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The worst Gundam Series, I really pray this series doesn't have cameo in any SRW game!

Crow Bro wrote:

And I'm not even sure where you got writing from.

The article. Where Tomino apologises for the writing. Did you even read it? Rolling Eyes

I dropped Reconguista at episode 3 and decided to stick with GBF. Seems like I made a good choice.

I am stuck with some episodes so far, but while I recognize I got some problems with Tomino's storytelling*, at least Reconguista (ugh) has a story with characters, not gunpla porn.

spoiler[* some characters tend to overexpose the story, and still, some fancy names are sometimes dropped fancy names "Newtype! Grand Cher! Federation! Zanscar Empire! Titans! Dunbine!" with zero explanation. Also, his final episodes are usually an armaggedon or bloodbath just because ... as if he forgot he can tie all the lose ends before the last two episodes. And sometimes without no real end (the One Year War was ended offscreen, mostly)]

Last edited by residentgrigo on Mon Sep 21, 2020 5:28 am; edited 1 time in total

I would like to point out that Tomino has been heavily critical of Victory (my favorite after Zeta) and the final stretch of Zeta itself. I wouldn't call A New Translation a butchery penguintruth. That would be the "related" Seed Destiny.

The Regild Century (they even renamed it) is nether the best nor the worst part of Gundam and at least Sunrise didn´t loose money as with with that other "thing" they put out at the same time. The studio probably hit rock bottom now so the road to recovery can now begin!

Quote:

Don't Stop, Carry On! Don't Stop, Shining On!

The only Gundam TV series that I have in its entire TV run is the dubbed Gundam 00. However, it seems that Tomino has had problems keeping his franchise the way he wants it for a long time. So, would this be any different?

CoreSignal wrote:

These have always been my main issues with Tomino as a writer. It honestly feels like his characters are doing random stuff half the time. It's too bad, since Tomino is a great universe builder. While I totally respect him for being critical of himself, I wonder if having an assistant writer or director would help out. For someone with a ton of ideas like Tomino, it might be good to have somebody to bounce ideas off of or to help him sift out stuff. So, for GITS: Stand Alone Complex the director/main writer got together with the other 4 or 5 writers on the show and they actually had a week-long retreat to hammer out all the characters and story points and together. Then again, Tomino seems like he's one of the few, remaining anime creators that still does everything, like writing, directing, storyboards, etc.

Yeah, that's the way I've felt about Tomino as well. He has great IDEAS, but his actual execution has ALWAYS been flawed and I don't know if he's never TRIED to fix it or just doesn't know how. It could also be an ego issue since he has had issues with collaborative efforts before (such as with Mamoru Nagano). I don't doubt he WANTS to write these big, complex storylines with military and political commentary, but I've never felt that he has the necessary skills to do that. For instance, the man is TERRIBLE at writing any sort of love story. The romantic sub-plots in the original MSG were just illogical and odd.

bahamut623 wrote:

I've been watching it as they post it on Youtube (still do not understand why Bandai chooses to limit the franchise so badly), and it's entertaining so far. It's surprising to see him criticize it so soon after the series finished. It doesn't seem monstrously bad (so far, at least), compared to something like Captain Earth, which was immensely boring. G-Reco is at least fun, though flawed.

This cause it isn't, that's just how people react to any new Gundam serie now, like it's an iredeemable abomination where only the so-called ever present and overwhelming flaws can ever be discussed. Not much than can be done and while Tomino expects full responsibility it's not really his fault the reception it got and I'm not sure he realizes it given how long he's been out of the loop. Man is just really ill-equipped to face the modern anime industry and fanbase and I think he only started to realize it towards the end of the show when as he said it was kind of two late. In retrospect I wouldn't be surprised if he figures he should have just made it a book or something.

residentgrigo wrote:

The Regild Century (they even renamed it) is nether the best nor the worst part of Gundam and at least Sunrise didn´t loose money as with with that other "thing" they put out at the same time.
The studio probably hit rock bottom now so the road to recovery can now begin!

Quote:

Don't Stop, Carry On! Don't Stop, Shining On!

How have they hit rock bottom? Yeah they aren't doing much right now and Gundam is struggling at least on late night TV but I'd hardly put the blame on Sunrise or it's creative team or say that they've hit rock bottom. Besides people are always trying to claim that with each new Gundam iteration (they were even hostile at first to Build Fighters and I'm amazed it ever caught on in the end) to the point where it's just become trite. Really they could roll with just about any idea for TV right now and no matter what it is or how it executes on it people would still be hyper critical about it as I've kept pointing out. Like let's just be honest for once people, there's no way for the franchise to win certain types of people over and they know it, that's like half the reason that Sunrise has been trying to shoot for younger hopefully less cynical audiences with a fresh perspective.

Also Gundam the Origin looks like it's doing plenty fine so far so there's that and lately I think the studios choice to go it more with OVA and Film on a lot of projects may just prove the right one.

"G-Reco is at least fun, though flawed."

What!!!! it had one of the most confusing plotlines I've ever seen, 10 episodes in and I still didn't know what was going on, half the time I couldn't even tell who was friend or foe because they flooded the entire season with bland characters. The MC (Bell) was unlikable and annoying as hell, everytime he was in a battle all he did was moan, moan, moan. The mecha designs were poor and some laughable and just gave me a headache looking at them. I will never understand how this is got released, at least without a warning stating that viewers may lose the will to live.

From what I say at least, I thought G-Reco was alright. Nothing spectular I enjoyed it. I adored the mecha designs something of which many took an issue with it. The thing about a lot Gundam designs is that seem a bit too homogeneous. Different doesn't always mean better I might add but I like the design of the titular G-Self. It think its one of the better Gundam designs in years. Back to the show, I like overall how the show looked. My only beef with show was how awkward and disjointed everything was. It could've gotten better but I didn't continue watching after a certain point. How I didn't come out at way hated the show as some people did. I just felt it difficult to watch at times.

I liked Build Fighters. I liked it a lot. Yeah, there was no denying that it was blatant toy commercial but doesn't mean that it is devoid of any and all worth. I mean it is know the best written show ever and I don't expect to be. What do you expect from a show with this premise. If that's not your cup of tea the fine but people don't have so mean about it. Then again people will continue to argue with me this because some people just don't get it

Honestly I can already see a lot of the reasons why I think people had a lot of problems with this show in this thread. Lots of complaining about not being able to tell who is friend or foe when that's not really the point and just apparently not being able to tell at all what is going on which is a problem I just did not have with it. The thing that people seem to have a hard time grasping is that no one faction or person in particular is the de facto villain here. Rather conflict, energy hoarding and outdated policies are the villains. All that said I think Tomino clearly wanting this to be his big critique on current Japanese politics, energy policy and militarization probably got pushed too much toward the forefront of the series priorities for some which is the show operating on cold logic that Tomino is talking about. Yet for how on the nose it is it seems like people just can't draw the necessary connections.

I just don't think the people that watched this show (and there were very few that did it seems thanks to an awful time slot and almost immediately bad word of mouth and confusion as to the themes) care about that sort of thing or get what it's even about since it's a very specific domestically oriented beef (albeit a topical one for more than just him since Miyazaki and others have weighed in on it as well) a director has as the core theme and goal of the show and considering Tomino wanted members of the Diet to see it who never would it's kind of just like a lost cause. Personally I find the idea of a guy trying to make his critique the only way he knows how really via the medium he's worked in all his life to be interesting (considering how many anime are put out nowadays with the sole intent behind them being purely commercial and to follow popular trends, which almost seems like how people seem to prefer it) but I can see why the show is a dud with certain people and modern anime audiences with little knowledge of Japanese politics up to a certain point if they simply do not care about that sort of thing, but I mean Tomino warned everyone that the show was being made with a specific audience in mind and that it wasn't the traditional Gundam one so I can't see why it comes as a huge surprise.

Oh well, if anything else I just wish more people even grasped what this story was about and how it reflects on real life politics more and if they still chose not to like it than so be it, but the fact that people remain utterly oblivious and are criticizing the show in the absence of this perspective seems sort of unfair.

All that said, why a man in his 70's with tons of life experience and insight into politics, war, conflict and the like thinks an anime made largely to air his beefs with the current state of such matters would go over well in 2014 is beyond me. I think there's signs that he realized he made a big mistake with that expectation in this interview with the segment

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Frankly, I didn't think it would be this horrible. Fundamentally, people don't respond to stories made with cold logic. If the logic is overpowering, it won't be a story you can be emotionally attached to. That's all. After Episode 19, we improved so it became a little easier to watch, but gosh, it was too late. With a terrifying amount of effort, we managed to wrap everything up by Episode 26.

People in Japan that actually watch anime still don't really want stories like that anymore (it worked a lot better in preceding decades) unless apparently they are written by Gen Urobuchi who I think totally operates on a similar sense of cold logic and convolution but is on an incalculably closer wavelength with today's anime viewing audiences and generation than Tomino is since he's more willing to use moe, bishoujo and popular people and tropes to at least hold peoples attention while he makes his themes and point while Tomino largely refuses to adapt. I think if Tomino is simply willing to make this compromise and has someone come on his screenwriting staff who knows how to handle and incorporate those sorts of things than G-Reco's reception is totally different in that it actually kind of gets a proper one.

Anyway, what they want is something they can be emotionally invested to even if it's just from a raw feelings kind of approach and also shows that are easy to understand and relevant to their world view and millieu and again he seemed to realize that before even going in with his pre-airing comments so in some ways I can't see how he can be disappointed with and surprised at the results. Very few people that watch anime want to hear about and possibly have to look up news articles and punditry on Japanese Energy Conservation Policies, it's too complex and outside of the sphere of what the current anime watching audience considers of interest and relevance to the culture of the medium as it stands is largely about Iyashikei and Bishoujo aesthetics.

As he also says (and I happen to agree with this sentiment) anime can't survive as a medium from a creative standpoint and result in the kinds of internationally regarded works we used to get with everything just revolving around simple feel good "healing anime" and titles centered around bishoujo that serve to cater to the desires of a select few in the otaku/collector sub group, but it seems like any time a show tries to be about something a little more than that it ends up coming under heavy scorn so it's like there's no alternative.

It's a shame too but I just don't think there's really a place for his old staff in the current anime industry unless they can learn to draw moe cause that's what people want to see primarily. They can try to do something like G-Reco again, and make adjustments but I think the result would ultimately be exactly the same unless they just throw in the towel and go it the simpler way. It's not like they don't know how to do good key animation and sakuga after all, there's clear talent on display with this show, just todays anime audience has little to no interest in seeing it channeled into conveying giant robots battling. That's a problem facing the mecha genre as a whole though going forward, not just Gundam.

residentgrigo wrote:

I would like to point out that Tomino has been heavily critical of Victory (my favorite after Zeta) and the final stretch of Zeta itself. I wouldn't call A New Translation a butchery penguintruth.

I dunno, I think he about had it right. I mean I guess it was kind of nice to see some of it with new animation...

While I just don't like V, that was more the whole package so I don't think you can really fix it without it not being V anymore (also those that do like V tend to like it a lot). If there was one old gundam series of his that he needed to fix, it was ZZ. He should have redone that, specifically he should have scrapped the entire first half and redone it.

If there is one thing Tomino is really weak at in his gundams, it is getting things going in the first place. First was kinda slow but alright. Zeta was fine. ZZ's was garbage. V actually is probably the exception as it seems to start off running. Turn-A was super freaking slow. G-Reco was super freaking slow. G-Reco just got royally screwed by not having the episode count that the others did thus not giving him time to make up for it. Not that you could ever really excuse the first 19 or so of G-Reco, but when reflecting over the series as a whole, 19/26 weighs it down far more than 19/50 would.

Crow Bro wrote:

He says he can see why people could have trouble understanding it not that the writing is bad. With your poor reading comprehension no wonder you thought it was terrible. Rolling Eyes

Ok, he doesn't specifically and literally say the writing was bad. He did say that it was so slow that it took a tremendous amount of effort to wrap up by the 26th episode and that because of this he can only rate it 15/100. He is clearly implying that the writing was badly done because it got rushed due to lack of time.

Though honestly, I would say the rushed part (meaning after ep 19) was the better part of the series and that seems to be a fairly common opinion (based on the admittedly small amount of comments I've read compared to the number of people that have watched it).

Just so people know what's goin' on, you may notice some posts and replies to user Crow Bro have been deleted.

It turns out, CB is actually an additional account of user Choco Bar / Choco Bar1 who had been previously Moderated a while back for being snooty and belligerent in their opinions. So please rest assure that the CB's account has been Moderated and all posts deleted.

Keep the criticisms constructive, and try not to troll like the former. Thanks.

I think Kaioshin_Sama hit the nail on the head. I don't think G-Reco was terrible or at least I didn't think it was terrible. It wasn't popular because it simply didn't have mainstream appeal. Not just G-Reco or Gundam which has barrier of it own to deal with, I believe the mecha genre as whole is like this hence why we have so few this season.

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