Gundam not part of the Western anime community

@Salty-GB yes, they know the name, but a lot of them think it's a genre and call every Mecha anime Gundam.

@BilboBaggins365 @Guilmon1 @IKKIsama @TheMechaManiac Thanks for clarifying. I see what you're getting at now.


Was it not? I hardly remember it tbh. Politics then?

There's a reason for that, it's hard to get into and not very good. I watched the Hathaway movie last weekend and have now watched every UC entry (except ZZ), and overall it's a very mixed bag, some good entries like Origins, War in the Pocket, Unicorn, but most of them aren't very good with terrible writing, and I mean terrible (ahem Zeta, Char's Counterattack). The mech action is special, I will give it to Gundam that no other franchise does realistic mech action like it, ie Stardust Memories, 8th MS Team and then you have weird music fusion in Thunderbolt, which was cool.

I've seen people write that the characters are good in Gundam, I disagree strongly. Yes there are some decent chars like Ramba Ral and Hamon Crowley, but too many awful character writing, feels like they were written by people who love robots but don't understand people, and I include Char in that category. He became a walking legend rather than a person and just didn't make sense. Too many edgy teenagers who fall in love at the drop of a hat and then jump in the cockpit of a gundam suit (which wasn't being properly guarded, again!) to go and save there crush, only to be disappointed or die. Or washy women who want to be slapped by a man, ahem Mirai, or don't know what they want and so chose some arrogant arsehole, Reccoa Londe. Ughhh.

Personally I enjoyed IBO most and that's because it's not bogged down by all the UC details, which are inconsistent most of the time and hard to follow.

There are lots of other mech out there more readily accessible and worth watching, main one being Macross imho.

@SawronZXZ Politics, battles, beautiful women, it has all of that. Psychology? Pfft. Not the kind of show that focuses on introspection.

Eh think mecha as a whole is a niche whitin a niche in anglophone anime spaces. I really dislike using "western" when refering to what pretty much is just the american/canadian anime space considering Go Nagai and by consequence the Mecha stuff he did is much more popular in Europe and Latin America than in the US.

Gundam is still the juggernaut of mecha so even if not a lot of people actually watch Gundam most people have the faint idea of it, I think things get really obscure when you start talking about non-Gundam mecha like the Takahashi stuff or the non Gundam Tomino stuff or hell even pre-90's super robot stuff.

@TheMechaManiac when I say it's not accessible, I meant it's daunting, the same way the length of One Piece puts people off starting, you get the same thing with Gundam. I only started as part of a group watch with MSG 0079 and then Zeta. If I was watching alone I would've dropped it part way through MSG 0079 when they're crawling across the earth fighting off Zeon forces, it was a drag for me.

To clarify, I like Gundam, and that's why it gets under my skin. It could be so much better, feels like wasted potential, you get glimpses of how good it could be with entries like Origins OVA and Unicorn. But then I watched LotGH and apart from the mech action it eclipses Gundam in every aspect, and is so exceptional it makes Gundam look terrible by comparison.

And on the translation, sounds like a weak excuse. I watched in both sub and dub and the dialogue didn't make sense in either, across loads of entries (all ones Tomino had his sticky fingers in the script). There are so many examples of anime where depth, poise and meaning are translated going back before Gundam, so why only Gundam entries (and not just one but a recurring issue), for me it's awful script/dialogue.

@Guilmon1 we have different opinions on Char then, which is fine. I laughed out loud and rolled my eyes when we discovered Char had mummy issues and thought of Lalah Sune as a surrogate mother, when everything was pointing to them being lovers. It felt like the writers didn't know where to go with Char, and thought let's have it be mummy issues. Felt like a bolt from the blue and didn't resonate with me at all. I've heard that Char was written by many people over the entries he plays a role and you can tell, he never seems consistent, sometimes making very wise comments about the nature of people, as if he were an observant watcher, and the next he does something that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the people around him.

@TheMechaManiac when I say it's not accessible, I meant it's daunting, the same way the length of One Piece puts people off starting, you get the same thing with Gundam. I only started as part of a group watch with MSG 0079 and then Zeta. If I was watching alone I would've dropped it part way through MSG 0079 when they're crawling across the earth fighting off Zeon forces, it was a drag for me.

To clarify, I like Gundam, and that's why it gets under my skin. It could be so much better, feels like wasted potential, you get glimpses of how good it could be with entries like Origins OVA and Unicorn. But then I watched LotGH and apart from the mech action it eclipses Gundam in every aspect, and is so exceptional it makes Gundam look terrible by comparison.

And on the translation, sounds like a weak excuse. I watched in both sub and dub and the dialogue didn't make sense in either, across loads of entries (all ones Tomino had his sticky fingers in the script). There are so many examples of anime where depth, poise and meaning are translated going back before Gundam, so why only Gundam entries (and not just one but a recurring issue), for me it's awful script/dialogue.

@Guilmon1 we have different opinions on Char then, which is fine. I laughed out loud and rolled my eyes when we discovered Char had mummy issues and thought of Lalah Sune as a surrogate mother, when everything was pointing to them being lovers. It felt like the writers didn't know where to go with Char, and thought let's have it be mummy issues. Felt like a bolt from the blue and didn't resonate with me at all. I've heard that Char was written by many people over the entries he plays a role and you can tell, he never seems consistent, sometimes making very wise comments about the nature of people, as if he were an observant watcher, and the next he does something that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the people around him.

@Lucifrost Yeah; however, I do think in most cases, it is. the fact they just didn't like the franchise. Not to say there aren't bad intros, when considering the fact Wing was the one Gundam title that did well in the West, I am kinda surprised it hooked so many people. I mean it has it's moments, and beautiful animation/art however, it was one of my less favorite Gundam entries.

Still it depends on why someone dislikes the franchise. Like if you hate the teen drama side of things, you aren't escaping that in 90% of the shows.



Well I mean any series, if you just want short standalone entries, Gundam has good ones in War in the Pocket, MS Team, Thunderbolt. Witch From Mercury was also pretty short.

And frankly, considering most Gundam entries are only at most 50 episodes long, they are around the same/less of a commitment to watch, than a lot of big seasonals, that are on a S2/3.



@Merve2Love That sci fi is dead, and Japan writes sci fi way better than they write fantasy. Even a meh mecha show is better than a generic isekai series.

@Guilmon1 interesting take on Char, thanks for sharing. His relationship with Kamille was interesting, but that and with Reccoa was when he would make these very sage comments, and then do something completely different, sort of say one thing and do another, but in light of your comments that makes more sense now. Made me look back and think about his actions in a different light, always a good thing :)

@TheMechaManiac you may be right, it may be a me thing. I don't like starting a big franchise in the middle, if I'm going to get into it then I want to know everything and start at the beginning, so that ones on me. When you put it like that, there is something for anyone looking to get into Gundam. I did watch a few vids before embarking into Gundam, but most of them said start at the beginning of UC, so I pitched MSG 0079 for a group watch and we picked it up.

I like 90's action (can be over the top and melodramatic) and have heard good things about Seed, so was going to give that a go, but I did really enjoy Gurren Lagann so maybe I'll give G Gundam a look, thanks for the tips. Also got Witch from Mercury on my ptw list. So I'm not done with Gundam just yet.

But you skipped ZZ. I don't even see it in your PTW.

inb4 "Gundam is not like other mecha anime, it's about the characters and not the mech"

@Nette after reading getter robo I realised I should never believe what people say about the mecha genre, the amount of misconceptions is too big

@Lucifrost Ah yes, ZZ, I was so jaded by the end of Zeta I couldn't handle anymore of Kamille and co. Plus a few people who'd seen ZZ said it was worse than Zeta, which is often touted as the best of the early Gundam series. Given that I didn't enjoy Zeta very much, the sound of something worse put me off completely. So everything in the UC, bar ZZ.

@Lucifrost Ah yes, ZZ, I was so jaded by the end of Zeta I couldn't handle anymore of Kamille and co. Plus a few people who'd seen ZZ said it was worse than Zeta, which is often touted as the best of the early Gundam series. Given that I didn't enjoy Zeta very much, the sound of something worse put me off completely. So everything in the UC, bar ZZ.

You have a point when it comes to the original series or the other U.C. based anime coming after it, but I would generally disagree.

Gunpla is an enormously huge hobby that generates one zillion dollars every day for BandNam. Beyond that, and assuming we're only talking about anime, a lot of the spin-offs set in separate continuities are regarded rather well over here. Wing and G Gundam in particular (and their respective Toonami runs) are mentioned a lot by fans online who would've been watching at the time.

@Nette after reading getter robo I realised I should never believe what people say about the mecha genre, the amount of misconceptions is too big

@Guilmon1 Would you be trying Tomino non-gundam stuff? I think his one off are sometimes better than Gundam. Even Tomino is tired of gundam at times.If you interested Brave Reideen is where prototype Char appear.

@Guilmon1 Would you be trying Tomino non-gundam stuff? I think his one off are sometimes better than Gundam. Even Tomino is tired of gundam at times.If you interested Brave Reideen is where prototype Char appear.

I don't care about what the Western Anime Community think, they don't make Anime while the Japanese Anime Community are the only opinions I take in consideration.