SD Gundam Force

Time to review another "blast from the past" or in this case a bomb from the past. I had forgotten all about this series, but I recently saw a clip and the sheer horror my mind had so carefully repressed all came back to me at once! This is SD Gundam!

When someone asks you the question, "What is your favorite Gundam series?" There is a "correct" answer if you want to be viewed as a sophisticated anime critic online and there is your actual opinion, which may not be the same. The correct answer is 8th Mobile Suit Team, because it is SO much more ... realistic (allegedly). If you want to invite a world of scorn and snarky comments to rain down upon you, join a forum of self-acclaimed elitists on MAL or /a/ and state that you enjoyed Gundam Wing. Now if you REALLY want to piss them off, state you thought G-Gundam was the best Gundam series. However, you won't get a big reaction if you bring up the unholy SD Gundam, because according to all Gundam fans, this series NEVER happened! It is so bad that it is basically unspeakable online. I believe SD Gundam still holds the record on what was the big anime rating site before MAL, (animenewsnetwork) as the worst anime of all time!

All Gundam series are slightly different, but almost all have overarching themes that make them Gundam series. They are about young men forced to experience the horrors of war. They are about humans piloting giant mech suits in a war between the space colonies and Earth. There are lots of complicated political sub-plots with Game of Thrones style betrayals and sneaky dealings. SD Gundam has NONE of that. It is the goofy tale of chibi kawaii robots who either align with good or evil with no complexity whatsoever. The series is for children under 10, but my brother watched Gundam Wing uncut when he was 8 and was able to follow the plot just fine. This is one of those shows that talks down to children and treats them like IDIOTS rather than try challenge them. SD Gundam is like the crackbaby of Mobile Suit Gundam and Barney the Dinosaur. It isn't just bad, it is insultingly bad! The CGI in this series easily takes the cake as the worst use of CGI in anime history! It is pure, unadulterated, eye rape throughout the entire show. The soundtrack is also garbage, which is surprising since Gundam series pretty much always have awesome soundtracks. Even G-Gundam has a kickass soundtrack for God's sake! SD Gundam is the single worst anime that Studio Sunrise has ever shat out! Yes, it is even worse than Valverave the Liberator! If you were unfortunate enough to have seen this on Toonami back in the early 2000s, you are my comrade in suffering! Let us remember the bullshit that was SD Gundam, so hopefully fans can convince Sunrise to never make something quite so heinous ever again!

To all the critics writing this was arguably the worst anime ever, 1 thing to consider: this got a full length movie and a second season. Total flops don't do that. ;) In fact, most anime never make it past 14 episodes and this has 52, making it one of the longest episodic gundam series to date!

When this show aired in 2004 on Toonami, I was not the target audience, I was just going into high school. My experience in the Gundam franchise of anime was Wing and G Gundam and my indulging in mass media anime was only newly blossoming with the dawn of ... Naruto to the west. I saw the ads, laughed with my friends over how terrible this kid-version series looked in the ads, and then, in my stupid 14 year old wisdom, I decided to watch it to pick it apart mercilessly.
Then I fell in love.

Yes, that's right, this is actually a classic in my mind for 2004. And that may sound completely absurd to say this is my favorite Gundam franchise still to date, and you can judge me as you will. But I came in with low expectations and I felt I ended on much higher enjoyment watching week per week.

Will the effect be the same watching it now? As a rerun and having memories fondly attached to the entire series, I say yes and I HAVE been rewatching it. As a new consumer approaching 15 years past the original airdate? I can't promise the same. There are better stories now, with better CGI, and nostalgia seems to be a staple only for older media. So I'll be talking about how it felt at the time with my scores.

Story - 8
If you come in expecting a Gundam storyline, you're going to be disappointed. So don't.
However, there is a beauty in the contrary--- this is a stripped down Gundam. There is hardly any fantasy-tech talk. There isn't dread or a sense of political turmoil or getting bogged down in details and the mental stability of key individuals.
This is 'good clean fun'. There's a team of bad guys, doing bad things, and a team of good guys fighting the bad guys. The mysteries presented are not deep or emotionally damaging, they grip with intrigue and curiosity that is usually light hearted and perfect for the genre. And THEN they twist things unexpectedly just when you begin to feel a bit ho-hum, next thing you know the suspense is real. Slowly the entire tone of the series gets darker, especially beginning in season 2, but I find beauty in that they don't start with a crap setting and end in a crap setting with some glimmer of hope like Gundam series tend to. This starts in a high note, goes down to a pretty big climatic situation, and then returns us to an even higher note than we began. That is solid story telling. There's also no grating sense of "plot armor" either, real consequences can happen to the heroes in time.
(Just that alone makes this better storytelling than SAO which spends huge blocks of time explaining exposition in a cafe scene. Even SDGF's recap episodes still actively moved the plot forward.)

Art - 9
For the time it was, this CGI was very good. This was one of the best CGI pieces I had seen in 2004 timeline. I feel the human models were not as appeal stylistically but the Gundams (being the 'main stars' of the show truly) were great. The battle directing was elevated in Season 2 as well which is a huge highlight because by the end of Season 1 I began to feel most of the fight scenes lacked presence (exceptions being the first Ashuramaru fight where the setting felt real-time).

The character designs are not as paired down as we might imagine for a kid-audience Gundam series or for SD Gundam, which the original japanese shorts were VERY toned down in art style to be entirely comical. The setting is a futuristic tech-paradise and the tech, while not very modern looking by today's standards, reads the tone presented to the audience. Neotopia tech is lighter colors, friendly shapes and eye LED panels, they're helpful and they're friend-shaped. The bad robots from the Dark Axis are dark colored, they're inhuman looking and they sound either intimidating in their own unique way per each character, or comically inept and nearly harmless like the Zakos. I would have loved to see more detail into their worlds and especially more into the backgrounds as some were reused a bit too much (Season 2 again helped this aspect tremendously as we gained all 3 alternate settings in the last 26 episodes while were mostly stuck in the one setting for Season 1. It did make sense for the story, though.)

Sound - 10
The music and the sound effects in this were excellent and immediately recognizable. I had very few complaints on the voice acting too- if they felt overdramatic or overdone, that fit right in line with the storyboard of the theme. This was quality production in both the Japanese and the English voice over.

Character - 10
Honestly, this was my first hook. When I began this series coming from a critical eye, I expected this to be a royal joke but the characters-- while cliche in many ways-- felt unique; their goals were evident and important to the viewer, they had flaws which were humorous and sometimes worrisome, they didn't fit together like the most perfect pieces and cultural clashes happened-- this media, for as 'bare bones' as the expectation was set up on the premise of story, still took the time to make real investments in the main characters.

I would have only loved to see more of that investment placed in more of the minor characters, but I can't say they were ignored either. Some people read the bonding episodes as filler, but I felt they were the #1 reason I kept watching, and not because I thought this was a goofy and "sad" gundam series like I first interpreted, but because I became emotionally invested in these character's struggles. I wanted to see Baku return home. I wanted to see Lacroa returned to glory and the triplets de-petrified.

Enjoyment - 10
What could define enjoyment more than transforming from a pessimistic initial approach to sitting here buying merchandise and feeling at peace with a ""simple story""? I think most people in their lives would be blessed to have that experience. If you have it for SD Gundam Force like I did, then I'm extremely happy for you! And if you didn't, I still hope you find it someday.

Remember that diamonds hide under dirt sometimes. All you can know for sure is if you try.

Please note that I am not a critic, I just want to offer another view on this widely-disliked series. However, I will be taking this review from the perspective of a person who got into writing because of this series and has a lot of sentimental value to it, and you are fully allowed to disagree.

Story: 7

The story is basically the "group of heroes saves the world(s)" trope. Is it cliche? Yes, but cliches are not a bad thing. They exist for a reason, and aren't made any worse by the frequency of their appearance in other unrelated works. The story in this anime remains ... concise and coherent, and by the end of the series, just about all questions have been answered. It's simple, but it's effective in its own right and that shouldn't be ignored.

Art: 7

Is it jaw dropping like the art of Madhouse or Type-Moon? No, but it wasn't supposed to be either. This anime was made at a time when moving hair and fabric was considered Pixar-level animation, and was one of the first really big dips for Japanese animators to try CGI. It's dated, and the hiatus between the first and second half shows different qualities in animation, but anyone who truly loves animation can recognize that it has just as much importance as the 2D animation. This series was made to test the capability of CGI animation at the time, and I think it succeeded in showing that it's a viable way to animate.

Sound: 8

The sound - and music specifically - is always very recognizable to me. It has something I just don't get from other anime's OSTs, and I often listen to it when I write.

Character: 9

This is what really makes me love this series. Are the characters cliche? Yes, and as I said before, that's not a bad thing. However, there is more to them than that. Captain Gundam on his own has so much character development in just the first few episodes, going from a cold, secretive, non-emotional officer to someone who (though naive) is learning the importance of allies. That is often one of the most important lessons a person can learn, that they never need to be alone. The characters that were are the ones that failed, and its something very seldom remembered in the time this review is being written.

Enjoyment: 10

This is the only anime I can watch over and over again and still get a dumb grin on my face from, and the only series that can cheer me up in my worst moods effortlessly. I genuinely enjoy the story and the characters, the antics they get into, and the horrors they have to push through as their lives quite literally crumble around them. Ignoring the sentimental value it has as my inspiration for my own writing and the friend I've had for 12 years now because of it, it's fun to just sit back and watch.

Overall: 9

There has never been an anime I have watched that means more to me. It's certainly not the best, but no story is perfect by any means. It's certainly not as bad as the reputation it's been given either. It's certainly not for everyone, but no anime is either. If you're looking for something you don't really want to think too seriously on, have a look at this one. Just enjoy it for what it is. Don't worry, you'll still get the dark stuff later in the series - forbidden love to the point of obsession, mechanical cannibalism, psychological torture, civil warfare, large-scale militaristic attacks, implied genocide in the form of petrification, all the hallmarks of a gundam series. You just need to look at it.