Actually, I was going to be writing that having all characters get bigger roles would have made it better in my last comment, but I stopped for some reason.... Now that I think of it, these other characters wouldn't have been as important to flesh out as the female characters. There was a lot of attention paid to the few female characters even though they were so shallow. I thought the typical battle of the week format was what made this show really good because they just managed to sell it for me mostly. Yeah, most of the powers were not deeply explored - a lot of things felt like they ran out of creativity or just didn't invest in it.
I think overall, my review/perspective was to be focused on a specific set of issues rather than review the whole show - I don't like giving full reviews and perspectives.
Yeah man. Double Zeta was a disgrace. At least all the selfishness of the characters had repercussions. Kamille, Katz, Reccoa, everyone suffered for their selfish and reckless behavior. ZZ was just like let them be pieces of shit but have them not suffer from it. It was really irritating to watch.
I guess Tomino hated bright because he looked like a little bitch. He handled two MAJOR conflicts but couldn't handle the Gundam equivalent of the Goonies? Sure....
For me, it definitely would have. I hated the show almost entirely because of weak female writing and it would have improved the quality and direction of the plot greatly if they played a better role considering it left important characters not influencing anything most of the time.
Yes, I found them very one-dimensional. Cliche villains, you know.
As I say, many of the reviews I read about Seed are based on comparing it to "MSG 1979" (and pretending it is infinitely worse, of course). The funny thing is that many of the people who make the comparison admit that they have only seen MSG 1979 and that Seed did not even bother trying because "it is so horrible that it is not worth trying" because "everybody says so. Everybody not may be wrong." Great argument, well.
I would have to see MSG 1979 to see that such is the resemblance, but at least it is undeniable that in SEED they have much clearer that they are the Coordinators, whereas even today it is very difficult to know that it is exactly a Newtype. Or I have not been able to determine it.
(According to information compiled in various sources - comments, reviews, little that I have seen in V Gundam -, the Newtypes in principle were going to be the result of the adaptation of the humanity to the space, but soon we see in the UC series that are born almost More Newtypes on Earth than in space.
They are supposed to be better than humans, free from ambitions and flaws, but then we see that they are either as bastards as humans or they are even crazier than us.
They are also supposed to be much more skilful in all senses, both physical and mental, compared to inferior humans, but it seems that these skills only serve to pilfer war machines like the Gundams.
And to top it off it turns out there are Newtypes on both sides!
In addition to this, it turns out that, although Newtypes are supposed to be a superior species, there is no clear way of determining who is a Newtype and who is not - Allo? DNA analysis, anyone? -
Lastly, nothing is known about their powers, because they seem to have some sort of telepathy to feel between them ... but then it turns out that Tomino said that they are not Psi. Summary, all this a contradiction.)
Other than that, the graphics I believe (reviews claim are inferior to Zeta, I do not know if that's Zeta fans' fanaticism or that they are really bad), but I will not take it into account. Victory's graphics also look that way, old, but I still enjoy it anyway, because the story is interesting enough to overlook the graphics. (Although if you put to see another series more modern, the bump animation is ... strange)
In my opinion, Destiny started off fairly well, but it was mid-season when it started to decline and give the impression that they were just making up the script as they were producing it. I read in Internet that was due to fights between the production team. And what about the villain's final plan ... just ridiculous. Something more typical of a comic or one of these series of "humor". The implementation of the plan was something in plan "Really? Is the guy expecting that simply by announcing his plan the rest of the world will unconditionally surrender and listen to him?"
Victory, at the moment I've come to episode 24 and what I'm seeing I like. To give you the off-spoiler version, there have been epic battles and battles that have not been so much, we have met equally interesting characters on both sides (some have seen them die), we have gone into space and Uso has learned to fight there . Many people have died, there have been at least two great battles between space fleets and the League Militaira is starting to have a bad time.
Ah, and Katejina at the moment is not looking as disgustingly awful as they paint her (I've read a lot of Victory reviews focused on criticizing her and wishing her the worst). Apart from that, I am grateful that the staff of Zanscare speaks of the Gundams as if they were a kind of myth that they do not stop believing (I believe that only 80 years have passed, not 800, between Victory and Char's Counterattack or the last series UC before Victory. There should be someone alive from the previous generation, or at least some kind of graphic testimony ...)
By the way, note that this series has reversed the usual order. My experience with Gundam has been that the series begins in space and in the middle of it the protagonists go down to Earth. In Victory they start on Earth and end up in space. It does not affect the story too much, but it's a curious fact.
I'm waiting to see what you think and thank you for adding me as a friend. Surely we will have interesting conversations about the series. I do not know if I can help you to see things that you have lost, but I will do what I can (if I understood correctly your last sentence xD)
I agree your affirmation about the enjoyment of any series.
In many of the reviews I have read about series, movies and books, the usual thing is lectures on how deep the script is, the rich psychology of the characters, or the huge subtext in each chapter. I have almost never found any simple affirmations like "This series I liked" or "I have found it horrible". No. Internet critics prefer to say that something "is bad", and that if someone says that series has liked it, then that person has no criteria. Because that series "is so bad that it simply can not like anyone with artistic sense".
Well, no. A story can be everything deep, intellectual, loaded with subtext and everything you want, that if the viewer seems torture to see it, logically will not like. And criticize all the criticism about her and more. If something seems boring, I will not go looking for the subtext.
(I think about having to see three other Gundam series to understand Zeta and give me chills. Maybe someday, but right now I do not think I can.)
"History is written by the victors," is what I understood from the explanation about the Titans. (Although I believed that the protagonists of original MSG in Zeta were opposed head-on to the Titans, but of course, I read that instead of seeing it in the series, maybe I was wrong)
In any case, a very true statement, and a great detail on the part of the authors of Gundam. For example, in Gundam Seed something similar happens: each series focuses on each of the conflicting sides, so that you arrive at the same conclusion that I am arriving at Victory.
That is, there are good people and bad people on both sides, and that that of Absolute Good against Absolute Evil ... only exists in movies. That it is possible at once to be right and to be wrong. Which, in essence, is a reflection of life itself.
Okay, Seed is possibilly a bad example, according the flaming-reviews about Seed. Simplified opinion: I saw her. And I think it is very improvable (especially Destiny, hell, some chapters were heavy, and the end ... anyway ...). But I did not think it was as disgustingly horrible as described on the Internet.
It would have to see original MSG (90% of the criticism of Seed was based on taking the resemblances with original MSG) to see the references, but for the moment I'm messing with Victory. Maybe when I finish it.
Well, when you see Victory, you tell me what. For the moment, I got stuck in episode 12 (because I started to see other things in between, not because I got bored) but I'm looking forward to seeing more of Uso and his teammates. The thing becomes interesting from the episode 5-6, but all of previous episodes were interesting for know the protagonists. (The beginning can be a little confusing, that is; you need saw the three first episodes for undestand the way of beginning events.)
Apart from Victory, I would recommend Gundam 00. As a curious fact, it is the first that is set in the Christian era (around 2300 or so), the orbital elevator exists and the sun energy is dominant, but that is the end of the resemblances with our world. In the second season gave them to start putting strange things in the script but at least it is entertaining
Thank you for praising my English. I think I need to improve (and I thought it looked pretty bad for a native English-speaker).
I know the phenomenon of the blind fanatics. I have had to suffer, usually with series that either seem to me not to be so or directly are horrible.
I will have to believe what you tell me about Zeta, because as I said before, I could not go beyond episode 4. I think the idea of watching anime is to enjoy it. If it seems torture, you do not enjoy it anymore. And watching Zeta in particular seemed torture to me. Victory is not making me so heavy, even though it's similar.
The highlight was when I read in a review that "Zeta does not get interesting until episode 10". By then I had already decided to leave her and was thinking "What the hell? Are you seriously telling me that 20% of the series is stuffed?"
The Titans ... I will only say that I have seen more developed villains in Disney. They will have to improve a lot from the horrible level of the first chapters
On the subject of modern anime, my particular theory is that it is used the same as in the series in general and in the Spanish in particular. Summarizing the explanation: Here are made series based on what they call "absurd humor". Which from what I've seen, is that a character says a nonsense stupidity and that's funny. Then another character says or makes another stupidity even bigger. If even the spectator has not laughed, out of nowhere appears a third character and starts kicking asses because he can and wants.
My theory is that the anime does the same thing of live-action TV. They try to be funny, and fail. They uses stupid protagonists, and encourage this stupidity, because "it is the public wants". It uses the same clichés that have been used in the past and are known to work. (The same thing is done in Hollywood, I have the impression that Hollywood is untouchable according the fanatics)
Indeed, Uso Ewin is the youngest pilot of the entire Gundam saga. And I imagine that later Victory will become much more depressing. For now it is: they have destroyed Woolwig, at least fifty people have died between BESPA pilots and League Militaire, there are constant battles ...
Although there are things that are strange to me, such as the fact that the characters are so horrified by a guillotine (when they started talking about "Guillotine", I admit that I thought it was some kind of terrifying power weapon capable of destroying cities or Something like that) or the small detail that, at least for the moment, it is a mystery why they are fighting both one and the other.
That is, we know that Zanscare Empire is invading the Earth, and that the League Militaire fights them, but at the moment it is not known why they do such things. I suppose it will be clarified in the following chapters.
Strangely the reviews I have read praising Gundam Zeta saying it is better that MSG did not talk about the drawing at all. Well, one commented something like "It's a series from the 80's, do not expect a drawing comparable to the ones you make now." But if it is a case in which MSG is underestimated by drawing against Zeta, it really is very unfair.
I also feel if I sound hostile in the previous comment, and my argument. My "excuse" is that as I say I ended up tired of Zeta fans determined to defend it without paying attention to the media and throwing away whatever it takes. Going to say that Zeta inspired EVERYTHING that was done later (one states with all the seriousness of the world that the producer of Robotech plagiarized Zeta's plot for his series, another claims that Code Geass is but a huge mockery of Gundam Seed. .. you can already imagine.
I do not know Victory's ratings in English-speaking countries, but from what you say it seems to be the same as in Spanish-speaking countries. Having Spanish as a mother tongue (sorry for my bad English, I am learning), I have read the reviews in Spanish and in English that I could.
And I can sum it up in that Spanish-speaking critics adore Gundam Zeta ... and believe that Victory is a horribly depressing thing, and in any case clearly inferior to all the rest of the Universal Century. (I have come to read a review where it was argued that Victory should not be considered canonical ... because neither Amuro Ray nor Char Anzable appear).
My personal opinion of Victory, having seen 11-12 episodes: Decidedly it is undervalued. It is upgradeable, of course (what is not?). But it is not as horrible as it has been presented to me. At least I see that there are good people and bad people on both sides, and battles are not one-sided massacres in which one side annihilates an entire enemy army while they do little more than do pirouettes in the air.
(One of the things that displeased me most about Zeta was the exaggerated insistence that AEUG's were the "good guys" while the Titans were not only bad but stupidly villianious.) They tell me that there is a very deep plot and Complex and what I find is a struggle between the Absolute Good (AEUG) against Absolute Evil (the Titans), in which absolutely everybody is in favor of AEUG but still they are so idiots that they need 50 episodes to defeat the Titans.
In my previous comment I explained why I started to see Gundam Zeta before seeing the original. Basically I ended up burned reading criticism praising how wonderful Gundam Zeta is, how deep are his characters, which is much better than the original series, etcetera.
As for Gate: First, that has nothing to do with it. Second, NOBODY sold me Gate as "a masterpiece that redefined gender and to whose side everything that has been done afterwards is shit." No one assured me "You can NOT consider yourself a true fan of the anime if you have not seen Gate" (something that has happened to me with Gundam Zeta) nor have I had to find people who tell me "You have not seen Gate? YOU ONLY DIE SUCKER!"
I saw what I expected to see, I did not find myself thinking "But what the hell did you see the whole damn world in this series?" That is the difference. Gate will not be a masterpiece, but it does not pretend to be, nor has anyone intended to sell it as such.
I could question your taste you plan to watch Euphoria, but I do not because it is not the point
However, thanks for the guide. Anyway, for the moment I started the other day to see Victory Gundam and I like it a lot more than Gundam Zeta. At least I could get to episode 12 without feeling like throwing the computer out the window.
I dont care if Im missing out story parts cause I dont read the manga! I watch anime because the experience is a 1000 times better.
I got you a solution though. Quit watching any kind of anime altogether. That way you won't have to "put up" with the terrible animations and useless sounds. Who needs technology anyway when reading chat bubbles is a so much better experience
A manga has better art than an anime? Unable to comment on that. Also without voices,sound,music you cant get into a manga as much as you get into an anime. Its lacking the main trigger for emotions.
All Comments (11) Comments
I think overall, my review/perspective was to be focused on a specific set of issues rather than review the whole show - I don't like giving full reviews and perspectives.
I guess Tomino hated bright because he looked like a little bitch. He handled two MAJOR conflicts but couldn't handle the Gundam equivalent of the Goonies? Sure....
As I say, many of the reviews I read about Seed are based on comparing it to "MSG 1979" (and pretending it is infinitely worse, of course). The funny thing is that many of the people who make the comparison admit that they have only seen MSG 1979 and that Seed did not even bother trying because "it is so horrible that it is not worth trying" because "everybody says so. Everybody not may be wrong." Great argument, well.
I would have to see MSG 1979 to see that such is the resemblance, but at least it is undeniable that in SEED they have much clearer that they are the Coordinators, whereas even today it is very difficult to know that it is exactly a Newtype. Or I have not been able to determine it.
(According to information compiled in various sources - comments, reviews, little that I have seen in V Gundam -, the Newtypes in principle were going to be the result of the adaptation of the humanity to the space, but soon we see in the UC series that are born almost More Newtypes on Earth than in space.
They are supposed to be better than humans, free from ambitions and flaws, but then we see that they are either as bastards as humans or they are even crazier than us.
They are also supposed to be much more skilful in all senses, both physical and mental, compared to inferior humans, but it seems that these skills only serve to pilfer war machines like the Gundams.
And to top it off it turns out there are Newtypes on both sides!
In addition to this, it turns out that, although Newtypes are supposed to be a superior species, there is no clear way of determining who is a Newtype and who is not - Allo? DNA analysis, anyone? -
Lastly, nothing is known about their powers, because they seem to have some sort of telepathy to feel between them ... but then it turns out that Tomino said that they are not Psi. Summary, all this a contradiction.)
Other than that, the graphics I believe (reviews claim are inferior to Zeta, I do not know if that's Zeta fans' fanaticism or that they are really bad), but I will not take it into account. Victory's graphics also look that way, old, but I still enjoy it anyway, because the story is interesting enough to overlook the graphics. (Although if you put to see another series more modern, the bump animation is ... strange)
In my opinion, Destiny started off fairly well, but it was mid-season when it started to decline and give the impression that they were just making up the script as they were producing it. I read in Internet that was due to fights between the production team. And what about the villain's final plan ... just ridiculous. Something more typical of a comic or one of these series of "humor". The implementation of the plan was something in plan "Really? Is the guy expecting that simply by announcing his plan the rest of the world will unconditionally surrender and listen to him?"
Victory, at the moment I've come to episode 24 and what I'm seeing I like. To give you the off-spoiler version, there have been epic battles and battles that have not been so much, we have met equally interesting characters on both sides (some have seen them die), we have gone into space and Uso has learned to fight there . Many people have died, there have been at least two great battles between space fleets and the League Militaira is starting to have a bad time.
Ah, and Katejina at the moment is not looking as disgustingly awful as they paint her (I've read a lot of Victory reviews focused on criticizing her and wishing her the worst). Apart from that, I am grateful that the staff of Zanscare speaks of the Gundams as if they were a kind of myth that they do not stop believing (I believe that only 80 years have passed, not 800, between Victory and Char's Counterattack or the last series UC before Victory. There should be someone alive from the previous generation, or at least some kind of graphic testimony ...)
By the way, note that this series has reversed the usual order. My experience with Gundam has been that the series begins in space and in the middle of it the protagonists go down to Earth. In Victory they start on Earth and end up in space. It does not affect the story too much, but it's a curious fact.
I'm waiting to see what you think and thank you for adding me as a friend. Surely we will have interesting conversations about the series. I do not know if I can help you to see things that you have lost, but I will do what I can (if I understood correctly your last sentence xD)
PD: Sorry for the more extended post.
In many of the reviews I have read about series, movies and books, the usual thing is lectures on how deep the script is, the rich psychology of the characters, or the huge subtext in each chapter. I have almost never found any simple affirmations like "This series I liked" or "I have found it horrible". No. Internet critics prefer to say that something "is bad", and that if someone says that series has liked it, then that person has no criteria. Because that series "is so bad that it simply can not like anyone with artistic sense".
Well, no. A story can be everything deep, intellectual, loaded with subtext and everything you want, that if the viewer seems torture to see it, logically will not like. And criticize all the criticism about her and more. If something seems boring, I will not go looking for the subtext.
(I think about having to see three other Gundam series to understand Zeta and give me chills. Maybe someday, but right now I do not think I can.)
"History is written by the victors," is what I understood from the explanation about the Titans. (Although I believed that the protagonists of original MSG in Zeta were opposed head-on to the Titans, but of course, I read that instead of seeing it in the series, maybe I was wrong)
In any case, a very true statement, and a great detail on the part of the authors of Gundam. For example, in Gundam Seed something similar happens: each series focuses on each of the conflicting sides, so that you arrive at the same conclusion that I am arriving at Victory.
That is, there are good people and bad people on both sides, and that that of Absolute Good against Absolute Evil ... only exists in movies. That it is possible at once to be right and to be wrong. Which, in essence, is a reflection of life itself.
Okay, Seed is possibilly a bad example, according the flaming-reviews about Seed. Simplified opinion: I saw her. And I think it is very improvable (especially Destiny, hell, some chapters were heavy, and the end ... anyway ...). But I did not think it was as disgustingly horrible as described on the Internet.
It would have to see original MSG (90% of the criticism of Seed was based on taking the resemblances with original MSG) to see the references, but for the moment I'm messing with Victory. Maybe when I finish it.
Well, when you see Victory, you tell me what. For the moment, I got stuck in episode 12 (because I started to see other things in between, not because I got bored) but I'm looking forward to seeing more of Uso and his teammates. The thing becomes interesting from the episode 5-6, but all of previous episodes were interesting for know the protagonists. (The beginning can be a little confusing, that is; you need saw the three first episodes for undestand the way of beginning events.)
Apart from Victory, I would recommend Gundam 00. As a curious fact, it is the first that is set in the Christian era (around 2300 or so), the orbital elevator exists and the sun energy is dominant, but that is the end of the resemblances with our world. In the second season gave them to start putting strange things in the script but at least it is entertaining
I know the phenomenon of the blind fanatics. I have had to suffer, usually with series that either seem to me not to be so or directly are horrible.
I will have to believe what you tell me about Zeta, because as I said before, I could not go beyond episode 4. I think the idea of watching anime is to enjoy it. If it seems torture, you do not enjoy it anymore. And watching Zeta in particular seemed torture to me. Victory is not making me so heavy, even though it's similar.
The highlight was when I read in a review that "Zeta does not get interesting until episode 10". By then I had already decided to leave her and was thinking "What the hell? Are you seriously telling me that 20% of the series is stuffed?"
The Titans ... I will only say that I have seen more developed villains in Disney. They will have to improve a lot from the horrible level of the first chapters
On the subject of modern anime, my particular theory is that it is used the same as in the series in general and in the Spanish in particular. Summarizing the explanation: Here are made series based on what they call "absurd humor". Which from what I've seen, is that a character says a nonsense stupidity and that's funny. Then another character says or makes another stupidity even bigger. If even the spectator has not laughed, out of nowhere appears a third character and starts kicking asses because he can and wants.
My theory is that the anime does the same thing of live-action TV. They try to be funny, and fail. They uses stupid protagonists, and encourage this stupidity, because "it is the public wants". It uses the same clichés that have been used in the past and are known to work. (The same thing is done in Hollywood, I have the impression that Hollywood is untouchable according the fanatics)
Indeed, Uso Ewin is the youngest pilot of the entire Gundam saga. And I imagine that later Victory will become much more depressing. For now it is: they have destroyed Woolwig, at least fifty people have died between BESPA pilots and League Militaire, there are constant battles ...
Although there are things that are strange to me, such as the fact that the characters are so horrified by a guillotine (when they started talking about "Guillotine", I admit that I thought it was some kind of terrifying power weapon capable of destroying cities or Something like that) or the small detail that, at least for the moment, it is a mystery why they are fighting both one and the other.
That is, we know that Zanscare Empire is invading the Earth, and that the League Militaire fights them, but at the moment it is not known why they do such things. I suppose it will be clarified in the following chapters.
I hope you enjoy Victory as I am.
I also feel if I sound hostile in the previous comment, and my argument. My "excuse" is that as I say I ended up tired of Zeta fans determined to defend it without paying attention to the media and throwing away whatever it takes. Going to say that Zeta inspired EVERYTHING that was done later (one states with all the seriousness of the world that the producer of Robotech plagiarized Zeta's plot for his series, another claims that Code Geass is but a huge mockery of Gundam Seed. .. you can already imagine.
I do not know Victory's ratings in English-speaking countries, but from what you say it seems to be the same as in Spanish-speaking countries. Having Spanish as a mother tongue (sorry for my bad English, I am learning), I have read the reviews in Spanish and in English that I could.
And I can sum it up in that Spanish-speaking critics adore Gundam Zeta ... and believe that Victory is a horribly depressing thing, and in any case clearly inferior to all the rest of the Universal Century. (I have come to read a review where it was argued that Victory should not be considered canonical ... because neither Amuro Ray nor Char Anzable appear).
My personal opinion of Victory, having seen 11-12 episodes: Decidedly it is undervalued. It is upgradeable, of course (what is not?). But it is not as horrible as it has been presented to me. At least I see that there are good people and bad people on both sides, and battles are not one-sided massacres in which one side annihilates an entire enemy army while they do little more than do pirouettes in the air.
(One of the things that displeased me most about Zeta was the exaggerated insistence that AEUG's were the "good guys" while the Titans were not only bad but stupidly villianious.) They tell me that there is a very deep plot and Complex and what I find is a struggle between the Absolute Good (AEUG) against Absolute Evil (the Titans), in which absolutely everybody is in favor of AEUG but still they are so idiots that they need 50 episodes to defeat the Titans.
As for Gate: First, that has nothing to do with it. Second, NOBODY sold me Gate as "a masterpiece that redefined gender and to whose side everything that has been done afterwards is shit." No one assured me "You can NOT consider yourself a true fan of the anime if you have not seen Gate" (something that has happened to me with Gundam Zeta) nor have I had to find people who tell me "You have not seen Gate? YOU ONLY DIE SUCKER!"
I saw what I expected to see, I did not find myself thinking "But what the hell did you see the whole damn world in this series?" That is the difference. Gate will not be a masterpiece, but it does not pretend to be, nor has anyone intended to sell it as such.
I could question your taste you plan to watch Euphoria, but I do not because it is not the point
However, thanks for the guide. Anyway, for the moment I started the other day to see Victory Gundam and I like it a lot more than Gundam Zeta. At least I could get to episode 12 without feeling like throwing the computer out the window.
I got you a solution though. Quit watching any kind of anime altogether. That way you won't have to "put up" with the terrible animations and useless sounds. Who needs technology anyway when reading chat bubbles is a so much better experience