ITT: God Crouton!!! rambles on about his history with Gundam

[Just Crouton]

I've been a huge Gundam fan since 6th grade when Cartoon Network ran Gundam Wing. I didn't like it at first because well...all I got out of the first episode was that the dialogue was weird, the characters were weird, and Heero is bizarre. When Wufei would get an episode, it always felt like the show completely stopped for him since he didn't seem to be part of the show besides being one of the 5 Gundam pilots the show brings up all the time.

Then, around 8th grade, Cartoon Network got the original Gundam series. It changed my opinion about Wing. Gundam 0079 was so much better. There was action in every episode, the show didn't dabble on characterization. I hate when anime dabbles on and on with stuff. In 0079, the show gave you enough information on the character for you to care for them, and would move on. There weren't ramblings about character's personal political beliefs, and it never dragged. It was about the people, who were inexperienced civilians, fighting the Zeon with limited weapons and mobile suits.

Shortly after, Cartoon Network started getting more Universal Century series, including 0080, 0083, and the 8th MS Team. 0080 had amazing character designs by the person who also was involved in the Macross season of Robotech. The Gundam Alex was awesome, and even though it only fights in 2 episodes, both fights are amazing. 0083 has the best artwork I've seen in anime. It looks more realistic than the usual "electrical socket" faces normally seen, especially today. While the Gundams are questionably more advanced than the ones seen later in the timeline in Zeta Gundam, and nuke-equipped Gundam is still awesome, and the story does a great job setting up for Zeta. Men of Destiny is still my favorite intro in Gundam. The 8th MS Team took the idea that Gundams are gods and threw it out the window by making the mobile suits more breakable. The love story was rushed, but the action, especially a huge battle in the second-to-last episode makes any fight in G Gundam look like a spitball fight.

Which brings me to G Gundam. The robot designs were really good, but after seeing the designs, it gave me a lower opinion of the Gundam Wing designs, and Gundam Wing was made right after G Gundam. Really, let's compare.

God Gundam --> Wing Gundam
Gundam Maxter --> Gundam Heavyarms
Dragon Gundam --> Shenlong Gundam
Master Gundam --> Gundam Epyon

Kunio Okawara must have been lazy. G Gundam was okay, even if it has the most absurd story in any Gundam series.

Now, we get to Gundam SEED, [b]and to potential spoilers[/b]. Cartoon Network ran this on Saturday nights at first, then moved it to Friday nights at 1:00 AM. SEED was meant to be a reboot of Gundam 0079, so I'll habitually reference 0079. It starts out like 0079, with the bad guys attacking a space colony, Kira, this show's Amuro, steals the Gundam, this one being the Strike Gundam, and fights the GINNs, this show's Zaku, though when we get to SEED DESTINY, we'll find the writers forgot that point.

Like the original Gundam, the Strike Gundam was plain in design, but it could change weapon systems like the Liger Zero in Zoids. ZAFT had 4 Gundams stolen from the Earth Feds which were like the ones in Wing. Their designs are forgettable, and they did gimmicky stuff which is weird because the Strike only had knives by default. Speaking of designs, I HATED the character designs in the SEED universe. Here's an area where SEED differs from the original in a bad way: In 0079, each character looked completely different, and had their own physical traits so you could remember them. Amuro had a huge nose (this was changed in later series), Kai had purple hair and looked like the cynical douchebag he was, Hayato was short, and Ryu was large. One minor reason why I lean towards older anime. In SEED, everybody's..."pretty". Well, okay, some are old. They have 3 different types of hair: Spiky, long, or curly. Now, just add color.

Much like 0079, the Archangel, this show's White Base, has huge battle in the Earth's atmosphere as they head to Earth. They end up in the desert, like in 0079, but instead of meeting Ramba Ral and the Gouf, they encounter Andy something and...Zoids. Ramba Ral is one of my favorite Gundam villains. He pushed Amuro to the limit, and when defeated, taunts Amuro by telling him that he only won because of the Gundam's power and nothing more, which cuts Amuro deeply and intensifies his need to defeat Ral for good. Andy and his wife fight Kira with his Zoid, and "die". Oh, and there's some Gundam Wing mumbo-jumbo in a previous episode between that I don't remember.

Later in the series, Kira gets a new Gundam called the Freedom. It doesn't have the weapon change system like Strike, instead it's just a powerhouse like Wing Zero, and fires all it's weapons with the same stock footage each time. This is an issue I have with shows like this and especially the Masked Rider franchise. In newer Masked Rider series, the Rider has the gimmick of changing battle modes to better fight the monster of the week, but around episode 20-30, he gets a power-up that either gives him all the powers at once, or gives him enough power that he doesn't need the secondary powers anymore, and just switches between default and ultimate form. I hate when the show does this, because it's obvious they make the gimmicky form changes for toy sales, then devalue them by introducing a does-everything power up. Not to mention, it takes away from the strategy aspect of the Rider changing forms to adjust to the enemy like in Kuuga. This is why I didn't like the Freedom Gundam. It doesn't change forms, it just fires big giant lasers over and over.

Anyway, blah blah blah inevitable big final battle blah blah blah several useless characters die blah blah let's jump to SEED DESTINY.

I found out that DESTINY was on DVD in late 2006, and bought the first 2-3 DVDs, along with the first Zeta DVD and Gundam F-91. If SEED is the 0079 of the 2000s, then DESTINY is Zeta. I say this painfully because it hardly lives up to being called the counterpart to Zeta. DESTINY stars...well, is SUPPOSED to star Shinn Asuka, an angsty teenage ZAFT soldier who loses his family during a huge battle late in the first SEED series. He wants to kill the Freedom pilot who he doesn't know is Kira. Shinn pilots the Impulse Gundam, which is just a crappier Strike Gundam which is launched in pieces and merged together in battle like the zords in Power Rangers. The only plus it has over Strike is that it change battle parts in battle by launching the parts on little aircrafts, which is pretty nice. It also burns energy really fast for some reason. We also get a few other new characters in Rey and Lunamaria. I thought Rey was initially a girl, was surprised when "she" had a man's voice, and remembered that this is Japan, and they never have a good reason why a man would look like a woman. Lunamaria is the girl and has breasts...yeah, that's about it for her besides her later forced romance with Shinn.

From I remember, SEED DESTINY starts off with an explosive intro story arc, then stops for several episodes for pointless political mumbo-jumbo and clip shows, then goes into a huge battle, then stops for several episodes for pointless political mumbo-jumbo and clip shows, then huge battles, then stops for several episodes for pointless political mumbo-jumbo and clip shows, then horrible final battle.

Remember when I said 2 paragraphs ago that Shin was supposed to be the star? Well at some point, the writers, who are complete idiots and thank Crouton they don't work on anymore Gundam series, decided to make Kira the star. Here's the problem. Unless he suffers from the fact that people disagree with him, Kira has no struggle in this show AT ALL. He's more boring than he was in SEED. In Zeta Gundam, Amuro remained a supporting character after his return, letting Camille remain the hero, and he struggled with the idea of taking part in a war after 6 or so years since the original series. Here, Kira is given his Strike back, and just fights. Episodes before his inevitable fight with Shinn, the highlight of the series which is promoted in the first 2 opening credits, the end credits implies he'll survive said fight and get an even better Freedom, AND HE DOES. Nice in-show spoilers. His new Freedom Gundam, the Strike Freedom, has even more guns, including one built into the stomach, and the wings shoot feathers that fire lasers. Shinn gets a 2nd-grade Gundam too, but instead of something of the caliber of the Freedom, he gets a crappy-looking Zeta Gundam called the Destiny Gundam, equipped with Iron Man repulsor rays, all the Impulse weapons, and some butterfly wings that make it leave afterimages when it moves, possibly a nod to F91. I guess it's supposed to be moving faster, but they failed because it looks even slower. Another slap to Shinn is that his position in the end of the opening credits is moved from center to the side so Kira can take center again.

The new mobile suits are more forgettable than SEED. There are now ZAKUs, which are just Zakus and may be the stand-in for Hi-Zacks from Zeta. There's a GOUF...okay. The new Gundams are boring, and one that appears later is just a repaint of one from SEED. One Gundam turns into a Zoid, and there's the Psycho Gundam stand-in.

Finally on the SEED topic, I HATE when they "kill" off characters, then say "no" and bring them back, disregarding the logic of how they survived, and when they come back, they don't do anything relevant.

On New Year's going into 2007, I watched Gundam F91. It was a good movie, and the F91 was well-designed. I could joke about the token black guy is the first one to die in the movie, but the joke's old. It was supposed to be a full series, and the planned intro can be found on Youtube, but something happened, and they condensed the series into the movie. You can probably read about it on MAHQ.

Finally, I go into Zeta Gundam. I watched the first 10 episodes in 2007, and loved it. The robot designs were great, Camille was whiny, but somewhat likable, and not as bad as Katz, and the dub voices were amazing and contributed to the dated look and feel of the show perfectly. It didn't sound like a 2006 dubbing of a 1986 anime like it was. The entire English dub is on Youtube along with 0079. One minor complaint I have about the dub is that the intro and end songs are replaced. However, the new music is consistent with the in-show soundtrack and doesn't take away from the experience like the 0079 dub's modernized, Toonami-style intro/end music and new sound effects did.

One minor complaint I have with this show, and anime in general, is the need characters have to slap people. Zeta has a different reason for all the slapping. In Zeta, Emma Sheen especailly, slaps the crap out of Camille and Fa every other episode. Here, slapping is called a "correction", a form of military punishment. The most notable "correction" happens in the 10th episode where Camille arrives late to a meeting, and gets brutally beaten into unconsciousness by a sponser. Then, when he wakes up later, Emma slaps him on the injured side of his face for insubordination. Char tells him "if you don't like being hit, stop screwing up." In Gundam, slapping people for being out of like is known as the Brightslap, after a famous scene in 0079 where Bright repeatedly slaps Amuro for refusing to fight, and Amuro cries "MY OWN FATHER NEVER HIT ME!"

The best part of this show is that, no matter what's going on in the episode, it always leads up to a mobile suit fight. Battles are frequent, and unlike in SEED DESTINY, the show never stops to have characters ramble on and on to clip shows. I finished the series last summer when I found it was on Youtube.

I never watched SD Gundam because anything with "SD" in it sounds stupid, and the show looked stupid.

I watched Double O a couple times between 07-08, but was put off by the art style. The Gundams were different in good way. Haven't gotten into Age.