed that Kamille and his girls form something closeto a harem, where Fa (childhood friend), Rosamia (Mrs. Mystery) and Emma (Mrs. Discipline) have the lead positions. A number of characters from S1 are re-used, such as Bright, Char, Amuro, Fraw Bow, Kobayashi and Kai. Particularily interesting are the three kids from S1 (Kikka, Letz and Katz) who are now young teens. Katz seems to be a Newtype, and gets his pilot seat soon. Thus the interesting part in marketing is that the show covers three generations. Char and Amuro cover the seinen demographic of 20-somethings, Kamille the mainstream older teen so typical for Gundam, and now Katz representing the younger teen audience. Each generation also has their own romance and drama, which just like @23feanor points out is as wooden and stiff as we are used from Gundam writing. The story develops fast and I'm honest when I say I don't follow very closely all the time. Because focus is required, the many personae, the vast world and historical references are fairly complex. This clearly aims for full military space opera complexity. With LotGH (1988) still three years in the future, this attempt is not as mature and smart, but much better than many peers. The animation and character designs are slightly above average. The mecha battles got their extra attention, and one can see how they were influenced by Macross (1982). E.g. the way bundles of rockets are fired is a straight copy of the Itano circus style. Overall, a lot of characters in a large world. At this point, no major story has emerged yet. The basic conflict between AEUG and the Titans is cooking but hasn't exploded yet. Individual characters join in and are each developed a bit, the blessing of 4 cour writing. Half of the S1 White Base crew now is with AEUG. |
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| Episode 17. Beltochika tells Kamille that he should give the mark 2 to Amuro. I think Kamille has earned the right to pilot the mark 2 and has done a pretty good job so far, he's the next gen newtype. Yes he could learn from Amuro's experience but that doesn't mean he should doff his cap and let Amuro take lead. The Aldumla is headed for Honk Kong and expecting an attack from the Titan base on New Guinea. The Fed forces chasing the Karaba in their Aldumla receive another person from the newtype lab, another cyber newtype, Ensign Four, lady with blue hair. The Karaba group arrive in Hong Kong and Amuro and Beltorchika go to meet Kai's agent. Amuro runs into Mirai. When Amuro asks for the agent Kai referred them to he gets beaten up and a Ensign Four lands in the city with a huge mobile armour, bit extreme. Kamille in the mark 2 fights the new black Titan mobile armour (MA), hampered by the fact he is conscious of the surrounding civilians, which Four doesn't care about and causes havoc. The black MA looks pretty damn cool I have to say. The black MA has beam armour which repels rifle shots. Four calls it a psycho gundam, so it must have some mental link to the pilots brain like the MS in Thunderbolt. Miraia tells Beltorchika "If a wife trusts her husband she carries his presence with her [so it doesn't matter if he's never home and she has to raise the kids on her own]", written by a man for a woman to say, bit of a wtf 80's Japan moment. |
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| Episode 17 Beltorchika's attempts to get Amuro into the Mark 2 struck me as strange. He's not having any trouble with the Rick Diaz and, much as she probably has her issues with Kamille's piloting, she has to know that his best work is going to be with the mech he knows best. It comes off as simultaneously overprotective of Amuro, callous towards Kamille, and illogical given the circumstances. I'm not sure what her endgame is here beyond cozying up to Amuro, but this effort seems entirely misplaced. The fight scene in this episode is interesting, as it happens directly in a city center. Ensign Four pilots another transforming mech, this one looking like a black, oversized Gundam (I like the design - I do wonder about the connection between this Gundam and the Psycho Zaku from Thunderbolt as well @23feanor), straight into Hong Kong just to challenge Kamille to a one-on-one with his Gundam. So far at least, this pilot is the least interesting of the bunch of newtypes born in a lab (I'm honestly not sure how I feel about having so many newtypes in this series, even if it makes sense for there to be many more who simply weren't known before). Her relationship with the young woman who acts as her handler seems interesting, though, so something might come of that. She's absolutely fine with wreaking havoc on a city just to pick a fight, and is apparently dismissive of the costs to civilian lives. Still, it's conducive to an interesting fight where Kamille is the only one taking care to protect the lives of the civilians around them, putting him on the back foot both technologically and strategically. He ends up forcing a retreat partially by accident using his newtype powers to get into her head and partially on purpose by scratching her mobile armor with his beam sword. There's some interesting exchanges between Amuro, Mirai and Beltorchika. Mirai seems fine with Bright just being gone for long stretches of time because his presence is with her and their kids. Would be nice if there was some tension here, honestly - feels like this would be a nice moment to recognize the cost of a decision to just join up with and lead a segment of the AEUG on a whim, but I guess that kind of complexity isn't in the cards. |
whiteflame55Oct 4, 2023 8:13 AM
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| Episode 16 - 17 We're treated to a WTF moment as Blechiwotsaname kisses Amuro out of nowhere to try and rouse him out of his slumber. Did it remind anyone else of when Misato kissed Shinji in End of Eva? I thought that was a bit WTF too when I saw it. Either the kiss worked wonders or piloting a Gundam is like riding a bike, but Amuro immediately showed that he's on a different level to Kamille even after years of not touching a Gundam. Totally agree with @whiteflame55 that Amuro got over his mental hurdle way too easily. There's a dramatic battle in the fog as Char is launched back into space with Katz, but Amuro and Kamille had to stay behind to take on Major Braun. Between them, they defeat Braun (bit of a shame - he seemed like he had potential to be a decent character). Braun's successor sends out for another cyber-newtype from the lab. This one doesn't even have a name just a number - 4. There's a certain sense that they're pretty dehumanised as test subjects, and are just glorified lab rats. 4 Pilots a new mobile armour and takes the battle to Hong Kong where Amuro and Kamille was headed. The battle is perhaps the most goofy one so far as Kamille repeatedly tries to grapple the much bigger mobile armour, and gets repeatedly thrown away. Amuro meets Mirai who's with her children. There's some incomprehensible dialogue about Mirai insisting that she just needs to channel the image of bright and the kids will grow up fine. Amuro gets captured by someone who I mistook as Reccoa, but was let out during the mecha battle. Like me, he found the battle a bit vulgar and could barely hide his distaste. Eventually even 4 had enough of this crap, and decides to fly off. I remember in the original series Gundam was pretty much peerless as it was so advanced. In fact in most Gundam series that I watched, Gundams tends to be very dominant, so it's interestingly the mark II doesn't seem to be much more than a pretty good MS. I guess when Zeta Gundam turns up that'll be a game changer. |
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| Episode 18. Four runs off from her handler and the Fed soldiers are tasked with recovering her. Four runs into Amuro and Kamille and ends up getting a lift from Kamille. Amuro's contact with Mirai and her children leads the Feds straight to her and they are captured. The Feds issue a decree demanding the surrender of the Alduhmula and the AEUG forces within 24 hours or they'll attack Hong Kong and harm Mirai and her kids. I thought the whole earth is under Fed control, so why are the Fed and Titan forces so cavalier about harming their own civilians? I understand the Titans are made out to be a ruthless splinter force that is operating on it's own, but seems like the regular Fed soldiers are no better, threatening an entire city if one group of rebels don't surrender. Because we don't have a detailed picture of the political and military situation on earth actions like this don't make much sense. Kamille and Four's dialogue interactions in the car seemed quite natural, which stand out because it doesn't happen often in gundam. Amuro offers himself as a hostage in place of Mirai and her children, which the Feds accept, releasing Mirai, only to go back on their word and recapture her as she's escaping. Kamille suddenly seems more calm and reasonable, almost like a different person, maybe Amuro and Char's influence? Kamille fights off some undrwater Fed zakus allowing Amuro to rescue Mirai and the kids, although not sure how he swam with his arms tied behind his back. Everyone is reunited with the Feds driven off and Beltorchika falls apart again because Amuro was in danger. Seems Four has a telepathic link to her handler. |
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| Episode 18 Four spends much of the episode kind of following orders, but largely doing her own thing while she runs into important people. She calls herself Four Marasume, though I don't know if I'm the only one, but when I heard her say it I heard "Former Asume." Just something that bugged me for a bit. Anyway, she finds herself to Amuro, gets picked up by Kamille in his sick ride, and then gets dropped off elsewhere after having acquired information that her fellows can use against them, though she's not particularly happy about it. Her handler is... up to something. I'm still trying to figure her out, but it seems like she was feigning sea sickness for a while, as she clarifies later that she feels fine even when they're out on the water after looking and sounding violently ill before. Not sure what her deal is yet. The link that's teased between Four and her handler could be part of it. All the hostage-taking and efforts to get them back is pretty messy. Mirai and the kids get captured after it becomes clear they're important. Amuro heads over there to trade places with them, but they all get captured instead, with the Feds hiding mobile suits under the water to catch them unawares. They are marine mobile suits, but I don't know why they felt the need to hide them in the first place, or to give Amuro a false sense of hope that Mirai and the kids would actually be allowed to go. Amuro was already there, unarmed and submitting to them because he somehow thought that would work. I also don't get the threat on Hong Kong @23feanor, it doesn't make any sense for them to put their own people at risk except to look more like bad guys. But then we get even messier. Kamille goes in, for once seeming pretty in control, and single-handedly defeats all the underwater units without anyone making good on their threats to kill the hostages. Well... that's not entirely true because Amuro's escape has his arms tied behind his back and he jumps into the water pursued by a hail of gunfire. Dude should be dead, but they went to the Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship and Amuro's apparently a beast at swimming like an eel. With that in mind, it's not too surprising that Beltorchika felt he was in such clear and present danger, just turns out he's got plot armor for days. |
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| Episode 19. Beltochika gets snoopy and starts asking Mirai about Amuro's love life after over hearing him and Kamille talking about Four. I was surprised in the original series when Lalah was mentioned as a love interest for Amuro as I think they only met very briefly on a side colony and then again in battle when she was killed. Anyway Amuro warns Kamiile away from Four because they have newtype attraction, and she's a Titan. The Fed captain says that earth is in the hands of the Titans now and it can't be helped if they have to turn New Hong Kong into a sea of fire to subdue the rebel force Karaba. Four's handler points out that Hong Kong is part of the Fed now, but he shrugs it off. Do the Titan forces outnumber regular Fed soldiers now, we've never gotten any background details on the Fed/Titan situation. Kamille and Four meet up for a date. The backgrounds for Hong Kong at night really look nice and some groovy electric guitar music playing over the top goes well. Four and Kamille seem to fit well together. Four has no memories of her past and is a war orphan. Four is fighting to regain her memories. The black psycho gundam lands in the city again piloted by someone else and it runs out of control. The psycho gundam is relinquished to Four and she starts shooting the city up out of despair for her lost memories. Kamille and Amuro arrive on scene and Kamiile and Four sense each other. She explains to him that she's only fighting at the direction of the cyber newtype lab who promised to return her memories if she defeats the mark 2. Kamille pleads with her to leave the Titans and go to space with him to search for the key to her memories elsewhere. Liked this episode a lot. The fighting with Hong Kong at night looked good and the interactions with the much changed Kamille and Four were engaging. |
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| Episode 19 Not too much to add on this episode beyond @23feanor's review, though I'm still finding it difficult to really like Four as a character. I agree that the connection between Kamille and her is interesting, given that they have somewhat similar personality types and their connection as newtypes, but she does seem to be taking her frustrations to another level. She gets upset about her lost memories and commits a war crime on the city. Miscommunication is always par for the course, but I found the vague dialogue like "things like this condemn me to suffer forever" to be a little hard to take given how difficult (Kamille says as much) it is to understand where those feelings are coming from. Sitting from our perspective, we understand that she's lost her memories, but Kamille's just baffled. I did appreciate the whole "be nice to me" line - she likely hasn't had someone who actually cares for her in her whole life. I think I remember hearing a similar line in Banana Fish, but given her history, this does really work, even if she's doing it while going all kaiju on Hong Kong. Anyway, it is interesting that the black psycho Gundam is only able to be piloted by her, requiring some Fed reliance on her to make things happen. The effort to spare her makes for a good confrontation between Kamille and Amuro as the former tries to protect her, resulting in the Feds being able to recover her, mobile armor and all. Don't think that will last - I see death flags all over Four this episode. And given that she's been promised a return of her memories (something she really shouldn't believe), it gives her one big reason to keep fighting for the Feds, even if it doesn't justify her willingness to harm other humans for that goal. |
whiteflame55Oct 6, 2023 6:45 AM
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| Episodes 18 - 19 I rank these as some of the worst episodes amongst the more recent ones - it's similar quality as the start of Zeta. The dialogue's bordering incomprehensible at times, particularly around romance. The plot/execution etc, everything feels like a mess to me. I must have missed the part where AEUG have switched to fighting Earth Feds instead of Titans. When did that happen? I thought those were still Tians until I read what @23feanor wrote. It does seem weird that the Feds were threatening their own city and people to root out a few AEUG agents. Perhaps they're going for a scorched Earth policy, as in if AEUG don't give them what they want, they'll destroy the whole city, which will include AEUG people? Someone mentioned Hong Kong is leased territory ... who's it leased to? Titans? I'm so confused. 4 runs away and finds Kamille and gets a ride in his car. She flirts with Kamille and they get friendly weirdly quickly. Kamille even freely admits that he's from AEUG to this girl he only met like 5 minutes ago. What's also incomprehensible to me is that all episode the main Fed in charge and 4's handler were frantically trying to find her, and yet we could see she was being tailed by a Fed soldier pretty much all the time! Did the soldier not think to pass the message along?! After Kamille gets back, there's a so-bad-it's-funny scene with Stephanie where he makes an unfunny joke, and then after the interaction he goes: "What is this kindness I feel? She has the scent of a woman, different from 4." Then he goes off and saves all the hostages. And yes, Amuro's armless swimming is pretty impressive! After that he goes and meets 4 on a date. The moment the grunt tailing 4 (who gets "corrected") is sent off, we get this unbearably cliched scene as 4 jumps into Kamille's arms and they spin around to the some cheesy 80s power ballad guitar music ... so much cringe (and I say this as someone as a fan of 80s power ballads)! We get some background on 4: as suspected, it's just her number as a test subject at the lab. Later on 4 goes crazy destroying everything. I couldn't understand why, but later Amuro says "the combat system is forcing the pilot to fight" which might explain why she seems like a completely different person in there. However, that raises the question - how did Amuro know that?! Kamille tries but fails to persuade her to go into space with him. I was starting to getting into the story thanks to the recent run of decent episodes, but these couple of episodes have definitely put me off the show again. |
| Take off every SIG!! |
kekekeKaj said: After Kamille gets back, there's a so-bad-it's-funny scene with Stephanie where he makes an unfunny joke, and then after the interaction he goes: "What is this kindness I feel? She has the scent of a woman, different from 4." Yeah that was a bit weird. Episode 20. The Argama is dropping into a near earth orbit shortly but the Alduhmula isn't ready to make a launch into space to meet them, they need to get to New Guinea first. The Fed commander of the following forces threatens Four with the closure of the newtype lab is she doesn't fight. The handler makes it sound like the newtype lab is physically holding her memories and can return them at the push of a button. Ofc I'm guessing this is all a lie and they don't have her memories squirrelled away somewhere. Kamille and Four meet up during the fight and Kamille opens up to her about his parents death. Four gets upset because Kamille has finally accepted his girly name and rams her psycho gundam into the Fed ship. Looks like @whiteflame55 was spot on with his prediction as Four gets shot as she appears to sacrifice herself to send Kamille into space with a booster rocket. Kamille makes it into space to rendezvous with the Argama and Four snuffs it in the explosion on her ship. |
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| Episode 20 Having Kamille come to the point where he doesn't hate his own name and can at least think more rationally about his past is a pretty good moment in this episode, albeit it feels a bit later than it should after... you know, his parents' deaths and multiple pitched battles. Kamille has certainly changed over the series run, even if many of the people around him still see him the same way. As for Four, yes, it does appear that this is her last episode. I've got mixed feelings on that. I do think her effort to recover her memories was one of the more interesting aims of the show and could have given us some unique insight into the lives lived at the newtype lab and the types of people brought there, so getting to spend more time with her could have done a lot to expand on some of the more interesting parts of the series so far. On the other hand, she's largely spent the series so far lashing out and getting mad at everyone for her problems. I get that she's young, maybe even younger maturity-wise due to the lack of memories and the type of upbringing she received, but showcasing that by having her commit a few war crimes just feels like overkill. There was an interesting story to tell here if it could be told more subtly, but she's written as a tragic character that Kamille will agonize over for a while afterward and not so much as someone to explore personally. She asks Kamille to kill her at one point and submits to her death largely out of frustration with the Feds trying to control her with false promises - at least, that's how I saw it. And yes, Kamille makes it to space, with Amuro emphasizing that he has to go in order to make her sacrifice worthwhile. I think we'll be getting more of the uncontrolled Kamille for a bit now. |
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| @whiteflame55 I was also looking forward to seeing more of Four's journey to recover her memories and details of the lives of the people/subjects at the cyber newtype lab and thought it could be an interesting story plot. Shame. Episode 21. In the opening narration we're told the Titans are planning some military operation at Von Brown lunar base and if successful will help them take over the Fed govt, I thought the Titans were part of the Fed, or is it the Titan leadership want to take control of the entire Fed? Again very poor explanations and background details. We see Paptimus (purple haired guy from Jupiter) giving an oath to 'his excellency', no idea who that is, is it the new leader of the Federation govt? I'm confused. Emma calls Kamille out for acting up. Seems like Four's death has affected him. Seems Paptimus has the same goals as AEUG, beating the Fed, although he calls it liberating people from gravity. Isn't Paptimus a Fed or Titan soldier, working with Jarid, a Titan. I don't get this. Emma and Kamille fight Jarid in his new MS, a transforming mobile armour with a large canon. They get defeated but are saved by Faa arriving in a fighter bringing word of the completion of the Zeta. This was a confusing episode. How is Paptimus part of the Fed/Titans but openly working against their interests? |
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| @23feanor Yeah... it feels like it aborted what could have been an interesting plot in favor of something more complicated. Episode 22 It does seem as though there is a genuine power struggle between the more radical Titans and the Fed government. It's not a war, but the Titans are willing to do anything to seize power so that they can continue to hunt down or suppress spacenoids, and the Feds seems perfectly fine letting them do that. And that's part of the problem: I don't understand why the Titans have to seize power because the Feds seem ready and willing to roll over at a moment's notice. There are certainly people within the Fed who are pushing back on that, many of whom have already defected to AEUG, but the system as a whole doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Maybe there's resistance within the Fed leadership that we're unaware of? Seems like that wouldn't take much time to explain. As for Paptimus, he's a lot of the focus of this episode, a guy who they're setting up as similar to Char but really comes off as just pompous and womanizing. I also just don't get what his aim is. He's enigmatic, but in a way that's just frustrating. He does seem to be a sort of third party working within the system, but he's also signed away his life now to the Fed, so... yeah, I don't get it. I'm really not sure what the structure of the Federation government is. From what I've seen, they're usually led by a prime minister, though referring to him as "his excellency" doesn't fit - seems more like a Zabi thing, and I think that's what they were trying to evoke without explaining why the Fed leadership has basically just become the Zabis. Looks like the Titans have a new mobile armor at their disposal, and Jarid has become proficient in wielding it, at least enough to defeat a distracted Kamille who is rebounding from Four to Fa (going down in the alphabet, apparently - Emma didn't look super pleased, but she'll be next in the order). The Zeta Gundam arrives just in time with reinforcements to save him (Char's been elsewhere, so they're very reliant on Kamille's piloting right now), though we don't get to see it in action yet. But yes, I'm having to look too much of this up and even then, it's not altogether clear what's going on. |
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| @whiteflame55 I've given up looking up the story and world, I was having to do it every other episode and it's pretty damning when you have to look these things up because the show is doing such a poor job of it's world building. It's almost like reading the first few pages of each chapter of a book, you kind of know what's going on, but at the same time there are loads of unexplained details that confuse matters. Episode 22. Faa struck me early on like Fraw Bow version 2.0, doting on Kamille with motherly affection and a view towards being a romantic interest (as Fraw Bow did with Amuro), but suddenly Faa's gotten serious and changed her demeanour towards Kamille. Wonder if something happened with her and someone off screen whilst she was away in space. Or maybe Faa learned about Four and Kamille. The show keeps showing us moments of the AEUG commander (don't know his name, blonde with a small beard) showing his romantic interest towards Emma, this time he gives Reccoa a boxed present to give to Emma. Will it lead anywhere, no idea. Emma is worried that Kamille sees her as a surrogate mother. Jarid gets his own unit with newtype recruits, have their memories been taken also? Faa deploys along with Kamille and Emma. This has not gotten stupid, do the AEUG let any kids just jump in a MS and fly off, Kamille, Katz and now Faa. Not a fan of the whole newtype Jedi mind tricks where enemies are defeated because of the hostility they perceive and then get killed or make a mistake. |
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Reply to 23feanor
@whiteflame55 I've given up looking up the story and world, I was having to do it every other episode and it's pretty damning when you have to look these things up because the show is doing such a poor job of it's world building. It's almost like reading the first few pages of each chapter of a book, you kind of know what's going on, but at the same time there are loads of unexplained details that confuse matters.
Episode 22. Faa struck me early on like Fraw Bow version 2.0, doting on Kamille with motherly affection and a view towards being a romantic interest (as Fraw Bow did with Amuro), but suddenly Faa's gotten serious and changed her demeanour towards Kamille. Wonder if something happened with her and someone off screen whilst she was away in space. Or maybe Faa learned about Four and Kamille.
The show keeps showing us moments of the AEUG commander (don't know his name, blonde with a small beard) showing his romantic interest towards Emma, this time he gives Reccoa a boxed present to give to Emma. Will it lead anywhere, no idea. Emma is worried that Kamille sees her as a surrogate mother.
Jarid gets his own unit with newtype recruits, have their memories been taken also?
Faa deploys along with Kamille and Emma. This has not gotten stupid, do the AEUG let any kids just jump in a MS and fly off, Kamille, Katz and now Faa.
Not a fan of the whole newtype Jedi mind tricks where enemies are defeated because of the hostility they perceive and then get killed or make a mistake.
Episode 22. Faa struck me early on like Fraw Bow version 2.0, doting on Kamille with motherly affection and a view towards being a romantic interest (as Fraw Bow did with Amuro), but suddenly Faa's gotten serious and changed her demeanour towards Kamille. Wonder if something happened with her and someone off screen whilst she was away in space. Or maybe Faa learned about Four and Kamille.
The show keeps showing us moments of the AEUG commander (don't know his name, blonde with a small beard) showing his romantic interest towards Emma, this time he gives Reccoa a boxed present to give to Emma. Will it lead anywhere, no idea. Emma is worried that Kamille sees her as a surrogate mother.
Jarid gets his own unit with newtype recruits, have their memories been taken also?
Faa deploys along with Kamille and Emma. This has not gotten stupid, do the AEUG let any kids just jump in a MS and fly off, Kamille, Katz and now Faa.
Not a fan of the whole newtype Jedi mind tricks where enemies are defeated because of the hostility they perceive and then get killed or make a mistake.
| @23feanor Yeah, I can't help looking this stuff up, though I find that it ends up producing more questions than it does answers. Probably would do me good to just stop. Episode 23 I agree that Faa's behavior makes it look like something happened off screen. She clearly feels the need to get involved in a big way and to be able to keep up with Kamille in battle. Maybe that's based on her learning about Four, but my guess is that it has more to do with her own family being put under threat, leading her to make risky decisions in an effort to prove herself and inflict as much damage as possible. She's behaving like Kamille did when he started with the AEUG, but in particular, he feelings towards Kamille seem to be mixed up with something else that seems very personal. We'll see how this shakes out. And yeah, we do get those weird romantic moments between the blonde AEUG commander (I think it's Henken Bekkener, though the fact that I had to look that up makes me question whether the show is doing enough to make us care about this) and Emma. We've already noted several times that Gundam doesn't handle romance very well, and while I do recall this character making eyes at Emma earlier, it's been a while since then and it feels like just giving her a gift is a weird way to build on that. Maybe have a conversation or two before you give her something, build up audience investment in this relationship. As for the central fight in this one... I don't know, this one seems kind of silly on so many fronts. For one thing, Jerid calls out Kamille for piloting the new Zeta Gundam, saying he would have killed him if not for the new mech. Dude... you just got your new mech one episode ago. Let's not throw stones in glass houses. Also, he brings out two fresh newtype recruits who are eager to prove themselves and... well, that's it. That's all their personalities right now. And since one of them dies, that's all the personality she'll ever have. The other one may end up being more interesting, and to be fair, she does recognize the error of her ways after she returns to the ship. Faa also goes out having only trained on a flight simulator and feeling pretty confident. Again, pretty similar to Kamille, but it's all the sillier that this is being allowed at this point. Your ship is full of people, post some armed guards in front of the mechs you don't plan to use. It's not hard. And how they're all handled after their return to their respective ships is also a bit puzzling. Paptimus isn't quite as bad as the Titan commander who let Lila just die out there alone against Kamille, though he does refuse to provide them with help after Jerid leaves without his permission to engage the enemy. Upon their return, rather than lambaste or punish him, Paptimus just... tells him he did well because he got information on the enemy mobile suits. Not exactly what I would call a resounding success, especially when you just lost a newtype pilot (who I guess Paptimus had no faith in to begin with). More sensibly (I guess), Faa gets a beating upon her return, though for some reason Bright defends her, saying she had his permission to leave the ship... though not to engage in the fighting. Don't really know what that's about. I can't tell whether this was just clunky dialogue or if I'm missing something, but so much of these exchanges are just baffling. |
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| Episodes 20 - 22 Zeta continues to disappoint with the recent run of episodes, often straying into so-bad-it's-funny territory. One example of this is the conversation between Kamille and Beltochika where Kamille throws out the bizarre line that a woman's selfishness will get a man killed. The feds commander - did he even have a name? - was desperate to stop the AEUG garuda from reaching North America where Titans will get the credit of taking them down, so he launches a final all out attack. In the middle of battle he announces that they'd run out of mobile suits, so will launch a kamikaze attack with their own Garuda. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, as there was no indication prior to the announcement that the Feds forces were doing so badly. During the battle, Kamille and 4 once again clash, and reaches the pinnacle of absurdity when, with the two mechas locked together in mid air combat, Kamille gets out of the cockpit to knock on 4's door, then proceeds to take his sweet time in offloading his life story on her in such detail that I was wondering whether he was expecting her to go off and write his biography. Oh yeah, and all this was happening while the two mechas are falling through the air. It's interesting to learn of Kamille's insecurity with his name which led him to becoming a Gundam pilot, but all of this is eclipsed by the ridiculousness of the circumstances. Kamille's life story proved too much for 4, who understandably wanted to kill herself after that, but she helpfully destroys her own ship and in the process offers Kamille the booster rockets which would conveniently fire him back into space. The way back into space struck me as unexpectedly easy but, you know, the plot waits for no one, particularly not in this show - it feels analogous to one of those platformer games where the screen keeps moving right and if your character ends up at the left edge, it just pushes you along even if you're trying to run backwards. To be fair, the scene where Kamille fires back into space was suitably dramatic, but that was just about the only well directed scene in that episode. After Kamille gets back into space, he soon runs into Jerid again. Jerid has apparently also gone back into space while off screen and is now serving under the Jupiter guy. There's a lot of plot building and scheming in this episode, but I'm as confused as everyone else. Unlike the plot building when they were previously at the moon, it's so confusing that I'm not even feeling motivated enough to try and figure it out. I also got Zabi vibes from the old guy that Jupiter guy swore an oath to. Jerid and the blue haired woman heads out to attack Argama and Jerid managed to beat Kamille pretty convincingly with Titan's new suit, but conveniently Apolly arrives just in time in the Zeta along with Fa in a transport ship, forcing Jerid to retreat. I was a bit surprised that Fa is now training to be a pilot, but they mentioned that she seems to be a newtype, so I guess it makes sense. Though all this feels a bit sudden. I can just imagine Tomino trying to sort out the plot "okay, now he's a newtype. And, uhm, let's make her a new type too. Oh and that new character? She's also a new type!" Feels like old types are now an endangered species. Kamille, still smarting with the death of 4, immediately rebounds onto Fa. Though soon afterwards they start fighting again. Their relationship seems to have twists and turns at an even faster rate than the already fast pace of Zeta's overarching plot. We then get a scene where Emma tells Bright about Kamille's mother complex while Bright ... chomps down on a burger with a panicky look on his face. The scene is so atrociously strange - even by Zeta standards - that I can't even imagine how it could been have handled in a way that would make it look good (I'd be sorely disappointed if this didn't give birth to a meme). And it's a testament to the poor quality of the character writing that things like Kamille's mother complex has to be continuously spelt out to the viewers because the lack of finesse makes it impossible to figure it from minutiae of character behaviours and interactions themselves. On the other side, Jerid gets a couple of minions and heads out to launch another attack on Argama. Kamille rushes out to engage them in Zeta Gundam while Fa adds a further chapter to the running joke that is the security around mobile suits by heading out without authorisation. Given in the previous episode, 1 x Zeta Gundam + 1 x transport ship piloted by Fa was able to beat off 2 x new Titan mobile suits, I expected Kamille piloting the Zeta to trounce Jerid 1-on-1, but surprisingly, they mostly fight to a draw. From this, I made some back-of-the-envelope calculations and concluded that the transport ship must be a new kick ass piece of weaponry developed by AEUG that no one has realised yet. You mark my words, the future of warfare is gonna be dominated by transport ships! Maybe they'll design a Gundam that transforms into a transport ship or something. PS There was a lot of "correcting" going on - Kamille "corrects" his team mates, who "countercorrects" him, then Emma repeatedly "corrects" fa! |
kekekeKajOct 9, 2023 4:00 PM
| Take off every SIG!! |
kekekeKaj said: There's a lot of plot building and scheming in this episode, but I'm as confused as everyone else. Unlike the plot building when they were previously at the moon, it's so confusing that I'm not even feeling motivated enough to try and figure it out. Ditto. Episode 23. Char is going to be a bodyguard and the Titans are heading to attack luna base Von Braun city. The AEUG and Titan forces, including Paptimus, clash as the AEUG try and prevent them from taking Von Braun city. Faa gets her first taste of a hectic battlefield. Paptimus launches his ship ahead of the Titan fleet hoping to take the city himself and reap the glory. Paptimus has some supernatural newtype power that makes other newtypes feel sick. Jarid's femaile colleague, Maowam (?) saves him from a suicidal attack against Kamille, but he's still injured. Paptimus successfully lands at the Von Braun lunar base and the AEUG back off. |
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kekekeKaj said: From this, I made some back-of-the-envelope calculations and concluded that the transport ship must be a new kick ass piece of weaponry developed by AEUG that no one has realised yet. You mark my words, the future of warfare is gonna be dominated by transport ships! Maybe they'll design a Gundam that transforms into a transport ship or something. Transport ships are clearly the final boss of the show. Gotta slow play that shit, work up to it. Episode 23 I'd say that this episode introduces some interesting dynamics between characters, but... honestly, they're just so poorly explained that there's not much to applaud here. Jamaicon Daninham (yes, I had to look that up - dude with the mustache who was so antagonistic to Lila that he let her die fighting alone and leads much of the Titan forces in space) returns and... yep, he's still antagonistic to just about everyone. Even when Paptimus hands him an easy victory in the battle over Von Braun City (notably firing warning shots rather than the usual disregard for collateral damage that has plagued many of his fellows), he gets a smack and reprimanded for his troubles. Clearly, he's got a problem with up-and-coming officers in the ranks, possibly because he feels insecure about his own position, but we know next to nothing about him aside from the fact that he's an intolerable dick who will inevitably get what's coming to him. In any case, at least the fight itself over the city is kind of interesting, with Paptimus using his newtype ability to stun the other newtypes on the battlefield by making them feel sick. Outsmarting Char is no mean feat, and he did it easily. As for smaller aspects of this episode, there were some interesting highlights. We get a reference to what must seem like ancient history for them, as Neil Armstrong gets name dropped. Apparently, the place where his lunar lander touched down is also where Von Braun City was established on the moon. Decent bit of basic worldbuilding. Kamille also thinks to himself that he's surprised to see so many women on the battlefield "when it used to be just men fighting." That doesn't really jive with what we know of the series, though, to be fair, he probably doesn't know about Lalah, Sayla, or Kycilia, all of whom piloted mobile suits in the original series, and since this came out before the intervening series like 08th MS (Karen and Aina), War in the Pocket (Christina), and Stardust Memories (Cima), there weren't that many examples of female pilots compared to male ones. Just a rabbit hole I started down and couldn't stop. Also, speaking of Kamille, everything between him and Faa seemed clunky this episode. Faa seems dedicated to proving herself on the battlefield for some reason, and when Kamille takes that away from her by intervening in a fight and she objects, he says "this is a battlefield." If I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, he might be trying to say that this isn't a place to seek glory, but he doesn't explain himself and Faa just seems upset in the end at her lack of success. It would have been a good moment for Kamille to really impart something of his experiences, like how he has had to rely on his allies multiple times to get him out of sticky situations and that he, too, sought glory and validation from his fights initially. Guess that kind of conversation is too much to expect. |
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| Episode 24. Char and the AEUG commodore Black attend a conference on earth. Why are the AEUG invited to such a conference if they are a known rebel organisation? Or is this supposed to be the political arm of AEUG? If Black isn't part of AEUG then who is he with? Kamille goes to Von Braun city to do some recon and Katz tags along. Jarid comes across Kamille in Von Braun city. Katz comes to the rescue. Commodore Black is killed by the Titans and asks Char by name to lead the AEUG. The Argama gets attacked and we get our episode mech fight. This time a downed Titan zaku crashes through into Von Braun city causing depressurisation so Kamille and Jarid end up in the same air raid shelter, where we hear the citizens laud Kamille for being an AEUG hero and vilify the Titans and Jarid for starting this battle and polluting the earth. I've noticed that when Kamille gets into a MS he says out loud "Kamille lets do it", almost like a shounen battle cry. The excellency guy leads the Titans takeover of the Fed forces witnessed by Char. Somehow the AEUG forces retake Von Braun city although no idea how, it just happens and the Titans under Jamaicon withdraw. |
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| Episode 23 -24 Titans attack the von Braun moon base - apparently whoever controls this base controls space. I'm not entirely sure why Titans is attacking - is it not Earth Fed territory to begin with? Anyway, the battle itself is quite interesting. Scirocco gambles on AEUG's unwillingness to damage the city by flying his ship close to it, using everyone else as decoy. There's a good mobile suit battle too, where Char shows Jerid who's boss. There's some dynamic going on between Scirocco and Jerid. Seems to me like Scirocco's quite happy to make use of Jerid as a pawn and let him die, all the while praising him to his face. Scirocoo's also has some weird infatuation with Moaur, who seems more interested in Jerid for ... reasons. The plot becomes super confusing at this point, even by Zeta standards: Char goes off to be bodyguard to Commodore Blex as he goes to attend the Earth Fed's general assembly. No idea who he is - I even went back and rewatched the scene where he is mentioned, just to give this show a fair shake, but still, nope. As Blex is talking about tabling an urgent motion about sending earth politicians to space, I assume he's part of Earth Fed himself, but then, why is Char playing the role of body guard for him? My best guess is that he belongs in a faction of Earth Feds whose interest aligns with that of AEUG. Anyway, Char doesn't do a very good job, and Blex gets assassinated, but luckily his death was not immediate so he was able to wait till Char arrives in time to tell him to lead AEUG. After that we see the not-Zabi guy takes the stage, and it looks like he might be the leader of Titans, and the assembly had decided to make him leader of Earth Fed too. Back on the moon, Scirocco buggers off leaving Jamaican (who definitely does not look Jamaican) at von Braun. Kamille is sent as a spy to von Braun - because naturally your most capable mobile suit pilot who's a child with no experience is the best candidate to be a spy. Katz secretly follows because security is an obsolete concept in the far future and the kids just come and go as they please. On von Braun, Kamille runs into Jerid and Moaur on their shopping trip, and we get this hilarious repeating sequence where every time Jerid pulls a gun on Kamille, Katz would pull out a gun and hold up both Jerid and Moaur (who just stands by and does nothing), and then Jerid decides to drop his gun. We do learn that AEUG are popular in von Braun and Titans are not, and that the von Braun citizens are cowards apart from the one guy who prevented Jerid from running after Kamille, but after he gets corrected, the others can only stand around Jerid menacingly but don't actually do anything despite outnumbering the Titans about 10-to-1. Mobile suit forces under Jamaican spots Argama and attacks and Argama mobile suit pilots have to scramble. In a strange race towards the golden mobile suit, Haro helps Fa out by tripping her competitor, allowing Fa to pilot it. Unfortunately Fa is a bit shit and doesn't do justice to the MS. Fortunately, her opponent seems more interested in engaging in mobile suit kung fu than using more traditional, lethal mobile suit weaponry. After some fighting, Jamaican decides to just to abandon von Braun. I really don't get this - the show emphasised the importance of this base, and they're not losing the battle in any obvious way. Jamaican seems more concerned about Alexandria, but the previous episode demonstrated that AEUG aren't willing to blow up battleships that are so close to the city, so why the heck is he abandoning von Braun so quickly? This show is just sinking deeper and deeper into mediocrity. @inim made a good comparison with LoGH about the grand designs of the plot. I feel that even LoGH is a deeply flawed work where at times the story felt too big for the anime staff to handle effectively, and this problem is magnitudes worse in Zeta. I don't get why they don't just throw on some narration at the start of each episode that can slowly flesh out the political situation piece by piece. PS this has been bothering me for a while, but seems like all the mobile suits uses open comms or something? Whenever Kamille or someone shouts something in the cockpit, the other mobile suit always seems to be able to hear them. PPS I think that bearded AEUG commander is a new type. There's a big giveaway scene where he's operating a ship console making it beep and everything, then he gets distracted by Emma walking past and his hands stop moving BUT THE BEEPING CONTINUES! No doubt he was using his newtype powers to continue operating the console using his mind. |
| Take off every SIG!! |
kekekeKaj said: PS this has been bothering me for a while, but seems like all the mobile suits uses open comms or something? Whenever Kamille or someone shouts something in the cockpit, the other mobile suit always seems to be able to hear them. Yeah, that's been bothering me too. Not sure what the strategic value is in doing this, yet it seems commonplace. Episode 24 This is going to be a long one because it's legitimately one of the most frustrating episodes to date. So many out of character moments and absurd choices. Yeah... the whole conference on Earth and the inclusion (and importance) of Commodore Black is all kind of weird. It's like they're treating the AEUG as a legitimate entity rather than a rebel faction, which it might be, but they've certainly treated them as nothing more than rebels up until now. As for Black, dude barely got any development, which severely undercuts the scene where he reveals that he knows Char's name and hands over the reins of power to him. We don't know anything about their relationship, we don't know about his prior efforts to talk with the Titans or Federation, we don't know what role he played when Char was a major player... it's just an empty moment, one meant to place Char in the driver's seat that he absolutely does not want. Commodore Black was a placeholder character. But this episode is just chock full of absurdities to focus on. Kamille gets deployed to do recon to Von Braun City because... he volunteered? I really don't get this decision. They don't prep him with a fake identity or even dress him differently. It's not like the enemy has no clue who he is, but sure, let's send down one of our more talented pilots who (as far as we know) is the only one who can effectively pilot the Zeta Gundam beyond, perhaps, Char himself. Katz stows away because this might as well just happen like the kid in Speed Racer. Kamille runs into Jarid because of course he does who... for some reason decides he's going to prevent Kamille from being apprehended immediately (claiming he's his cousin) in order to apprehend him himself? I don't get it. There's a lot here that doesn't make sense. When Jarid offhandedly mentions that he's a newtype, Kamille outright says that he's not, which makes me question if he's somehow unaware that he's a newtype at this point (how?!) or is desperate to make it look like he's not a newtype when it's clear they already know that he is. Either way, dumb scene. Kamille does showcase some real development at least, refusing to join with Katz and the civilians around him in their condemnation of the Titans and focusing instead on the harm being done in their fighting rather than assigning blame. The Kamille who used his first opportunity to pilot a Gundam in order to shoot at a Titan officer wouldn't recognize the person he is now. There's some focus as well on whether Jarid has developed, though he's still hot-headed, easily provoked and dishing out beatings on civilian kids, so I'm not so sure. He's certainly less focused on getting vengeance for Lila, but he doesn't seem much different beyond that. At least he does seem to chafe under Titan leadership in this episode, so that's something - you'd think he would have spoken up after Lila's death, but I guess better late than never. Meanwhile, Faa continues to fail at piloting her mobile suit (to be fair, she was doing alright an episode or two ago, but this is a new model), actively causing more damage in her effort to take out a transforming suit and crashing into the city. Can't blame the Titans for that one. I'm not frustrated that she's like this, but I am frustrated that she hasn't had any meaningful conversations with Kamille or others to change this behavior. She's still reckless for no obvious reason. And we continue with baffling choices this episode as Jamaicon (yes, that's an "o" at the end, though it keeps autocorrecting to "Jamaican") who clearly wanted Von Braun City but... apparently a stiff breeze is enough to unseat him? I'm not the biggest fan of Jamaicon to date - dude's a pretty basic villain-type - but his characterization to date did not show this kind of easy willingness to back down from a difficult circumstance at the cost of what he wants. If anything, I expected him to throw soldiers at the problem until it was solved, and damn the cost. Zapp Brannigan did it. He's been willing to sacrifice before and, as both of you have mentioned, he doesn't even appear to be in a difficult situation this episode. It feels like the creators threw out a good deal of content that was supposed to be in this episode, showcasing the AEUG rising up and reclaiming the city with the help of its people. That seemed like the direction it was taking, but I guess we can't have nice things. I get the impression that Jamaicon's decision here will give Paptimus an inroad to claim that he needs to be taken down a peg by Titan leadership, and while he wouldn't be wrong, that's a pretty lazy way to remove him as an obstacle. At least give him an in-character decision to do it on, dude's not known for great strategy to date and has let at least one talented pilot die out of sheer spite. |
whiteflame55Oct 11, 2023 7:25 AM
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| Like both of you I've noticed the fact that all MS pilots seem to be able to talk to each other, in pretty much every gundam show (and other mech anime to be fair), which doesn't come across as realistic, but they do it so that enemies can have a chance to talk and interact, so I get why they do it but always feels wrong. And yeah that last episode was a mess, sending out Kamille as a spy made no sense, we hardly got to know commodore Black/Blex before he died and weren't sure whether he's a Fed officer sympathetic to the AEUG or an actual AEUG politician, the show never bothers telling us (I know we could look this up online but we shouldn't have to look up every bit character just to understand the show as we're watching), then we get told how important von Braun city is as a strategic location only for the Titans to give it up for no apparent reason. Tbh the story for Zeta is way more haphazard than the original, it's trying to do too much when at it's core it's a mech of the week show. Most of the focus each episode is the fights between the mechs and then we have some political and military world building on the side but it's so poor it's making the show worse off for its inclusion. The director and writers should stick to what they're good at, mech battles and leave the military and politics to more competent writers. For someone who recently completed LotGH, this laughable attempt at a complex political and military story pales in comparison. Other space dramas like Battleship Yamato 2199 OVA, Planetes, Macross and Heroic Age manage to incorporate action and decent world building but somehow nearly every gundam fails miserably, Iron Blooded Orphans and Origins being the only exceptions, and notably both weren't written or directed by Tomino. It's truly abysmal writing at times. I agree with @kekekeKaj here, just a little bit of narration at the beginning of each episode setting out the current situation, relevant actors and plot would really help the show. Episode 25. Moaur (they call her Sarah) travels to the Argama with a white flag informing them that the Titans plan to drop a space colony, side 4, on the moon, as the Zeon forces did at the outset of the One Year War and tried to do in Stardust Memories. Is it reliable information? Kamille believes her and everyone is ok because 'he's a newtype', does he have lie detector powers now? To give him his due Kamille isn't fooled and confronts Sarah once she's confined. Turns out the colony drop is Jamaicon's plan and Paptimus doesn't agree with it so sent Sarah to the Argama to throw a wrench into Jamicon's plans. We get another weird moment between Radish commander Henken and Emma where he voices his worry about her not being able to have children in the future, to which she says she's not bothered and isn't planning on getting married. Then Emma pulls a futuristic fortune cookie that tells her she's be proposed to in the near future. Even gundam attempts at humour fall flat. Faa is upset because Kamille went into Sarah's room alone, didn't Emma have surveillance in her room when she first defected? Katz trusting Sarah is more of the same dumb plot progression, a kid making a poor decision and no guards anywhere to be seen. We get more nonsense talk from Wong and the mayor of Granada about not evacuating the citizens of Granada as it might look like they don't have faith in the AEUG forces. And Wong mentions that if the AEUG fail then it will mean the end of the AEUG, the Titans and even earth. No idea what he's alluding to here (maybe the moon might be knocked out of orbit and crash into the earth?). Sarah gets into her Hizak MS and escapes, what a surprise, but not before telling Katz that she likes him and the weakness to the new Titan mobile armour. Emma ignites the colonies booster rocket and it misses Granada. |
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| Episode 25 Seriously, what's with this series and colony drops? Like @23feanor mentioned, there have been several notable instances of this and all of them have been staggering war crimes. It makes Jamaicon's decision to abandon Von Braun City all the more baffling because this was a far riskier and costlier endeavor, not to mention one borne clearly out of desperation. No, please, no collateral damage in the fight to hold Von Braun City, but we're fine just nuking the hell out of Granada. That will make them like us, right? I don't know what his endgame was in doing this, but the inconsistencies in his actions are just baffling. We get Sarah (yeah, if they're going to call her that, I'll do the same) undermining his efforts at Paptimus's instruction. I do have to wonder why he'd risk a cyber newtype pilot in order to deliver information he could probably get to them much more easily and with less risk - it strikes me that if anyone saw the very large Zaku waving a white flag on its way to the Argama, they might not want to invite her back onboard a Titan ship, and now she's persona non grata with the AEUG, so... I guess back to Paptimus, where he'll have to just hope that no one saw her do it and questions why she's back. Genius. Her whole saga onboard the Argama is replete with the usual lack of concern. They lock her in a room that, apparently, just anyone can open from the outside. There's no monitoring equipment inside (and yes @23feanor, Emma was surveilled and she stole three mobile suits, including the Gundams, from the Titans before she defected), so they don't have any clue about the conversation between her and Kamille (I guess they don't care to learn anything about the cyber newtypes they keep encountering on the battlefield, so she doesn't even get interrogated by anyone else) and Katz can just walk her out with a gun. I don't so much mind that Katz is this easy to con, as he's one of the younger characters in the show and possibly saw something in Kamille's interactions with Four that he wanted to emulate, but the fact that his take-away was "is it that wrong for me to trust other people?" is... wow, where to start? Trust is earned, it's not granted just because they're alluring and ensnare you with kind words. Your take-away should be that this is war, and that the enemy isn't on your side just because they say they are. If anyone saw the movie Raya and the Last Dragon, it was one of Disney's more frustrating ventures because the movie continuously tried to sell us on the message of "just trust people and they'll eventually do the right thing" after watching a character backstab the fuck out of nearly everyone throughout the movie. This isn't that bad, and it may just be more clunky monologue, but dude needs to recognize where he went wrong. Anyway, they stop the colony drop because Jamaicon didn't do enough to defend the colony. This nonsense between Henken and Emma is just awkward and weird. |
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23feanor said: Moaur (they call her Sarah) travels to the Argama with a white flag Wait, did I miss something? I thought Moaur and Sara are two different people. Moaur is the blue haired one who follows Jerid around, and Sarah is the pink haired minion that got assigned to him wasn't she? Episode 25 - 26 For those watching on Crunchy Roll, there's a new OP. They've kept the ED though, which is good as it's the best theme in the show imo. Colony Drop is an iconic attack in Gundam - it's like dropping a nuke and I guess it's a big deal because it's so devastating and hard to stop. So when I see it get mentioned, I always get the impression that something dramatic is happening. This is the first one we're seeing in the Gundam franchise story though, as an earlier one is only seen as the precursor to the original series. So anyway, after Jamaican makes a baffling retreat from von Braun (blaming it on Scirocco), he decides he needs a victory to prop up his dignity. Scirocco somehow gets wind of the plan and sends Sarah to leak information to AEUG. Katz is instantly infatuated with her, to the point where he's tricked into helping her escape. Like @whiteflame55, I don't really blame him - he's a horny teenager after all, but it is ridiculous that how they "locked" Sarah up except no one's actually monitoring her and anyone can apparently waltz in and out of her room. As Sarah flies off she says she meant it when she said she like Katz, keeping the door open for the possibility of future romance. There's more manufactured romantic tension as Fa gets jealous that Kamille was alone with Sarah; also Henken's worries about radiation affecting Emma's ability to bear children is just terribad. Not sure if they're going for self deprecating humour when even Emma felt that conversation was really awkward. I would be surprised if the romance in this show weren't all written by men. The romance weren't great in the original series, but I don't remember there was this many of them! I agree with @23feanor that it feels like the original series was a better show because it played more to its strengths and didn't get overly ambitious with the story. This Yazan pilot who's the current villain of the week turns out to be a very strong pilot who isn't even a newtype. He comes close to defeating Kamille until Kamille takes advantage of the weakness in his mobile suit. In the next episode we again see how dangerous he is as he proves too hot for Sarah and Katz (who once again features as the Unauthorized Launch of the Week) to handle. But this is when I got confused by the situation again - Kamille sense Sarah in danger, and launches from the Argama to save her ... but where is Argama at this point in relation to the Radish? I was under the impression that the two ships were travelling together as we saw people regularly going from one ship to the other. But it looks like only the Radish is engaged in battle. Then again, given Kamille was able to get to the battlefield in time to save Sarah, they can't have been that far apart! But if they're that close surely the Argama would also be pulled into battle? Unless Kamille can see into the future? The battle between Yazan and Kamille is pretty intense, and again Kamille was in danger of losing until Katz HOT WIRES A MOBILE SUIT!!! Not sure this counts as a "good" development per se, but I was certainly entertained by that ridiculous plot twist! Gotta be one of the highlights of the series so far lol. Yazan's suit is badly damaged, but he not only manages to escape but also engineers the demise of the Jamaican. This guy is badass! Not sure how long he'll survive, but I sure hope he can hang around for a while. He's the villain that Zeta needs, though not the one it deserves, cos the rest of the show is running on fumes magic pixie dust. |
kekekeKajOct 12, 2023 2:30 PM
| Take off every SIG!! |
| @kekekeKaj sorry my mistake, Sarah and Maour are not the same, Sarah has pink hair and Maour blue as you mentioned Episode 26. The Titan pilot Yasan acting out against Jamicon's orders is interesting, would have been more interesting if Jerid was the one acting out after Lila's death. Whilst the AEUG and Titan are fighting they come across an old Zeon warship. Emma's in danger so Kamille launches the Zeta. I'm always unsure of the proximity of the ships in gundam. I also thought the Radish and Argama were travelling together, or at least close by, so if the Radish were attacked or launched MS the Argama would know. BUt the fact that Bright doesn't know the Radish is under attack and fighting the Titans until Kamille gets his psychic newtype revelation tells us that the two ships aren't close by each other. Katz hot wiring the old Zeon MS was a good moment. I like it when they have mech battles around old ruined ships like this one. Yasan arranging for Jamaicon to get hit in cross fire from the gundam was calculated and a pretty awesome villain moment. |
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| Episode 26 Yep, Jamaicon bites it in a pretty epic scene of deceit that would have made Char proud. @23feanor Definitely agree it would have been more interesting if Jarid had taken action instead of Yasan. Not sorry to watch Jamaicon die in general, but having it happen out of spite for being kind of a jerk to Yasan just didn't have the catharsis that a Jarid-engineered death would have, not to mention it would have shown some character growth on his part that I've been hoping to see ever since he was introduced. The rest of the fight is messy, but largely in a good way. The old Zeon warship perhaps portends the introduction of the Ghost of Zeon that was teased earlier, and actually plays a decent role in the fighting as they often dive around and through it. The fact that they keep letting Katz just leave with important ships like he's exiting a revolving door remains absurd, though as you both have mentioned, they amp up the absurdity to the best extreme by having Katz hotwire a Zeon mobile suit. It goes from frustrating to hilarious. Overall, one of the better episodes in recent memory, possibly because they seem more focused on the dynamics of the fight than they are on the larger story beats that have bedeviled us. |
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| Episode 27. Faa and Kamille continue arguing and the ship ends up discussing it. The Titan ship Alexandria is repaired after the bridge was destroyed thanks to Yasan's plot. Maour (green haired girl scout newtype) confesses her feelings to Jarid in more poor romance with little build up and a sudden declaration and kiss. Bright eating another burger on the bridge was hilarious. Just standing there scoffing away. Made me want a burger. Char heads back to space and Hayato repeats Commodore Blex's wish that Char lead the AEUG. The scene where Char stands in the shuttle cockpit with the earth reflecting in his glasses looked impressive. Animation and details on the MS look better this episode. The Titans use a massive ass canon attached to 2 MS to target the Zeta MS with Sarah and Maour manning the canon. The mech battle was dominated by psychic newtype intuition and it got a bit confusing, with everyone trying to send telepathic messages to each other and Katz suddenly calling out Sarah, delaying her shot on the canon by a second giving Kamille the chance to move the zeta MS out of its line of fire. Char makes it back to the Argama with a letter from Mirai to Bright. |
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| Episode 27 Not too much to add on this one. People do seem strangely invested in Kamille and Faa’s conversation, which to their credit, at least happens - feels like this is several episodes overdue. The new dude in charge of the Titans is less of a jackass than Jamaicon, but likely to be short lived himself as Yasan continues plotting his ascension. The beginning of the episode teases a confrontation between him and Paptimus, but the latter doesn’t appear in this episode, so… later, I guess. And yes, we have a new romance between Maour and Jarid that’s just slapped in there. Maour has made her feelings known to some degree before this, but any interest from Jarid has not been apparent. Still isn’t, honestly. Someone on the bridge tells Bright not to eat with his mouth full. Found this pretty funny, actually. Gotta have them burgers. And yeah, the central fight scene is a mess. The whole newtype element to these is meant to make things more interesting, but the interference they display is more visual noise than anything else, and it always has to be exposited to boot since it’s going on in their minds. Maybe I missed it, but the cannon didn’t get a lot of explanation, just seemed like a means of introducing some new tension into the fight. Anyway, Char’s back. |
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| Episode 28. Reccoa is going to infiltrate the Jupitris, a ship from Jupiter, the one Paptimus came on maybe? Whenever we hear about bases on Jupiter and Pluto I wonder why we never see them. Reccoa will be using the old MS that Katz found on the ruined Zeon ghost ship. Kamille gets all upset about Reccoa going on this mission and argues with Faa about it. This all seemed overblown. There's all this talk about seeing things from a woman or mans point of view that makes very little sense. Reccoa mentions going on the mission to 'get away from her [emotional] problems' (or Faa paraphrases her thoughts), what problems, does she mean Kamille, or the fact she failed to successfully infiltrate Jaburo and now wants to prove herself useful? Again this feels like a bunch of guys writing a script who have no idea about women or how they think, act or feel. Paptimus wants to occupy side 2 as his base ready for the time when earth will be ready for its rebirth. Faa is sent out to assist Reccoa and Kamille as punishment for saying that Reccoa is a woman first and foremost. Don't get this. Alll the talk of gender roles in this episode seems like thinly veiled misogyny but to be expected from 80's conservative Japan I guess. Reccoa lands on the Jupitris, which is Paptimus's ship. Turns out she's playing the part of a antique merchant trying to turn over a profit by selling an antique Zeon MS, good idea. The MS fight between Kamille and Sarah is just strange with all the psychic call outs. Kamille and Sarah are essentially narrating their own fight. All the guys on board the Jupitris hit on Reccoa including Paptimus who is slimy as a slug. Finally we get the narrator saying "the shadows in her [Reccoa] heart grown darker", talking about her failure to recall details of Paptimus. Oh god, Reccoa is going to fall for Paptimus I can see it coming. |
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| Episode 28 There's a lot of discussion this episode about Reccoa and her reasons for putting herself in harm's way (specifically in this episode, since the aim is to infiltrate the Titans under Paptimus). This largely comes off as ham-fisted. It's harped on that she's doing this as a woman (specifically by Faa), which is pretty damn reductive and also generally nonsensical. I agree with @23feanor that the writing in this is almost certainly the result of misogyny, but, and maybe this is once again the result of clunky writing, it's never explained what she means by this so it just comes off as "you just don't get her because you're not a woman." That's a pretty weak statement that isn't built on anything we know of Reccoa. If anything, this makes it looks like Faa is actively projecting her feelings onto Reccoa, assuming that the other woman thinks the same way she does. Maybe she thinks this is how she is trying to prove herself to Kamille because she believes there's something there, but Reccoa hasn't shown those kinds of feelings and those can't be chalked up to her "being a woman" in any case. It does seem like Reccoa is trying to prove herself for some reason, but it hasn't been made clear what that reason is. I don't mind that they're leaving her actual motivations ambiguous for the moment, but the writing here is pretty bad. And, of course, she does a shit job of infiltrating. The role she puts on is fine, but then she randomly wanders around the ship and tries to pass it off as getting lost. Paptimus sees right through it and corrects her, but lets her go for unknown reasons. When she returns, for some reason, she cannot recall Paptimus at all. Might be related to newtype abilities, but... seriously, how many abilities does Paptimus have? It's starting to get ridiculous. Maybe she is falling for Paptimus, though I hope that's not it. There's also a brief battle between Kamille, Faa and Sarah. The internal narration that goes on throughout the fight is distracting and Sarah's decision to continue the fight alone despite being outnumbered just because she wants to prove herself specifically against the Zeta Gundam is baffling, making this battle one of the clunkiest of the series so far. No one dies, Sarah's mech is damaged, but everything will likely reset by next episode. It's a filler fight with no real stakes. |
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| Episode 29. Char is off to von Braun city. Bright gets intelligence that the Titans may be planning to use bio weapons against side 2. Faa is looking after the kids and runs out into the hall topless, why did they feel the need to include this. Kamille talking to Faa and just staring at her chest was a bit funny though. Jarid trying to justify the use of chemical weapons "because it will force the AEUG to surrender saving more lives in the long run" came across as unfeeling and out of character. We know Jarid has some conscience when it comes to killing civilians when he accidently killed Kamille's mother and seemed genuinely distraught. But now he's ok with killing off a whole colony in order to push the AEUG to surrender. It's obvious this act will come across as a barbaric war crime and further entrench the AEUG against the Titan forces but he feels he has "no other choice". The Titan commander going ahead with the plan to use the chemical weapons despite colony 1 trying to surrender was egregiously villainous. I get the Titans are trying to make an example of the colonies in side 2 but still comes off as clunky ham fisted writing. Kamille, Emma and Katz drive off the Titan MS and destroy the gas canister placed by the Titans, but why did the Titans place a gas canister on a colony that was under construction with no visual people inside, makes no sense. I've only now just realised that each 'side', in this instance side 2, is made up of lots of colony ships, I think the mayor guy mentions 52 colonies within side 2. I thought 'sides' and colonies were interchangeable terms, but clearly not. The show making Faa out to be better suited to looking after the kids, and happier for it, than out fighting as a pilot. To drive the point home she winks at Kamille as if saying "good job honey going out there fighting while I stayed home looking after the kids". |
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| Episode 29 We go from very light to very heavy in a hurry this episode. There's a topless scene with Faa as she's trying to bathe and clothe two young children. If I recall correctly, this mirrors a scene we got back in the original series where Mirai was bathing a child and we got a similarly topless scene from her, in both cases likely meant to showcase some of their mothering sides. And yeah, it's pretty stereotypical writing for women in both cases, but it's worse here given that Faa is and has been for a while a mobile suit pilot. It's very much trying to pigeonhole her. Still, the wandering gaze of Kamille was funny. The animators knew what they were doing with those shifted pupils. From there, we move onto an apparent and sudden willingness of the Titans to use chemical weapons, and I think this is a pretty good time to talk about how this series has trouble justifying major villainous actions. The colony drop from Jamaicon came off as just him being a dick and trying to salvage something from his personal failure at Von Braun City. This, on the other hand, makes very little sense. The dude who replaced Jamaicon is likely a dick himself, but going straight to a massive war crime in breach of a major treaty doesn't make sense. It makes even less sense for Jarid. A couple of episodes back, Mouar was making a big point about how Jarid had grown over the course of the series, and while I disagree that he's changed substantially, I gave him some credit in two areas: he's no longer following orders blindly, and he seems much less willing to inflict collateral damage to get what he wants. The decision to defend the use of chemical weapons invalidates both of these. Supporting this is a monstrous choice that, I agree with @23feanor, is completely out of character and ruins what I thought could have been an interesting arc for this character. Maybe the point is that he's become inured to the costs of war over time, but it does not make sense for him to brush this off as a necessary sacrifice. There's a desperation to his perspective that just does not make sense. At several points over the course of this series, the Titans or Federation have justified barbaric actions based on a stated need to act, though they never demonstrate that need. And yeah, it doesn't help that this colony is barely populated at this point... or at least, they never show the population inside. That might have made things more interesting this episode. If we saw scenes of the populace rising up in demonstrations against the Titans, as we've seen on a smaller scale previously, then the Titan's new commander might have a point when he said that he would refuse the mayor's surrender to send a message that the Titans cannot be defied. It might also have given us more insight into the mayor's choice - why would he go so far as to order one of his subordinates shot for a largely empty colony? He comes off as a scumbag for turning on the AEUG, but the case could have been made that he was caught between his principles (support of the AUEG) and protecting those people who entrusted their lives to him, and made the choice he felt he could live with. Sadly, he just comes off as skeevy, trying to cover up his efforts after the fact. It's a pretty weak way to handle this. Only other thing to mention is that Mouar at one point tries to protect Jarid (didn't look like he needed help - he was largely fighting evenly with Kamille before this) by attaching to the Zeta Gundam and threatening to destroy herself and him. Another example of desperation that isn't justified based on what we're seeing on screen. Seems mainly to function as a show of Mouar's attachment to Jarid, which is likely to get her killed at some point, but it's presented in a way and at a time that doesn't make sense. |
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| Episode 27 - 29 Moaur and Jerid are now an item. Not really a surprise as the show's been foreshadowing it for a while, but the groundwork wasn't exactly laid very well - Moaur just started following Jerid around for apparently no reason. The conversation around Blex made it seem like he's a (the?) leader of AEUG, but then what is a member of AEUG doing trying to table an urgent motion in the Earth Feds general assembly? Char heads back into space after doing a piss poor job as a bodyguard to Blex, and Argama goes to pick him up. I thought the mega launcher battle was actually pretty tense, but yes all those newtype messages flying around like "Kamille!" "Sarah!" "Katz??" "Don't shoot!" is a bit distracting! Kamille narrowly escapes being vapourised. The shuttle that Char left behind just minutes before wasn't so lucky. Reccoa getting sent out to Jupitiris to spy is a bit strange. "I'm better suited to this kind of work" she says, after getting caught not once but twice in Jabrah which doesn't exactly look good on her CV. That said, the detailed plans she provided as a result of the operation does suggest it's her remarkable observational skills rather than infiltration skills that makes her suitable for this kind of job. The trip also triggers an intense debate around Reccoa's reason for doing this operation. The dialogue is terribad as usual, but I think I get most of the jist of what people are saying. Reccoa wants the chance to prove herself after her double cockup at Jabrew; Kamilles seems to be worried about her for exactly the same reason - that she might be getting reckless as she's so driven to prove herself. Fa gets why Reccoa wants to go on the mission and doesn't approve of Kamille's objection (possibly also due to a sprinkle of jealousy over Kamille's concerns here), and she has a go at Bright and co for ... thinking about the problem like men?! I honestly got a bit lost by what Fa is trying to say at this point, particularly around the "Reccoa is a woman first and foremost" comment. If this dialogue is indeed written by men, then it's a highly amusing meta moment where Fa's saying to men that they don't understand the perspective of women, in an incomprehensible dialogue written by men demonstrating that they do not understand the perspective of women. A few interesting things fell out of the mission itself. Reccoa runs into Scirocco and gets caught out. It seemed like Scirocco managed to compel Reccoa to give out truthful answers by using some sort of hypnotic newtype power, but I'm not certain on that point. He also lets her escape, but it's also not clear whether he did it because he's just an eccentric womaniser or whether he managed to plant some sort of controlling seed into her psyche with his woo-woo newytpe powers. Given Reccoa also withholds information about Scirocco in her report for no good reason after she gets back, I think the newtype explanation makes sense. It also would explain why Sarah seems so loyal to Scirocco (something I've been puzzling over). Then again, as Zeta has demonstrated time and time again, its story doesn't often make sense. Also, if Scirocco has some sort of harem-building newtype skillz, then why didn't it work on Moaur? Anyway, while escaping, Reccoa does a passable impression of a female James Bond with her "looks like I'm too hot for you to handle" comment after knocking out a sleezy operator who thought she's hot. It's kind of refreshing to see her having to do some work to engineer an escape after seeing time and time again kids just taking off in mobile suits with minimal resistance. I was surprised to see Sarah coming close to beating Kamille one-on-one before backup arrived. Is it just me or does it seem like Kamille's skills have plateaued? He was beating everyone easily in the Gundam mk II early on, but now in the superior Zeta he's been struggling against Jerid at times, then Yazan, and now Sarah who's been shown as inexperienced and struggling with the demands of being a pilot up until now. Maybe she's just a super fast learner, but the power levels feels a bit inconsistent to me. In the next episode, we get the gas attack on side 2. @23feanor I also realised recently that a "side" consists of multiple colony structures. I think I realised that point in the colony drop episode where they mentioned that an uninhabited colony in a side is being used. There may also have been a shot of many colony structures with one particular colony structure being moved. I think each colony structure is equivalent to a city, which might be why the leader is being referred to as "mayor"? So a side is a bit like a nation state perhaps. It wasn't made clear up until this point, but side 2 appears to have officially sided with AEUG. We see the mayor in a pantomime villain role trying to switch sides (pun unintended!) against the protests of his subordinates. I don't think the writers needed to go so far in making the mayor such a cartoonish villain - there's a pretty natural moral dilemma here around sticking with AEUG or betraying them in order to save the citizens from a gas attack and it feels a cheap shot to unambiguously frame the mayor as cowardly and in the wrong. There's also more incomprehensible military strategy/politics going on the background too. Gassing side 2 will apparently pave the way to taking over Granada, but I don't really see the connection. Also, why are they so interested in Granada? Wasn't von Braun the all important base, and whoever controls von Braun is said to control space? And yes, I also thought Jerid being supportive of the attack was rather out of character. As to why they were attaching the gas cannister to a colony under construction, my understanding is that they weren't. They were attaching it to a populated colony (probably the one with the mayor), but during Kamille's cat and mouse battle against Jerid, they were moving around a lot and Kamille ended up taking the fight to a different colony nearby, one that was under construction. Finally this episode is notable for having lots of Fa-nservice (sorry I couldn't resist). Kamille's suddenly become a lot more interested in Fa after seeing her naked and also in a bathrobe, and gets corrected as a result. I thought the scene was pretty funny actually.  |
kekekeKajOct 16, 2023 2:48 PM
| Take off every SIG!! |
kekekeKaj said: If this dialogue is indeed written by men, then it's a highly amusing meta moment where Fa's saying to men that they don't understand the perspective of women, in an incomprehensible dialogue written by men demonstrating that they do not understand the perspective of women. Lol, looking at the staff credits there is one woman credited with creating the script, so not male only, although you wouldn't guess from the dialogue. Episode 30. Char meets Wong in Granada and Wong says "we don't want people thinking of AEUG as a rebel army", but isn't that exactly what they are? Maybe they want to foster the impression the AEUG is the legitimate army of the sides and spacenoids. We hear mention of the Axis forces, which are the remnants of the Zeon alliance iirc (they ahve an asteroid base). Weren't the Titans created for the sole purpose of rooting out Zeon remnants, so why aren't they doing their job if they know where the Zeon rebels are located? We know that the Zeon republic and Titans are working toegther on the old Zeon base, Abawaku (too lazy to look up the spelling). The Titans set a trap for the Argama giving Jarid the chance to ambush the zeta MS. The Argama sustains damage. Jarid and Maour tag team Kamille but Maour ends up jumping in the way of Kamille's rifle shot and gets killed earning him the title murderer from Jaird, what is this guy on about. You're both trying to kill each other and Maour jumped in front of a laser shot, not really Kamille's fault, and after Jarid tried to kill off the entire population of a colony last episode really weakens his position when he says things like this. He then has a weird hallucinated dream sequence about Maoru and gets a renewed vigour to fight because "he wants it all", no idea what he means. I remember feeling the mech fights in the original season dragged on a bit, but the tactics and use of the different MS (gundam, guncanon, guntank etc) was at least well thought out. Compared to that these fights in zeta are so messy, partly due to the fact that most of the combatants are newtytpes and we get pshyic signals pinging back and forth disrupting the flow of the fights, and the dialogue. Fa gets out of her MS to save the kids. Sounds like Bright and the crew have deemed her better suited to childcare after all. |
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Oh yeah, forgot to post this gem of a shot: You can tell the gas canister is dangarous because it has DANGAR written on it!!! |
| Take off every SIG!! |
| @kekekeKaj great images both! Episode 30 Like @23feanor, I'm still at a loss for how the AEUG both perceives itself and wishes to be perceived. At least right now, elements of its leadership wish to be perceived as legitimate, though considering just how many people on the various colonies seem to be on their side, I don't see how that helps them. This seems like one of those things where it could easily have been cleared up at some point. And yeah, no clue why the Titans have basically abdicated any responsibility to go after the Zeon at this point. Seems like they're more focused on the AEUG, which might have more to do with how much they perceive each as a threat. Hard to say since no one tells us. The Titans modus operandi so far has been to exert control in oppressive ways without really explaining why, so I guess at least it's on brand. At least the trap in this episode feels pretty well engineered, albeit it is hard to believe that the Argama fell into it so easily given all the obvious signs. Jarid really doesn't have a leg to stand on at this point when it comes to his supposedly righteous fury at Kamille. Moaur and Jarid were both trying to kill Kamille just seconds before this happened and, like with Lila, this was clearly self-defense. That might not matter to Jarid as much since he's losing the loves of his life and just wants someone to blame, but you were willing to commit a genocide just an episode ago, and your chief defining action early in the series was killing Kamille's mother in an attempt to kill him in the resultant explosion. And yeah, the whole dream sequence with Moaur is just puzzling. I thought Lalah was a pretty unique existence in this regard, but I guess everyone can just Force ghost it up if they're close enough to the person in question, regardless of their status as a newtype or oldtype. Definitely the most frustrating thing about this episode, though, is how they're clearly relegating Faa to background character status. Girl just wanted to be a mobile suit pilot who could stand with the best onboard, and now she's babysitting because... well, she's a younger woman and all the other women are busy, I guess. Someone needs to look after the kids, why not her? At least there's some degree of autonomy in the choice - after all, she abandoned her own mobile suit to find and save them - but it's just such a clunky way for her to be effectively sidelined. She might be in future fights, but her role in the story has clearly shifted. |
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| Episode 31. Sarah is sent to von Braun city to infiltrate the Argama and more of Fa being a surrogate mum to the kids. Sarah and Kamille eventually meet in the city, because of course they do, and proceed to eat ice cream together. Sarah says because she met Paptimus before she met Kamille she can't help but fight for the Titans. Oh and she planted a bomb set to go off at 4pm. From the way Sarah talks sounds like Paptimus does have some sort of psychic newtype powers, as she mentions her undying loyalty to him and his kindness. Bit of a flat episode. |
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| Episode 31 Found this one a bit frustrating on multiple levels. They refer to Von Braun City as "a neutral lunar city." This just raises further questions about why everyone views it as this really important target. It's clearly important as a port for a bunch of ships either going to or leaving from Earth, but since it's neutral, it doesn't seem that control over it is required to gain anything. Maybe the idea is to exclude the other side, but you would think they would be targeting AEUG strongholds rather than neutral cities, though I guess that would require some degree of introspection that says "maybe we should be trying to win people over rather than committing war crimes." Guess that ship has sailed. The interactions between Kamille and Sarah is all over the place. Beforehand, he gives Faa a cryptic "go get Bright" before sending her off, though as it turns out, he doesn't really suspect Sarah of anything despite her looking objectively sus after planting a bomb. She initially does try for subterfuge in their conversation, but gives a pretty piss poor reason for why she tried to run away from him before proceeding to just kind of... stop trying and enjoy the situation I guess? I don't know what it is with this series and sending people with little or no spy experience out to do a spy mission without disguises or handlers. It's like they're asking for things to go wrong. To her credit, she did plant the bomb. Meanwhile, Kamille goes from trying to connect with her over ice cream to suddenly furious about how she treated Katz last time. For someone who doesn't trust her (which he doesn't appear to from the outset and didn't when she willingly came over to their ship), Kamille is shockingly willing to accept her story of why she's in the city. It takes her straight up giving him the info under no obvious pressure for him to find out about the bomb. And, again in the annals of "why not have a completely untrained character do this," we have Kamille trying to reach in and grab the bomb unsuccessfully. I guess they were short on time, but this seemed reckless to say the least. As for the bomb itself, turns out Sarah was ready and willing to commit a war crime before suddenly deciding that she didn't want that after it was basically too late to turn back. The bomb was set in a populated area within Von Braun City, one that would destroy the Argama as well, but take lots of civilians along with it. Those Titans, such pillars of morality. In general, Sarah can't seem to pick a lane this episode. Maybe it's because Paptimus really did get into her head (she spouts off lines like "you don't know the kindness of Master Paptimus," the man who clearly ordered that this bomb be set) and it's basically just become a wrestling match with her mind between him and Kamille at this point. I don't like the justification being that she can't think for herself, but that seems like the only way to make sense of some of her actions and mentality. Sarah gets gut-punched by Kamille and taken in before inevitably escaping 5 minutes later because... they didn't lock her in the room in which she was held, relying instead on some weird holding device that malfunctions when they're struck in battle. Feels like we've been here before. Maybe post a guard or something. Kamille has a big "you can't!" moment, wasting laser rifle shots like he's Keanu Reeves in Point Break. Dude, you captured her, she didn't come over willingly. Of course she's going to escape when given the chance. Faa gets upset at her too, thinking the kids were in the civy when the bomb went off, but turns out they're fine. Yay, no dead kids! Anyway, the Argama's off to rendezvous with some other ship headed to Earth. |
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| Episodes 30 - 32 There's a great scene in episode 30 (I think) where Bright is angry and gets mocked by Haro and the kids while Fa looks on trying unsuccessfully to hide her mirth. I thought it was warm and funny and it felt so natural too. If only Zeta had more of these naturalistic moments of human interaction. Later on they mention Axis, and the show, having already named dropped them several times before, finally explains that these are the remnants of Zeon. @23feanor raises a good question - if Titans are formed to root them out, why are they not attacking Axis? In fact, a couple of episodes later, Titans even goes to try and woo them into taking their side. More nonsensical politics from the show. It really feels like they're just making stuff up as they go along. The ambushing battle itself isn't bad, though there's a glaring problem that Argama somehow gets surprise attacked by battleships that seem to come from nowhere - this is empty space we're talking about. Shouldn't they have spotted the ships arriving from afar?? It's quite an emotionally charged battle as Moaur gets killed and Jerid goes berserk. And judging by Kamille's monologues, he's struggling with Jerid because Jerid has gotten a lot better. It was a bit weird that Moaur's consciousness joined the Force as well after her death - I don't think she was a newtype was she? This is followed by possibly the worst episode in the series so far. Where to begin ... Sarah, the pilot-cum-spy is sent to set up a bomb in von Braun. After setting the bomb, she runs into Kamille. Kamille engages her in ice cream diplomacy, and after a long and predictably stiff back-and-forth interaction, Sarah suddenly decides to change her mind and tell him all about the bomb. @whiteflame55 To be fair to Kamille, my sense was that he wasn't fooled by her story, but he felt she was up to something and was trying to go on the charm offensive to extract the information out of her. It feels like what they were attempting with this whole "ordinary girl" sequence was to carve out a sliver of every day tranquillity in the middle of all the fighting and killing, similar to the Bright x Haro x Kids scene earlier. But thanks to incompetent writing, it just came off as weird and flat instead. They totally failed to sell me on why Sarah would choose to reveal the bomb information. Kamille goes apeshit and knocks her out ... with a gut punch, and brings her back to Argama. The Argama comes under attack, and then we get the worst scene of all in this terrible episode, but it's so bad it's wrapped around to become actually good in terms of sheer entertainment value: instead of locking Sarah up in a cell like sensible people, for some reason they decide to hang her up like a coat in the changing room!!! It's so bizarre I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And perhaps they did just use a futuristic clothes hanger for this purpose, because it's so flimsy it broke straight away once the fighting began, and Sarah makes her escape in front of Kamille's eyes, leading Kamille to vent his frustration by firing his laser rifle upwards. I get what they were going for with that, and I think I may have even seen a similar scene before (though not the Keanu Reeves one), but the "pew pew pew" of the laser really makes a mockery of the whole idea. It just doesn't work. Pretty funny though! After that, Titans and AEUG both go to try and court the alliance of the Axis. Zeta introduces yet another romance with Char x Reccoa. There's a great line when Kamille asks Char whether he know why Reccoa is behaving strangely, to which Char replies sagely: "Kamille, for one to delve into another's heart, one must have the appropriate experience". I swear this guy gets all the best lines from Zeta. AEUG decides to take the offensive and attack Titan forces led by Scirocco. Char asks Reccoa to be his reserve energy tank - as Moaur did for Jerid a few episodes ago - which in this show pretty much amounts to an intimate confession. We get a second view of the mega launcher deployed by Char previously. Char damages but fails to destroy Scirocco's ship, and it seems like he knows Scirocco and they can sense each other. I'm curious about the history between those two. Reccoa seems to get drawn away by the presence of Scirocco, further deepening my suspicion that he did something to her with his newtype powers. Meanwhile, Yazan, piloting a new mecha which sports a design that looks like it was inspired by Ku Klux Klan costumes, again comes close to besting Kamille until Recooca intervenes. Even so, it looks like he was about to win this 1 vs 2 handicap battle when a bunch of UFOs appears and start shooting at Scirocco's forces, after which they beat a hasty retreat. Guessing the Axis faction has officially arrived in the show. I had a think about Fa's evolving role from pilot to parent, and decided I don't have a problem with it. There are plenty of female pilots around that it doesn't feel like misogynistic to write her character into a motherly figure, especially since it's clear that she sucks as a pilot (apart from the time when she was flying the transport ship). I think due to historical sexism, the pendulum now swings the other way and some of us often have this knee jerk negative reaction to things like girls wanting to be princesses, women wanting to be mothers, etc. My current position is that there's nothing inherently wrong with these preferences/choices, as long as we don't box people into them with stereotyping and deem them as inferior to what men do stereotypically. Funnily enough, another anime from the same era helped me think through this issue - Yawara, which I recommend people watch! If only there were more representations of men whose who puts being a father before anything else (actually Yawara kinda has one of those characters too). |
kekekeKajOct 18, 2023 9:49 AM
| Take off every SIG!! |
whiteflame55 said: They refer to Von Braun City as "a neutral lunar city." This just raises further questions about why everyone views it as this really important target. It's clearly important as a port for a bunch of ships either going to or leaving from Earth, but since it's neutral, it doesn't seem that control over it is required to gain anything. Maybe the idea is to exclude the other side, but you would think they would be targeting AEUG strongholds rather than neutral cities, though I guess that would require some degree of introspection that says "maybe we should be trying to win people over rather than committing war crimes." Guess that ship has sailed. I hadn't even thought about this, but you're quite right, why are the Titans targeting the neutral city of von Braun rather than the AEUG stronghold of Granada. My guess would be to prevent von Braun becoming affiliated with the AEUG, but then surely their own actions trying to take it over are helping the AEUG case more. If only we had some small insight into the different political spheres (ie earth areas, moon, sides etc) and how they are affiliated with each other, but as @kekekeKaj said, it feels like the writing staff are making it up as they go along, and the fleshed out world view we can find on wiki gundam is a result of later series adding to the picture after the fact. kekekeKaj said: There's a great scene in episode 30 (I think) where Bright is angry and gets mocked by Haro and the kids while Fa looks on trying unsuccessfully to hide her mirth. I thought it was warm and funny and it felt so natural too. If only Zeta had more of these naturalistic moments of human interaction. You do get these brief glimpses of natural moments here and there. The one I liked was Kamille and Four riding in the car in new Hong Kong having a pretty standard conversation, they were both being themselves, Four acting a bit forward but clearly comfortable in Kamille's presence and Kamille acting more mature and subdued, just two people chatting in a car, something we can all relate to. Shame we don't get more similar moments. kekekeKaj said: I don't have a problem with Fa making a conscious decision that she prefers being around children, and is better suited to helping on board by looking after them, than being a MS pilot in the theatre of war. I'm guessing most normal people unfamiliar with war would feel the same whether man or woman. What I do dislike is the heavy handed nature of the dialogue of the rest of the cast surrounding Fa's role, and the show telling us 'this is a woman's place' in many subtle and not so subtle ways, rather than saying Fa made her own decision and is fine with it. As if that is the natural order of things, and for a lot of women it is, but my view would be it's not for a guy to tell a woman (or pass judgement) what her natural place and role in life is, she can make her own decision. To the shows credit there are a good number of female MS pilots on both sides, but they all have a weakness for falling at a mans feet and declaring their love and kissing him (Beltorichka, Maour), or sacrificing themselves for the man they love (Four and Maour). The writing is symptomatic of the time and place in Japanese society when it was created. I had a think about Fa's evolving role from pilot to parent, and decided I don't have a problem with it. Episode 32. Seems like the AEUG and Titans are in a race to get to the Axis base on an asteroid (formerly Abaoqu, the main Zeon fortress) to plead their case to have Axis join with their side. As we've already mentioned why would Titans seek out Zeon rebels, when the sole purpose of their organisation was to destroy such enclaves of resistance? So the show makes it clear to us that Char and Reccoa have something going on, although given that Char is often away on missions, it can't be that serious. They certainly seem comfortable around each other with Reccoa standing between Char's legs and him holding her bottom. My guess here is that when she rambles on about putting her plants away (I've just wondered whether she did this because she was planning to return to Paptimus from the outset, so put her plants away, final kiss with Char and tided her room, as at the end of the ep she says "ah I'm back in this room" as if disappointed, and then we get an image of Paptimus) and her heart changing, and wanting to cry, this is somehow the result of Paptimus's mind games/control and indicates a shift in her feelings. I wonder if Paptimus will try and recruit Reccoa to their side, probably using some of his slimy charm, and Char will have to go and save her? I thought that Paptimus's ship was the called the Jupitris, the one Reccoa infiltrated recently, so why is he now on a red ship (Dogos-gear - one that Char is targeting). Char tries shooting the ship but gets put off by Paptimus's presence. Then Reccoa gets drawn towards Paptimus's ship but ends up helping Kamille. All these jedi mind tricks and 'thought waves' are so badly explained and end up coming across as nonsense. Finally the Axis forces arrive and target the Titans saving Kamille and Reccoa from Yasan. Looked like Kamille was in trouble there. From the final scene of Reccoa it's clear she can't get Paptimus out of her head and was headed for his ship until she cam e across Kamille in danger. |
23feanorOct 19, 2023 1:18 AM
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| Episode 32 This episode seems particularly fitting to have this kind of discussion surrounding Faa's character and her changes over time. I do agree with you @kekekeKaj that Faa's decision to function as a surrogate mother for these kids is not, in and of itself, problematic. That being said, I'd chalk it up to two problems, one of which @23feanor already detailed. It does seem like it's externally imposed on her that she must take on this role because, hey, everyone else is busy. Why not have the young female pilot who wasn't very good to begin with and has gone through a lot of mood swings in her efforts to prove herself just take on the role that no one else wants instead? Bright even says straight up this episode that he never wants to send her out in a mobile suit again, so this seems pretty locked in. To be fair, there have been instances where Faa has shown this independent of the orders she's received, including a couple of episodes back where she abandoned her mobile suit in a battle to find and protect the kids onboard, but even assuming she's made that choice, the decision of the writers to keep emphasizing how other characters see that position as most appropriate for her in particular definitely does not help. That's not to mention that the dialogue for women in this show would definitely not pass the Bechdel test, and while I'd be the first to argue that that test isn't indicative of good character writing, the emphasis on how female characters relate to the male characters in the show (and their lack of development independent of those men) definitely doesn't help. As for the second problem, I haven't mentioned this yet because it's largely just felt like the usual background noise of the show ever since the original Mobile Suit Gundam, but the presence of those kids in the first place bothers me. It's like the show feels obligated to include a couple of kids onboard because, hey, they did it in the previous series and those kids grew up to be important characters in this series. Remember that the reason there were children onboard in Mobile Suit Gundam was that the White Base was forced to take a number of civilians onboard to save their lives, and these kids (who were orphaned by this point) had developed attachments to the crew of the White Base and didn't want to leave. I'm not sure why these two kids are onboard the Argama. I often find Wong grating, but he asks why they're even here and I honestly can't recall. It seems like their function is entirely to introduce tension into Faa's role within the AEUG - they're a result of the creators imposing tension rather than an organic source of tension in the plot, as one could argue that the kids were with Mirai. So, yeah, it bothers me a bit that the story seems to drive her to this like it's her fate rather than a natural consequence of the plot developing. In general, relations with the Axis are kind of baffling at the moment. Char clearly has a history with them, so there's something there, but it's unclear why the AEUG as an organization would seek them out beyond an implied unity against the Titans. But if that's true, then there's no reason for the Titans to seek them out beyond just an effort to destroy them, which is not what they're doing. Ugh. We get more awkward writing in the interactions between Char and Reccoa, including her... I think dropping her milk and walking away in shame? Then they have a scene that seems really intimate while she's talking about how her plants are really messy, followed by her being very prickly with Kamille for some reason. Reccoa seems like she's a bit of a mess psychologically, and while some of that can be attributed to Paptimus, she just generally seems... off in all her interactions. Beyond that, part of what is frustrating me is that there's so much in the way of implied and actual newtypes. Is Yazan a newtype now? Because Paptimus seems to imply he is. Guess we can't have a character who's just a really good pilot and an oldtype. It's also unclear if Reccoa is a newtype. She does seem to show up just when Kamille needs help in his fight against Yazan. Was that entirely because she just happened to be in the right place at the right time? Part of the problem is that there's already so many newtypes and cyber newtypes that it's hard to get interested in this. If anything, it's just making things that were already complicated even more complicated for no reason. Anyway, Axis is here now and we have a girl with dark pink hair coming to rescue Kamille and Reccoa at the last second. There's also some discussion that implies that Char knows Paptimus, implying that they have some unknown history. We'll see what comes of that. |
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| Episode 33 Well, it's an episode about Char and his history with the Zeon, so this should be good, right? Yep, but... not for the reasons I was expecting. Look, I was going to do a dive into the strange dynamics between him and the remnants of Zeon, particularly Haman, who he clearly has history with. I was going to talk about how it's pretty silly that Char looks exactly the same as he does now (hair and sunglasses) in a flashback with the very girl he’s going to see while trying to hide his identity, and how ridiculous is is that everyone on the Argama is shocked except Kamille who says “some secret," as though he figured it out immediately. That was funny stuff. But the moment this episode went from interesting to amazing was when Char, after attacking Haman for having turned Mineva Zabi into a puppet of her dead family's ideals that caused so much bloodshed in the One Year War, is accused of betraying the Zabis, utters the single most baffling line I've heard in this series with the indignant outrage of someone who truly believes what he is saying: "I’ve never betrayed anyone in my entire life, ever!” Seriously, funniest damn line in this entire series, made even funnier by his (admittedly not yet shown) actions from the Gundam: Origins series. Char's betrayals are the stuff of legends, but no, never in his entire life. That was the high point of the episode, so the jailbreak, murder fest onboard the Axis ship, subsequent mobile suit fight where Kamille almost bites it in an electrified net (hey, at least it's some strategy that's not newtype related), and Paptimus pledging loyalty to Mineva (second time he's done that in this series, wonder if this will stick?) are just icing on the cake. I do have to call out a weird moment where an injured Reccoa refuses to let Faa pilot her mobile suit, calling it silly. Damn, even she’s dismissing Faa entirely as a pilot now. Yazan also has a pretty negative opinion of women on the battlefield in general, so sexism exists on both sides. |
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| Episode 33. Fa being jealous of Reccoa again. We meet Haman (I keep having to remind myself she's no relation to Hamon Crowley from the original series), defacto leader of Axis. The Axis ship is pretty plush. Char's big reveal is just plain silly. Hayato, Blex, Kai, Amuro and Kamille all knew who Quattro really was, surely this info would have been common knowledge on the Argama by now, if not throughout the whole of AEUG. For Reccoa and Bright not to know stretches incredulity. Char acts up and they all get thrown into the brig. I'm not surprised Char saying he's never betrayed anyone has it's own reel on youtube. Even discounting the events in Origins, Char betrayed numerous members of the Zabi family in the original series. Does he really believe what he's saying, such as he never betrayed his own belief in wanting to kill the Zabi's for murdering his dad and locking up his mum until she died? Char does say to Reccoa that he has been and always will be "a man alone", bit of a vague statement. The AEUG contingent fight their way through and escape the Axis ship. @whiteflame55 yeah Reccoa was very dismissive of Fa piloting a MS, she wasn't that bad. Agree that Reccoa seems very off in her behaviour and actions, guessing it's the influence of Paptimus's mind tricks. Paptimus pledges alliance to Minerva Zabi. I can see that they both want to use each other, but the Titans want to bring earth influence to space, and the Zeon remnants want independence for spacenoids and the rise of the Zabi family. Completely at odds with each other. |
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23feanor said: I don't have a problem with Fa making a conscious decision that she prefers being around children, and is better suited to helping on board by looking after them, than being a MS pilot in the theatre of war. I'm guessing most normal people unfamiliar with war would feel the same whether man or woman. What I do dislike is the heavy handed nature of the dialogue of the rest of the cast surrounding Fa's role, and the show telling us 'this is a woman's place' in many subtle and not so subtle ways, rather than saying Fa made her own decision and is fine with it. As if that is the natural order of things, and for a lot of women it is, but my view would be it's not for a guy to tell a woman (or pass judgement) what her natural place and role in life is, she can make her own decision. To the shows credit there are a good number of female MS pilots on both sides, but they all have a weakness for falling at a mans feet and declaring their love and kissing him (Beltorichka, Maour), or sacrificing themselves for the man they love (Four and Maour). The writing is symptomatic of the time and place in Japanese society when it was created. I agree that in general, Zeta's writing doesn't treat women with enough respect, and is a product of the time and place it was produced in. With regards to the specifics of Fa's role change, perhaps I'm missing/forgetting something, but my impression was that she naturally gravitated towards taking care of the kids rather than anyone explicitly thrusting her into the role. On the other hand, in the last couple of episodes people have definitely become more forceful in preventing Fa from being a pilot, though at least some of that is probably down to her not being great at it. As to why the kids are around in the first place ... good question. Didn't Char pick them up from somewhere? I don't remember whether they ever explained the why though! Episode 33 - 34 Char and co visits Axis ship to negotiate an alliance. Unfortunately for AEUG, Char completely loses it. Seems he's known the Zabi successor Mineva since she was a toddler and doesn't like how Haman is raising her to be the same as her predecessors. I guess Char was hoping Mineva would grow up to be a decent person untainted by her bloodline. (Incidentally, there's a ship in Gundam Seed called Minerva, possibly in tribute to Zeta.) Haman also reveals that Char was sent to spy on the earth sphere. I took Char's comment about he's never betrayed anyone as meaning he's always stayed true to his own objective. e.g. betraying Zabi family does not count as betraying as he'd always intended to kill them. Char and co gets locked up, but I figured given how security works in Zeta, they should be out in no time. Sure enough, they pull the oldest trick in the book, and though the guards already knows the trick they STILL fall for it. There are some disjointed shooting scenes, and they escape the Axis ship, with Reccoa taking a wound for Char. As a result of Char's blunder, it looks like Axis is entering into an unholy alliance with Titans. The episode ends with Reccoa in pain and alone in sickbay with Char visibly shaken and distracted after the run in with Haman earlier. The next episode is all about Yazan's ambushing the Argama with a big build up towards Reccoa's death prophesised in the preview. On the tactical side, I get the concept that they were using dummy suits to try and distract the mobile suit defence while Yazan and the rest of the KKK-squad tries to sink the Argama, but logistically, I don't quite get how it's executed: Yazan would have to get behind the mobile suit defence lines to attack Argama, but why would the mobile suits not just follow them back instead of keep flying forward towards the dummies? Reccoa, upset that Char did not visit her and possibly drawn towards Scirocco, takes advantage of Kamille to head out in the mobile suit in an injured arm. There's some backstory explaining her tendencies to run towards danger before lamenting that perhaps she just hasn't found a suitable man yet. That last part strikes me as very strange and out of character, and a strong example of sexist writing. Her behaviour in the mobile suit was like she's in a hypnotic trance, and the implicit narrative seems to be that Scirocco was calling out to her. But she obviously isn't the only one affected, as Yazan who under normal circumstances would have killed her saves her instead as her mobile suit explodes. Everyone is upset, thinking Reccoa has died, especially Kamille who "corrects" Char in anger. It's good to be misled by the preview for once. I think Char x Reccoa has been one of the better romantic subplots so far. Sure, it started kinda suddenly, but the twists and turns in their relationship over the last couple of episodes has actually been good - it's not hamstrung by dodgy dialogues, what's going on between them is actually comprehensible, with the motivations of the characters clear every step of the way. |
| Take off every SIG!! |
| @kekekeKaj yeah I think someone mentioned that Char brought the kids on board when he came up from earth in the shuttle, why though no idea. I noticed that a handful of the cast; Kamille, Char, Reccoa and Bright all make disparaging comments about Fa and her role on board once the kids arrive, or when they see her always ask where the kids are, addressing her as the defacto caretaker of the children. @whiteflame55 made an interesting observation that it feels like the writers brought the kids on board (why when this is a warship and as he points out under different circumstances from the civilians aboard Whitebase who came to view the ship as their home) just to create tension for Fa and drive her into this role. I also agree that the relationship between Char x Reccoa is one of the more natural ones I've seen in gundam (Hamon x Ramba Ral being the best one I think I've seen, mainly from their interactions in Origins). Char is clearly a complicated guy, and being away on missions all the time it's obvious whatever relationship Char and Reccoa have is a strained one, although there's some affection there as demonstrated by their body language last episode. Char's statement that "he has been and will always be a man alone", isn't the sort of thing that would go down well for any lover hoping for a more serious commitment from their other half. Leaving the door open for Reccoa to go seeking something from Paptimus no doubt. Episode 34. Why is everyone on board the Argama still calling Char 'Quattro' when they know his real identity, although we know even Char isn't his given name. I wonder what Char thinks of being called Char, when his real name is Casval? Kamille points out, quite shrewdly that Char is deliberately avoiding visiting Reccoa whilst she's in sick bay, proof that whatever he felt it isn't that serious for him. Just a quick stop to say hi wouldn't take much. We get some useful exposition from Reccoa about her thrill seeking nature, which does a lot to flesh her out and explain her actions up until now. And then she says that "maybe she just hasn't met the right man [and that's why she's so wayward, intimating that if she does meet the right guy she'll settle down and be a good wife]", yeah this show defo wouldn't pass the Bechdel test. Hamon Crowley and Kycilia Zabi are perhaps the only two women in gundam (that I can think of) that are completely independent of the men around them, or don't exist soley for the purpose of being a foil for a man. Reccoa is being made out as an emotional woman asking Char "tell me what you've done for me" and lamenting how lonely her room feels. I understand that. To be fair, Char, not understanding why Reccoa feels lonely when he hasn't visited her shows some stunted emotional observation skills in him. He only recevently told Kamiile that you need an experienced heart to understand another persons heart. I sometimes feel the writers don't know what to do with Char. When Kamille confronts Char after they think Reccoa was killed and understandably asks "why didn't you show her more kindness", I wanted to know what Char thinks about Reccoa and why he was emotionally detached from her when she needed him. Instead he vaguely says "the cactus is in bloom", what the fuck. It feels like the build up between Char x Reccoa is squandered because we don't know what Char thinks or feels (don't think the writers know either, the guy is like a walking myth) and we know how Reccoa feels, but suddenly she's drawn in by psychic pressure pulling her towards Paptimus and the Titans. Would've been better if they have given her and Paptimus a more meaningful interaction when she went aboard his ship and then her reason for seeking him out would be less ethereal than newtype mind games. Wong was so annoying all episode. |
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| Episode 34 Yeah, I'd agree with both @kekekeKaj and @23feanor sentiments regarding the relationship between Reccoa and Char and honestly don't have much to add. Hamon and Ramba Ral are really the pinnacle of relationships in Gundam in general - I was drawn to them in the original series as what looked like an actually balanced couple where both partners exhibited their own power, and then in Origins, the relationship was fleshed out in the best of ways - but there's something to like about how real the relationship feels between Reccoa and Char. Reccoa's desire to go out and seek her thrills wherever she can find them is at least some independent fleshing out of her character, albeit a pretty basic one. I've also got a similar sentiment with regards to understanding Char. I guess their goal is to keep him somewhat enigmatic, but I think they're leaning so far into that that there's little in the way of humanity to display. That line "the cactus is in bloom" may have some deep meaning (maybe he sees himself as stand-offish and prickly, but opening up to a relationship), but its attempts to be deep just come off as frustrating. As for Reccoa and the newtype of it all, I'm trying to work out the interactions this episode and I have a theory for what is going on. My guess is that Reccoa is a latent newtype (it's going around these days) and that Paptimus, in their short interaction, dramatically increased her sensitivity to other newtypes. That's why, when she initially flies out in her mobile suit, she believes that Kamille is calling to her. Then she thinks Yazan is calling to her in the middle of their fight, and in general seems to feel the pull of Paptimus. I think the goal was to always have her come back to him, using his powerful newtype powers to draw her in by overwhelming her other senses and even her sense of self-preservation (seriously, she just sits there while her mobile suit is being torn apart and says she feels no fear). I don't think it was his aim for other newtypes to have a similar draw, and given that we know Char is at least a bit of a newtype, it introduces the possibility that he can be a similar force for her. As I said before, I'm not super fond of this being the means by which she's manipulated - there's little sense in all this that she controls many of her choices - but it's the only way I can reconcile the events of this episode with those we've seen before. And yes, Wong is continuously annoying to have onboard the Argama. Dude seems to both get that he's not at the top of the chain of command here but still be as demanding as possible, often just upsetting those around him. |
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whiteflame55 said: That line "the cactus is in bloom" may have some deep meaning (maybe he sees himself as stand-offish and prickly, but opening up to a relationship), but its attempts to be deep just come off as frustrating. I found this so frustrating. If there was a deeper meaning, it eludes me. Was Char referring to himself as the cactus, now blooming, or Reccoa, neither fits the metaphor, as they both closed off emotionally and Char was drawing away from Reccoa not opening up to her, as seen by his decision not to visit her or tell her how he felt just before the last mission, or simply tried to soothe her as a kind gesture. What was worse, was that this would have been a really good moment to get to know Casval/Char the man, not the legend. Char comes out with all these grand or seemingly wise statements, but put together they come off as baffling; "I've never betrayed anyone", "you need experience to understand another's heart", "the cactus is in bloom". One thing that grinds my gears is wasted potential, and I feel that Char desperately needs expanding, he could be so much more, but the writers don't know what to do with him. Episode 35. The Argama is heading back to earth orbit to help in a Karaba attack on Kilimanjaro, a Titan stronghold. Before they leave Char says to Fa that she should hide the kids if she doesn't want them to be taken. Isn't this the perfect time to move the kids off a warship and to a safe place, more pigeon holing Fa as a surrogate mother by the writing. Kamille gets angsty and starts remembering Four, plus he's still annoyed at Char over Reccoa's death, with some justification. Reccoa was on the edge and Char could have helped her, but stood back and she ended up self destructing, with some help from Paptimus, but Char didn't know about that. In our episode mech battle, the Titan basam MS (ones that look like they've got hooded KKK masks) now have some sort of throwing weapon on a string, that wraps around enemy MS immobilising them. Char saves Kamille and ends up plummeting towards earth. Kamille and Char head down to earth to join up with Karaba. Looks like the Titans have got the psycho gundam back in operation, but who's piloting it? Not Four, but she is still alive, somehow, and being tortured or experimented upon by the Titans leader (excellency guy). The Titans are trying to use cyber newtypes to remotely control the psycho gundam. Kamille and Char make it all the way into the Titan base, no guards, and meet Jamakoff, the excellency guy, who Char knows by sight. Then they meet Four but she's being mind controlled and doesn't recognise Kamille despite his desperate pleas for her to stop. |
23feanorOct 22, 2023 1:32 AM
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| @23feanor Definitely on the same page about Char's development. I guess the main problem is that they don't seem to know what to do with him when he's not actively scheming. Episode 35 I'll give the show credit, they keep coming up with some different ways to have the various mech battles play out by throwing in various toys weapons to change up their tactics, even if they barely explain how they work. My big problem with the fight this episode is that Char and Kamille have no problem going through the atmosphere this time. Remember back towards the beginning of the series when it became a firefight between the Titans and the AEUG as they were trying to both survive falling through the atmosphere and the battle? I liked that. Much as I was frustrated to lose Four from the story, I think I would have preferred that she stay dead to what we're getting now. Part of the problem is that Kamille's sudden recollection of her just feels forced. He was rocky for a couple of episodes after he went into space, but we've spent many episodes without seeing any instance of this from him. There's been no sense that she's constantly on his mind, so him just happening to think of her in this moment didn't sit well with me. Beyond that, I'm just not fond of the "this character exploded, but survived somehow" storyline. It didn't work with Emperor Palpatine, doesn't really work here. Maybe she's a clone or something. They do actively call her "Four" within the episode, so it's not just misidentification. We spend much of this episode with our characters trying to get into the Titan base at Kilimanjaro, which they succeed in doing after spotting the Pyscho Gundam (a different one, apparently). Char and Kamille run into Jamakoff, shots are fired (the lack of guards in this series is really something else), and then we run into Four. She has been tortured, but appears to view it as a duty and is far more stiff and unfeeling at first. Then she gets into the Psycho Gundam and seems assaulted psychically, though whether this is because of the Gundam itself or something else (she seems to blame it on others) is unclear. I'm not sure why they'd throw her into the Gundam when she can control it remotely, but here we are. Also, Amuro's back because why not have everyone at this base at the same time? |
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| @whiteflame55 also not a fan of Four being resurrected from the dead. She was on a ship that blew up and then crashed back to earth, how did she survive? Episode 36. Kamille is out camping one moment and then next he's reunited with Four, who recognises him fine this time. Four concedes that she's a different person from the one Kamille met in Hong Kong, and she loses herself when she's in the psycho gundam. Four's handler confirms our suspicions, her memories can't simply be replaced "like a lightbulb", well no shit. Kamille throws Jarid off a cliff. Four reverts back to her indoctrinated self and jumps in the psycho gundam. Jarid tries attacking Kamille but hits Four in the psycho gundam instead, and seems like she's killed, for the second time. This just felt like recycled trauma bringing back Four only to kill her off again. |
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