[Dr Kain]

Last night we watched 36-45 of Wing and things are getting way overly convoluted. Zechs has gone Char's Counter Attack because... well just because. I am no fan of Char in CCA, but at least he went through all of these personality changes over the course of 14 years. Zechs is going through multiple personality disorder over the course of like 14 weeks. It doesn't make sense. Also, what the hell was the point of Queen Relena? She was queen for like 3 days. That was a total waste of time. The whole White Fang bit doesn't make sense as they just show up out of nowhere and we are supposed to sympathize with them? In fact, the one thing the Gundam series try to do is show us that not everyone on both sides of the war are truly evil, they are just fighting for what they believe in. This show always makes it impossible to see the view point of one of the sides as they are flat out wrong on all accounts and none of their soldiers even question their orders.

Thankfully, some of the episodes themselves are pretty damn awesome like the one where Zechs destroys Space Fortress Barge and the battles are enjoyable. Only four episodes to go and I still know next to nothing about the majority of the Gundam pilots though. Also, it seems like they have nerfed the Zero System because now any one can use it without going crazy even though that is the exact opposite of what was shown before.

EDIT: Yay, thanks to Image Anime, I finally found the last three Unicorn volumes for the prices they were originally on Rightstuf for.



EDIT 2:

And that's a wrap, at least for the TV series itself. Just watched the final volume and my god the last four episodes are nothing but one plot convenience after another. Lady Une just happens to wake up, then steals the Wing Gundam that just happened to be repaired and equipped for space travel, and manages to get to Treize just in the nick of time to save him from the Libra cannon. The scientists just happen to still be alive and on the Libra, who just happen to be found by Duo, and they just happen to know how to stop Libra's decent. I can continue on and on, but you get the point.

Oh, and then we get this interesting comment from Quinze when he confronts the scientists, but nothing is ever explained for it. Now he was in on Operation Meteor too? WTF? YOU CAN'T JUST REVEAL AN IMPORTANT REVELATION LIKE THAT AND NOT GO INTO DETAIL ON IT!!!! It doesn't help matters that Quinze just appeared out of nowhere and was never developed in the slightest.

The final fight between Zechs and Heero was pretty cool though, as was Treize's battle with Wufei. However, Treize is acting like he was all buddy buddy with him, which makes no sense either. In fact, the 48th episode is titled "Takeoff into Confusion" and it lives up to its name.

The epilogue is pretty lackluster too because they didn't even bother to show anyone Heero of the actual main characters, but had no problem spending time on Noin and Dorothy. Speaking of Noin, what the hell was she wearing in the last few episodes? When did she go all hick? How did she go all hick? The clothing was a Victorian style and yet, they have hick clothing lying around? HUH? o_O

I am so sad now because I have been defending this show left and right to the haters and now it turns out the hate was just. How the hell did this happen? It went from being my favorite Gundam series to being closer to 10 on my list.

Once I watch Endless Waltz I am never watching the English dub to this show again. It barely got any better from the beginning and the secondary characters like Rashid and Dr J as their voice actors kept changing their voices for them every time they returned after a long hiatus. It was very distracting. Also, Brian Drummond was an awful Zechs. He rarely ever put any emotion into his performance and he came off as very wooden when he was in charge of the White Fang.

Positives:

Duo & Treize
Gundam designs
Music
Mobile Dolls concept

Negatives:

Lack of character development for pretty much anyone
Plotlines that emerge off screen
Animation looks flat at times
Way too convoluted
Zechs & Relena
Females characters are only there to support their lover
Plot conveniences up the wazoo
Every main character is invincible while everything else is made of tissue paper

I want to also include the amount of stock footage, but this is no stranger to the Gundam franchise, so I'm not.

[Powerman293]

I found some really cool Unicorn related animation. I think it was just a one off short or something, but damn it looks cool.

[Kiryu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Powerman293

I found some really cool Unicorn related animation. I think it was just a one off short or something, but damn it looks cool.

It's something they play at Gundam Front if I'm not mistaken.

[Dr Kain]

G Gundam, dubbed or subbed? I know we've had this debate a long time ago, but I can't find the posts on it.

[XW1n5t0nX]

I prefer G dubbed. The over the topness of the dub fits so perfectly with the at times over the topness of the dub. It is simply glorious.

[Dr Kain]

Endless Waltz - This was still pretty good. It isn't perfect, but it tried to answer some of the questions the full series never did despite being less than 90 minutes long. It actually gave a personality to the Gundam pilots, albeit not much. Still better than nothing though. The music remains great and the animation is quite beautiful. I'm not sure why they felt the need to change the Gundam designs out of the blue, especially the colors to Sandrock and Heavy Arms, but they work when they aren't shown in the flashback scenes. The angel wings on Wing Zero are kind of dumb, but the suit isn't on screen enough to really care that much. Wufei and Zechs make even less sense here than they did in the TV show. Hell, Zechs comes back and everyone just totally ignores the fact that he was going to drop a space station onto Earth. WTF? Not-Mineva was an okay villain, although I highly doubt Treize would have just abandoned a child he had. Overall, this was a lot better than Wing despite its short comings. Operation Meteor is still a convoluted as **** idea, but they tried to at least explain it and left a much better finale to the Wing universe than Wing did.

[Powerman293]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Kain

Endless Waltz - This was still pretty good. It isn't perfect, but it tried to answer some of the questions the full series never did despite being less than 90 minutes long. It actually gave a personality to the Gundam pilots, albeit not much. Still better than nothing though. The music remains great and the animation is quite beautiful.I'm not sure why they felt the need to change the Gundam designs out of the blue, especially the colors to Sandrock and Heavy Arms, but they work when they aren't shown in the flashback scenes. The angel wings on Wing Zero are kind of dumb, but the suit isn't on screen enough to really care that much. Wufei and Zechs make even less sense here than they did in the TV show. Hell, Zechs comes back and everyone just totally ignores the fact that he was going to drop a space station onto Earth. WTF? Not-Mineva was an okay villain, although I highly doubt Treize would have just abandoned a child he had. Overall, this was a lot better than Wing despite its short comings. Operation Meteor is still a convoluted as **** idea, but they tried to at least explain it and left a much better finale to the Wing universe than Wing did.

That's Hajime Katoki for ya.

[Dr Kain]

So we watched the first 12 episodes to G Gundam and it is kind of a nice break from the normal political Gundam stuff. I really love the designs for the Dragon and Mummy Gundams and the announcer dude is awesome. This show is weird for me because I've watched the first half on DVD subbed before and I caught the second half dubbed when it was on Toonami. As such, I've never actually watched the show in order from start to finish, so this will be an interesting experience to finally do so. Oh, we are watching it dubbed and so far I am enjoying it. The voices are great but the name changes still bug me. However, if that is the last of my worries, then it might not be so bad.

[Powerman293]

I found a really badass image of the GP02 holding the Anti-Ship rifle from the Origin.

[Dr Kain]

We watched episodes 13-20 of G today. There were some really cool stuff in here and I think Shaisashi is my favorite character, which works since the Dragon Gundam is my favorite of the lot. Although, Schwartz is pretty awesome. On the other hand, there are a few things that keep me from really being blown away by this show. It just feels like the plot is stalling and I don't get the purpose of the Shuffle Alliance. Like, what makes them so special? What is the big deal about their ranks? I'm getting this vibe that the 50-ish episode requirement is hindering this series, but we'll see. There are still 29 episodes to go, I might feel differently by then.

BTW, does this show have any clip show episodes?