Zeta Gundam is many, many things.
Zeta Gundam is boring, Zeta Gundam is hypocritical, pretentious, and filled with the sort of dialogue that makes Air Gear look like 20th Century Boys (and even then it's not that good). Zeta Gundam is filled with annoying characters that need a good gunshot to the head, Zeta Gundam is confusing and Zeta Gundam is overrated.
If it hasn't been made clear.
I hate this show.
Yes that's right hardcore Gundam fans, I hated it, I'm talking to you Tomino fanboys, especially the one's that think that Zeta Gundam is his chef d'oeuvre and the only Gundam worth liking. Go on, hit that not helpful button because I know you've got your finger ready to click it.
Also, let me be quick to clear something up, that 8 is purely based on how good the last two episodes were (truly some of the greatest anime episodes ever made), if you were to ignore that 8 throughout the review, the general score is a 6.
Zeta Gundam has a lot of problems.
For a start the story (for the most part) is confusing, convoluted and feels very forced in some places, back in the day this may have been truly ground-breaking stuff, but father time has definitely not been kind as to how Zeta Gundam has aged and though it may have laid out the archetypes and clichés you see in most mech anime today, seeing those original archetypes 26 years after they were created when there are mech anime out there (i.e Soukyuu no Fafner) that have characters that are based on them and do them so much better just shows how uninspiring they truly are (though Kamille and Char remain the exception to this).
But the main issue is just how confusing Zeta actually is, this is not an easy anime to get into, this is an anime that expects you to marathon it and it wants you to marathon religiously.
This wouldn't be so much of a problem if Zeta Gundam actually made sense, keep in mind that this is set 7 years after the original, 7 years of unexplained back-story (5 if you're willing to accept Stardust Memory as an explanation) for many who probably fell in love with the White Base crew, this is 7 years too much, hardly any explanation is given to just what has happened to the characters (I appreciate that this is a new cast, however cameo's don't cut it, explanation is needed) and though certain characters have tiny pieces of information revealed as to just what happened to them following the end of the One Year War, the anime expects you to use these tiny pieces to figure out where they've been and what they've become. It's very, very frustrating.
The new cast on the other hand, definitely does not cut the mustard in terms of being likeable, throughout the anime, there will most likely be 5, 6 or 7 characters that people will find likeable, and most of them do not get enough screen time. Characters like Fa, Reccoa, Jerid and Katz to name a few are insufferable when they're on the screen, which makes things even worse because you will be seeing these characters a lot of the time in the first place.
Zeta Gundam is made worse by its absolutely awful scripting, I have to wonder how the actors could have said these lines as they make absolutely no sense; an example of this is early on in the series when a character starts to babble on about something to do with feeling apathy apparently making her an Oldtype. After this line I was constantly scratching my head trying to figure out just what exactly this meant, and, nope, I still haven't figured it out. I can only assume that it wasn't the writing that made Zeta Gundam a so called "Masterpiece" at it's best it's awkward (unless they're going on about the mechs, then and only then does the script make sense) and at it's worst the series becomes almost unwatchable.
There is at least some solace in knowing that the art in Zeta Gundam is outstanding quality for its age, so much so that it still looks damn good now, I can only begin to wonder how good it must have looked for those who were watching it when the show was airing.
That being said, there are some major inconsistencies in the art, particularly during the mech fights; these should be brilliant spectacles that truly define Zeta Gundam, but it seems the artists went a bit overboard with the colour black, which considering the very dark colours of the mechs (which all look excellent I should add) makes the fights hard to watch, rewinding becomes a necessity in order to get the enjoyment that was intended by the anime, it's a very large annoyance which really snatched away quite a lot of the enjoyment in the show.
The soundtrack on the other hand is outstanding, considering the amazing quality of some of the tracks like the theme of the Zeta Gundam, Argama and some of the battle tracks, it's hard to believe that this soundtrack was composed 26 years ago, some of them could easily pass for tracks from modern day movies, it's a definite step up from the soundtrack from the original MSG, which while enjoyable, can't hold a candle to hardly any of the tracks from Zeta.
The voice acting is equally impressive, a special mention must go to Nobuo Tobita and Shuuichi Ikeda who are both excellent as Kamille and Char. Hirotaka Suzuoki is excellent once more as Bright and Toru Furuya is also great as Amuro. I was also pleasantly surprised by at least one voice in the dub, while I never did manage to watch a whole episode of the dub, Johnathon Lachlan-Stewart really makes for an excellent Kamille, his performance is by far the best out of the dub cast (and it's also worth pointing out that none of the original dub cast returns either) so much so that he could give Nobuo Tobita a run for his money in some cases, no small feat considering how expertly Tobita pulls off the role.
It's when Zeta Gundam gets to its characters that you start to see how bad this anime truly is, as I mentioned earlier, these characters became the archetypes and clichés of modern mecha today but looking at them, you'd hardly begin to think that they could even pass with being on screen to begin with. It's easy for me to say that Zeta Gundam's characters are some of the most annoying, hypocritical creatures to ever appear on my monitor. Most of the time, the logic they use makes no sense, they contradict themselves in ways that shouldn't be possible, they're idiots, and Kamille manages to be the only saving grace of the cast (that and Kai's cameo, though he's a personal favorite of mine to start with). Many people have complained about Kamille, personally, I enjoyed him as a protagonist, his logic makes sense and if the other characters actually stopped being morons for at least one second of their lives, they would see that Kamille is actually right about a lot of things.
However, as idiotic as the characters are, the actions they take are nothing compared to the Titans, I've often heard that Tomino tried too hard to make the Titans unlikeable, and I have to agree with them, I realise that this is fiction but no military corporation in their right mind should ever be allowed to take the actions that the Titans do, the actions they take are deplorable and then some.
Zeta Gundam is a very, very, very hard anime to enjoy, it's stupidly confusing, the plot points that it does make are either moronic or ruined thanks to it's terrible script, the fights are unclear and unlike the first series hold little to no strategic relevance, or any of the clever introspection or military tactics that MSG had; the vast majority of characters are idiots and killed off in ridiculous ways and it isn't exactly a spoiler to say that most of the good ones die too, (this is one of Tomino's kill em all's after all) and in no way shape or form is this ever a masterpiece. The last few episodes especially are a major chore to watch as the established formula of battle after peace after minor plot point after battle (wash, rinse, repeat) has been drilled into your brain so much that it's only through sheer will power that I was actually able to continue. With that said, the art is very good, the soundtrack was, and still is outstanding and the last two episodes really are everything the hype says they are.
I've often heard the story that Zeta Gundam was telling turned very dark and depressing in the second half of its story.
I disagree, this is not a dark and depressing story.
It's just a very boring one.
All the way through.
