The storyline is still stagnant. What was the initial aim of the CB? Stop all wars with gundam intervention. 25 episodes is reaching its end and there's still no indication that their plan is working. Yes, the 3 factions might have attempted to unite themselves to fight CB, but at the end of the day they are still fighting , i.e. having war. This means that the CB's aim is nowhere near accomplished. Well there are still another 25 episodes to go in season 2 so they have plenty of time to rectify it, yet at the way things are developing, their mission seems lightyears away.

If anything, the 3 factions were evenly strong before this and hence balance each other. There was relatively "peace" amidst the power struggles. CB is supposed to "unite" the 3 factions by forcing them to work together, but at the moment all they did was to create never-ending wars. The appearance of the trinity trio was dumbfounding, are they on Setsuna and co's side? Or are they an enemy? And now two of them are dead which means they'll be pretty much useless (like Heine).

Again, some might not like the comparison of 00 to previous Gundam series be it AU or UC, but I have to use GW as a comparison here since their concepts are pretty similar. By episode 22 of GW we already know a lot about OZ's and Romfeller's political stand as well as the Colonies status amongst the entire chaos. We also saw how the entire world situation changes as OZ went up to space and gained the upper hand by turning the colonies against the gundams. Classic move, Lady Une.

I'll leave UC out of this just in case anyone shouts UC-fanboyism without even thinking.

Like what redeye said, there are a lot of redundancy in the plot and can be left behind. Most importantly, the concept is not well utilised

I won't say too much about character development here since it's not exactly the selling point of 00... I'll compromise for that. The truth is, almost everybody apart from Setsuna has near-zero background info and they are quite one-dimensional. And despite having a prominent background Setsuna's development has been relatively static.

"blindly involved in action" = OMFG EXIA PWNS !!! EXIA IS TEH WIN!!

"Criticising to no end" however is a harsh term. If something deserves criticism, there's absolutely every reason to do so. If you think I'm one who criticises 00 blindly then you are wrong. I love to review gundam series, and if you have followed the old threads you would have seen my reviews for the ones I've watched - Zeta movies, 0080, 0083, 08th MST, CCA, GW, GX, and even the novels. I criticise parts which I think it could be improved on, as well as hail the areas that are well developed. What's wrong with that?

OK, fair enough, there is a storyline but as mentioned above it's not well elaborated. We still don't know the REAL motive of CB (which I don't think it's as simple as stopping wars), and most importantly what's the role of the Trinity dudes (except selling models)?

00 could use more character development like the way you put it, and I would also like to know more about Graham and Patrick. At the moment they are merely soldiers who are obsessed with beating gundams... again, one dimensional, not unlike Jerid.

As for GS, the whole concept of Naturals vs Coordinators is interesting... If you can look away from the blatant similarities to 0079 in the early 1/3 of GS, it's actually quite well done. It only spiralled downhill when Kira became god after obtaining Freedom; and started to think that he is God and capable of stopping all wars without killing.

Again, I must reiterate (so that fanboys doesn't swamp me with replies) I'm not b*tching 00 for the sake of b*tching, I'm merely pointing out areas that fall short of expectations and should be addressed in season 2. Most importantly this serves as a reminder that our beloved gundam animes can easily turn from potential greatness into utter crap like how GSD did. We wouldn't want that to happen to 00, would we?



This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Mar 12 2008, 03:58 PM

First of all, kudos for bothering to discuss along. And I must say it is an eyeopener and it's about time someone gave a good insight of 00 from a different perspective.

Thanks for the explanation of the storyline of CB, maybe I was a bit harsh in saying that the storyline was stagnant... but my opinion still stands that there are still quite a lot of uncertainties which should have been better elaborated. I don't agree with CB policing the world to attain peace, especially by having only a few gundams. Few vs the world... no way. There must be some agenda behind CB, or at least that's what I hope to see. And from my perspective, CB only managed to shift the focus of conflict towards themselves instead of truly attaining peace which is the original idea.

What I wish is a smooth flowing storyline for future 00 episodes, instead of shifting the focus too much or dragging too long on a particular issue. At the moment this flaw still exists.

That is what happened to Gundam X in the middle of the show where random factions just popped up and messed around. The main plot only surfaced after Garrod went up to space and the establishment of Earth Federation, but it was too late to round up the story. What I wouldn't want to see is that they keep on focusing too much on the battles that eventually there just ain't enough time to wrap up the story.

Character development wise, let's just leave it there... Maybe my wish will come true in season 2 when more is revealed.
All I can say is that stories without a main character which is fully developed is not a true story, it's more of a documentary.

As for GS's racial cleansing, I think it does reflect our society in certain ways. Nazi vs Jews is one example that you brought up, the others would include Serbs vs Bosnians, Russians vs Chechnya, Israelis vs Palestines etc. Since we agree on the part where Kira's godlike powers hogged all the focus and hence losing the original concept, our debate regarding CE ends here.

First of all, Tallgeese is not a joke. It's the only unit that can stand vs the Gundams. Something like Graham's Flag when he pwned the Throne, but Graham still got pwned by the Gundams early on. The Antarctic Duel as I've always criticised, is thanks to Heero's plot armour.

W's grunts are free frags, unless the story line requires them to beat the gundams. Same with 00. Same with CE. Same with some UC series.
The only worthy point here is that W's grunts were shown exploding in more ridiculous ways, but all grunts are equally free frags in any series unless circumstances arise.

By "one antagonist" you I assume you mean Zechs. Leave aside the fact that he is a direct Char clone, he is more dynamic and complex than any of the 00 antagonist right now. Hence in my earlier post I did express my wish to see Graham or Patrick to have more development, or even personal agendas of their own.

I disagree that W developed faster and smoother because it only had one opposing faction. Yes, initially it only had OZ, but later on the colonies turned against them, plus Romfeller plus White Fang together with the remnants of Trieze's defunct OZ. What determines smooth storytelling is the writers' capabilities, not solely on the number of factions. Wing does not revolved around the main gundams and OZ... it revolves around politics. And in politics, there are no permanent friends or foes. Side-switching happens all the time.

Kira's soap drama... I actually liked a Kira who can cry. He cried because he had emotions. He cried because he was fighting his friends and his own kind. He cried because he realised that lives were being lost without purpose. He cried because he is human. Stagnant characters are those in GSD, where no one matured/changed/developed.

Fighting random gundams back and forth... isn't that what happened in 00 as well? In GW as well? In GX as well? In UC as well? As long as the battles made the characters grow, I don't mind. Kira grew as he fought, the most important step in his development was him "killing" Andy, and also his battle with Athrun. OK... things went downhill after Lacus corrupted his mind with pink dust and godly powers. I blame the writers here.

About comparison with other Gundam series, sorry... no can do, since it's gundam after all, and there's bound to be comparisons as it carries the legacy of the Gundam name. If 00 was not included in Gundam then maybe I won't compare. But comparisons serve to highlight 00's pros and cons, which is something that we truly need in forums such as these, not "GRAHAM IS GARRRRR" type of posts.

Good discussion for today.
What's the next topic? Anyone wants to start?

Here's hoping for better Gundams ahead.

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Mar 12 2008, 08:22 PM

I shall not elaborate further on Zechs matter since in my perspective he is a dynamic character but your opinion says otherwise. Vice versa with the 00 antagonists. At the end of the day, like what you said it's merely personal preference and we've already stated our views; yet it's probably not going to change with any further debates.

It's apparent that we agree to disagree, but that's not entirely a bad thing since if we all agree on everything there wouldn't be such lengthy discussions anyway. If anything, I think our discussions for the past days have made the forum more active since we pointed out pros and cons of every series, instead of random speculations or even worse, the "GRAHAM IS GARRR" type of posts.

Again, I believe there has been some people who think I'm not giving 00 a chance. In fact, I'm not... I admit that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, especially after the demise of the CE timeline; I'm merely pointing out flaws which could and should be corrected in Season 2.

Zaku is not a grunt, Zaku is WIN !!!

Anyway, what defines a grunt? Nameless foot soldiers who are merely pawns on a battlefield? Pilots who use normal mechas like everybody else? Or just free frags for the main characters?

Anyone wants to start new discussions on this?

Point taken about 00's grunts but they do have useless grunts who stand and get vaporised too... let's leave that one out.

Other series do have useful grunts too.

0083 is pretty much a grunt show. Kou's piloting skills are pretty much next to none in the beginning, if not for Gato's reluctance to fight he'd be dead very early on. The other grunts like Cima's goons who pilot Gelgoog Marines, Lt. Burning and his old comrades eg Bate, Monsha, Adel...

08th MS team is entirely based on grunts, yes even Shiro can be considered as a grunt since he's pretty much a simple soldier with hell lots of luck. No one had kickass state of the art mechas which outperform everybody. And most importantly it had one of the best fights ie EZ8 vs Gouf Custom...

GX's grunts are super skilled, and if not for the Gundams' insane armour all of them would be dead by now.

In F91 the Crossbone Vanguard grunts pwned everyone except F91 of course.

In Victory, grunts also put up great fights and forced Usso back quite often, it was only Usso's creative (and wasteful) use of the Victory's docking parts that WTF'ed them.

CE grunts? erm.... free frags.

Don't get this part.

Main characters protected by plot armour = grunts?
Is Treize a grunt then? His Leo blocked everything from the Mobile Dolls... does that make him a grunt?

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Mar 13 2008, 02:59 PM

Yay !! found another picture of cardbox gundams !! Gotta go stitch it with my other two pics


And here's some Unicorn goodness.
Gundam Unicorn... Ikimasu !! Master Asia will be wondering where his pet went...


This is my new wallpaper.


Cleaned up lineart without the colourful background from Katoki... looking seriously good.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/Sta...05377447148.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/Sta...05377486379.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/Sta...05377584648.jpg

Monoeye is WIN.


This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Mar 13 2008, 08:17 PM

Care to share some information? Got any sources about Unicorn's ability?

That's why all gundam fans should watch 0080, no matter how sissy some people think it is.

There's no "right" or "wrong" in 0080, the characters do whatever they think it's appropriate.
And it has the best story telling and flow amongst all gundam anime... no super saiyan powers... no omnislash and WTF godly secrets... most important of all, it's melancholy hidden within the fun and laughter.

Let's be honest here, which one of us here has never sat in front of our desk and pretend that we're piloting mecha?

piu piu piu... tatatatatatatatat... kaboom bam bam pow pow !!

Those who hasn't, is seriously in need of a childhood.

And of course... Hygoggs KICK ASS. Aquatic MS pwning GMs designed for ground combat.... Sieg Zeon !


This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Mar 14 2008, 05:34 PM

It's true that both Christina and Bernie didn't know who they were fighting against, but they did know what they fought for. For Bernie, he did it for the promise to Al that he'll take down the gundam and protect his home; while for Christina it's just another day in the office as a EF soldier even though she's just a test pilot.

Al... anti social? Haha... I feel that 0080 had a good ending and it's best to leave things as they were... luckily Al didn't show up in later Gundam series and became a pilot or something. But I wouldn't mind seeing a cameo in some later series, maybe Unicorn? He can appear as a civilian, not a soldier of course. He'd be 28 by then hehe...

This is not a Zaku, boy.... not a Zaku !!

Borjarnon... Ikimasu !!

Every rempit should have one of this... It makes your bike 3x faster.


This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Mar 14 2008, 09:20 PM

If Bernie and Christina got together I'd scream out loud... It would have spoiled the theme of 0080.

Anyway... Victory disk covers... damn I'm missing volume 5 to complete the collage.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v245/StarGhazzer/victory/


Love the details of the mechas... look at the vents, the panels, and the various knobs.

Christina's character was indeed a bit wasted but for me that doesn't matter since the focus of the show is on Al.

Bernie did find his identity towards the end. From a rookie pilot who had near-zero confidence and psychologically rejected from his team, he realised his role in life - fighting for peace, being a good role model, and protecting the one he cared the most.

I truly agree that the mechas were wasted... Kampfer should have went down in glory, but it got taken down far too easily by a rookie pilot. The other GMs too should have been portrayed as competent war machines, but they went down like flies in front of the Zeon veterans.

The amount of mecha action was relatively few considering how badass the MS designs were, yet I actually felt that the most gruesome battle was not between mechas, but the part where the Cyclops Team barged into the hangar... Bullets being pumped into enemy bodies while blood splattered everywhere.

The sight of the Kampfer and Zaku's cockpit seats were nauseating... If the seats had already been mangled to that extent, imagine the bodies. Mischa probably would have been a pile of mince while Bernie, specks of ashes vaporised by beam sabre particles...

That's the beauty of 0080... War = Lives lost.
To be honest, when I first watched 0080 I was getting impatient as the story went on since it kept focusing on Al's "daily life". But when the battles came... WHOA.... blood everywhere.

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Mar 15 2008, 07:56 PM

Kampfer died because it had to.

But seriously the reason why Kampfer lost is because Mischa didn't expect the Alex to have hidden guns and charged dumbly forward. No armour could have withstand 500 rounds of direct hit shells... Even in MSG novels, the RX78's shield couldn't block two continuous bazooka rounds.

The moral of the story... don't get hit more than twice in the same place. Change "twice" to "once" if it's a beam weapon.

If (you know who) has truly died like a hero... please let him remain dead. No Mwu please, no matter how popular he might be.

Finally some actual bloodshed that means something.... Hurrah for the writers , they have guts to kill someone... Tomino would be proud of this frag.

Gotta kill 'em all !!

Indeed that would make the final fight btw Chris and Bernie more stressful and have more tension, imagine what you would do if you're fighting something you really like. Good point you brought up.

But I suppose they didn't want another Amuro-Lalah or Kamille-Four kind of tension; plus the theme of 0080 is supposed to portray the brutal side of war where innocent lives are being lost within a blink of an eye. What they were trying to portray was how the pilots' death meant to Al, and the irony of war where one could take the life of another easily without knowing anything.

Speaking of which, this reminds me of the mother that got killed as collateral damage in F91. It just happened out of the blue, and BONK! A giant shell hit her on the head and instantly killed her. WHOA... the effect of that is truly overwhelming as it showed how fragile a human can be. I actually prefer it when they show the damaged caused by MS duels in crowded colonies, esp collateral damage and kills as it shows the cruelty of war.

GMs... they do deserve more screen time to eradicate their status as cannon fodders. In reality, they are much superior weapons compared to the monoeyes of Zeon, but most of the time, if not all, Zeon suits are shown to be more badass.

Welcome to the world of Gundam... It's good to have another fan

Yup... watched it before.

It is indeed weird in certain areas, and some of Tomino's ideas were really nonsensical. Bathing naked with a boy to test his newtype abilities? Or sending bikini babes to fight a mecha.... Usso seems pretty much like a typical gundam pilot, i.e. stumbled across a kickass mecha and forced to pilot it to protect his loved ones. Shakti... too naive, just too naive. And I didn't like the fact that they failed to further elaborate on Shakti's background with Queen Maria.

Mecha designs are pretty weird too. Katoki's Victory suits were brilliant, but the Zanscare really had absurd units. The choppers - Zolo, Tomliat were good, so was the Zollida and Zoloats, but later units were horrendous. Dragons... spiders.... ZOMGWTF? Yet the tyres and Zanneck were formidable foes.

The final battle was intense and provided good action, at least there's no "flawless victory" like GSD

In all, Victory is quite enjoyable... not exactly the best, but worth watching if you can look past a depressed Tomino's work.

Chapter 10 of Unicorn is out... The battle of Palau, where Argama fights to save Barnage and Unicorn from the sleeved ones.
Here's some info sheets once again.



This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Mar 16 2008, 02:47 PM

Those photochoppers in /m/ are sure fast...

Proof that you don't need big boobs to be hot.


Proof that guailou cannot cosplay no matter how hard they try. Beware, eyesore coming up.

Noin is a girl which looks like a girl.

Tieria is a guy which looks more like girl than an actual female.

Take your pick

What has Zechs gotta do with that?

But yeah, Noin wasn't portrayed as a good pilot in the series despite Zechs' claim that she was a better pilot than he was.
Shenlong thrashed her Aries easily but that was thanks to gundam>grunt suit rule.

What's with the Gundam vs real world military weapons comparison?

Meanwhile, these are FAKE. But it's worth drooling over... Nightingale in animated action.... KICKASS. And I see Stark Jegan there...

Oh I see.

Well for me I don't think bipedal MSes will be useful in the near future. Legs are too exposed, while the centre of gravity is too high. Not practical. Future large scale warfare (hopefully there will be none) will be fought in sissy ways where armies shoot each other with cruising missiles while sitting 10000km away in the command centre. Then there's the aerial bombing to clear everything on the ground before ground troops move in. MSes are way too large and costly...

Never mind. There will be a newtype coming

NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

This is such an eyesore. Angmohs should not be allowed near Gundams.