Gui

Mostly used for badguys and alien mecha like the stuff from Ideon. They're more like (colonial) Kaiju in that they represent an unstoppable invasion force.

They're still mechas, whatever way you'll look at them

Anyway, I think anyone in here has a pretty good understanding of what the word "mecha" refers to and endless babblings about concepts or representations will not bring us anywhere, I'm afraid: there were mechas before Starship Troopers, including in classic SF stories by western writers, and japanese didn't invent them even if it's in their country that this genre became particularly successful; though I'll agree that it was more an effect of Mazinger Z, which came after Starship Troopers, than Tetsujin 28

On the hand, Mazinger Z doesn't remind me at all of Starship Troopers, from close as well as from far...

Oh, and I don't think Starship Troopers was a particularly huge success in Japan actually: except for an OAV at the end of the 80s, and a rather crappy and unfaitful one while I'm at it, nothing makes me think it is of particular importance in this country

OK, so what about Wells' martian tripods then?

You can't go wrong with Turn A anyway

Actually, it may very well be the best way to begin the franchise with...

Hard to reply to such long posts but I'll try my best...

- Amuro's father is an ass right from the beginning and its stay in space with a probably damaged normal suit right after the very first episode didn't help him becoming a better man (lack of oxygen hurts the brain...)

- the newtype concept wasn't very well understood at the end of the One Year War because there wasn't a lot of research on this field at this time, and the lucubrations of Zeon Zum Deikun weren't of a real help because it was more a philosophy than a scientific concept; as for the principality of Zeon, they used them as weapons therefore it didn't help to understand what newtypes really were supposed to be. Hence the lack of informations at the end of the series. Obviously, the creators of the series themseleves didn't really know what to do with this neither, but they expanded the concept in the movie trilogy and the following stories... While I'm at it, you can find the movie trilogy at BakaBT

- as for Gihren's parricide... At the beginning, there was this space colony called Side 3 where Zeon Zum Deikun made his coup (his intentions were rather altruistic but the guy was a bit crazy so it couldn't really work the way he wished anyway...) and Degwin Zabi financed the whole thing because he was immensely rich; then Zabi murdered Deikun to take power and was supported by his eldest son, Gihren, to establish the Principality of Zeon, which implied to give him a part of his power and authority: of course, the son being as mad – and even more – than his father, he kept the authority given to him after the job was done in order to make his own coup when the time would come. But he was more subtle than his father because he didn't really make a coup strictly speaking, he simply expanded his influence progessively, and particularly in manipulating Degwin who didn't rejuvenate years after years – but not to the point that he didn't understand what Gihren was doing: he actually understood very well... but too late, because his son was already the master of Zeon. When the war broke out, he was already a puppet, and in fact Degwin never really wanted a war against the Federation to begin with: he just wanted power when he was younger, but Gihren wanted even more power, hence the war. When the conflict began, Gihren gave to himself the status of supreme commander, which means he had full control of the Solar Ray right from the beginning, all the more as he was the one who ordered its construction to begin with and his father never knew what this thing really was: actually, it was one of the most well hidden secret projects of Zeon – even the feddies didn't learn of its existence before it was too late. That's why nobody tried to stop Gihren: not only he was the one in charge of the Solar Ray, but all the staff controlling this weapon was fanatically dedicated to him, which didn't leave to Degwin a lot of room to dodge the strike...

- of course Kycilia murdering her own brother can look like a problem, but once Gihren's dead, she's the queen and thus she's above all laws, all the more as she had her own staff ready to fight for her to the death and dispensing justice in the middle of a space battle is not exactly a priority, especially this battle... We may consider this move as a bit rash too, not that she was very fond of her father but she simply seized the opportunity to take power for herself: she has never been very cooperative with her brother anyway, before as well as during the war – this point is rather well covered in the Gundam: The Origin manga

- yes, all these inner struggles for power were the main reasons for the downfall of Zeon: this can be seen as a critic of the monarchic system – History is full of similar events: the creators of Gundam didn't invent anything, it wasn't even their intent to begin with anyway...

You should give a try to Tomino's novel: it covers a lot of these points with good details, and much more; a friend of mine, who is historian, found that its political aspects made of it a very realistic story, and in all case it complets very well the other iterations of First Gundam

Edit: arf, owned by Keith for the part concerning Amuro's father...

Nice blanket statement there. You know I read Starship Troopers and know that the humanoid weapon is meant to fast, agile, and lethal. I know Japan loves that book because Heinlein's powered suit is literally the basis for all mecha [...]

"Real mechas", yes, but not mechas as a whole: the manga of Tetsujin 28 was there some years before Starship Troopers and it is this character who recently got its permanent statue in I don't remember which island of the archipelago...

Gasaraki was interesting (but slow as all hell) right up until the end when it totally fell apart with it's slapdash ending. Definately didn't hold up to the much superior Votoms, or Blue Gender.

It's a valid argument if you take into account the "realism" of the mecha designs only, but once you compare this point with the "unrealism" of the various iterations of magic present in the show (reincarnation, demon statue, etc), it takes a completeley different meaning: all this magic is actually a reminiscence of the traditional japanese culture– particularly shintoism – when the hyperrealistic mecha designs represent the opposite of magic and tradition, which is science and modernism, these inheritances of the american culture that japanese have had – and will probably keep having for a moment – some difficulties to handle properly; Tomino evoked this, very briefly, in his recent press conference whose a report is available at ANN

In the end, Gasaraki is a great portray of the main conflict which still tears down contemporary Japan, often showed as "between tradition and modernity" when it is actually closer to some sort of schizophrenia: the realism of the mechas in Gasaraki serves a completely and far deeper purpose than in any of these shows which use realism only for the purpose of realism

I agree the very last episode was useless though, at least a bit...

I usually don't actually read the sub-titles, or even look at what's going on. I just stare at Misa when she's on screen and dream about her when she's off screen.

Pete

And what does your wife think about this?

Tomino's U.C. Gundam is indeed about newtypes, among other things, although this concept appears only lately in the show even if it is evoked here and there in the first half: actually, it is one of the key elements of the story and the whole U.C. timeline, but it's in Z that it becomes truely preponderant

In other words, it wasn't a good idea to jump to CCA before having finished First and without having seen Z: you can thank Bandai for having released CCA before Z outside Japan, this made Gundam appeared as screwed up for a lot of newcomers to the franchise...

[...] And in the end, I don't care if you don't get it, because this show was apparently made for me!

No

It was made for me

[...] I also am quite fond of some of the music - not for nothing does my MP3 player have "Parade", "My Friends", "Seventh Moon" and "Heart and Soul" as permanent residents. [...]

Hey, me too!

-------

Anyway, M7 is the perfect example of the creation which will not be fully understood before an incalculable number of centuries...

In the meanwhile, enjoy it for what it is. Or don't. Your call...

What I thought exactly: this time may be the good one to put HG's nose back into their own poo...

Code Geass' first season was great; the second season was too, but in the totally opposite way...

Began watching Geneshaftyesterday : the setting is interesting and the various designs work well together despite their dissimilarities; otherwise it looks like some sort of Gunbuster clone as far as characters are concerned.... Fortunately, it is just 13 eps long: it hasn't really started yet (4 eps in) and if it appears being bad, I'll have finished soon anyway

[...]

Here's a summary of what's happening:

What's Happening with ADV Films

Very interesting reading, indeed: the guy wrote an article as long as my arm to tell us that, basically, he doesn't know anything about the true future of ADV

Actually, the Protoculture never really died: it keeps on living through its "children" species like mankind and the zolans

From this point of view, it is very similar to Roma whose ideology – and then, its spirit – survived its fall as a nation

In fact, the Protoculture keeps on evolving and maturing...

Animation style looks very reminiscent of F91 to me: can't wait to see more

The OVA it was a bunch of years ago, but the movie it was in 1998 (it was broadcasted on french TV and a pair of friends lent me their record on VHS because we shared a common interest into animes) and the first time I heard about Mac+ was when I found the This Is Anime artbook of the movie in 94 or 95, a pair of years after having seen Macross II: needless to say, I was very pleased that these friends lent me their tape because I could finally put some animation onto the great pics and designs I slavered on since years...

After that, the OAV looked like some sort of mercantile rehash of the movie, probably because I was exposed to the movie first, but I also liked it: I can't be objective with Macross anyway

In its very last sentence, this ANN article clearly says:

"English is confirmed as one of the several languages into which Gundam Unicorn will be translated."

An international website for Unicorn is also open since a few days

For the first time of my life, I'll order japanese DVDs directly from Japan

Also, we should keep in mind that Kawamori was 25 years younger when he worked onto SDF – and he wasn't the only one onboard too – so it makes sense that his views on this universe changed through time and that things he liked in the past doesn't fit his standards any more: in other words, he doesn't work for us but for himself in the first place...

Personnally, I like such a view on continuity: he doesn't let the past hinder him and go forward, that's what artists are supposed to do IMO

They probably plan to release a "volume 2" in a little while...

I got my copy from HLJ yesterday: it's all good stuff but I'd like some of the pics to be bigger, sometimes you have to look very closely to see the details; 10 or 12 years back, artbooks were more generous than nowaday

Yep, and it was refreshing to see some DOMs in this series

There was also a Ramba Ral wanabee, but it didn't last long...

Oh, I'll go see it anyway: it'll not be worse than any other SF movie anyway but still, from Cameron, this looks very disappointing...

Thanks, guys: you're the best

parts of it look amazing... but I dunno, the whole alien native thing doesn't track for me, reminds me of some bad saturday morning cartoon.

Remove the name of the director and you'll think it's a trailer for the next Pixar (which I do respect a lot, but I go see their stuff to find back parts of my childhood, not serious SF)

And the mecha design of their AMP or whatever thingie is 25 years old at best: even VOTOMS look more modern. And what is this habit to make the pilot apparent from the outside? The Wachowski retards already did this in Matrix: do they really want their pilots killed by lost bullets or what? C'mon guys: the armor of your mech' is supposed to protect the pilot...

10 years of waiting for this...

Is there a subbed version of the Yack Deculture edition of Close Encounter? I searched everywhere, even on MacrossShare, but couldn't find any...

[...] I don't know how you can't see the Zeta in Wing though, really, Wing was a lot too blatant, especially the later half. [...]

I never said there was no Z in W: I just said W sucks...

[...] Again, I'm not knocking Victory, but as a standalone it coudl actually benefit from a few more ties with Gundam history, it almost stands out as odd with its level of technology & broken off contact with the colonies. Turn-A handles these issues much better.

But that is what I like in V: how it breaks from the usual Gundam scheme in proposing something different even if not new. And besides being great, it also announced an interesting future for the UC timeline, but Sunrise did not follow this way thanks to Bandai...

Great episode indeed: when watching the preview, I had a hard time to believe that a Guntank could be of a real interest in an anime (slow and awkward unit, with only a pair of guns, and which is usually useless without other types of units assisting it...) but this episode is definitively amongst the best of the MS IGLOO franchise; excellent action scenes but a good scenario too, with rather original ideas and characters as well as an unusual plot

By the way, the complete OAV is available from BakaBT (formerly BoxTorrents) in HQ and in freeleech