Kidou Senshi Gundam NT

As someone who has yet to see Unicorn Gundam, I was worried that my enjoyment of Gundam NT would be hampered. To my surprise, however, the quality of the film is irrelevant to whoever has watched Unicorn Gundam or even has seen a previous Gundam series at all. Gundam Narrative is just bad. Whether the person watching it is a die-hard UC fan or a newcomer to the franchise, the movie is terrible on its own merit.

Story: 2/10

Here is Gundam NT's biggest flaw: its paper thin and boring story. The story, at least, does a decent job of explaining the events that happened previously which ... are relevant and important to the events of NT, meaning that people who missed out on Unicorn won't be completely lost. The big issue here, however, is just how uninteresting. The film just drags on and on with this philosophical nonsense about how humans should not be tampering with the power of gods or the corruption of the Federation in testing on children. It doesn't do anything profound to portray these themes, and the characters just talk about these issues in rather bland dialogue.

Another issue to note with the story is how detached it feels to the viewer. It attempts to portray violence or traumatic events in such a way that the person watching the movie will feel shock or empathy, but it fails at this task. The movie shows these events, but fails to show to a significant extent how the effects of such horrors. The beginning of the film, for example, shows the destruction caused by Operation British, in which a colony was dropped on Earth, in the original Gundam, but it is presented like something out of a Hollywood film. It lacks any sort of nuance or emotional attachment.

Art:7/10

Considering that this is Sunrise, it is to nobody's surprise that Gundam NT's animation is absolutely spectacular. It's fluid and detailed. The mecha action is well animated and fun to watch. My biggest gripe, however, concerns character design and mecha design. On the topic of character design, Zoltan's design just looks ridiculous. He has such an over the top and blatantly evil look as if he were pulled out of a Saturday morning cartoon. His one red eye is just cheesy and unnecessary. On the topic of mecha design, it was pretty disappointing. Considering the story only takes place one year after the events of Gundam Unicorn, I wasn't expecting a huge departure from that series' designs, but I expected more than what we got. The Gundam Narrative's design, the Narrative is what this film's lead Gundam is called by the way, looks generic and uninspired, as if the designers simply slapped elements from previous Gundam designs together and just called it a day.

Sound: 4/10

The English dub I honestly have no complaints over. It's well acted and gets the job done. My biggest gripe, however, is the music. Having heard tracks from Unicorn Gundam and his work in other shows such as Kill la Kill I expected something decent at least. I will admit that I am not the biggest Sawano fan, but I just couldn't bring myself to like any of the tracks he made. The vocal songs were just generic pop songs and failed to induce any excitement in the scenes they were present. The instrumental songs were insignificant, and I honestly can't think of a single track that I enjoyed.

Character: 2/10

Here is Gundam NT's other greatest flaw: it's characters. I honestly couldn't believe just how annoying and uninteresting the characters were. For starters, Jona Basta is a terrible lead. He fails to show any character development or growth throughout the movie and simply mopes his way through the film's duration. He has no outstanding qualities or anything that makes the viewer care for him. The film does nothing to ensure the viewer actually becomes invested in Jona's character or his struggles because of how lackluster he is.

Another character that requires special mention is the main villain, Zoltan. Zoltan is a terrible villain because, like Jona, he has absolutely zero unique qualities or anything that makes him unique. The writers fail to give Zoltan any depth, for there is literally nothing about him that we learn. We learn nothing about his past, motivations, or struggles. His only purpose in the story is to serve as some sort of arbitrary villain for the main characters to fight in some sort of grand finale. He's just some crazed guy who only seeks to fight for no reason whatsoever. The only character in the entire story which shows some sort of growth or development is Michele Luio, but even that is hardly anything to talk about.

Enjoyment: 1/10

The fight scenes, though fun to watch, were still boring in that I had no emotional investment in them. It was like I was watching some guy clash two toys together. Why should I care about these characters possibly dying if I have no reason to? Why should I be watching this when I could be watching something else? There were times were I was legitimately tempted to walk out of the theater simply because of how bored I was with it.

Overall: 3/10

The creators of this film state that this will be the start of another chapter for the Universal Century, which has me worried for future entries. Just read the summary online if you really want to be caught up with the lore. It's a waste of your time.

I just watched earlier & being my 1st review i hope it does help in a way to those who wanted to catch up with it in the near future. WARNING LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD!

Mobile Suit Gundam NT Review:
Story: This adaptation is based off the Unicorn lightnovel which initially was completed but due to the popularity of the series, was inserted late into the whole Gundam UC Timeline. All i say is that you need knowledge prior to watching this (or better yet watch the whole UC animes) if not you will not know what is happening. They don't even throw a bone. So its hard ... to watch this as a standalone movie. Sideline-wise, at least i am glad they didn't discard the original ZZ timeline & abandon the Zeta movie ending instead. Also too many backtracking to the past then to the present, but diehard fans will appreciate all these easter egg nuggets (hence why i mention that watching the previous UC series since the beginning of OYW is a bonus). They also touch on the neverending topic of being a Newtype/ Cyber Newtypes & how society deemed them. For me as a hardcore Gundam fans, i give this movie a 7.
Story 7/10

Art: Same as Gundam UC movies/Series, the art is great with not much of complaints. Of course since this is a big budget movie, the art is reminicing of the older Gundam movies. I gave this a 9.
Art 9/10

Sound: As Sawano Hiroyuki is part of the team again (who doesn't listen to Gundam UC soundtracks & screams epic!), the soundtrack is superb & there is some hints of familliar to UC. No complaints here, i gave this a 9.
Sound 9/10

Character: Again the way how this is being portrayed, going back & forth with storyline-wise, it's rather hard to like the new characters. Their motives, resolve.... Its difficult to vote them at all. Too messy i can say. Still the saving grace is that there are cameos round so... I can only give a 7
Character 7/10

Enjoyment: like i said if you are not a diehard fans, it is difficult to enjoy this as a standalone movie without prior knowledge. But since i am a hardcore Gundam fan, i do enjoy watching it, with all the references as well as the action scenes. There's even one part which i was caught surprised with. The only complaint that i got is that it does seems to be abit messy with the storyline. Overall i gave this a 7
Enjoyment: 7/10

Overall: Again to highlight, for those who have yet to watch a single UC series, i will advice that it is difficult to understand the whole plotline. For those like me, you will enjoy the ride. As a bonus, it would be advise to know Mobile Suit Gundam UC: One of Seventy Two (a short movie that was shown at G-Dome which unfortunately had not been screen outside Japan) plotline before watching this. I gave this a 7
Overall: 7

Mobile Suit Gundam NT Review

Story (5/10) Mediocre
More Specifically (5.75/10) Good

The story for Mobile Suit Gundam NT was mediocre, it follows a tri-protagonist story about three children known as the miracle children that were known to predict an upcoming catastrophic event that happened during the time 0079. This causes the future of these three children to be used and manipulated for the ravages of war between the Earth Federation and Neo Zeon. I thought the overall execution was good but this movie definitely requires a hefty knowledge of at least Gundam 0079, Gundam 0087 Zeta, Gundam 0093 Char's Counter Attack and Gundam 0096 Unicorn. For a ... heavy Gundam fan this is fine but for everyone else that is indeed asking a bit much as this movie will constantly flashback to scenes of the series or movies that I mentioned. So if you have no knowledge of them the call backs will indeed fly right over your head clean. It's indeed a double-edge sword but seeing as this was only in theaters for 1 day, Sunrise assumed only hardcore Gundam fans would be there for this so it is what it is. Nonetheless I thought it was wasn't anything worth complimenting.


Art and Animation (8/10) Very Good
More Specifically (8.75/10) Very Good+

The art style I felt for this move was very good and so was the animation. Although the mech fights were cool at times it would get so chaotic sometimes, you could easily loose track of what's going on. So it can get high maintenance to keep track of everything when the going gets tough. The CG animation on the Phenex Gundam wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it is a tinsy bit weird to see everything else hand drawn while the Phenex is in full CG and sometimes it'll go handdrawn itself so the consistency between that, I wouldn't be surprise if it bothered people like it did me.


Sound (9/10)
More Specifically (9.50/10) Great

The sound in the movie was the best thing about it, the background music ost of VigilaNTe made every scene it played it two times better to me, I watched it in English dub and I thought every voice actor did a great job, nothing outstanding but definitely nothing big enough to complain about to any degree.


Characters (6/10) Good {Minor Spoilers}


Like I said in the story section this movie is a tri-protagonist movie, which was a new different take for a Gundam. At first I didn't really have an issue with the three but after a bit of hindsight, Jona Basta didn't really showcase any good characterization to really care commend. He wasn't a bad character but he definitely wasn't anything to compliment, we was just there continuously talking about his mission where you could see his character wasn't right in the head for basically the entire movie (and also his piloting skills weren't all that either). Rita is a bit more interesting as she was positive with hopes and dreams 24/7 but you know where that usually leads you in a Gundam series, nonetheless I thought the little dialogue she did have was interesting enough to say she was a good enough character. Michele is the one that surprisingly gets the most characterization and character development of the three as her actions causes her to go down many different paths through the movie one of jealously one, one of self discovery for both herself and humanity and lastly one of redemption, she may be the least likable but from a character standpoint I would definitely say she's got the most depth to her. That antagonist of this movie I felt could have been handled a bit better as his backstory and reasoning behind doing what he does wasn't really explained as well as it should have been in my opinion, it was hard for me to care for anything he did.


Enjoyment (8/10) Very Good

As I watched the movie, all I wanted to see was some good ole Gundam action, but I also did get a decent enough story and characters. The many call backs I appreciated and the return of "you know who" at the end of the movie.


Overall (7/10) Good
More Specifically (7.60/10) Good+

Overall the movie wasn't very good but I wouldn't say it's bad either. I thought it was enjoyable for the most part and that's mostly probably because i watched it on the big screen.

Can't wait for Hathaway's Flash!

One could say this had a messy.... narrative.

To wit:

STORY/CHARACTER: The story is extremely messy and not well told. None of the characters are particularly interesting or fleshed out. Especially the ultimate villain. He's literally nothing and his mecha are just retreads of stuff from the Unicorn series.
There's interesting nuggets in the overall story but nothing to actually give this movie a reason to exist.

ART: Also messy. The designs are good, but the actual implementation and animation are not great all the time. Some returning characters look really derpy.

SOUND: Sawano score so if you've heard one of his OSTs you know what you're in for. Dub ... was fine. Not amazing just fine. Good overall sound design for the foley.

It's a fine ride (in theatre) but outside of the theatre its not worth it imo. It doubles down on the most controversial part of UC Gundam (newtypes) so if you're a 0083/08th MS/Thunderbolt kinda fan, don't bother. If you like the weird stuff in UC, you'll be more inclined to give it a shot.


Final rating: super OK/10

“In my next life, I hope I get to be a bird!”

The Universal Century, the main timeline of Gundam. For years it’s always been a huge point of love for Gundam fans. Since it’s creation, the Universal Century has been revived with the likes of Gundam Unicorn and it’s somewhat confusing Laplace Box shenanigans. However even with Unicorn’s problems, it showed that the heart of original UC remains in the creators of Sunrise, and this film represents that well once again.

I’ll begin this review with a few questions. First off, do you love the original 4 Universal Century entries? Ignore the side stories, OVAs, ... everything. Focus on the original shows and film. Do you love the original Mobile Suit Gundam? Do you love Zeta Gundam? Do you love ZZ Gundam and Char’s Counterattack? If you do, if you really do, then you should probably watch this movie.

Did you think Unicorn was “neat but not amazing” but still enjoyed all the callbacks to UC? If you do, watch this movie.

Are you curious on what the potential of newtypes are, and what things they offer? If you do, watch this movie.

Narrative is similar to an Avengers: Endgame of UC, and I’ll explain why in the review.

Story: 7

Before the colony drop in Australia, 3 children go to a beach and see a vision of a colony drop. They warn their town and convince them to evacuate, this leads to a town surviving the colony drop. Their premonition was recognised as a stronger version of Newtype power, and became known as the “miracle children”. Years later, they’re taken in by the Federations in order to study newtypes, and they would eventually be experimented on for further newtype research.

In truth however, there was only one miracle child, the Rita Bernal. Her abilities are found and she’s modified in order to become the pilot for the third Unicorn Gundam unit, Phenex. However during joint evaluation tests with the Banshee, the Phenex loses control, turning into destroy mode, destroying the bridge of the “Shallot”, and escaping the federation in an event known as the “Shallot Incident”. Since then, the Phenex was lost and never seen again. However, due to the events of Unicorn and it’s usage of psycoframe, the Phenex reappears, once again showing mystical powers like dismantling machinery and communication of souls, something that we saw during the ending of Unicorn. Since then, both the Zeon and Federation want to recapture the Phenex, and harness the power that it has obtained since then.

The story follows Jona Basta, one of the false “Miracle Children”, and a very, very close friend of Rita. During The Shallot Incident, Rita went missing along with the Phenex, and her disappearance has haunted him since. He joins the operation with the intention of one goal, to see Rita again. There’s a lot more to the story of course, but I’ll leave that to the actual movie to showcase. This film is very focused on newtypes and their potential, far more so than any other UC entry. If you’re a fan of realistic war stories of UC like 08th MS Team or War in the Pocket and only those, you aren’t going to find a lot of that here. Of course, the theme of “war sucks and people in power are awful” still holds true, that’s a Gundam staple, but in comparison, Narrative delves far more into the mysterious side of UC.

Gonna be honest, the actual story can be considered a problem, simply because not everything is explored enough. Not everything gets an explanation, it also expects you to piece together parts of the story through your prior UC knowledge. The newtype potential is never actually given any solid answer of explanation, and you can take this one of three ways. The first one is lazy writing and leaving plot holes. The second one is seeing it as messages left to interpretation or theorise about. The third, and what I believe, is that the writers want to keep newtypes a mystery, as the theme of newtypes being impossible for humans to truly understand is an underlying theme.

The story could’ve also been longer in order to focus more on the actual lore of certain characters but if you ask me, it’s not a requirement. This is why you watch this as a fan of UC. It generalises a lot of origins of characters and events because it’s assuming you’re familiar with UC, however that’s also the merit. There are an insane amount of links and callbacks to the entirety of UC. Characters remember events that happened in earlier UC series, that or they were literally directly affected by them. This is why I compare this to Avengers: Endgame, there are so many things in Narrative that mean nothing if you’re not familiar with UC, but if you are, they become some of the best scenes and callbacks to it, and you like the characters because of it.

The story is not perfect, but it’s serviceable and if you ask me, heavily enjoyable, and if you’re a UC fan, you’re going to get a lot out of every little reference.

Art: 8

The art style is very similar to Unicorn before it, with a style that relies heavily on color usage and scene palette that while looks nice, isn’t too cleanly “refined”. It’s got little streaks in the lines and movements, like it was less “digitally made” and more “physically made” even if it’s obvious this is mostly digital animation. It’s a style that makes Narrative feel like a modern UC work like Unicorn, but also has the “imperfect” tone of the much older Gundam series, obviously to give the best of both worlds.

What I love about the art style is that, it captures the tone of classic UC series perfectly while also taking the advancements in anime animation. There are a lot of cues and imagery used from classic UC, like the Newtype flash and the purple scene pallet for newtype mind immersion, but reimagined and refined in a more modern light. It’s main charm is how well it captures UC rather than the quality itself, not saying that the animation is bad by any stretch though. Things like the Phenex’s psycoframe is beautiful, and the mech animations are on point. But the usage of homages and such is what really stands out.

Sound: 10

Easily the best part of the film from a quality standpoint. The sound design is top notch in every category. Starting with the foley and SFX, everything is amazing, from the power of the beams, the force of the thrusters, and the mystic powers of psycoframe, the sound is top notch. Everything sounds so good, I cannot exemplify it enough. The sound design is godlike and everything sounds super well down. Not painfully realistic, but if you’re into high tech sounding stuff and huge force, you’re gonna love it.

Score-wise, it’s perfect. Hiroyuki Sawano is always known for his fantastic use of techno beats and drops to make some truly epic scenes feel that much more impactful. Some of the tracks are remixed tracks of Unicorn, but that doesn’t change the fact that those tracks to begin with was top Sawano. The hype doesn’t just come from the drops, throughout the movie there’s a constant thrill created by Sawano’s fast techno tracks that just convey the rush of the power of these machines and the speed of the chase. It’s an absolute ride and Sawano’s score completes every combat scene. Even when it’s not combat, the tracks can be peaceful and have a beating heart that fits the scene it needs to. The ending has this accepting open sounding song and I can’t say enough, the sound design is perfect.

Character: 7

This is probably the weakest part of the film overall due to one thing: movie runtime. The characters simply are not fully delved into or properly developed due to it. A lot of the characters’ motives and origins are left for the watcher to assume and piece together as they watch the film, and it never explicitly states enough of the backstory for the film to truly make these characters realised.

Despite this, I can say this, the characters are very likeable. A lot of the characters are simple but all do their job, although the only ones I can really talk about are the main cast. Jona Basta is a very simple protagonist with the sole goal of being with those he loves. His family was killed at a young age, and he’s only left with his best friends Rita and Michele, they are figuratively his everything, especially Rita, who acted as a guiding light to his early life. When Rita disappears and Michele seemingly betrays his trust, he’s left distraught and full of regret, with his only goal in life being to find the Phenex and reunite with Rita. I like Jona, his goal is simple but believable. It’s only natural for him to want to cling onto the remaining people he loves.

Michele is by far the most interesting of the three. She is the only one that isn’t “pure good”, as while every goal she has is well-intentioned, she is also willing to do questionable things in order to reach them. As she was adopted by the Luios through lying that she was the real Miracle Child, she was let out from the newtype training facility. As a result, Rita and Jona were left to be studied as newtypes, which is why Jona felt betrayed by her. However, her intentions were not selfish, and that she merely wanted power to retrieve her friends when she could. By then though, Rita had already disappeared along with the Phenex, and she has to hold that burden. She has the most depth and interesting concepts, however the movie doesn’t focus on her enough to have everything she represents resolved perfectly.

The final character, Rita, has the least to say about her actual character. Rita is the definition of a purehearted and kind girl, being the one who kept Jona’s spirits high since childhood and is a guiding light. We aren’t shown much about her, but we are shown that she was very close to the two, and cherished them a lot. Sadly, despite being the miracle child, she was experimented on and made to pilot the Phenex, and she lost herself when the Phenex ran wild and escaped. I won’t say more, as most of the things related to her are spoilers to the actual plot. But I will say, Rita is the most important character in the entire film and continues to be the most kindhearted, and it all relates to the Phenex.

The Phenex itself can also be considered a character of it’s own, which you’ll see become very evident once you see the film. The Phenex has a will of it’s own and acts on it’s own. It is a guardian of humanity, but will not allow itself to be restrained by them. It appears for the sole purpose of protecting humanity, and that’s even made evident by the theme “VigilaNTe”.

Other than that, there isn’t much to say. Zoltan is very energetic as a villain but is also very barebones and underdeveloped, he could’ve used more depth to him. The Schezarr team are probably the most grounded characters, Iago especially is likeable for his relatability as a pilot and due to something that’s revealed in the film that I’m sure audiences that know their UC can relate to. It’s characters have fantastic concepts, and the biggest problem is that they aren’t looked into enough.

Enjoyment: 10

Even with these flaws, I’d be lying if I said I was bothered by them. I’ve seen this movie three times in 24 hours, enjoying it to hell each time and connecting the pieces together, with the story making more and more sense upon each rewatch. It’s thrilling, it has unique concepts that delve into the possibilities of newtypes and humanity’s control on it. The space chances were thrilling, the Phenex was amazing, and seeing it all with beautiful animation and Sawano’s intense score made it such an experience.

A lot of people criticise the film for being too short and underdeveloped, and I understand it. However, I think the film doesn’t REQUIRE it either. We know what we need to for the characters, we know their goals, the story, and the intended message. Sure, Zoltan is very basic as an antagonist, and the characters in general feel underdeveloped. Still, I’ve never felt unsatisfied on any of my watches, if anything, I get more impressed by the narrative (heh) of the movie and the story it tried to tell. I love Jona, and I merely want him to be happy with his friends. I love the Phenex, a beautiful machine that humanity cannot understand. The symbolism, the meaning, combined with awesome fights and sounds made it all so enjoyable.

Overall: 8

This film is not for every gundam fan, it will never be by nature of focusing on an aspect of gundam that’s always been very wishy washy, that being newtype shenanigans. However those that are able to see the characters and the story as what they are instead of what they could be can potentially really enjoy the movie. Narrative is just a thrilling ride of pure mecha action that’s still combined with the classic Gundam message of humanity’s conflicts, the underlying themes of oldtypes misunderstanding the idea of Newtypes and trying to use it as strengthening power rather than letting people change for the better and be free.

There’s so many scenes that mean so much to those that are fans of the UC, and if anything, this movie was clearly made by people who loved the original UC series. It’s for fans of UC, it’s for those who know their lore and want to see a continuation of the early stages of the timeline. People may not love it, and that’s fine, but if you’re a gundam fan, consider giving it a watch, you’ll find something to enjoy.

Perhaps this is one of the worst creations that mankind could ever create this far. It's just a horrible, disgusting and fully talentless incompetent piece of "ART". The name "Narrative" for the movie is highly ironic since it completely lacks a plot - there none of it. Things just happen, characters just doing some stuff and somehow creators come to idea thats that it - it works. Hell if it was.
If "Unicorn" at least tried to build a decorations of the "Just OK" anime, but meanwhile stayed completely derivative to the UC context without telling any of its own story... "Narrative" as its sequel ... goes further and turns into an absolute void. The original idea of Newtypes here descends to ridiculous oracles that can see the future and manipulate time, that is completely bullsh*t even in compare of any previous funny Newtype iterations.
For basics: a) anime visuals is mediocre and unpleasant - the style is sloppy and action is too unattractive ; b) soundtrack is missing like it was never been here; c) characters are bad as Hell, all they do is drop the NARRATIVE (huh) and say something that will never be important.
There is no reason on Earth for this title to exist, you should never watch it.

This is an excellent ending for the UC timeline, even though some things might change after the Hathaway´s movies.

The visuals are even more impressive than the ones you see on the Gundam Unicorns movies,
but I believe that Sunrise should had remake the scenes from previous Gundams (mainly the ones from Zeta, ZZ and Char's Counterstrike).

Pace is a little quicker, but it doesn't hurt the story to much.

However, the most amazing thing about this anime is the soundtrack. Powerfull songs like Vigilante (that I'm quite sure represents Jonan and Rita relationship) and the ending them by LiSa, Narrative make you feel that this 1,5 hour ... movie is pretty worth.

If you are new to the franchise, I won't recommend you to start here, since there is a lot o references you will miss from past series, if you are already hooked on the UC timeline, this is one of the best stories told about this universe.

[Edit] As someone who watched all the Gundam series, I must say that I was excited for NT Gundam. Although the movie is fair, I have some complaints and some mixed opinions about it. Overall I think that if this was a series it would be 100% better. See more below.

Story: Good story but badly directed. NT Gundam is the latest release of the UC (but not the last, chronologically), taking place after Unicorn. I would say that you need to have seen MS Gundam, Zeta Gundam, Char`s Counter Attack, and Unicorn Gundam before attempting to see NT. The story takes a HEAVY, and I ... must emphasize a HEAVY focus on Newtype lore. If you are used to the UC, you know Newtypes are a big deal in this universe and NT Gundam brings them to new heights - and that`s my complaint. The UC, in general, always had a balance between the political aspects of the world and the Newtype lore, which is by default metaphysical. NT Gundam has no balance and its 80% metaphysical. Don`t get me wrong, it is a fair movie, and you should watch, but don`t expect a compelling story. Since the Newtype lore is only acceptable by metaphysical terms, they spend half the time explaining this reality so it becomes acceptable by us, the viewers. This takes away the focus on the story and creates a gap that is filled by something we don`t actually care about and never cared until now. So far, the Newtype lore was acceptable like "Ok, we don't need to understand more because is metaphysical, now give me more politics and war". Now is "Ok, get this, Newtypes are the core of the UC and we will revolve around them". Thus, the story lost me in this aspect because it wasted so much time trying to convince me of the Newtype reality instead of just delivering me a story. But it is well done in its psychedelic reality. If this was a series I think it would be 10.000x better because this Newtype focus would be diluted and not invasive as it was. Also, there are way too many flashbacks and that's pissed me off, particularly.

Art & Sound: It is the latest Gundam, so... HD, good sound, solid OST, nothing to complain. I am, though, not a big fan of the kind of rock they put in there, its a sort of pop-rock. I rather have some epic orchestra ou harmonics. But hey, it is not bad.

Characters: I feel that the characters are well done and would be marvelous if this was a series. They clearly have depth, emotions, motivations, and an intricate relationship with each other, but that got rushed and butchered because of the nature of NT (a movie, not a series). Hence, you have no time to explore these characters. I don't have much to say here except that they are good, but they didn't have the time to explore them. I, once again, blame the directors. The writers did their job, but the directors' choices butchered their potential. And surprise... no character is annoying. Victory!

Mechas: Hohoho. Saying the mechas look amazing is not enough. Phenex, the major Gundam of NT is f****** amazing! Narrative is also magnificent and the others look all awesome. Phenex, of course, is similar to Unicorn and Banshee, but Narrative looks like an RX-78 Mark II fused with Unicorn. I liked to the point I want to build their gunplas now.

Overall, this is a decent film, a solid addition to the UC. However, the metaphysical focus of the story created a major problem in therm of the script which diminish your enjoyment of the story. The constant use of flashbacks also affect the pace and that's why this should have to be a series instead of a movie. All the elements for a potential "best UC story so far" are there, but they did not play their cards right. I blame the directors for all these weird choices and Bandai for making this a movie instead of a series.

(TLDR at the bottom, thanks for reading.)

This review is going to be split up into two parts, part 1 will be a very opinionated take from a gundam fan and how this entry affects the overall canon and the second part will be a less opinionated, more standard review of the film.

Part 1 - Gundam:

Harutoshi Fukui seems to of had 3 specific goals when making gundam NT. The first one was "how can I make sense of all the newtype bullshit in gundam?", "How can I make a thematic end to UC?" and, "Why is there no psycho-frame in F91?" Fukui tried to make sense ... of what a newtype is by retconning everything we previously knew about new types by giving his own definition. But to understand what the issue with this is we will need to understand what a newtype is and what's so wrong with NT's version.
Newtypes have never been easy to explain but if I had to sum it up in two word's it would be "wordless understanding", one of the major themes of gundam is understanding. If all humans could understand what everyone felt then we wouldn't have these petty conflicts beyond ourselves, if humans could understand each other they could stop fighting and build a better world for each other, and not trying to make it worse. This is the direction char's counterattack went and it works as a perfect conclusion for that as it sums up all of gundam's thematic ideas as well and laying to rest the story of the characters. Then there is gundam NT which tries to change it so newtypes are "humans who can reach into another dimension where the souls of the dead exist and that they can manipulate this dimension to do all kinds of things, including time travel". Does this answer some of the newtype bullshit present in other series? It can but at that point, you are bending over backwards to provide an answer for gundam because it is not giving you one. Does this completely damage any of the previous thematic aspects of gundam? Absolutely, if new types are more akin to Jedi's or sorcerous then some of the pivotal moments of the series lose all their impact. Because if newtypes have these godlike powers then it loses all weight when they can achieve something because it is no longer something they achieved through their actions but something that was achieved through the superpowers that they magically got. Because of this retconned new type meaning it now means that psycho-frames essentially allows humans to have the power of God so an alternate dimension has to send the time-travelling. self-piloting Phenix to stop it.

You can dislike an anime because of what it does (or doesn't) achieve in its runtime but anime that retroactively make other series worse are on a whole different level of bad.

Part 2 - Gundam NT:

Story:

Even ignoring the ramifications that NT has on the overall gundam canon it is still a bad movie. Its characters are flat and unappealing, its plot is poorly explained, even what plot is understandable is bland and reused from other gundam series and at the end of it, it is just a gundam style retelling of the myth of Icarus, even though that the myth of Icarus is used in multiple pieces of fiction and has lost most of its impact. And a forced return of Banarger links makes it clear what the point of this film is, to be fanservice for unicorn fans.

Audiovisuals:

This is the one thing the film succeeds in, while some of the character designs are a bit ridiculous (Zoltan) on average the mecha and character designs are fine, and so are the visuals and sound. The only issue is because of the lack of emotional investment stemming from the paper-thin protagonists the fights can only serve as eye candy.
At least the film is only 90 minutes long

TLDR: For people who like the magical aspect of gundam you might enjoy gundam NT but for anyone else you probably won't enjoy this film. Just don't take its plot ramifications too seriously.

First off, if you haven’t watched the original Gundam, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and Gundam Unicorn, not a single second of Gundam NT would make any sense. Whether bc of lore, locations, power scaling, characters, or the geopolitical situation, this is not an entry level Gundam. On one hand that’s good because it can get right into the good stuff, but on the other hand, it’s a damn shame bc this was an excellent Gundam movie, and not as many people can enjoy it.

The fights were beautiful, flashy, and made sense based on power levels (looking at you original Gundam). Of the Gundams I’ve ... watched, this one has the most dialogue during battles, which I’m not sure how I feel about but it definitely wasn’t disruptive enough to be a strong negative.

The story was great and told really well. It used flashbacks to the MCs’ childhoods a lot but they did it in a way that was both interesting and non-repetitive and mostly non-disruptive. My biggest complaint would be that the antagonist was a “Big Bad Guy” something that really no Gundam (that I’ve watched) had done. Big Bad Guys aren’t nearly as interesting because the second you see them you automatically think “oh this guy is evil.” You don’t get the chance to hear them out first - if they even have anything to say. Sgt Zoltan, the Big Bad Guy, actually did have a real motivation which was revealed in the last few scenes but even that was only inserted at the end when you already had an unchangeable opinion of him (the motivation sucked anyway which is also a negative). There were some points that the philosophy was a little heavy-handed and some points where it fit to a T.

Story: 7.5/10
Art: 10/10
Sound: 9/10
Character: 6/10 but mostly weighed down by Sgt Zoltan
Enjoyment: 9/10
Overall: 8/10

I'll get this out of the way: I hate this movie. I went out of my way to see it and still almost walked out to stand out in the cold outside rather than watch it to it's predictable mind numbing conclusion.

Positives first, the animation, art, and sound are all good, I am going to make this a backhanded compliment by saying that with this budget and time they really don't have an excuse not to be but there you go. If you want don't want your eyes to bleed than this is for you. And while the sound ... quality won't make your ears bleed, the sounds themselves and the words they form might do that instead.

Okay now to dump on the rest of this. First of all the poster Gundam isn't the titular Gundam Narrative, but the Unicorn 3. Yes somehow there was a 3rd one made that was also all gold, for some reason. Part of me liked the first Unicorn's design because it looked like an actual unfinished prototype, that wasn't dressed up for anything other than field testing. The Banshee I was kind of willing to overlook as the finished model but the Phenex (yes that is what they call it because subtlety doesn't exist in Gundam anymore) I don't get what they were thinking with that one. You may be saying "Why is this a problem? It is the main focus of the film as the McGuffin everyone wants." Well it doesn't do anything but fly around for most of the movie, powered by what I can only assume is New Type magic another irritating holdover that doesn't seem to want to go away. The Phenex seems less valuable than the other two Unicorns, it just happens to be possessed by a really powerful 23 year old force ghost. And the problem is that while the ghost just wants to 'fly' because symbolism, at some point you think "Okay but maybe do something about the people chasing you besides flying away?" Oh and the Phenex went wild a year before Unicorn happened and yet it wasn't important to be noteworthy until a year after the whole Laplace thing happened, so figure that one out UC historians.

The conflict is completely contrived, the Zeon only really want it because of corrupt politician man, and they only come into conflict because they let an actual barely functioning psychopath lead the operation. The Federation wants it so they can file an insurance claim I guess, or maybe the Vists filed a theft report after they and the Titans got it possessed by a force ghost. Our protagonist wants to find it so he can find his old friend that piloted it. Now if you haven't seen any promotional material or trailers you probably wouldn't have guessed that the pilot was dead, even though I spoiled it twice already, but from the outset it is incredibly obvious that is what happened, which is a theme throughout the entire movie. It would honestly be more shocking to me that someone didn't see where this was all going than what was actually in the movie. And the ending tries to play itself as bittersweet but the emphasis is entirely on bitter with no sweet within the context of the climax.

The characters are devoid of personality, except I suppose the crazy person, who still comes off as generic crazy. The main character is a charisma void, something that the other characters and his love interests are willing to overlook because the script needs them to grow attached to him thus making him the main character. These characters might have worked in a medium length series that gave them time to get fleshed out, but as is they are just devices to get us to the terrible ending. And we are introduced to another super New type who makes Char, Amuro and Lala combined look like jokes. And she is just so pure, which means that awful things keep happening to her because this movie is bold and totally unique. Luckily the characters are likely totally self contained to this dumpster fire, meaning that the attempt to rehabilitate Hathaway into a likable character won't be tainted by NT's terrible cast leaving Hathaway's Flash to combust on its own.

I said the art was good but the choreography for the action is bland and forgettable, I remember the staging for the action scenes because they were interesting but what was happening was completely uninteresting.

Ultimately my rating may seem hyperbolic, and maybe it is, but that is how I feel. After watching all this Gundam I expect more from the franchise now and it really keeps letting me down and this was the biggest let down yet. I'm tired of watching different series paying 'homage' to each other by ripping each other off. I'm tired of New Types having access to the force. Why even watch anything from the franchise when it has become so predictable? No I didn't enjoy this movie at all, it made me question why I like Gundam to begin with, leave me alone. Dammit.

I went in into Narrative expecting a dumpster fire of a movie that tried to piggyback itself into the heart of the viewers by referencing older Gundam works, want to guess what i got? Yeah, it couldn't even do that, it couldn't even made me go "Oh! look, that's something that Kamille did in Zeta!, or look! i know that! that's like the ZZ's High Mega Cannon!"

STORY

But, let's start from the beginning, aka, the story, this part of the review contains spoilers for the entire movie, and its gonna be long, very long, but the thing is so bad i just HAVE to talk about ... it, also, i actually encourage you to read through it so that you can save yourself an hour and a half of time and fucking go watch De:vadasy or something.

The story is...so paper thin, that you could say its literally two-dimensional, half of the fucking story doesn't make any sense and has no explanation whats so ever, except for "Newtype Autism!".
I actually believe it was written by somebody who just glanced over the wikipedia page for the classic UC quadrilogy and thought "well, adding this and this would be neat, oh, of course my characters must shit all over Amuro, Kamille and Judau! who cares about them? Banagher? oh yes, yes, he is shit too compared to my characters!".

Starting in, if you watched 0079, you probably remember that the Feddies started taking Zeon seriously when they dropped a goddamn colony on Sydney and killed millions, but...what if, nobody was actually killed? why? cause of three random kids that randomly developed newtype powers and advised everyone to get the fuck out of there? yes, if you are asking, no, those kids never went to space, they just randomly got Newtype autism out of nowhere.

The story continues in UC.097, one year after the Laplace box incident, we find ourselves involved in a peculiar situation...a Gundam chase, so then, what Gundam are we chasing? is it the Unicorn? did the Nu return from Beyond the time? did Jesus Yamato open a portal to the UC timeline? is Gigantis (cough cough Ideon) out for blood? no, unfortunately, but well, what if i told you that there was another Gundam in the UC project, one even more powerful than both the Unicorn and the Banshee: The Phenex, a Gundam which went missing the day that the Laplace box was unsealed.

After a small fight scene, we are introduced to our main characters back to earth, Jona and Michele being two of three grown up kids that saved the Aussies back in the day.

Then, the movie tells us that after Laplace box, the Federation dismantled both the Unicorn and the Banshee cause they where too dangerous to be left functioning, and then, for some retarded ass reason, they created another Psycho-frame, NTR...D capable Gundam, called "Narrative", Jona, being the main character of the movie, is of course the pilot of it.

The second character of the trio, Michele, is introduced as a fortuneteller and is somewhat able to see the future using her Newtype abilities, she used this apparent power to make her company "Luio e Co" rise to be successfull and gain support from the federation.

After being introduced to them, we are immediately shot up in space, where we see the Narrative Gundam in action during a training session, and see that Jona is actually a pretty bad pilot all things considered, even tho he is supposedly Cyber-Enhanced, or at least the pilots he is training with believe so.

Oh wait, let's talk for a second about Cyber-Newtypes, or Enhanced humans as Japs like to call them, in particular, the ones that the Feddies made: rolling back our story a bit, after the trio of kids that saved Sydney, nicked, Miracle Kids where discovered, they where immediately sought after by the Titans, and where brought to one of the many institutes that enhanced people to create Newtypes.

The conditions where very harsh to our poor trio of protagonists, since the Titans discovered that only one of them was actually a decent newtype, and so where thinking about something that would cause the kids to reveal who is it between them, considering that they also had to deliver the NT to a company: Luio e Co.

Things weren't really the best for our protagonists too, especially cause Michele wanted Jona to throw his sausage into her hallway, but the latter would have much rather thrown in into the the third miracle kid: Rita, with Rita being the true Newtype of the trio.

The Titans come out with a plan, if they don't spill the beans about who the Newtype is, two of the kids are gonna end up dead in the end, Michele overhears them, and convinces Jona to reveal that Rita is the Newtype...and then things start making much less sense, with Michele being taken to Luio e Co instead of Rita? the latter being Cyber-Enhanced and Jona living on without modifications of any kind and getting kicked out once best girl Kamille lets the AEUG win the Gryps war.

Returning to 0097, our protagonists are able to track down the Phenex, and follow him...but they aren't alone, a band of Neo Zeon remnants is also tracking down the Phenex, with one of them being a failed Full Frontal that went crazy due to the modifications done to his body, piloting, a Sinanju stein that also uses a Psycho-frame, also, has another Neo Zeong prototype just lying around.

So, both sides enter a side 6 colony to follow the Phenex, but discover that the Psycho-frames where resonating and their respective detectors picked up eachother instead of the Gundam, so a fight starts, and the Narrative is losing pretty badly to our failed Full Frontal.

The Phenex intervenes and we discover that the pilot of it is none other than Rita, who lets us in on 30 minutes of flashbacks in which literally nothing happens, Jona gets angry cause he discovers the truth about why Michele made him spill the beans, and starts going Berserk, so much so that he drags the Neo Zeong prototype out of FFFs mothership and starts wrecking the poor colony killing tens of thousands at the very least.

Rita stops him using Newtype autism and reveals to him that she is actually dead, and that the only thing keeping her alive is the psycho-frame that keeps her soul anchored, and then...cut to another 10 minutes of flashbacks, Rita uses her omega-newtype retardation to go beyond the speed of light, and then back to some ship talking, that reveal the intentions of Michele:
And bear with me, this entire paragraph will be some of the most retarded shit in any Gundam media

Basically, she wants the Phenex's Psycho-frame so that she can use it to make everybody immortal by trapping their souls in machines...cause, that makes any fucking sense, oh, and apparently Newtypes are now some kind of higher dimensional entity and the Neo Zeong is also not from this dimension, why you may be asking? cause Char gave the plans of the Psycho-frame to fucking Full Frontal after his death with Newtype wanking, even tho technology similiar to it, like the Psycommu was in use since fucking 0080 at least, or, are you telling me that the Gundam Alex is a not from this dimension? or that some random Newtype ghost came in and gave the plans to the feddies or something?.

I swear, when i first read this, i thought i had the wrong subs or something, checking in...no...seems like i this is it...

Anyway, this leads to the final fight against FFFs Sinanju/Neo Zeong, it goes down as expected:
The Narrative and the Neo Zeong fight, then Phenex shows up, and the Neo Zeong pulls up his trick card, FFF intends to pull up Gundam Villains favourite weapons: Gas, and make it explode so that it destroys an entire colony side, the debris would then fall to earth and...you know where this is going, freeze the earth and yada yada...

Long story short, the Neo Zeong uses ultra autism to win, but then Michele sacrifices herself and lets the Narrative go all sparkly and Jona to have his anime moment, culminating in him getting into the Phenex and kicking FFFs ass, and using the Phenex retardation powers to stop the gas from exploding.

In the end, before he goes beyond the time, he gets saved by our favourite Banana making a cameo, and the movie ends here, even toh both Rita and Michele are now dead lol.

So...let us make a Tl;dr out of all of this
"MY CHARACTERS ARE THE BEST THING EVER! AND NEWTYPES ROCKKK!!!!"

That's this movie summed up, all of it, from Rita going at the speed of light using Newtype autism to the entire Phenex thing, to a trio of kids retconning the start of the OYW out of existence, there is nothing, in this story, that you can find likable, at least as long as you have watched at least 10 decent anime and aren't a complete newfag to the genre

ART

I am gonna be rather short, the art is good and the animation is solid, this being a Sunrise anime after all, but i still don't like the CGI mixed in with 2d art

SOUND

Instead of Unicorn's orchestral soundtrack, in Narrative, there's a generic J-pop mix, along with some other modern genres, for what there is in there, its even mediocre in of itself

CHARACTERS

Jona "Rita have my children" Basta

Michele "Jona why won't you give me your children" Luio

Rita "I have the biggest Newtype dick of them all" Bernal

Zoltan "I am another Char clone but i look like a punk now" Akkanen

ENJOYMENT

If i was a masochist, i think i would have had the biggest boner of my life, but, i am not, therefore, i found no enjoyment in Narrative, and if you aren't new to Gundam, neither will you, so, don't watch it and forget it ever existed, there is nothing redeaming about this, while Unicorn had a ton of problems, at least it had a solid base that you could work on and find some positive aspects, and Miss Marida of course, which was my light in the dark while i was watching it.

But Narrative? Narrative had nothing going for it, the story was vomit inducing and a collection of tropes, the art was just okay (which is not enough for a fucking Sunrise film, a company which held the top spot in animation by 1987 when CCA was released), the music was bland as fuck pop , and our protagonists where some of the worst and most stereotyped characters to ever come out of any anime.

If works like G Gundam, After War X or 00 make me believe that other authors are actually able to approach the Gundam franchise in a decent manner without help from Tomino, and create fun stories that are absolutely worth sitting in 50 episodes, and that make you feel pure emotions of Joy and Sadness, then works like Narrative make me believe that Tomino should just prohibit anyone else from writing Gundam and secure the copyright for it forever

After seeing Dragon Ball Super: Broly on the big screens (and the last couple of DB movies) I really wanted Sunrise to put out a good Gundam movie. I paid to see this in the theaters with my brother, who is a bigger Gundam fan than me. Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed. This movie proves that Sunrise has no respect for their franchise and that the Japanese Gundam fanboys will literally just accept anything because of their love for robots punching face. I don't like Gundam Unicorn because it's just a bad rehash of Universal Century with new animation, but with far worse characters. I'm ... not in love with the Gundam franchise either, I don't care for Zeta, but I do like 0079, Wing, G, and IBO. This movie ended up being one full priced ticket just to see a TEASER of Hathaway's Flash. Such blatant disrespect.

Gundam NT just sucks, regardless of whether you've seen every Gundam series or not. The story was paper thin, which is infuriating for a movie called NARRATIVE. The characters are just as thin as the story (and I swear if I hear "I want to fly away like a bird!" one more time, I will lose it). This movie is cliche anime super robot nonsense, and not in a good way either (this is no Gurren Lagann). Ironically, the most interesting character is the character that is the most poorly developed, Zoltan, who is a failed Char clone. But they don't really explore that idea, he just fights and predictably gets defeated. It also wasn't lost on me that they expanded the powers of Newtypes, now they can time travel (because reasons). The story revolves around three children who see a vision of the coming colony collapse, but halfway through the film this plot is dropped in favor of the action. If you like this movie, you have incredibly low standards for mecha anime. Even if you have low standards, don't watch this.

This movie is simply awful. If you're an older fan like me, your tolerance for poor storytelling becomes lower and lower. Nothing about this felt like a Gundam property - the returning cameos from Unicorn are barely seen and look awful without YAS's guiding hand - Mineva Zabi looks okay, but mostly because she stays seated in a chair and doesn't turn her head or change expressions. The rest of the characters look like turn of the century central casting - the female lead looks like low-budget Faye Valentine, the flashbacks to the kids ... look like Elfen Lied. And everything has a bad fit and finish to it - even the promotional stills for this have a grainy, digipaint quality to them - nothing like the high polish of Unicorn. Oh yeah - and did I mention that there's this time travelling golden 3rd Gundam that looks like a throwaway concept from Zoids? Everything about this is a weird revival of the worst tropes of late 90s/early 2000s anime - fisheyed cockpit views of maniacal unglued evil guy while he cackles being the thing I keyed in on. Anyway, this was just a giant disappointment and in the Fathom Events showing I was at, there were people from 5 to 70 watching and NONE of them seemed to be very enthused by the time the credits rolled.

I'm writing a review since I couldn't stand the fact that this got rated in the same ballpark as Gundam Build Divers, which is an atrocity.

Most people are comparing NT to Unicorn, which in context took 4 years to develop and spanned 7 episodes. I don't think people should be biased coming into this, since as a stand-alone it definitely doesn't deserve to be rated under 7 (for context Yugioh ArcV is at 6.88).

Gundam has been pretty disappointing when it comes to fights recently. But I disagree with the shits who prefer fights from spinoffs like Gundam Build Fighters to Thunderbolt or NT, Thunderbolt ... and NT's stories may be substanceless but undeniably the art and soundtrack make them much cooler (and the whole point of watching gundam is robot freud manly coolness). The fight from the trailer between NT and Phenex was badass and more hype than some of the Unicorn fight scenes. The final boss fight and ending is kind of meh, but it's passing, a 7/10. The art definitely carries, and I don't think the soundtrack is bad - people hating on the genre probably shouldn't be allowed to rate it, it would be like telling someone who doesn't drink to rate a chardonnay.

The MC is kind of a pancake but given the amount of content they wanted to cram and the story direction it's kind of hard to do any meaningful character development. I've seen worse for less satisfaction. A lot of this is really based on how cool the suits looked, the battles, and the consistency.

On my first viewing of this movie, I thought it was alright. After I fully watched and completed all of the UC timeline, I realized this movie has a lot in such a small package. It's a great culmination of everything that has happened in the UC timeline so far, we get some really nice fanservice, and we also get some great story with it. So I would definitely recommend watching the UC timeline up to Unicorn before watching this, or else you'll just be watching great animation and great music but nothing else. The characters are really awesome, and as always, Sawano kills it ... with the music, even remixing some of his tracks from Unicorn. Back on my first watch I thought some of the scenes were kinda "Ok this doesn't make sense." but then I rewatched CCA, Unicorn and Zeta, and it actually does make a lot of sense that they're like this. Narrative adds a lot to the UC timeline and gives some new perspectives on events that we've already experienced in the timeline so far, and I would say it's a must watch for anyone who wants to enjoy the UC timeline to the max. Seriously give this movie a try if you're a UC fan.

To be fair, Newtypes have been strange since the beginning. After Unicorn, NT follows and expands dramatically on the Newtype. On the other hand, there's much too much focus on Newtypes that it drowned all the other parts of the story. This film feels weak, though it starts to develop in an interesting way with the ever evolving Newtypes, and mankind's new mission to become immortal among some of the characters. Hardly any of the new characters are likeable. Jona is the only decent one though an hour and a half movie and the weak story didn't do enough for his character.

He's friends with Rita, ... a Newtype who really wants to be a bird. The more she said that, the funnier it got. They debate whether or not there is a heaven or hell, or reincarnation. Rita, however, is devoid of any real character, or a face for half the film. She spends the movie flying around saying the same things and talking like a child. I don't blame her since she was sliced up and experimented into oblivion. Michele is the third friend of the group, and has a plan the rest don't necessarily agree with. Compared to the other two, her interest lies with immortality and her interest in how Newtypes can still live on and communicate after death. At least, one thing this film does is show what happens to Newtypes and how harsh the experimentation is on them to the point one child busts her head open on thick glass from being so unstable.

Zoltan is by far the worst part of the film. He annoyed me more than Katz. He's a Char reject that failed to become the new Frontal. As a result, he has this extremely annoying over the edge personality and horrible facial expressions. He is a bastardized version of Char without intelligence. Even so, he's so comical I couldn't take him seriously. I can't take several parts of this film seriously, in fact. There's the Dragon Ball tier detections the characters get, and I laughed at "It psycommu-jacked it!" The Newtype powers are even more out of control this time, and along with Rita and Jona's meaningless like bond, it felt like the climax of a kids film. Jona isn't even that good of a pilot, he just happens to have the ridiculous powers of the glittery rainbow. Then there's the poster for this that looks just awful. Mineva doesn't do much besides sitting in the dark which is a waste of her character after her build up in Unicorn.

I can't be too harsh at least. The best parts of this definitely were the original Gundam, Zeta, and ZZ flashbacks. Unicorn characters do return, though the poor production values made many look unrecognizable or bland. Some of the new minor characters are drawn so odd they feel out of place.

With this film I was fighting with the pause button for better things to spend my time on. The production values dropped so much on this film that it feels depressing. It could have tried to be better as a theatrical release, and yet the downgrade is so painfully obvious. Besides the "attempt" at expanding the Newtype lore and making their powers even more ridiculous than they already were, Sawano returns with another decent score to redeem whatever this was supposed to be. A shame that the arrow of the original timeline entries has started to dip with this for me. At the very least, the film felt more enjoyable towards the end.

I don't like to give spoilers in my reviews, but this movie is so garbage that I have to make an exception. Spoiler warning ahead, I guess, in case you're really determined to go into this sorry excuse for a film blind.

Narrative centers around 3 "miracle children" (never mentioned before), who have been trapped in a cyber-newtype lab for a large portion of their lives, presumably during the Gryps conflict. Only one of them, apparently, was an actual newtype, and the other two only have powers due to some vestiges of proximity to her. Years in the future, the two escaped non-newtype kids are Federation ... soldiers. A year has passed since the events of Unicorn, but tech has once again progressed at an absurdly unrealistic speed, and the Unicorn is no longer called by its name, instead referred to as "singularity one." But woah, in addition to the two "Unicorn brothers" the Unicorn and Banshee, there was a secret third one, the Phenex!!! It was covered up by the government, but now it's being piloted by the soul of the third miracle child, and needs to be hunted down. The two other miracle children are deployed to find it.

The Axis Shock, Newtype resonance, whatever you want to call it - it's the final culmination of 150 episodes and a movie, a series that had gone on for almost a decade by that point. It's the combined wills of all of humanity, born of their squabbles and flaws, but representative of the hope that humans can be better than what they are and have been. In Narrative, it's a handy-dandy shonen deus ex machina power-up that happens whenever someone tries hard enough, or a weapon that psycho-frame machines can shoot from their hands at will.

Narrative is an adaptation of the 11th Gundam Unicorn novel (11?? God, why), but it's very clearly just rehashing Unicorn's own nonsense, just as Unicorn brought back soulless cameo after cameo to hold viewer attention. Narrative takes all the flaws of Unicorn and cranks them up to the highest possible degree. Full Frontal had great potential, which Unicorn fully squandered, but Narrative's villain is entirely without a personality, and every scene he's in is a slog. He even pilots the II Neo Zeong, which is, as the name suggests, nothing but another Neo Zeong. I've been struggling to write this review in the week since I watched the movie, because even directly after finishing it, every plot point left my mind. Even skimming through the movie again, nothing stands out.

This is the absolute bottom of the barrel for mecha. This is the type of mediocre, fake deep, shiny object super robot mecha that you can find anywhere. I've never a true super robot show, but I have no bias against the genre - I have a bunch of super robot manga and shows I'm excited to watch in the future. Super robot is fine, but for UC it's not. Gundam is a series with some of the most realistic characters I've ever seen in writing, but in Narrative, the characters are cartoon characters. Narrative is filled with things like that, which would be ignored as part of a standalone or a series where they were the norm, but this is UC Gundam, and for this movie to exist is a disgrace to the timeline. This is soulless, meaningless, worthless garbage.

In reality I think it's probably a 4/10, but I'm taking another point off of it because I hate it. The issues with this movie are so numerous that they overloaded my mind and made me unable to remember them all, leaving me only with a lingering memory of pure hatred towards this movie. I tried to look for the best in Unicorn, and it was legitimately really enjoyable at some points. I went into this movie with an open mind, but it was a miserable watch, and just watching this lowered my tolerance towards Unicorn as well. Thankfully, I'm going chronologically, so I've got Hathaway and Victory Gundam next. Save me Tomino... save me...

But all is not lost!
The relatively new manga Gundam Pulitzer, which - in addition to its poignant premise of a college-age Kikka Kobayashi researching the life story of Amuro - also seems to be taking on the herculean task of making Narrative make sense, through a slow-moving B-plot of Luio & Co's Stephanie Luio supporting Kikka's quest in an ulterior bid to get their hands on Psycho-frame research. It takes place in 0095, but Michele Luio's adoption has been mentioned in passing, and Bosch Weller (apparently from f91) has also made an appearance in the most recent chapters. It's flawed but promising, and has shown a proficient understanding of UC's characters and themes. I went into it knowing only the premise, and it would have been strong on that alone, but for it to attempt the inhumane duty of cleaning up Narrative's mess is more than admirable. The plot is still in its early stages, but if it delivers it could well become required reading pre-Unicorn. Sometimes it's little manga like this that do the heavy lifting, so I'd recommend anyone at this point of the series to give it a read.

This was probably the kind of sequel that Unicorn deserves. Personally, I actually enjoyed this more than Unicorn, but that's because enduring Unicorn is like watching paint dry, paint that retcons several important story elements of the universe with an incredbly silly central conflict. NT strives to improve on the formula by not having a central conflict instead.

Much like my review, this film is a mess. By the virture of it being mercifully shorter than Unicorn, I enjoy it a bit more. It still suffers from nearly every problem that it's predecessor does. Lame characters, thin narrative, and too much super robot nonsense. I know ... the franchise isn't afraid to dip into the supernatural once in a while, but NT officially jumps the shark into science-fantasy territory, as the powers of newtypes are expanded once again to include time travel. Nearly every battle in NT is resolved by people shooting mind lasers at each other. The conflict in this film is absolutely impossible to care about as a result.

The "story" of this movie is as follows, three children are credited with saving a town after they have a vision of the incoming colony drop that begins the war in UC 0079. Decades later, a mysterious golden gundam is inflicting havoc on zeon and federation ships. In search of the secrets behind the psycho-frame system, both the federation, zeon and private companies begin moving to capture it for themselves. The three children find themselves interwoven with this mysterious machine, as it links to their past together.

About halfway through the film, this plot is thrown out of the window. Eventually, everybody has a big fight and the film kind of ends without an actual conclusion.

The main antagonist is a generic crazy man who looks like he walked out of a Tokyo Ghoul cosplay event. He's also yet another attempt to clone char, becuase NT is a distilled parody of everything people hate about modern UC. For some reason he completely derails the plot near the end and takes over the entire movie. He sucks. He really sucks.

The protagonist is a strong contender with Seabook for blandest Gundam protag in history. He has no personality, barely has any scenes to himself, and generally just goes along with whatever people tell him to do. I won't hold it against the film that he's not the main focus, becuase there is something that resembles an attempt to make an ensamble cast here, it just fails at it. Most of the characters aren't on screen long enough to leave much of an impact.

The writing in this movie is completely wretched. From the moment that the film makes it's first bird allegory you know you're in for a bad time. Discussions about god, heaven, and how being a bird isn't possible for a human being follow. If this sounds like something that would make you want to bash your own head in, please heed my advice and avoid watching this. The film also likes going through the same flashback over and over again, which feels like padding.

This film is not good. I really hope that somebody puts this poor, abused timeline out of it's misery before any more of these get made.

This special, yet semi-short "Gundam" anime in particular showed a lot things that were in the original mobile suit gundam unicorn series. I just wanted to clarify that the information was accurate, well I want to say is that this event indeed happen during a time when the three main characters where just innocent children caught up in a terrible situation. They did the best hey could to survive, all of them. The fact they made this type go gundam to catch another? proves that both the feddis and neo zeon were both indeed desperate people, bought fighting, but fighting on opposite sides of ... one another.