....Sunday at 7:30pm?

I get your point that it might not be an ideal time slot for IBO, but it certainly isn't comparable to the kind of anime they put out Sunday mornings.

SIIICK

Anyway I started Zeta, and I hate Jared.

"BLEGH KAMILLE YOU KILLED MY ALMOST GIRLFRIEND! SO I DIDN'T GET LAID LAST NIGHT!"

Dude, you have ZERO right to complain. Your moral high ground is nonexistent.

Someone please tell me he dies horribly.

In fairness Jared killing Kamile's mom was an accident even if he was a dick about it.

If by horribly you mean "Kamile basically swats him away like a bug" then yeah.

Is there actually evidence of IBO getting bad ratings?

I feel that I should point out to everyone that Japan's standards of what's appropriate for children are FAR different than what it is in the US.

Even Super Sentai/Kamen Rider has moments that makes you think if it's really age appropriate for children.

Yeah even anime release here in the US like Voltron, DBZ, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh and several others had go through major edits to be approve for a TV-Y7 or TV-G rating.

Wait it's Sunday at 7:30 pm? Crap I thought it was Saturday at 7:30 am sorry got confused there

Good point, id fprgotten that at the time, but I guess it's more just a feeling that IBO is more intense and graphic then the average gundam series but again I haven't seen much of gundam so I could be wrong
Edit: actually thinking about it more IBO is no more intense then the average gundam series (sans exceptions like thunderbolts or build fighters) so im just being kind of dumb

Intense? Perhaps. Graphic? Not really. It shows a lot of blood, but the most graphic thing I ever saw was when Barbatos crushed that one Graze Ritter's cockpit with it's foot.

What was your first Gundam show? I knew about Gundam before Wing air on Toonami since I grew up going to Japanese collector shops and comic book shops that had anime merchandise in the 90's. In 1999, I saw half of a episode of Turn A Gundam fan subbed at local comic book shop. However like most people around my age, Gundam Wing was the first Gundam show that I truly watched.

I'm a casual Gundam fan, so I grew up with Wing, G, the original TV show, SD Gundam Force, War in the Pocket, Seed and 00 on American TV (I also saw Seed Destiny when it came out too). I also did watch Zeta Gundam on a fan subbed VHS tapes in 2002, making it the first Gundam show I saw in Japanese from start to finish.

I heard it from a guy on a another website that got his info from 4chan apparently they've also been checking Toonami's ratings too which is where IBO's bleeding viewers was revealed.

EDIT: and looking at Toonami's ratings for two weeks of November myself IBO's ratings do drop:

https://www.toonamisquad.com/toonami...s-nov-12-2016/

https://www.toonamisquad.com/toonami...s-nov-19-2016/

The SEED films.

Like a lot of people, Wing for me as well. I had limited Knowledge of G Gundam as the show and toys barely existed where I lived, I liked the SD toys but found the show odd and not my thing. I had only the vaguest knowledge of SEED and then dropped out of it completely until about a year and a half/two years ago.

Well, the Toonami ratings aren't really what's important. I was talking actual Japanese ratings.

Well the info apparently comes from 4chan so take it as you will.

EDIT: I found this from Reddit it goes into details though it is almost a year old:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Gundam/comm..._good/d0a30er/

I rented Gundam Wing from my local library since it was the one they had immediately available. It was okay. I posted my reactions in either this thread or the anime thread around September 2013 giving my thoughts on it.

Well that's a shame. I think the one theory that following Build Fighters which was very kid-friendly and flashy and filled with excessive mobile suits and action scenes with a far slower, headier show that puts story before action and MS fights is what's turning away younger viewers.

I mean, it's no secret that quality and popularity are often opposites (just look at the top grossing box office movies... then consider suicide) but it's sad that such a cynical, transparent show like Build Fighters does better ratings wise than, well, something good.

...How is Build Fighters cynical?

Because it's literally a toy commercial. Like, the Mobile Suits are all actual toys in-universe, that people buy. It's amongst the likes of Beyblade, YuGiOh, etc where the product is actually product in the show.

The movie trilogy. I bought those horrible dubbed VHS tapes in Dec of 99 and thought the product was pretty enjoyable. I then rented 0080 from Video Factory (who was just turning into Block Buster as they had been bought out). Then Gundam Wing aired.

...The entire franchise is literally a toy commercial Build Fighters knows it and runs and has fun with it instead of being an overly-pretentious anti-war screed like 90% of Gundam.

Heck Seed and Age were the most merchandise shrilling series of the franchise if you ask me.

That's cynical? I dunno, I never really felt like Build Fighters was purely shill though. The show itself I think is probably far more memorable for its interesting use of tournament tropes for the plot than the custom MSes it spawns.

Except the anti-war series are far superior because they tell a story and are a social commentary on the world we live in at the time those series came out. 00 is totally making a joke out of the politics from 9/11 (and justly so) while IBO is showing us how horrible it is when corporations control everything.

It's called giving a shit, and making the most of what you got. Of course all of Gundam exists to kock model kits, but at least other series attempt to also tell a story along the way.

I see this excuse brought up all too often, as if it's infallible, this idea that being completely unashamedly self-aware somehow makes for a better story than, like, actually trying to tell a story. So what if Build Fighters "knows what it is?" All Gundam series know what they are, but they don't give up and go for the easiest, lowest-common-demoninator take on product shilling there is. It's, in my view, lazy "storytelling."

G Gundam to me was a far superior attempt at self-ridicule whilst also having a heart. It knew it was silly, and the more absurd, abtract Gundam designs directly poke fun at the need to shill model kits, no matter how ludicrous, in Gundam. But it did so with an earnest love for its wacky little universe. It wasn't literally the toys fighting each other.

It's like if in Pokemon, the Pokemon weren't real, they were just YuGiOh-style projections in a card game in the show. Or if the Transformers weren't alien robots, they were actual toys that came to life like Toy Story.

Build Fighters' oh-so-commendable self-awareness about being a toy shill is undercut by the fact that it is still a relentless, cynical toy shill.

On top of, you know, having stories with actual conflict and stakes. There's no stakes in Build Fighters because it's just a game about toys. You don't have to have constant fighting or death to have stakes or conflict, but real people with real problems are generally far more relatable than children playing with toys.

Making Gudnam a toyline in its own universe makes it mundane. It's a very cynical, thoughtless way to create a story with audience surrogates for the kids.

Apparently you can't have stakes in a show without death. What? Losing is still a possibility and there's stakes in that.

Except Build Fighters did have a story you might not like it but it did have one.

Build Fighters' story was about a kid learning to have confidence in himself and make his dreams come true Reiji and Sei both talk about this in the last episode.

Build Fighters was also a giant love letter to the Gunpla community showing the creativity and joy that comes from Gunpla building which is why so many enjoyed it.

Frankly I think it's sad that that makes it "cynical" to you.

So Sei's confidence issues,Mao's desperation to beat a rival,Nils' learning to loosen up and enjoy himself more and Yuki's using Gunpla to escape from others' expectations of him aren't relatable?

Build Fighters did have stakes the pride in winning with the model you built with your own hand or losing and having it destroyed. They aren't world changing or life&death but wholly relatable to anyone who's played a sport or game competitively.

I'd rather have a fun show that's a love letter to the fandom like Build Fighters or Gunpla Builders over patronizing anti war dreck like SEED,AGE,Wing or Tomino at his worst any day.

I didn't say that, I actually said the exact opposite as a pre-emptive measure because I knew it'd be the first thing someone would try to refute when they flipped into defense mode. But losing in a fictional, even within the universe, fight between toys is trivial and mundane as far as stakes go. It's childish, literally.

It's a very token story though.

You could've done that without the silly setting of fictional Gunpla battles, though. Rather than be those concepts in earnest, it's put against a backdrop that by its nature removes tension because it's a game for kids. You could apply all those character traits to actual pilots in other Gundam universes and it'd be even more engaging.

I'm sure it would like you to think that. As a Gundam fan who's gradually but surely expanding his knowledge of the Gundam franchise, I know now that unlike other toy selling properties, Gundam's roots don't lie in toys. It lies in drama, and story, and the toys were actually a vehicle for the show to tell its tale, not the other way around as I once suspected. You'd think a show that was trying to homage and be a massive love-letter to it's fans and community wouldn't trivialize itself and within it's own story and put the toys ahead of the plot and history of the brand. Oh cool, a black Turn-A showed up for a second. Whoopie. How about homaging and paying respects to Turn-A's charatcers, or it's dark history plot? Why not homage its deep history and character-focused dramas by making its own deep history and character-focused story?

Oh, no, I guess seeing Ramba Ral show up as a funny old man with a plastic toy of his Mobile Suit is neat, I guess. Oh look, they referenced the Dom he never got. Huh. (And I actually really want the Dom R35, too)

No, because those are all problems born about by the characters, rather than real problems. They're non-quantifiable, token strifes that, like I said, lose what little weight they could have because of the silly backdrop.

You say that like competative sports are themselves at all compelling fictionally as well.

See, G Gundam also had a tournament setup, but that was actual fighting by actual fighters with real stakes because the fights were real. Even though they were mostly non-lethal due to the rules, the conflict was real within the universe. Plus, because it was real conflict, higher stakes and greater threats were still possible without changing the setting.

In Build Fighters the conflict is fake. Literally, it's a game in a computer. It's the same reason stories about kids playing video games are boring because it's not real. I'm honestly surprised I have to describe the difference between pretend fighting with toys and real fighting with weapons, and why one is more intense than the other.

EDIT: And let me just clarify, and bring this back to my original point and why I brought up BF to begin with. I don't like BF personally of course, but I don't hate it. My initial point of contention was because it's such a unremarkable, standard kid toy vehicle show, is out-performing more quality, story and character-driven shows that have real nuance and more mature themes. And when I say mature, I don't just mean violence. Turn-A is one of my favourite Gundam shows and has little real violence in it. Ditto G Gundam. I also certainly don't think it's the worst Gundam show, as AGE and SEED which were both brought up are easily worse.

But it's easily one of the safest Gundam shows. It's not terribly violent, heady, or ambitious. It lacks identity as a result, and just feels so typical of anime, especially children's anime. You look at other Gundam series like IBO or even OVAs like Thunderbolt, and those have veyr clear identities. They have their own feel, their own voice and world, and you can feel the creator's own vision, regardless of if you like it or not. Build Fighters doesn't feel like the product of a vision, it just feels like product.

Well what is really at stake for losing a game? Oh no, no trophy for the loser. How horrible.

I'm not knocking Build Fighters at all because what I saw of it was entertaining, it's just not for me. I'd rather have a show about war. When I want game matches I'll watch Yu-Gi-Oh!'s seasons that came after Duel Monsters.

Have you ever competed in... anything? Seriously? Have you never had the desire to excel in something, even something so simple as a hobby or game?

I'm sorry but that's flat out wrong 0079 got canned because of bad ratings in fact the entire last arc got rewritten because the show was canceled.

If it wasn't for Bandai putting out model kits in the 1980s the show would've faded into obscurity and we wouldn't have a Gundam franchise.

Since then Gundam's always been a vehicle to sell the kits.

Want proof? The Hyaku Shiki/Delta Gundam was redesigned in Zeta Gundam to be a support suit because it's transformation was too complicated to replicate as a toy at the time. In fact Heavy Metal L Gaim's and Five Star Stories' mechs were purposely designed by Mamoru Nagano to be difficult to make toys of because he hated the toyetic policies of Bandai who heavily sponsored Gundam.

What he meant was, Gundam was not created to sell toys first and foremost, that came later, rather than a show that was originally meant to advertise toys.

Well, at least from Tomino's end, Bandai always intended to make their money back with toy sales, as they were doing with every other mecha show at the time. Which is the reason why the Gundam actually has a color scheme at all, having originally been meant to be grey.

Anyway, I don't think Build Fighters is cynical so much as just aimed at a different aspect of the fandom. It's for the side of the fandom that buys model kits less for the show but rather for the kit itself. For folks more interested in making a custom variant, like making them into freaking Sailor Scouts or something, than things like weathering and trying to recreate something from the show.

Basically, replace the Build Fight with, I dunno, model train display competitions and the story still works for the most part. It's just more marketable to have fights between various mobile suits from across the franchise because, guess what, that's cool. It's cool to see all these designs that don't have to bend a knee to the throne of "realism" and just go nuts with trying to be a neat design.

That's why I brought up the first Gundam getting canned then rescued via toys.

Because it doesn't matter what Tomino intended with 0079 since 1985 the series has been designed to sell toys with the plot written around it.

Actually it's for any Gunpla enthusiast as Mr. Rall does say people build kits for different reasons like fighting,making their own thing or simply showing their love for the franchise by recreating scenes from it.

Ironically Try does have an artistic Gunpla contest as a side plot in it.

And in fairness Nobel Gundam is based on Sailor V so it's only natural people would make the other Scouts.:p

Dude, you are talking about the person who has applied for over 1200 full time teaching positions over the course of 5 years and has yet to land one. So yes, it sucks to lose, but there is no point in getting all bitter over it.

That's pretty much everything animated though.

Young Justice, Thundercats, Symbiotic Titan, and Voltron Force were all canceled because they either had shitty toy sales or no toy sales at all (due to the toys not existing yet). It wasn't Voltron Force's garbage story that ended the show, it was the lack of toys. In fact, I believe Samura Jack was also canceled beause of poor toy sales.

Yup. That's what makes Gundam different, and for the most part it's maintained a balance between the two in ways few toy-based cartoons have.

Build Fighters is no different from Beyblade or Yokai Watch or whatever run-of-the-mill toy-hocking anime is out there.

Yup, but that's Bandai's job after all, and it's not like I have disdain for the models or marketting them- obviously -but you can hock product and be tactful at the same time. I love the models, I love building them and collecting them, and I'm not so deluded into thinking there's not some cynical marketting angle behind every Gundam show to push as many kits as possible.

But literally selling your product so transparently is just off-putting in my opinion. Like I said, there's a balance. You don't want a show that completely shows contempt for the toys, or one that focuses on them over a story. You want something that reahce sthat happy middle-ground of good story, characters, and MS action.

Bit of a self-contradiction, there, but I don't really mind that per-se, but I feel like there had to have been a better angle to approach that from than "it's a tournament event" like so many product-selling animes do.

Who said anything about realism? Who's to say you couldn't have those kinds of fights without the childish toy plot? "G Gundam here again, just reminding the folks at home about the time there was a mummy Gundam and a horse pilotted a Mobile Suit!"


Exactly.

Being over-invested in a game or competition is the deffinition of childish.

Well, now we're getting into something that, at best, we'd have to agree to disagree on.

Mostly because I operate on a very different definition of childishness.

I mean, it's kids playing with toys in a competition designed for kids who play with toys.

What else would you call it?

Anyway, could we, like, drop this now? I feel like I'm making this out to be more of an issue with me than it is, and it's causing a more vitriolic discussion than should be. I honestly didn't expect it to blow up when I only mentioned it as a simple "It's a shame this one show isn't rating as well as these previous ones when it's much better."

Though amusingly, no one came to SEED's defense when I slighted it in the same breath. :D

Yeah I agree. While over-investment into a competition is bad, it's not necessarily childish in that regard. If someone is being unfair or rude to someone else because of said competition, then that's childish. Ideally competition should be about bettering yourself and your team mates and planning.

Well that's because Seed is obscenely childish. Of the "trying to seem very grown up" variety.

Watching CCA Good God this movie's awesome and I'm only a quarter through.

...Except I really want to kick Quess in the face like really hard why are Hathaway and Gyunei so thirsty for this bitch?

She's probably the first girl their age they have ever seen. :lol

Well I know she is the same age as Hathaway, but not sure about Gyunei. However, since Gyunei wants things only because Char has them, it makes sense he would want her because Char has her (despite not wanting her).

Hathaway is the son of a famous war hero and Gyunei is Char's right hand man no way those two didn't have girls interested in them at some point :lol

But the whiny annoying 13 year old dumbass is the one they go full on stupid for*Hathaway you ungrateful little sh-:mad:* .


...Just why?:eyebrow


EDIT: And I've officially gone from wanting to "really hurt" to "Maim and Kill" with Quess why does Tomino want me to feel sad this bitch dies again?

Good God both Fllay and Katejina are more sympathetic characters.

I just sat through the most horrible piece of shit Gundam thing ever. It makes Dragon Ball Evolution look like Citizen Kane. I'm not even sure where to begin with G-Savior, so instead, I'll post my reactions as the movie went on:

OKay, the CGI's terrible and it looks like some cheap made for TV movie, but I've seen worse.

What the hell is even happening? This thing seems to have no pacing.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh guys... the set of Starship Troopers is in another studio. Or if you are looking for Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, it's down the hall and to the left.

The acting... and she voiced Lady Une in Gundam Wing... WTF?

There are mobile suits in this movie... right?

Wait a minute... the space colonies are able to provide their own source of agricture. HOW DOES THIS EVEN MAKE SENSE????!!!

Can her acting get any worse?

Hey look, there is a Gundam in the background...

OH MY GOD IT'S TIGATRON!!!!!!!!

WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM? OH COME ON!!!!

Jealous girlfriend betrayed you, how original.

Those mobile suits are so god damned ugly.

Man, the mobile suits in the Sega Dreamcast game looked better than those

The sword battle is so boring.

Wait... the fight is over? How? They just blew up a ship and it cuts to an after ceremony? Did they run out of budget?

Who actually talks like that?

Wow, that guy got paid for that job. As did that guy. And him. He got paid too. She also got paid. They got paid...

Eh in my experience a lot of voice actors are terrible on-screen actors JYB is the only decent one I've seen.