Panon

Instead of simply handing Athrun the win though piss-poor writing and making Shinn try to stupidly use the palm cannons to block Athrun's beam sabers, he should have used the beam shields on the opposite sides of his hands like so:

That annoyed me incredibly, because the blocking the beams with the palm cannons should have WORKED.

It was the first actual improvised use of them in an interesting way... but no, they had to make the pinnacle of ZAFTs mobile suit advances and the titular suit of the show look like a chump.

Are you talking about F91 or Victory?

Both, but more specifically Victory.

I don't mean anything about their quality at all (Victory was a good series, and I liked F-91 despite it being a tad... broken) what I mean is that jumping ahead in time to free yourself of connections to previous series... removes any reason for making a sequel in that timeline.

Victory was UC in name only. It may as well have been the first alternate universe, and the same would apply if you jumped 90 years ahead in the Cosmic Era. Why bother?

F91 didn't work out cause Tomino woudn't play ball and give Bandai what they wanted in terms of story. He wanted to do it his way and they wanted more angst(Seabook to be another Amuro for example)

Positive proof that higher ups interfering with Tomino was more often than not a good thing.

As for a sequel, taking place 50 years down the line, would be the best. It'll force the writers to use whatever new characters they come up with.

They made that mistake with the Universal Century and I'd rather them not do that again.

Hhaha, you forget, Fukuda has stooped to this stupidity before.  Andy was good and dead and he brought him back for IMO no good reason either.

They brought Andy back for quite a good reason - the show didn't have a lot of compelling adult characters, and he very much was one.

The difference his, there is no problem with his return. His survival was completely plausible (an explosion of his mobile suit seen from the distance on Earth isn't a clear, concise and absolute 'death') and more importantly, his survival had consequences - the person with him died, and he was severely injured. He came back a changed character, a semi-cripple who instead of piloting a mobile suit now used his command abilities and experience.

I think anybody who critisises his return is only really looking for excuses to score points against Fukuda, because it was obviously for the better, just like Dearka's supposedly merchandising prompted alliegance shift, and all the other terrible ideas they canned that were initially planned for late in the series.

On the other hand, Mu steps in front of a positron blast in space, explodes, obviously dies an unmistakable death... and through retconning away of a couple of frames of footage, he gets to return in Destiny and eventually the only price of what happened to him turned out to be a scratch on his face. He didn't even come back for a reasonable reason, he just does, and when he's back he does nothing to justify his return, only things that ruin his character.

I mean, when there are people in the forums who rate G-Saviour HIGHER than Destiny, that's saying something, and it ain't anything flattering for Fukuda either.

It's saying that there are always people who have amusing over-the-top knee-jerk reactions, just like how there were Japanese UC fansites that had polls where people were voting the original Gundam SEED "Worst Gundam series ever".

Destiny's a pretty low point, but it ain't that low.

AnimeSuki's forums actually need a good amount of moderation. Threads are often repeated and information seems to run rampant over there.

Oh no, repeated topics? The obsession some people have with ONE THREAD FOR A TOPIC AND ONE THREAD ONLY, EVER! is absolutely ridiculous.

GOUF was the worst of the worst in that regard though, it was so overmoderated at times it wasn't even worth bothering with, so I'm not going to miss it a great deal.

Kabashima's blog actually gives props to Fukada for his work (sounds like he understood Fukada's stress). But he has less than spectacular words for Fukada's wife, Chiaki Morosawa (Script writer for GSD). It sounds like she's turned in work late on a few occasions and the well-known comment, she can't write. It also seems that they (animators) had to recut scenes at the last minute and that it really frustrated him (he's complaining about the production circumstances as oppose to the plot).

It about time someone noticed Fukuda isn't the devil who's personally responsible for every single woe the series has.

If anything, his directing stayed fairly solid, he just didn't have much to work with. Even some of the recap episodes were very well done as far as recaps go.

The production issues and the horrendous writing are just unforgivable though.

The solution is simple....Talk Tomino into doing the next series.

Ugh, no. Tomino is Gundam's past, not it's future.

Fortunately Tomino agrees.

Were the Doms at least destroyed?

No.

The entire old cast and their allies made it through almost COMPLETELY unscathed and just steamrollered over anybody in their path.

Freedom and Justice took absolutely no damage at all, Freedom didn't even so much as lose a funnel.

Their sides entire visable casualties were a whole two Murasame's that Lunamaria killed - right before Athrun takes 30 seconds to dismantle Impulse.

Of course on the other side of things, Destiny, Legend, Impulse, Minerva - they don't even make it to the second half of the episode.

So where's the other side to their arguement? Oh right, they're being shot at all the time and being told that what they say is nonsense.

It just so happens that what the 'other side' is saying IS complete and utter nonsense!

Speaking of Z, Amuro and Char's Counterattack, do you need to watch ZZ to understand Char's C? I'm more than halfway done with Z (great mecha designs  ), but after reading so much against ZZ I think I'll pass for now (I have C'sC in my hands already but not ZZ). Would I miss much of the Amuro/Char relation skipping ZZ?

No, ZZ has absolutely no links to CCA and is completely skippable - Char and Amuro make no appearances at all and the story does not lead into CCA at all. I'd also recommend skipping it simply because it's the worst Gundam tv series in existance.

About the only thing that happens in it is that it clears the Neo-Zeon deck for Char to make his (completely nonsensical and out of character) evil turn in CCA.

I don't think AA or the old cast has much to do with Shinn's development. In fact, they probably helped a little gear him toward the dark side.

The old cast had everything to do with his development because all the amount of time wasted on their garbage plot threads was time not spent developing the old cast, especially after the writers decided they wouldn't even bother spending what spare time they had left on the old cast and just made it into Gundam SEED: Kira and Lacus Are Always Right.

The sad thing about Shinn is that his character is that he became a puppet to the end. Shinn doesn't show any strong sign of resentment or agression toward his masters. Anytime he shows doubt, they ring him in. He never said no to any of them. I don't like how the writters kept that leash so short that you didn't need it at all.

Oh please. This is as bad a misuse of the word 'puppet' as the show itself makes.

'Puppet' implies he is under control, whereas Shinn has been convinced by Dullandil and Rey's arguements.

Convinced with quite solid logic I might add, unlike how Kira, Lacus and the old crew work entirely off baseless assumptions and outright paranoia (but surprise, they always happen to be right).

With Anakin, he came to the point where he had no choice save the one he loved or do the right thing. It was a no-win situation. With Shinn, it didn't work. There was a way-out. He just chose to listen to Rey only.

Anakin analogies

It's ridiculous to even to compare because there was no "no choice" situation with Anakin, his turning evil was laughable bullshit that didn't even remotely make sense. He's literally good one minute, evil the next.

More laughable than the suggestion that Shinn should have listened to Athrun's complete insanity as a 'way out'.

I actually prefer Shinn to Athrun or Kira. Guess I'm the only one.

Nope, you're not the only one. I've liked him from start to end, and it would be a massive understatement to say I prefer him to Kira and Athrun.

Ha ha, I like this, Athrun is Wonder woman, a guess we're going with a little snip snip action.  ha ha.

Not even really necessary since writers already cut off Athrun's manhood long ago when they shifted the focus of the show to Kira "Jesus" Yamato.

I think people who feel the crew of the Pegasus were all over the top bad are forgetting exactly what they situation is -

Since the Cylon attack, they've believed themselves to be the last living humans alive. Except unlike Galactica, they have no fleet, no 50,000 civilians, no mythical world to search for. Nothing to maintain their humanity.

They're just one battlestar, alone. With the number onboard a battlestar too few to repopulate the species, there was no hope at all for the rebuilding of the human race, so they had no purpose, nothing to live for but to inflict as much harm against the Cylons as they could before their race ended. Everything and everyone left in the universe was an adversary to them and a threat.

Great episode. The show somehow never fails to keep on outdoing itself week after week.

A let down compared to the original series Pegasus story? LOL. That's all that needs to be said on that.

Remember how Destiny jumped the shark a while back?

Well, episode 49 turned around and took another pass. Except this time it used an orbital booster and flew way over that shark and off into the land of ridiculous.

This show is so bad it hurts, but at least it's providing some cheap laughs.

Everything I've read suggests that Production IG is not interested in a 3rd series.

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Never say never...

9-22-05 (8:39AM EDT)---- 3rd Ghost In The Shell TV Series Forthcoming?

The prize ceremony for the 9th Kobe animation awards was hosted several months back and there Director Kenji Kamiyama took the stage to recieve the Individual Award for his work on Production I.G.'s Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series. Longtime cermonial emcee Kazuo Iwasaki of AM KOBE conducted the interview portion of the show and started off by mentioning the work had now been circulated around the world. He asked the director if he had something secret he wanted to share, at this point Mr. Kamiyama was slightly hesitant, saying "well... I'll tell you what..". After a couple of glances in the direction of Mr. Ishikawa of Production I.G. Kamiyama said "Think of... a sequel to 2ndGIG. " The audience which filled the hall erupted into "oooooo". Kamiyama followed up by saying he didnt know what shape it would yet take.

The Mech in the top row is the Testament Gundam

The mech in the top row is not the Testament, as you can see from the closer in picture of the unit.

Apart from having little in common with the Testament's frame, it is most obviously missing Testament's distinctive V-Fins.

I wished they just put snake to sleep. think it would be better if they give is a spin off name and have a new hero to play but having snake as your commander giving you orders he is old enough to atleast command by now.

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Welcome to growing up. In 15 years anime fans will be decrying the state of anime and wishing it was more like it was in the 'good old days' too.

Anime is saturated now, so unlike the past where you only experience mostly the top tier of anime was available now second, third and fourth rate anime is all being pushed at us, either through company releases or fansubs.

You can look at the 70s/80s and think they were just so much better than now because they had things like Mazinger, Getter Robo, Grendizer, Ideon, Gundam, Macross Gunbuster, etc..

But what about Gowapper 5 Godam, Magnerobo Ga-Keen, Uchuu Senshi Baldios, Saikyou Robo Daihoja, Ginga Senpuu Bryger, Ginga Reppuu Baxinger, Kousoku Denshin Albegas, Ginga Shippuu Sasuraiger, Psycho Armor Govarian, Tokusou Kihei Dorvack, Panzer World Galient, or Mashin Eiyuuden Watarubor?

Never heard of most of those? Guess why. That's just a handful from one genre, if you looked at everything from years back you'd end up with a huge list of completely terrible anime, just like you can now.

In years to come people are going to look at 'current anime' and they'll be remembering the Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex and Fullmetal Alchemist like shows, and the Erementar Gerad, Tsubasa Chronicle, Speed Grapher or whatever other forgettable crap you can think of will become just that - forgotten, just like all the dire trash that was made before 1995. Sturgeon's Law in action.

I mean, that's not to say things haven't changed. The day of cell art has died and digital animation has taken it's place (as a lover of old style anime this is tough to deal with at times). The OVA format is all but dead. Certain genres (eg, giant robots and mecha) have become stagnant, and anime on the whole is less 'experimental' because with the downturn of the anime market in more recent times things have gravitated towards formula and doing what has been successful. These are just natural progression.

Remember the battle between Max and Milia aboard the Macross, as Hikaru watches from the hospital room? Remember how you can see the Q Rau from all angles as it flies by, the perspective changing in every frame, the blast of her thrusters causing visible distortion, hundreds of chunks of building falling to the ground? Have you ever seen anything like that in anime in the past ten years?

Sure.

More than ten years ago, did you ever see something like the scene in Ghost in the Shell: Innocence when Batou and Togusa were flying to the Chinese city, the scope of the city shown, the exact detail in which the plane they were flying in was modeled down to the smallest detail such as the rotor and it's dozen individual wing flaps, the hundreds of birds flying around through the spirals of the city, each one of them unique? Ever see such haunting vision of a vast, lifeless future where technology has replaced the organic?

Sounds pretty amazing when you describe it dramatically, considering both our examples are probably a couple of minutes of animation at most.

Even better question: have you seen many things in recent times so completely awful as the Max and Milia knife duel? It goes both ways.

FMP is on break due to the US Open being shown in it's timeslot.

I don't who you guys have been listening too...

Fullmetal Alchemist and Standalone Complex both did well on Adult Swim. They stopped at the end of their first seasons and went on break, in part because neither series had been fully dubbed.

Both are back with new episodes in October and November respectively, and both in the prime timeslots.

Without spoiling it, how was the ending?  I'm going thru the series' manga and really enjoying it.

Pretty good. It provided closure for the series in a way that ended one story but opened the door for another to continue on (ie, the movie).

I haven't read the manga, but I have to wonder if FMA suffered from the usual "compression" of the later chapters when they translated it to anime. But overall I still have to give this show a 5 star rating. And its very rare that I rate a show that high.

The anime splits completely from the manga as of episode 25, and is a hell of a lot better than the manga is.

Can anybody tell me how many episodes there are in total?

51 episodes.

True.

But my point was that Basara got his VF-19 before Macross 7's elite combat pilots. And he got a CUSTOMIZED one on top of that.

I would think that Diamond Force's VF-17s would have been upgraded before they started customizing fighters for side projects with no real relevance(at least, not at the beginning of the series).

Or given Basara an older plane, like Mylene's VF-11 and Ray&Veffidas' VF-17(and they got theirs AFTER the project had proven itself of signifigant and immediate military value).

Macross 7 was operating under peace conditions until the conflict began, so Battle 7's fighter squadrons at the time of the Fire Valkyrie's creation didn't need to be upgraded on a priority basis.

Of course, giving Basara an older plane was the original idea, until it was dropped for various reasons.

Basara was to start in a VF-11, and after it's destruction halfway through the series be upgraded to the VF-19.

Singing skill had nothing to do with generating Anima Spiritia, nor did singing in general. It was purely passion based. If one person put enough genuine passion into something, then they too would be able to generate it. That was the whole point of Minmay's singing being innefectual against Kamujin & Laplamiz, because she

Macross 7 shows no evidence at all that Anima Spiritia is not heavily connected to singing.

The rest is just nothing but retroactively shoehorning Macross 7 themes back into Macross where they had no place. No thanks.

Hey, don't you love nepotism.  Orb in GSD shows why things are so damn wrong with these idiotic kingdoms and emirates.  Cagalli promotes her brother who has no formal military practice... ha ha, so funny.  I didn't even pay attention to that part of the show until today.  Sad.....

He's been the one giving the orders on Archangel since the beginning so he's not completely without command experience.

Not that the actions taken by the Archangel and the various disasters resulting from them speak too well of his actual command ability.

The analogy of M7 and Cop Rock seems stretched. Both had male singers and that's why they failed? That's Hollywood executive logic that always misses the real cause and effect.

The fallacy of the 'Cop Rock' analogy is quite simple, in that it's silly to try and equate Macross 7 with failure when it was anything but a failure.