What is the worth of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam?
| Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - is now up for vote. Decide if it will help AEUG save the Enlightenment list or aid the Titans at the Relations list. RULES: 1. You can only vote for a title if you've finished watching/reading it. You must’ve read or watched at least 60% of the published content for unfinished titles. There might be exceptions for very long finished titles – they are decided on a case by case basis, but usually amount to more than half of the published content. 2. Write your vote at the very top of your comment. 3. Below your vote, give a substantial explanation to back it up. It doesn't have to be lengthy; it just needs to cover the points you want to make. 4. If you have only read/watched the adaption/source material of the respective nominee, please state so in your post. 5. It will take a minimum of 5 votes for either Enlightenment or Relations to make it into any of the lists as an anime (3 votes for manga). If it fails to reach that, it will be deemed Invalid. 6. The votes for Enlightenment will have to outnumber the votes for Unremarkable and Relations for it to be included in our list; the same goes for Relations. If it fails to reach that, it will be deemed Unremarkable. 7. Behave yourself. We accept discussions and debate, not flaming and incoherent fanboy/fangirl behavior. 8. The fate of the poll will lie in the hands of the officers if it turns out that there are more first time voters than regulars or the series cannot be gauged by both voting and discussions. This polling process will last 14 days. BEGIN! |
Ducat_RevelMar 31, 2014 4:39 AM
 "Your sight, my delight. Will you marry me?" |
| Option 1 While the show certainly has a fair share of problems it's upsides heavily outweigh them. It has all the upsides of the original series but in a greater scale. The characters are all well fleshed-out and behave very naturally as well as undergoing some fantastic development. I think it shows the effects and consequences of war better than almost every Gundam series especially with it's ending which really leaves an impact and stays with you. It's a very believable and high-impact show. |
| Option 1 A long time ago, in a country far on the east, a new genre was born. At first it was a little bit sloppy as it still had some elements of super robot, but featured war drama, politics and human villains. Six years later, everything Mobile Suit Gundam wanted to do was perfected. Being that it's a show by Yoshiyuki Tomino, some flaws are to be expected. Some character can act a bit irrational at times, then there's the whole "kids on board" thing all over again. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a sequel of Mobile Suit Gundam, taking place eight years after the One Year War, or the events of Mobile Suit Gundam. Everyone who survived the first series returns as a supporting character, some with bigger and some with really small roles. It was nice that they didn't take over the main focus of the story and only supported the AEUG crew. From the returning characters, the biggest roles had Bright Noa and Hayato Kobayashi, Bright even being among the main characters, while Hayato lead the battle on the Earth fronts. Our dear friend Amuro returns too only to show us how much better he is than Char, by performing way better in a Rick Dias, while Char sucked in his Hyakku Shiki. However, Frau NotBowAnymore and Mirai return only for a very limited screen time. The worst part is the fact that Sayla didn't appear in the show because her voice actor was too busy to voice her, so she was replaced by an original character, Beltorchika, who served as Amuro's love interest. There were quite a lot of characters this time, both on the AEUG side, Titan side and Axis side. Most characters were really interesting, with only Apolly and Roberto being somewhat forgettable. Our main hero this time is Kamille Bidan. He's a suffering teenager going through a lot of trouble because his parents decided to give him a girl name, to which he responds with the usual "Kamille's a man's name, and I'm man!/What's wrong with Kamille being a girl's name!" It was a bit funny how his rivalry with Jerid Messa started exactly because of that. Jerid made fun out if him and their endless rivalry started. Over the course of Zeta Gundam, Kamille slowly starts developing from a whiny boy into a real Man of Destiny. Word says it that Kamille got manlier after each slap he received from his big sister character, Emma Sheen. Since you know, Bright Slap and Men of Destiny stuff. Jokes aside Kamille's character started developing the most when he met his love interest, Four Murasame, where they shared the same name complex (except Four's name was just a code number since she was an experiment). On the Titan side we had three characters that stood out the most, Jerid Messa, Yazan Gable and Paptimus Scirocco. Jerid Messa was the least interesting one, and over the show you'll just start hating him because of his plot armor. It's unbelievable how he managed to survive for 49 episodes. His hate relationship with Kamille was funny at times, especially when they started killing each other's girlfriends, because they are such an OTP. Paptimus Scirocco wasn't that interesting as a villain and didn't stand out much aside from being a chick magnet. He even made women defect to the Titan's side with his "charms'. The most interesting character on the Titan side is definitely Yazan Gable. It's really rare for an Oldtype to compete with Newtypes in the Gundam universe, but Yazan Gable was actually such a great pilot that he was was superior than most Newtypes. He was supposed to represent the soldiers that enjoyed wars and enjoyed fighting. He was truly a madman that enjoyed killing other people. The Axis side only had Haman Karn, who easily ends up being one of the most interesting characters in the Gundam universe. She would later become the leader of the Axis force, while in Zeta Gundam she's just the leader of the fleet . While it's known how sexist Tomino's works can be, it wasn't rare for his works to feature strong female characters, that are often the leaders of factions (like Full Flat from L-Gaim for example). Haman was also one of the main characters in the "Char's Deleted Affair" side story manga, that portrayed Char's life between the two shows, and of course his romantic relationship with Haman Karn. She would later become the main villain of the not-so-great sequel, Gundam ZZ. The story of Zeta Gundam is divided in three parts, the introduction arc in space that introduces the story and characters, the Earth front arc, and the Gryps Conflict. While the first show had a fight between the Federation and Space Nazis, Zeta Gundam had a rather different set up. This time around, the main guys were people fighting for spacenoids, aka Anti Earth Union Group, while the villains were a corrupt part of the Federation aka the Titans. In the second arc, the Earth resistance faction Karaba is introduced, which would lend its hand to AEUG's fight against Titans. In the third and final arc, Axis joins and starts the threeway between AEUGxTitansxAxis. The main story is mostly about a civilian that got dragged into a war. Kamille was an ordinary teenager until he ended up piloting a giant mech and fighting for the peace. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam often portrayed the dark side of wars, such as gassing the colonies, or the mentioned madmen that enjoyed fighting. A new thing that was introduced are the Cyber Newtypes, or man-made Newtypes, and they played some role in the overall story, as they portrayed how bad human experiments for super soldiers were. A similar concept would be later reused in Gundam 00. And I gotta add that Zeta Gundam has a fantastic soundtrack. It is probably my all time favorite anime soundtrack. Sadly, Saegusa, the composer, didn't work on more anime, which makes this OST even more unique. Here's an example of my favorite track. |
"Your sight, my delight. Will you marry me?" |
| Option 1 Zeta Gundam may be very old compared to the newer installments, but it still trumps them in terms of story and characters. Zeta Gundam follows Kamille Bidan, a Newtype just like Amuro Ray on the first Gundam as he fights against the Titans, ruthless individuals who seek to destroy remnants of ZEON. Zeta has some problems at the start such as pacing, though it's story and characters help the show elevate itself above all others. Kamille starts out like most mecha protags of recent memory, angry, immature and reckless, though he grows to be a very likable character in his own right. Various other characters such as Quatrro, Emma, and Jerid all show greatness within this series, which is more than I can say for recent Gundam installments, especially SEED Destiny. The mechanical designs are also superb. Mobile suits such as the titular Zeta and the Hyakku Shiki are among my favorite designs in the franchise, and the soundtrack is also top class. Overall, Zeta Gundam is a very welcome entry into the franchise and among one of the best mecha series put on air. |
 |
| Option 1 - Enlightening ANIME JA NAI ANIME JA NAI! Oops, wrong show. Anyway, where the hell do I start with Zeta Gundam? Tomino returns and proves his brilliance by creating once of the most amazing political dramas of all time. The setting is clearly inspired by Tomino's thoughts on what would happen if the US Federation took over as a World power in the name of democracy and freedom on Earth, which leads to a rebel organisation called AEUG (made up of NaziZeon remnants and former Earth Federation soldiers alike) to fight the Titans (the Federation's special forces). And what a story it is! Brilliantly well-thought-out with jaw-dropping visuals for its time, an absolutely amazing soundtrack with two awesome openings and a political drama, as stated before, which is ahead of its time. The characters are also very well-thought out and written as well; Quattro Vagina Bajeena, Jerid, Haman, Kamille...the list can go on for hours. The stand-out character is Char Aznable, who is easily among the greatest and most influential anime characters of all time. He undergoes fantastic development from the distant anti-hero in the first series to the atoning protagonist with AWESOME GLASSES in Zeta. The Dakar speech in particular is easily among my favorite scenes in anime as a whole, and adds a lot to Char's character. I can rant on for hours about how much I loved this, but I'm short on time, so Option 1. |
| "The more inexperienced you are, the more you want to show off." - Oreki, Hyouka |
| Option 1 I'm not going to start ranting about how this is some brilliant mecha war drama with thought provoking messages or even that it is somehow very emotional or inspirational. No, that is not what Zeta Gundam is. What it is however, is being the most Gundam show of all Gundam shows, having various elements one would want from this kind of anime. It has a shitton of mecha desisngs, various factions, a decent sized cast... stuff that gives it a functional framework, which while complete enough in itself still leaves some space for expansion either in the metaverse sense or the viewers mind. Sometimes, often times actually: simple things are the best things. I like my anime having cool things in it, rather than not. Isn't that what it is all about after all? I'm also not going to describe the story in detail for two reason: 1) it's not actually relevant and 2) it's been many years since I watched the show, though I did watch New Translation not that many years ago (which despite some changes is still a good set of Gundam movies imo). Basically it is the usual battle of power, now with less space nazi stuff. There is a bunch of notable characters though: the angry at everything teenager Kamille, the sexy evil Haman, the ever persistent Jerid and Yazan, and others including returning fan favorites back from 0079. Not everyone has a strong precense to make you care if they happen to get killed, but it sure is hilarious watching them punch each other in the face. Also bonus points for the series ending and I also like that the ost moved out from the funky disco themes to this... umm, I'm not sure how to describe it but it does have an identity to it. A bit more cinematic, yet retro. I think they could rearrange the bgm a bit, though. Here is a bonus with awesome artwork for all you fans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN1Zi841NHA |
| With 6 votes for Enlightenment and nothing else, I draw this poll to a close. Thank you all for voting. |
More topics from this board
Sticky: » The New Manga Enlightenment Camp - All plebes and Untermenschen MUST attendExinqt - Aug 21, 2015 |
32 |
by Ducat_Revel
»»
Jul 17, 2024 5:02 AM |
|
» Anime/Manga Recommendation Thread Based on Your List ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page )removed-user - Jan 25, 2013 |
1162 |
by LeonhartAugust
»»
May 13, 2024 11:17 PM |
|
» 10 Steps to Becoming an Anime ElitistDeago - Jun 2, 2023 |
2 |
by AaronRRedfield
»»
Jan 11, 2024 3:52 PM |
|
» Winter 2024 OverviewDeago - Dec 20, 2023 |
0 |
by Deago
»»
Dec 20, 2023 8:24 AM |
|
» Summer 2023 OverviewDeago - Jun 14, 2023 |
0 |
by Deago
»»
Jun 14, 2023 7:48 PM |