Alien mecha designs

[Zinegata]

regarding watching the series: As a newcomer to Gundam, is there a suggested series that one should begin watching? I was thinking of just starting from the beginning iwth Mobile Suit Gundam, but I'm not sure if the Chronology is linear or not. Or hell, even if it matters.

Each alternate universe has a generally linear chronology if you spend a little effort looking at the dates.

As for recommendations... The problem with the original Mobile Suit Gundam series is that the animation is a very dated along with the writing. It will have a campy "original Star Trek" feel. Stark's suggestion of focusing on the movies is a good one if you really wanna see the originals.

If you really want to watch a military-themed show in the Universal Century (main continuity), the 08th MS Team would be my first pick. Pretty good animation, okay story, and touches on one of the main technical themes of the series (Gundams are just machines, not mystical super robots. If you rush them into combat, they will get their ass kicked ).

But if you're going to watch a full series, I'd say that Gundam SEED (which is a seperate continuity from UC) is the best, especially as there's already a good english dub version. The technical justifications aren't as well developed as UC, but it's still fairly consistent. There's even one episode (a clip show) that they cleverly turned into "Mobile Suit Development: The Documentary".

[Zinegata]

Which is the newer version of the Odessa battle

This is your problem right here. It seems like, starting from your position of assumed knowledge from 15 years ago, you think things have 'changed' when there is not necessarily conflict in the sources.

The old animation showed only tanks and aircraft on the Federation side in Odessa, and the manuals claim under 30 Mobile Suits participated on the EF side as opposed to thousands of tanks.

The new one has lots of Mobile Suits on the Federation side.

This is not canon "changing"? Don't be ridiculous Stark. Again: You're still too focused on sniping and going "Zine is wrong! I am more awesome!" with your accusations. Gundam canon has changed a lot over the years.

Moreover, I have said multiple times that I am fine with new stuff. I even said the new Minovsky definition wasn't bad and it fixed some issues we had with the old definition in the 90s. But you're still playing fucking "I'm a better fanboy than the old fogey" sniping games.

Just because I say "Oh, they changed it" doesn't mean I said "They changed it now it sucks." Stop pretending the former is synonymous with the latter. I actually said the opposite: The new addition in the M-particle definition made sense.

====

Moreover:

The EFF fought from France to Ukraine. I'm going out on a limb and imagining they won plenty of battles

The screen didn't show explicit battles. It showed a situation map where the Zeek area of control was receding way ahead of the Federation advance (not the case in the Odessa graphic at 1:10). This is still consistent with the old story, which is that Odessa was the big set-piece.

So your statement isn't supported even by the "new" stuff or the old stuff. It is really out on a limb.

If you're not contesting that anymore, then stop wasting time.

[jollyreaper]

Was Wing as horrid subbed as it was on American tv? The yaoi fan girls were thick as flies on shit with that series.

[Zinegata]

Was Wing as horrid subbed as it was on American tv? The yaoi fan girls were thick as flies on shit with that series.

Dub quality really depends from person to person, but I'd say Wing, Seed, 00 were decent. But the dubs of the old series (i.e. Mobile Suit Gundam) were... not so great.

[Stark]

Seed's dub is so bad it is - by itself - an amusing youtube video. I'm not sure there's any reason to damage the drama with poor VA unless you're really allergic to subtitles.

That said, I actually prefer the dub for Patlabor 2 to the Japanese, because the lack of lip-flap matching means the VA can actually act instead of speaking with broken meter and emphasis.

[Zinegata]

White Base is a mobile platform and even if it's deep behind enemy lines it should have periodic known stops where it can communicate to HQ and vice versa. This has been a standard practise I think from WWII onwards at least. If you absolutely HAVE to go looking for it, you don't send one guy. You send several as one guy can get killed / incapacitated by a simple accident or similar mishap even if the enemy does nothing.

Looking at the script of the episode again, it seems that the Federation did have a scheduled stop for the White Base, so again it's not as crazy as it may have seemed.

Yeah but this, as I said is not WWI. I don't NEED to run the line over to the troops in the front. I can move the message by foot, motorcycle, truck, car, apc or by air if I want to.

...

What you don't seem to grasp is the fact that even without radio communication, motorized transport allows for rapid movement of troops and information thus making any sort of WWI style scenario unlikely.

Say you need to send a message between a CP and the frontline. Distance between the two is say 30km. Send a messenger with a truck who goes at 60 kph. You can get the message sent in 30 minutes, and get a reply in 30 minutes. Total time for a "conversation"? 1 hour.

And that is assuming your truck makes it.

Compare that to a radio transmission that is almost instantaneous.

[Zinegata]

Seed's dub is so bad it is - by itself - an amusing youtube video. I'm not sure there's any reason to damage the drama with poor VA unless you're really allergic to subtitles.

Pfft. It's not that bad (no worse than the Zoids CN subs). Although the subs are quite excellent; they did their homework and even had nice "footnotes" to explain terminology.

[Connor MacLeod]

Thanks for the advice and suggestions everyone. Animation quality isn't really a deal breaker for me whether its CGI or whatever (I've put up with watching some shitty american CGI before, and I also grew up watching cartoons from the 70s and 80s... almost anything is bound to look better than that!) and the obvious attention to detail/internal consistency of the universes in Gundam (I think I read it called 'Real Robot' genre, if there are actual classifications for this and this isn't just fans trying to draw artificial distinctions) which is always a good way to keep/hold my interest, so I expect even with the longer series I'd be drawn in to watch (And decide whether I like it or not). I'm also not bothered by 'war sucks' themes, because frankly war does suck, and there's also something fascinating about the whole human attraction to violence yet repelled by the consequences or reality of that war. Its thought provoking for me, at least.

I'll probably start with Igloo though, since that has stuff like the Hidolfr and I just want to see how that works out

And I will almost certainly be avoiding dubs. I used to be able to tolerate them, but in my old age I just wince at some of the voices and what they say and how they say it. The subtitles tend to be much better (usually.)

[Stark]

Pfft. It's not that bad (no worse than the Zoids CN subs). Although the subs are quite excellent; they did their homework and even had nice "footnotes" to explain terminology.

I'm not singling it out or anything. Only things like Unicorn are extra-special bad for combining bad translation with sleeping actors to destroy great drama. SEED just makes otherwise dramatic or interesting scenes unintentionally funny.

Connor, Igloo is funny as hell because the three sets of eps are very different in animation quality; the first set (beginning with the Serpent that Died at Loum or however you translate it) is really bad, but the Gravity Front stuff is quality. Just look up the cultural concept of the death herald (Ford knows what they're called) in Japan before watching Gravity Front or much of it will make zero sense.

[Ford Prefect]

I think I read it called 'Real Robot' genre, if there are actual classifications for this and this isn't just fans trying to draw artificial distinctions

The real robot/super robot distinction is mostly useful because it forces people to say 'robot' instead of 'mecha' :v

The classification of a robot show as real or super can often seem arbitrary. Like people will draw a distinction between Mazinger Z and Mobile Suit Gundam, but those shows are more similar than you might imagine. Gasaraki is often considered a real robot show because of its intense attention to detail, but the robots in that are literally made out of demons; comparatively Getter Robo Go is considered super robot even though the Getter in that is purely mechanical. Basically, it largely comes down whether or not the show is ostensibly a military drama (or police drama) or whether it is a superhero adventure ... and even that's not necessarily true.

Attention to detail and internal consistency can be present in either real or super robot shows (and either can lack those things). Dai-Guard is a good example of a four colour hero robot show which has 'but as it would be in the real world' as its gimmick. It's not a distinction I feel the need to make any more, much as I don't really feel the need to make distinctions between hard and soft SF. There are better, more granular ways to discuss robot sub-genres.

Just look up the cultural concept of the death herald (Ford knows what they're called) in Japan before watching Gravity Front or much of it will make zero sense.

You're thinking of 'shinigami'.

[Zinegata]

Thanks for the advice and suggestions everyone. Animation quality isn't really a deal breaker for me whether its CGI or whatever (I've put up with watching some shitty american CGI before, and I also grew up watching cartoons from the 70s and 80s... almost anything is bound to look better than that!) and the obvious attention to detail/internal consistency of the universes in Gundam (I think I read it called 'Real Robot' genre, if there are actual classifications for this and this isn't just fans trying to draw artificial distinctions) which is always a good way to keep/hold my interest, so I expect even with the longer series I'd be drawn in to watch (And decide whether I like it or not). I'm also not bothered by 'war sucks' themes, because frankly war does suck, and there's also something fascinating about the whole human attraction to violence yet repelled by the consequences or reality of that war. Its thought provoking for me, at least.

I'll probably start with Igloo though, since that has stuff like the Hidolfr and I just want to see how that works out

The major issue with IGLOO really is that the plot is very lacking; it was really designed to be an "Ooooh, cool mecha!" show more than anything else and it's a bit light on the detail / internal consistency portion. Older fans grumble that IGLOO is a "Toy commercial masequerading as a mecha show" at its worst (Gundam's revenues derive mainly from selling its model kit lines, which look a lot like Dragon / Trumpeter kits), but I personally like the eye candy.

I would also caution you about the themes of some of the later shows, which tend to turn Westerners off. Traditionally, Gundam used to be consistently "war sucks for everyone", which is fine. But there have also been other shows which tend to glorify people who are essentially Space Nazis ("It's okay to murder five billion innocent people in the name of Independence!"), to the point that the author of Gundam Unicorn has been sometimes been described as an ultranationalist who denies Japanese WW2 war crimes (because of other non-Gundam stories he writes). And there are also just plain bad series like Gundam SEED Destiny where the head writer was married to the director and couldn't be fired no matter how badly she messed up the story.

Ultimately, there is merit to Stark's earlier comment that you should treat each show as a self-contained piece of entertainment but sharing a common universe. Most don't have the same production / writing staff.

Also, yeah, there are folks who classify stuff between "Real Robot" and "Super Robot" genres, but the general distinction is that "Super Robots" tend to focus on one all-powerful mecha with almost mystical properties, and the opponent is generally some kind of "Monster of the Week". Whereas the "Real Robots" tend to treat mecha as strictly tools that are part of a system (military or otherwise), and the enemy is some kind of actual military / government force that also treats its mechs as tools. Ford notes how the two genres actually blend pretty often.

[Gunhead]

Looking at the script of the episode again, it seems that the Federation did have a scheduled stop for the White Base, so again it's not as crazy as it may have seemed.

Sending just one guy is inherently silly, but I'm putting this under the law of drama. In reality you'd back up your first guy by sending the same message to the next scheduled stop point just in case they skip over the stop they should do next providing the message doesn't become a non issue leaving you just the one chance of getting it right. In which case they'd send several guys to that single point where the intercept must happen. But yes, if they did have scheduled communication stops, it makes it a lot less crazy.

Say you need to send a message between a CP and the frontline. Distance between the two is say 30km. Send a messenger with a truck who goes at 60 kph. You can get the message sent in 30 minutes, and get a reply in 30 minutes. Total time for a "conversation"? 1 hour.

And that is assuming your truck makes it.

Compare that to a radio transmission that is almost instantaneous.

30km is about brigade / Divisional frontage in WWII, which is most likely what we'd be looking at here. So what you're suggesting is a scenario that would never really happen. There's no need for a platoon commander to talk to say brigade HQ. And you don't seem to understand that in this "no radio" scenario, enemy can really use indirect fire against your forward positions but cannot really affect your rear areas reliably. This would leave maybe some enemy infiltration / guerrilla units that might by happenstance intercept the message, but this again is very unlikely since they'd have to operate in highly patrolled area and would avoid causing a ruckus since their primary objective would most likely be gathering intel. This said, once the truck gets out of the company HQ area it's pretty much free and clear. Now if for some odd reason they have to get a message directly to brigade HQ from the company HQ, getting it there and back in one hour is pretty acceptable. Most likely the truck would only need to get to battalion HQ and that would be sitting pretty maybe 2-3km from the front and they are far enough from the front to be able to maintain cable connections to higher echelons, which probably would be closer than 30km from the front. Sure, radio is by comparison almost instantaneous, but this is pretty much a moot point as both sides are equally hampered.

-Gunhead

[Stark]

The major issue with IGLOO really is that the plot is very lacking; it was really designed to be an "Ooooh, cool mecha!" show more than anything else and it's a bit light on the detail / internal consistency portion. Older fans grumble that IGLOO is a "Toy commercial masequerading as a mecha show" at its worst (Gundam's revenues derive mainly from selling its model kit lines, which look a lot like Dragon / Trumpeter kits), but I personally like the eye candy.

By contrast, I see the series as a powerful look at traditional Gundam themes, like the nature of loyalty and honour, the evil inherent in authority, and the triumph of the individual and individual dreams. It has a great funeral atmosphere, conjured by both the known and unavoidable outcome and the constant personal tragedies the series consists of, my favourite being the Captain's encounter with the spectre of his friend's experimental transport and his thoughts on duty.

And if there was an MG Zudah I'd buy it right now, because it's awesome. Its also, in itself, a symbol of Zeon and the Zeon military itself, flown by someone interested in their own prestige and power and plagued by pushing too far, its ultimately redeemed by an act that serves the people, rather than the authority, of Zeon.

[Zinegata]

Sure, radio is by comparison almost instantaneous, but this is pretty much a moot point as both sides are equally hampered.

-Gunhead

Except Zeon isn't as hampered. Because again instead of having to coordinate 50 individual tanks in a tank battalion, you coordinate just four Zaku II pilots who have the equivalent firepower. Plus they're much more able to use laser comms because the Mobile Suits tower over the terrain and are able to maintain LOS contact with each other, turning what should have been a disadvantage into an advantage.

[Ford Prefect]

But there have also been other shows which tend to glorify people who are essentially Space Nazis ("It's okay to murder five billion innocent people in the name of Independence!")

This has become a cliche amongst some fans of Gundam but it isn't true. Inevitably it's just a result of people failing to pick up more complex storytelling. Western fans are just totally married to the 'Space Nazi' thing and can't get past it. If I had a dollar for every person who had misinterpreted Stardust Memory I would have eight bazillion dollars.

[Stark]

I've never watched any Gundam shows and ended up thinking either side was right. Stardust Memory is pretty explicit that both authoritarianism and fanaticism are destructive forces, and goes even further and says people who believe in nothing only enable these terrible crimes. Hell, many shows literally invent a third faction just to have sympathetic guys on screen!

[Gunhead]

Except Zeon isn't as hampered. Because again instead of having to coordinate 50 individual tanks in a tank battalion, you coordinate just four Zaku II pilots who have the equivalent firepower. Plus they're much more able to use laser comms because the Mobile Suits tower over the terrain and are able to maintain LOS contact with each other, turning what should have been a disadvantage into an advantage.

The height advantage is basically a non issue as they still lose LOS if they move too much apart. With ranges typical to mechanized combat, intervening terrain will break LOS very quickly unless you're on a totally flat surface. Not to mention they just don't have the numbers to do that. The LOS advantage also comes with a height disadvantage which in a setting where spotting is based very much on visual clues is a bad trade off as the LOS advantage was small to begin with. With just 4 vehicles, they really lack the ability to out and find stuff since they don't have enough eyes in the group that can go out and find stuff. A battalion of tanks would have a full recon company just to seek the enemy and keep eyes on it. Coordinating 50 tanks is not that much harder than coordinating 4 Zakus, but the analogy is bit flawed as is. You don't need to really coordinate the 4 Zakus since they need to stick together for mutual protection anyway. I could easily break the 50 tanks into 4 groups and have them converge on a single point just by pointing on a map and say "plot a route there and go". Each tank has a full crew that can think for themselves. Normally they'd just follow the lead tank and it would do the navigating, but if they get lost they can just navigate themselves. In combat, things get a bit trickier but a single Zaku can only engage limited number of targets at any given time while all tanks can shoot back and even if they're forced to fight under their own iniative, they naturally concentrate their fire as it seems there is really a limited number of Zakus in a typical engagement. So when you say "equivalent" firepower, it comes off as a hyperbole and in reality comparing firepower is a lot trickier than that.

-Gunhead

[Zinegata]

But there have also been other shows which tend to glorify people who are essentially Space Nazis ("It's okay to murder five billion innocent people in the name of Independence!")

This has become a cliche amongst some fans of Gundam but it isn't true. Inevitably it's just a result of people failing to pick up more complex storytelling. Western fans are just totally married to the 'Space Nazi' thing and can't get past it. If I had a dollar for every person who had misinterpreted Stardust Memory I would have eight bazillion dollars.

It isn't just Stardust memory (although it's often the prime example given how nobody ever bothers to point out that Gato and Delaz were fighting in the name of Giren, who's a sicko as bad as Hitler). And yes there's certainly the failure to pick up complex story-telling - 0080 started the whole Zeon = Space Nazis in a big way, but it was well done.

The problem however is this: Gundam has been sliding more and more towards the ultra-nationalist "Japan Imperialism GOOD!" camp for a long time.

0080 made Zeon Space Nazis but the storytelling was good, portraying the issue from both sides. 0083 made them Nazis and forgot to do the same sort of soul-searching of 0080. Then we had SEED and Destiny, which were the director's commentaries against Western Imperialism and having ORB as a Japan expy always saving the day.

Then finally, we have the climax in Unicorn where the author's previous and most famous work involved the United States nuking Japan in World War 2 because they wanted to steal some super-secret technology that Japan was developing to bring about world peace (as opposed to say, nuking Japan because Japan started the war, killed a lot of people, and refused to surrender in the face of defeat?). And if you think about it, the whole point of Unicorn is really to say "Zeon was right all along to gas 5 billion people!" thanks to some super secret document written in UC 00.

I haven't seen AGE though and only a little of 00, so I'm not sure if they've attempted to drag the series off the precipice.

[Ford Prefect]

And now I have eight bazillion and one dollars.

e: I cannot even begin to imagine how someone looks at Unicorn Gundam, a show which presents the Zekes as pointlessly consumed by vengeance, and decides that it's actually code for uyoku dantai Imperialist propaganda.

[Connor MacLeod]

The major issue with IGLOO really is that the plot is very lacking; it was really designed to be an "Ooooh, cool mecha!" show more than anything else and it's a bit light on the detail / internal consistency portion. Older fans grumble that IGLOO is a "Toy commercial masequerading as a mecha show" at its worst (Gundam's revenues derive mainly from selling its model kit lines, which look a lot like Dragon / Trumpeter kits), but I personally like the eye candy.

Given some of my tastes in sci fi or fantasy, I doubt something as trivial as 'jno plot' and 'might be toy commercial masquerading as sci fi' is going to affect me much (I read the honorverse still, after all...). And besides, being a vehicle for selling shit does not mean it can't be well written or enjoyable, so I'm willing to give it a shot

I would also caution you about the themes of some of the later shows, which tend to turn Westerners off. Traditionally, Gundam used to be consistently "war sucks for everyone", which is fine. But there have also been other shows which tend to glorify people who are essentially Space Nazis ("It's okay to murder five billion innocent people in the name of Independence!"), to the point that the author of Gundam Unicorn has been sometimes been described as an ultranationalist who denies Japanese WW2 war crimes (because of other non-Gundam stories he writes). And there are also just plain bad series like Gundam SEED Destiny where the head writer was married to the director and couldn't be fired no matter how badly she messed up the story.

A big reason I've decided to watch Gundam is precisely to test myself though. I'm going to see if I really dislike it as much as I always used to think I would, or if its something I can come to appreciate, even if just in parts (it certainly doesn't have to be 'all like' or 'all hate' after all.) Hell I could very well end up liking parts of it and hating others.

And again, having read through a number of baen novels, I really can't see how it can be any worse. Unless there's a japanese version of Tom Kratman running around the Gundam universe, or something.

Ultimately, there is merit to Stark's earlier comment that you should treat each show as a self-contained piece of entertainment but sharing a common universe. Most don't have the same production / writing staff.

That's probably how I'm going to have to look at it. I can already tell I'll probably like at least some of the detail stuff and intenral consistency. I'm very technical minded, and there's alot there to find 'neat' or 'cool' or 'impressive' in that vein. Heck those "Voiture Lumiere" things I read about sounded pretty neat idea wise I thought.

And if there is more that I find to appreciate, well.. then so much the better.

Also, yeah, there are folks who classify stuff between "Real Robot" and "Super Robot" genres, but the general distinction is that "Super Robots" tend to focus on one all-powerful mecha with almost mystical properties, and the opponent is generally some kind of "Monster of the Week". Whereas the "Real Robots" tend to treat mecha as strictly tools that are part of a system (military or otherwise), and the enemy is some kind of actual military / government force that also treats its mechs as tools. Ford notes how the two genres actually blend pretty often.

The main reason I've asked is because I've been using the term 'mech' as much as I can to the debate, but historically I've never actually given much thought to the actual terminology. I'm actually not sure I'm in favor of very strict or precise definitions - I've never been too fond of the 'hard/soft' distinctions made in sci fi for example - it just feels so limiting and artificial.

So does this mean I should start calling them robots too?

[Connor MacLeod]

Also, Gundam has that mix of 'hard/soft' sci fi elements that for me currently is so fascinating. You get stuff like robots, magic forcefields, and the like along with 'harder' sci fi concepts (like space habitats), and I'm guessing it blends them together quite well. Which actually is another question: do any of the Gundam series do anything with FTL or such? Or does it take place in the solar system for the most part?

Anyhow, that approach is kinda cool in my mind - like the sci fi equivalent of a Reeses

[Stark]

Only scifi for babies has FTL.

I think you'll be pretty surprised by these kind of shows; I was a pretty SDN orthodox robit-hater in the day and the strength of the drama and treatment of themes turned me around pretty quick. It helps that almost everything I'd heard about Gundam from 'fans' was totally wrong - being largely as innacurate as the sort of thing ST fans used to say about DS9 and B5 fans say to this day.

[Ford Prefect]

So does this mean I should start calling them robots too?

Absolutely!

Which actually is another question: do any of the Gundam series do anything with FTL or such? Or does it take place in the solar system for the most part?

Gundam has flirted with FTL before. Otomo Katsushiro directed a 5 minute short for an anniversary project (Journey to the Rise), the Gundam 00 film features some FTL travel as part of the climax, and the almighty Turn A Gundam is capable of interstellar teleportation. An absolutely tiny amount of material relative to the whole of the franchise, in any case. It's rare that an actual show goes beyond the Earth Sphere (Gundam AGE had a few episodes set in the Mars Sphere; there are manga for various timelines set on Mars or around Jupiter though).

[Connor MacLeod]

Only scifi for babies has FTL.

Hand me my bottle.

I think you'll be pretty surprised by these kind of shows; I was a pretty SDN orthodox robit-hater in the day and the strength of the drama and treatment of themes turned me around pretty quick. It helps that almost everything I'd heard about Gundam from 'fans' was totally wrong - being largely as innacurate as the sort of thing ST fans used to say about DS9 and B5 fans say to this day.

It's easy to fall into certain patterns of thinking and believe those are the 'best' way to do things depending on your exposure, especially on SDN. I know I always thought the 'Saxton' way of analyzing stuff was the most logical/sensible way sci fi in general should be analyzed, and yet in reflection thats a horribly limiting fact. (nevermind anything 'thematic.') Maybe it's just the nature of fandoms (or particular fandoms) to break up into little tribes like that and never cross boundaries. Back then it seemed natural but nowadays it seems too narrow a perspective. Same can be said about certian 'attitudes' towards Trekkies back then and how they've changed in recent years (turns out if you verbally beat on people long enough, they start disliking you. Who knew?)

While I doubt I'll ever become one of the truly 'thematic' types rather than a 'technical' type, themes and characters and all that are still very important to stories. Plus, the only way to be sure I'm not becoming dogmatic in my views is to see how far I'm willing to test them and step outside my own 'comfort zones'. I am a bit curious to see how I do picking up on ideas/themes in Gundam - how much I pick up on vs how much I miss, etc.

[Stark]

I mean like how guys said 'SHADOW EXPLODE PLANITS' and 'DEFIANT SO INVINCIBLE' because of enthusiasm or misguided information. Similarly, lots of gundam fans who consider themselves informed just create inaccurate expectations which often just drive people away.