Anime: Mobile Suit Gundam

[TheNewTeddy]

I don't know if this is the proper thread for the movie review; but part 2 of the movie review is amazing. I forgot how great it is when chuck hates the work being reviewed, its really like old chuck tearing apart the worst of the worst.

[Chaos Sepher]

Part of me thinks Chuck would have been better off reviewing the full length Mobile Suit Gundam series in chunks. Tis why I never watched the Trilogy myself and feels strange having stuff like Operation Odessa being glossed over.

The whole thing using a bazooka trying to stop the escaping prisoner always stuck out to me too. Sure it was overkill, but it was either hastily try and blow the door open or let a prisoner with intel get away.

Funny thing about all the bear gags about the Acguy mobile suits how there actually is a Beargguy in Gundam Build Fighters.
http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/KUMA-03_Beargguy_III

[rickgriffin]

So how is the name Char pronounced? Chuck pronounces it as in "charred broiled" but I have always heard it, at least in the English dub, as "Sh-are".

According to the Japanese spelling, "Char Aznable (シャア・アズナブル Shā Azunaburu)". So it's "Shaar" with the r being dropped from the original pronunciation due to relative lack of word-ending consonant support.

Yes, but he's named after a Frenchman named Charles (and in French that's a "soft" C). "Shah" is pretty accurate phonetically (Char would also fit, these sort of katakana issues happen all the time). Best would be something like sha-rl (approximate French pronunciation of "Charles"), but good luck finding a Japanese person who could do that. I tend to use Shar (soft CH) but really there's no easy solution. Japanese phonetics are very logical, but extremely limited (about half the sounds of English and exactly one word-ending consonant).

No wonder Chuck hates the whole pronunciation thing. An ending with -aa is usually meant to replicate an r sound, sometime even interstitial (Kirby's Japanese pronunciation being Kaabii, or otherwise spelled Kābī) and if he didn't have access to the official localization, there'd be a zillion people insisting it has to be pronounced either strictly, or with the sound replication in mind, or with localized intent in mind, and it'd just go back-and-forth forever with every side insisting the other was wrong.

Well, everybody is wrong. As Chuck points out in the beginning, there's consonantal sound shifting that occurs even when the romanization has a strict spelling guide. All languages have different domains for what "counts" as a particular sound which will change on context depending on the string in question. For instance, everyone should know that R and L are both considered the same sound in Japanese, but the romanization will almost always default it to R even when it will without question sound more like an L, or in the cases where it happens to liquify into an L due to the preceding sound, or something that doesn't sound like R OR L because just so long as the sound is "liquid enough without being W" it counts. That's a much larger range of possible sound qualities than an anglophone will consider for those consonants.

So I find it kinda stupid when people argue that it must be one way or another when the point is that we're trying to say the word in an English consonant structure, not the Japanese one. You should just be able to pick one.

[MithrandirOlorin]

I didn't actually get the sense his opinion was over all negative.

Digibro and Glass Reflection agree the best way to get new fans into Gundam is the Trilogy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Y-PqWMxrk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M79uz1BmxI

The Dubs are on JustDubs.org and I donwloaded them from there using firefoxdownloadhelper and their quality is just as good as in Chuck's videos.

[Nealithi]

I dunno. Looking at how Amuro is treated here versus Shinji is treated in Evangelion. You think beating and brow beating the youth is how you get them into mecha in the first place. . .

[LavarosVA]

Did anyone else feel a sense of irony when Chuck called the Acguys teddie bears considering they're the base for Bearguys?

[K.E. Schwartze]

I dunno. Looking at how Amuro is treated here versus Shinji is treated in Evangelion. You think beating and brow beating the youth is how you get them into mecha in the first place. . .

It's older than that. Most super-robot pilots have a rather rough relation with their dads (who's traditionally the one what built the thing). Gundam plays with it, but kills the dad off early. Eva plays up the fact that this does not make for a stable pilot.

Demanding dads are a common trope in early Anime. Hoshi's dad in Kyojin no Hoshi makes Earl Woods seem sane and measured.

[K.E. Schwartze]

So how is the name Char pronounced? Chuck pronounces it as in "charred broiled" but I have always heard it, at least in the English dub, as "Sh-are".

According to the Japanese spelling, "Char Aznable (シャア・アズナブル Shā Azunaburu)". So it's "Shaar" with the r being dropped from the original pronunciation due to relative lack of word-ending consonant support.

Yes, but he's named after a Frenchman named Charles (and in French that's a "soft" C). "Shah" is pretty accurate phonetically (Char would also fit, these sort of katakana issues happen all the time). Best would be something like sha-rl (approximate French pronunciation of "Charles"), but good luck finding a Japanese person who could do that. I tend to use Shar (soft CH) but really there's no easy solution. Japanese phonetics are very logical, but extremely limited (about half the sounds of English and exactly one word-ending consonant).

No wonder Chuck hates the whole pronunciation thing. An ending with -aa is usually meant to replicate an r sound, sometime even interstitial (Kirby's Japanese pronunciation being Kaabii, or otherwise spelled Kābī) and if he didn't have access to the official localization, there'd be a zillion people insisting it has to be pronounced either strictly, or with the sound replication in mind, or with localized intent in mind, and it'd just go back-and-forth forever with every side insisting the other was wrong.

Well, everybody is wrong. As Chuck points out in the beginning, there's consonantal sound shifting that occurs even when the romanization has a strict spelling guide. All languages have different domains for what "counts" as a particular sound which will change on context depending on the string in question. For instance, everyone should know that R and L are both considered the same sound in Japanese, but the romanization will almost always default it to R even when it will without question sound more like an L, or in the cases where it happens to liquify into an L due to the preceding sound, or something that doesn't sound like R OR L because just so long as the sound is "liquid enough without being W" it counts. That's a much larger range of possible sound qualities than an anglophone will consider for those consonants.

So I find it kinda stupid when people argue that it must be one way or another when the point is that we're trying to say the word in an English consonant structure, not the Japanese one. You should just be able to pick one.

That's leaving aside the different actors' accents. Most of them are "swallowing" the "i" at the end of Mirai for one. Lots of ordinary Japanese words have "silent" or at least unstressed mora in common pronunciation. Ryokai ("roger") usually sounds a lot more like "yokai" and most of the verb compounds are slurred together. Especially since this was done back in the day, with a very tight budget.

[K.E. Schwartze]

I don't know if this is the proper thread for the movie review; but part 2 of the movie review is amazing. I forgot how great it is when chuck hates the work being reviewed, its really like old chuck tearing apart the worst of the worst.

I wouldn't call it hate (he actually seems to be enjoying the plot arc). But the lack of naming consistency and getting called out on bits of lore (few of which are relevant, and some of which are probably wrong anyway) makes this sort of thing an endurance contest.

Also, while the movie tries to smooth over some of it, Gundam is a bit repetitive and the plot doesn't advance all that smoothly (and the TV series has even more cruft). Also, there's almost no Char in volume 2 (and we still know very little about him, for instance that he isn't really Char). And charismatic villains help keep things going. I did love that his take on Char blends right in with a certain part of Fandom in the late 80s early 90s (Captain Jack levels of getting it on, but it's only ever suggested).

Gundam is very important in the history of robots, but it was also made to sell toys (some of which were really dumb). This was asked for, to get his take on early "real" robots. The problem is, he has to watch the commercial bits too. AND.. there is a LOT of lore etc, most of which isn't too important to this show. Chuck's going to examine the plot, he's never going to cover every fan's favorite bit of esoterica to their satisfaction, and volume 2 is usually where this stuff lands on him (see the pile of letters in "War in the Pocket".

[TGLS]

You know, whenever I see those 3 year olds bumbling around, I can't help but hum the theme to Cannon Fodder...

Honestly, I thought the whole bit with Amuro meeting his enemy at the restaurant happened in the previous movie. I guess I should rewatch the movies.