The Official Anime & Manga Thread Vol: 三

Used to make those Gundam sets but I got over it and threw them all away. Same with Beyblades. Always wanted to purchase just one more Wing Zero Custom though, just because it is my favorite Mobile Suit.
 
I am a shamless Universal Century gundam fanboy, (I really can't stand Gundam Wing or that whole Seed trash), so I would basically recommend The original Gundam series, then Zeta Gundam, followed by Char's Counterattack, and finally Gundam Unicorn OVA (basically a love letter to the UC timeline). Bandai has recently adapted the manga, Gundam Origins, to a 4 part OVA and its fantastic! Seeing Char rising through the ranks to becoming the main bad guy in the Original Series is like watching 96-99 Kobe essentially. 
 
Wing is Life.


08 MS team was dope.

I couldnt get in to G gundam at all. i thought it was corny compared to the others, but i did really like the gundam designs.

Shokugeki no Souma is awesome can't wait til season 2.



any word on "How to get yambs in a dungeon " season 2 :nerd:?
 
2sappy said:
Bleach
Well, lets see what his Bankai looks like now. :lol:
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Maybe since he has two swords he splits into two people. LIke his hollow side and shinigami parts split or however Ichigo's composition works.
 
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This has been a good week for manga.

Fairy Tail and AoT were great.

So are Erwin and Armin dead? Erwin lost a piece of his body and Armin got toasted. :smh:
 
Hisoka sheesh 
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Turn A gundam is sick, on ep17,

Hisoka on that path, body is seriously messed up tho, he better not touch Illumi sister tho or its night night.
 
AnteaterT said:
I am a shamless Universal Century gundam fanboy, (I really can't stand Gundam Wing or that whole Seed trash), so I would basically recommend The original Gundam series, then Zeta Gundam, followed by Char's Counterattack, and finally Gundam Unicorn OVA (basically a love letter to the UC timeline). Bandai has recently adapted the manga, Gundam Origins, to a 4 part OVA and its fantastic! Seeing Char rising through the ranks to becoming the main bad guy in the Original Series is like watching 96-99 Kobe essentially. 
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UC master race :pimp:




Tdogg2k said:
Wing is Life.


08 MS team was dope.

I couldnt get in to G gundam at all. i thought it was corny compared to the others, but i did really like the gundam designs.
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G gundam had very unique mecha designs to say the least :lol:




AnteaterT said:
and1play5 said:
Turn A gundam is sick, on ep17,


Hisoka on that path, body is seriously messed up tho, he better not touch Illumi sister tho or its night night.
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Turn A Gundam :smokin  Tomino's last masterpiece. The writing in that series is just too good.
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Turn A is one of the few Gundam animes I have never watched. The designs of the mecha turned me completely away, the Turn X looks cool tho.
 
yall better stop acting like bleach is goign to be any better next week compared to this week.


same thing. can't one up the bad guy.


is the giant Heart dude even dead yet?
 
Thierry Henry Thierry Henry As someone who just watched it last week, see my long *** review two pages back :lol:, I definitely suggest checking Turn-A out. I get what you're talking about concerning the Gundam design and I really think that's the main reason the series didn't originally flourish when it was airing. But sit down and just watch the story unfold and you'll get something special. Story ended up being so much better than I expected.

In terms of Century, Universal is the master race :lol: But that's because Tomino put so much more detail into it than he did any other area of the franchise. Though it's still got its low points.

Side note, Gundam Seed is straight trash :smh: And i've heard its sequel is even worse :x :x :x
 
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louislagerfeld said:
UC master race
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G gundam had very unique mecha designs to say the least
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Turn A is one of the few Gundam animes I have never watched. The designs of the mecha turned me completely away, the Turn X looks cool tho.  
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Glad to see another UC master race 
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Turn A Gundam is one of those anime where the mecha art is a lot better in the show than it is in the linearts. After awhile, it will grow on you I promise. I had the same reservation at first. They actually got the guy who designed the Star Trek Enterprise to design the art for Turn A, so that explains a lot 
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Jays25 said:
@louislagerfeld As someone who just watched it last week, see my long *** review two pages back
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, I definitely suggest checking Turn-A out. I get what you're talking about concerning the Gundam design and I really think that's the main reason the series didn't originally flourish when it was airing. But sit down and just watch the story unfold and you'll get something special. Story ended up being so much better than I expected.

In terms of Century, Universal is the master race
laugh.gif
But that's because Tomino put so much more detail into it than he did any other area of the franchise. Though it's still got its low points.

Side note, Gundam Seed is straight trash
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And i've heard its sequel is even worse
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V gundam was also fantastic, its even darker than Zeta. And i agree that Tomino can have its low points, especially when it to some slow parts. His latest series was just bizarre and so poorly executed. 

And you're right, Gundam Seed is hot garbage , its basically a rehash of MSG and Zeta in one series except that the last half of the series was so bad because they somehow had to transition from a "21st" century version of MSG to Zeta while creating Wing Zero in Freedom. But as bad as Seed was, (first half was actually ok I thought), Destiny is just an embarrassment to the franchise, makes Wing Gundam seem like masterpiece in comparison.
 
Looks like I managed to finish Gundam Wing in just under a week :smokin Not bad. Didn't plan on watching Endless Waltz since I tend to see it like 2-3 times a year anyways, but I went ahead and decided to watch it just to be thorough.

700



Opening


So going in I knew what to expect from this series for the most part. I knew who all the players were, the basics of the Gundam pilots' reasons for being sent to Earth, the conflict between Earth and Space, Relena and Zechs beign siblings, etc. Gundam Wing isn't a new series for me. It's THE Gundam series for me. It's what my childhood was pretty much based around. I watched the entirety of this series before I did important series in the franchise like Zeta Gundam and ZZ Gundam. Hell, I watched it before i'd even finished Mobile Suit Gundam (Though I was watching MSG at the same time, on that Adult Swim block :tongue: ). So before Gurren Lagann, Big O, Zoids, Code Geass, there is Gundam Wing for me. Without this series I doubt that I would ever have latched onto the Mecha genre as much as I have. So i've always looked back on it with the same fondness I do Dragon Ball(Z), Ruroni Kenshin, Digimon Adventure, the original Pokemon anime (Indigo League through the Silver Conference), etc. But obviously there's some level of nostalgia that can easily set in when you're remembering something that you 1)watched when you were a kid and 2)only ever fully watched once. So I really am glad that I decided to watch the series again and that I managed to stick with it. So, how did it hold up?


Characters

It's amazing how many things about a series you can completely overlook when you're a kid, things which, when noticed, actually make the series that much better. Of course I knew there were 5 Gundam pilots. I think that might be one of the most recognizeable things about this series. Most other entries in the franchise feature 1 main Gundam, a few upgrades for it, and maybe 2-3 more down the line. G Gundam's that rare example where everyone was utilizing the special mobile suit. So you mention a series with 5 Gundam pilots and Wing is going to stand out. Looking back I always thought the pilots had all been sent to Earth as a unit and worked together throughout the series, with minor breakups here and there. Boy was I wrong :lol:xg: These guys have zero idea who the other is at the start, though they all have the same mission. They then link up and part ways multiple times over the franchise. I think this makes the series far more interesting however, as it allows for individual and joined storylines to take place throughout the series. The one weakness of this design is that you can easily say that some pilots get more exposure than others. Heero obviously is the main pilot of the series, so he gets the most. After him Duo also gets a lot of fleshing out as a character, and I then think Trowa and Quatre are about equal. Both of them disappear for fairly long stretches of time, to the point that I get shocked when I remember that they're still around out there doing something.

Then there's Wufei. Quatre is my least favorite Gundam pilot here, but I know a lot about him. Wufei is the one who I could speak the least about overall and that's because he gets the least development. He spends the entire series on his own and I can see that he's a bigger loner than Heero now that i've watched it again. In comparison, Heero isn't the heart of the group like Quatre, but he's the guy everyone respects and gravitates towards. And with 5 different characters of course, plus the rest of the cast, and only 49 episodes there will naturally be a bit of a struggle to give everyone equal time on the screen, so overall I think a good job was done. 4 out of 5 is nothing to cry about after all. You then have the same issue as Turn-A Gundam, and Gundam in general, with there being little character development for the most part. But hey, that's just Gundam for you. I don't want to say that none of the Gundam pilots change, because that's not true. Heero goes from seeking his own death to actively wanting to live and becomes a more open, warmer person overall. He's still quiet, still cold, but he develops and forms real relationships with the other pilots. And you see small changes like that in the others as well. None of the pilots end the series as a completely different person, but they have learned important lessons at least.

Then there's Relena. Also similar to Turn-A, it was one of the main female characters who went through the biggest changes in this series. She went from being the richest kid in school, to Princess of the Sanc Kingdom, to Queen of the World, to the Vice Foreign Minister. Needless to say, she grew up a lot. I will admit, I was extremely annoyed with her at the start of the series and the way she pined/chased after Heero. It was downright disturbing at points, which I was a little saddened by since i'd always had better memories of her relationship with Heero. But she grew out of it. Naturally, when they really started to focus on her as a character and not just Heero's love interest she improved dramatically, taking actions that had nothing to do with him, though she still desired to find him of course. I ended up being really impressed with her. There are times when I find talks of peace and pacifism to be annoying in Gundam series (Kio from Gundam AGE comes to mind as a particularly horrible experience to have to watch). This is Gundam, giant mechanical suits trying to destroy each other. I don't watch this show to have a character talk to me about how great and necessary peace is. But it works here I think, because 1)everyone in the series wants peace and is therefore working towards it, while a whole bunch of entertaining combat is taking place on the side, and 2)Relena's political storylines are always placed as a counterpart to the more action-based storylines of Heero and the other Gundam pilots. So you see Heero go on this exciting mission and then you get to jump to Relena in a more relaxed, but still threatening battlefield. Makes for a good contrast and, even though she started off being plain terrible, I think I liked Relena more this time around than I did previously, which partially has to do with me paying more attention to her and the politics of this Gundam series.

The Plot

One thing I noticed is that, unlike so many other series, characters will disappear for various lengths of time and no explanaiton is ever given as to what they've been up to, how they've done whatever they've done in that time, or how they then got to the point they're at when we see them again. Personally, this doesn't bother me that much. But it's blatant enough for me to notice and I can then see why it might bother somebody else. If it was just one or two instances/characters that'd be one thing, but it's all over the place. However, I partially think it has to do with us having 5 Gundam pilots/main characters. The series itself doesn't follow each one at the exact same time that it's following another. It's kind of like how in Pokemon you follow Ash through all these events and then he meets up with Gary once in a blue moon. You hear about how Gary's caught all these pokemon and earned all these badges, but you never get to see it. That's ok however, because you've been following Ash consistently. You don't get that here. Instead you basically follow Ash, then Gary, then Ritchie, then you jump back to Ash, but days/weeks have passed since you last saw Ash and you don't necessarily get to know what went on during the time you weren't following Ash. Again, i'm cool with it, but I could see it annoying some people. For the sake of moving the plot along however I do think it's better that this route was taken.

The way the conflict here developed was fairly interesting. You had Earth, via OZ primarily, already clashing with the colonies at the series start. But there is then a certain amount of escalation that takes place, partially due to the Gundams showing up on Earth. You again see that idea of one side doing something to the other, so the other retaliates, which causes more casualties to arise. At the same time, the side retaliating isn't in the wrong per se, because they've been attacked and have the right to retaliate. It's complicated further because neither side is a unified whole. The Gundams are fighting for the colonies, but the colonies eventually turn their backs on them. Treize seems to be leading OZ, but he's eventually forced to turn his back on them when the Romefeller Foundation begins producing Mobile Dolls. Zechs fights for the Sanc Kingdom, but after it's destroyed for the second time decides to join with the Colony Rebels against the entire Earth. And so on. People switch sides and the battle lines aren't always clear. And some bad events that take place (Such as Zechs joining the rebels) are the result of actions taken by good people forced into tough positions. It really works well with the fact that all of these people are, again, fighting for the same basic thing in their own way.

And really just one good thing about Gundam as a franchise is that you have so many entries where you can't say there is just one main villain. Wing is no exception. At the start, it looks like the villain might be Treize, but he disappears before the halfway point (Another thing I didn't remember) and is replaced by Dermail, then you have Quinze, then Treize comes back, then Zechs actually ends up being the final opponent in the series, outliving Treize, who himself was a ghost for damn near half the series, even though he's probably one of the most popular characters from it. Of course there's certainly nothing wrong with a series or arc that builds towards and ends with one villain specifically. Frieza is one of the most recognizeable anime villains of all time specifically because there was so much work done in building him up as a threat. But there's something to be said for variety as well and in a series with politics at its course (And we all know politicians love to play games and backstab each other after all) it seems fitting for different people to compete for the title of the series Big Bad. And because everyone is arguing for peace it can make it difficult to disagree with them at some points, no matter how bad the actions they've taken part in are. Treize pushes the world towards a war from the start of the series, with the express purpose of it shocking the world so much that people don't want to have another one (Not unlike Pein in fact), but he's also a gentleman and one of the most honorable characters in the franchise, willing to risk his life for his ideals. Dermail actively attacks Relena's peaceful kingdom, with little to no provocation, but he's also right when he says that country lines do divide the peoples of the world and place them at odds with each other. The people of the colonies look somewhat cowardly when they turn against the Gundam pilots, but they're also right to just want peace and to say that the Gundam pilots fighting doesn't instantly bring about any peace.
Designs

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I mean, I said it from the jump: this is the OG Gundam series for me B) I couldn't hate the mobile suit designs in this series if I tried, though Quatre still has the least interesting Gundam of them all. :smh: Wing Zero Custom is my favorite mobile suit in the franchise and that has never changed. Miss the loss of the flight mode from the original design, but the new wings with the thrusters in them are a suitable replacement for me. And really I think they did a great job redesigning the classic suits 1)within the series proper and 2)for Endless Waltz. Every Gundam came out of it looking better. Though I will say that I preferred Deathscythe's redesign in the series to the one from the film. And you know in this series you had all of the Gundams being based off of the Wing Zero, with the 5 scientists involved then going on to create their own individual designs. It's interesting how they all focused on different modes of combat, while still sticking to the core of the Gundam. I also have to say that I have a greater appreciation for Heavyarms than I did as a kid, since it really goes against the basic...weapon setup of a Gundam. Like since Amuro the main Gundams have always tended to be variations of the original model. You get the beam saber, a shield, some type of gatling guns located somewhere on the body, and some type of beam rifle. In that way, Wing is more similar to the original than Heavyarms, which focuses on an overwhelming amount of firepower, then only have one physical blade for close combat. It's a nice change, as is Shenlong/Altron.


Conclusion


So does the series hold up well? Absolutely. The animation is solid, the plot is a good mix of action and political intrigue, with some philosophical debates thrown in for good measure, you get multiple Gundams (that are well-designed) and their pilots, a variety of storylines take place, but get well balanced overall, and you have interesting antagonists. I really do think that the weakest part of the series overall is the inability to balance the screen-time between all 5 Gundam pilots. They do an admirable job, but Wufei really looks like the odd man out. It makes up for it with various side characters however, such as Zechs, Une, and Relena. After seeing this i'm tempted to say that Relena might be the best pacifistic character in the franchise, as she's still actually allowed to play an important, even central role in the plot while she remains true to her ideals. The series also deserves credit for the voice acting, as far as dub goes because that's the only way i've ever watched it. I really couldn't see how anyone could have a problem with any of the voices here. No one sounds out of place or terrible, it seems as if the actors really cared about what they were saying, and the cast was that much more interesting for it. There are a few hammy moments of course, but that's anime for you. Akira is dark as hell and has its bits of ham :D This series might have failed to give equal amounts of attention to the 5 Gundam pilots, but give the crew credit for trying AND for at least giving them all unique personalities. Personally, I also found it interesting how you don't really ever find out about their pasts. It's just never brought up besides the fact that they were trained. Minus Quatre in fact, they all seem to he no families to speak of. I won't say that I can't understand why some people might dislike Wing. There are flaws and what works for one person isn't going to work for another. But the series just works for me. Endless Waltz, which i'm about to watch after posting this, is just the icing on the cake. I haven't seen every Gundam series and also haven't seen every series outside of the UC, but i'll say that this is the best series outside of the UC to me and i'd place it in my Top 5 series in the franchise. Things from your childhood don't always hold up (Looking at you ThunderCats.), but every now and again, like this series and Batman the Animated Series, they do B)

I was originally not planning to watch another Gundam series next week, but I decided, since I was enjoying rewatching Wing so much, to rewatch Cowboy Bebop, another classic series for me. I also haven't ever seen it outside of when it originally aired on television. I have various memories of it, remember enjoying it a lot, but naturally can't remember the finer details and assume that there are things I didn't notice as a kid, which could now give me a greater appreciation for it. However, I found out that it's only 26 episodes, plus a film, which shocked me as I remember it being longer than that. But, since that's a good number below Turn-A's 50 and Wing's 49 I decided that i'd try something new and attempt to knock out 2 series in a week. So I returned to Gundam for another one and decided to also return to my Turn-A method of picking a series I haven't seen before. So along with Cowboy Bebop next week i'll also be watching After War Gundam X, with 39 episodes. I figure that since I have tomorrow as an extra day from this week I can go ahead and knock out some of Bebop's episodes early on and that I can also start watching more episodes per day as well. I really never hear about Gundam X at all, but it's apparently one of the shortest series in the franchise (that's according to TV Tropes), so we'll see.
 
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