Birdie Wing ~ Golf Girls' Story (Watching Every Gundam)

 

 "I showed you my 48-inch shaft please respond." - Hayley

Amuro x Sayla is a romantic pairing which has cast an odd shadow over popular culture. On paper it makes perfect sense: Amuro moves on from any tension with his childhood friend Fraw Bow in favour of a woman with closer ties to his new role as a pilot. Sayla's the younger sister of his nemesis Char for additional tension. Perhaps at some point it was even on the cards to be explored in Zeta Gundam. Fate works in mysterious ways sometimes; You Inoue was in Africa during that show's production and so Amuro hooked up with another blonde woman. It ultimately led to the much sadder perspective through both Zeta and Char's Counterattack; Amuro Ray winds up a man incapable of serious relationship commitments who drifts from hookup to hookup based on what can go in tandem with his workaholism until he dies in his mid-30s. Still, the spectre remains for those willing to write fanfiction: what could Amuro x Sayla lead to?

Turns out it leads to star-crossed lovers making a trans lesbian daughter who contracts a case of Golf Cancer.

Mobile Suit Gundam Gquuuuuux (Watching Every Gundam)

 

"I had so much fun at the time, but now I think about it events moved so fast that I'm trying to remember what even happened. At least they killed The Gundam at the end." - Hayley, during pillow talk last night. 

"fucking right?! like xavier is such a pathetic meowmeow you're seeing kicked around but challia's yearning is so deep and profound... it's soooo much" - Artist and vtuber Henemimi in a conversation with me about how Challia Bull's the #1 babygirl

"Yes my sweet, yes my sweetest. I wanna get back where you are. Hold me in your arms once again. Yes my sweet, yes my sweetest. I wanna get back where you are. None of us can live alone." - Daisuke Inoue - Encounters

 Imagine you are Kazuya Tsurumaki.

 After years learning from some truly inspired artists, your debut show as a director is scripted by the guy who wrote Revolutionary Girl Utena. Together, you craft a miniseries that celebrates weird nerds with the same breaths it condemns them. A complex, sprawling space opera is laid to the background of a humble coming of age story. It's so damn good that you're next tasked with making a sequel to one of the best works your mentor created. You knock it out of the park so well that your mentor asks you to be his nuts and bolts guy on a remake/metatextual sequel to his most famous work. This task takes you around 18 years to complete. Right as you near its completion and will be free to take whatever creative pursuits you want, one of the country's largest media companies approaches you. They want you to helm their most lucrative franchise and they want you to build on the last, most forbidden premise exploring that franchise's start can offer. So you set to work with your mentor and your writing buddy and you probably put together a fully realised world and the outline for the 50 episodes such a story would require. After all, it's what this franchise usually does for television shows and it's the only thing that makes sense with a premise like you've been offered.

Management comes back to you to clarify that the job's for a 12 episode show.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Watching Every Gundam)

"They really named their company Gund-ARM then only built legs." - Hayley

"What's your favourite mobile suit genital? Mine's the GUNDvolva." - Hayley

 Major entries in Gundam should always be 50 episodes. It's a character driven speculative fiction franchise. Ideas need to be explored in depth, characters given breathing room to feel more like fully realised people and the weight of real time spent watching the show makes audiences more attached to everything going on. 50 episodes provides opportunities for the occasional bout of strange creativity (both of the boy band hoverbikes kind and the "Chibodee Crocket is scared of clowns because one pulled a gun on him as a child"). I could argue that 39 would be sufficient for The Witch From Mercury as a parallel to Revolutionary Girl Utena, but one should never start low when bargaining. Besides, Utena is a three act character drama. The Witch From Mercury is as much about class struggle and a critique of charter schools as it is angst-riddled students organising duels. Alas, Bandai Namco is a media dragon sitting on a hoard of immense cultural riches with absolutely no idea how to manage the wealth at all. The Witch From Mercury began development as a 40th Anniversary project, delayed due to work on both Gundam Hathaway and SEED Freedom and treated as this awkward annoyance to punt out the door as soon as possible in favour of those two seemingly safe bet movies. Somehow, the latest television entry of a cultural icon so large it has a statue in Odaiba and annual fireworks shows became an underdog passion project.

DOAN'S ISLAND: THE MOVIE (Watching Every Gundam)

 

 "These aren't gay enough!" - Hayley on Amuro's shorts.

 "Glad Amuro's finally coming out of the closet." - Hayley on the Gundam's redebut.

"It's so cool how every fight with the Gundam is just a horror movie now."- Hayley, Mobile Suit Gundam Episode 33, "Farewell in Side Six".

This may be the only time in media history I'm okay with a remake.

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (Watching Every Gundam)

 

"We're flashing back to a single scene so many times I swear the Kira/Athrun Double K.O. is going to show up any second now." - Hayley

I've been thinking about Reconguista in G again. ∀ Gundam was about boiling Gundam as a franchise down to certain ideas (defining and reclaiming our humanity, how this requires empathy, being at least a little gay) while ditching the usual signifiers. G-reco was the opposite: a show comprised entirely of Gundamist signifiers with no meaning attached. If you fixate on the form of Gundam but not the meaning then what you shall wind up with is shallow nonsense. The founding father of the franchise leaving one last warning to all who continue to follow him.

Naturally, the lesson Bandai Namco learned from that was to make Gundam Unicorn 2. 

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (Watching Every Gundam)

 

"LESBIAN!" - Hayley, excitedly pointing at Kudelia who's pondering whether a single kiss from someone means you should marry them.

Hayley: "I could punt ED2's baby Mika."
Me:  "He'd double tap you before he hits the ground."
Hayley: "He'd still make a funny squeak when he hits that ground though." 

"I can't believe Takaki grew up to become a man." - Hayley, episode 50. 

 It's the one your gym junkie friend who always works out in a Vegeta tank top has seen and likes.

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (Watching Every Gundam)

 

"I can't believe I'm tearing up over a guy who used the "do you like jazz?" pickup line from The Bee Movie." - Hayley

 Originally released as two sets of 4 episodes viewable only by internet Pay Per View, these were later compiled into two movies: December Sky and Bandit Flower. Since I was using digital backups, the folder sorted them into alphabetical order and thus we watched them the wrong way around. I actually think that improved the experience for reasons I'll get into later.