Gundam Unicorn

[CaptHawkeye]

Who else has seen it? I haven't watched a new Gundam series in years and years, basically not since Wing and 08th MS. I had a real vague idea of what to expect from this series and fan reports of being set in Universal Century...meant absolutely nothing to me so....

Man this is for all those years I thought "no more good sci fi". I can't believe this show has been running since 2010 and I just had no idea. It's some choice science fiction, and should appeal to anyone interested in sci fi regardless of whether or not you're into anime or gundam or whatever. It's been so long since i've actually seen any real drama in sci fi that I was actually struck by how big some moments in the series could be. I didn't even need to know anything about UC.

The attention to detail is awesome, and the variety of suits, spaceships, etc should appeal to detail nuts and certainly the model building guys. It absolutely kills me though to see a sci fi series with an actual plot that doesn't boil down to "punch the bad guy" or "blow up the doom fortress".

Also Mineva for President. <3
Spoiler

Did anyone else think Riddhe's arc was in for a way more tragic ending? I was totally expecting some Evangelion-esque downer ending for him.

[Tandrax218]

hmm i had a look at this and then at the whole metaseries...
dear god what happened to the gundams

i remember looooooong time ago when i first watched gundam wing i thought that it was good. Today i think its the best one of the whole gundam franchise...
Ms 08 Team was also good. The rest , like unicron and the othersare to "magical roboty" for my taste, and they all lack the "massive robot of death" feel that the gundam wing had...

So i'm giving up on this whole gundam thing and i'm sticking to the ones i like, the rest is all sailor moon disguised as robots crap.

[OmegaChief]

Hah, Unicorn is indeed awesome, I need to check out episode 7 myself though, haven't seen it yet, I am curious as to just how many of the weapons the Full Armour Unicorn actually uses.

No mention of the soundtrack? That was one of my favourite parts, wonderful sweeping orchestral pieces and distinctive character themes, from the discordant anger of Banshee through to the amazing and slightly sad Unicorn and the "Marida blows everything up" Mobile Suit.

Speaking of Marida, how could you not mention her? It's a close tie between her and Mineva for my favourite character. I'd uh, offer to show off some of the models (Which are indeed fantastic) but my modelling skills kinda suck.

If you enjoyed it, and haven't seen much else in the franchise beyond the obvious you mentioned, it might be worth checking a couple out, I mean personal taste weighs heavily and like with Star Trek a franchise this big has good spots and bad spots, I'll consider making some recommendations if you want? Handily a lot of the shows have free legal streaming around the net too. I am greatly relived that the show was very enjoyable without knowing much about the UC timeline, I mean there's a heck of a lot of references, cameos and plot points based on what came before after all.

And of course that brings me to...

hmm i had a look at this and then at the whole metaseries...
dear god what happened to the gundams

i remember looooooong time ago when i first watched gundam wing i thought that it was good. Today i think its the best one of the whole gundam franchise...
Ms 08 Team was also good. The rest , like unicron and the othersare to "magical roboty" for my taste, and they all lack the "massive robot of death" feel that the gundam wing had...

So i'm giving up on this whole gundam thing and i'm sticking to the ones i like, the rest is all sailor moon disguised as robots crap.

I uh... are we... talking about the same franchise here? I mean obviously stuff like G Gundam is basically magical martial arts with robots, but I wouldn't really say everything else is magic robots, back that up with some examples mister!

[CaptHawkeye]

I already got started watching Stardust Memory and reading Gundam Origin. So I think i'm hooked up for now.

Speaking of Marida, how could you not mention her? It's a close tie between her and Mineva for my favourite character. I'd uh, offer to show off some of the models (Which are indeed fantastic) but my modelling skills kinda suck.

Man Unicorn got me so into Gundam again I went nuts and bought my first model, a Master Grade Tallgeese the other day.

You know the best thing about the characters is that their actions are actually reflective of what we learn about them. They're not informed attributes. The show implies and states things about the characters and the universe, and the action sequences evolve from those elements. Not like most movies these days which are essentially special effects sequences loosely tied together by something vaguely resembling a narrative.

And god I just don't know what to say to people who dismiss Unicorn because "magical roboty"....

[OmegaChief]

Excellent choices, both in terms of show and model, I have a Wing myself, really fun to build, and the newer models have a new universal joint set up across the range with gives them all a heck of a lot of flexibility too, newer ones that is.

It's really hard to follow up Unicorn though, it set the bar so high in so many places, but that kind of budget and time for each episode would do that I guess, and yes subtly it's a lost art these days, as is world building quite so intensively.

As for the magic robots... maybe it's the newtype stuff? I dunno, but that's no worse then Jedi from Star Wars or Psychic aliens in Trek to me, plus come on controlling remote beam gun platforms with your mind is a really cool ability.

[CaptHawkeye]

Unicorn has so much thematic parallel with Star Wars. Newtypes, lightsabers, struggle of nations, space battles, etc aren't even the half of it. They're actually all the superficial stuff. Banagher reminds me of Luke Skywalker in all the best ways, right down to his Spoiler

refusal to kill enemies defeated or not, and look for better alternatives to conflict than bloodshed.

You know I didn't understand how much Evangelion had rubbed off on me over the years. I just got totally used to giant robo being really dark and hopeless. So much so that I perceived at first if Unicorn didn't follow the same path it couldn't possibly be any good. I had to analyze my own attitudes and change them if I wanted to enjoy the series but you know for some people that's scary.

Look the way Newtypes and trans-humanism are worked into the plot it isn't just a window dressing in Unicorn, even if it was in MSG. It's central to the story.

[Vendetta]

I uh... are we... talking about the same franchise here? I mean obviously stuff like G Gundam is basically magical martial arts with robots, but I wouldn't really say everything else is magic robots, back that up with some examples mister!

Whilst I'm not sure about his point exactly, there is a shift in the position of the robits, Gundams in particular, in the fiction over time.

In early UC stuff, whilst the Gundam was the shiny hero robit, it and mobile suits in general were generally presented in the wider context of a combined arms military. It was good but it didn't do everything on its own. Whereas in Gundam 00 the Mobile Suits and Gundams in particular have far more prominence and they seem to be the military not just a part of it, and Celestial Being's four gundams appear to be able to solve almost any military problems by themselves.

I mean obviously this is because the franchise is driven by model kit sales, but it does mean that recent Gundam shows are more likely to have the feel of Super Robot shows than they are of the old UC stuff like 08th MS Team, War in the Pocket, or the original MS Gundam.

[CaptHawkeye]

I don't even see how any of that is relevant at all here. It's window dressing. The plot would me marginally affected if at all whether Unicorn featured god mecha or not, but who even wants to bother defining them?

You sure what you're interpreting as "super robot" isn't just in fact modern special effects and production values?

[Vendetta]

You sure what you're interpreting as "super robot" isn't just in fact modern special effects and production values?

No, not really.

It's more about how the hero's special snowflake robot affects the setting. In MS Gundam the Gundam itself isn't actually all that important. It's cool and special and better than Zeon robots, but it doesn't win the war by itself.

In Gundam 00 Celestial Being's (and Trinity's) handful of Gundams are all they need to basically humiliate any global military they choose at least in limited engagements, and allow them to singlehandedly tip the balance of power of the entire world.

The Gundam itself in MS Gundam was never that significant, even if it was the special hero robot.

[CaptHawkeye]

Well how else am I supposed to interpret "super robot feel"? It's completely subjective then and totally pointless to bring up.

Are you saying that protagonists are central to the drama in fantasy stories? NO WAY.

[Vendetta]

Are you saying that protagonists are central to the drama in fantasy stories? NO WAY.

No, I'm saying that the Gundam is central to the drama in modern Gundam shows, and in the older ones they were far less so.

Not the protagonist, but the robot he drives.

[Tandrax218]

Ahh i see that the "super sailor moon robots" struck a chord in some

So il try to explain my viewpoint and opinion.

So if we look at the gundam wing and 8th ms team, you have a robot that walks, is susceptible to damage and is fighting under combined arms tactics. The whole feel and impression is that it is a machine like others, although a bit "advanced" so it can handle more heat,but will not win the war solo. The characters that drive them are important, and the gundams are tools.

In newer gundam series you have gundams flying around like fairy's in space have "elf magic propulsion" and move in a martial arts sort of way in space, and one or 2 can win a war on their own. They are not the tools and machines they used to be , but "Characters" in their own right. The whole feel is that the whole franchise was toned for the young viewers and it lost that old school sci-fi feel of partial plausibility. when i look at the new gundams i see them more as fantasy and less as sci fi...

For me the old stuff has substance and the new stuff is just cheap "eye candy"

So i my opinion of sailor moon in space robots stays unchanged.....

[OmegaChief]

There is some traction to the argument that the newer series of Gundam do have more 'super robot' feel. Though this isn't exactly a new thing, I mean you keep bringing up Wing for example Tandrax, Wing is uh... well the robots are pretty super, being basically immune to damage at first, and after the round of upgrades they're once again invincible versus the new enemies, with the five of them perfectly capable of winning a war solo... yea.

As for 00, I always thought the fact that the Gundams were that much more powerful was the point of the story, they were ridiculously powerful and so forced the governments of the world to have to become more intertwined in order to develop some form of counter measures. That whole coping and the political ramifications of it was fairly fun, and by the end of it the proto-Federation even matches them in terms of ability.

Of course it goes a bit downhill in season 2, with Celestial Being apparently able to operate even better before despite the fact that their resources are supposed to be basically gone and their enemies not only have near tech-parity but much more of their own resources (Also it is basically 'lets do Zeta Gundam again').

The Unicorn itself is a bit of a plot device, but special ability vs Funnels aside it's not that much far beyond most suits in terms of performance, at least no more so then any other UC Gundam, with the main plot device function being the whole Map and Key element, one wonders if that wasn't an issue if Full Frontal would have just wiped Banager out in the first engagement.

[CaptHawkeye]

SDN cannot perceive fiction beyond labels and fluff. News at 11.

I haven't seen 00 Chief but i'm told it's pretty similar to Wing. Wing stands up well today I think because the message is still pretty relevant. That soldiers without a war to fight find it difficult or impossible to reintegrate with society and invariably seek out more fighting, perpetuating circles of violence. Frontal's entire character is basically about this too.

Because see he's Char...or is he? Even he's not entirely sure cuz ya know, Amuro is dead and he isn't. Or is he?

All he knows is that a hugely positive event he may or may not have been a part of didn't seem to solve anything. So he's defeated mentally, and seems convinced that Spoiler

restarting the One Year War is the only way to fix Zeon's problems.

.

[OmegaChief]

Never said Wing didn't stand up, I quite enjoy it myself (Enough to have that Wing model and everything), I'm just confused as to why Tandrax's reasons for not liking the later Gundam shows as 'Too magic roboty' when Wing is just as guilty, if not more so, then some of the shows that came after it is all.

As for 00, I quite enjoyed it, especially the first season, if you're a fan of Wing it might be worth adding to your list, I think it's even on the official Gundam Youtube channel for free at the moment.

Though my taste in Gundam shows is weird, SEED is my favourite show after all :V

[CaptHawkeye]

I haven't seen SEED and I don't know enough about it to comment. Some people really hate it, but when those reasons are things like "magic robots" I'm somehow not too worried. I'm sure i'll at least give SEED a shot someday but not right away. Here's to all those years I bitched their wasn't enough sci fi.

I think it's going to be tough for anything to follow up Unicorn. The production values, writing, and tone were in such harmony. Origin is supposed to get OVA'fied soon though which will be great. Origin is especially interesting to me so far, because Banagher and Amuro are both caught up in similar circumstances, but still remain distinct from eachother. Evolving down different paths. In particular how they both cope with the effects of war. I'm pretty sure Amuro was the "wakes up in cold sweats" and "sleeps with a gun under his pillow" type after the war.

[Skywalker_T-65]

SEED was my favorite until I discovered X, which considering the fact it was cut short, is very good.

I will say this thread is making me want to watch Unicorn though. Need to block out some time to do that at some point.

[CaptHawkeye]

I'd get on it. It's probably one of the most important things to happen to the franchise since Wing. It's one of those series that can get people into Gundam if they aren't already.

The important thing to remember is to keep an open mind with Gundam. All of the series can present tone, characterization, and plot in pretty varied ways. Unicorn is about the easiest of them, and can probably appeal to people who normally don't watch anime. It's important to me though that Unicorn isn't just a hook for Gundam, but a revitalization of how I saw sci fi period.