Anime: Mobile Suit Gundam

[griffeytrek]

If you want to watch Gundam, then Mobile Suit Gundam is the place to start. But don't shortcut it with the damned condensed movies. Just watch the season and a half.

Also if you have never watched it, the series that this team made immediately following the cancellation of MSG, but before Gundam became a merchandising juggernaut, is fascinating and a really good subject for Chuck. Space Runaway Ideon. It uses many of the same Gundam character tropes and themes. But makes things even more hopeless. Sort of MSG meets Battlestar Galactica. Plus the conclusion movie is more fucked up than End of Evangelion. No lie!

Also I am not sure what Translation Chuck was using? But Lalah's ship/Mobile Armor was called the Elmeth in every version I have seen? I have no idea where "TriCorn" came from? Sounds like an attempt at an Americanization.

[K.E. Schwartze]

I've run booths at a lot of cons and sold quite a few Lupin figures (mostly Fujiko to no one's surprise). That bearded Lupin is one of the few figures offered for sale from a specific episode. The other was Fujiko's camo outfit from Calistro, though no one has done a regular size figure of her "full commando" run in Albatross Wings of Death.

Huh. I almost never see Lupin merchandise at cons. I don't really look super hard anymore, I have what I want, but still.

it's generally in the UFO catcher boxes (not clear front). There's an old set (that had the prison figure), that's still around a bit (mostly Fujiko variants by now). There was a new (slightly smaller figs but single-piece) set last year in support of the "blue jacket" series. Lupin doesn't sell or offer much at the high end, mostly $20-30 buck figures.

[Outsider]

If you want to watch Gundam, then Mobile Suit Gundam is the place to start. But don't shortcut it with the damned condensed movies. Just watch the season and a half.

Also if you have never watched it, the series that this team made immediately following the cancellation of MSG, but before Gundam became a merchandising juggernaut, is fascinating and a really good subject for Chuck. Space Runaway Ideon. It uses many of the same Gundam character tropes and themes. But makes things even more hopeless. Sort of MSG meets Battlestar Galactica. Plus the conclusion movie is more fucked up than End of Evangelion. No lie!

Also I am not sure what Translation Chuck was using? But Lalah's ship/Mobile Armor was called the Elmeth in every version I have seen? I have no idea where "TriCorn" came from? Sounds like an attempt at an Americanization.

Space Runaway Ideon is an excellent series; it's basically a slow burn disaster story of how First Contact can go very, very wrong and escalate with an ancient power manipulating both parties. And Be Invoked is definitely one of my favourite films; albeit with the caveat that you really do have to watched the series before the film to get the full impact. It's oddly cathartic.

[Nevix]

I... rather get the "Don't really give a F*** anymore" response. We need to give Chuck better anime to review.

Maybe some Cowboy Bebop, or some Trigun, or... or...

Wow. Chuck deserves a medal for raising his kids.

Oh right! Good anime. Outlaw Star, Fullmetal Alchemist, or maybe something a little more grounded and not as crazy, with less scifi and more... well, trek or something.

Tenchi Muyo's got a relatively decent dub performance for its day.

True! It's also pretty good too, though not as big a favorite as the others mentioned.

Funnily enough, Big O and Tenchi Muyo were some of the absolute first anime I ever saw, way back when I could only see Cartoon Network at my grandmother's during holidays.

I'd suggest the new Voltron series, "Legendary Defender" (giant transforming robots and alien empires, right up Chuck's alley!) but I don't know if it being a Netflix-exclusive would present issues for him.

I just figure getting to watch something that's got less rampant fanservice, and hopefully has a less quick to fire off hundreds of "But muh details!" e-mails fanbase.

[Admiral X]

*cough*ErgoProxy*cough*

[cloudkitt]

I second the motion to have chuck review better anime. Especially sci-fi anime.

"What do you need legs for? You're in fucking space!" made me laugh, though.

[Bag of Magic Food]

Also I am not sure what Translation Chuck was using? But Lalah's ship/Mobile Armor was called the Elmeth in every version I have seen? I have no idea where "TriCorn" came from? Sounds like an attempt at an Americanization.

I remembered seeing both names, so I looked this up. Apparently "Tricorn Hat" was the EFF's nickname for the Elmeth, in the same way Zeon forces called White Base "Trojan Horse", because of course they wouldn't be privy to the real names of the enemy's newest models.

[Count_Zero]

I just finished watching all three parts of the review - and I absolutely agree with Chuck's assessment that the films are not a great jumping on point for the show. I think probably the best jumping on point for the original Mobile Suit Gundam... would also be in a format that would fit less with Chuck and more with, well, Linkara - specifically the Gundam: The Origin Manga.

The manga fixes of the pacing and plotting problems with the TV series (50 planned episodes of plot truncated fairly late in the game to 36 episodes of plot) without the problems the films have (loads of useful character development eliminated with the grace of Leatherface wielding a chainsaw.)

[Maxwellelomo]

Watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam has long been on my To Do list, and now Crunchyroll has provided me with a valid excuse to catch up on it.

Also, this may be the first Anime I have ever seen where the rebellion is the bad guy.

[Archon_Wing]

Watching the last part of the review reminded me of a common issue of dealing with anime, especially long runners and very popular series.

A lot of it feels very insular, and you get locked out if you haven't gotten into the franchise, and once the franchise gets big enough, it becomes overwhelmingly tedious. Personally I thought the movies got the idea across and I didn't have an issue, but it may not be everyone else's style, especially if one has a more analytical one. I'm more of the type to get amused by the random slapping that happens. Robots fighting and Char shooting people's heads off tend to be enough to entertain me. :p

So I do understand the concerns here, and then I thought this isn't even the worst examples. So it made me think that various other series, especially those that are based off multimedia ones, are probably not viable for those that are not very into the fandom. And hell, even as someone that's watched quite a few anime, I'm inundated with a bunch of shows that just seem incomprehensible and get met with "Read this source material, or extra material" or some other crap. Of all this just makes it very inaccessible. It does not help that a lot of anime is basically promotional material for the manga, the game, or *groans*, the light novel and leads to a lot of complexity but not enough depth especially when adaptations seem to be judged on how well they copied the source material and not rather if it made sense or not to the viewer.

I will notice that the media often does seem like it expects you to know stuff about it beforehand, and trailers will gleefully show spoilers of important events because it seems the intended audience is people that are familiar with the material.

This is also why I think Alternate Universe Gundam shows are much easier for people to get into, because they don't suffer a continuity lockout if it's self contained. Yes, UC Gundam is great, but it's also huge. And let's say a franchise like, Fate/Stay Night-- nobody is going to agree on where to start. Which is unfortunate if you ask me.

And finally, this is why I also think why stuff like Madoka was easier for Sfdebris to appreciate-- it's an original story, and you don't need to know any of the other meta stuff, but even in that case it still helps to be more of an "insider" since it plays with various expectations of magical girl anime.

With that all said, I think it's probably evident that original anime is probably the most advantageous to experience and review because of all this and future requesters could take that into account. Not that this was a bad choice mind you; I would find it quite difficult to sift a very long series like that. It'd be like watching Star Trek but you absolutely had to watch every episode. Yikes.