Mr March

"Video is not available in your country"

Exactly.

What anime is that funky looking robot from? The one on your splash page? It's kinda cool looking.

I just finished watching Gundam 00 and wanted to share my thoughts. Yeah, I know I'm way behind on this one, but I was so busy with all the Macross Frontier stuff I didn't really have time until now. But I have to say I'm glad I finally did get around to watching this show (thanks to ChiefGuldGoaBowman of the MW forums for pestering me into watching Gundam 00). For me, Gundam 00 is a solid, entertaining Gundam anime. As a casual Gundam fan at best (my favorite Gundam show of all time is Gundam 0080), I have never been into the franchise the way I am with Cowboy Bebop, Ghost In The Shell, or Macross. The last Gundam television show I liked was Zeta Gundam and the last Gundam TV show I watched completely was Gundam Wing, which is largely responsible for turning me off Gundam, until now. Which is ironic, since Gundam 00 appears to share at least some stylistic and thematic similarities with Wing. Thankfully Gundam 00 blazes its own trail and makes for an enjoyable action series and, more importantly, a coherent political drama. Even being spoiled by Frontier's wonderful CGI mecha, the hand drawn mecha animation in Gundam 00 is top notch. The action in Gundam 00 isn't overdone and most of the sequences are interesting and exciting. I also appreciate the frequent use of background CGI in the series and I really enjoy how well the animators have merged the vehicle CGI along side the drawn animation. Recent anime series have shown the Japanese have mastered CG in anime to the point where it's no longer jarring to see CG next to hand drawn animation. Celestial Being's ship, the Ptolemaios, is not only good CGI but also a very sharp design. It's an immediate favorite of mine. Speaking of mechanical design, Gundam 00 does a great job with the new hero mecha. The Gundams are just the right combination of innovation merged with the traditional Gundam aesthetic; it's a welcome change for the franchise. I like the more linear and rounded style of the 00 Gundams, but they haven't lost that sharp edged detail either. The torso and head units in particular are a great move forward for the franchise style and it's nice to see the Gundams that aren't over designed with spires, wings, vanes, and other excess. The robots of Gundam 00 feel more real (keeping in mind that we're talking "real" in the context of anime robots). Moving on to the story, I appreciate that Gundam 00 is taking it's audience more seriously. Sure it's still a children's show like nearly all anime, but it's not talking down to the audience. Celestial Being's declaration "to end war through war" is initially mocked by several characters for the outrageous statement that it is. Also of utmost importance is the fact that the Gundams don't just disappear from in front of the enemy because the plot demands it, but the Gundams actually used an altered version of the Minovsky radar interference concept from the original series to give a credible reason why the Gundams are very hard to track. I also enjoyed the political game played in the series. The creators have spent even more time on the politics of the Gundam 00 world than they did on action and when they did have action, it was linked to the plot and not just mindless action for the sake of mindless action. The characters were largely interesting and there were only a few I didn't like. I like most of the Gundam pilots (with the exception of Setsunna) and appreciate that most are a little older. I particularly enjoyed Allelujah Haptism and his delightfully messed up personality. His character and actions are very interesting to watch, particularly in the context of the provocative moral questions raised in the series. Another point in Gundam 00's favor is the daring stories and some of the tragic events that happen to the characters. The political powers in the show can be a bit hard to follow, but they react in believable ways. The introduction of Celestial Being impacts these nations in very fundamental ways and they react much like a real nation would under the circumstances. The world of Gundam 00 feels fully fleshed out and realized, with many characters acting in intelligent ways rather than just as cliched caricatures. Which brings me to my last point of praise for Gundam 00; the fictional construct itself. I really like how they took many of the themes of Gundam and re-interpreted them in Gundam 00. Space is no longer about colonies but rather the solar generators and the space elevators. They took the concept of the original MSG (a realistic construct in space, such as an O'Neil Colony) and transposed it with another interesting realistic construct (the space elevator and solar power generator). It's Gundam like Gundam hasn't been done before and yet it's familiar all the same. Even newtypes have been re-interpreted as a genetic super soldier program. All the original Gundam is there, just done in a different way and that makes for a much more interesting show. The final episode of the series was fantastic and ended with both closure and some open ended plot threads. I'm very much looking forward to season 2, but even if it doesn't turn out to be as much fun, Gundam 00 season 1 will remain a favorite of mine. There are some things that did bother me about the series. The Gundams are still a bit too much super-robot for my tastes, but this has always been a problem I've had with much of Gundam. The Trans-Am system was far too over-the-top, but at least it was fun to watch. For most of the series, it lacked a really notable villain mecha, like the Zaku, Kaempher or Sazabi. The Enacts, Flags, Hellions, and Teirens never came across as inspired mechanical designs and the only one I really liked was the MSER-04 Anf (which is sadly shown not doing much aside from exploding). The Gundam Thrones made good enemy mecha and the GN-X series looked great as well, but not much else in the villain roster was any good, IMO. Story-wise, the only problems I had were how long it took to finally get the story arc with Louise, Caji and his sister into gear. They wasted way too much time setting up these characters just to get to the plot thread about Lagna going. The characters could have been introduced around episode 10 and it would have worked much better. Caji in particular has very little to do with the show overall, except to likely set up something for season 2. I also felt the reveal of the three Gundam Thrones was telegraphed/cliched. You just knew that with the imminent defeat of the Meisters, either a heretofore unseen super-ability would be surface or or another Gundam would show up to save the day. I was rather disappointed with the Thrones, though their introduction did make for some fun action. The Gundam Throne Zwei in particular served as another fun homage to the Gundam staple of the fin funnel with it's use of the GN fangs. Overall, I'd give Gundam 00, Season 1 an 8 out of 10. I haven't had this much fun with Gundam in years and I'd recommend this series to anime fans that don't ordinarily enjoy Gundam. Gundam 00 had just the right balance of action, political drama, character development and visual style to make for an engaging and entertaining piece of animated entertainment.

How is the VA-3 coming along Talos?

Interesting. Never heard of it, but I'll have to give it a try and see what happens. I'm not a Photoshop expert, so I don't know all the many different ways to achieve the same result. I just went with the multiply feature because it's the least number of mouse clicks to make it work

LOL I wonder if they are going to have a big SDF-1 balloon in a street parade

Thank you meninge. I'm glad you like the charts.

My coloring for the Macross Mecha Manual is two part, but I use Photoshop CS for all the image work. 1) I scan the original black and white line art in 1,200 DPI grayscale. After rotation adjustments, I perform a linear burn and then a linear dodge to make sure the line art is a solid black that retains the necessary detail and the anti-aliasing to ensure the lines appear smooth. 2) With the line art finalized, I build a PSD file in RGB format. Working in layers, I use the multiply feature and add color layers as necessary. You can quick color the art using the wand to select an area to fill and then using the fill tool for color. I build the cartoon shading by creating another darker color layer on top of the existing color layer. Some colorists prefer to build shading using the brush so they achieve shadows with that "3D gradient" look, but I prefer the "toon shade" look that we've all come to know and love in nearly all the Macross anime shows, even Frontier to a degree. I made an exception for some (the Hollywood Amusement Ship is brush shaded rather than cartoon shaded. I felt it worked better for such a bland, spherical design) That's about it. There's not much to it. The only downside of building pictures this way is they can be quite large. Some are as much a 7-8 megs in size.

Hmm, those screen shots are somewhat disappointing. They look pretty, but they don't feel right. I think it's the overexposed light bloom in the city scape scene. It looks like GITS 2: Innocence not the first GITS. It doesn't match the rest of the film, unless they redid the entire film in those colors. Is there any YouTube clips of this "enhanced" version yet? Well, as long as the original remains available on all the future formats, I'll be happy.

Okay, Arutira sounds good to me. I'll make the correction.

At the time I wrote my VF-0 article, there was no information about when the VF-0 was designed or built, so I included only the deployment date (2008). It appears new information has been added to the compendium, so I'll update my VF-0 profiles.

The term Atlita was created during a phase when I was attempting translations on my own. It's the best I could come up with based on the text from the Gold Book. I can certainly change it to something more correct if that helps, but who really knows which is correct? For the rest of the intentionally "alien" Zentradi words and names, I've been using either the Macross Compendium or the Animeigo English subtitles, which I consider the definitive English translation. So I use Animeigo designations like Reguld for mecha or "Britai" for names and so forth on my website. I find using the Animeigo subtitles meshes all the trivia on my website better with the actual animation itself. This way a new Macross fan can watch the Animeigo or ADV sets and then read the Macross Mecha Manual with a minimum of confusion. I didn't know the VF-11MAXL Custom had head cannons (I'd be curious to know where they are located) but I knew about the dorsal fuselage missile launchers. I have them described on my website and I have some line art of the missile launchers included in the profile.

sketchley That's kinda cool. I don't believe I've seen this alternate head unit on the VF-4 before. Sulendil Ang Sorry, the holidays hit and I forgot about this one. I'll post some more soon. Protoculture There's nothing I can really use for the Draug other than the small little pictures you posted. I had no plans to include it, but I can add these pictures to a small profile for completeness sake.

OAD? Weird. Seems strange that it's not being theatrically released. I wonder if all this info is correct. Sounds a bit suspect. But I like that it's coming soon

Nope. Try again.

What do you mean? (thanks, hehehe)

yellow I think it's understood that we're talking a step beyond that. Gubaba I know my film, animated or otherwise. Disliking a given production doesn't mean one must remain ignorant (*collective gasp*). Yes, I know that's a rather foreign concept among the knee-jerking, but vocal minority that sometimes seems to dominate the internet, but it happens to be true. I dislike the films of Quentin Tarantino as well, but I recognize and acknowledge his great use of the fractured narrative, his non-linear visual structures and contribution his influential films have made in the industry. NGE may suck, but one cannot deny it's place in anime history, justified or not though it may be. VFTF1 "Reports of any dislike I may have for Macross are greatly exaggerated" (except Macross 7)

Good stuff. I've updated the Macropedia, Macross Frontier index, the VF-25 entires and the Vajra ships. Thanks yet again azrael!

*bows* I'd rather honestly praise NGE for the mechanical design credit it justly deserves than support the lousy mechanical designs in other anime shows just because I don't like NGE. One must give credit where credit is due. As for NGE itself, like I've always said, I'd rather watch a creative failure than an overrated piece of forgettable mediocrity. I didn't like NGE, but it's not the first anime series I didn't like and it won't be the last. It was at least worth a shot, which is much more than I can say for a certain other crap mecha series (here's looking at you Gundam Wing). You know, it's funny. So many critics, and even more than a few NGE fans complain about the lack of motion and actual animation in the NGE series. Personally, I thought this was a brilliant solution to save money which allowed the animators to produce some really amazing animated sequences on a TV budget. It also allowed the creative team to achieve some animated sequences which ordinarily wouldn't have been possible on their budget. When I criticize NGE (and I do love to do so) it certainly wasn't because the animation style wasn't engaging. Those long, inactive and introspective sequences with little to no actual animation perfectly suited both the tone of the series and the themes the story was exploring. With all the yammering over the years about people who don't "get it", I've found that what most fans and non-fans alike completely miss is how much the composition and set design of NGE contributed to make the show what it is, for better or worse.

It's always been pointless But I am hoping the movies will be better than the series. It would be a shame if such quality mechanical design remained wasted on a lousy TV series

Me, me, me! I did! Thanks for the heads up, Gub. I'm really looking forward to my next order, issues #7-11 (currently in transit). Can't wait!

Kill you? At least conceptually, that's probably the most interesting piece of Macross fan art I've seen in a long time. Bravo! The only criticism I have is that this creation is too much VF-4 and too much VF-25 and not enough "unique" mechanical design. But it's hard to look at that thing and say I dislike it. Nice work all around.

azrael Yeah, that's a good example. And Gundam 00 features some of the most detailed and fluid traditional mecha animation in an anime television series. Macross Frontier wisely got around this by going to CG models with tons of detail Sulendil Ang Sure, but I don't have access to it right now. I didn't do a list for every valkyrie, but I think I have about a dozen listings. I think you'll find the result rather shocking. One of the simplest transformation systems Kawamori has ever designed is the YF-21. I believe the number of articulated mechanisms required to transform was 15. The worst? The VF-9 wins by a mile, coming somewhere over 30 if I remember correctly.

Cool stuff. Thanks for the work Gubaba!