08-01-10, 2:24 AM
Rant: Zeta Gundam
Anime Relations: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
This is not supposed to be a review, just some of my impressions I bothered to put down after watching the anime.
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
This was the fabled Zeta Gundam? This? The best the Gundam metaseries has to offer? You have got to be fucking kidding me. This was a mess of monumental proportions, thats what it was. I mean from where to start? The scenario had so many interesting themes to touch and they went with the most ludicrously justified greenpeace mockery they could come up with. They kept introducing girls that became tied inexplicably fast with the main characters so that they could kill them later on and earn some cheap drama points. Zeta Gundam itself was a joke for most of the series and nowhere was the enemy's obsession with its destruction justified. And the characters... oh the characters... saying they were atrocious doesn't even begin to describe how bad they were. Half of the time you couldn't even tell who was with whom, not because of their deviousness and convoluted xanatos gambits, oh no, but because all the characters in this show acted like they had Alzheimer's and couldn't follow a consistent line of thought or even remember what they had for breakfast, because they acted without any coherence, without any logic. And then there was Jerid, one of the most offensively bad characters in anime ever... a man who casually killed with the justification of war, a man who murdered Camille's mother in front of his very eyes(an event Camille conveniently forgot for the rest of the series) and then seeked "justified" vengeance from Camille for killing some of his friends in battle... wow. If not for Char and the rest of the returning cast from the original Gundam(well except Katz, he sucked just as much as the new guys), plus one or two of the new characters, this would have been a complete disaster. Even the mecha battles were a joke, most of the time the heroes and their enemies would get on their mechs, sortie, shout each other's name, fire a couple of shots, maybe their mecha would lose an arm or a leg, return to their base and repeat ad infinitum. At least in the original series, although the animation was way worse, you could feel the "pressure" in its battles, the only reason you knew it was there this time around was because the characters often exclaimed "what great pressure" before following the previously outlined routine without a hitch. Anyway I'm thoroughly and completely disappointed with this series... still its certain that it had potential, tons of it, I can even see why people would remember it fondly, nostalgia works wonders in such series. Its really a pity how it ended up with me wondering why the hell I even bothered to watch this in its entirety, I don't know maybe I should try the Zeta movies, maybe they tell this story the way it was supposed to be told... and thus they don't suck.
EDIT: After watching the movies I have this to say to anyone that might be reading this(yes all three of you), forget the series, watch the movies. They aren't exactly great, they repeat many of the same mistakes, but they do manage to avoid, and in some rare cases even correct, far more of them and thus they end up way better, more coherent and easier to follow.
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
This was the fabled Zeta Gundam? This? The best the Gundam metaseries has to offer? You have got to be fucking kidding me. This was a mess of monumental proportions, thats what it was. I mean from where to start? The scenario had so many interesting themes to touch and they went with the most ludicrously justified greenpeace mockery they could come up with. They kept introducing girls that became tied inexplicably fast with the main characters so that they could kill them later on and earn some cheap drama points. Zeta Gundam itself was a joke for most of the series and nowhere was the enemy's obsession with its destruction justified. And the characters... oh the characters... saying they were atrocious doesn't even begin to describe how bad they were. Half of the time you couldn't even tell who was with whom, not because of their deviousness and convoluted xanatos gambits, oh no, but because all the characters in this show acted like they had Alzheimer's and couldn't follow a consistent line of thought or even remember what they had for breakfast, because they acted without any coherence, without any logic. And then there was Jerid, one of the most offensively bad characters in anime ever... a man who casually killed with the justification of war, a man who murdered Camille's mother in front of his very eyes(an event Camille conveniently forgot for the rest of the series) and then seeked "justified" vengeance from Camille for killing some of his friends in battle... wow. If not for Char and the rest of the returning cast from the original Gundam(well except Katz, he sucked just as much as the new guys), plus one or two of the new characters, this would have been a complete disaster. Even the mecha battles were a joke, most of the time the heroes and their enemies would get on their mechs, sortie, shout each other's name, fire a couple of shots, maybe their mecha would lose an arm or a leg, return to their base and repeat ad infinitum. At least in the original series, although the animation was way worse, you could feel the "pressure" in its battles, the only reason you knew it was there this time around was because the characters often exclaimed "what great pressure" before following the previously outlined routine without a hitch. Anyway I'm thoroughly and completely disappointed with this series... still its certain that it had potential, tons of it, I can even see why people would remember it fondly, nostalgia works wonders in such series. Its really a pity how it ended up with me wondering why the hell I even bothered to watch this in its entirety, I don't know maybe I should try the Zeta movies, maybe they tell this story the way it was supposed to be told... and thus they don't suck.
EDIT: After watching the movies I have this to say to anyone that might be reading this(yes all three of you), forget the series, watch the movies. They aren't exactly great, they repeat many of the same mistakes, but they do manage to avoid, and in some rare cases even correct, far more of them and thus they end up way better, more coherent and easier to follow.
Posted by Alas86 | 08-01-10, 2:24 AM | Add a comment
 |
Kellhus | 08-24-12, 5:35 AM
I'd have to pretty much agree with you. Although I probably enjoyed it a good bit more than you did, I find it to be vastly over-rated and one of Tomino's weakest works. I despised the "meet female, female is completely insane and makes absolutely no sense, gets killed, Kamille screams and cries" formula the entire thing followed, and it has some of the worst characters in anime. The 0079 crew were the stand-outs, but unfortunately, aside from Char and Bright, they were terribly under-used and the show follows the horribly written new characters for the most part.Had tons of potential, but kind of wound up being a mess. I still like it overall though, if not for the charm alone. |