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Best Gundam series?

Didn't mean to bother anyone.

Zeta is just as melodramatic as SEED.

All right, I've had about enough of this.

dtm42 wants to label Zeta as melodramatic, but he's defending a show that is basically weepy, personality-deprived idiots with no presence piloting awfully designed mecha for a non-existent plot.

Honestly, SEED is such a watered-down copycat, one wonders why anyone could defend it, except perhaps in comparison to its sequel.

Meanwhile, Zeta Gundam is a masterpiece that pushes the desperate, often losing struggle against an out-of-control government force and develops its themes beautifully by pushing its characters to their limits in its complex storytelling.

Rau was a great villain? He has literally no motivation whatsoever, and he comes off has having no presence at all. When he shows up, he doesn't create a stir in even the minds of the other characters, let alone the audience. Boring as paste.

CE Gundam was a disaster through and through. SEED set it up, Destiny just proved it to the hangers-on. It is the definition of generic, plastic-looking anime with no character. As far as I'm concerned, shows like SEED are exactly what is wrong with anime.

What's wrong with Anime are fans who blindly believe that titles which are little more than pieces of garbage are actually Masterpieces which should never be criticised. It is people like you that is to blame for what is wrong with Anime.

Rau's motivation is simple. spoiler[He's dying, and wants to kill everyone before he goes himself. That's why he helped both the PLANTS and OMNI , to ensure their mutual destruction.] Like I said, simple, but that doesn't make it a weak motivation. Okay, now what was Scirocco's motivation? Can you really argue that it was better than Rau's?

--- It has a dark atmosphere to try and be edgy and cool, but fails miserably. War is no picnic, but the show took it to an extreme with its attitude.

--- It has characters beating each other up for no reason ("violence porn").

--- It has characters that fall madly (and I use that word deliberately) in love with one another at first sight, no matter if they are enemies who killed their comrades.

--- It has characters doing such stupid, stupid STUPID acts that I realised they weren't characters at all but instead melodramatic robots. Because no human could be that stupid.

--- Lastly (of the things I will list here, not the things I have a gripe with), the ending completely destroyed any chance of Zeta ever being called a Real Robot show. I mean, the titular Gundam spoiler[going Super Saiyan?] Oh please. The sad part is that the show up to the last few episodes had been good at keeping to the Real Robot theme, only to crap all over its own hard work. And before you mention Char's Counterattack, let me assure you that it too made the same mistake.

Rau's motivation is simple. spoiler[He's dying, and wants to kill everyone before he goes himself. That's why he helped both the PLANTS and OMNI , to ensure their mutual destruction.] Like I said, simple, but that doesn't make it a weak motivation. Okay, now what was Scirocco's motivation? Can you really argue that it was better than Rau's?

It's not an exaggeration to say it was a sudden "power-up" that wasn't properly handled and it's long been considered an outstanding issue. Viewers have been asking questions about it from time to time and there's little doubt that, one way or another, something went wrong there.

And there are other concerns too, such as how Katz seemed to be given a lot more free rein than Kamille despite his obvious incompetence, or how the same basic "doomed Newtype" character arc was repeated about three or four times. Incidentally, spoiler[ Four herself literally goes through it twice, after somehow surviving a situation that should have lead to her death (and did...when Tomino came back to make the movie adaptations)].

For some Tomino's own darker and near-nihilistic directorial tendencies are a complete turn-off, for others they are signs of brilliance and realism...for me they were occasionally successful, but I'm not going to deny that they make shows like Zeta a lot harder to re-watch.

Characters had been playing with their Newtype powers for several episodes before the finale, it was building up gradually, even ever since the first series.

Anyway, Bright clearly expected Kamille to rein in Katz, thinking it was a good way for him to mature. And while he did, Katz was a little too out of control. Katz is a tragedy, because he confused his desire for Sarah for love.

As for Four, I was rather disappointed they cut the Kilamanjaro arc from the movies. The Hong Kong arc wasn't enough to establish Four's attachment to Kamille.

Tomino isn't for everyone, I guess.

That would be fine as a general thematic concept but in this specific case I don't think the real issue is spoiler[the appearance of those Newtype "ghosts" that shielded Kamille from Scirocco, but the fact that the Zeta Gundam itself suddenly became visibly more powerful on the physical plane, including being protected from attacks and being able to use stronger beams. Newtypes interacting with other Newtypes is one thing...having a mobile suit with an unexplained and not previously introduced system interact with the same is another issue entirely.]

I also see why that would be an annoyance for viewers expecting him to be disciplined, at the very least, particularly when physical violence was being used rather liberally against Kamille and a number of other characters. To be honest, the fact that I haven't seen the series in years probably helps me forget just how much it did or didn't bother me at the time.

My complaint is a bit ironic, because I actually also preferred that same arc to Four's original appearance, but there's no denying that Tomino was trying to make essentially the same point not just once but multiple times (and he did so with other characters too).

I'm just glad that, in time, he also developed a more lighthearted side.

I think you need to look at the situations these things occur rather than the fact they occur.

I don't understand the expectation for characters who are a ragtag bunch of rebels to be super disciplined, especially a teenage kid who never got over his hero worship.

The AEUG can hardly be picky about who they get to pilot. Katz was a bit better than Fa, I thought.

If you're talking about Rosamia/Rosammy, then I suppose you have a point. But I think it was used as a way to set up the conclusion. Kamille was trying to prevent other people from sacrificing themselves, spoiler[but not only couldn't he save Four, but he had to kill Rosamia himself. After that, it makes sense he would put it all on the line to stop Scirocco.]

Which, much like his darker side, can produce mixed results

I'm just glad that, in time, he also developed a more lighthearted side.

spoiler[cheering his death is not uncommon at all.]

Back to the biosensor, it was a crappy attempt to explain why the Zeta suddenly pulled a deux ex machina out of its arse. I don't recall any of the instances where supposedly it had demonstrated unusual abilities before the final three or so episodes. And since penguintruth you didn't give any specific examples, I'm thinking neither do you. Because there were none.