Gundam is an interesting franchise. It's huge, it's powerful, it's very marketable, and its shows can range from absolutely amazing to mediocre to god awful. It seems like for every Gundam Thunderbolt, there's a Gundam SEED and for every SEED, there's a Gundam Wing...respectively to the previous sentence. Widely heralded as the largest and best timeline in the franchise, it's unfortunate to know that the Universal Century timeline is no stranger to mediocrity or even being terrible with installments like ZZ Gundam, Char's Counterattack, and F91 ranging from awful to just mediocre. Yet, this goes one step beyond those since in all honesty, Twilight Axis might just be the worst Gundam anime to date, or at the very least, the worst since ZZ. I might not have seen all of what the franchise has to offer, but of all the Gundam anime to belong to a mainline timeline of the franchise, this is most certainly towards the bottom So, what happened for this to occur? Well, let's find out, shall we?
STORY AND CHARACTERS: 1/10
It's very rare that I have to say this, but there is practically nothing to the plot or characters of this show. None of the characters have any real semblance of personality other than this one blue-haired feddie that suddenly turns out to be a generic evil villain bad guy dude mother fucker in episode 5 (does he even have a name?). Arlette is the only one here that I know the name of it that tells you anything about this nothing cast, and we only know that she has this bullshit deus ex machina cross necklace and that she was raised in a lab before meeting Char. Given his uniform and the fact that Lalah was there, this could've only happened sometime during the One Year War of 0079, but how did he find the time? The only other thing is that she and this one guy on her side care for each other deeply but that's it.
This show is nothing but a vapid puzzle that amounts to nothing because we hardly have any of the pieces. It's just a bunch of nothing. From the incomprehensible first episode to the finale, there is almost no semblance of coherent plot. In fact, even with this, there are a few major plot holes. Why is Sazabi just laying on what is presumably Axis, especially after 3 years and the fact that it was destroyed and not even there anymore in Char’s Counterattack? Where’s Nu Gundam? How come when Arlette goes to find Sazabi she ends up taking our a brand new mobile armor (is that even a mobile armor? I dunno, it's anime original, it isn't even the Nightingale)? How come she doesn't look to Axis? Why does this show end on a cliffhanger sequel bait? This clearly isn't a successful or remotely worthwhile project. In fact, it's a disaster. It is nothingness, sometimes worse than that, which is a horrible thought to have. Heck, apparently it sucks from an adaptational standpoint. I'll bet. Apparently the final episodes were anime original. I'll bet! Moving on before I lose my mind!
ART: 6/10
Well, let’s get the elephant or of the room: the editing in episode 1 is abysmal! No transitions, music cuts off, and overall, episode 1 is a disaster that really set a precedent for this show to Rollie in terms of being awful. The character designs look kinda bad, worse than any UC Gundam anime to date. I get this was a novel adaptation so you had to adapt character designs being described, but Gundam Unicorn had amazing designs both for its mechs and its characters, both of which are among the best in the franchise with my only other contenders for the award for having the best mobile suit designs being Zeta and Build Fighters. This? No. The Tristan looks generic and meh, and the new Mobile Suit/Armor/whatever looks vastly inferior to the Sazabi, Nightingale, and the Sinanju. The fights are terrible too, which is a shame since the director here worked as a key animator for a ton of Sunrise mecha shows like Code Geass and multiple Gundam entries. The art of everything barring the bleh character designs holds itself together well enough but it's still mediocrity all around for most part.
SOUND: 5/10
I swear, most of these episodes don't have music. If they do, I completely forgot since most of this OST is very, very forgettable with the only memorable track being this somber opera piece at the beginning of the show, and that got abruptly cut off in episode 1. There was also an emotional piece in episode 6 and that was ok but yeah, pretty weak music.
ENJOYMENT: 2/10
This was insanely boring. I had a ton more fun writing this rant of a review than I did watching a single episode of this show. I'm torn between disliking this one heavily and outright hating it but it wasn't pleasant, and it only got worse over time. Even the fights sucked, how whack is that?! Let’s just wrap this up already!
OVERALL: 2/10 RAW SCORE: 19/100
Everything about this show is a disaster. The editing was awful, it's an embarrassing adaptation, the fights sucked, the reception is the worst in the franchise thus far on MAL (for damn good reason), and the Gundam Tristan model kit has been considered one of the worst Gunpla kits in existence. It’s a disgrace to Universal Century, and a disgrace to Gundam as a whole, making this one of the worst in the entire franchise. Good riddance, Twilight Axis, enjoy getting treated like a grunt suit in an AU show, getting wrecked to oblivion! As for my dear audience, thank you for listening, and I bid you adieu.
