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Hello and welcome to an all new episode of Anime Brain Freeze. We are your old Thai posts.
I am Jon. I'm David.
And I'm CC and when there's just too much cool anime to watch, we've got you covered.
Today we will venture to the space colonies once again as we review the highly anticipated new show from Hideo Kiano Studio Kara, mobile suit Gundam G-Quacks.
And since it's always risky to brave the harsh waters of Gundam fandom, we have bolstered our ranks and asked my friend David to join us in this particular battle.
But before that, Jon and I will quickly talk about a couple of shorts. The Likeres Riko franchise has blessed us with this season.
So grab your Haro and Installer Key. Make sure to not let your space empire build yet another obvious super weapon and definitely don't pause the pot. We'll be right back!
[Music]
So before we start digging into the big boy review this time around, I figured we'd take just a quick minute to chat about a series of, I think they call them short movies that are released for Likeres Rikoil,
which we kind of have to go back on our pronunciation of the word because listening to the way they say it in the dub, "Oh, Jon, watch the dub, oh."
And actually looking at the Kata Kana for the title of the show, which you know, probably should have done in the first place, yes, that's how it's pronounced.
I mean, they probably said it in the show as well, but then you probably just pay attention.
I mean, they did, but the thing is Japanese pronunciations of English words can be weird at times.
Yeah, I got it.
And I mean, you know, you could say the same about English pronunciations in Japanese, or it cuts both ways, but even so, you're like, "Oh, there is a Y in the word. We're stupid, we're idiots."
But yes, there was a series of six short movies.
Each episode, I believe, had a different director.
Really? I don't know that.
Yes, directed by Takashi Sakuma, Tsuyoshi Tobita, Kota Mori, Takayuki Kikuchi, Motoki Nakanishi, and Masayuki Sakoi in episode order.
And it was all overseen by Shingo Wadachi.
I was about to say a digital series.
Doesn't Adachi, Adachi didn't direct any of them. That's interesting.
Yeah, well, yeah, I got to imagine he oversaw the production, and it looks like each of them, you know, storyboarded, and directed each individual episode, and then they had some level of looking at the scripts as well, I think.
And this is just like, in every day, look at the lives of the Likaris, and the Gufi shenanigans they're in, because this is just, you know, this is just like a nice, relaxing series of episodes that were just like chill.
There was, you know, some weirdo stuff in there that was still fun to watch, and could be a teaser for the coming season, or movie, let's see.
So, yeah, there's still that on the table, which they've been kind of coy about, but...
Kind of coy, but Shingo Adachi already confirmed that they started working on a new Likaris Recorder animation project, right after they ripped up the first season.
And that these six shorts ain't that. So, and I think he said they're taking their time to do it right, which is fine with me.
We just have to wait and see if it turns out to be either the one or the other, so movie or second season.
But I'm fine with either. Just please take your time, make it as awesome as the first season.
And, but yeah, there are some little hints. First of all, we've got to try not to talk too long about this, because these are all like three to five minutes long.
So, if we take too long, you can just watch it. You're already halfway done by the point you're listening to all of this.
But yeah, we felt like you'd be a little absurd. We went on for an hour, about 23 minutes of animation.
But we wanted to bring the show back into the consciousness of everyone and maybe who didn't listen to the first review for some reason, because it was the show we very much both enjoyed.
And we're looking forward to the next big thing whenever that's coming. But it's nice to have like these small appetizers in here.
And like John said, there is some weird stuff in there, some fun stuff in there, and also some stuff that might tease to next season. I feel like at the end there, all the way through to these six episodes, they're teasing to go on vacation.
It's one of the things where it's like, I want to go to what is it called? Hywa instead of Hawaii or YHA?
I feel like they pretty much said Hawaii, but I mean, if they didn't, it was like, that's where they're going. That's where they're going.
Yes. I feel the substance is something else, but maybe it was just a joke. But yeah, this is what we at the beginning of whatever the next thing is, we're going to see them there.
That's my assumption, why they're doing it the way they're doing it. Maybe we'll see.
But yeah, this is, yeah, it's just talking and she's at the gang hanging out and doing normal daily work and then daily dumb shit this happening because these characters are involved.
I just love, she's at us looking through the travel book and they get a call about a thief running rampant through the neighborhood and say, tacky nothing.
I want to talk to you. She's at a won't focus and then she comes walking in the door and gets barked at.
Yes, just one. Yeah, that throw him off his game if he had any to begin with, but it was super funny.
I just talking, I just barking at him that made me laugh. She had a lot of great talking in particular had a lot of great moments through this bringing the guns to the festival.
I didn't expect her to be so, I should have probably to be so business savvy as to and we should have these festivals more often just because you can sell more booze.
Yeah, you can see alcohol brings in a lot of money.
Yeah, and then two of them like she's at the antique talking on make two different kind of a strings, which is also very nice.
I guess.
What do you mean? What does it look like? It looks like poop from a butt talk. You know what?
Yeah, I mean the other one actually looks like more like a butt and the other one looks like poop. Yeah, so there you go.
It was absolutely fun to.
She's a ton of me, so key absolutely just losing it.
Yes, yes, the device actors have so much fun in this again and you could already feel that in the first season because.
Dialogue was a snappy and ever dialed up to the max in certain parts like the performances and everything so very high per show but also incredibly fun.
Yeah, because I watched because this is a very short watch I watch through it twice.
You know, the original Japanese the first time and then they put out the episodes dubbed a little bit later and didn't watch any of the original show dubbed but.
Lizzie Freeman who plays a chisato and Zanthai win who plays talking out there. They're just just great in English like it's the same level of energy with the with the portrayal of the characters and it's really really good so I feel like you can't go wrong watching either.
If this wasn't set in Japan, I would feel like the English dub would be the thing like the version to go with because everything in the first season, Harkenback to classic American body caught movies so I feel like if that was set in America for some reason that or somewhere else this should have paid like the dub should probably be the thing to go.
I mean, at one point, the name drops specifically the social network. Yes, it says like I'll be the chisato sucker. No, please. No, I'm like number one. Number one girl. Please don't. But number two. Okay, that's pretty funny. Yes, but they're better ways to innovate to be an innovator. Don't become a suck. Please. Yes, don't.
Nobody needs that. No, but yeah, we also got the return of the terminator thing. There was also very nice and yeah, to see that musical stingery was just like, yeah, okay. Gotcha. Yeah.
Good shit. Yeah. Could you me maybe being a ghost in that episode definitely taking a couple or three pages out of five nights at Freddy's book. Yeah, absolutely.
There was the first thing I came to mind as well. This is a five nights at Freddy's reference for sure. Yeah, I cannot. I cannot wait to see what nonsense the next like big iteration of this is going to have in store for for us because at the end of this, which by the time I think we are now with the Rick, well, no, we have recorded about 10 minutes.
So you're not done with all the episodes yet, but close. You're through about two and a half at this point. Yeah, so, but yeah, by the time I was done with it, I was like the only feeling that I was left with was I want more.
And we're apparently going to get more. So that's cool. Yeah, I just totally looking forward to it. I just, hoping for news soon, but again, like I said, the more important thing is that they take that jingle, that she takes as much time as he.
Deem is necessary to deliver the best possible version of whatever they cooked up for the next story arc, whatever of this because we had some not big threats, but there were some threats left hanging in the story at the end of the first season, if I remember correctly.
So there's something to pick up from if they want to, I mean, I could do something else entirely as well, but I may be there probably don't want to. So yeah, looking, looking forward to see where this is setting next because all these six shots were also super fun and showed me that this, this team didn't didn't lose their step.
So, yeah, very much looking forward to more of a liquorice recall for not sitting at correctly this time. But yeah, let's get our third man in here and get to the big one.
Yeah, time to dive back into one of the most story franchises in anime history, if not deep, well, story one, probably maybe next to Drangle, I don't know.
Mobile suit Gundam, we have reviewed a couple of Gundams shows at this point, John, let's see, full review of the origin, I think, Ironblooded Orphans and Witch from Mercury, right? And you have briefly talked about some of the Gundabilt series.
Yeah, that, that sounds very, you think that's everything.
Yeah, that's just the only.
Exactly. So that's our track record as far as this podcast goes, but of course we, these are not the only Gundams shows we watched.
And also it's not only the two of us talking about Gundam this time, I have brought one of my longtime friends along David, say hi.
Hi, happy to be on the show.
Great to have you here.
So, yeah, I've known David since high school and we, I think got into anime roughly at the same time, at least, like knowing that it is called as such.
We have watched anime before on German TV, but those just being cartoons at that point, right? And not necessarily us associating it with a different thing.
That's what, that's how it was for me anyway.
Was it the same for you, David?
I think so.
I think I would go even further to say that like we both individually got into anime even before we've known each other.
And then because we had this common interest, I think that's how we became friends.
Yeah, if I remember that correctly.
Aside from video games, it was definitely one of our main share Tobi's interests.
I remember that definitely.
You got me into the Dragon Ball manga.
You got those first and lent them to me.
I remember that.
So I read all of those because of you.
And I know we watched "BubblyGum Crisis" together and the Street Fighter 2 victory series, I think partially.
Record of "Lotus War" right?
The Golden Age of Anime OVAs.
Exactly. And one specific one that is very relevant to this review that we're talking, the show we're talking about today, but we'll get to that later first of why I brought you along,
aside from having another cool person to talk to is you have a YouTube channel called "Giant RoboLove" where you do Gundam related content.
Would you like to tell us a bit more about that?
Yes, that's true.
So actually the channel itself started in what maybe 2016, back then it was more like a toy photography thing.
And from that on it somehow translated into Gundam and Gundam stuff.
So the things that I do on this channel is mostly Gundam related, but I try to diversify the content a little bit and I made some Evangelion Diaramas as well.
That's why I brought the name, not focused just on Gumpline Gundam, but "Giant RoboLove" in general. And that's how the name came into life.
And yeah, on the channel itself, it's mostly custom Gumpline builds. I do painting, customization, Diaramas and all that kind of stuff, Gumpline related.
Yeah, and it's awesome. The videos are highly produced. They're easy, breezy watches. You do a bit of an arson on the side.
Yeah. And explain what you did really well. It's great camera work and everything cool music.
So I, I mean, I'm biased, of course, but I recommend everyone listening to this podcast to also watch your channel, at least if they have a passing interest in giant robots, which I wouldn't you.
So I can hold on and recommend that, shall we?
Thanks for the plug. You had linked to the hairspray shipping video maybe a couple weeks ago, CCN.
I do a little bit of model building, but I don't do that level of stuff, but it's still really cool to see stuff like that.
Yeah, thank you.
And you have your own Discord channel for your YouTube channel, right?
So people can join there as well. That is has the same name. So yeah, once we're done with this episode with this review, why don't you dear listeners head on over to giant robot love and check that out if you're into giant robots, which I hope you are because all of us are.
So speaking of those and speaking of the franchise at hand, why don't we quickly, because John and I have talked about this before, what like the Gundam shows are that we watch besides the ones that we reviewed on this show.
And which kind of stuck in our mind, which are maybe our favorites, we slightly in passing when we reviewed one of those shows, we talked about the other ones a bit.
But of course, we haven't talked about this with you yet, David. So why don't we, why don't you tell us what Gundam shows like stuck in your mind, what got you interested in that franchise and what what were the most memorable ones that you maybe kept going back to or that have stuck in your mind from the child, or whatever, when you even start getting into this particular franchise.
Yes, of course. So giant robots for as long as I can remember have always been an interest to me. I mean, it started out with of course, transformers. I think every, every, every boy at least had a transformer toy in his youth in his childhood from our group, definitely.
And from there or not somehow it came, I think the first show or cartoon besides transformers that I got really hooked on was the Saber Rider show.
Same. I don't know if it's if it's the same name in the US. It is. I know I know that Japanese name is different, but yeah. So Saber Rider is the first thing that comes to mind if I had to think back on giant robots, you know, Remrod.
I totally got hooked on that. It's it's I think it's it wasn't as big in the US. It was a lot bigger in Germany. I don't know Europe overall, but that a lot of people I know watched Saber Rider and there was then one of the first things that going back to it, I recognized as an actual enemy. And John, I'm not mistaken, right?
Saber Rider wasn't super big in the US and it also wasn't super big in Japan. So you do she Bismarck. I remember hearing the name, but I never I don't remember it being super popular over here now, but I think some of the other stuff of that ilk that was kind of popped around that time would probably be like Thunder Cats and Silver Hawks and boy, those boy, those were shows.
Absolutely. Yes. Also animated by Japanese studios. So at least there's a overlap there. But yeah, David, what else?
And then and then afterwards, I think I've watched a good share of power ranges as well. I mean, it's all it's all giant robots where you get to pilot, you know, because that's the kind of thing that I got hooked on.
And I think the first real anime, Makashou that I watched was Gundam seat in what was it 2006 if I'm not mistaken to six or seven. That's the first Gundam show I got in contact with.
And it yeah, it hooked me right away. I remember watching all of it, but at that time I had no clue what Gundam was. So when seat and seat destiny ended, I think the next show that came was double.
And I was so confused as to wait what happened to Kira and his crew. Why is there new people like what? So from there or not, I just, you know, dove into the theme of Gundam and the vast universe that it is.
And I learned of Gundam the the UC the UC universe. So how like I stopped watching that for a long time. And I can't remember when exactly, but it hit me again when I bought my first Gundam kit.
It was a Gundam seat, the L strike, of course, because I got hooked on seat. And yeah, from there on out, it was just a rabbit hole. And I got to explore even more of the UC. And I started watching all the shows once I got, you know, the chance to do so.
And out of all the shows that I've watched, I think Gundam, the origin definitely is one of the shows that stuck with me ever since because I think I would say it's one of the best origin stories of a of a villain, you know, the char, the char as noble story.
This one most definitely and then war in the pocket and eight MS team. So these two shows, like they were placed right into the UC, right? I think it was like double 80
and don't let me lie 85 and I think eight MS team is, I think it's set in double 0078 or 79. Yeah, these shows shows definitely got stuck with me. And I would, I think those were the shows that I would definitely recommend to people if they want to dive into Gundam and the Gundam universe and learn what the gist of Gundam is.
But besides that, I've watched all of the UC's enemies.
Really all of them. Like literally, that's so hard. Up until,
up until,
had the waste flash. I haven't watched, I think F, F91 plays out here and also skip that. So I might be wrong, but
I haven't, I haven't watched that and I think turn a Gundam also somehow is loosely based on the UC. But this, this place, like I think even a thousand or 2000 years after the original show. So I haven't watched that as well.
Yeah, I was understanding that turn A was like the convergence, like the end point of all things.
Well, I don't know about that, but because that is what I heard, but that was my understanding.
It's like the, the thing where all the timelines call us in some way or another and I think something like that.
So, but I've watched it either. So I don't know. I just remember the kind of out there a Gundam design from that show with the mustache and everything.
Yes.
That is memorable, but I haven't watched it. I, I don't know about you, John. We talked about this before, but I haven't watched that many UC show.
I think I've watched more AU. So you see this universal century for the initiated. So the timeline that the original Gundam show from 79 is a set in and all the subsequent stories, but they're also a bunch of shows that are set in alternate universes are kind of semi reboots and retellings of certain parts of the original show, but also then doing something completely different.
Most of the shows we reviewed, aside from origins are a you show. So I'm blooded orphans. I think is a new is an AU show and the same goes for which from Mercury if I'm not mistaken.
I think none of these are different.
They're both outside of the UC.
Yeah.
So outside of that, I watched some UC show. I watched the movie versions of the original Gundam show. I didn't watch Zeta. I didn't watch double Zeta.
Any of the other stuff. I watched Unicorn. Really liked that a lot. That's also one of the more memorable shows for me.
John has this kind of different experience.
Yeah.
So I watched three 0096 and I was like, wow, I hated this.
Yeah, I said the show or the, I'll give the TV version of the TV cut, but it's a same thing, but.
Yeah, but they did some bad stuff to it. Like I don't know, they overextended some stuff that was necessary to cut some stuff out that was important.
And the story just doesn't flow in the TV version as far as I've come to here. I wouldn't watch it. I watched the OVA version and I liked the OVA version.
So aside from that, the one show from recent time that I really enjoyed and I stuck in my mind is of course, which from Mercury. I thought that was a terrific Gundam show.
One of my favorite ones also one that doesn't suffer from the second season Gundam curse, which a lot of the Gundam shows, especially the OU shows like subject to where it's like, hey, this is really promising.
And the first season is incredible. And then the second season hits and you're like, what happened? This happens to double O. This happens to Gundam seed, which Gundam seed destinies in my opinion, worst Gundam shows ever created, at least from the ones I watched.
It's a Trojus. It happens in Iron Blooded Orphans where this was one of the most promising Gundam shows I've I had seen up to that point. And then the second,
the second season just kind of, I don't know, loses track. I don't know. It just sort of fell apart. Yeah, sad to see.
Yeah. So which from Mercury doesn't suffer from that doesn't happen to it. But still, I would agree with David that Gundam, the origin is one of the best absolute best Gundam shows I've seen.
And I think John, we both talked about this in the past. We would fucking love to see reimagining reboot of the original Gundam, the 79 series in the style of the origin, where it's like maybe a bit of an abbreviated or a streamlined version of it.
But in general, the production values of this and maybe with the digital writing or boosted, bolstered writing from that show.
That would be a nice, come on, Panda. I need him. Come on. I mean, that did part of that with Zeta Gundam. There is, I think some episodes from the show, they re like if you call it remastered, they remastered that with a new art style, like an upgraded art style and they inserted it into the origin and show.
Yeah, for people who jump into that and watch Zeta and then out of a sudden, you know, they see this change of animation from what was it? I can't remember from what the show from when the show was, but that jump in animation quality.
It's so apparent you'd be confused if you see it, but if you see it, the quality is amazing.
Interesting. I think they did that for the movies. I don't know if they did that for the show themselves, but also I'm not sure. I'm mixing it up, but yeah.
But so I clean up the movies a little bit.
But, you know, to, I guess some of this up, all of us have experienced various degree of Gundam over time.
And some favorites, John, what are your favorite? I mean, we have talked about this yet. What are your most memorable ones, aside from the origin? I think all of the three of us love.
Well, before actually watching Gundam, I remember playing this one game, not knowing what it was, it was a super famicom game called Gundam Wing Endless Dual.
And not knowing that it was tied to this animated series, you said just being like, oh, it's a cool little fighting game with the robots and they're really awesome.
And the big purple one with the giant green sword is awful and cheap, and I don't want to fight against it.
I think Epion was so busted in that game, but then I think it was maybe had to have been a year or so after they started airing it on to Nami and I started watching it, but they also they aired it twice once during the day and then during their midnight run where they could have all the cussing in the blood and the
video taping that version so I could watch it the next day. And that's that was my first exposure. And then from there, I just kind of started watching other stuff they had on to Nami, like eighth team, like 0083. And then
that was on TV. Yeah, a little bit. I didn't know that's great. So we were blessed. There was a big push. I mean, you know, obviously some shows were more interesting than others. Like I think they had like a limited time showing a war in the pocket, which
I kind of passed over. There was on the sci-fi channel. They had a run of double low, which is how I watched it on there. I think seed was on to Nami, but I have certain feelings about seed. So everyone, sorry. I mean, we
have nostalgia for seed. Because it was the first, I'm sure that I watched from beginning to end. I mean, I saw some clips from wing before and everything, but I never watched it. We
did. David nauseating degree. Oh, is that one of those bad luck games? No, no, no, I mean, the wing endless tour game. Oh, okay. This is definitely the soundtrack and everything was also one of my favorites. Absolutely. Still great. But yeah, it's from wing seed was the first big one that I watch from beginning to end. And
also, but I recognize that it has a certain flaws and those flaws get only let's say increased in gun amc destiny and yes, so I can see but I would say still say seed is a decent show.
It is a landmark title and I mean going back on it now, I look at it and I'm like, okay, I see that they are trying to have it you like a reboot of the original, but even so, there's parts that just don't work and I don't like Kira.
I mean, love people don't because he's 200 degrees, Mr. Perfect, but yes, I see I see where you're coming from and I think that sentiment is etter and echoed by a lot of
Gundam fans and you know, totally understandable, you know, for us is placing in a stagia ballpark. So I can say too many bad things about it, but I can see say a lot of bad things about kind of see destiny.
So there's that, but judging from the from the recent movie release, it like looks like seed was quite popular. Oh, yeah, it was super popular like that.
Everyone like a bomb recently started a rewatch of Gundam seed. I'm what episode three or four right now. I mean definitely watching it brings back memories. Yeah, but I just can't I don't I'm not excited for the part when the show falls apart.
Well, yeah, I remember it was a few years after that when on to Nami, they started to air the OG Gundam, which you know, that was cool to see, but man, I was like, oh, yeah, I want to check this out.
I started watching, I was like, I don't know how well this age to my guys. So I didn't actually watch all of 0079 in its entirety until many, many, many years later when Bandai Namco and Sunrise started the Gundam info YouTube channel and they put the three movies up there.
And they're for free to watch. And I was like, I'm actually going to sit down and watch season. I did and I with the understanding that there's stuff that's not in there from the original show because obviously, you know, you have to format it for time.
But I think it did a good enough job of telling the original story. So I also only watched the three movies and it was noticeable at certain parts that it was cutting out things David, I think you watched the actual show, right?
I think two or three months ago, I finished it and yeah, I've also watched the movies and definitely I mean, of course, if you get a show which has like 43 episodes, you get more time to flesh out the characters and the relationships and everything and just tell everything more in detail.
So I would say if you're like really, really interested, go check it out. I think it has a value, even if you know the movies.
Just get a little bit more out of it, I guess, when after you if you super intrigued.
Yeah, I even heard that Tomino intended the show to be longer than 43 episodes, but I think during that time, it was even close to be canceled.
So that's why he had to cut his story short and it shows at the end a little bit like when the finale comes, like you can see that things have been rushed.
So it would be interesting to see what what he did if the show had like what 51 or 52 episodes, but yeah, that's how it is still I would I would still hold the show like the TV show in high regards to a like a piece of of Japanese animation.
That's a part of the culture or the part of the part of the animal, an anime culture.
Yeah, so you can't really imagine today's anime culture and of course back in the 90s, it is without you know, Gundam having a huge play in that and huge influence.
And I think there were so many shows that drew inspiration from that particular franchise and especially very first one and that gives us a good jumping off point to show we're talking about today also when we're talking about rush shows.
But we'll get to that.
But yeah, so this is the newest outing and it's a co production between studio Kara and and Sandra is this time and we'll get to get into the staff details right away, but first I'm going to read as usual plot summary, which is a mishmash from
you pity on my animal is rewrite and anime news network this time because none of these sites had in my opinion good summaries on their own so I had to like,
stitch them together for it to not be with errors and everything so it was, it was really weird anyway.
So in the year, Universal Century 0079, the earth federation and principality of Xion battled on opposite sides of the deadly one year war.
During one skirmish in from the Xion pilot char as nobles successfully infiltrated an enemy base and stole a prototype mobile suit called the Gundam.
This powerful weapon char helped his allies achieve a decisive victory.
However, in a freak accident involving the Gundam's advanced technology, char vanished alongside his signature red mobile suit.
Six years later, the war has ended but pockets of conflict are still brewing throughout the solar system. He Necha Amata Machu Yuzuriha lives on the quiet side six space colony with her mother.
Though her classmates attend taxing crams schools, Machu Jones for a more exciting life, which is our answer when she runs into a war refugee named Nyan.
Her encounter with Nyan leads her to get involved in an incident when both the principality of Xion and the military police are pursuing char's missing
red Gundam after it's suddenly re-emerged.
To catch the red mobile suit, Xion commander Chelyabol sends out pilot Zerier Oliviat in the G-Quacks, a prototype Gundam specifically designed for new type pilots.
However, while trying to capture the red Gundam, Zerier crashes into the space colony and is ejected from the G-Quacks.
Stop the military police from ruthlessly rampaging through the city, Amata Machu jumps into the cockpit of the G-Quacks steals it and subsequently defeats the police force allowing the red Gundam to escape.
The G-Quacks is then taken and hidden by the pomeranians and underground team of mechanics participating in clan battles, a series of illegal and high stakes mobile suit dueling matches.
After meeting the red Gundam's new pilot, Shuji, Amata chooses to join him in clan battles on the side of the pomeranians fighting alongside him in the G-Quacks in the pursuit of a thrilling life and human connection.
So yeah, as you can already tell from this summary, there's a lot going on in the show because this was only the first episode or first two episodes.
But yeah, this show is an original project like most other Gundam shows are not all of them, but it's an original anime.
And like I said, it's a call between Studio Kara and Sunrise.
Studio Kara is Hideyaki Anno Studio, the director/creator of another well-known Macaul franchise, Neon Genesis Evangelion.
And yeah, Studio Kara have done the four Evangelion Rebellt movies and a lot of other things I'll let you let John tell you about what else they have done.
But I still haven't seen the fourth one of those Rebellt movies.
But just talking about Evangelion, that is also one of the shows that David and I try to get our grab a little hands on as soon as that came out over here on VHS back in the day.
Yes. So big into that show. That was definitely one of the things I know how heavily we anticipated like the final release of that and then was kind of when watching network kind of non-plus of what was that for a while anyway.
And yeah, David, how do you remember that that the experience with that franchise?
So you were talking about the VHS back then it was like in Germany it was not easy to get your hands on you know anime.
And I remember that was one publisher here. I think it was Dutch selling those tapes for like 50 like Dutch mark.
And that was a lot of money for like students. So I saved all that stuff and yeah, I luckily got my hands on the limited versions.
Of those VHS tapes and watching the shows it was like as a young student in its in his puberty not knowing his place in the world.
So fell, fell Shinji right the way Shinji is struggling through the world.
I saw some parallels to myself and that's why I got a like attached to him as a character as well.
Throughout the show I can't I can't remember how I felt after the ending of the TV show you know the actual episode 25 and 26.
Not until later when I think we watched enough Evangelion that we somehow got a closure but even after that I was still confused as to what the show was trying to tell me.
And not only after I watched the fourth movie of the rebuild rebuild movies like years later I think we got the closure that we were all yearning for I think that's also the the ending that I know wanted for the show.
I think with that fourth movie like he finally got his closure with the the IP the brand Evangelion in itself.
And I think we as viewers who who joined him through all these like various iterations of the ends.
I think I I felt happy and satisfied in the end as well.
But during that time as a kid watching episode 25 26 when everything like when when when shit hit the fan I was like okay what did I watch?
Yeah, I was yeah I was just confused and flabbergast I don't really remember my actual feelings I just know that it's like I maybe I can relate that to my first watching of the Matrix I don't know how you guys felt after watching the Matrix.
But I went out of that movie okay so what did I just watch what is this and this is somewhat how I felt with Evangelion as well.
Yeah like your eyes have opened in a specific way but you don't know what I saw yeah what you saw yeah I can relate to that especially when it came to the ending now I understand after you know reading a bunch about it and on a state of mind at that time he was apparently heavily heavily depressed and everything.
So that kind of is reflected in the work and trying to get over certain things of psychological psychological holdups and everything and using the show to I don't know express that and that is reflected in certain parts of the show and also his interaction with rapid fans that is kind of what led to end of Evangelion and everything.
And yeah so I'm glad to hear that the fourth movie is kind of this cathartic moment also from probably possibly his standpoint I have self-watched only have to watch watch the first three rebuild movies but I intend to watch the fourth one.
And you have to right yes of course like pushing it every I want to rewatch the other three as well but eventually I'll watch the fourth one looking forward to that a lot John did you have any experience with me just as Evangelion.
And then like seeing clips and pieces and playing the there's a PSP game that was a rhythm game that was pretty much it.
Yeah I was I was aware of it you know how big it was in the cultural impact and I have one friend who's like super all about it and I was trying to ask him well where can I just watch the movies and he's like no you have to watch the full series first and end of Evangelion.
And I'm just like oh but you can't watch end of Evangelion right after the show you have to insert it after to episode 24 and then you go back to the episodes.
It's like it's like super complicated yeah that I didn't know.
There are guides for that but still it's it's a bit also with you know there's death and rebirth movies and so on so.
It's a bit it's a bit convoluted to a certain degree but I would still say I recently not recently but a couple of years ago I rewatched the TV series and yes could get much more out of it this time from a subtext shield standpoint and everything knowing more of the history of the creator and everything.
And yeah I very much enjoyed the rebuild movies and where those were going everything although the three third one left me a bit cold I think the first time I watched it so I definitely want to revisit that but yeah there is I would say aside from probably some of the staff that worked on that also working on this because that was guy next and studio car is just like studio tigger partially ex guy next people.
There's not that much in here that I feel relate super hard to neon just the fungillian aside from you know like I said the people from the teenage angst.
Yeah teenage angst and also there's some some knots of course in here like they're I'll talk about that when we get to that but there are definitely some knots very obvious ones to neon just Genesis Evangelion here but it's not like oh my god I have watched Evangelion now this series I understand so much more about G-Quacks.
No it's not like that but it still feel like there is some hand writing or some let's say homage is in here and something where I say okay yeah I guess some one either anno himself or someone who worked with him has had or was inspired by his work had an hand in this definitely I mean I know himself just before just to get that out of the way before we get to the rest of the staff
did not direct this like he wrote a couple of episodes and storyboarded one looks like he was most responsible for the charred flashback stuff so he's not involved in this as I expected actually.
I find that fascinating because he working on Gundam was clearly something he wanted to do all along so to see that he worked on the you the charred stuff is like okay that makes sense now.
Yeah absolutely and this is very much in line with anno's recent project right which were mostly reimagining of classic shows movies franchises from youth he was responsible for shinkotsela shin ultra mansion common right now this.
So it's basically him going this stuff is what inspired me as an artist when I watch it as a kid and here's what I do with it if I get to play with these toys.
So that's interesting that's pretty cool though yeah absolutely I'm always all for that like if you have a very creative force and he is definitely that who is like hey here are these things that means something to me and this is what I would do with it this is my interpretation of that this is my my view on certain things that these old shows movies whatever did.
I was I am always interested in that kind of dialogue from creative side of things so yes from that perspective alone this was interesting but john who else worked on this like what what did Kara do it's outside of this and the bill rebuild movies who directed to wrote and so on.
Well I mean Kara has had their hands in a lot of different things as a support studio starting with our personal favorite dardling in the Frank.
But I'm a more serious idea of had hands and stuff like erased feet apocrypha flip flappers g reco.
It's another goddamn show yeah and a universal century one to if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah I don't think she record is you see is it not okay I might be mistaken I might be I might also be wrong but I don't remember explicitly being you see okay I know that to me will work done it.
It's not listed in the use the timeline okay so it's a total of the so many of stuff okay it's just like turning on the like some of the has ties to it but I think you wouldn't put it into the timeline is it.
Yeah be sure reads like a to me no show.
They worked on one of my personal favorite shows the 2011 idol master series Kaiju number eight which you are a big fan of mop psycho 100 they've had their hands in a lot of different things and like the big landmark stuff that you know they have had up is stuff like G.
G. Quack C. Avangel and movies and then there's a couple other things like I guess apparently the dragon dentist and I never heard of this before before I watched the look at the library.
Yeah but they also worked on an OVA for gravity rush which is cool.
Yeah like I said they they have been around doing a lot of little things for a lot of people for a lot of people which is you know that's cool to see that they've helped out with a lot of things yes.
Show itself was directed by one Kazuya Sudu Maki who's also done a lot of like episode direction work on a lot of different stuff like dating all the way back to the 1997 berserk series.
F. F. L. C. L. Gunbuster kill the kill Macross plus which is one of my big favorite Macross series.
Yeah for sure.
You directed all the buster right which is kind of the follow up to gunbuster gunbuster diebuster aim for the top the gut tie.
Yeah and I've definitely feel so I get some diebuster vibes from this show so that's oh yeah that's definitely where I'm like okay I see his influence here as well most definitely.
So saber Mary in it are well okay yes that is and a lot of stuff and so it's also story boarded on a bunch of different different outside of directing stuff there is that obviously it was co-written by Hidiyakeano and Yogi and Okiro who's done a lot of work on Bongo stray dogs worked on Captain Earth which is a show I haven't thought about in a minute nobody has.
I promise that show is our show is alright but it's only one of those shows where it's like okay where were you trying to go with this and same for Star Driver which you also worked on.
Star driver started out so cool and it just was like it looked fantastic sure yeah yeah worked worked on Utena back in the day that's another throwback she said feels so old reading some of these so credit sometimes man.
Yeah, Roseff on set up when as a super ass yeah yeah but he also wrote a red line which is a fantastic movie everyone should watch red line people still have not seen that but I've heard how great it is.
Come on John.
I know you said it I think a mutual friend of ours has said it's a great movie and I just have not put in the time to watch it like it's a moot for your reference I'm terrible about watching movies I buy them or rent them and I don't watch them back.
People have not watched Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Well there you go but yes everyone who is listening to this please watch red line because it's one of the best movies from Matt House on one of the best movie movies period it's crazy it's wacky races in space technically and it's the design work is impeccable and also insane and it just if you like one punch man and the animation of that.
Yes so then watch red line you get a whole movie or of that insanity but yeah.
Yes please David get to it as well yeah who composed the soundtrack.
It was co-composed by a Masayuki Haseo who looks like this is like their big anime credit like it looks like they may have done a couple other smaller things according to VGM DB but I think this is like their first big anime project and then helping them out was Yoshi Masa Terui who we have heard during jujitsu kaisen yes fantastic subject on that.
Yes Terui's work is really really good sets the move really strongly for a lot of what went down in that show so good to hear him in there.
I would say this is a really strong outing as well the only one of the most positive things I can say about G-Quacks is the soundtrack aside from also the visuals which are fantastic which we'll get to but the the soundtracks impeccable there's like this one.
Great moment of a di-getics soundtrack work where much where's your headphones and you hear the muffled insert song and she takes them off and it becomes the actual soundtrack of the scene always love clever stuff like that so good it was fantastic and we have a couple of different cool insert songs in this show and the general soundtrack is amazing to especially because it switches back and forth.
When you get the flashback scenes you have the old school you have a and old school Gundam style soundtrack and love that so much so so cool it's fantastic they do that several times like when they had the episode title for those and they played the old stinger I was like oh okay all right we get all commercial stingers and everything and we get an old ED song in the 11th episode a pivotal moment which.
Yeah too because that is spoilers and we don't want to go into spoilers go into spoilers yet but yes soundtrack I have nothing to complain I thought it was fantastic was a cool mix of all school stuff of new synth based stuff and everything the actual ED of the show has some nice chip tune style stuff in it that make me make me think of the Mega Man battle network soundtracks at certain parts so I like that I like the OPs so yeah the music is fantastic in this show.
There's this one chip tune artist I follow who did in 8 bit cover of plasma and can she own as who actually tweeted it so he got some eyes on it which was really cool let's see.
Awesome.
So yeah I assume I mean I know John liked the soundtrack David how did you feel about it?
No definitely it's it's very contemporary music. Aside from the flashback stuff. Yeah yeah of course but I think it fits perfectly into the I think also the the target audience that the show is going for so definitely I like to do a lot.
Yeah very catchy.
And the other big positive boom of the show are my opinion of course the visuals because good Lord the show is pretty.
And from the environments like we start out at this colony side six and it is just a dream tinge in neon light it's it's so pretty like you have these more modern structures and then you have kind of the slums where all the refugees are where it's all a bit worn down and everything and delighting is fantastic and so is the shading on the characters like is the coloring on the hair of our main characters is super cool neon poppy and just a color palette pops in general.
It just is super not impressive what's the word it catches is it's super I get out of yeah it's absolutely like it catches your eye it pulls your view into certain directions and everything and it's just in general very pretty show like is that the environments are great the characters are pretty cool and also you have a nice mix because in the flashbacks not only is the soundtrack all school the character designs are as well so the show mixes that up
to and that becomes a bit funny slash weird later when you have like the modern newer designs of our current characters and then standing next to all school characters who are also partially updated but you have characters like a silly and there and stuff like that and some older characters like who's in their grand or whatever he's called one of the commanders of the z on ships
and he looks really like he's straight at least from the origin I would say design wise and the bull looks very cleaned up in the city of all super clean up like he looks wow like he looks so yeah he sounds so I have to wait to describe it yeah he looks like you should hide your mom's when he's around like he is he otherwise they will flock to him because he's a he's yeah he's a good looking gentleman let's say that so
so but outside of that you also especially like the flashbacks you get like these these character designs were definitely more old school and I feel like they still mixed those pretty well down the road but you
definitely notice it you notice that some of the characters who are characters from the old show that you know from the old show still look a bit older design wise then someone like
much you someone like me on someone like you do you are like the super hyper colorful characters in terms of hair in terms of eyes and everything more streamlined designs not bulky and certain parts and it has
definitely difference there but I thought that made the show super interesting visually wise and I feel it's an achievement that they managed to mesh those two styles together as well as they did without it feeling too alien outside of the flashbacks.
So I don't know how you felt to felt about that I think you use when you watch it you get used to it over time right at the beginning of course it's the it really puts you off when you especially I don't know how you guys watch the did you watch the movie prior to the show no I didn't
know also did I mean I think I think in the end the first episode three episodes I think were put into the movie and like the movie is a cut of the first three
episodes I think that's the way it was and I watched it in the in the movie theater and it starts with the with the infiltration of the of the side seven right but wait so can I talk about this at this point or do you want to like pick this up later on in your summary.
We we we go into the actual plot down the road but you can still you can already make hints at it if you want to and we'll just go to but yeah but what I liked a lot like what
put me from the very first moment is when I saw you know the first scenes of the movie or aka the first three episodes when they did the infiltration thing.
This was practically what you mentioned in the intro of your of the podcast you know where you guys said you wish Gundam would get like a new like a retelling of the story with a new look.
Yeah and this is exactly what what happened in the first I don't know I think hour of the movie and it looked exactly like the original Gundam show and I think
the scenes that they showed we even one to one there was this one scene when they were in the hangar and one of the Zachary guys I think denim is his name when he bumped something on the wall and there's this this metal piece floating around this is like one to one from the original shows and the moment I saw this I got so hooked and I fell in love with the look of the show immediately.
Yeah I can see that yeah and then when I switched over to the actual G quacks design I mean I've seen picture prior to that of course but when you see it the first time it hits you in the face.
But you get accustomed to it quite quickly when you watch you when you keep on watching so I think what you said like is 100% true they they managed to blend those two styles together perfectly so that it doesn't stand out too well.
So yeah good job on that john how did you feel about it I don't know we watch a lot of stuff on this show maybe not as much as we used to but still enough still plenty.
I feel like enough to be like I'm pretty accepting of whatever a show is trying to do with its style so starting off with this and I know it was cut slightly differently than the movie but just kind of jumping right there and seeing.
Oh okay so you know this is the look they're going for and then getting the information about the flashbacks later on you know it was like.
You know we watch it and the flashbacks come first right and the movie we start with the flashbacks char stuff and then after that.
Yes we do okay.
It's a bit different.
Yeah and then we get that in like the second episode so it's not like too long.
No no no.
So seeing that you know what they are trying to go for with that you know I just thought it was really and really cool and the I didn't think it was too jarring going between them just say you know this is how they're trying to tell the story that it's slightly out of order but you know I guess.
I assume it will make sense at some point so I just you know was just kind of ran with it and.
It went where it went so yeah.
And I think aside from you know the interesting two styles that we have the general animation quality is impeccable in this like especially the fights look incredible and some there are some standout fights of course in the clan battles but also the final couple of fights in the final episode like in the 12th episode in the finale just are insane.
It's just a masmurizing the only thing that maybe detracts a bit from that is that some of the Gundam designs are a bit busy there a lot of details going on so it's not always super easy to entirely grasp what is going on in any given fight scene but it's just like this I don't know this avalanche of visual fidelity thrown at you and you just roll with it because it's fun to look at and yeah I just I feel the CGS also pretty damn good.
And this which is not always a given so I'm really happy to report that I think from the visual standpoint to stores amazing.
Yeah I mean when they started using CGE I think in the which from Mercury for the mobile suits it was looking pretty good then and this is like another step up from there because the mobile suit design like the Gundam the Quaxon particular is like several steps more complex and it's design so.
It seems that they were able to manage that and it looks pretty good in motion so I mean so good in fact that I went to anime and I see a couple days ago and I grabbed a model kit of the Quaxon so I have that to build.
I feel like it looks the least Gundam classic Gundam anyway then any other shows it's this damn really different style.
You know you will maybe you either you like it or you don't I don't know how David feels about this I can I can be like yeah alright.
It's not my favorite main Gundam design but it's also not bad David how did you feel about it.
I mean you mentioned it before it looks quite busy I think I think I'm I'm fine with that.
The thing that puts me off a little bit is that it has a lot of a robot design itself like you know the other Gundams they try to be somewhat I don't know
you like they go into more of a human style of a design with the G Quax if you check out I mean John you can do this when you build the kit you will notice that that for example the joints on the arm it's like two hinges put together like you can like when you watch it you see it looks very toy toyish like a toy
then a then a mechanical engineered design this is I mean this is nitpicking but this is just something that jumped into my eye when I saw the design itself but other than that I think it's a very daring design I would say.
I'm trying to go on a limp here but yeah why not and I think this design was only possible because CGI exists right.
I think drawing like hand drawing a Mac fight with that kind of design is would be I don't know like it would be impossible oh my god I can't imagine how many frames of an individual animation that would be you yeah then like redrawing all the designs like must be like a lot of work but thanks to 3D models things are very much easier nowadays.
Yes and the quality is pretty much consistent throughout the entire show of course there are some fights that look better the better than others and some scenes in general that look better than ours but I feel like the characters always are model and in general the animation quality on them on the characters expressions and everything is always super high quality and everything so yeah nothing to complain there with that being said let's get into the actual plot of the show so.
The summary already might have given you an idea about what is happening here this is basically because at the beginning of the summary was like hey charfines the Gundam and people who might be familiar with the ultra are like what he does what because of course in the original show the Gundam is not pilot but by charf but it's pilot by amororay.
Who is an earth Federation kid who kind of falls into into the cockpit like most Gundam pilots do or a lot of them anyway in one way or another and so apparently things went different in this iteration in this universe wherever we are in this timeline and at the beginning of the show we also of course don't know why that is we just know for some reason suddenly charf finds the Gundam.
Specs it like improves it up the wazoo installs bits into it and it becomes like this becomes this one man as if he wasn't already dangerous enough like you give the most talented pilots in the in the universe the most powerful machine and you have one man army on your hands of course.
And this is what apparently led to things being a bit different here and the war is over had to consider a ceasefire because they were losing after a particular event and see on kind of one the war and that is where we are and that's definitely not where we are at the end of original Gundam.
So that was just as an as a concept in itself as a setup for a new show that kind of heavily relies on the the very first kind of show and is revisiting it in under many different perspectives this was super interesting and was something that when reading it on paper and when or let's say when watching the first two episodes and then understanding what was trying to do was.
Something that took me immediately I don't know you two felt about it just up to that point in the show yeah I mean it's always interesting you know like.
If you ask the question what if right that's part of why you know the marvel show what if was so interesting because you're so used to what happened in the movies.
And you know like all the stories and everything and now someone comes along and throws it all over and like twist it so yeah I'm totally up for it like hit me with it.
John yeah for sure unfortunately I kind of heard a little bit of what this was about before I started watching it but I was like oh.
Oh that sounds interesting okay so you know starting to watch it and seeing it play out for myself you know a used stuff is always so neat to me so seeing it happen.
Being seeing it being applied to something like this that which is such old material to and.
This gives it a new angle a new perspective on the story it's like really neat I don't know if now that it's been done once if you be as impactful doing it on other parts of like other parts of UC in particular even other parts of you know the Gundam franchise in general if it would you know.
Work as well again but in this situation you know it worked really strongly and I think it was really cool.
Okay yes definitely my feeling at the beginning of the show when I watch this it starts out pretty strong like we have this infiltration we talk about talked about or talked about in the summary like Xion is trying to get a hold of the red Gundam assuming either that it can give them an.
An idea where char is or if he maybe he's even piloting it and then that crashes into side six or yeah or the fight happens in the side six colony and Xavier or Xavier I don't know how his name is pronounced from is sent by Charlie Abel to.
The to hunt it down to find it to capture it whatever and since he can for some reason fully unlock the the G quacks.
He just crashes into the colony and at the same time we have our ostensible main characters meeting up which are much you and young.
Which are these two girls much of the smaller red herred one and young the taller one with the black blue share and much is like this kind of I guess well off kid living with her mom who is like a single earner but she apparently goes to a pretty part school if I'm if I'm not mistaken at least some characters remark on that several times.
And she runs into nian or nian runs into her more properly I guess a nian is like a refugee kid I don't know from where exactly I don't know if the show states that outright if he's from earth or somewhere else but yeah.
She apparently is working as a courier and currently is running or is is I guess taking an installer key to a crew of mechanics who do these clan battles like these Gundam battles which are kind of similar to what we saw in which from Mercury like you have.
Different people fighting to not one on one battles in this case but two on two battles and if you cut off the head of the opponent you win don't necessarily have to kill them but I guess later turns out you can and still win.
It's been known to happen.
It has been known to yes and because you can't without an installer key weapons on mobile suits cannot be used.
And since these keys are technically for military personal only not for civilians these are illegal contraband and you get sacked if you have one on in your possession so nian is running away from the police in the beginning and runs into match you and hides the installer key in her backpack and then.
Much of finds out they later meet up again and both go and you know much to just text along to deliver that thing and what happens must happen chaos and so's and in eventually much to ends up in the G quacks which who has this.
New control module installed which is not able to unlock this omega cycle and she is able to do that we initially don't know why but we can pretty clearly see that it has something to do with the harrow that text along with her the little robot that is you know.
Main stay in the gun and franchise since forever I think I don't know if every gun and show us a harrow but most of them do.
And but it's not hers it's one of the other characters and you can immediately make assumptions like okay why can that harrow do it.
That's interesting so yeah she ends up in the G quacks and actually I thought it was kind of refreshing to have a main character who is not just dumbling into this at least not fully but is choosing to get into.
Mac to fight because she first goes into the Zaku that they have outfitted to fight in the clan battles and she actually decides that she's not just like oh god how did I at the pure must save myself or whatever no she sees what that have a military police is wrecking on the colony and she's like this this cannot stand and decides to.
To jump into robot and fight which is I like that kind of agency in my main protagonist don't get me wrong so that was pretty cool once she then switches over to the G quacks takes her while takes her while to getting used to it.
Because any initially she's only reacting instinctively but then she gets used to it and makes pretty quick short work of the military police and.
Their mobile suits and then after that for at least a couple of episodes she is with this crew of mechanics who wanted to have the installer key in the first place and they call themselves the pomeranians I think naming named after.
The dog of one of their members jessie.
So yes that is it then pretty much for I guess the first.
One to six seven episode that is kind of what she's doing she's doing the clan battles.
Neon is also around and then they also run in the second episode on the third episode into this guy called Shuji Shujiito not Junjiito.
Who who who turns out to be the actual pilot of the red Gundam so it's not char but it's him we don't know who he is he's very mysterious he's.
Not talking much and if he when he's talking he's one of those weirdos who is talking to their Gundam so like.
Setzuna from Gundam double or.
Because you from iron blooded orphans so he's one of those guys and they they they they he and.
Machu and onion start hanging out and that's pretty much our constellation for the guys first half up to first third of the show yeah what did you think of our.
Cast off ostensible main characters any any thoughts on those up to up to this point I think the setup itself is quite interesting right you're living in a colony and like.
Police violence is happening in your teenager trying to find your place in life and.
You somehow get mingle in this in this bigger picture thing of course is very exciting right and of course you want to dive in because there's got to be more right in life than just what the teenagers are doing.
And I like from from my view I feel like the characters motivations themselves are understandable right they want to have a little more meaning in life and they mentioned it quite early that they want to leave the colony and see birth right.
Like the sea in the sky and I think it's a nice motivation for a character in a show.
However, the way it plays out I bet you're going to mention it in the course of the review when you get to the later episodes it's not been executed that well I must say.
Especially somehow during the course of the episodes the two girls is somewhat like develop an affection for Shuji.
I don't know how much I can I can say without spoiling.
No go for it. But okay, so yeah, but they get infatuated with Shuji and there is somewhat it turns out it ends up in a in this love trying thing and but also not really.
Yeah, but it's like the subtext that this is underlined thing that is happening right and and Shuji of course he being totally in love with the red gun.
Maybe does notice any any of that so the constellation itself how it turned out I'm not too much a fan of especially considering what is happening after you know the second half of the show.
John I get all that but and I guess it's not something that has to happen in every Gundam show, but the teen angst is definitely something that is a core value I guess to some of them like.
The pilots in most of the shows are portrayed to be young and still kind of discovering themselves and what they want so when there is this kind of sort of not really love trying all between Shuji, young and machu I was just sort of like.
i'm seeing their nodding my head like yeah okay so I guess this all makes sense that this is happening but you're right that it's not really in service of the overall lot not only that but I feel and I get into that down the road I will also talk about that in my final thoughts of the show but I feel like.
Can be attributed to the runtime to the compressed nature of the show and everything that I feel like they don't put that much time into developing any of that it's like this is how it is and you've seen this before so you're probably accept this will explain a lot of it away with hey like John said teenage angst also teenagers this company self maybe this being.
The first romantic feelings both machu and young have a real experience for another person right and that then being kind of naive about it and everything we all of us have to escape to earth we have to follow this guy who just explode into our lives and what we don't know to do with because we're infatuated with them.
and also fucking new type space and everything because all of the three characters turn out to be i mean that happens very quickly so it's not really a spoiler and you could have guessed that because they control the fucking gun them but due to them being new types have like this connection.
It's actually a kind of plot point for like a minute and a half where much you and two G have this immediate connection because they both can access this new type space which is like this.
Telepathic link bond between new types that can happen where they enter like this this weird area space whatever where everything is sparkling around them and its colors everywhere it's like they're high and so they and you know that that can also apparently.
evokes a very emotional or deep emotional response from both parties to the degree especially from machu right who never experience something like this and having the first genuine human connection apparently in her life just.
make sure fall heads over heels for this guy and apparently it's the same for me on to a degree especially when she also later gets into the gun them because she has to stand in place for much in a certain situation and.
Also is able to do that different way i'll get to that but then you have this love triangle at that point that.
David talked about because you then kind of get have much to being envious because hey this is the thing that only shoot in I had and why are you now stepping into that you weren't supposed to because it was supposed to be my thing and everything.
I mean i mean yeah i mean that's fine right yes i think the show can totally be a coming of a show if you if it wanted to yeah and i think i'm also totally up for that but.
If you have this don't add other story or plot points into it and try to make it like bigger that it has to be yes i think and yeah i'll get to that in my final thoughts on this but yeah you already hit the nail on the head with this David just in.
In terms of focus there's some issues here and you know the show may be not putting the time into certain things where it should because on the side of this happening this whole part of the plot on the other side of it we have the whole thing of.
The zion people still trying to do something first of all you have chalia bull who is so kind of hunting I guess for a char but also.
Maybe doing his own machinations in the background to a certain degree and I would say this is where we go into spoilers heavily because there's some twists and turns that.
Happen at least after the third or fourth episode of the show and I don't want to give those away for people who are.
Who still want to check out the show so keep that in mind from this moment on we're going to have his borders and everything yeah so apparently there is still in fighting.
Happening heavy in fighting in the zabi family right because they survived of course because char got teleported away he wasn't there to execute his final plan which was always to get rid of the zabi because there's a beef between you know if you watch the original show you know.
His ultimate plan was to kill all of those fuckers and he couldn't execute on that because he got teleported away to somewhere by this thing happening to him when he was in this pivotal battle on at.
What was called Solomon that asteroid base or whatever that was supposed to be dropped on the Luna base of Zion and then he tried to prevent that and something happened I think that call it a Zacknova or something in the show and then he disappeared and has only recently his gun them has reemerged so.
The Zabi's are very much still alive there some in fighting between the two one big ones that are left which are Casselia and Geirin Geirin is the supreme commander of the one I guess but Casselia is fine with that they have different ideas about what the honest should be trying to do and where the future lies and everything and yeah there's that in fighting going on and apparently.
Chalia bull still tries to fulfill char's original plan to get rid of them as it turns out later on we later we learn very quickly and we could have assumed this when the harrow was able to access the omega psychome for of the G quacks for for for much you that harrow was apparently.
Put into the mechanics hands by charlia he has some connection with the with Anki the the head of the pomeranians I don't know he is trying to get battle data of the G quacks he's trying to find a genuine good you tie pilot for it and everything so he's definitely doing some shenanigans in the background here so that's happening on the side.
Then later down the road you get perspective stuff from Casselia you get some still some flashbacks to the one year war you learn who should you really is and well no you don't.
But you you you learn what is role is in this story and how that differs from all different things later on also chari appears is posing as a different character and you immediately know it's him.
When you the first time you see it so fucking off how could you tell.
It's funny they even go for different name but yeah you know so as you can see there's a lot of different shit happening outside of the main or ostensible main characters so how do you put all of that into 12 episodes the answer is you don't.
And that kind of is the problem of the show but just going to go a bit more through the plot before I get to my final words on that so.
We have the characters to the clan battles we have like an episode where they fight an old commander or pilot from the one year war what was a she co right which was this flying ace the witch during the was called the witch during one year war because she apparently was a real skill pilot and even though her design is old very old school is she's not someone from the original show she's a new character for this.
And you know she has this grudge because her first math which this is their term for a partner or teammates you know in these two which was a system apparently developed by by char char and jalia at some point they were maps I don't know if that term was used in the original show they do you know.
I'm sorry just had to look up with that character is that you mentioned and I totally forgot about her yeah there's a reason for that.
Yeah she was here for all of 10 minutes so yeah yeah so I thought when I saw her that she somehow had had is a call back to what's this face the captain of the white base oh my goodness.
Bright bright no off yeah right because their eyes are like similarly designed right.
But apparently it's totally totally different character but yeah come again what was the question that you are going for the term math as a partner as a teammate and like in a two team or two person I don't know it doesn't appear no it doesn't appear in the original yeah that's interesting so I can't remember they mentioned it ever yeah so that they they cooked that up for the show then apparently which makes sense because at least to a degree we have like in the clan battles these two man teams.
Who work together and it turns out later that jelly and char apparently one who came up with that tactic to always have someone in the sci-francic battle to always someone always a wingman to watch your back which makes sense and I thought they would be doing more with that and it's kind of like in the end you have like a moment where it's like hey I let's be maps together or whatever.
But aside from that it's not like that ring super much with that but for her it's for shiko it's a motivation to fight the red Gundam and whatever and shuji currently pilots itself of course she enters the clan battle and shuji kills her which is like the first real death in the show I think or pretty like violent obvious death which would have had more impact if we didn't only spent like half an episode of screen time with her and yeah our characters barely interact.
With her outside of battle at all David just you know we can't just see didn't remember and that's understandable because she's barely in this like it's super weird like the show makes her out to be like this okay.
War is bad character which of course every Gundam has to have because that's what kind of the whole show is about but or the franchise but but she's also an ace with like a hundred kills under her belt so like yes and don't get me wrong.
The fight itself is very cool maybe not the best plan battle I would say that goes to the two rick don guys or whatever the mix are called I forgot it.
They're pretty damn awesome and their teamwork and everything I love that fight but you know that's fine but at the end of this I was like why was a character in this like to show us that or I guess
much after this still has to wrestle with seeing death on the battlefield for the first time because the first time that she experiences that and she has she talked to she could like for a second so I guess that affected her then more emotionally than if any random guy they fight would have been killed but also that's one of the many instances in the show where it's like hey it would have been cool if that character would have been around longer and then turns out they have to
fight them and then have to kill them and that would have elicited a much bigger emotional response from the audience and a more understandable response from from our main character like that might be a product of the it is a product of the run time yes I mean you can only budget for so many episodes and maybe if they were able to do like a 20 24 episode 26 episode run maybe they would have had the space to do that but clearly they did.
Yeah and you know it is another thing like she was connected with Shuji's mind through the new type space while fighting and she noticed that he didn't feel a thing about killing she co which has a rightfully worried but also not necessarily anything comes from that it just has conflicted for a while but you know her her romantic feelings for him still went out and everything and yeah this is kind of the moment where we go into the love trying on everything and we have a
kind of somewhat not ill-defined but lose defined reason for match you to yearn for freedom because she is feels like she's constricted in her current world that she's in like there's certain expectations made for her like from her mom from school and everything and she doesn't want that like every time this thing of hey fill out your career prospect thing or whatever she's she writes in it I want to be a jellyfish or something like that like she doesn't like she
doesn't want to already define the rest of her life and she just wants freedom to explore which is you know what what you talked about John what David you talked about in terms of finding yourself having teenage angst and also you know not trying to be already defined by other people in that moment in your in your life so that's her motivation to yearn for the freedom that
to G for her is like in I don't know a manifestation of because he's like this powerful force coming from nowhere and showing her a completely different world which you know together with the new space new types of make sense why she kind of false woman on the other side you have nian who is like this this refugee constantly ostracized constantly judged due to her appearance in her origin like she's constantly being screened by security personnel there's like
this awesome moment where they ask her for her you know identification everything just because she looks different and that elicits the appropriate response from machu a good or kick into the nuts you love to see it but that's something that immediately says okay I get why nian wants to run away from all of this it would have been nice to get an
celebration of any of this after these specific moments in the show where it's like hey okay what kind of experiences does machu maybe beyond that yearn for what is some of her background that makes her feel or her background experience in the school everything that makes her feel so conflicted so so constricted I feel for her it's less of a problem for nian maybe even more I would have liked
to see more of a background where she came from and and general I wanted to see the characters hang more out together outside of the clan battles I feel like our main trio does not spend enough time with each other there's like there's like the you have like the fights you have some interaction you have some
charges here in there but there are no episodes where they're just like mint dips moments where they hang out but there's not like complete miss adventure episodes where it is just all three of them I don't know try to go shopping together try to do something fun and then run into the military police have to escape over the like growing together as a unit like as this tight becoming like this this this this tight friend group and the show is kind of the manning of the audience to believe that that is what
they have but they kind of don't which is a problem in my opinion this is like because especially after a while after we get all through all of this things build up become more climactic you know you have the much of being pissed because
the young has had some had also now the sharing experience in the new types of with with Shujin everything and all of them decide after this they want to escape to they want to see the sea doesn't that sounds like a tech on Titan on the other side of things the
homeranians are like okay after after the next fight we're gonna read out the red Gundam because we can get some money from the military police from that we're gonna leave the G
quacks for the for the Z on guys and we're gonna clear out so that kind storyline is ending and on the other side of things we have some faction from the earth
Federation trying to assassinate Kisilia who's coming to side six for negotiations trying to procure money for will later for what and then we have like these characters cyber new types who were
the left developed by a lap from from earth Federation who are trying to assess in it Kisilia and they apparently are from at least one of them is from Zita Gates
copper appeared in Zita gunner apparently which I haven't watched like I said bus go as well yeah the guy with the guy with the goggles yeah with the goggles right do the girl he is with apparently not apparently she's new
no she's yeah it's also a character that I almost forget if it weren't for the huge psycho Gundam yeah exactly she is like just super big Gundam which is the first genuine Ava reference I would say is in the show
because once she unleases like her armor to fly around and and hit everything that is in a surrounding she her Gundam starts to look eerily like if like an Ava Mac
like with the with the tendons and everything with the muscle fiber and the stuff and this more very much more sleeker human ask design of her of a mobile suit I feel like that was
a hardening back to some of the of the Ava robots David would you agree yeah definitely mm-hmm but they are quickly disposed of like super quick like I have an episode they're like trying to attack
a silly and I don't even know I think Charlie attacks them out in his in this mobile suit so that it's such a waste yeah if you see how her how do is being introduced in the episode prior to that
has this this cliffhanger at the end right girl with the with the mass standing at the window and they introduce her you know supposedly as this super main threat and then only the next
episode to be like flick the way in a split second this is I don't get these kind of writings but yeah yeah they really felt like they were trying to play her up and then oh she's dead
yeah oh oh okay you don't even but you don't see gates die right I feel like he escapes I don't remember seeing him die only her apparently so maybe because he has to stick around in whatever
this version of Zeta will be I don't know but yeah that was that was really weird and at the same time as all of this is happening
we have like this climactic moment where Nyan tries to escape with Shuji tells him that they should leave the machu behind which is kind of okay that's not nice you you had you made different plans but I guess you
wants to keep him for himself and she's like let's leave all of this and machu behind and that kind of no rules in the war of love yeah no love and war yeah exactly but yeah so that kind of either that
or something else creates a reaction on the red Gundam when she when she talks to Shuji about that and we get like the second time this big phenomenon
happens that happened to char at that one battle called I think what the call's a nova and Shuji gets teleported away and from this moment on he doesn't reappear in the show until like the very last like 11th or 12th episode and okay like so I guess that story like just evaporated where it's like I mean
yeah it doesn't completely because the motivation at least for machu still seems to be to go where he is because from this moment on which I think is the 7th episode if I'm not mistaken she the
the allegiance is kind of getting mixed and or you know two girls gets split up machu ends up with charia yeah ends up with Kisilia right and she wants to use her for that for whatever
and machu charia wants to know who Shuji is no charia wants to know for machu who Shuji is and what what he was trying to do because he thinks he knows where char is and everything and from there on the rest of the show happens
I thought the interrogation scene was actually pretty interesting just because I feel like that's the first time we kind of start to see which
charia really is and what he's trying to figure out because he's a lot more intense there is like and it's almost like he's reading machu's mind I mean maybe that's like the a new type thing that never gets
explained anywhere ever I think Shalia explains that like he has really good intuition or way like that so he can maybe
read her facial language and can partially pick up on certain thoughts she can he can probably actively read her mind but he can grab snippets of it or certain emotions or
something like that and then he can draw his conclusions from that we yeah someone like that in another show we talked about yes that's how they
that's how they introduced the the theory of new type in the original you see show as well because they always said like bright the
cap and always said the armor has such nice intuition and that's why he can
pide the Gundam so well and anticipate other enemies moves and stuff and only in the I don't know later third or so
the concept of the concept of new type gets more elaborated on the beginning they also they also put it off as good intuition
at this point we also get our second flashback ice I guess we kind of see exactly what happened at the battle of Solomon
we learned that the sister of char a tesia is the one that killed one of the zabis dozel in her gun cannon
mobile suit and on Xerius and Kacilius behest nian joins up with zion and gets to pilot the
iva one Gundam I mean G Fred hell yes I love that it has that name exactly no it has the exact color scheme it's
oh yes for sure for sure obviously hard that's the second obvious reference to any of jesus effing gallion in this show
for sure and looks great I think G Fred looks better than G quax don't harass me
no that's true I think that's true I'm I'm looking up the design again and I think I have to agree
I definitely find the color scheme more interesting but that's just me I like the combination of purple and
green so that works very well that's true yes yeah so we have that on the one side and we have like a
short thing with her and Xavier what's it say hey I'll form our test pilots of the G Fred died of a
heart attack and you're a me like aha Xavier also suspects assassination who could be the
assassin be maybe the only one other guy who's still alive from your crew who had access to this
thing and who was giving you who was giving you cake yeah I wonder the cake is literally a lie and
I mean Jan luckily sees through him and yeah so that you know he gets like Miguel that's his name
gets nothing like he gets blasted away just fucking disintegrates like into like not even a puff
of smoke or anything it just disappears when she shoots him with with one of the weapons from the
G Fred we hardly knew him literally like we see him like for a minute and a half interact with Xavier
and they tell us about their history and bond and then he already turns out to be an assassin for
Geeren and gets disintegrated this seems again like a missed opportunity to give some more depth to
Xavier's character and it's like it's like another result of the show going at the plot of the show
going at like 200 miles power hour starting from at least episode seven if not before that
and so I say so much stuff happily with the positive side effect of that is never boring like
there's so much stuff happening in the show the negative side of the effect is are things like this
where it's like hey here's a new character whoops sees gone so yeah it's the same with the scene where
Kassilya is meeting up with Geeren right yes in this one room where
this is what this assistant the blonde girl gets shown yeah right yeah by the looks of it maybe she has
a greater role to play but nope yeah yeah yeah exactly there's several moments of like that and
this was definitely one of the standout ones I don't know if it is here and in the flashback
we get here for char or if it's if it's an earlier one where we learned that another character
was the one that clue char in on being a new type who was in the original show dr. Flanagan
I didn't remember him from here there but apparently he got that was an interesting case we got a
design overhaul from the show to the compilation movies because in the original show he was white
and then in the compilation movies and in subsequent shows when they're referenced and they made him black
they made gandon walk y'all rice up weaves weaves
no no no no no no no no no but all right okay I'm seeing this just now yes okay I didn't know I didn't
catch that yeah so that that was funny to me when I looked at I was like okay that that is really
but you know I don't think they I don't know if they even if he talked to char in the in the
original show or in the movies or if it was yeah yes they were together I think on the on the plan
what is it was not on earth but on one of the sides they they wrote the the horse cattle together
in with Lala so it was not just so it was not just a change the change of the events happening in
this show that he was the one who told char about being what a new type is and that he is that
it's interesting so yeah I didn't remember that so I wasn't sure that's why I wanted to bring it up
because I'm flattening it does ring a bell but yeah I'm not sure I I remember what his his
relationship to char was in the original show and if it's in line with what they show of their
interactions in this show but yeah good to know that they also interacted in a similar way in the old
show but yeah we have after the stuff with with Miguel and Nian taking over the G-Fred and everything
Chalia bull on sets Machu free to have her have him to have her unknowingly guide him to the location
of the Rose of Sharon which is this thing that apparently Chu G is after and which is somewhere
on earth and that's where Machu goes and it turns out which suspicion you quickly got especially
in terms of where the story was going at this point at least for me I don't know who you felt about
it I quickly very quickly got the idea this is probably Lala for some reason because of the things
we've seen the flashbacks with when they talk about the Rose of Sharon everything when Charis
at the Solomon battle and everything and you hear he just singing and everything I'm like okay
this is probably Lala and it is her was it a big surprise to you that she was in this as well or
did you expect her to be related to somehow to the Rose of Sharon because I watched the original
show and maybe a couple of weeks prior to G-Quokes she was her president in my mind and I at some
point I expected her to show up but what they did to her no they did they did her not good the way they
be they treated her in the show because she was she was locked away in this this brothel kind of thing
with the maids and all that and yeah Machu tried to try to save her or rescue her from that and they
get like a couple of moments to share but then somehow yeah but then somehow she decides to stay
and leave be and leave be stay behind and let Machu escape so what was the point of all of that
hey I guess the point were to have a kind of convenient exposition dump because this is the
moment where we actually learn what's going on and it's basically we have two universes that are
connected to the new type space Lala can see into the other one and she because she talks about
she mentioned the other side mentions the other side version of char and amaro falling in love
with her and vice versa which didn't happen in this universe and as we as we learned pretty much
immediately after the Rose of Sharon is the Elmeth the mobile armor that Lala piloted in the
original show with Lala in it from the other side who has somehow apparently by traveling to new
through new type space in has ended up in this universe and who is probably responsible we can
already assume at this point that she is responsible for all the changes that happened in to the
original timeline or what we know as the original timeline because there has to be some I don't
know some spark king factor here some some some some instigator and it can technically only be her
and she you know already in the old show she has even for new types she has new type powers
but at least this is it's alluded to so yeah that's we can garner and because they have to
very short interaction and much apparently is now hellbent on finding that version of her
and setting her free for some reason which is again one of these moments where it's like this feels like
it would have made much more sense if those two characters spent like at least one or two full
episodes together and got to know each other and you know talk to each other and head shared
experiences and shared you know past experience that made them relate to each other and here it's like
much who wants to do this now because this needs to happen it's it's it's a it's a it's again it's a
bit weird and like you said David does it does a lot a bit of a disservice and especially you know
what what they kind of do with it with the rest of the show I guess this is when the show like kind
of slowly gears up for for the for its finale because you know we we get a bit of flashback
of two chalias uh chalia bulls past where how he almost died at Jupiter up in up on being stranded
there and then upon his miraculous return how he got disillusioned with the cause of gaining freedom
for space noise due to you know all the death the war had caused in his absence and our chargay if
him a new purpose and everything so that was interesting feels like part of a different show
in certain parts just the whole flashback part are the whole flex flashback stuff kind of does in a way
but it was still the most interesting some of the most interesting thing uh things we saw from this
like I liked his backstrand story I would have liked to see more of him maybe even make him the main character
there was some uh there were these moments where it's like oh this is really interesting like all
of this this relation to char and everything and to cut things short because we're already running long
his silla kills giren with nerf gas which David already talked about it's like the very quick scene
where she she just disposes of her brother because she wants to take over um which kind of it's not
what chalia planned because he wanted to kill both of them at the same time so the war doesn't
erupt again because chalia obviously wants to destroy earth again that is her long term plan and everything
and she orders nyan to use the rows of charan so lala and elmeth and the new solar ray
you might you mag though or however it's pronounced to create a zagnava to destroy the entire fleet
of her brother i guess nyan does it because she wants to get chew back and things because
he disappeared in a zagnava that if she does this she will be able to reach him again
so that's what she gets out of it but yeah that's how we like kind of initiate the finale
i found the choice of name yo magneuto interesting because i was reading about it
afterward uh that's the name of one of the outer gods from love crafty and lore oh
interesting like uh like yo magneuto also known as the fester from the stars and that which relentlessly
waits outside makes sense in terms of what is does as in everything like disappears like yeah
they as we later learned i think this would uh this sense just it the entire fleet of uh of
urine to the other side right to the other universe like they talk about this later like mostly
every time a zagnava happened it whatever was in its vicinity or uh um area of effect
just got sent to the other universe only at the very end something from the other universe from the
other side comes over to their side but yeah it's just creates this giant hole in space and i think
episode 11 and 12 uh and david already alluded to this uh at the beginning of the review um which
are the climates of the show is where the main problem of this show is most evident and you know i've
already talked about this but i want to elaborate on this the show has a main character problem meaning
the ostensible main characters machu and yan are not really the main plot driving characters of
the story and they lack a lot of agency you know you could argue that amru was also kind of that in the
beginning to an extent but he kind of grows out of that uh they kind of don't i feel like anyway but
it's much more noticeable here because of the compressed nature of the show like the original
gunner show ran much longer i guess it's maybe then again more noticeable in the movies but those
also run very long but you know here we have a very low episode count and starting from the halfway
point onward the breakneck pace of the show makes it seem like most of the important stuff happens
around chalya bull and chisilia at least plot-wise and the two main girls just get thrown around
in there and manipulated by these two forces and yan is doing what she's doing because she wants to
bring the boy back she associates with a chance of freedom which is kind of problem in itself because
the show doesn't give many reasons to properly empathize with their bond you know we talked about
how this can also be achieved to them not having nearly enough screen time together to make this work
and it's could be it is kind of fine to just rely on it being teenage angst and it being just like
hey have to grow into your own personal everything you can make assumptions about why they have such a
strong connection same with matu and everything which counts for her as well at least to the halfway
point but after that like machu and yan kind of don't for a long time even mention shuji machu doesn't
at least mention that machu runs into the letter in in the solar ray base thing in your mag though
and her agency is now what safe lala to set her free a goal she just met why because she feels connected to
her like she did you know like she did with shuji due to you know her thoroughly undesired desire
undefined desire for freedom because she learned that shuji was looking for her for some reason all
of this kind of doesn't really match together none of this really connects on an emotional level
at least it didn't for me i don't know if it did for maybe it did for you john because you sounded more like
fine with that approach to these characters but for me it didn't work especially since the show
constant constantly seems to forget who its main characters are supposed to be and that they are
supposed to be the ones to drive the plot and emotional stakes which reminded me a bit of carol
and two state that show had a similar problem in second half it's like we have two different shows
inside this one twelfth episode show that are constantly at odds with each other and are fighting
for valuables green time to tell their story you have the flashback stuff you have all the the the
the infighting you know buffing the runtime up to 24 or 26 episodes would have probably alleviated
a lot of these issues more bonding time between shuji machu and nyan more time to satisfiantly
explore their backgrounds motivations and individual desire and definition of freedom and then
enough time to also have the zion infighting storyline the weird new type space universe hopping
and flashbacks in there you know after twelve or thirteen episodes you could have had the big turn
where shuji disappears which happens like i said in episode six or seven of this that would have
given the trio enough time to form a genuine connection and also for being so heavily featured in
the op it's really funny that the pomeranian crew does not appear after the halfway point at all
anymore so weird yeah sure yeah so in this compressed state all its elements do not quite mesh together
don't get me wrong the show is very entertaining there's always something happening the fights are
amazing it looks great it sounds great but after a while you get the feeling you're like it's spinning
too many plates at the same time and constantly drop some of them to then later pick the pieces up
again and glue them back together it was a really disjoint experience for me and you have like in
the final episodes you have like this moment when nyan is shooting kecilia to save machu and regretting
it immediately afterwards and both of this doesn't really connect because even if the ed and the show
insists in in it is the case you never get the feeling that the two girls mean a whole lot to each
other and i get that kecilia supposed to be to have become a surrogate mother figure for nyan but they
haven't spent nearly enough time together on screen to justify that either they hit one dinner
together yes and then she brushed her hair and it's like all right wait okay so why do you care
about not shooting that woman like but also why do you care about machu because the last thing we
had we saw of you was like in terms was like abandon her shoot you run away with me
and after that you didn't talk about her again and now you shoot the woman that is the mad surrogate
figure for you to save the girl you apparently still care about just it's really weird i need you
alive so our romantic rival can continue yeah it's something like that and you know you're supposed
to feel much used to save lala i didn't feel any of that not for lack of empathy but because the
show didn't take the time to make me care and you know these are all small bits that happen in the grand
schema things in the in the in the finale of the show but it also makes it feel like it's not coming
together like it's supposed to be and to see kind of piles up and yeah yeah it's like a small paper
cuts right it's like it accumulates more and more and more and more you keep asking yourself
okay show why are you doing this and where are you actually trying to go with these characters and
this story especially relating to these characters like the scene where machu and you're finally
working together as maps should be the big cathartic climax but because of the aforementioned
problem it does not really work from an emotional standpoint like there is not this moment is like
finally the two girls are together after being estranged for a while or being separated by fate or
whatever and they mean so much to each other now they finally can become true sisters or whatever
and partners and help each other out and none of this really connects or works and yeah it just
super weird i don't know how you all felt about the finale in that regard so we're in final thoughts
territory now pretty much yeah i still want to talk a bit about what happens in the final two episodes
and there are some good bits here and there so let me get that out of the way first and then we're
gonna get to the final thoughts so we're getting an old ED at the end of episode 11 with the original
Gundam appearing which i thought was pretty damn cool that was an awesome moment i got to say when
you see that frame of the original Gundam when shuchi pulls it out of the other universe as it was
just like the music started yes exactly which is like this musical sting yeah very very one single
goosebump moment for me in the show yes same for me it was really like oh okay that that's what's
happening that was pretty cool and we learned an interesting bit like in the other universe char
died instead of Lala who protected him in the original version of Gundam 0079 and that's why she
is agnova and created created a new universe where he was alive which many times didn't work out
up to this point is apparently the first universe where it is actually work which are still alive
and you know i thought the other side was the old shoe but apparently it's yet another different
timeline so that was an interesting and neat surprise was like oh okay that's that's what happening
that part of the plot made sense to me that part of the plot worked for me it was also very hilarious
that gazillion after all this dies the exact same way as in the old show yes gotta say though the
old version of that scene is a bit more badass like it was fine in this but the musical sting in
the old show and the way you know char appears and everything and how her hat literally gets blown off
there is cooler like definitely definitely more badass in the old show but still fun in this one
especially because it's like after all her additional mechanations everything she ends up exactly
the same way so that was funny and yeah like we already mentioned at the top of the show the
animation quality in the final episode is god damn insane like the fights of the two girls against
shoji in his in his original Gundam and everything the rx what's what's the designation
rx78 things so and yes and i guess we get a somewhat happy end after all this like
shoji gets convinced to not kill lala because he intended to do that to stop her from destroying
the both universes i think was was the idea here because char rejected her her try to save him like her
attempt to save him and uh shoji was worried that that would make her so distraught that she would just
implode basically and take all universes with her so he wanted to destroy like kill her to destroy
this particular universe and keep the other one alive i think there was this motivation which is
you know also a bit of guessing words in part because we don't learn anything about shoji really
like fans have speculated he's amorous and uh chan agi's son but i don't think that has been
confirmed in any way maybe it's amorous himself or his ghost i don't know you know just as
consciousness transferred to a body on this on this side who knows the show doesn't tell us as far
as i know or did you pick up on any of this in the end it doesn't matter for me honestly yeah but yeah
there's a problem in itself there's that but they also sort of left part of the ending opening where
amateo is like well i hope i can see shoji again it's like hmm yeah maybe she'll she you know the girl
sang out at the sea at the end which is where they wanted to end up and it's like hey maybe we'll
will travel to where shoji is so to the other universe whatever that means so we might get a different
retread of zeta a Gundam uh after this where the girls interfere for some reason i don't know what
that would like to look like yeah but i also don't know i also don't know how you would actually
this definitely feels like a one-off this definitely feels like a one-season thing and yeah there's
a bit of a teaser in the end but i would be super surprised if we get another season of this
because i think i could do a movie of some kind you can call it probably i don't see another season either
if i didn't learn that i know wasn't even that involved with this i would have said hey this is
the love letter and he just wanted to play with his old toys and everything so i don't even know if
beyond this they have plans for anything else or they were just like hey we want to do our different
interesting spin on you know what could happen if things went differently and why did they
go differently and then throw some new characters in there and everything i don't know if that
lends itself well to a second season considering how this one ends i was surprised how many people
survived like in this like it's a really kind of happy and like charlie survives gzaiver survives the
girl survive uh char survives like yeah like you know lala got her wish he keeps continuing he lives
on in this universe so and he meets this universe lala apparently judging from her reaction
this they will end up together and everything so i guess like all things well that end well
that regard maybe not necessarily for the viewer because the journey was so scattershot but
everybody wins asterisk except for the zombies yeah well they don't win yeah they don't
deserve good but death so i mean that's harsh but he kind of deserved you know but it's uh it was funny
and i feel like this is one of those missed opportunity shows if it had more episodes or a
tighter focus it would have probably worked a bit better and you know maybe it should have admitted
at least one of the girls or both concentrated on char and charlie their relationship something
along those lines made it really and really really an alternate universe continuation of
79 like really picking up immediately from that and then just i don't know like i said having
charlie on the main being the main character like there's some ways you could have could have
liked savourtis okay here's my pitch um i'll see yes but cute anime girl yes so if you want to keep
your anime girl if you want to keep your cute anime which i guess of course ex-gyna x-carra is a
die-buster director yes sure that needs to be in there i guess so make shujin much of the main
characters have them develop a real relationship while fighting in the clan battles have them grow
closer together outside of them to also make shujin actual character who doesn't talk like a weird
monosolabic baby make that stuff take 10 to 12 episodes after that shuji finally learns about the
location of the rose which he was able to procure to buy connections made during the clan battles
so those have an actual purpose or you know he finally finds out where char is and introduces where
the rose is through that um he leaves much to behind she tries to find him because now it makes sense
that she completely fell overhead over heels for him and everything um because they have a legit bond
joins for us with charlia because he can give her hints to where to find shuji um because he's more in the
know and from that point on you can proceed as the show already does and end up at the same finale
but with the focus on the clash between shujin and machu only and you use all the extra time and
episodes to explore more of machu's character why she feels so trapped in her current life you can
have shuji tell stories about his life that relate to that you know without revealing his real
identity agenda but from the stuff he experienced on the other side and to machu it could just sound
like he experienced that in this universe but at certain points we're like oh okay he experienced
that on the other side you can throw in little hints in there was like wait that doesn't make
quite sense that doesn't line up you know to cue the viewer in on the fact that he's maybe from
another universe and everything keep the mystery going you know you can for example make him
somewhat related to lala in a way that would explain why he's doing what he's doing and you can
mix charlius and char's relationship into that as well and expand on their shared feelings of emptiness
which is a big thing about charlius background and you know he's shared thing with char like I said
I think that would have worked much better but I'm no screenwriter so you know make of that what you
will but I feel like if you had a tighter focus on a more select assortment of characters and act
at actual main characters decided on actual main characters you this would have been much more
consistent and emotionally rewarding show the way it is the show suffers from way too many
undefined characters that's my that are those are my two cents on this what did you guys what did
you expect from the show which which expectations were met which were not met which were your biggest
holds up what was this what was the stuff you liked the most your final thoughts you want to go first
John or you can go for the guest goes first okay I already took your spot okay so I think with most
of what you say I would agree and from what we saw in the very first episodes you know how how the
war took a different turn and you know how zion won and everything I thought it would focus more on
that but like you said there is so many plot strings during the course of just 12 episodes that
there was no way they would have been able to tie them together and focusing just on
on a handful of characters and not so many would have done the show good what I've missed in the show
was what like is what a huge missed opportunity is is to dive more into the character of artisia
sayla because she appeared just I think twice in the show at the very beginning when before the
the transportation thing happened and then at the very end when you see her claiming the throne
where you even see the rambarral which I was very happy to see by the way because I like rambarral
as character very much because we've learned like the the the the constellation of them in
Gundam the origin was so strong right I love the development of how char and artisia how they
developed during the show and how they got separated during Gundam the origin and I wish that
you now that you get the chance of do like a what if show of Gundam you you could have dove more into
the relationship between those two and give sailor more screen time because as a fan of the character
she disappeared after Gundam the Gundam OG show right she was not in Zeta Gundam or double Zeta
I mean this is of course because the the voice actress she she sadly passed away and they decided not
to recast her and maybe that's why she also doesn't have any any lines in this like she's not talking in
in this show like at all the two or three times three appears but they they could have recast
sure the voice actor because the char's voice actor is also not the same from the original show it's
a different guy so they could have done that with artisia our sailor and I would love I would have
love to see her more in the show so for me personally that is a big missed opportunity but other than that
I've been we've talked about the look and the sound and all of that so that's all fine right so they
can give me anything I'm fine with what they do but if the plot has so many holes or it's not coherent
it loses my interest so while watching the show I never ever felt any empathy for any of the characters
they like I mean it's maybe because I'm just older than the characters themselves
that I can relate to them but still I feel like there are enough shows out there that have a younger
main character and the writing is still strong enough that it makes you empathize them with an
old guy so I don't think it's it's the hdf hcap so if you if you if you compare this show to war in
the pocket war in the pocket had just six episodes if I'm not mistaken they were like longer I think
45 minutes I'm not sure but even if then it would be 12 episodes right if you if you spread it across
the show time itself the story that war in the pocket told it was so endearing and captivating
because they focused on two characters or like you know like the initial gist of it was two characters
and then side characters but the focus was just Bernie and El right the the boy and the the zion pilot
and the story that they told was so captivating and it was so hard warming hard breaking
it hooks you right away but if you try to tell a story of characters like so many characters like
in G-Quicks how do you focus on one how do you build up enough empathy for the viewer to care for them
right it's not possible so I think it's yeah I'm a bit hard-broken at the show in the end for me
didn't do it as a Gundam fan as a gun plot fan I would say it was each episode was somewhat of a
how do you call this like in in German we have this uberraschung side right so where you buy this
this this chocolate and inside there's an egg with a toy inside and you don't know what to
kinder eggs exist in america too I don't know maybe they're forbidden at this point it was this weird
thing going on for a while I don't remember but yeah I think you'll notice what it is yeah no
no kinder eggs are I think they were like restricted from sale for a while but I think they're
kind of back and eat different way I'm a hundred percent certain on that but like each new episode
was like that for for a gumpla fan okay so which gumpla which kit which mobile suit appears next and
I had so much joy looking for new iterations and designs of the kits I think in one of the trailers
that they showed of course they showed the G-Quarks and the Zaku the police Zaku and at one point I was
able to spot a rickdom and I was so happy to see like a new iteration of these kits and then they
actually did appear you know the the black the black tri stars it's the yeah I mean here it's just
two on two I think it's funny that they kept the third guy dead because in the original that the
guy died as well yeah seeing like a rigged up with three legs like what the heck it was a standout fight
in general just to be amazing that was nice to see or the the G-Un save us G-Un the white the white
knight and the new design looks so amazing I would so get a a kit of that what did you think of the
redesigned first Gundam like that char procuse because it definitely probably looks the most
different at least from a let's say from a layman's perspective in terms of looking at the old design
which we get at the end of the show right we get the old version of this still slightly redesigned
when we get the old version of that but also in the beginning we already have the the Gundam that
char finds looks very different compared to the original gun the white and red yeah the white gun
is it's like a very aggressive design I have to say I would how do I how do I word this if if Gundam
or if the RX 78 would get a I'm not sure if like if I can if I can work this correctly
what I have in my head like like a functional sports outfit that's what that's what the what
that looks like it gets very very sleek right and the in the feet they look like sneaker
that's a very fun design yeah you're right I just think about it before but yeah that makes sense
that works that's a fun design and then seeing like the big ZAM being mass produced in one of the
episodes was also very nice what else do we have like five or six of them right yeah yeah the
way to check I think the best suit and overall I have to say was the galgu the the shiko
yeah the woman with the the blue hair the witch yeah like her suit which looks like a GM somewhat
but the redesign of that I'm totally up for that I like this a lot and yeah I just can't wait to
get my hands on them so from a gump laugh fans point of view I'm very happy with what
we showed it like the psycho Gundam especially the psycho gun was also like I mean they went out
on limb with its design as well but yeah why not I agree with that gun cannon was also very nice
so if I have if I have the financial means I would totally get all the kids at some point
looking forward to seeing you build them on the channel yeah but as a Gundam fan I'm waiting for
what they have as an extra I've watched it it's it's fine to have it right it's I was happy to see
char xilia and all the zabi people in a new upgraded design and all that but at the end the story
for me didn't do it and I was not emotionally involved in the show not at any point so yeah I'm
I'm sad to say this did this did the show did you expect anything from the show in regards to it being
product of studio cara well known for Evangelion everything like outside of the little knots here
and there did did did you expect anything to get from the show in regards to this being a
hidey acaiano project that was fulfilled or was not fulfilled where you were like I expected this to
be go more into I don't know weird philosophical direction like eva does or whatever or
where you're like that's I think in some way they tried to do this with the key right now they kind of
the things like the the dialogues that match your head with shuji in one of the episodes I can
remember which one it wasn't I think they tried to lean into that a little bit and I don't know if
it was such a wise decision to have so many callbacks to Evangelion the design of the G-FRED or
did you notice the the leader of the pomeranians she could be the sister of grandest from secret of
blue water right yes so totally so in general I'm not a fan that so many
I peace try to go this multiverse route especially here with a Gundam I don't know if if using
Evangelion pictures in a Gundam show would somehow water down the brand itself right that somehow
you would like to keep it more cleanly separated I think I mean it's nice to see what they
it's like a fan fiction yes absolutely like a hundred percent yeah gets to write like his own
show it like do with it what you want and yeah I think it's nice to see what he would do but it doesn't
mean that we have to be a fan right no of course not I was just wondering and I feel like they don't
go overboard with it it's not like hey here is I don't know different here this this Gundam
Sun Lee or this mobile suit looks like one of the angels from you or whatever right they didn't
they don't really do that so I feel like that aside from maybe the Solomon looking like like that one
of the angels and from a certain perspective and one of the episodes but you know they don't really
go there it's just it's only not it's only references only omagens in certain parts but I can also see
the perspective of like yeah I would I don't know if that works for me in a Gundam show which
which I define as something else but but if you if you sprinkle in those things you automatically
succumb to comparison right you can't you can't not expect you can't expect for friends not to draw
this comparison yeah I mean you know yeah they invite that and I mean that's also something they
probably counted on because just Hidiako is a is a is a is a name Hidiakano is a name that you know
is familiar every or a lot of anime fans are familiar with so if you make that person responsible
or his studio at least responsible for your new Gundam show there are certain expectations
that people have towards the show and that was I was mainly wondering about like were some of these
expectations make met for you guys or did you have different expectations towards the then you would
have to have to other Gundam shows because that name was involved or where you like no it's just
he gets he gets to do something and maybe it relates to some of his other stuff but maybe it's also
just a love letter to Gundam or his love letter to Gundam in general or his studios and what you
said about Arthesia was got me thinking could have made her the main character of this like
put her in Machu's role you know for one reason or another you know you would have to restructure
this story but might as well have her relationship with Shuji in the way right and you know she's
supposed to be a princess and maybe a prospect if the zombies aren't around to regent and but she
doesn't want to be and maybe she's trying to escape from that which which again relate to the freedom
topic and everything you could have structured the story completely around her and that made
might have worked a lot better especially since she has relationship to a lot of these other characters
while our main characters don't so that's an interesting interesting idea I would have liked to see
that version John what are your final thoughts on on this show on you know what I asked about what
were expectations towards this in relation to that T. Y. Kano was involved I mean you have no
experience with the if I franchise really but you know maybe with some of the other projects and
everything so what yeah final feelings I mean you guys hit on a lot of it but yeah my exposure to
Anu's work is a lot more limited so I was just I'm into this mostly with curiosity than anything else
than with any sort of meaningful knowledge did I enjoy the show yeah but
and there's a lot of butts that have come up so yeah there's there's a lot of asterisks to put on
this show there's also a lot of ass in this show like in terms of nudity level this is the most probably most
heavily the Gundam show that most goes most into that which makes sense regarding which people
worked on this but there's a lot of make it flesh and disease it's not a criticism just something
that definitely is noticeable is all I'm saying yeah and I mean yeah like there's nothing wrong with
that but no not at all some of the mech designs were pretty cool some of them you know like you're
calling out the galegoog earlier and I and I'm just sort of looking at it and I was like
what do you mean that's just a gun cannon so I was a little confused on that because you know you
look at what a normal galegoog looks like in it just like a more armored up zaku so I mean you can
see the galegoog in in the flashbacks the galegoog fighting the granddaddy yeah and that's true so
that I was like I didn't I didn't feel any particular way about that the design but just like
why are you calling it that it's not it's not that am I am I the crazy one so there was that I mean
the psycho Gundam was neat do got done like a dog which is a unfortunate would have
after you know they built her up they are tried to build her up they built up for like 10 seconds
yeah that's why I say tried yeah and you guys are right this show moved like a hundred miles
a minute too mostly to its detriment I don't know no it's not it's not there's something happening
all the time and I appreciated that in that cap that's what killed my interest was like oh well
there's this going on but there's also this going on but there's also this going on and there's
that going on I thought it was cool that they brought in so we say how she bought she for the ending
theme I don't know how much you've listened to us in the past David but I am sort of Vtuber-pilled
I don't watch as much hollow live as a as a mutual friend of CC in mine but you know kind of
aware of them on the fringes of some of the other people that I enjoy watching and I like seeing
you know what they're up to so hearing her sing the ending theme was like oh that's cool okay you know
me a friend actually introduced me to a hollow live trading card game the other day so yeah
oh no I thought you were super busy with the Gundam trading card game
what are you doing? I'm faithful what is this nonsense as long as trading cards I'm on work but
yeah but yeah there I think there are a lot of things to like about this show but there's also
probably about as many things that pull it down and I think I think it's perfectly okay to enjoy
this show I enjoyed it but you know there no piece of media is free of criticism is the thing
in boy there's a lot of things to criticize about this show and maybe who knows maybe 10 15 20 years
down the line they'll try and redo this maybe they'll try to expand on like at least the ending part
with like a movie at some point who knows there's always a chance to take something and have a
redo so I think that you know even though this concept is a probably a one-off and you're right I don't
think they it would be a weird angle to go and be oh we're gonna do this again with Zeta or
something else I think that would just be sort of like mmm yeah but I think it'd be possible to
maybe at future point look at the writing in this show and give it the treatment it really
deserves because it had a lot of potential like really a lot of potential like the beginning
couple of episodes was so intriguing there was so much interesting setups and everything so
yeah the potential is there and they kind of squandered it in large parts so maybe at some point
they'll come back to this and say okay what if we re-told this in a different way like your guy's
ideas of it of like making artisia the main character I think that's cool or you know having
it just be machu instead of machu and yan I think that would be really neat as well but you know
time will tell if that happens and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah I'm curious about one thing
hit for you guys so and I brought this up during the discussion for a last verse and I'm bringing it
now suburb well you know we don't have the attachment and I don't know this okay this let's do
another where can people even watch this don't I think it's on prime right yeah it's on Amazon so
I don't know if it got a german dub over here and I I think outside of actual us shows I never watch
the english dub of anime because you know it's not our native language so it would make sense to
maybe watch it in german but in general I'm speaking for myself I watch anime subbed the exception
big monster which I'm currently watching because that show is set in germany and I wanted to see it
with the german dub but I assume david you also watched it's sub sub yeah always stop I can't I can't
even remember the last show I watched dubbed there you go yeah because it looks like it was dubbed in
the english french Spanish Italian Polish interesting interesting interesting but yeah I was like you
know what it's getting simile dubbed mm-hmm I watch it dubbed um it was definitely of a higher quality
than like Lazarus had some good strong moments in its dub but on the whole it was kind of
I think the voice director could have done their work a little better but in g-quicks I think it
was really strong and I really liked um I think the performances from anaris kvignanis and they uh
suckleady who were nyan and amate respectively I thought they were really good I really liked
shallia's voice actor fazir alca alca i see he just came across so smooth and so swarven english he was
like oh this is this is exactly what they were going for and it it translates so well so like the
english dub is really solid didn't it show so I think I think it's worth watching one way or the other
that's good for polia I think charlie is the character in the show who is the winner
because uh I think in the in the o g he had like what two episodes or so but here he's he was almost
the main character and uh he gets such a nice treatment gets you like a swath uh a dub voice or
yeah he's probably the winner of the show absolutely like the way the show is working or set up
right now at a lot of moments in the show he already feels like the main character like he's halfway
there like he is he's so he drives so much of the plot uh he has so much more in the know than the other
characters he guides so many of the characters to certain specific parts he has so much his
relationships with uh with the the other main character technically who disappeared that is char
right from the old show like he is all but set up to be the main character in this and then they
kind of forego that for some reason which is weird like you there is aside from maybe doing a show where
only machu and shoot you around or arti just the main character the third version of this that
would work I think is if it was charlie if it was completely structured or charlie abl like if he was
the main character and it's all about his journey uh to finding the person that gave uh to to
finding the person that gave him a new purpose in life after he almost died and trying to
to fulfill the wishes of that person and then maybe it turns out he does and that it's what happens at
the end of the show like he goes against char and it's like hey I think you will turn out to be exactly
what kasilia is is right now you will eventually uh uh uh fair war against earth again and I can't
let that happen the only thing I want is for new types to live happily and I've realized that your
way isn't it and if they structure the whole show about that around that realization and that
relationship of those characters after being like being like really right type friends partners whatever
war bodies and then having uh by the end to turn against each other because their views have changed
over the years and it would have been a super interesting show it would have been felt substantial
there would have it would have been emotional rewarding uh and yeah so that is a legit third good version
of this story that could have happened so yeah maybe like john says i don't know with the decade a couple
of years whatever maybe we'll get that kind of story maybe we get another universe where it's all
about charlie and charlie's relationship i would very much love that but yeah i guess that's it for
our long review longer than i expected of g-quacks but that's how our reviews goes especially when we
have an extra very nice guest around thanks for joining us david this was super fun and this was a
really good talk and yes definitely yes i hope you had a good time it seems like your dates no definitely
so thank you so much for having me like getting to talk about you know my favorite franchise of course
i'm always upward so thanks a lot want to plug your uh champion yes exactly what john said
do you want to plug your youtube channel for uh for a final time so that people know where they can find you
i've been you've talked about this and i don't want to talk too much about like myself and this thing
i was hate doing self-promotion but yeah look up giant robo love like robo without the tea and uh yeah i'm
doing gumball stuff on there i have a video up about uh i'm going to make a chrome looking uh which from
mercury kit so if you're interested in that kind of stuff uh it's going i don't know when your episode is
going live but i don't know either yeah but it would probably be live when your episode is going live so
yeah if you guys check it out and say something nice please tell me that you're coming from the podcast
then i will know who you are but uh yeah thank you so much for having me it was a blast and if bandai
will release the next gondom show which i bet they will because uh gondom 50 years is coming up soon
i'm happy to be here again oh my god 50 years can you imagine what i mean the expectations to
what that show might be even higher than towards this one yeah can't be crazy maybe maybe we'll get
that the origin reimagining of the first show for that who knows i mean that would be good reason to
get that but i don't know if they also want to do another reboot slash reimagining of the original
show right after this one but again we also got a show that heavily featured one on own battles
right after a show where that was featured heavily so let's see maybe maybe maybe maybe bandai
namco slash sunrise is not a verse to retreading ground pretty quickly after the previous show
we'll find out but yes um for me the show was a very mixed experience uh aside from the main gondom
design i loved the entire presentation of this the design work both in the current time and the
flashbacks the colors the music the animation was incredible especially the fights uh DCG employed
for the mobile suits is actually pretty damn good most of the time even though the somewhat busy
mac designs sometimes make it a bit hard to process uh what exactly is going on i like the flashback
stuff to the one your war especially and wouldn't have minded to see a whole show about that but regardless
this is a very quick mostly entertaining watch with a lot going on which makes it a breezy entertaining
experience but that also introduces a lot of the big problems in the show mainly not enough
screen time for too many characters and a severe lack of focus a lot of things are happening very
quickly but due to missing or flawed characterization and scattershot jumpy plot can feel very random at times
if you don't mind that and are in it only for the eye candy or just to see a somewhat interesting take
on parts of the original 0079 show and its characters go for it if you want a substantial well-written
cohesive series with rewarding emotional build up and payoff i think you're better off jumping
into the cockpit of a different gondom show
and that is a wrap on the 170th episode of anime brain freeze all the music in our podcast is from
the double dragon neon soundtrack by the amazing jack kuffman please go to v ir t dot bandcamp.com
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had a good time and please join us again on our next episode, Matt's good? So long everybody.
Next time on the anime brain freeze! What can you do when the answer stacked against you?
What else but add some extra fuel to the fire?
♪ You'reおstere Amazing ♪
♪ Come, come, come, show me your heart ♪
♪ You're so beautiful, you're so beautiful, you're so colorful ♪
♪ You're so beautiful, you're so colorful ♪
(upbeat music)
Thank you both.