The Gundam that Never Was

     After Char’s Counterattack, chronologically speaking, the Universal Century experienced no major conflicts of any note for the next thirty years.  Though that will soon be amended with the total canonicization (I made a new word!) of Gundam Unicorn.  Made in 1991, Mobile Suit Gundam F91 was Tomino Yoshiyuki’s first attempt at creating a brand new Gundam saga, one which did not revolve around the central Earth Federation/Zeon conflict of the previous shows.  In Gundam F91, the Crossbone Vanguard, an independent military force established around the idea of the virtue of a powerful aristocracy, attacks some of the outlying space colonies in an attempt to create a new empire.  A youth of one of those colonies, Seabook Arno, is caught up in the fighting.  By a typical Gundam twist of fate, he ends up piloting the Earth Federation’s newest mobile suit, the Gundam F91, built by his own mother.  One of his classmates, Cecily Fairchild, is discovered to be the heir to the Crossbone Vanguard, and the two are placed on a collision course due to their opposing fates.

     The story of this movie was originally supposed to be that of an entire fifty-episode anime, as per Tomino’s original vision.  However, due to staff disputes, it was turned into a movie.  The result is that what was originally supposed to be twenty-five hours of story is now only two hours.  So the whole story is amazingly rushed.  Small things that were obviously supposed to be major plot points, like the defection of Annamarie Bourget, get about five seconds of screen time.  The fact is that it’s impossible to truly pass judgment on this movie without keeping in mind what it was originally supposed to be.  You can see a lot of what Tomino was trying to do, but you never really get enough to get a feel for the individual characters.  While the whole emphasis on the aristocracy seems like a refreshing change of pace from Zeon, it’s really just a new skin for the same idea.  The titular Gundam’s design is a nice departure from the normal, tried-and-true beam rifle/beam sabre formula, but you never really get to see it shine.  Kind of like everything else about this movie.  So basically, it could have been good, but we’ll never know.  Nothing gets very much screen time, and the end result is a story that goes by so dizzingly fast that you can’t really enjoy any part of it.  In that way, it’s not at all a satisfying movie.  Fortunately, a lot of the problems with it are solved in the actually rather good sequel, Crossbone Gundam.

Story: 3.3      Animation: 8.7      Soundtrack: 4.7      Acting: 8.5      Overall: 3.9

The End of the Great Rivalry

     Five years after the events of Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, Char Aznable, the son of Zeon Zum Deikun, leads his own Neo-Zeon forces against the Londo Bell defense forces of the Earth Federation in what was to be known as the second Neo-Zeon War.  The movie Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack depicts the conflict and the end of the longstanding rivalry between Char Aznable and the protagonist of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, Amuro Ray.  Amuro is now a part of Londo Bell, along with former White Base and Argama captain Bright Noa and former Argama mechanic Astionage, along with new members Chan Agi and Kayra Su.  When Char plans to attack Earth, the Earth Federation gives him the Axis asteroid, the former base of the first Neo-Zeon movement, as an attempt to placate him.  Meanwhile, Hathaway Noa, Bright’s son, begins to fall in love with the young daugher of a prominent politician, Quess Paraya.  However, Quess is far more enchanted with Char and ends up defecting to Zeon, where her Newtype powers are taken advantage of by placing her in first a Jagd Doga and then the powerful mobile armor, Alpha Azieru.  Char launches the Axis asteroid at Earth to cause an ice age and force the people of Earth to immigrate to space, but Londo Bell predicts the move and intercepts.  In the course of the battle, many lives are lost, and Amuro, in his Nu Gundam, and Char, in his Sazabi, fight over the memory of Lalah Sune and the fate of the world.

     Now, a movie that promises one more fight between this two great rivals sounds absolutely awesome, right?  Like a fanboy’s dream come true, right?  Well, I can think of another movie like that: Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.  And I give a similar response to Char’s Counterattack.  This whole movie was contrived purely to see Amuro and Char kick the crap out of each other, as Advent Children was for seeing Cloud Strife and Sephiroth do the same.  As such, the plot is absolutely atrocious.  For one, the continued idiocy of the Earth Federation after, say, fifteen years (and believe me, they don’t get any smarter) is just mind-boggling.  It makes me wonder how they ever came to power, considering how stupid they are.  Then, the Hathaway-Quess subplot is just obnoxious.  Quess is a little bitch who is supposed to be the movie’s main tragic Gundam woman, but she’s so dislikable that I don’t know what Tomino Yoshiyuki was thinking.  Chan Agi is another character meant to replace Sayla Mass who is so shallow and uninspired that it’s sad, Hathaway Noa isn’t at all a sympathetic character, acting more like Katz Kobayashi in Zeta Gundam, and Gyunei Guss has just a bit of a lolita complex.

     As for the four returning characters, Char’s motivations are just mind-boggling.  Are we missing something between Zeta Gundam and this movie?  Wasn’t he all like “freedom for spacenoids” and a good guy back then?  And didn’t he hate Neo-Zeon?  What’s up with that?  I mean, yes,  he’s still fighting for freedom for spacenoids, but this is kind of a big change in modus operandi here.  And he’s still pining for long-dead Lalah Sune, who was more than ten years younger than him anyway.  Oh yeah, and Amuro’s still pining for her, even though he only met her in person once.  Amuro’s snoozy, since he’s mostly spending time with the boring Chan Agi, Bright Noa just gets barely any screen time, and Astionage gets less than that.  So, the characters are boring, and the plot’s ridiculous.  I mean, the idea that Char would actually send the Psycommu system schematics to Anaheim Electronics just so he could fit Amuro is pretty far-out, even for this series.

     So, as I said, this movie was entirely for the purpose of satisfying fanboy dreams of having Amuro and Char fight one more time.  And to be honest, even though they look cool, neither Nu Gundam nor Sazabi are even that exciting of mobile suits (beam rifle, beam saber, shield, bits, and that’s it), so the fight isn’t even that cool.  Honestly, I think even Kamille Bidan’s fight against Paptimus Scirocco was way better.  If you want an epic Amuro versus Char fight, go watch the end of Mobile Suit Gundam again.  When their mobile suits get trashed, they fight with rapiers!  That’s epic!  The animation is admittedly quite good for the time, but that’s only one plus.  The music is…  did that movie even have a soundtrack?  As for the voice acting, I had no choice but to watch it in English.  Personally, I prefer Brad Swaile as Amuro Ray, but aside from him, the Japanese seiyuu are definitely better.  I mean, Michael Kopsa’s okay, but I think all of us would rather hear Ikeda Shuichi as Char.  And since I had to watch it in English, I got to have Quess’ whininess multiplied by her terrible voice actress.  Great.  So, honestly, unless you’re a diehard Gundam fan, skip this movie.  Just watch the original Gundam again and pretend that was how Amuro and Char’s rivalry ended.  At least Final Fantasy VII Advent Children had some kick-ass fight scenes to justify that contrived story.

Story: 2.8      Animation: 8.8      Soundtrack: 4.7      Acting: 8.5     Overall: 3.7

Ha Ha, It’s a Gundam

     Now, as you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t updated in a while.  That’s because I’m studying in Japan at the moment.  So I’m not really reading any comics.  I am, however, reading manga and watching anime, so when I have time, I’ll talk about that instead.

     After the bloody mess that was Zeta Gundam, Tomino Yoshiyuki, the great creator of the Gundam franchise, did what he normally does after such a show: he made a comedy.  The sequel to Zeta Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, takes place almost immediately after the end of Zeta, with the Argama docking at a nearby colony, Shangri-La.  However, despite the fact that it takes place in the same universe, with some of the same people, and in the same situation, everything’s a lot sillier.  The main protagonist, Judau Ashta, and his motley crew, which includes his sister Leina, his various friends Ino Abbav, Beecha Oleg, Elle Vianno, and Mondo Agake, and later, Roux Louka and the former Neo Zeon Newtype, Elpeo Puru, are a lot less of a “dramatic” cast as that of Zeta Gundam.  In fact, the show opens with Yazan Gable, one of the few survivors of the last show, getting Judau and his friends to steal the Zeta.  And all chaos insues, involving oranges, a complete lunatic of a Zeon commander named Mashymre Cello, a bunch of junkyard sellers, and many bad decisions.  In the end, Bright Noa believes that Judau and his friends have the potential to be Newtypes and keeps them on the crew of the Argama.  Now, the Argama must face off against Haman Khan and her Neo Zeon forces, and Judau must navigate his way through the horrors of war and rescue his sister once she is kidnapped by the enemy.

     Now, Gundam ZZ has a fairly bad reputation among Gundam fans for its humor.  However, Zeta Gundam is considered to be one of the best series, and that was trash, so that should show that Gundam fans aren’t necessarily right about it.  In fact, Gundam ZZ is significantly better than its predecessor, though nowhere near as good as the original Mobile Suit Gundam.  It still falls victim to one of the main problems of Gundam, which is the recycling of various plot elements and character types, a problem upon which I will elaborate in a later post.  However, it does that much less than Zeta Gundam, especially with far less “tragic Gundam women.”  That is a term I will use from now on to refer to female characters in the Gundam franchise who either start out as villains or later become villains and have some sort of romantic relationship or close relationship with the main character.  We’re expected to feel sorry for their dilemma of love versus duty, or whatever variation on that subject a given character has.  Examples include Lalah Sune, Four Murasame, half the female cast of Zeta Gundam, Elpeo Puru, Stella Loussier, and Anew Returner.

     Despite the sillyness of the show, which does wear off after a while, the characters are actually rather likable.  Beecha and Oleg are lovable rogues (who admittedly are occasionally annoying), Leina is sweet but a tad feisty, and Judau is the best Gundam protagonist since Amuro, since he isn’t angsty in any way and is in fact quite friendly.  Some of the pointless bickering can get obnoxious, and the ridiculousness of the show (like Mashymre’s obsession with his rose, or Chara Soon’s boobs and bi-polarness) can wear on the nerves, so it’s clear why this isn’t the best Gundam show.  In addition to the problems of the balancing of humor and seriousness, there’s the character assassination of the main villain: Haman Khan.  Admittedly, this is not as big a deal as the other issue, but Haman Khan is taken from being the manipulative bitch of Zeta Gundam (where she was one of about three actually good characters) to being a woman who could be good, if only Judau could get through to her.  They even hit at a potential romance between the two, despite a rather large age gap between the two.  I liked that Haman wasn’t at all tied down by any romantic crap, so she was a truly strong female character.  Therefore, this hurt the quality of the show for me.

     All in all, Gundam ZZ is a fun romp and final conclusion to the original Gundam trilogy.  The voice acting is absolutely top-notch, as one would expect from Japanese seiyuus (especially Judau’s seiyuu, Yao Kazuki), and considering the time period, the animation is quite good.  The music is forgettable, as is generally the music from most anime, save only the infamous opening song, “Anime Ja Nai,” or “It’s Not Anime,” which fits in with the goofiness of the first half of the series.  Personally, I find Anime Ja Nai really obnoxious, but whatever.  At any rate, if you just can’t stand Gundams and humor, don’t watch this show.  But it’s a really good time waster and a decent addition to the Gundam saga.  I’d watch this over Zeta Gundam any day.

Story: 7.3      Animation: 7.7      Soundtrack: 7.4      Voice Acting: 9.0      Overall: 7.6

The Batty Vampire

     Well, I’ve decided that I’m done with Angel, since I was never that big a fan of the character in the first place, and I need to save my money.  But I wanted to first read the exciting two-parter about Drusilla, which is partially written about Drusilla’s actress, Juliet Landau.  Sometime after her last appearance in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Drusilla was found injured and subsequently taken in by a mental instution, where the doctors believe that she is delusional about her vampireness.  She is totally nuts, but that’s one thing she’s not nuts about.  No amount of medicines work on her either.  She ends up killing the one doctor who believes that all the manpower they use on her is a waste, and she ends up killing basically everyone in the institution.  So now, she’s loose.  However, one of the guards in the hospital seemed to have some idea of who she really was…

     I have not been a fan of Brian Lynch’s work on Angel basically from day one, but maybe Juliet Landau’s superb understanding of the character has overriden his bad writing skills.  This issue was extremely fun, especially seeing how all the doctors reacted to her.  She’s still as bonkers as ever, and Landau definitely understands her own character after all that time working with her.  As for Franco Urru, his work is a lot better than what he normally produces, to the point that I can actually recognize Landau in Drusilla’s face in some of the panels.  Basically, this is a fun little romp with Drusilla that is well worth me waiting two more issues to cancel my subscription.  Fans of the character will love this story.  I’m just so glad that Lynch wasn’t writing this by himself, or it might have just been “a colossal waste of time.”

Plot: 8.3      Art: 7.9      Dialogue: 8.2      Overall: 8.2

Calming Your Inner Werewolf

     The Scoobies have located Oz in the newest issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight.  And it seems a lot has happened to him since they last met.  Twilight, for one, does not believe that Buffy hasn’t just disappeared or died, and it seemse also knows Buffy.  Anyway, it seems that Oz came to Tibet in order to keep his feral nature under control.  It took a lot of work and there were times when things seemed hopeless.  Meanwhile, Twilight and his gang try to locate Buffy.  Thanks to Bayarmaa, a fellow werewolf, he got things under control, and he even managed to help other people do the same.  However, one of the werewolves they once helped betrayed them and started convincing people to give into their werewolf nature.  When said werewolf attacked them, Bay killed him.  The two of them even have a kid.  He agrees to help them deal with their magic, as well as bury their submarine, and Twilight travels to Mongolia instead of Tibet.  He says that the idiot who messed up on locating the Scoobies is going to get it.

     I really liked this issue because of the way it went over Oz as a character, and what he’s done since we last saw him.  Admittedly, Oz was one of my least favorite characters from the show, but it’s Buffy, so I did still like him.  And I really like this concept of “hiding” or “controlling” your magic.  Plus, another cool idea is that Twilight really does know Buffy.  So he’s somebody we’ve probably already met.  I’m greatly enjoying this arc, as well as the comedic potential behind the butter tea and the werewolf situation.  I would still like a tad more explanation as to what precipitated these problems, but that’s really my only complaint.  Jane Espenson is one of the best Buffy writers I’ve ever seen, and Georges Jeanty’s art still fits this title quite well.  At this point, though, I just can’t wait until we find out who Twilight is.  But I also really hope that Oz doesn’t get to lose this really good thing he’s got going for him.

Plot: 9.2      Art: 9.2      Dialogue: 9.2      Overall: 9.2