Me: Oh Hey, I Can Totally Use The Like Function On Tumblr To Earmark Posts To Look At Later, I Dont Like

Me: oh hey, I can totally use the like function on tumblr to earmark posts to look at later, I don’t like that much stuff.

Also Me: Now where’s that Char post I liked a couple months ago - oh fuck.

Things modern Gundam has robbed us of; part one -

Look how fucking malevolent the bridge of the Musai looks. It’s a giant grinning demon and that is rad as hell.

For reference the outside of the ship looks like this, but I want more command decks that look absolutely possessed by hostile forces.

*The Following contains spoilers for Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans Urdr Hunt*

The *other* follow-up point to my prior Urdr Hunt Post.

Okay, so the Gundam Marchosias was apparently scary enough to give a mobile armour PTSD.

That is RAD AS HELL.

Let’s analyse that, shall we?

So the Gundam Marchosias was apparently able to beat Harael, a Mobile Armour from the Calamity War that is programmed to kill humans and has no brain, will or personality of its own, badly enough that when it sees the Hajiroboshi 325-ish years later, it instantly recognises its killer and has a flashback to the Calamity War, leading to it desperately trying to kill the Hajiroboshi (which for its part seems to recognise its victim).

Absolutely fantastic.

In yet another self-sabotaging attempt to not watch Gundam Narrative/Gundam Ibo Urdr Hunt (honestly why do I do this to myself), I have started watching the original Gundam 0079.

(I literally went right over Narrative on the shelf, too).

Until now, I’ve basically done everything except watch the original - I got some very good cliff notes, I read the Origin Manga, I watched the Compilation Movies. But I never actually watched the show.

I’ve only watched the first three-ish episodes so far, so this’ll be a first impressions kinda deal. For reference, I’m watching the Dubbed Blu-Ray Collection (which is where that art above is from). I did try the subtitles, but I find they take up a lot of the screen, and the Japanese Audio quality isn’t fantastic.

Right, enough preamble, how is it?

In brief, dated as all hell.

Obviously, it’s dated as all hell. It was laid down and made in late-70s Japan, a far different environment than contemporary Japan. The Animation’s old and it’s incredibly clear that they were working on a budget with all the still frames. But even from the perspective of someone who came in through the wider Gundam series it’s very odd.

Like, the opening score is some stirring, heroic music about how the Gundam will fight back all its enemies, and how you must fight. Likely meant to juxtapose how war is presented in media versus what the shows actually about - the horrors implicit within war. But it’s still something of a tonal whiplash. And then the closing song is all about Amuro becoming a man, so it still reads a little off.

It’s interesting to note the great variety in characters though - a detail that I’d never seen in any of the adaptations is that Char essentially has a panic attack when he first fights the Gundam, simply because it swats his wingmate down so easily, and he truly realises how powerful it is. A lot of Bright’s early characterisation sells that he really doesn’t know what he’s doing, and Dozle (who they gave a really posh voice, by the way) mentions that Zeon’s also running low on supplies, selling that neither side’s doing so hot in the war.

Another nice detail is that when Amuro steps inside the Gundam, it doesn’t actually help the situation that much - yeah he takes out two Zaku’s, but this directly leads to him damaging Side 7, and injuring his father and the other engineers - the Gundam is a destructive saviour at best. It feels very different from the classic super robot vibes (though that may be speaking to my own unfamiliarity with the genre).

I don’t really have a concluding statement here, it’s just odd coming in from all the other shows and seeing how….. not unrefined…. How broad the series is. I can tell without checking that there’s a host of influences from *somewhere*, but I’m not knowledgeable enough about the genre to pinpoint anything.

(Also I love how catty the Zeon Commanders are. Gadem trading barbs with Char is just delightful, and I’m looking forward to seeing Conscon, since I find his design just sublime).

*The following post contains spoilers fro Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans Urdr Hunt, episodes 1-22*

As a follow up to my previous post about Urdr Hunt:

Wistario Afam.

Wistario just doesn’t really….. grab me, as a protagonist. And I’m not sure why, but I do want to extrapolate a little. I like that Wistario has a solid, defined Goal, which is to win the Urdr Hunt, and use the prize money to buy and do up the Radonitsa colony.

Gjallarhorn making a play for Katya upends this - not completely mind, but it causes Wistario to pivot to protecting Katya at the expense of the Urdr hunt. This makes sense, he’s able to recover data from the Urdr hunt without directly collecting it himself since he knows and is friends with roughly 3/5 of the other participants (4/5 if we count the Zan brothers). This is a good decision, but it does still cause him some grief, since he knows he doesn’t have the resources to take on Gjallarhorn.

Then he meets Londo Bron, and makes a steadfast declaration of protection/marriage proposal to Katya. This is where he sorta loses me.

It’s not a bad choice, and I understand it’s borne out of his desire for family, which has been slowly building in the background as the series goes on. Thing is….. him and Katya haven’t really interacted other than collaborating on the Urdr Hunt. Honestly, the only person he’s interacted with enough that I would genuinely believe a proposal would be Range. So when I first heard it, I genuinely thought he was bluffing Londo, but then as things progress he’s serious about it, and I just can’t really fathom why, because they just haven’t interacted in any capacity that I feel would lead to romance. What I’m getting at is that Wistario’s wish to buy Radonitsa and do it up to improve the lives of people on Venus feels like the thing that keeps him “tethered”, I suppose. So I kinda lose him when that gets taken away. I don’t disagree or fail to understand his actions, it’s just that it’s such a big part of his personality that I struggle to parse him without it.

Part of this could be a bigger issue of certain characters not being explored enough - I like Range, Katya and Denmer, they’re all either explored enough for me to like them and understand their actions or have enough going on that I can fill in the blanks myself. But Wistario and Korunaru kind of aren’t, and this wouldn’t be an issue if they weren’t ostensibly the main characters. I like Korunaru, but she suffers because I believe her character could have been combined with Katya without losing much in the process, and I seem to recall the marketing pushing her as important.

I’d like to stress that if there’s some sort of Bio section in-game, or some extra side conversations that flesh them out then that sounds great, but I don’t have those in front of me so I can’t really account for them. Wistario’s just fairly obvious since he’s the protagonist, so he kind of needs to have a defined (though not necessarily strong) character.

However, I do rather like his design. It’s got a youth and energy to it that I think goes well with his desire to re-invigorate Venus’ economy, and his clothing’s functional without looking drab, so it’s believable that this is something he lives and works in. His childishness (at least comparatively. Honestly it comes and goes) and friendliness also illustrate that he’s a positive spirit and force for change in a negative environment (read: basically all of Post Disaster).

PC/Computing - September 1996