Ranked #6013

SD Gundam Force

My quest to complete all of the Gundam series took a great stride forward with the completion of this series, which wasn't as bad as I had feared it would be.

This series is set in an alternate gundam universe and begins in Neotopia, a futuristic utopia where robots and humans live in peace and harmony as friends. There are several noteable departures from the standard gundam series the main one being this series was serialized in Cartoon Network and aimed at the younger set (5-8 years old in my opinion), so tons of stuff is dumbed down and the series as a whole comes across as "kiddy-ish"

Character/Art

This was the beginning / test phase vehicle for the CGI techniques employed in later gundam series. In this series the gundams are not just mecha, they are sentient! This is both good and bad. I like the idea of sentient gundams but all the characters pretty much come across as one dimensional stereotypes - gundams are no exception.

The 4 main characters are:-
* Captain Gundam is the leader type.
* Zero is the heroic knight, which means he's dumb but noble.
* Bakunetsumaru the hotheaded samurai, honor trumps all
* Shute the good natured overly unrealistic optimist

There is a large supporting cast of other characters.
* Genkimaru the brat gundam with a great special ability
* Princess Rele the pretty but shallow leader of Arc
* Token female "love interest" who makes delicious cake
* Gunbike, Gundivers, Guneagle, Chief Haro, all the bad guys and Zakos.

Everything is very cutesy but surprisingly I wasn't as annoyed as I thought I would be. I guess Kawaii is my Kryptonite. I liked the cute sentient gundams but I wanted to kill Shute and the other little gundam because their characters WERE annoying. That being said when Zero and Bakunetsumaru got their special "upgrades" I still found myself cheering for them.

The soundtrack was ok, nothing special. The ED of the final 26 was a very catchy japanese rap type tune with dancing Zakos. It was so cute it ended up playing in my head for days after ....

Story, Enjoyment

While derivative and extremely predictable, I was surprised to find some dark underground humor and parody in this series, that was the only thing that put the story above a 5 for me. For example, the samurai Gundam Bakunetsumaru, when he's about to do his special attack (2 swords) he circles his katanas together forming Twin Circles of light. I was rather shocked because those look like the twin circles of light from the twin drive effect in Gundam 00 Season 2.

Notable parodies (some adult humor) include ripoffs from:-
* Apocalypse Now - "I love the smell of concrete in the morning"
* Star Trek - "I'm a robot doctor, not a miracle worker!" (Bones McCoy)
* And my favorite, I could hardly contain myself from snickering - "Can I touch it?" ... "Ooh, it feels warm" - ok ok, so I have a dirty mind.

Kind of funny, the last really good thing I saw in the series was a parody of Winston Churchill's WW2 "We Shall Fight On the Beaches" speech by Chief Haro, the one that goes "we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall NEVER Surrender!" Now that was impressive how they worked that in.

Overall

So, in summation, it was ok, nothing spectacular, very dumbed down with cute but one dimensional characters. I found myself looking forward to seeing what other pop culture/historical parody references they would put in more than anything else, but it did get really exciting in the last 8 episodes. However, by then it's too late to save this series from getting any more than a 5 from me. read more

I have never written a review before, but Superior Defender Gundam Force has inspired me to do so. You see, I generally like anime. I find it difficult to hate or even dislike an anime, because I know that there is a fandom for it out there and that a few sad, lonely, animators worked hard to make it.

But I can't say that about SD Gundam Force. If Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam showed us how awesome U.C. can be, Gundam Force shows us the depths of human depravity. I stumbled upon this blight on the anime world when a local video store was having a sale and my friend bought episodes 10-12 for a dollar. As it turns out, a dollar was asking too much.

Story: (4/10)

When someone tells you the good thing about this story is that you've seen it a million times before, you know you're in trouble. The story is set in the futuristic city of Neotopia, where everything is peaceful until an evil force called the Dark Axis arrives from another dimension. Shute makes friends with the sentient, mini-sized gundams and they fight bad guys. It's stereotypical, contrived, and one of the few parts of this anime I can stomach.

Art: (1/10)

Can you call an anime made of CGI an anime? I'm sure you can, but with Gundam Force, I'd rather not. This CGI may have been almost viewable when it came out, but it has aged far worse than the original 1979 Gundam ever did. Some may claim that it's from an era where CGI was new, but it's not. It's from 2004. Let's put that in comparison with another completely CGI series- Jimmy Neutron. Jimmy has been around since 2001 (Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, a movie I hadn't seen in nearly three days), and his animation is still watchable. There is no excuse for Shute's mother, Keiko's, breasts, which also seem to function as double missile launchers. No excuse.

Sound: (4/10)

As far as the soundtrack goes, it's completely unmemorable, except for one very strange battle song. It boils down to country fiddle music, and combined with the robots attempting to kill each other, it's very jolting.

The voice actors are as ashamed of being in this as I am for watching it, and most of them go under pseudonyms. Yello Lollicup (I am dead serious), AKA Yuri Lowenthal, plays at least two characters in the dub, and they frequently fight each other. They brought together a great cast for an absolutely terrible anime, and they know it. Shute's (Deborah Sale Butler) base excitement comes from knowing she's getting a paycheck out of it. Dave Wittenburg's in there somewhere, but for the first time in his life, he actually succeeded in disguising his voice. As for the sub, they brought back seiyu who've played recurring characters from other Gundam shows, which is the best thing about this entire anime.

Character: (3/10)

Our characters range from Shute, our main character, to a variety of robots, good and bad, to-

I'm kidding. That's it.

Any other humans are minor or temporary. The characters are one-dimensional, and I honestly don't know why Shute needs to be there. There's a character named Sayla, and the homage did more to piss me off than feed any nostalgia.The robots include a knight who uses magic, which makes me bash my continuity-loving brain into a wall. I hate them all, but I hate them equally.

There is one character who deserves a special mention- Chief Haro. Let me explain- Haro is a green, round, robot about the size of a small child. You can fit it in your arms, but it's a pain in the ass. It was built by Amuro Ray, and rolled around White Base being mildly annoying.

Now take that and dress it up in a military uniform. It speaks and moves and waves its little ears just like the original did, except now instead of endearing it's terrifying. One glance at this abomination stopped my in my tracks. I can't sleep at night knowing that monster has been created. Upon seeing it I screamed and paused the video so I could take a picture of it and share it with all my equally appalled compadres.

Enjoyment: (7/10)

I know that's a high score, considering my obvious hatred. But if you pretend this anime is a gag anime it becomes incredibly hilarious. Yuri Lowenthal's lack of voice differentiation when fighting himself is ludicrous. It helps to down a couple shots of whiskey before you sit down to "enjoy" this piece of crap executives like to call entertainment, but to each their own.

Overall: (3/10)

When taking this anime seriously, its sucks. There is no excusing this. It actually manages to be less than the sum of its parts. It is, without a doubt, the worst anime I have ever seen.

(Sources: Wikipedia) read more