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REVIEW: Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ Blu-Ray

But a particularly favorite character of mine from this show is Roux Louka, who is pretty much as good a Gundam pilot as Judau, although she's not originally one of the junkyard kids...well, plenty of interesting stuff with her in the second half.

This is the first time Gundam ZZ has been released for English speaking fans, but the subtitle dialogue is rife with modern colloquialisms like “hold that thought” and “I don't know, search me,” which actually work great for this collection's informal feel. The one-liners especially are fantastic, if sometimes groan-worthy. When Mashymre fights Judau for the first time, they introduce themselves: “I'm Mashymre Cello and I'm commander of the Endra!" "I'm Judau Ashta and I'm... cutting class!"

Ple is the elephant in the room of sorts, she is a loli character, an exceptionally young Child soldier,spoiler[ a genetically modified human], and she is clearly mentally unstable, Tomino clearly wanted Ple to be part of the Gundam verse as once she arrives she quickly becomes a primary cast member and many future events are outright shaped because of her actions.

Kicksville wrote:

But a particularly favorite character of mine from this show is Roux Louka, who is pretty much as good a Gundam pilot as Judau, although she's not originally one of the junkyard kids...well, plenty of interesting stuff with her in the second half.

Eh, Roux screwed up all the time and her accomplishments aren't very noteworthy.

Now Elle, on the other hand, took the vastly obsolete Gundam Mark II and put it to good use. Her only slip ups in battle were Beecha's fault.

Gundam Double Zeta is a lot of great potential peaking out from a pile of garbage. If it had been an AU completely unconnected to the UC timeline, or at least to its predecessor, the silly slapstick antics might've worked, but as the reviewer asserted, it's deeply disrespectful coming on the heels of a horrific three-way war and the devastation and death from Zeta Gundam. The show does eventually pick up Zeta's tone and storyline, with the more active role Haman's scheming takes in later episodes (though it still takes a dip in the silly pool, maybe once too often).


I'd also point out that, for the most part, Judau's friends are paper-thin, character-wise, with little if any discernible personalities, and the ones that do have personalities, you don't want to spend any time with. They're these broad stereotypes that feel super redundant, just character filler to round out the cast. Ino, especially, is a completely worthless character, and Elle is just there for Fraw/Fa "best friend-maybe-more-but-not-quite" duties.

I hated the tone shift towards humor the first time I watched ZZ. It just never seemed to have a place in a war drama, which is what I always thought Gundam was supposed to be about. I think I might be more receptive to it today. I doubt I'll ever enjoy watching Moon Moon though.

What really got to me was the complete 180 Haman's character takes spoiler[when she seemed to change from a master manipulator trying to rule the universe through a puppet child dictator to someone who apparently genuinely thought a 10 year old would make a good ruler for the universe.]

That, and the spoiler[Sayla Ex Machina.]

But yeah, Roux is amazing at least.