Kidou Senshi Gundam: Fukushuu no Requiem

*In depth review.*

Good. Could have been GREAT.
Refreshing to "root for the other side" once again.

Story: 7.5

Bit forced at times, and the ending feeling rushed and incomplete.
But overall, the storyline was enjoyable enough.

... =====

Dialogue: 7

Sometimes felt like the whole dialogue of the movie was a series of "coming attractions, previews style one liners" mashed together to make the movie.
Especially when it came to tone and inflections of the characters voices and dialogue.

A great feature that made it feel close to reality, was the lack of the well established anime style, (crazy) pilot-to-pilot, mid-battle conversations/arguments between opposing MS pilots.

Enemies don't have long-winded, deep, life contemplating conversations as they try to take each other out.

This feature (or lack thereof), made the battles feel quite realistic, and frankly, alot less frustrating to ingest, as a viewer.

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World and Mechanical design: 9

The settings and battlefields were quite good, with great detail.

Only criticism, would be that, while yes it can be understood that it is a dark setting and situation, being as they are smack bang in the middle of a war and its associated battles and battlefields, the production staff have tried to convey this feeling through the dark colouring, "lighting" and settings within the world and it's battlefields.

Unfortunately this results in alot of these settings feeling overly flooded in darkness and making it hard to distinguish details etc. sometimes making it feel like everything was all one colour.

The result being, almost making it a black and grey movie (or dark greens and dark browns in alot of scenes also).

The mechanical designs of all the Mobile Suits, fighter jets, tanks, trucks, cars, and rockets/launch vehicles, etc, frankly, were amazing.
It was hard to find any criticism regarding these details and designs (also reflected in the detail and quality of the new Gunpla model kits of the movies Mobile Suits).

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Character Design: 6.5

Pre-release reviews indicated that the entire productions design was great, but the designs of the characters themselves were quite lacking.
Unfortunately this turned out to be quite accurate.

If there were no human characters to be seen within the story, you would very easily fail to remember, that the entire production was created via a newly updated and released video game design engine.

The fact that the production DOES include human characters within the story, definitely reminds you that a video game design engine was used to create the whole thing.

Awkward movements, awkward hand gestures, awkward facial/emotional expressions, awkward everything.

Definitely needs improvement for any future productions using this method/design engine (remastered release maybe?).

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Sound design: 8.5

The sounds of the trucks/cars, tanks, fighter jets, rockets/launch vehicles etc. made it feel like these elements were true to life, sounding as close to real life equipment as possible.

Mobile Suits and their movements, weapons fire, clashes etc, also sound as close to real life equipment as possible.

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Overall: 8

Considering any and all pros and cons related to the production, the story, dialogue, world/setting design, character design, sound design etc. the final result is one worth watching, and definitely something to recommend to any fans of the franchise.

Newcomers to the franchise, using this particular production as a launching platform into the world of Mobile Suit Gundam, won't have the benefit of all previous in universe details to support their viewing, but in regards to this new production, it isn't needed at all.

There aren't any moments, dialogue, details or information that comes up in this production, that would confuse newcomers, or have them questioning details to try and piece together the story, on the fly.

It is simply a story of war, it's battles, it's weapons, the combatants, and the effects of such on the civilian population.

Within the franchise, the majority of storylines are related to, and told through the perspective of, what many/most, consider to be the "good guys".

When the story IS told from the perspective of, again what many/most, consider to be the "bad guys", it is always refreshing, especially considering it humanizes the lives of those on the side of the "bad guys".

It's not often we find ourselves rooting for the other side, but this is definitely one of those times.

- Jake.
Perth, Australia.

Gundam, especially in the UC timeline, has been very hit or miss for me. Some of its entries are among my favorites, others are baffling misfires, and there's a whole lot of mid.

So, how about this one?

I'll get the obvious out of the way first: the CGI is mostly good to great. Its mobile suit fights look solid and, especially as it gets later in the series, there's a sense of weight to the fights. I don't think it does ground-level views quite as well as previous entries (the gold standard so far is Hathaway), but there's a grit to this and a sense of ... rawness that most of the other series don't really convey. This feels like a real war, even with all the giant robots in the thick of it. Where it falls on its face a bit is... well, in the faces. The humans, aside from a couple of the bigger characters, do not look great and we see an awful lot of them so it's a difficult flaw to ignore. Still, I think this show nails enough of the CGI where it counts, and looms large as a result, particularly for the Gundam which does come off as horrific at times.

Everything else is largely fine to good. There's not a lot to the narrative, which I actually appreciate. So much of Gundam is told as grand epics with massive galaxy-spanning wars and grand plans. This is grounded and very localized. It's not perfect in that regard, since the series can't help but insert two Newtypes, but it also doesn't go too far on their powers (unlike many entries I could mention) and, with one exception, doesn't give them substantial plot armor. That being said, the simpler plot does mean there's not a lot to really elevate it. I've seen this kind of plot in war films and it's pretty common and basic. It's nice to see it under the Gundam banner, but it's not going to elevate it much.

The characters land more in the fine category. Beyond Iria who gets a particularly affecting dream sequence in the final episode (also some of the best animation in the series) and goes through an arc that is relatively well-worn in Gundam without feeling overly tropey, most of the characters just aren't all that interesting. A couple give signs of it, but it's telling that they don't really have arcs in this series. They're other soldiers on the battlefield who are working towards the singular aim of getting home. Yuri Kellerne shows up for a cameo straight out of 08th team where he feels like he stepped out of a different universe with his open shirt and extra haircut (and yes, I realize that show is probably more akin to this than most Gundam UC series, but dude still looks so out of place).

One more substantial gripe: the series doesn't lend some real humanity to both sides of the conflict, something other Gundam series manage much more effectively. In a sense, it does do that with regards to the Gundam pilot, but we barely get to know that person and most of the EFF forces in this are just faces without any personality whatsoever. They're just enemies. I get that that's part of the point, for Iria to try and connect too late, but it also just makes some of the losses feel weak, particularly for a character who has seen so much of the battlefield and lost so many people close to her. The ending is pretty decent, but it fell flat emotionally for me partly for this reason. The show clearly wants to have its cake and eat it too, garnering both the terror of the faceless Gundam and, eventually, the empathy for the person piloting it. The former works, the latter not so much.

Still, it's not a bad show, just one with a mix of workable and throw-away elements that comes together more often than it flails. I enjoyed the watch well enough, though I don't think I'll be coming back to it because it's just not memorable for anything beyond its solid visuals.

Let's address the colony drop in the room.

Requiem for Vengeance (RFV) faces the same issue every One Year War (the conflict depicted in Mobile Suit Gundam 1979) spinoff has faced: how to make major POV Zeon characters sympathetic in the face of the colony drop—an event that killed billions. This show, like many before it, parrots the "just soldiers following orders" mantra. The cast of RFV is composed of normal soldiers, content with the perceived honor of their occupation. They are soldiers without philosophy or worldview—detached from any motivation outside of killing the enemy and going home. The main cast is shallow, lacking any ... form of complexity or depth (besides the pittance offered to Iria). They fight willingly, bravely, and justly, mouring the loss of their comrades, hating the enemy, and appaled by the slaughter of civlians. They are also fighting for the side whose first action in the war was to massacre millions of civilians (neutral to the war) and to turn their home into missile to drop on earth, killing billions more. See the problem?

They can't not have an opinion on that. Right? Iria, Alfee, and that one officer with a mustache act appaled at the very idea of civilian casualties, yet no mention of the drop. A simple way this show could add depth (or any depth for that matter) would be to simply have this cast offer differing perspectives on the necessity or lack thereof of Operation British. But the avoidance of the topic serves to undermine the show's legitmacy. The closest the show gets in referencing the event is at the end of the show's short intro that plays every episode, the closing shot being the colony drop. It's literally right there in the show!

Taking an approach similar to Dune: Messiah could have potentially been interesting in the right hands, with the creators seeking to make the bad guys (in the case of RFV: Zeon fascists; in the case of Dune: the monster of a dictator Pual is) sypathetic. But in today's world, that may not be possible with the polarization of political views and the dominance of absolute moralism due to a combination of World War II and the advent of cancel culture. One can imagine how this show might have looked in different—more capable and perhaps bolder—hands.

The characters being absent of philosophic musings isn't the biggest problem. You can make these characters sympathetic in spite of that. Even separated from the factors, ideas, and motivations that drive soldiers to fight in a war (like how someone might feel about ethnic genocide or the dehuminzation of certain people groups for example), these characters could be interesting. Everybody loved Ramba Ral in First Gundam for his honor and Char for his charisma and how those characters made Zeon feel more complex, multi-dimensional, and real as a faction in the world of Gundam. The issue here is this cast's complete lack of animation, personality, and distinction. Each and every one of the them is a charicature. Their personalities can be summarized in one or two words. There is nothing else to them. So I don't find myself rooting for the Zeons here. I just don't care about any of them like I did for Ramba Ral, Hamon, Char, or any of the many unnamed Zeon soldiers who made brief apperances in First Gundam.

On the matter of the animation: it's terrible. Not all the time, mind you, but it looks and moves like a ps3/Xbox 360 cutscene. My brother came into the room at one point and asked when I booted up an old game at one point while I was watching the show. Credit where credit is due, there are some beautiful shots in here. Most are environmental wide shots, the strong lighting and still models mixing wonderfully in some rare moments. For the bulk of the show, however, the animation isn't it. The characters are stiff and lifeless with emotionless faces and the lipsyncing rarely matching up. The voice acting doesn't inspire either with all besides maybe Priscilla Concepcion as Iria offering stilted and poor performances. The mechs are weightless in all the wrong ways. And textures are frequently muddy.

The show's action scenes fare little better. The. Camera. Won't. Stop. Moving. I remember people mentioning this as a problem in Berserk 2016, and I had this same issue with the Final Fantasy XV Kingsglaive movie. But something about the freedom 3d animation gives the camera just causes directors to lose all sense of how to use it. It's much less aggregious here than the two examples I gave, but it still bothered me. The bigger issue lies in how the pacing of scenes is all over the place. Mid-fight, the Gundam will just lose interest in a target after being shot at and just leave or slow down to allow for plot progression. Another time, it somehow lost sight of a Zaku II in a junkyard with nothing blocking its line of sight while Iria slowly lumbers behind a pile of rusted cars, and, the next thing you know, the Gundam is wandering around looking for her, inexplicably not knowing exactly where she went. It's baffling, and greatly deflates the tension.

As it stands, RFV has nothing of value to say. The cast is shallow and one note. Their paper-thin characterization as soldiers who loyally do what their told barely holds up through the show. The action is bland and weightless in all the wrong ways. The theme (?) of seeking unecessary vengeance at the cost of lives in wartime is kinda there but contradicted by the ending. The ending is its own brief conversation.

Without giving spoilers (but please avoid if you wish to avoid any idea of the ending), RFV's conclusion when viewed within the greater metanarrative and context of the Universal Century (the name for the main timeline of Gundam shows and films) is completely morally contradictory. It makes no sense for this show to frame Iria's decision as a positive thing. She perpetuates the status quo of conflict she claims to want to end—a fact made crystal clear by Zeta Gundam onward—but RFV lacks the self awareness to recognize this fact.

I didn't hate this show. But I found it's lack of commitment to a message or theme anathema within the context of its franchise and lineage. I might have strongly (*cough* very strongly *cough*) disliked other gundam shows like Gundam 00 or Unicorn, but I awcknowledge those shows were at least toying around with some interesting political and moral ideas, even if they dropped the ball on how they handled them.

But the moral of the story is that everything this show and its defenders say its doing, Mobile Suit Gundam 1979 did it better. And did it 45 years ago.

Do you want a show that disects the trauma of war? Done. You want heavy themes? Done. You want a narrative focusing on small people getting swempt up in a larger conflict they don't fully understand? Mobile Suit Gundam did that too. There is an understated quality to the original series and its retellings. It captures the drastically varied emotions of the human heart in the terror of wartime so vividly. Go watch or read First Gundam instead of this (or one of the great side stories like War in the Pocket). It's a far better use of your time.