"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.
"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.
"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.
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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.
"So the unique aspect to this world is there's... gnomes?" - Hayley on Dique Gunhale
"That's clearly more of a size queen." - Hayley on the Diva
"How did they make a half naked otter in a hammock so unsexy?" - Hayley on Lt. Woolf
"So they're saying the Diva was really a drag queen. Yes I know this one's cheap heat but the show doesn't deserve better." - Hayley on transforming a battleship exactly once.
"They really gave the Diva to a Captain Anus huh." - Hayley saying what's on all our minds.
"I miss Graham Aker." - Hayley on people shrugging off extreme acceleration.
The year is 2011. Gundam 00 as a creative project has completely wrapped up. Making a sequel to Awakening of the Trailblazer would either undermine everything it said or be a psychedelic space opera in the vein of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, making it a dead end for selling plastic model kits of cool robots. The Universal Century is currently milking dead-eyed nostalgia with Gundam Unicorn's individual direct to video episode releases. Stumped for ideas on how to keep the plastic factories churning, Bandai Namco turn to their new best friends at Level 5 to make the next inevitable Gundam reboot. After all they've churned out family friendly hits non-stop from Inazuma 11 to Professor Layton and most recently started gunning for Nintendo's money with Yo-Kai Watch. This is as safe a bet as you can make!
The pitch is strong too. Let's build a story so grand it spans multiple generations. Kids can grow along with the characters and talk about the more mature themes with their parents who are watching too! We'll draw parallels to the earliest Gundam entries in order to sell kits both old and new and bring Gundam back to a household name! It's the exact sort of concept that makes guys in suits who only understand finance and not the economics, logistics and reasons to fund Art in the first place.
See, we already have a model for multi-generational storytelling: you plan your damn sequel(s) in advance. Gundam AGE did not.
"SEED Freedom wanted me to clap so bad yet it could never hope to make me bounce around with glee the way a tiny Tiera Erde in the QAN[T]'s cockpit is right now." - Hayley, having a great time.
Movie sequels to television shows are tricky business.
"I'm glad Lockon and Allelujah are seeing eye to eye." - Hayley on debilitating injuries.
"Everything evolves to crab." - Hayley on the Alvatore
"Guess it's always at least a foursome with these two." - Hayley on Allelujah x Marie
"I'd really missed Gundam making me horny." - Hayley
After 100 episodes and a movie script, Gundam has returned from its time in exile.
Gundam is a real television show again.
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*Pours herself a second, different gin* - Hayley upon witnessing Athrun Zala in a Z'gok
"I think I can press Assault charges against this movie." - Friend of the show Penguinator
If you made me watch this garbage 100 times I could probably give you 100 different essays on why I hate it.
The Cosmic Era doesn't have to suck.
"I can't believe they've dropped the ball this quickly." - Hayley on episode 2.
"Well at least Arthur's a fan of Murrue's huge naturals... and Talia's large coordinators." - Hayley on the best character.
"You could replace most of Athrun's lines with the Tim Allen grunt." - Hayley
"Glad the Heavyarms stock footage is getting work again."- Hayley on the DESTROY.
"Gundam SEED really loves killing women huh." - Hayley on ED3.
"I'm too gay to watch any more of this tonight." - Hayley after two or three episodes per session.
A sovereign nation is under fire from a global power who has decided its space launch infrastructure is easier to pilfer than those currently held by an actual military rival. The evacuation of civilians has gone roughly, with families still desperately running by foot from active combat zones. A 15 year old is separated from his family when he ducks down a ravine to grab his sister's dropped mobile phone. By sheer coincidence, stray fire from ZGMF-X10A Freedom grazes the area, taking the lad's family and leaving him relatively unscathed. The apotheosis of Kira Yamato is a myth. He's a teenager with too much firepower. For all his vaunted perfect, ethical aimbot targeting he's as capable of unforeseen collateral damage and ruining lives as any other soldier.
Mobile Suit Gundam ended with a hopeful note that human empathy can grow and expand in a way that will bend society towards something kinder than thought possible. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam mercilessly tore the idea apart with example after example of empathy exploited for military conquest, state violence and personal isolation and greed. With its first five minutes, Gundam SEED Destiny maintains this approach by taking a sledgehammer to the heroics of its predecessor's third act.
Unfortunately this introduction is followed up with, well, Gundam SEED Destiny.
"Wow! It's the New Coke!" - Hayley
"This is a white woman's chihuahua" - Hayley on The Pink Haro
"The only emotion Kira's crying can convey is how bad last night's burrito is treating him." - Hayley on that one scene.
"These 90 seconds have told me more about this cast and made me want to learn more about them than 16 episodes of Gundam SEED have." - Hayley after I showed her the opening to Overman King Gainer
"Oh so the big innovation this time is the black tri-stars are going to be furries?" - Hayley on the BuCUE.
"A single leaf falling in the wind is a better realised and more immersive visual than anything we're seeing in Gundam SEED." - Hayley as she once again plays Unicorn Overlord to stop me putting another Gundam SEED disc on.
"Why aren't we watching this?" - Hayley on the trailer for Madlax included on the fifth disc.
"Coordinators and Naturals are incompatible societies because the former filter their freshly ground coffee beans while the latter drink instant." - Hayley cutting to the core of what this show's about.
"These two are like if Beecha and Mondo had no charisma and were also straight." - Hayley on Yzak and Dearka.
"I hate everything this show represents." - Hayley on 15 year olds who love to play the piano.
"Is Murrue up to the true burden of command: remembering the differences between Sledgehammer, Wombat, Igestellung and Helldart missiles?" - Hayley on Natarle's departure.
Hayley: This show's tech is a supermarket shelf. Jam jam jam jam jam.
Me: No, ZAFT just cancelled the jam. The show's left us the white bread.
Hayley works a stressful, tiring job and has been overbooked all year. We started watching every Gundam in January with the idea it'd be something we jump on in between other activities. Instead, immersing ourselves in a succession of worlds contemplating ourselves, our society and the path to a better world has been an ideal activity for us. I'm starting this way to highlight that it was not ZZ Gundam's sitcom hijinks, Stardust Memory's fascist apologia, Victory's clumsy discussions of womanhood or Wing's aimless rambling that drove her insane, but the jump from Ɐ to SEED which finally reminded her she has other hobbies and interests which she'd like to pursue for as long as it takes for me to stop waving my cheap clearance sale boxset of SEED at her threateningly.
"The Moonrace appointed Homer Simpson to design these." - Hayley on the MRC-U11D WaD.
"Sochie thinks she's Bright Noa but she's Beecha." - Hayley on adjustments to Gallop command structure.
"Look sorry, I'm trying to make more quips but every time I think of one it turns out the show was already planning to make that very same joke." - Hayley on good writing.
Four Gundam continuities, two runs of University and an entire gender ago I was a film theory student. In my first year there was a lecture on the death of genre which outlined the three most common reasons a genre fades from popularity:
It is 1999, two years since Gundam X brought Gundam to its saturation peak. It's the 20th anniversary of the original show. Out of ideas for how to milk this franchise, original director Yoshiyuki Tomino is brought in to make lightning strike the same place twice. Instead, he sets out to kill the Gundam in our minds. Given the tone of this show it would be easy to assume that's via method 3 but the beauty of ∀ Gundam is that it is also method 2. This is not only the best Gundam show ever made, but one of the best anime to boot. This show is so damn great that my struggle is going to be how I can convey this without just repeating "wow good show" for 2000 words. Let's try breaking things down.
"IT'S JUST FUCKING MANHATTAN!." - Friend of the show Milly
This was financed and executive produced by Sunrise as part of Gundam's 20th Anniversary, so it's part of the project.
I'm grading on the "cheap Canadian Sci-fi Channel production" curve here but it's actually pretty good!
Hayley: Garrod is a boy, not a man. A boy declares his love for a girl after knowing her for two days, one of which she was entirely unconscious for. A man would wait and get to know her better.
Me: How's that different from lesbians?
Hayley: If Garrod were a girl she'd have already married Tiffa.
"Garrod's turning down a MILF? No wonder this got axed!" - Hayley on good boys
"All I understood from that technobabble is this young man's having period pains." - Hayley on cyber newtype Caris Nautilus
"Fucking BUTTERBEAN?!?" - Hayley on the NRX-010 Gable, and presumably the resolution to WWF's Brawl for All at Wrestlemania 15 as well.
It's the show which killed Gundam.
"At last, an origin story for Small Zam" - Hayley on important lore gaps which needed filling.
"This is a Saturday morning cartoon." - Hayley on the gritty realistic Gundam OVA
For the most part I haven't discussed the opening credits for the serial shows in this project. Even as early as 1979 the art of the opening credits sequence as a way to introduce the audience to themes, tone, characters, stakes and tease details to come later in the story is all pretty well established. I think this one's worth discussing though. More than any other Gundam opening (except arguably 0083's second) this one is pitching the concept to you: troops storming the fields of battle. The blazing heat of automatic firearms. The logistics issues and huge manpower required to wage war with humanoid piloted robots. The misery of hostile environments and the plight of our lovable underdogs who try to hold onto their humanity throughout. We're here for a grizzled, realistic take on Gundam through the lens of some no-name scamps just trying to make it home. This sequence pulls well above its weight in getting across the idea of the show and makes you want to root for its cast incredibly well.
Thing is, the opening's supposed to be an appetiser. Here it's the main course.
Across the 12 episodes of this show, the premise isn't really explored with more depth than you'd hope. Sure the first episode has some flies buzzing in the jungle but you don't really feel the sticky heat of the Amazon the way decades of films on the Vietnam War cover that region. Sure there's some extra maintenance required on a mobile suit limb while traversing the desert, but to be frank ZZ Gundam pulled those logistics issues off with more depth and for longer. For a prestige serious OVA, it sure is losing to the show where our boy Judau ate some ice cream quickly.
Our underdogs the 08th MS Team don't feel that much more professional or disciplined than your average Zeta episode either. Squad leader Shiro Amada makes a speech about the need to stick together or we'll all die and then spends the rest of the show rushing ahead of his squad or hurling himself into solo diversions. We spend more time on dealing with Sanders' superstitions about his previous squads dying off by their third mission than we do on forming any really close bonds. On top of that, the second episode has a deeply uncomfortable moment where a 14 year old girl's breasts are in full display. The camera leers with glee. It's the sort of stunt you can get away in direct to video releases and it's also the sort of stunt that makes people groan when you start trying to talk about an anime as a serious story.
That's not to say all the character writing is bad. Shiro's arc begins as a fresh-faced academy graduate fully gung-ho about killing on behalf of the state. Over the course of befriending an enemy soldier and witnessing some truly gross war crimes by his commanders he slides towards pacifism. Yet this isn't the absurd and unrealistic hardline Relena Darlian Peacecraft Darlian took while the head of an autocratic state. We see a guy genuinely struggle with what he should when his job and circumstances require to kill for the state and to stay alive. He's given a terrible time by a Federation which we've had 16+ years of media depicting as corrupt and cruel so he finds a way to resolve the immediate crisis and get the hell out.
I ragged on how 08th MS Team isn't as realistic as it first seems earlier, but there is one way it is more believable than almost any other story in fiction: our boy abandons his previous beliefs to try making it past second base with Kikuko Inoue. Their relationship is quite cute and refreshing after how weirdly aromantic every relationship in Wing was. Unfortunately for them, G Gundam will cast a tall shadow over this franchise for a long time.
After 99 episodes of high camp Gundam television, it is nice to see combat with some weight and heft to it. There's tension around how to disable mobile suits without damaging their surroundings. Our squad of kinda shitty gundams slowly become more like GMs as parts are swapped out after damage. The fight with weekly Original Show enemy reject Norris Packard is a genuine delight of creative setpieces. While the cast never grows more complex than the opening credits, the overall package is very easy to watch. If we're going to revisit the One Year Again, it's nice to enjoy a fun romp like this over 0083's fascist dick-waving.
That's the question though: should I ever talk about a war which wiped out half of all of humanity in its opening months as a fun romp? The contradictions of Gundam as shows exploring the nature of human conflict versus its need to sell merchandise and plastic model kits rears its ugly head in all sorts of ways and when you start thinking about it here, the sweet pleasant taste of 08th MS Team starts to feel a bit rancid.
It'll be a while before we get to the most wretched Universal Century works but I'd say this is probably the 6th worst. It's just above the line where I'd declare works "Thing Bad". Watch it if you want to spend six or so hours reliving Gundam's origins without playing one of those great PS2 games.
"Heavyarms really went Hawk Trowa on that thang" - Hayley breaking into the war crimes biz.
Hayley: "Really? A third member of the gang is a stoic man? You could put these boys in a room and three corners would immediately fill with sullen misery.
Me: "What about the fourth corner?"
Hayley: "Duo's
making out with Quatre there. They're having a great time."
"40 episodes in and we finally have a clear character motivation. Too bad it's just 'The Gundam made me do it.'" - Hayley on quality writing.
"Glad to see Duo's into women as well as a group of Italian men" - Hayley, less racist than everything about Quatre Raberba Winner
"Welcome to 'Whose Robot Is It Anyway?' where the plot is made up and the stakes don't matter." - Hayley, episode 49
This show's for the freaks so I'll get this point of order out of the way first: if you are someone who strongly identifies with Duo Maxwell, my DMs on bsky and Discord are open. Hayley and I would probably like to have a threesome with you.
Onto the review.
"Wow Geoge de Sand is looking even more breedable than usual here." - Hayley on the second opening credits.
"I swear this horse better be piloting its own Gundam." - Hayley shortly before Fuun Saiki delivers.
"*incoherent lesbian noises*" - Hayley on the second ending credits.
Where do I even begin with this one?
Alright let's try breaking it down.
G Gundam Understands The Class Politics of Gundam
"We're bringing back MILFs *and* inflicting violence on a minor in the same episode? We are so back!" - Hayley on Episode 8
"Connie deserved to live the longest because she realised women shouldn't say more than one line per episode if they wanna survive this." - Hayley on The Shrike Team
"This show is so Normal about women." - Hayley at least once per episode.
"Wheels AGAIN?!!" - Hayley when a water dragon mobile armour started rotating.
"I'm kind of mad this show's giving me intense baby fever" - Hayley, again once per episode.
Let's traumatise a 12 year old for 50 episodes straight.
"This movie's pace is so fast it gave Theo Fairchild a heart attack." - Hayley, absolving Iron Mask of any murder accusations.
"Seabook Arno is a terrible Gundam lead. He's neurotypical, has a healthy relationship with his parents which improves over time and isn't into MILFs. The suits were right to can this project." - Hayley
Yeah alright let's get the obvious part out of the way: this was supposed to be a 50 episode TV show but plans changed so they had to cram that entire story into under 3 hours. It's going to have pacing issues.
"It says a lot about this show's gender politics that a stoic male friendship gets the love song montage but Kou x Nina never does." - Hayley, taking what she can from this mediocrity.
It's everything War in the Pocket chose not to be.
"The horror of war isn't enough to stop the intense Baby Fever my brain's dealing with right now." - Hayley after spending 3 hours watching a little shit of a kid.
Gundam turned 10 years old and so it was decided to make a 6 episode direct to video special set during the original show. It was also a good business opportunity for a large-scale retcon of mechanical designs, numbers and starts related to said show's war. Why do that? So you can better sell tabletop RPGs and supplementary materials of course!
"For a movie famous as Toxic Yaoi this sure is mostly about a teenage girl." - Hayley prior to the best line in the movie.
This is the greatest film ever made.
Hayley: "WHOA when did Mashmyre get so jacked?"
Hamarn: "Keep an eye on Mashmyre. We may have Enhanced him too much."
"I can't believe the point this show turned around was when Judau ate an ice cream really fast." - Hayley on her newfound love for Elpeo Ple
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire. - The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx 1852
The Titans have been thwarted. Earth's government is in shambles. Our heroes the paramilitary Anti-Earth Union Group sort of have Federation backing but are completely depleted of functioning weaponry and crew. Kamille's brain is fucking friend and Amuro's still trying to keep shit together on Earth. Casval 'Char "Quattro Bajeena" Aznable' rem Deikun is missing.Zeon's remnants have returned from exile in the Asteroid Belt and incurred minimal losses by playing the Earth Sphere's factions against each other.
It's time for a slapstick comedy!
"Mmmmmrrrrrrgh" - Hayley's reaction to the above frame
It took a grassroots fandom of women starting book clubs, mailing lists, magazines and conventions to start the ball rolling, but by the time Mobile Suit Gundam was re-cut into a movie trilogy and sponsourship moved from Clover's die-cast metal toys to Bandai's plastic model kits, Gundam had become a pop culture icon. There's a curious gap in this cultural awareness though:
If you just randomly mention "Gundam" to a baby boomer or Gen X they'll quote lines from the original show, dance to Sassotaru Char and bring up the Black Tri-stars' Jet Stream Attack. The original show is what they're thinking of.
If you talk about what Gundam is to a Gundam Fan though, their brain is immediately conjuring up Zeta Gundam.
"Wow, what a great episode! This show cannot sell a toy to a child to save its life." - My fiance Hayley somewhere around Miharu's death.
So if you haven't heard, the year 2024 had two fun developments in my life:
I finally commenced Hormone Replacement Therapy
I started dating a friend of five years who then also came out as a trans woman and later I asked her to marry me
There are of course consequences to completely entwining your life with another. Moving house, adjusting sleep habits and discovering that the love of your life is sorely lacking an education in large robot cartoons. Thus, we've started watching Gundam.
