Some Big Boys For Interpoint Station's Upcoming Lancer Module.

Some big boys for Interpoint Station's upcoming Lancer module.

hi, just wondering where are you watching urdr hunt?

There’s a YouTuber, Trafalgar Log, who’s translated and uploaded all the game cutscenes (and a little gameplay).

YouTube

Trafalgar Log

Mobile game cutscene translator apparently, I also translate manga elsewhere!

The entire series thus far can be watched on their channel, and it also includes translations of the sidestories from the game.

*the following contains spoilers for Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans Urdr Hunt*

Alright, so I’ve finally finished Gundam Ibo Urdr Hunt, and I’ll be doing a proper post on it momentarily, but I do want to get one thing out right now.

I kind of really love the Hajiroboshi Second Form.

Which is a little odd in isolation, since it’s not actually that different from the original Hajiroboshi.

It’s really just got new shoulders, the new boosters on its backpack (the head might have been reworked slightly, but I think that might just be me) and a new sword. However, two of these features (the Boosters and Sword) bring it closer to its original form.

Just looking at its armaments on their own, I like them. I will admit I have a weakness for suits that are “We have a sword, let’s just use that really really well”. I like both the Destiny and the Throne Zwei for those reasons. But the Hajiroboshi second form has some points in its favour that those two don’t- it’s in Post Disaster 324, a setting where that is a very viable strategy, and it’s got those lovely thrusters on its back that seem to primarily serve to get it into melee range (not to mention the harpoons). I also like the shield -it’s streamlined, but not to the point of not being protective, and while I like how it’s got the claw tips for thrusting, it’s nice how there’s so little emphasis on them (though that might just be from the last protagonist suit I looked at being the Lah). But the Cross Mace hearkens back to the main sword of its original armament and the thrusters also bring it closer to the original silhouette of the Marchosias

So it kinda just feels like the ghost of the Marchosias.

Which is great, because both the Hajiroboshi and Barbatos seem to have something going on in that regard. Mikazuki talks to the Barbatos during the battle against Ein in Edmonton as if there’s some last vestige of its former pilot present, while the Hajiroboshi seems to react on its own when encountering mobile armours. Based on what we know about Gundam Frames from the original series, it’s typically some form of interaction with the Alaya-Vijnana (like when the Gusion Rebake gets shut down when attempting to engage the mobile armour, since Akihiro gets overwhelmed by the feedback). The Barbatos’ connection is obvious - Mikazuki’s in a high stress situation when using the Alaya-Vijinana, and presumably he’s doing something similar to what the original pilot did - using the sword to fight an enemy not too dissimilar to a mobile armour. However, the Hajiroboshi’s is considerably less clear. It seems to either lock up, as the Gusion Rebake did, implying it’s fitted with a limiter; or it seems to “flash back” to a similar fight from the calamity war (at least that’s my read on it versus Harael) and from there act as if it has the “True Alaya-Vijinana” installed (it’s only in speech marks because I don’t really have a better term for it). It’s honestly a little unclear on whether it’s Hajiroboshi, the Mobile Armour or both that has the flash backs, since it’s from Harael’s perspective but Wistario mentions seeing them.

So presumably, the Hajiroboshi’s fitted with some kind of system that mimics Alaya-Vijinana, but I would like to offer another suggestion; What if, on some level, the pilots are still in them?

Now, we know that Alaya-Vijinana is a man-machine interface developed prior to the calamity war, but there’s two specific pieces of information that we’re told about it I want to focus on;

“The Alaya-Vijinana creates a Pseudo-brain lobe in the pilot’s body using nanomachines, allowing the pilot's brain to directly process mobile suit data fed through the physical connection.”

“Furthermore, this continuous link can cause consciousness to be forcibly maintained even in situations where the pilot is supposed to faint or even die instantly.”

So, an extra brain lobe to process the information and the system will keep the pilot alive even in situations where they shouldn’t be. So, is it possible there could be some sort of feedback loop or that the mobile suit could retain some of the pilot’s habits (the Barbatos telling Mikazuki how to use the katana through a sort of frame-wide “muscle memory” of its previous pilot).

It’s also interesting that this seems to happen during moments of great stress for their modern pilots - at those points when the greatest amount of data would be moving from the person to the mobile suit. So, if, say for example, a pilot was regularly facing strong enemies in life-or-death situations, might the system retain that data too? The heightened reaction speed, the chemical reactions leading to emotional output, the movements of the pilot to resolve the situation. The Calamity War was a time when humanity was desperately pushed to the brink by the mobile armours, it’s very unlikely that they would have taken the time to work out all the bugs in the system (heck, if they were taking high pilot losses, it might have been seen as a bonus).

So yeah, the Hajiroboshi might be haunted.

As the Hajiroboshi appears as a ghost of the Marchosias, there might also be another ghost in the machine.

I just thought that it’s a rad connection.

In rough order;

The general plots, themes and who’s actually important to the plot in Wing only really coalesce towards the end, and even then there’s a movie (Endless Waltz) to cap everything off, but I’ll admit it does get a little meandering around the 2/3rds mark.

The pilot’s backstories were *supposed* to have an entire episode of the series dedicated to them, but it got cut from the series and was never dubbed (though some editions of endless waltz include it). This is commonly known as “Episode Zero”. I haven’t seen it, personally, so I don’t know how effective it is at that.

To my understanding, Wing had a very tight production schedule. Read: was basically written and re-written as they went along. As such, it can read a little disjointed when taken as a whole.

Lastly, regarding Gundam Wing being put together to sell toys - kinda, yes. Gundam in general’s game plan is to make a cool story with cool robots in the hope that you like them enough to buy the robots, the original series only became as big as it did through re-runs and toy sales. I can’t remember the source right now, but I remember reading that the mecha designer (presumably Kunio Okawara) had to design one toy with a transformation gimmick (what would become Wing) and one toy with an extending arm gimmick (what would become Shenlong). In addition, 4/5 the designs were recycled/unused from the previous series, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, leading to a multinational theme (Deathscythe’s European, Shenlong/Altron’s Chinese, Sandrock’s Middle-Eastern and Heavyarms is American).

I’ll admit I haven’t seen the series in a good while, however, so I can’t speak for its overall quality.

Gonna vent about Gundam Wing here because FUCK

I know people like this show, and I can see the appeal in the angst between the pilots and the cool robot fights (when they actually happen and aren't just one-sided ass-beatings) and all that jazz. And i just want to say, I'm not gonna stop you from enjoying Gundam Wing. Hell, maybe someone can spell this show out for me and help me get it.

In the meantime, with that out of the way, I want to talk about my feelings regarding Gundam Wing as somebody actively watching through it.

I'm writing this review of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing in the middle of episode 34 (almost 10 episodes away from the end of the show), and I'm left questioning what the point of all this even was. Gundam Wing's upfront pitch was simple & sweet: Heero Yuy & other Gundam pilots go down to Earth and it's pretty straightforward: smash shit up for the larger United Earth Sphere Alliance folks, and is OZ & Zechs were there and sometimes Trieze would show up and say some shit and feel like a solid fit for a complex main villain. Then the Gundam pilots have to go back to Earth and now everyone is kind of meandering about. God, and then a few of them reunite under the female lead Relena's flag. But that kind of fizzles out when lo'-and-behold Heero Yuy runs off in a Gundam yet again while Quatre stands by? Who even is the main villain anymore? Because Trezie said his fight was "over" like his ass gets to say that when his soldiers are out there still clawing for relevancy now that a faceless main villain has invaded the story. It is impossible to feel any sort of way about anyone, nobody important ever actually dies and, again, the role of the antagonist has shifted between two or three different old guys. They really only did one pilot's backstory adequetly. I don't care about any of these people and at this point I'm just watching this to figure if the Gundam Wing Zero & Epyon doing weird mental stuff is going to go anywhere. But if that element is anything like the conflict, it's fizzle out right before it does anything worth discussing.

I don't understand any of it, none of these little bastard Gundam pilots can stick together and it totally underminds the squad dynamic set up from the start. Half of them don't even do anything for most of the series. It leads me back around to my first question, what was the point of this show? Was ALL of this really slapped together to sell toys? (I mean, it was then it worked. I want a model kit of the Mobile Dolls and I own kits the 5 Gundams + Deathscythe Hell) Who is even the brainchild behind Gundam Wing? Who is to blame for this whole thing to begin with? Give me a name, if there even is one.

『∀ガンダム』（ターンエーガンダム、Turn A Gundam）1999

Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans Urdr Hunt Masterpost - Part 1

Alright, I’ve finally finished watching Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans Urdr Hunt, however when putting together this post I didn’t quite realise the scale of it until I was almost finished. As such I’ll be splitting it into three (ish) main posts - This one will be discussing the Ending, a little bit on Londo Bron, and the Zagan. The second post will be my thoughts on Cyclase Mayer and Gjallarhorn, and the last post will be my thoughts on Wistario and the rest of the cast. I’m also planning to do both a post on the series mechanics (in which I’ll talk about the mobile suits and mobile armours) and a character piece on Londo Bron at some point in the future. It just felt a little too long to be just one post, even for me.

Overall, I enjoyed Gundam Urdr Hunt. That said I’m glad I waited to watch it until now, because I think if I’d watched it without the promise of the movie on the horizon, I would have found the ending disappointing. But we’ll get to that. I’m largely going to be referring to my prior post, but I’ll be covering a lot of the same points. Though some of these I noted down as I was watching, so it might be a little more disjointed than usual.

We’ll get to the ending Immediately, as it happens. As I said, I found it overall a good show. The ending, well, it isn’t really an ending. It’s sort of a “the adventure continues”. Katya is recovered and Wistario goes around and thanks all the other Urdr Hunt Participants (except Cyclase) then returns to Radonitsa Colony on Venus. It feels more like the culmination of an Arc than a conclusion to the series, which I guess it is. But Gundam’s never been a series that has arcs so it’s a little odd. All that said, this is where i feel Urdr Hunt’s nature as a video game works against it, since most of the story prior to this has been “gathering the party”, with the Mobile Armour (Nerimiah) functioning as the final boss. I think the movie’s a way to give it a proper conclusion that isn’t tied down to the needs of a videogame.

But the battle at Ratatoskr I do have one criticism of - Wistario races to reach the shuttle, but it’s struck by lightning and explodes. Agonising moments pass, as Wistario thinks he’s failed, then Katya appears from the explosion. Putting aside the fact that we knew damn well she was gonna survive, fuck those Gjallarhorn Pilots, am I right? Also, she survives an explosion in just a normal suit? No shrapnel or explosive force? It feels more annoying because she could have just been in a casket or escape pod or something, but no, magic explosion. I don’t know, it just seems odd, like there’s so many other ways that it could’ve gone that would’ve made more sense.

I like how we get that view into Gjallarhorn with Mcgillis, Okina Uroka and Isurugi. It’s nice to see an internal view on how that all went down (even though I’m sure Uroka is seething on the inside). It’s also very interesting how Uroka just straight up doesn’t answer Mcgillis’ direct question. Way to tip off you have something to hide, my guy.

In brief, the ending’s just alright, there’s stuff I liked (Gjallarhorn), stuff I didn’t (Magic Explosion) and stuff I’m middling on (Nerimiah). I’m glad that there’s a movie coming so it can have a proper conclusion.

However, I do have plenty of other things to say, so let’s get to those;

Londo Bron is an idiot and I love him

I’ll be doing a proper post on him at some point later, but I’m so very happy for his inclusion in the series. He’s basically one of Carta’s former subordinates, her ex-“knight” if you will and I absolutely love the character dynamic this brings to the table. If I didn’t already love the Zagan, he would have definitely made me look at it fondly.

Speaking of, the Gundam Zagan. I’ve already talked about it just from a design perspective prior, but it’s an absolute juggernaut in this. It carves through three Grazes with ease, and is the only enemy in the series to seriously give Wistario a run for his money. It does all this, with a pilot without Alaya-Vijinana. I don’t doubt that other skilled pilots like Londo Brom exist in post disaster, but the Issues certainly weren’t head of the Seven Stars for nothing. It would have been sufficient as a final boss in my mind, but I really can’t find flaw with it. (I might do a proper post on the series mechanics too)

It’s possible that it’s stored in Ratatoskr as a last resort if Nerimiah was to escape. I’m genuinely unsure as to why anyone would willingly preserve a mobile armour, especially (presumably) Arzona Issue, but at least Zagan’s inclusion as part of the prison shows some foresight.

I really hope it’s able to be salvaged though, mostly because if it appears in something else, we might get a HG kit of it. (Also it bothers me a little that Londo Bron essentially wrecked a relic of the Calamity War in its first sortie in 300 years against Wistario. Kinda feels like I’m watching someone use an antique vase to bludgeon a child to death).