Forum - View topicREVIEW: Mobile Suit V Gundam Blu-Ray 2
|
Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Vaisaga
 Posts: 13224 |
|
||
|
I'll never forgive Tomino for spoiler[Odello], but I still like Victory more than Zeta.
That said, I've seen Zeta a few times, but I never want to rewatch Victory. Once was enough, thanks. |
|||
|
|||
Kicksville
 Posts: 1174 |
|
||
|
Awww. :(
The second half of the show is indeed probably the more divisive one. I kinda get how some of the portrayals may be uncomfortable - I felt like there was a point to it, but there's no denying there's some exploitation going on. (spoiler[To reiterate something from the previous review comments: Katejina's character arc is one that I think frequently doesn't get enough credit]) Despite how depressing things can get, I still remember feeling caught up in the "adventure from earth and through space" aspect of it. While I certainly can't say it's not heavy, especially at the end, I'm not quite sure it's as relentlessly puppy kicking as it sometimes gets depicted (...hey, the dog lives!) Anyway, I do encourage people to give this show a shot - there are some series where it can be really hard to predict what people will think, and this is one of those. (See also: My continual surprise that people like Brain Powered, despite the fact that I too like Brain Powered, because while watching Brain Powered I'm always thinking "Obviously, nobody likes Brain Powered") |
|||
|
|||
|
stowrag
Posts: 47 |
|
||
|
No mention of the bikini bazooka babes in space?
Honestly, the first time I watched Victory, I just got lost. Too many characters (insignificant characters, characters marked for death, characters with nothing to set them apart), and a weird story that doesn't really seem to follow any kind of logic. That said, I'll still be interested to revisit it and see if it makes more sense now that I have some idea of what to expect. |
|||
|
|||
Paul D. Atreides
 Posts: 128 |
|
||
|
Sorry to disappoint you Tomino, but I HAVE to see this
|
|||
|
|||
|
HEDGESMFG
Posts: 5 |
|
||
|
The following post will have a lot of spoilers. Avoid if if you haven't seen the show.
As I said previously, Victory part 2 shows mankind at war in truly the most desperate sense. It is unforgiving and has the potential to spare no one. This show almost entirely drops plot armor, similar to Zeta, but on a grander scale to the point where it almost seems absurd... but I do still find it to be appropriate for the type of conflict being fought here (a civilian army with weakened federation backing against what are effectively a colony of religious fanatics). I can understand being uncomfortable with some elements in this half of the show, but some things which were mixed up here worth pointing out. Lupe develops a strange obsession with Usso, but I feel that it is entirely centered on her desire to have a child rather than her desire to have him as a sort of bizarre partner. It's easy to blend the two ideas together for someone so ravishingly mad, but I think this should be made clear. Uso tells her to have the child of her own as the review says, not Fuala. Fuala had no known sexual attraction to him, merely considered him a deadly rival and found fighting him to be thrilling. Herself having gone a bit loopy potentially due to oxygen deprivation from being thrown out into the wild of space, or perhaps because of the stress of nearly being condemned. Sexualizing these relationships is mischaracterizing them, I feel. Katejina did feel a certain affection for Usso at one point or another in the series, but it was almost clearly never a physical attraction. She loved the power and influence she could wield over him, essentially becoming a control fanatic. This idea itself came on a bit suddenly, but it was again very different from a traditional attraction or even love. To her, he was a nuisance that she simply couldn't get rid of. When one can't get away from a bad situation, trying to control it is another method people often resort too. I think Katejina also felt trapped by the sliding slope of her morality and choices. At first she was against most of the violence (saying that using Usso for war was wrong, ect. ect.), then she started making choices that contributed to it (fighting in a mobile suit for Cronicle/the matriarchal cause), though expressed minor doubt about them. Then she made violent choices and outright rationalized it as justified (firing in a colony and killing civilians), almost deluding herself as she does so (I did it because you guys made me do it). Then she goes full on raving villain as what was left of her original morality is basically thrown out (Pressing the land, Bikini babe squadron, killing opponents mercilessly, controlling Cronicle/Usso). It's a bit strange, certainly, but it is interesting to watch one of the show's originally rather moral characters become the complete opposite by the end. Long story short, the reviewer still gave the overall show a decent score, but I feel may have missed some of the more subtle character elements and only assumed the most bizzare version of them. In all fairness, that's really not hard to do with Victory, and the show doesn't make these ideas crystal clear, but there is more to them than it seems. |
|||
|
|||
|
WatcherZer
Posts: 272 |
|
||
|
He wasn't nicknamed 'Kill' em all Tomino' for nothing.
|
|||
|
|||
|
SilverTalon01
Posts: 2401 |
|
||
I really liked what they did with her (and I agree with kicksville that it doesn't get enough credit). Actually, her character is probably the one thing I think was done really, really well in the series. She was corrupt by the situation she was put into and her personality got twisted so she could cope with it. I went through a progression of being sympathetic for her to absolutely hating her as she shifted towards 'raving villain'. I also liked that she felt different from his other antagonists. Tomino's other antagonists like Char, Scirocco, Haman made me want to like them. Sure, they did some pretty horrible stuff, and I wanted them to lose. However, they came across more as cool villains that I was sad to see lose because I liked having them around. Katejina, after she hit rock bottom, I was hoping for a beam rifle to the face every episode. Her 'tragic' ending felt really satisfactory. I was afraid for a while there that he might go with the sympathetic villain route like he ended up doing for Haman. |
|||
|
|||
|
ryanvamp
Posts: 416 |
|
||
|
How is "unnecesary sexualized women" not a minus in 70% of anime reviews here? I mean, I won't say it's NOT "unnecesary", but clearly one of anime's longest running staples is to oversexualize characters, both male & female depending on the genre....a lot of the times in ways insanely more inappropiate than V Gundam.
I already know the answer is "ANN is not a hivemind and one reviewer's gripe may not be shared with others' views" but it was kinda funny to see such a claim. |
|||
|
|||
|
Karasu-Lacryma
Posts: 113 |
|
||
Perhaps it means by Gundam standards? |
|||
|
|||
TranceLimit174
 Posts: 958 |
|
||
Preach! It's been a very, very long time since I watched V Gundam, so I don't remember the particulars of the plot but I do vividly remember my emotions and impressions of the series and this is the one death that stopped Victory from having a "happy" or uplifting ending in my view. Don't know why, but I could accept every character death except this one, namely for the person it screws over more than the casualty itself. This was basically Tomino saying "No, you can't have nice things." When I watched it, I labeled V Gundam as "the little Gundam series that could," because while it will forever live in the shadow of Zeta, it was still an entertaining series with some top notch production. But as Ms. Orsini points out the deaths and repetitive plot points become overkill both figuratively and literally. I'm also a fan of Mouichido Tenderness as an ending theme. One other thing you can see with Victory, is just how thinly stretched the Universal Century became and Sunrise was wise to largely retire it after this. Not only does the plot get odd and nonsensical with the Angel Halo, but it really contributes nothing to the greater mythos of the Universal Century. This is further illustrated by no other UC title since having been willing to explore a time post-V Gundam. Thank God we got G Gundam after this (pun intended), the best Gundam. With all the talk of female sexualization and odd relationships in V, it makes me wanna go back and re-watch it just to see how I would interpret those depictions. As a whole, I think one thing Gundam as a whole does rather excellently is portray the confused, and sometimes incomprehensible feelings of adolescent sexuality. Without realizing it, I think this is one of the things I strongly connected to in this giant meta-series outside of cool giant robots, human evolution, and war seen through the eyes of children. |
|||
|
|||
|
prtorpedo
Posts: 8 |
|
||
|
I think the main thing that bugs me about this series to this day is what happened to spoiler[Tomache after/during the final battle? He was a prominent character and he didn't get a death scene either, him and his family just disappear. It's like Tomino didn't care to address his fate. ]
|
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group