Most of the previous articles on G no reconguista have been written by die-hard Tomino fanboys and not without a certain dosage of dogmatism and perhaps faith in the director's skill as well as vision. Their reviews hinge on comparing the series to earlier installations in the Gundam Franchise, with all the associated angst and archetypes. I am most probably one such a fanboy, but I am not going to commit to the exercise of comparison. I will instead be sharing my thoughts on G no reconguista as a disappointing work simply in its own right.
If anything at all can be said to drive Reconguista,
...
it is the story, and it is the plot. Both elements are best summarised as: complexity without invoking thought. There is a Byzantine web of power relations, much like any other Gundam series or war drama that invokes the sheer complexity of war. This is then compounded, in my opinion, by the uneven pacing and lack of exposition, which makes the show unnecessarily difficult. Make no mistake, I enjoy contrivances, but there is neither cleverness nor wit in the way the story is told. The labyrinthe subplots never do get resolved satisfactorily, and what we get instead are deus ex machinas and open ends.
I cannot help but get the feeling that Tomino was trying too hard to follow his own script, and so instead of developing a fresh plot he ended up spreading it too thin, over the course of a measly 26 episodes. It cannot be stressed enough that the problem with the show is not that it is formulaic, as Gundam UC and Seed rightly show, a formula and a cocktail of archetypes can be a strangely magnetic mixture, but that it ended up rushing through said formula. The usual elements, the intrepid teenage pilot, the possibly romantic sister figure, the dashing man behind the mask, the Gundam itself in all its glory, the rogue fleet, and the epic journey from Earth to space and back again, they all survive more or less intact. But Tomino rushes through them so quickly as though he was doing some sort of slide-show on 'What makes Gundam Gundam', so that the individual set pieces seem disembodied, discordant, jarring.
Worldbuilding has always been one of Tomino's strengths, and this production is no exception. The world of G no reco is a quaint potpurri of anachronisms and contradictions, much like our own. There is not only the usual visual feast of Sci-fi rendered in a rather pastel style, but also a profusion of hints and clues that allow the attentive viewer to glimpse into the vibrant present and troubled past of the invented world. Nonetheless, I feel that the potential has largely went to waste: one gets the impression that Tomino might have envisioned some grand cosmic scope, but then for some reason known only to the man, scrapped everything.
I could sort of see what he was trying to get at: lying underneath the thin veneer of amicability there is always an undercurrent of hatred, violence, and warlust, and behind the most upright of nations is always a past of unspeakable cruelty. Reading the work thus, the world of Tomino's seems to send a singular message: that to fight war is not only to fight those who make war, but to fight human nature at its basest, to make war with the human condition.
The characters are a decidedly mixed bag. Some of them appear more akin to caricatures or symbols, others are plainly underdeveloped, and others still plainly unlikeable. Our protagonist, Belli falls squarely into the third category. He is what I call a zealot. He is what Judau Ashta would be had Judau been born without a heart. Where you would expect the harshness of war and the unjustness of social division to faze him he does not falter. With usual genki-ness and stolid unconcern he charges into battle with the latest state of the art military equipment. He shares much in common with the typical shonen hero, a child with too little thought for consequences and too much power, thrust into situations far more complex than he could possibly comprehend. He is not a moral hero. Insensate to ideological nuances or the simplest human empathy, he is quite simply high on his own status.
Yet,
The characters are not all...terrible. The female lead Aida Surugan is in this respect the very opposite of Belli. There have been no shortage of complaints that she is consistently useless in combat situations, but these, I think, are balanced by the fact that she does possess a functioning moral compass and is just as likely to resolve things diplomatically as attempting to shoot them down no questions asked.
Another sympathetic character is everyone's favourite, 'Mask'. Although devious in his machinations and completely ruthless in his modus operandi, he does strike me as an antagonist with vision, a vision for egalitarian society and the freedom from stigma, regardless of birth, status, and race. It goes without saying that I was rooting for him all the way through. He makes quite the entertaining foil to Belli: he is hotblooded to Belli's unflappable demeanour, he is a self-made man unlike Belli, who had his life (and Gundam) handed to him on a silver platter, and most ironically, whereas Belli is static, a paragon of a pilot throughout, Mask is human, flawed, and eventually does learn to reform from his mistakes and restrain his inflated 'Kuntala pride'.
There does seem to be quite more than a little unrealised potential in the characters, though the same could be said of the entire series. The amnesiac Raraya could conceivably have been used to expound on the mental strain of war beyond its poignant emotional tolls but alas that did not happen. There is also a distinct absence of strong or relatable female characters other than Aida, in fact, to be perfectly candid, there is a distinct want of any characters who are both strong or relatable.
Last but not least is Nick 'Tensai' Klim. He is one of the few truly original characters in this show, and make no mistake he is quite the warhorse. For me, I thoroughly enjoyed his theatrics and appreciated how Tomino managed to squeeze sympathy from the audience even if, yes, he is quite possibly the most vicious, manipulative, and power-hungry warmonger we are graced with in the show.
Before I comment on the art and the sound, I would like to make it clear that I have very little by way of taste in either department, so please do take my words with healthy pinch of salt. The art reminds me of Turn A Gundam, it's softer, more pastel-y than what one might have expected from a show that's in essence, all about war. Unlike the realism of other additions to the real robot genre, Reconguista's visuals are more akin to those normally found in the realm of fantasy. It's a fresh take on a genre that's rapidly aging, to say the very least. Although whether one prefers this to the nitty-gritty aesthetics of other works is strictly a matter of taste and opinion.
I'll review the battle scenes separately here. They do seem to be a bit aged and clunky, but thankfully come without any obstructive CGI or particle effects that recent series have been obsessed with. They are reasonably realistic so do not expect slaughterfests a la Seed. The mecha designs are eccentric, and as such have proven to be more than a little divisive among the fan community. I personally like them for their deco style, and sleek, flowing lines. While the look of the Gundam itself is unmistakeable, it manages to be less derivative than many other designs, and there's more or less an internal continuity in the designs that imitates real arms development, which is a veritable bonus. But there is one question I would like to raise: would we rather have glorious battle scenes that idealise war, or jolty, jerky battle scenes that are neither pretty nor intense, but which show war in all its horror and all its reality? I, for one, have a sneaking suspicion that Tomino was opting for the latter.
The sound feels distinctly nostalgic. The first opening is lively and memorable, like something out of ZZ or Turn A; the second opening is a calm, soothing tune that's simply unlike anything produced in animations in the last decade or so. The soundtracks themselves compliment the light-hearted tone nicely, although they do have their moments of grandeur, to accentuate the sheer scale of some of the monuments we are presented with in the course of events.
In the end, I think that Reconguista is a difficult place to start for anyone who wants a portal series to the world of Gundam. The work itself is not uninspired, but is always and consistently plagued with a short run, a bewildering plot, and an unsympathetic (and that's putting it generously) protagonist. Viewers who have sampled other pieces from Tomino will see a development on much the same formula, and hampered by the same downfalls. But even as it is, it's a more genuine work of pacifism that any I have encountered in recent years, incorporating a broad-brush approach to painting the dire picture of war. At the end of the day, it is an unpolished piece of art, but remains, incontestably, a piece of art. And as to whether it is worth the watch, I really should leave it to you, the reader, to discover whether it proves to be your diamond in the rough.
Dec 30, 2015
Gundam: G no Reconguista
(Anime)
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Most of the previous articles on G no reconguista have been written by die-hard Tomino fanboys and not without a certain dosage of dogmatism and perhaps faith in the director's skill as well as vision. Their reviews hinge on comparing the series to earlier installations in the Gundam Franchise, with all the associated angst and archetypes. I am most probably one such a fanboy, but I am not going to commit to the exercise of comparison. I will instead be sharing my thoughts on G no reconguista as a disappointing work simply in its own right.
If anything at all can be said to drive Reconguista, ... 
Nov 12, 2015
Mushishi is a collage of very simple stories set in a very complex world, very much alive. It will not score many marks on character, drama, action, or tension, or any of the things that tend to captivate viewers. It remains, in spite of all that, compelling; and because of all that, refreshing.
It's not possible to talk about Mushishi and not talk about the setting. The setting makes the story, and the character. In Mushishi, we have Mushi as the fundamental life-force of the world. For most, these remain invisible, for some, they are objects of curiosity acquiring tangible form, for a few, they ... |
