| @23feanor @inim @whiteflame55 @filifjonkan @RandomFriday @Antalk @jdvz @JokerVentura @KainiusTheGreat @ruckes @kekekeKaj @OrlahEhontas @cipheron @botnetMAL New thread for Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam starting Monday 18th September. Helpfully the sub and dub are available on Crunchyroll.  |
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| I am ready! |
 Active Military, Prior Service and Veteran's Anime Club do not forget the sound of my voice until the day we reunite |
| It's going to be interesting to see how much this series differs from the prequel first season (MSG 0079), made 6 years earlier, which had its moments but I found pretty dull. Having now watched Origin, I hoping that knowing something about the characters backgrounds will add something to my watching experience, mainly for Amuro, Char, Sayla and Mirai. Episode 1. Right off the bat you can tell the animation had improved in leaps and bounds since S1. Like the character designs and background details and the jazzy feel to the OST. We meet one of MC's, Kamille, strange name for a guy, but seems he doesn't like his name much either. Kamille skips gym class (martial arts to travel to the space port) and on his journey feels a presence, so maybe he's a newtype? A craft passing by senses Kamille and wonders whether it's Amuro or Lalah Sune (who died). One detail I admired about gundam is those handrails that move people about the ship, such a practical addition, but invaluable in 0G I'm guessing. Kamille wants to see Noa Bright land an incoming ship, so we know Noa is returning. I had no idea he was supposed to be 19 y/o in the original series, I thought he was middle-aged. We meet the Titans, a Federation force created to hunt out Zeon pockets of resistance, guessing this is after the events of Stardust. The Titans base is the colony known as Green Noa. One of the Titans insults Kamille calling his name girly and Kamille reacts. We watch someone break into Green Noa on recon on a new black mobile suit, was it Char doing the recon, if so his char design has changed a bit. Kamille gets a grilling from a military policeman and we get some exposition about the new anti-earth union (AEUG), who are the main targets for the Titans. The black mobile suit crashes into a building inside the colony causing havoc and casualties but the pilot (blond guy who insulted Kamille earlier) doesn't seem to care. We end with the AEUG firing a canon into the side of the colony and Kamille fleeing in the chaos. |
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| Episode 1 Having come off of a binge of all the Gundam series in the timeline up to this point, I'm intrigued to see how this will shake out. As @23feanor said, I think there's a lot to like about the appearance of the show. Aesthetically, it's off to a good start, and while Kamille has a bit of spoiled child syndrome and is obviously quick to anger, he does seem like a capable MC. It seems likely he's a newtype based on the way he's been perceiving things that aren't clear to others. He does seem to be directed by something that may be associated with it, driving him to take certain actions that he otherwise might not (not sure what the plan is or how it will play out now that the jeep he was driving is speeding down that road without him). There is certainly at least one other newtype who references Amuro and Lalah, but we haven't seen who it is yet - maybe this is Char? Wouldn't be surprised if Lalah still has some sort of spiritual presence in this series. Seems like many of the characters will be making a return, even if Bright is the only one we've seen for sure so far. The Titans don't come off as very threatening so far. I'd like to see them in action, but the remnants of Zeon we've seen so far aren't particularly nervous of them and, based on the limited use of the Gundams we've seen so far, they're nothing to write home about yet. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see how the intruder could so easily avoid being hit by the Gundam targeting him - he's right that they weren't built to fight something so small. I looked it up and this character is Quattro Bajeena, wouldn't be surprised if that was a pseudonym that Char was going under. Notably, he's not bloodthirsty like many of the Zeons we've been seeing after the war, only tying up a couple of Federation workers he could have killed. Off to an intriguing start. |
whiteflame55Sep 18, 2023 9:57 AM
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| Hi all, looking forward to this but am already on episode 41 so mainly look forward to reading your reviews but the discussions may tempt me to re-watch some episodes and contribute as well. |
| All right! It's the reunion of the original Gundam watching posse! Had to join in even though I'm part way through watching Ashita no Joe 2 (thoroughly recommend this, by the way)! Speaking of Ashita no Joe 2, the visuals are unbelievably good - if it wasn't for the hand drawn animation and the character designs, you wouldn't be able to tell how old it is! Zeta Gundam was made half a decade later but it's not even close to the same league! I don't know if it's because of me watching Zeta off the back of Ashita no Joe 2, but the visuals really disappointed me in episode 1 - in particular I was irritated by some of the choppy animation. To be honest I wasn't even sure it looked better than the original Gundam, but perhaps that's just me forgetting how the original looked since everyone else is saying this looks way better. The first thing I noted was that the opening theme on crunchy roll does not have vocals even though lyrics are displayed along the bottom of the screen! Not sure what's going on, but it looks like they've changed the OP? Anyway, I've recently discovered this site anix.to (which may or may not be legitimate ... probably not) that I'm using to watch Ashita no Joe 2, and that has Zeta with a completely different sounding OP that actually matches the lyrics on screen, if anyone wants (what I assume to be) the original experience. Honestly, the crunchy roll version is a vastly superior OP, but I'm a purist so I'm all for the original experience! While the original OP isn't bad per se, the same cannot be said for the BGMs in this open episode. I noticed a combination of distractingly bland elevator music and distractingly overbearing dramatic music. The production just doesn't seem very good on this show so far. Story wise we have what appears to be a new protagonist Kamille, who, in addition to having a girl's name, also seems to be a new type. God, this guy ticks me off - he's like an epic level hot headed idiot who's gets into so many physical scuffles that it's a wonder he has survived to this age. First he gets bitch slapped by his karate sensei while rushing out of school (the reason for this escapes me), then he decides to falcon punch some military guy for an insignificant slight, and then, just as he's about to be let off with a slap on the wrist, he goes and assaults ANOTHER military brass. As though this isn't enough, he then just impulsively steals a military vehicle! What the fuck?! At least Char brings some degree of gravitas to proceedings when he turns up in a typically flashy red mecha. I found the first episode a bit chaotic - not only did I not understand the motivation behind a single thing that Kamille was doing, but I didn't know who these Titans and AEUG organisations are either (did I miss an explanation somewhere?) I kinda missed the narrated premise of the original, as much as it outstayed its welcome. Can't really accuse Gundam of slow starts, but so far it's all grand flourishes that completely failed to engage my interest. Disappointing. |
kekekeKajSep 18, 2023 2:36 PM
| Take off every SIG!! |
| I got a jump on watching Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam last night (Sunday). The Browns are playing the Steelers in Monday Night Football and my loyalties will lie elsewhere. One of the things I like about the Gundam franchise, the producers go out of their way to try and show realistic movement in zero-G environment and new concepts of how humans could live in outer space. The first thing I noted was that the opening theme on crunchy roll does not have vocals even though lyrics are displayed along the bottom of the screen! Awhile back I dl this series off of bakabt and it does have the opening theme. The explanations of the Titans and AEUG are not like a little arc amid the episode, but are blended into conversations different characters are having and easy to miss. |
| Active Military, Prior Service and Veteran's Anime Club do not forget the sound of my voice until the day we reunite |
| Episode 1 The MC is a rather grumpy teen boy named SueKamille, living in one of the space stations. He skips school to meet Noah Bright, the famous captain of the White Base, and ask for an autograph. A black haired, long legged girl of his age is with him, and they act like an old couple. Love interest in the making, I guess, in particular because she's featured in the ED. In parallel, a commando unit let by Lieutenant Quattro infiltrates a military facility. It's not much of a spoiler that he's Char Aznable, his love of red suits is a very strong hint. He spies around and discovers a powerful black Gundam prototype, and escapes again. In the cliffhanger it seems he greenlights an attack by a large space ship on the target he just had examined. The third group we are introduced to are a bunch of military police, the Titans. They are strong, arrogant, and look a lot like stereotypical ᛋᛋ troops. Kamille picks a fight with them, but he can't win it of course and is arrested. The following interrogation is used to drop some exposition, such as Kamille being a top tier hobby pilot. Kamille keeps resisting the titan military police, and "provokes" one to the point of being beaten up in handcuffs. At that moment, a Gundam who chased Char crashes into a building, causing chaos and injured people. Kamille uses the opportunity to steal a Jeep and escape. Because, why exactly? Ultimate teen rebel, but without a cause so far. Overall, the show jumps right into medias res, without exposition or introduction and at a high pacing. Plenty of action scenes for a first episode, they don't waste time to hook their fandom. The MC unfortunately is at the typical angry and short fused Gundam protagonist at an age of 16, it can't be avoided. The good news is that everybody else is in their mid 20s or up. The animation is certainly better than the first Gundam, but only average by late 80s standards. It has a reduced color set and simple background painting. Coloring was labour extensive back then, so that is clearly where they cut cost. The animation itself is fluid, no complaints there. |
inimSep 18, 2023 4:57 PM
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| @Antalk watching the Browns vs Steelers highlights on youtube right now, have seen all the highlights from week 1 and most of week 2 and at this early stage think the 49er's have had the best start and look tough, will Purdy and McAffery stay in form until the playoffs though, we'll have to see. The first ep was a bit chaotic and I only know the Titans are from the Federation because it stated so in the mal synopsis, we haven't been told that yet. We did get some exposition from the military policeman who was talking to Kamille about the AEUG (Anti-Earth Union Group), which seems likely made up of former Zeon members plus people unhappy with the rough treatment of citizens by the Titans. I guessed that the pilot, Quattro, was Char, but only knew for certain after reading the mal synopsis, where it states this is his new pseudonym. That said, Char muses whether the perception he senses from Kamille is from Amuro or Lalah, but we know Lalah is dead, and I thought Char did too, she was blown up in front of him iirc, so maybe a continuity error? Kamille's action so far seem haphazard and he has no goal, but assuming this is all necessary to get the plot moving. The scene that really showed how much of a glow up the animation in Zeta has over the original is one of the opening scenes where we see a mobile suit launching from a space ship, looked pretty smooth, not Macross levels smooth, but certainly better than the original. @inim I also noticed the slightly underwhelming colour palette that matches the original prequel series and interesting to learn why. @kekekeKaj I often listen to chillwave/synthwave/retrowave 80's music in the background and some of them are titled 'elevator BGM', so I like it, but that's just me, although some of it is pretty bland to be fair. I tend to like the 80's electro pop sounding ones. Episode 2. The reason I questioned whether Quattro was Char as he's not wearing his trademark glasses, just now noticed that. We also get a recap of his comment from the previous ep "I can hear breathing, is it Amuro or Lalah", which doesn't make sense as Lalah died in front of him (I checked). We hear the Titans are an elite force from Earth and the blonde guy is called Jared and seems like a jerk with little regard for others. Noa Bright makes an appearance, Commander Bright now, and tells Jared to be on alert. Char and some others infiltrate the colony looking to capture the new black mobile suit (mark 2). The colony commanders realise this is AEUG and that they're probably after the black mobile suit and that the famous 'red comet' looks to be amongst them. Major flashbacks to the beginning of the original series with Kamille jumping into the black mobile suit and starting it up and moving off. Bright evens thinks 'he's just like Amuro, a natural MS pilot'. Seems like Kamille's sole purpose is to get revenge against the military policeman, man, talk about childish. The Titan commander punches Bright and rants about how they operate by different rules and doon't need to concern themselves with spacenoids (people who were born in space rather than on earth). So yeah a lot of this episode was setting up the Titans and their officers as the bad guys and making us root for Kamille, Char and AEUG. Looks like the Titans are using Zeon Zaku mobile suits in their fight with AEUG once they exit the colony. The space background at the end of the episode looked pretty nice and so much better than the original series, which had a rather simplistic starry sky background if memory serves. Kamille has left the colony and joined AEUG. Bright is now aware of how far the Titans are willing to go and their lack of respect for spacenoids and the chain of command. |
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| @23feanor Coloring back in the day really meant brush and pots of color. Akira, arguably the most complex animation made in Japan in the 1980s, used over 300 different colors. You need an expert team to avoid small mistakes over 100s of images, which inevitably would show in the completed film. Reducing the palette to say a dozen colors allows for outsourcing the dull "paint by numbers" process to cheap labor countries like Korea, or some rumor to even North Korea. Coloring: https://youtu.be/BMwNilk-YyE and the whole cel animation process is amazing, see https://youtu.be/PnzEDnysN4Y People think that 3d animation is where computers got into anime. But what matters a lot more is the digital compositing ("green screen"), automated coloring and automated in between animation generation which in the 1990s radically simplified the "foil, brush and light table" process. They still drew by hand, but the laborious compositing was gone for good. |
inimSep 19, 2023 4:37 AM
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| @inim coincidence, I was going to go off on the same tangent as you in my post, but decided to keep it short. I'm seen similar youtube videos about colouring and cel animation. It's where I learnt about the so called 'purple feeling' for backgrounds that are more like works of art (Armitage III OVA is one of the last ones I remember that had eye popping colours and detail). I heard that some of the colours they created using paint can't be recreated by computers as the grading and colour mixtures (ie in the example I saw there was a twilight sky where some of the purple had more blue, some more red, and so on, purely because of the way the paints had been mixed together and the amounts weren't quantified, just chucked together on a surface by a person and then roughly mixed and applied) are uneven when done by hand and this creates it owns effect, which computers can't reproduce, well not easily from what I heard. The backgrounds in OVA's like Yokohama Shopping Log, Gunbuster and Patlabor still look phenomenal to this day. My only experience with painting is with the old Warhammer miniatures (Goff Orcs and Chaos Dwarfs), and they had their own unique paint colours and schemes for different races. I wasn't very good though. This was one of the videos I watched about how colouring has changed over the years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZQ0EZp0dzk |
23feanorSep 19, 2023 4:55 AM
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| @23feanor The repeated reference to Char's uncertainty regarding whether Kamille is Lalah threw me a bit as well. A little while back, I watched Char's Counterattack (probably should have waited to do so, given that series like this would likely have informed that watch quite a bit) and Lalah plays a role in that as a sort of spirit presence in the plot. When Char asked himself if Kamille was either Amuro or Lalah, I initially thought that made sense as just a presence that Char could sense, i.e. a sort of newtype connection that transcends death itself. But in this episode, he asks the same question when he hears Kamille running breathlessly, which suggests that he thinks she's still alive. Maybe he's just in denial about her death (though I recall that in the original series, he did acknowledge it - maybe time hasn't been kind to his mental state), though this seems like an odd touch in general. I'm still trying to puzzle it out. @inim Appreciate the breakdown on the color palette. Episode 2 There are some elements of this episode that left me scratching my head. It does seem like generally people in the military recognize who Kamille is and defer to his connections to his family. There's a scene where two random soldiers run into him when he's running towards a battle, and just let him go because they know who he is. I get that they may have more important things to do, but at least preventing him from running towards where the Gundam is housed (no way he has clearance to be there) seems like a no-brainer. Hell, the lack of security around the Gundam is just bonkers. He's able to run right over, throw the pilot out of the cockpit, and climb in with people just shouting at him to stop. Bright even participates in it, telling him to stop (you are known for your slaps, dude, get physical!) and then just saying to let him go because... he thinks he's a savant (or possibly even thinks he's a newtype) like Amuro. Just because you trust that he can pilot the Gundam doesn't mean he should. It's a bit of character assassination because Bright has actively removed Amuro from his position when it was clear that he wouldn't follow orders, but Kamille who was actively flouting authority gets a pass? It actually gets worse than that as many of the characters seem to stand aside entirely while Kamille in Unit 3 threatens Unit 2's pilot to stand down and then just goes with Char and gang with virtually no effort to stop them until they're confronted with the Titans later. I mind less that Kamille's doing this (I'm sure we'll get an explanation for his hatred of the Federation generally and the Titans specifically later, even if his inherent trust of Char is kind of baffling and his individual actions up to this point have just been frustrating - as @23feanor pointed out, the whole "lets attack a military policeman with a Gundam to hammer home my point" thing was just childish and stupid, particularly if his aim was just to escape the colony and Federation influence) and more that the system of command seemed to have very little drive to stop what was happening here, basically forcing the Titans into action. I also don't so much mind Char's choice here, given that he's basically being handed two Gundams on a silver platter and has always had a sort of deference to newtypes who want to join him. It's weird how often these are children, though. Anyway, I'll just point out a few interesting elements that I noticed. This isn't the first time we've seen Federation forces repurposing Zeon Zaku mobile suits, nor is it the first time we've seen this Titan commander. Both elements appeared in Stardust Memories. The former actually has both an in-universe explanation and one based on studio interference. The in-universe explanation is that Zeon made really good mobile suits and had a pretty strong fear factor with that mono-eyed design, which is what the Titans were going for (want to strike fear in the heart of your enemies and show them you control their tech). The studio answer is that the writers behind the show wanted to have newer versions of the Federation military units, but Sunrise told them to use a design that would make the Titans look villainous. The Zakus did that. At least there is some historical precedence for the US military borrowing elements from the Germans after WWII. As for the head of the Titans, who clearly exceeded Bright's authority on slaps, this is Bask Om. I like the name. Dude popped in at the end of Stardust Memories and has a particularly notable distaste for Spacenoids. At the end of Stardust, he was in charge of the Solar System II superweapon (the one that, in the original series, absolutely destroyed swaths of spacecraft and gets used again in this series to stop a colony from falling onto Earth. He enthusiastically used it to kill quite a few Zeon and Federation soldiers, and then used the colony drop as a basis for forming the Titans, basically arguing that Earth's vulnerability to outside threats were a justification to form his own SS. Dude is bad news. So, long story short, there's some interesting elements to this series so far, but the thrust of the story isn't working for me yet. Just expects too much suspension of disbelief. |
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| @whiteflame55 I knew I'd seen the Feds using Zaku's somewhere so good call. Stardust left very little impression on me, apart from the really excellent attention to detail for the mech fights. I just remember a pirate woman sitting on a tiger skin throne and the Zeon remnants trying to throw a colony at Jebro. Using the Zaku's also makes the Titans come across as the bad guys in a clear way, so I can see why Sunrise ordered them to use Zakus. I also think I've become immune to idiotic starts to stories like this, where as you point out there are so many glaring holes with how Kamille ended up in Unit 3, from the soldiers letting him through to Bright allowing him to continue and even ordering the pilot out of Unit 2. I don't even comment on them, something I only notice when you do point them out. A lot of anime have to get the stories going, usually through some macguffin or some seemingly random occurences covered in plot armour, something like that. |
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Reply to 23feanor
@whiteflame55 I knew I'd seen the Feds using Zaku's somewhere so good call. Stardust left very little impression on me, apart from the really excellent attention to detail for the mech fights. I just remember a pirate woman sitting on a tiger skin throne and the Zeon remnants trying to throw a colony at Jebro. Using the Zaku's also makes the Titans come across as the bad guys in a clear way, so I can see why Sunrise ordered them to use Zakus.
I also think I've become immune to idiotic starts to stories like this, where as you point out there are so many glaring holes with how Kamille ended up in Unit 3, from the soldiers letting him through to Bright allowing him to continue and even ordering the pilot out of Unit 2. I don't even comment on them, something I only notice when you do point them out. A lot of anime have to get the stories going, usually through some macguffin or some seemingly random occurences covered in plot armour, something like that.
I also think I've become immune to idiotic starts to stories like this, where as you point out there are so many glaring holes with how Kamille ended up in Unit 3, from the soldiers letting him through to Bright allowing him to continue and even ordering the pilot out of Unit 2. I don't even comment on them, something I only notice when you do point them out. A lot of anime have to get the stories going, usually through some macguffin or some seemingly random occurences covered in plot armour, something like that.
23feanor said: @whiteflame55 I knew I'd seen the Feds using Zaku's somewhere so good call. Stardust left very little impression on me, apart from the really excellent attention to detail for the mech fights. I just remember a pirate woman sitting on a tiger skin throne and the Zeon remnants trying to throw a colony at Jebro. Using the Zaku's also makes the Titans come across as the bad guys in a clear way, so I can see why Sunrise ordered them to use Zakus. That's most of what I remember from Stardust as well. For a show about Memories, it wasn't very memorable. I did like that pirate woman character, even if I didn't like how she ended. 23feanor said: I also think I've become immune to idiotic starts to stories like this, where as you point out there are so many glaring holes with how Kamille ended up in Unit 3, from the soldiers letting him through to Bright allowing him to continue and even ordering the pilot out of Unit 2. I don't even comment on them, something I only notice when you do point them out. A lot of anime have to get the stories going, usually through some macguffin or some seemingly random occurences covered in plot armour, something like that. I usually move on pretty quick from weak starts like these. As long as I can get past them and the story picks up, they usually don't factor much into my perception of the series as a whole. A bit of recency bias in that, though I'm also willing to put up with BS like this more when it's just used to establish where the characters end up for much of the plot. |
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| Episode 2 Kamille is one edgy teenager, including megalomaniac laughter when he first pilots a Gundam. He toys with a (human size) enemy for shits and giggles. And of course he hates the Titans enough already to join Char's commando unit. To the point he joins there faction, and they fly trough space to their new HQ. Ever since the high speed kickstart of Fruits Basket, I've become lenient about very early episodes in anime. The vast world and cast are amazingly well developed by the end of the 2nd episode. Of course with more episodes it would become less cringy and edgy, but the pacing and coarse brush painting does the job. The good part of this episode is the clash of Wehrmachts-Offizier Commander Noah Bright and a bunch of Schutzstaffel Titan military police. This very conflict and work sharing really was common during the late years of WW2. The SS was a hybrid of police, secret service, army and cult. They did the lions share of the really dirty work, and in return were highly privileged in the regime. The regular Wehrmacht had officers in a century old tradition, German aristocracy was stripped of their titles only 25 years earlier. The anime carries this over to space, which I really like for the political and historical touch it has. The disrespect of the titans is so strong, they even beat up not a mere soldier. They beat up Noah Bright, highly decorated hero of the One Year War. An actual army of villains, now that's a handy replacement for Zeon's original Nazis. But this time they are from Earth, and thus our MC can join AEUG in his stolen premium Gundam suit. And not a mere pilot will be his mentor, Char Aznable will. Along with Noah, a strong link to the first season is built effortlessly. Overall, I like the basic conflict of a corrupt Earth government and righteous spacians. Kamille is cringe, edge and bratty - I hope he develops from that mess in a credible way. I'm watching in English dub this time, the edition with the instrumental Japanese OP music. Let's see how that works out, but no subtitles is a win atm. |
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inim said: An actual army of villains, now that's a handy replacement for Zeon's original Nazis. But this time they are from Earth, and thus our MC can join AEUG in his stolen premium Gundam suit. And not a mere pilot will be his mentor, Char Aznable will. Along with Noah, a strong link to the first season is built effortlessly. Overall, I like the basic conflict of a corrupt Earth government and righteous spacians. Kamille is cringe, edge and bratty - I hope he develops from that mess in a credible way. I echo this sentiment. Episode 3. We meet some additional Federation commanders who are in a ship near Luna 2 (the Bosnia i think they called it), and they are almost as villainous as the Titans, who continue to harass poor Bright. We see Kamille sitting down with the AEUG leaders and Quattro is clearly Char in his trademark glasses here. Kamille puts his actions largely down to luck, and we get none of the teenage bombast he displayed before. Char recognises the potential in Kamille as a possible newtype. Bast orders Kamille's parents to be taken on board the flight to intercept the AEUG battleship, which doesn't bode well. Seems Kamille's parents aren't on the best of terms due to a mistress the mum mentions, leading to the dad giving her an unnecessary slap. Lt Emma of the Titans seems like the reasonable one and the one most likely to rebel and fail to follow Bast's orders later in the series. As expected Bast uses Kamille's parents as a bargaining chip for the return of the mark 2 mobile suits that were stolen by AEUG, along with the return of Kamille, but I doubt he cares about him, he just wants units 2 and 3 back. Pretty low. Kamille suddenly launches in unit 2 upon hearing that his mum is being held in a capsule as a hostage. His response is kind of weird, "why are you constantly following me mother", surely it must be obvious she's in danger after Bast's letter and not in a random capsule in space of her own choice, so why doesn't he immediately try and rescue her. Anyway Jared from the Titans shoots the capsule and kills Kamille's mum in front of him, bit dark, although to be fair to Jared he thought the capsule was a bomb. |
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| I will never say no to more Char, especially after watching Origins. Episode 3 Damn, Bright is getting his ass beat. Look at all those bandages on his face. I think the exchanges between him and the Titans do a lot to make us hate them and establish that their chain of command goes beyond even something a hero like Bright could contend with. But if we're talking about setting the stage for the villains, nothing works quite as well as Bast taking Kamille's parents hostage. It's interesting to see how the former Zeon soldiers take that, with each of them subscribing to a sort of "there is honor on the battlefield" perspective while simultaneously knowing that Bast has no interest in adhering to that, even if Lt. Emma and perhaps a small subset of the Titans do not agree with him. What really makes this episode work, though, is that Kamille's decision to launch and try to reach his mother, who is held captive in a capsule that was supposed to be rigged to explode. It's impulsive, it's done without consulting the other members of his team, and it gets his mother killed. Kamille is a character that desperately needs a reality check, and while I'm not exactly fond of using his mother for this purpose, it's nonetheless instructive. Kamille will have to come to grips with this over the coming episodes, and it should be pretty telling how he deals with the tragedy. It seems like he had a complicated relationship with his mother - I assume what he meant by "why are you constantly following me mother" was that she was a bit of a helicopter parent, protecting him from his own actions. Well, he won't have that protection anymore. I'm not sure why Jared was told that the capsule would explode if it wasn't going to - seems like an odd bluff. |
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| @whiteflame55 maybe Kamille thought that his mother had gone willingly into the capsule to try and bring him back. I was assuming that Jared hadn't been told about the capsule not being a bomb by Bast in case he wouldn't destroy out of moral conscience for killing a civilian and mother in cold blood. Episode 4. Kamille understandably goes after Jared after seeing his mum killed before his eyes and Emma and Char go after them. Kamille and the mark 2 units are returned to the Titans and Kamille confronts his dad, telling him that his wife has been killed and referring to the mistress again. Seems like Kamille's dad didn't know or hadn't guessed that he and his wife were being used as hostages. I liked that line from Kamille " I could beat you and your hizak (Zeon MS) but I can't beat the system, a cruel military system". Interesting, Bast orders Emma to use all her guile and her own tactics to steal one of the new MS from the AEUG warship. That's very wily, Bast probably knows how Emma comes across and is either testing her or using her personality very cleverly. We then see Emma rescue Kamille and his dad and declare her intention to defect to AEUG, is this all staged and part of her plan, or is she using this opportunity to actually defect? Looks like Emma has defected as Kamille, his dad and Emma leave in the mark 2 units and return to the AEUG ship, although there's still an element of doubt in my mind. We'll see. Good episode. |
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| @23feanor The strange thing here is that Jared didn't even know that Kamille's mother was in there, at least by his own admission (and he looks honestly baffled when Kamille attacks him), so I'm still not sure why the capsule wasn't armed with a bomb. Bast didn't seem to have any moral compunction with putting her out there in the first place. Maybe even he has limits on what he's willing to do. Episode 4 I agree with @23feanor that this is a pretty good episode, at least the best so far. Characters are grappling with the death of Kamille's mother, which is proven very real by the fact that her blood still stains the fingers of Kamille's Gundam. Kamille's response is initially characteristic: rage and lashing out at her killer, Jared. He fails to kill him, with Emma stepping between them to prevent escalation. But he doesn't stay in that mode, seemingly becoming resigned to her loss while placing the blame squarely on both the Titans (if not the Federation as a whole) and his father. What's nice about this incident is that it makes a lot of my frustrations with his staunchly negative attitudes towards the Titans and Federation considerably less important. Sure, it feels like it came out of nowhere early on, but now it comes from a place of actual loss brought on by the Titan's leader. So now we're on board with him. Speaking of his father, he's the most difficult to read. He does seem momentarily struck by the death of his wife, but his response is muted and distracted. Both Kamille and Bast comment about his mistress, and his response is largely avoidance, trying to focus on anything else. At every turn, his attention drifts where it can to a nearby mech. Kamille interprets that as selfishness, but it looks to me more like he's searching for any distraction he can find. I'm not sure if he feels personally responsible for her death, regret for his choices with his mistress, shame towards Kamille, some combination of those or none of the above. Bast is also interesting. I thought his response would be to double down on his methods, given that he just reacquired the two Gundams with no further losses and recaptured Kamille. But he doesn't. Instead, he puts control in Emma's hands, with the stated hope that she will do better without engaging in hostage-taking. This might just be a clever tactic to use Emma's outrage in a positive manner for the Titans, but it also comes off as at least somewhat regretful - maybe that's just an act, but it doesn't come off entirely as one to me. It's a shame that any regret he feels will likely disappear after this episode after Emma betrays him and defects to the AEUG. And that leaves Emma. We still don't know a lot about what motivated her up to this point, but she clearly has a more honorable view of how to engage with the enemy than her compatriots in the Titans. Rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to lead a mission at Bast's will, she chooses to defect. It does seem like this is based on more than just one incident, but clearly the death of Kamille's mother affected her quite a bit. It doesn't look like she'll jell easily with the members of the AEUG, but she should be a good fit with time. |
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Wait, Quattro is Char?! I think in between episode 1 and 2 I'd forgotten what the mecha Char was piloting in the first episode looked like, and thought it was a different red mecha from Quattro's in episode 2, so I ended up thinking the two are distinct characters in Zeta! The other thing that contributed to the confusion is that having Char fight under a different name despite his evident skill and the fact that HE'S PILOTING A BRIGHT RED MECHA just seems so stupid a disguise that it never occurred to me that there's some deception going on. He may as well be walking around with a label on his back saying "Nope I'm Definitely Not Char! Honest!" At one point in episode one, an opponent he was fighting even commented "he's just like the Red Comet!" and I was like "well, DUH!" Episodes 2 - 4 Not sure if it's just me, but I'm finding Zeta's plot really hard to follow. We have all these different factions and characters that I'm having trouble remembering who's who and which faction they belong to. At one point I thought Zeon were fighting AUEG due to the similarity of the Titans' green mobile suits to those Zeon Zakus from the first season. At another point, I thought for some reason AUEG were being attacked by other AUEG suits before realising the attackers were from Luna II. "AUEG" is beginning to resemble the sound of disgust I make as I'm failing to keep up with the plot, as in "Aueg, what the hell is going on?!" Anyway, episode 2 sees more crazy antics from Kamille who, not satisfied with stealing a military vehicle in the first episodes, proceeds to one up himself by stealing a Gundam. And then decides to carry out a personal vendetta against one of the Titans - all in the middle of a tense standoff situation! It's clear by this point though that he really hates Titans for some reason and this isn't purely because he's a hotheaded teen. Episode 2 also sees the introduction of Bask, whose name I only learnt in episode 4. In my defence, I'm just too fascinated by his ... interesting ... character design - the guy just seems to have an improbable amount of flesh around his neck and chin. And when he's sharing a screen with the other guy who's head has the proportions of a phallic symbol, and then he starts doing these mesmerising neck contortions, I find it really difficult to focus on the subtitles!  Episode 3 is so far the only episode for which I have a positive impression. Bask turns out to be a bit of a bastard and schemes a really nasty trap, executing it cunningly with unwitting collaborators. The payoff was genuinely fantastic, I thought. Char gets into some fights against Lunar II suits. Strangely, he seems to struggle to shoot them down, and only manages to get one. Didn't we see him beat non-Amuro pilots with ease in the first series?! The next episode sees Emma defect to AUEG and take with her Kamille and his dad. Kamille's dad seems to have this drinking game-esq thing going on, where, whenever someone mentions "Magarita" he slaps them. By the way, the preview for episode 4 has this hilarious random line where, in the middle of talking about how Emma's having doubts about the Titan's behaviour, it suddenly throws in the following gem: "IS EMMA TO BECOME KAMILLE'S NEW LOVER?" And I thinks this captures my main issue with Zeta so far - the writing is just plain bad. I find the dialogues a bit weird and kinda stiff. I don't know if it's an issue with the translation. Emma's defection also feels sudden and unconvincing - I understand intellectually the reasons for her defection, but the show didn't really sell it to me very well. I wonder if the defect is genuine or whether she's going for a double agent style play. Then again, the sincerity and integrity she has displayed so far doesn't feel like it would allow her to carry out this kind of underhand tactic. And as @whiteflame55 mentioned, the lack of security around Gundams is bizarre, and it's leading to this almost comical situation where the Gundams are changing hands every episode! As for the mecha battles, I think it's good that ammo scarcity still plays a significant part like in the first series, but so far there's been disappointingly little in terms of tactics. PS I'm also puzzled as to why they keep referencing Lalah. It's so strange that they talk about her as though she's still around that I was second guessing myself and wondering whether Lalah was the name of that newtype from the first series! PPS I've also watched Startdust Memories, but it was a long time ago, and I think I didn't really get all the story as I hadn't seen the original Gundam. I do remember it for having one of the best OP/ED combination of all time though. Can't beat a good set of 80s power ballads :D Zeta's OP/ED feels like a prototype to what they achieved in Stardust Memories. |
kekekeKajSep 21, 2023 2:11 PM
| Take off every SIG!! |
| Episode 3 Kamille's first blood episode, in which he can't protect his own mother from Titan fire. Welcome to the club of traumatized teenage boys in mecha pilot seats. The first 2/3 of the episode are exposition dumping what we need to know about the AEUG. There's a meandering story including the mostly blonde crew of their professionally run battleship. Then the Titans kidnap Kamille's parents, blackmail AEUG to get the black gundam back, and eventually mom is dead. Overall, the show becomes darker and slower paced. Seems the dramatis personae are all at their positions, and the play can begin. Next stop: anger, or how I revenged my mother. |
inimSep 21, 2023 4:29 PM
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| Episode 5. So looks like Kamille's dad is the one to want to double cross the AEUG and return to the Titans with the AEUG's MS, Rik-Deyas (?) hoping that Bast will owe him one and give him free reign in the Titan tech division. Seems like the AEUG commanders are onto the fact Quattro and Char may be one and the same, took them a while. We get scenes of Kamille's dad's mistress as he's fighting, so guess she does play a large role in his life or his reason for fighting. Kamille and his dad face off but Kamille doesn't fire, then Franklin's mark 2 is hit and he ejects into space before it explodes. We get an out pouring of emotion from Kamille and parallels to Char mentioned. |
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| Episode 5 The train of easily making off with mecha continues this episode as he manages to abscond with one of the AEUG's red mechs. He gets chased down, a scuffle ensues where we have three different sides fighting each other, and Kamille's dad dies (I had a brief desire to look up his name, but I have none now). So... yeah... I'm not intrigued by Kamille's dad anymore. Turns out what was difficult to read last episode was just him being about as manic as it gets. He makes off with the mech giving off the impression that all he needs to do is return to Bast and things will return to a sort of normalcy, despite the fact that a) they already took him and his wife hostage when he was on their side, b) he just participated in a jailbreak that resulted in them losing the Gundams they just took, and c) they'd likely just shoot him out of an abundance of caution rather than allowing him to turn to them in an enemy mech. As far as I can tell, dude was obsessed with engineering and showing the strength of the mechs he designed and also was really into his mistress, who we see for only a very short time. At one point during the fight, Kamille mentions that he's not making sense, and honestly... he isn't. His decision-making is not just illogical, it's downright absurd. And Kamille also gives this gem of a line after he perishes: "Both my parents lost their lives because they had no idea what they were doing." ...What? Your mother lost her life because she was taken hostage and then used as bait to get the Gundams back. She had no choice in the matter. Your father lost his life because he basically went clinically insane for the better part of an episode because he desperately wanted to see his mistress again and show off his engineering/piloting prowess. He knew what he was doing, even if it made no goddamn sense. I'm sure there's a history here of them not behaving like parents, as Kamille keeps stating over and over, but they died because they were gullible, forced into a dangerous situation, and then your father lost his basic reasoning skills, not because they didn't know what they were doing. I get that you're still a kid, but come on man. Also, as @kekekeKaj said... yeah, anyone in this show who doesn't recognize Char at this point is just fooling themselves. You've seen him pilot a red mech "just like the Red Comet!" and he looks just like him, albeit without some of the headgear. Bask's design also struck me as well. He looks more human in Stardust Memories, but some of those screenshots from Zeta just look... wow. |
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| Episode 5 Feels like things are finally settling down a little and getting less chaotic, but it's still failing to engage me. Franklin decides to steal Char's Gundam and leg it back to Titans in order to curry favour with Bask. Those two sure deserve each other! Char follows in a white Gundam - a first gen one I presume - followed shortly by Kamille in a gen 2 gundam that's practically disabled as it's still under repair. Looks like no one's learnt their lesson as the security around Gundam is still jaw-droppingly slack, with the only thing that made my jaw drop even further is how they decided to let Kamille go out based on a vague "I think he'll be alright" feeling. Franklin, who's obviously a mobile suit otaku, was practically in ecstasy at the opportunity to test out the mobile suit he design in battle using an enemy suit, so much so that he's getting what I assumed to be psychedelic imageries of Magarita. I think I get the kind of effect they were going for in that scene, but it would have taken some skillful directing to pull it off. Needless to say, this is not what we got, so instead the juxtaposition came off as weird and comically random. Franklin's suit gets shot and as he escapes it we get another WTF moment as Kamille decides to point his huge Gundam rifle at his dad rather than try and save him from the explosion that was obviously about to happen. Shoot first, save dad later eh? But of course, there is no later, and after Franklin gets killed in the explosion Kamille gets all upset. Well, perhaps he should have done something other than point the rifle at his dad. It's honestly hard for me to muster up any sympathy for him. Kamille throws a hissy fit back on the ship, and Char almost breaks his flimsy cover trying to knock Kamille out of his mood. The dialogue is all over the place I had to keep rewinding just to figure out what they're trying to say. Perhaps I should try watching the Crunchy Roll version instead. Unlike the death of Kamille's mum, this latest tragedy left me feeling nothing but apathy. I thought Zeta was supposed to be the best of the first three series? |
kekekeKajSep 22, 2023 10:38 AM
| Take off every SIG!! |
| I had a busy morning yday so didn't have time to unpack my thoughts fully on ep 5, but to the point @whiteflame55 made I thought Kamille was saying in a general sense 'my parents didn't know what they were doing [with their lives]' rather than they didn't know what they were doing in those specific moments when they were killed as he says at the end of the episode that his mother got absorbed in her job and the marriage broke down, leading to the father seeking out a mistress, and Kamille just wanted a normal loving family, and it seemed his parents were blind to his suffering as his family fell apart. That was my take. @kekekeKaj interesting the subs said 'is Emma Kamille's new lover' in the preview section you watched, as I got the feeling that Emma and/or Reccoa (the other lady sitting with Char and Emma when they are talking to Kamille at the end of the ep) were potential love interests for Char. Also the cover image for the show clearly has Kamille kissing a blue haired lady/girl so bit of a giveaway there. I also felt no sympathy towards Kamille's dad (his name is Franklin Bidan i believe), but could see what the show was getting at in that scene in the mark 2 MS when the battle is going on; he's mentally thinking of how cool he looks and imagining what his mistress would think of him if she could see him now, but it came off as weird with a psychedelic vision of the mistress with a background out of character for this show. Episode 6. The regular Fed pilots clowning on Jared was pretty funny. Lila, the captain of the Bosnia Fed ship later confronts Jarid (not Jared as I thought) about his attitude and he agrees that he needs to learna and will swallow his pride. Basic set up is that we have the AEUG warship being pursued by 3 Fed ships, one of them a Titan vessel, and looks like the AEUG ship is heading for earth or side 1/2. I think one of you already mentioned this, but I miss the brief narration you got at the beginning of each ep in the original gundam series. Kamille is playing around on the computer, very similar to Amuro here, and makes a plan to combine the destroyed parts of the Rik-dam with the gundam mark 2 to make a 'Zeta gundam'. Emma and Reccoa have a talk and we learn the Titans have been using banned chemical weapons to supress demonstrations in the colonies. Reccoa is heading on a solo mission to earth to Jebra, which is a Fed base, is she going to infiltrate as a spy? We get a shot of Amuro in a plushy villa observing the lights in the sky and wondering what's going on. Kamille jumps in the mark 2 again and this time proves helpful protecting the ship and Reccoa's launch. |
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| Episode 4 There and back again. Kamille and his dad Lieutenant Franklin Bidan are returned to the Titans, along with their stolen MS. Kamille meets Titan ace pilot Jared there, the murderer of his mother, and forgives him because he just executed orders. Emma's defection is prepared by having her quench Kamille's ire, before he creates damage or kills people. She's the first humanized Titan. This is the second episode featuring a Bright slap, used e.g. here to quick-narrate daddy issues. It seems that Zeta is notorious for using this meme for plot progression. Eventually, Kamille and the two defectors Emma (pilot) and Lieutenant Franklin (dad, MS engineer) escape in stolen MS prototypes. AEUG welcomes all three of them. Overall, the pace is quite amazing - or am I just getting old and slow? Or let's say, micro pacing of single episodes. There's significant complexity created and resolved within a well used 30 minutes. Visual story telling is used to take short cuts, with partly good and partly weird results such as the Bright slap. But despite nagging, the "packaging" of story into self-contained episodes was really well done so far. |
inimSep 23, 2023 8:37 AM
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| @23feanor That could be the case. The dialogue has been pretty clunky, particularly when it comes to Kamille and his father. Maybe Kamille did mean it that way, though even so, it's not fully clear what he's referencing. Seems like they could have written many of these lines more clearly or afforded us a little more perspective by now. Episode 6 Jared's been more interesting than I expected. Thought he'd just kind of be a regular foil to Kamille, and to some degree he does as he puts Kamille in the "anime rival" position, but to his credit, he's actively trying to set his ego aside to improve. At the very least, he's not just one-note, even if many of the others treat him like he's a joke. It does seem as though the aim of the AEUG crew is to Earth, at least based on the title of this episode. It's not clear within the episode that that's the case. I think the idea is that they're headed to Earth by way of Side 1, but I could be wrong. We definitely get some indications that Kamille, when he's not driven by teenage angst and tragedy, is performing like Amuro (dude decides to meld some aspects of two of the mechs, so it should be interesting to see how that plays out). Would be nice if we didn't constantly hear that from characters like Char, but I guess they've got to say it out loud for the kids in the audience. To hammer the point home, we get a bit of Amuro looking up to the stars and seeming to recognize the presence of another newtype. Seems he's living the good life, though I'm guessing he'll be roped into this soon enough. And yes, we get another fight with Kamille in the Mark 2, which still lacks an arm. You'd think they would have locked that thing down now that they know he just randomly takes off with it despite orders, but he's doing good work so I guess this could be reverse psychology. |
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| Episode 7. The AEUG commanders offer Kamille an official position on board as a soldier, but he is reluctant. We hear from Char that the Feds are keeping Amuro's location a secret, maybe he's in confinement, however cushy, and it sounds like no one quite knows exactly what a newtype is or their capabilities. This is a PG-13 but we just saw Lila in the shower, breasts and all, guessing this is from a blu-ray copy, although surprised Crunchyroll has the uncensored version as they usually censor everything using the broadcast versions of shows. I like Lila (not just because we saw her breasts), she says what she thinks, even to superior officers and seems to have her head screwed on. She reminds me a bit of Crowley Hamon. The Argama (AEUG ship) docks at side 30 to allow Emma and Kamille why the AEUG began their resistance against the Titans following the use of chemical weapons on civilians. Lila encounters Kamille, Emma and Char whilst inside side 30, which looks like the old west from the USA. She doesn't believe that Bast killed all the people, but it appears Emma and Kamille do. Kamille and Lila clash in their MS and to her disbelief Lila, a veteran pilot is outclassed by a child and she realises the potency of newtypes just before she's killed in action. Jarid seems unduly upset about her death given they had just begun to connect, but gives him more fuel to hate Kamille as his rival. A lot of talk about newtypes this episode and comparisons with Amuro that Kamille isn't overly happy about. |
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| Episode 7 I similarly liked Lila as a character, and yes, not just for the topless shot in the shower (the early Gundam series have always been willing to throw in some nudity for whatever reason). And, like @23feanor, I thought of Hamon. Too bad she's gone now, honestly thought she'd be an interesting foil to Bast. In general, the whole power scaling of newtypes always felt a little off to me. I understand that Amuro could defeat seasoned pilots pretty early on (though at least part of that could be chalked up to the armor of the Gundam he piloted - dude took a lot of shots early on) and that Kamille is pretty familiar with the mech he's designing, but it's still a little frustrating to go from scenes where he's barely getting by in fights to absolutely destroying a seasoned officer. Also, I think I caught that Lila called herself an "oldtype." Wonder if that's a thing. The fallout from this episode that will probably have the most impact as we go forward is Jared's response to her death. He has two targets for his ire. Kamille is obviously one of them, having committed the deed himself (and notably without batting an eye), but there's also his superior officer who actively decided to stand by while she got killed. I personally wasn't aware that there was controversy regarding whether newtypes actually exist, so it's interesting to see this guy play that out a bit, but his general attitude towards Lila is something Jared will remember. And yeah, looks like Amuro's essentially being held captive like a bird in a gilded cage. Won't last. The comparisons people keep making between him and Kamille are definitely starting to grate on him. Wonder how much he knows about Amuro. |
whiteflame55Sep 24, 2023 6:48 AM
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| Episode 8. Kamille and Emma have an in depth discussion of newtypes, turns out Emma met Amuro a few years ago, and Kamille wonders out loud whether they'll meet Char Aznable next. A lot of name dropping here. Jarid is sent out to scout the enemy AEUG position and deploys in a garibaldi MS, one of Lila's teams mechs, clearly bent on avenging her death. He fights Kamille and we get some more strange dialogue with Jarid ranting about how Kamille killed Lila without knowing anything about her etc, and Kamille wouldn't understand. But only recently Jarid killed Kamille's mum and i believe knows this, so his statement comes off as plain dumb as Kamille lost a parent due to Jarid's actions, whereas Jarid lost a colleague, and maybe future lover. False equivalence here. Both the Argama and Titan ship dock in the moon's Granada base and Char disappears off to an apartment where we see a photo of him and Sayla/Artensia when they were kids. Char meets someone and sounds like he's plotting something. There's talk of the Axis and Zeon's ghost with mention of Haman (not to be confused with Crowley Hamon, no relation, I checked). Char meets an investor called Wong who wants the AEUG to attack the Feds directly by going after it's central base, Jebra, but Char thinks they should target Grips (the Titan base i think). Kamille and Emma get ambushed whilst on the moons surface. Kamille finds Amuro's robot companion Haro or it Taro? |
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| Episode 8 The fact that they keep somehow dancing around the fact that Char Aznable is right there while speaking openly about him is getting absurd. I've come around to finding this pretty damn funny - dude is hiding in plain sight and it just kidn of works for me. We get one of the more interesting fights of the series so far with Jarid fighting Kamille on the moon. They both inflict their share of damage, but it becomes clear that being a newtype can only get the latter so far when it comes to fighting on distinct terrain. I agree with @23feanor that Jarid's communication skills leave something to be desired, as well as the apparent amnesia about his own actions. Meanwhile, Char seems to be setting in motion a lot of the upcoming plot. There's mention of a Ghost of Zeon named Karen Haman, whose title gives her some reason to believe she's functioning as a vengeful spirit of the defeated empire. I haven't generally been fond of Zeon revenge plots near the end of or after the One Year War, but War in the Pocket did it justice, so we'll see how that goes. We also meet some of the benefactors behind the AEUC operation that Char is manipulating, who are seeking some big wins against the Federation at Jebra despite stiff resistance (Char is very clear he doesn't think this is a good idea). Apparently, the reason they're headed to Earth in part is to drop off the mechs they stole, presumably to assist in this operation, though once again Char says it probably won't be that easy. And yes, Kamille finds Amuro's robot companion (I do think it's Haro from what info I've been able to find). It saves him from a blaster shot by random chance, so he takes it with him despite it being offline. Forming connections with Amuro without even meeting him - could be his ticket to meeting the young man. |
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| Episode 6 - 7 A much improved pair of episodes despite the still pervasive quality issues with the writing. We get the first mention of Zeta Gundam as Kamille unveils his homebrew Gundam design made up of the wreckage from Char's mobile suit and a Rick Das. There are some very clumsy attempts to build up romantic subplots but, given this anime isn't great on dialogue and subtlety, it's nothing to write home about (unless you're writing to mock how stilted it is). First we have Kamille who was on his way to hit on Ensign Reccoa when he got cockblocked by the sight of her having a cosy chat with the dashing Char, so he took off in a fit of jealousy to the bosom of Emma Sheen. The dialogue doesn't appear to have been significantly improved by Crunchy Roll, as we get this weird rejection from Emma when he turned up: "if you've come here looking for sympathy, you won't get any from me. You and I aren't in any sort of relationship". Meanwhile on the other side, Jerid both metaphorically and literally gets some sense falcon kicked into his head by Lila and then they suddenly start getting along. I kinda like the broad stroke character development of Jerid, where he thinks he's some hotshot but, having had his ass handed to him a couple of times by Kamille and developed a reputation as the guy who goes out in his mobile and does fuck all, he's now getting a little insecure. However, the execution is severely lacking. With some good dialogue the development of his relationship with Lila could have been more convincing but due to the poor writing it instead felt unearned and happened too quickly. The second half of episode 6 was actually good. The tension as Reccoa tries to launch is palpable as the crew of Argama fends off an attack from Earth Federation forces. Kamille makes another unauthorized entry into a Gundam and you can tell by this point that the officers on the ship have given up trying to stop him after doing ... nothing at all ... to tighten up security in the mobile suit hangar. In fact they're now of the attitude that they should just unleash this young Mozart and allow him to express his genius, because, you know, he reminds them of Amuro Ray. By the way, did anyone mention that he remind them of Amuro Ray? Yes, he definitely reminds them of Amuro Ray. Speaking of Amuro Ray, there's a cut to the real Slim ShadyAmuro Ray standing up (without sneezing) as he senses a disturbance in the force. Looks like he's a big shot celebrity now, living in a huge mansion with a swimming pool. Anyway this was the first mobile suit skirmish that I enjoyed in Zeta Gundam, fuelled by the growing rivalry between Jerid and Kamille. The next episode sees Argama visit the now deserted Colony 30 where Bask used poisoned gas to subdue a civil rights protest. The officers of Argama wants to show Emma the atrocities committed by the Earth Federation. It seems quite a detour just to convince one lieutenant (and one who doesn't even remind people of Amuro Ray at that) - does the Argama not have any important mission it needs to carry out? Lila follows in the mistaken believe that Argama is visiting a secret AEUG base located at the colony. Lila's death was foretold in the episode preview, but even without that, death flags were popping up as she prepared to leave Alexandria, telling Jerid in this typically Zeta-Gundam-awkward way: "If you become a fine man, I can lean on you and drink. The colony segment was pretty good. The whole place had a very macabre feel as the dead people had helpfully been frozen in pose ever since the incident just so they could choreograph their head rolls and flying bodies for the visitors to maximum effect. We get a penetrating line - probably the best in the series so far - delivered by Char as he replies to Kamille's question of how can anyone just slaughter people like that: "Because they're not killing with their own hands." Later, Lila takes issue with Char's history lecture to Emma, and protests that he has it all wrong before taking off. She proceeds to face off against Kamille in a mobile suit battle with Kamille having received enough recognition to now pilot a white Gundam (thought it was a first gen one, but perhaps it's just one of the black 2nd gen ones repainted?) in proper condition rather than having to steal one with a missing arm or sitting in a wheelchair or something. As @whiteflame55 already pointed out, Kamille does seem to be getting better at an extraordinary rate as he goes from besting Jerid to killing Lila. What bothered me about this and the later scene where he's celebrated as the second coming of JesusAmuro Ray (he reminds people of Amuro Ray, in case you've forgotten) isn't just the growth curve, but the fact he showed such ruthlessness in killing not just anyone, but someone whom he met face to face and someone who shouted a warning at him as he's about to get slammed in the face by a flying corpse. I find this to be hard to believe. Contrast his lack of qualms to how Amuro struggled with his role as a pilot in the original series and the writing in Zeta Gundam really comes off as inferior, despite Tomino being the main creative force behind both. Maybe later they'll show Kamille's psychological struggles with becoming a soldier but it really feels like they've missed a natural opportunity here to humanise his character. Lila's final monologue is both interesting in its content and serves as yet another example of awkward, exposition style writing that I've now come to expect from Zeta Gundam. Overall, the series is getting better but still leave much to be desired. By the way, did anyone else spot the zombie captaining one of the ships?  |
kekekeKajSep 25, 2023 3:41 PM
| Take off every SIG!! |
| @kekekeKaj I also have no clue what the show was doing suddenly having Kamille show an interest in Reccoa out of the blue and try, and fail, to confess, or maybe say goodbye as she was getting into the cockpit for her flight to earth. In my experience gundam has never been good at romance, apart from some insightful comments on the how war impacts people in love, eg Michel in 08th MS Team and his long distance relationship falling apart. Also i think the white MS Kamille is using is one of the mark 2 gundams stolen from the Titans that was painted white by AEUG, so looks like a gen 1 MS. Episode 9. Reccoa has landed in the amazon jungle and travelling towards Jebra. She's saved from a group of Fed soldiers by none other than an older looking, suave Kai, who seems to have matured somewhat from the annoying loudmouth he was in the original series. Emma gives Kamille a good slap to encourage him to report to the seniors. This show sure loves its slaps. Oh and another, Wong lays into Kamille because.... he's late? Love that line from Char to Kamille "if you want to stop getting hit then stop screwing up", poor kid. We have some politics going on in the background between the Luna base (Granada or Ganada not sure which spelling is right), who seem to be neutral and not hostile to AEUG or Titans, but leaning more towards helping AEUG than the overbearing Titans. Then you have Annaheim Electronics (iirc from Stardust Memory Nina Purpleton's dad runs this company) who appear to be willing to supply both AEUG and the Titans with weapons, supplies and mechs. So we witness simultaneous operations. The AEUG forces, including Kamille and Char try and capture a Titan ship, and the Titans try and destroy the space port exit stopping the Argama from leaving the luna base (Aman city?). Kamille gets a newtype vision of the Titans attacking the Argama, from Emma?, and goes to the rescue in his MS. He saves Emma and then follows up with an explanation of his intuition to Emma, which she accepts and actually thanks him. Might just be me but there looks to have been a drop in the animation quality these last few eps. |
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| @kekekeKaj @23feanor I've definitely had the same view of this sudden infatuation and of romance in general from Gundam. Strangely enough, as we've been watching through these, it's actually made my previous experience of watching Gundam Wing and seeing the absurd back and forths between Relena Peacecraft and Heero Yuy that much more enjoyable, since there's just no pretense at all. If you don't know your way around romance, might as well be silly about it. Episode 9 Yep, there's Kai. He runs into Reccoa and says "as a freelance journalist, I can behave professionally even with a beautiful woman like yourself." Who says shit like that? Still, as @23feanor says, he does seem to have matured quite a bit even if he's a bit of a womanizer and baselessly overconfident. Gotta admit, I'm loving the slaps, and we are spoiled for them this episode. Kamille gets the slapped by Emma because he was being defiant, then he gets a double slap from Mr. Wong because he previously didn't follow orders and he was late to see him (as well as just a general beating because why not?) that no one stops because... I guess they think he deserves a concussion. I get that they're trying to impart that this isn't just a game, but it strikes me (as Wong struck Kamille) that you might not have to impart it by laying into a child. Just a thought. He gets another slap from Emma afterwards as well while he's pouting and sounding pretty arrogant. I get that they need him to grow up and, frankly, he needed something to get him moving, but this felt like way too much. The operation that happens at the end of the episode, particularly as regards the efforts to capture the Titan ship and Emma's fight with one of the Titans. Kamille exhibits a very different kind of newtype response than we've seen before, one where he says he could see her in his mind calling out for help. He eventually manages to convince Char to let him go, arriving just in time to save Emma's life. It's a moment opposed to all of his usual selfishness, so it's a step in the right direction. And yeah, I'd agree the animation seems choppier to me @23feanor. Not sure what happened. |
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| Episode 10. The AEUG is planning to attack Jebra using the captured Titan ship, the Argama and a bunch of other AEUG ships. Char mentions they are worried the approaching Zeon/Axis forces may join the Titans, although not sure why they would as despite having some autonomy the Titans are part of the Federation, Zeon's enemy. Most of this episode is another mech battle on the moon between Kamille, Char and the Titans, including Jarid in their new MS from Annaheim. The Titans also bomb the luna base as they leave, so guess they (and maybe the Fed in general) won't be welcome back. Kamille is personally thanked by the Argama captain for his actions in the fight and allowing the Argama and the Granada moon forces to escape. Char and Kamiile launch to intercept a distress call from a shuttle carrying Bright Noa, which appears is being chased by a Titan MS. Char has a new big ass canon and looks like Kamille's childhood friend, Faa or Fuu i think she was called, is on board the shuttle. Faa and Kamille reunite and turns out her parents are being held hostage by Bast to force Kamille to return the stolen mark 2 units, bit late now though. Looks like I've been wrongly calling the Fed main base on earth Jebra when it should have been Jeburo. |
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| Episode 10 Jerid gets another chance to take down Kamille and has a more protracted fight (with help and a plan this time) with him. I'll say I'm a bit frustrated to see that he's showing no clear signs of problesm with his superior officer. He did leave Lila out there to die, and Jerid keeps making it clear he's still thinking of her. You would think that would weigh on him in some way, but honestly, I haven't seen any shift in his behavior towards his superior. I don't mind that he's still with them (he has nowhere else to go and this is the life he's known), but it should at least be somewhat more strained. Anyway, the mech battle itself is somewhat interesting. It's nice to see more fighting tactics be used, even if what's here still seems rather basic. I don't think we've mentioned it yet, but Char's new suit being gold colored just seems... gaudy for no real reason. I'm not sure why he went with gold. Always found the red more striking, and no one was recognizing him anyway. Also interesting is their use of the much smaller mobile suits in battle. Didn't think that was a thing, and it ends up with a lot of dead soldiers, but it does change things since one of them actually fires off a beam rifle on his own. And yeah, it's nice to see Kamille get some affirmation after having been slapped and beaten last episode. Dude's done work, even if he's still a bit of a brat. Rescuing Bright Noa is interesting. We're not clear on why the Titans were attacking this shuttle, but if what happened earlier in the series didn't put him off them, this will. Kamille's childhood friend Fa Yuiry is also on board to hammer home that, yes, Bast is a rat bastard who kidnaps people's families and threatens their lives (didn't need the reminder) and to give him a love interest onboard (presumably so he'll stop going after the older women who clearly aren't into his charms). Couple of other minor elements. The pilot who was trying to shoot down that shuttle was in some kind of mobile armor that they did not recognize. Notably, they avoided fire from both Kamille and Char, so he/she has some skill with it, could be a long-standing character. Also, Bright specifically refers to Char (he calls him Quattro) as "captain" and Char corrects him. Not sure if Bright knows who he is and just slipped on the rank or if it was just a Freudian slip. |
whiteflame55Sep 27, 2023 6:14 AM
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| Episodes 8 - 10 @whiteflame55 I'm also finding this elaborate dance around Char's identity to be pretty funny as it's just so dumb. The latest addition is probably the best of them all so far with the whole "YOU JUST SAID I MET CHAR" "OH NO I DIDN'T" "OH YES YOU DID" between Emma and Kamille. Emma being convinced she'd met Amuro just based on his aura also is a bit weird. Argama and its Titan pursuers goes to the moon, with Titans landing in Granada and Argama docking in a neighbouring town Amman. Jerid finally gets the better of Kamille in their MS battle, helped by some new upgrades to his mecha and the fact that Kamille isn't used to fighting on the moon. It's one of the better mecha battles so far, but despite the flashier animation, I find these battles harder to follow and less tactical than its predecessor. There was also the remnant of a base that someone mentioned was destroyed during the one year war. Was this an incident from the original series? I seem to remember they had a battle at the moon at some point. Once the two factions both settle on the moon, we get some pretty dense plot building and I'm not sure I followed everything. They talked about attacking Jebru which, from the original series, I seem to remember is a big hidden Earth Federation base that's located in South America or something. Char disagreed with the strategy and wanted to attack Gryps instead. I must admit I still don't know what Gryps is - the name was one of many that got thrown around in the first couple of episodes, but I never really got it. I assumed it was a Titan ship, but @23feanor I think your theory about it being the Titans homebase makes more sense! The next episode sees the slap meme go into full throttle. I don't think Wong quite gets it though, as he over plays his part and actually kicks the shit out of Kamille ... yeah I also thought it seemed a bit excessive! Rather surprisingly, Kamille didn't seem to mind too much after the incident and happily settles into the pilot role like a good soldier. Considering the length he went to to get vengeance on a Titan officer for a much milder incident when he first got in a Gundam mk II, this seem a little out of character. Perhaps it's meant as a sign of his growing maturity, but it certainly didn't feel natural to me. Meanwhile, Char senses his cover might be close to getting blown, so to put people off the scent he goes and commissions himself a GOLD mobile suit haha! I'm a bit confused about the battle that happened next. I *think* what happened was, Titans takes off with 2 of their ships, leaving one behind at Granada; AEUG proceeds to go and capture the remaining one - Sichuan? - but while they're attacking Granada, Titans attack Amman in an attempt to capture Argama. Luckily, Kamille senses a disturbance in the force and gets back in time to save the ship and more importantly Emma. On Earth, Ensign Reccoa gets captured while trying to find Jeburo, but is saved by none other than Kai, who is one of my favourite characters from the original series! Apparently he's now a freelance journalist. Not sure why he's helping Reccoa with her mission though - last time I checked, journalists don't go around helping people carry out covert missions. Maybe he has the hots for Reccoa. Back on the moon, Titans once again attacks Amman, this time with a sizable force, just as AEUG is about to leave. The assault struck me as a bit odd, as the base seemed to get caught by surprise by the missile barrage which looked like they came from nowhere. Would have thought there'd be some kind of detection system in place to alert them of this kind of huge, all out attack. I was quite amused at the sight of full sized mechas beating up those mini ones - I didn't realise how small they were till they were on the same screen! Argama manages to escape thanks to Kamille's heroics. After that they run into Bright's shuttle pursued by what I assume to be a titan mobile armour. Char launches to a brand new piece of dramatic background music which I think is awesome. But it soon became clear that this whole well made launch sequence is a set piece to showcase the mega bazooka add on for Char's gold MS, which I'm guessing is probably a new toy that was being merchandised at the time. To be honest, the situation with the shuttle being pursued only became clear to me in retrospect - at the time I was wondering why is Char heading out with this massive bazooka just to shoot down Bright's shuttle?? And even after finishing the episode I went back and watched that segment again, and it still wasn't obvious what the situation was - they just didn't do a very good job of explaining what was happening. Anyway, even with all that fanfare for the mega bazooka launch, it turned out to be a bit of a dud as Char failed to shoot down the mobile armour (though the animation for firing it was pretty cool). The armour retreats, and Bright's ship was saved. When Bright meets Char he accidentally calls him "Captain" instead of "Lieutenant". @whiteflame55 I think that was a Freudian slip. Seems everyone (except Emma maybe) knows Quattro is Char but they're all pretending otherwise lol. The shuttle was carrying refugees including Kamille's childhood friend Fa whom we saw in episode one. Looks like there's enough love interests involving Kamille to be worthy of a harem now. Fa's parents were persecuted by Bask. I'm guessing that since the Gundam stealing incident, Bask has clamped down on Green Oasis and made the residents' lives miserable. Bright, being the upstanding guy he is, probably had enough and took off with a shuttle full of people who wanted to escape, and that's why the Titans are after him. Overall, some interesting plot build up, though it's really hard to follow. PS looks like they've brought back the narration at the start of each episode. Unfortunately it's meant as a poetic ornament and does fuck all to explain the background of the conflict. PPS does anyone know if Green Oasis and Green Noa are two separate things or are they both referring to the colony Kamille was from? |
kekekeKajSep 27, 2023 4:12 PM
| Take off every SIG!! |
| @kekekeKaj I had exactly the same thought about Green Noa and Green Oasis, from what we've heard guessing they are one and the same, and the side colony that Kamille originates from. I honestly have no clue whether a lot of these characters know Quattro is Char (the red MS is such a giveaway), or whether they defer to him automatically and 'sense' his leadership skills and expertise, such as Bright calling him captain by mistake because Char's a newtype, well partly. Episode 11. We meet the pilot of the Titan mobile armour that was chasing Bright's shuttle (guy with the purple hair and hairband). Reckon he's a newtype and we hear he comes from Jupiter. We get some exposition from Bright about his wife and kids on earth, who turns out to be Mirai. This rubs me the wrong way. The only wiff of a decent romance we had in the original series was between Mirai and Bright, that is until the show went cuckoo and had Mirai fall for Lt Slegger after he insulted and slapped her, and ended up giving her a ring iirc (can't remember if it was an actual marriage proposal) or some memento before he left on his final mission. And now she's suddenly married to Bright. Gundam really knows how to cut it's own legs out from beneath it's story writing at times. Faa learns about the death of Kamille's parents and they talk. The dialogue really is pretty awful here, and I've noticed that this is a common problem in a majority of gundam series, Stardust Memories being the one that springs to mind most readily. However, Origins proves that they can get it right, although this was scripted and written by someone different to these earlier stories i think from looking at the mal staff credits. You can tell what the scene between Kamille and Faa is trying to do; she's just learnt his parents are dead, he feels responsible, she's upset her parents have been drawn into this mess but doesn't blame Kamille directly and they both vent and get angry, but the dialogue to try and convey all of this is so stilted (I mean the words themselves not the VA performance). The purple haired guy from Jupiter, think he's called Paptimus but not sure as nobodies said his name yet, takes out some of the AEUG ships as they re-enter the earths atmosphere and takes out handfuls of the AEUG MS's. Emma who has been level headed up till now gets frozen in place, because of his jedi mind tricks, bit weak, and then refuses to comply with an order, for a while. Jupiter guy then flies off not wanting to get caught in the earths gravity leaving the AEUG to battle it out with the Titan MS lying in wait. Okay, I've seen 3 different spellings for the main Fed underground base in South America (jungle in Brazil iirc); Jebra, Jeburo and Jaburo. |
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| Episode 11 Mirai gets a shout out. I’d forgotten about the Slegger of it all @23feanor, definitely made for some… frustrating elements to that romantic setup, and it does feel clunky to just say “and they got together and kids!” Bright joins AEUC, not surprising given the shuttle incident but also kind of sudden and unexplained. Strange to see him and Char on the same side. Char has either been keeping track of his family or used his limited newtype ability to determine that Bright has two children, a boy and a girl. Emma leaves AEUC to help storm Jaburo. Fa seems hostile towards her, maybe because of jealousy. Fa and Kamille have a falling out when she finds out that his parents died, since it’s apparent that he’s trying not to deal with it while she’s trying to help him through it. They make a big deal out of the Mobile Armor’s transformation. The pilot (I had to look this up) is Paptikus Scirocco, another newtype but also apparently very different from Amuro or Kamille. I do like the atmospheric reentry portion of this. Many of the mobile suits use a kind of parachute-like padding to avoid burning up. This portion becomes an opportunity for the Titans to attack, which makes for some interesting mobility shifts and risk taking, resulting in the death of one of the Titan pilots, Capricorn (who thinks of his gf upon death). Emma is also uncharacteristically intransigent, trying to attempt reentry herself despite the lack of an arm before being recalled and reprimanded. |
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| @whiteflame55 forgot to mention that yday but I also thought the parachutes for the MS on re-entry was pretty neat Episode 12. We hear from Kai and Reccoa that the Feds have already relocated their main base away from Jaburo, making the AEUG assault a bit pointless, unless they mean to commandeer it. Kamille wave surfing whilst shooting down enemy pilots looked cool. Jarid is unhappy because the spacenoids seem to be able to fight just as well on earth. Char and co figure out Jaburo has been abandoned, but even the remaining Fed soldiers don't know why. Turns out there's a nuclear bomb planted underneath Jaburo. Seems a bit extreme just to kill off some AEUG soldiers. Kamille sense Reccoa and Kai and saves them before the bomb goes off. Mirai and Bright's kids weren't at Jaburo. As they are leaving the AEUG get directions from Hayato, so another member of the White Base crew makes an appearance. |
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| Episode 12 They land on Earth and… yeah, somehow Kamille makes the transition to fighting here seamlessly. Figures. That’s one thing I appreciated about the original series and that I thought the moon fight was setting us up for - transitions like this should matter, even to newtypes. There’s a portion in a cave where he struggles, but it still seems rather small considering everything about Earth that changes the dynamics of these kinds of battles. Jaburo turns out to be a trap. As essential of a base as it was, the Federation doesn’t rely on it nearly as much now, and so it’s just a well fortified location set to be abandoned and destroyed in a nuclear blast, despite those weapons not being allowed by previous treaties (several UC series have shown how little those matter when the chips are down). Considering how many men the Federation left behind without telling them what was going on, that’s doubly messed up. Also, Jerid kills a monkey. He probably just missed a shot at Kamille, but dude’s now an out and out monster, worse than Bast. He must pay. Does not help that he punches his way to the front of a line of escapees, ending up saved by a young woman with green hair, chanting the mantra “if you’re weak, you won’t survive.” Char and Kamille escape with Kai and Reccoa in tow, while the remaining Titans and Federation forces bite it in a massive and well-drawn explosion. They also run into Hayato Kobayashi, so they’re slowly getting the gang back together. |
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| Episode 11 - 12 With Bright's arrival, the Argama captain decides to go off on holiday and let Bright run the show. I find it a bit odd that a defector immediately got made captain of this ship. But anyway, we learn that Bright and Mirai have gotten together in the time between the original series and the sequel being filmed. I don't actually mind this to be honest. After all, a few years have passed, and in the original series it always felt like they were a natural couple, with Slegger being a rather ill judged side plot that we could have done without. However, I do recall that when Mirai was running off with Slegger, Bright stoically said to her something along the lines of: "Remember, when you're ready I will be here waiting for you." If that's not the most romantic line I've ever heard uttered on a Gundam show (admittedly a low bar), then I don't know what is. So I'm all for Bright x Mirai! The battle in this episode was good, as was the accompanying music. First we hear the music that was repurposed for the Crunchy Roll OP, and then they play what I think is the mega bazooka launch music again. We learn that the new mobile armour and pilot are from Jupiter, and also IT TRANSFORMS! You can tell this was a watershed moment in the franchise as the combined shock of everyone caused the screen to turn psychedelic colour for a few seconds. Emma's suit got damaged but despite that she was super keen to go down to Earth and had to be dragged back. There's a hilarious scene where Bright had to be content with air slapping her for insubordination as she wasn't physically in the room with him. Not exactly sure why she's so keen to go to Earth. Maybe she wants to be with Kamille? There's quite a bit of tension as Jerid and Kaprican tries and fails to take out Kamille in the midst of the descent to earth. Kaprican's demise was dramatic, was ruined by him randomly yelling out what is presumably his lover on Earth at the end, complete with psychedlic imagery. Last minute backstory development can be tricky to get right, and Gundam is especially bad at it. As everyone descends to Earth in their little parachute pods, we see the first signs of Kamille hesitating at killing enemies as he first torches Kaprican's parachute with some reluctance, then starts shooting other mobile suits' parachute before unable to stomach any more of this exercise in shooting fish in a barrel. Later on we see he's obviously uncomfortable destroying mobile suits who obviously stood no chance against him. I still think the timing of this is a bit late. Meanwhile, Kai and Reccoa's gotten themselves captured off screen. It looks like Kamille's formed a mental link with all of his harem as he once again senses a disturbance in his harem, and ends up finding and rescuing Reccoa. Reccoa is exceedingly grateful at being rescued. I mean, I get why she would be relieved, but the way she greeted him was like an old friend rather than someone she spoke to about 3 times before she left for Earth. In any case, Earth Feds were moving out of Jabrew and they set them up a bomb before they left (tempted to start throwing out lines from Zero Wing, but I'll restrain myself for now). Luckily, they helpfully left an officer behind to tell AEUG of this trap and AEUG was like "what you say!!" AEUG evacuates in captured Garudas (big transport ships - I think they featured in the original too), and Kamille and Char just about makes it (their mobile suits have limited flying capabilities it seems). As the Garudas fly off, the nukes explodes behind them, and people watches the explosion directly with naked eyes. Pretty sure they're not supposed to do that. Did none of them watch Oppenheimer? Kai meets Quattro and with his journalistic senses tingling realises that he is in the presence of Char. I'm pretty sure no one else has caught onto this fact yet. At the end Hayato makes an appearance - it's turning into a great big reunion party for the Whitebase class of '79. Next episode preview heralds the return of Frau Bow. As an inside, I was amused to notice Char's new gold suit has the kanji meaning "hundred" tattooed on its golden shoulders. The model of the suit is Hyaku soemthing, and "hyaku" means "hundred" in Japanese.  |
kekekeKajSep 29, 2023 8:36 AM
| Take off every SIG!! |
| Episode 13. We learn in the opening narration that Gryps is the Titan orbital colony, well 2 colonies, and well fortified. Gundam so often mention places without telling you what and where they are. Amuro flies a light glider or small plane into his mountain retreat to greet Frau Kobayashi (Fraw Bow married Kobayashi off screen) along with the 3 kids from the original series, who I actually liked, especially the rowdy girl with the red ribbon and boots. Amuro hands Fraw a note confirming my suspicion that he's being held by the Federation and his servants are spies. I don't understand this as we haven't been given any context or set up, yet. Amuro is a hero from the One Year War, has the Fed government been overtaken by paranoia, do they think Amuro has sympathies with AEUG, or maybe the Zeon Axis, or are they suspicious of his unexplained newtype powers as one of the Titan captains suggested? we just don't know and haven't been given any clues, other than the fact Amuro looks to be confined in a mountain retreat. One of the kids mentions an organisation called Karaba, an earth based resistance to the Titans. Have the Titans taken over the entire Fed, seems like it. Katz answers my question telling us that the Fed higher command lack leadership and this has led to the ascendance of the Titans. Amuro then mentions that he's viewed with suspicion as a newtype. The AEUG guys land in Florida with Hayato Kobayashi and we learn that Karaba is on control of the base. And yep, Kai has worked out that Quattro is Char. I can't remember how many of the Whitebase crew met Char in the original, thought it was only Sayla and Amuro who saw him face to face. Hayato gives Char the letter from Kai and asks his opinion. Char says he isn't Char and why would Zeon's Char help the AEUG. Kamille chimes in and punches Char for being a lying adult. Char says he feels shame. This all felt flimsy. The AEUG launch a shuttle to rendezvous with the Argama in space whilst Kamille and Char fight with some Titan mechs on land and in the air. We meet a transforming Titan mech, maybe an influence from Macross here. Personally I much prefer the transforming mechs from Macross to those in gundam. We're about one cour into Zeta and so far, it's slightly better than the original but not by much. It's reinforcing my view that the gundam writers love mechs and know about mechs but don't know how to write about people or interactions between people. Origins OVA being the only exception I've come across so far. |
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| Episode 13 Early in the episode, we spend our time with Amuro who is chaffing in his gilded cage, being told by one of the kids who was onboard the White Base once upon a time that he should fight back against Titan control. And yeah, the reason he’s in there is still unexplained. Seems like it wouldn’t take much, but here we are. Elsewhere, Hayato is doing just that, helping direct the crew of the AEUC, using his intelligence to spy on the Titans (who are after some kind of newtype lab) while Kai is doing his own spying (somehow discovering that Quattro is Char Aznoble *gasp*). There’s a confrontation where Char denies it. Kamille shows his usual angst and punches him, eliciting tears from Char as he acknowledges that he’s still too young for… something. I guess being a good soldier? The goal is now to get off planet with the mobile suits before they’re retaken by a Titan force that seeks to overwhelm them. Easier said than done as they only have space shuttles (our era, not theirs) to take off in. They make a point of saying how outdated they are. The fight to protect them is pretty harrowing, with one of the shuttles being destroyed and several transforming mobile armors deployed by the enemy. Roberto bites it (not sure who that is, but he gets a shout out from Kamille). They make it out by having Kamille get a boost from Char. |
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| Episode 14. In the opening narration we hear the republic of Zeon still exists, and is considered an autonomous region under the control of the Fed, and has been putting its own plans into action in concert with the Titans, largely ignored by the Fed because it's in outer space. I thought the Titans were created to route out the Zeon rebel factions, so why are they working with Zeon? Or is it just that both the Titans and republic of Zeon are following their own course of actions in outer space, but not working together and are both ignored by Fed high command? We hear mention of the newtype lab again and a Titan commander, Rosamia, blue haired lady. Amuro decides to take action and he and Katz steal an air freighter hoping to rendezvous with Karaba. Kamille goes out on an unauthorised sortie, again, alongside Char to fight Rosamia who is a mobile armour, he nearly gets himself killed and is saved by Char. He talks of being drawn in by the pilot and makes the comparison with jupiter guy who they fought just before re-entering the earths atmosphere. Kamille and Char describe the pair as dangerous. Then things go a bit ridiculous in the second mech fight. Amuro crashes the air freighter into the transforming Titan mech, but fails to knock it out and then falls to earth. Lucky for him Kamille is on hand to rescue him with his MS, but he didn't know this when he did it meaning it was almost a suicidal act. Char and Amuro have some sort of newtype telepathic link, each knowing who the other is. |
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| Episode 14 We’re introduced to a female pilot with purple hair who is chasing our heroes through the sky with a small force. This is Rosamia Badam, who is sourced from the newtype lab by the Titans. She’s apparently had her lungs enhanced somehow as well to help her breathe in low oxygen environments. Back at Amuro, it’s… honestly a bit weird that he doesn’t seem like he’s being held back by orders at all, just here by choice while being monitored because he is still a x factor. Makes it seem like he literally just gave up on fighting for a while for next to no reason, but now he has a fire lit under him. As the title portends, Amuro does indeed fly again, making off with a plane under the nose of his overseer. It’s not clear where he’s going, but he brought black jackets for him and… I think that’s Katz who went along with him for whatever reason. Rosamia attacks the Aldula (I think that’s what their ship is called) with an advanced mobile armor. Char takes the lead, but Kamille defies orders (what a surprise…) and joins him in the sky, grappling with the mobile armor before being bucked off. He shouts “tricked!” which had me laughing. It’s not the first time he’s faced a transforming mobile armor but he treats it like a trick. Char intercedes and Rosamia is forced to retreat. Hayato makes the strange decision of refusing to “correct” him, almost like physical violence doesn’t seem to work with him. Strange. Anyway, after a short break, the attack on AEUG proceeds without Rosamia, this time with Kamille taking an active role granted by his superiors (not sure why they’d do that after he proved incapable of following orders, but whatever). The tactics are interesting, with Char using scattershot to hit his opponent but not inflicting much damage. Amuro flies on and, nearly at the cost of his own life (didn’t feel that necessary, so I don’t know why he did it) manages to defeat the Titan pilot. I have no clue how Amuro determined who was the enemy or why, given that he could sense Char, he would assist him in battle by instinct alone. But at least Char can stop pretending now. |
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| Episode 15. Sounds like Rosamia has been brainwashed at the Titan newtype lab into thinking the AEUG are villains who want to drop colonies on earth and destroy it. To his credit the Titan major says that the AEUG want to protect the earth and wouldn't resort to such drastic tactics. Hayato wants Amuro to train Katz as a MS pilot. Amuro talks to Char and asks him why he returned to earth. Char says he's looking for Lalah's spirit, which won't be beyond Mars? Bit wishy washy. Amuro grapples with his purpose in life and seems a tad upset that Kamille is being chosen to pilot a MS when he's around. A blonde lady, Belechika Irma, lands in the Garuda in a by-plane, made me think of reading Biggles when I was a kid and his Sopwith Camel. Irma senses Char's lust for war and then Amuro sticks up for him. Katz is allowed to join a fight against the mobile armour. Why would they risk their mark 2 MS with a kid? IS Katz a newtype as well? Katz lands a lucky shot and they shoot down the mobile armour causing Rosamia to eject. |
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| I’ve been thinking about it, and part of what’s been bugging me about the series so far is that we don’t really get a clear idea of why AEUG has been such a magnet for recruiting support. We know why the Federation and, in particular, the Titans have been losing support, but not why so many people are turning to this specific group in response. Kamille did it early on and I can chalk that up to impulse and opportunity. It’s somewhat understandable for Bright who was rescued by AEUG, even if it’s unclear why he'd then proceed to lead them going forward. But then you get the likes of Hayato and Amuro, who join them for… reasons. Amuro even asks himself “what in the world am I doing here?” I guess it’s just because that’s where everyone else is going and they like to bandwagon. It just feels like a flimsy set of excuses to bring these characters together. Episode 15 Rosamia seems convinced by visions she’s seen as part of her newtype abilities that AEUG will cause a colony drop that devastates the Earth. The leader of the Federation force she’s joined (also the dude who piloted that strange transforming mech – having trouble finding his name) solidly doesn’t believe that but takes her into his fold. Meanwhile, everyone but Amuro is still denying Char’s identity. We get a confrontation between the two of them where Char all but confirms it himself with a cheeky remark, and he speaks about Lalah as a reason for his return to Earth (acknowledging that it’s her spirit that’s there, so he does know she’s dead). Both Amuro and Kamille seem to be on short fuses this episode, with both being prone to getting upset and leaving the room. They rendezvous with Beltorchika Irma, a member of the Hayato-led Karaba, who is flying a biplane to meet up with them. We get another fight with Rosamia, who is pitted against Katz in the Mk 2 and Kamille in the Rick Diaz. For whatever reason, Amuro fears getting out to fight himself. Katz struggles, apparently more used to piloting a Zaku. Nonetheless, with a combined effort between Kamille and Char, they are able to take down Rosamia, who ejects safely. They recognize her as a newtype as she escapes. It becomes clear that Katz is a newtype, though dude does get a beating from Hayato for his trouble. |
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| @whiteflame55 there's a bunch of things bugging me so far, mostly relating to the world building. We start Zeta and there's hardly any regular Fed soldiers and the Titans seem to be everywhere, and the Fed are all using old Zeon MS, so they look like the baddies (I get why they did this but doesn't help with the world building). Apparently the Fed high command is weak leading to rise of the Titans, Republic of Zeon in space and groups like AEUG and Karaba. We only get told all this in exposition and only in parts so it all feels very disjointed. Stardust Memories is a later addition to the franchise but does go someway to adding some background by showcasing the poor Fed leadership and Zeon rebel attack that could have led to the rise of a Fed group like the Titans to root out rebel Zeon factions. However, Stardust didn't exist when Zeta was made, and the info and background we have to go on is poorly lacking. Gundam really seems to be all about the mech of the week battles, and promoting toy sales. Story, world building and characters come a poor second. Episode 16. We start off having Beltorchika give Amuro a pep talk and kiss for good measure, why not. She tells him she's looking for a man and a woman will kiss a man to persuade him to do things, but can move on if he's not suitable. Hmmm. Seems like this crude portrayal of feminine wiles was written by a guy who knows very little about women. Char and Amuro talk about Lalah's ghost again. Not sure where this is going beyond Amuro's guilt about killing Lalah. Beltorchika's kiss seems to have worked and Amuro is back in a MS. Kamille and Char are supposed to be headed back to space but Kamille doesn't make it and remains with Amuro to take on the Fed major in the transforming suit. For some reason Katz forces Char to take off without Kamille, although Char knew the safety was on and was likely about to leave anyway. Kamille and Amuro take out the transforming MS, with Amuro giving Kamille some useful fighting tips, so looks like he hasn't lost his touch as a MS pilot. On returning to the Aldumla, Amuro and Beltorchika greet each other like long parted lovers, way too quick. I've stopped trying to understand the world politics and character motivations as much as they make little sense and just enjoy the mech of the week battles. From that point of view this episode was pretty good and Char is back off to space leaving Kamille and Amuro on earth with Karaba. |
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23feanor said: Gundam so often mention places without telling you what and where they are. Haha you nailed it! Episode 13 - 15 Frau Bow and a bunch of youths visit Amuro from which we learn a bunch of interesting things. First of all Frau Bow is now married to Hayato. Did this begin in the original series? I kinda had a vague memory that it did. Secondly, I instantly thought those youths who came with Frau Bow were the orphan brats from Whitebase, but then they referred to Frau Bow as mum and I was a bit puzzled. Then I realised Frau and Hayato must have adopted them. That didn't happen in the original series right? Frau's also pregnant with a child of her own. The visit from Frau also revealed that Amuro is pretty much under house arrest, albeit a luxury one, with his every move monitored by Earth Fed agents. It's obvious that Frau and the orphans thought Amuro could be doing a lot more while Amuro felt that he's a bit helpless. Katz in particular did not hold back in his scathing criticism of Amuro, which spurs Amuro to try and escape his house arrest. It's revealed later that this visit was engineered by Hayato (who has apparently become a very canny operator), hoping to deliver a kick in the butt to Amuro to get him back into action. This is easily the best piece of plot development done by Zeta so far - the story telling is efficient without being overly obtuse or relying on exposition. Meanwhile, Char's identity is pretty much all in the open now, but he still refuses to acknowledge it, leading to a hilarious scene where Kamille punches Char who, with tears in his eyes, mutters something about Kamille being young. @whiteflame55 rather than saying that Kamille is too young for something, I read it as Char marvelling at the starry eyed exuberance of youth. Something is obviously holding Char back from stepping onto the stage and I think at that moment, he envied Kamille's innocent idealism that is not yet burdened by the weight of experience. It could have been a poignant moment if done correctly but, well, I think I've repeated myself enough already XD. AUEG tries to go back into space but is attacked by Titans with their new transforming mobile armour. This show is beginning to feel like Gundam x Transformers! The show suddenly tries to make Roberto a significant character to make his death more impactful even though I'm not even sure we heard his name before. @23feanor I'm also puzzled by the narration at the start of episode 14. It sounds like Earth Feds have annexed Zeon territory so they're now all part of the Earth's empire, but then who are the Titans hunting down? Maybe there are still pockets of Zeon resistance fighters or something. We hear about some newtype lab, then Rosamia, who's described as a cyber newtype, turns up from the lab. She seems a bit unhinged to me, displaying a lot of emotional instability while babbling about the sky falling. She ends up fighting Kamille in what is perhaps the most tactical mecha battle so far, and nearly shoots him down before Char intervenes. Rosamia returns to the mothership for repairs, while the Titan guy in charge - called Braun or something - launches another attack on the AUEG Garuda. The Garuda, despite being absolutely huge, displays its remarkable plot armour in the form of invisible force field to avoid getting hit by the majority of the shots aimed at it. The battle ends in ridiculous fashion as Amuro arrives in his stolen freighter and somehow manages to ram the mobile armour even though it had no problems dodging attacks by much nimbler mobile suits. Amuro and Katz joins the Garuda, and is soon joined by Irma from the Karaba (whoever they are). With everyone on board, there's quite a bit of character work done through their interactions. There's a great, ironic scene where Kamille asks Amuro about how to live up to expectations of him, and Amuro, struggling with his own burden of expectations, was unable to give him advice. This forms an interesting parallel with Char, who, although still fighting on the frontlines, is also in his own way ducking great expectations people have of him. While Amuro is still young, he and Char are like faded stars from the previous generation of war, with battle scars that give them pause from participating in the current conflict in full capacity. In contrast, despite also feeling inadequate to expectations, the rising star of the current conflict Kamille is at least willing to stick his neck out at every opportunity, often in defiant of orders at that. In fact, Amuro's struggles runs even deeper than what first appears, as later on he's literally racked by fear at the prospect of piloting a Gundam again. Irma also makes an interesting observation that Char appears to be someone who lusts for war. Perhaps this explains why he's fighting as a lowly lieutenant - he may not want to be heavily involved in another war but at the same time he needs a fix for his bloodlust. The Garuda is attacked by Rosamia once again, and once again the show gets ridiculous. This time the boot is on the other foot as Kamille experiences what it's like to have his mobile suit stolen - this time by Katz. As usual, no one bothers to stop a kid buggering off in a Gundam. Predictably, Katz literally gets himself in a bit of a tangle - I had to laugh as his Gundam bounced off ropes of the suspension bridge - but in the end seems to show emergent newtype abilities in making a critical shot at Rosamia. Rosamia ejects but not sure if she's caught in the ensuing explosion or not. Katz rightly gets "corrected" by Hayato when he gets back. Oh yeah, and Irma echoes a comment from Rosamia about the sky falling, which seems significant. Will see if anything more comes of it. --- Just under a third way through the series now, and I kinda feel Zeta is a cut below the original series so far, though recent episodes have been improving. It simply doesn't do a good job at explaining the premise and the plot, which makes it harder to follow than it should. Being the second in the series, it's also obviously not as ground breaking as the original was - there's not really any moments which make you go "holy shit, this preceded <insert big name anime here> by like a decade!" And while the battle animations are better, it lacks the interesting tactical elements of the original. The dialogue and writing also seems significantly worse off. Oh yeah, and like with the original, I'm not really liking the newtype element so far - it's just very woo woo and seems to frequently serve as a convenient plot device rather than a solid, well thought through concept. |
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