Forum - View topicREVIEW: Gundam 00 DVD Season 1 Part 1
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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That faint sound you can hear is Gundam 0080 weeping in a corner somewhere. |
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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In terms of the North American market? It's absolutely true. Tomino bombed and bombed in spectacular fashion. His Gundam titles not only not sold, they not sold after a massive hype campaign and probably took the rest of Bandai's post-Wing Gundam releases with them. At best they broke even for Bandai, but considering how well they were apparently expected to sell, that in itself is still an epic flop. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Massive hype campaign? For Gundam? In America? You must be joking. There hasn't been any sort of hype campaign for a Gundam title in R1 since Gundam Wing.
They barely advertised either the original series release or Char's Counterattack (other than the Big Apple Anime Fest showing). The special edition movies got no advertising at all. I didn't hear word one about Zeta Gundam until ANN mentioned it, and then they managed to complete screw the pooch with that release themselves with delays, dubtitles, and lack of OP and ED themes. It didn't help that CN never even gave the original series a full run. Ostensibly because of low ratings (or 9/11), but talking about ratings on a cable cartoon channel is laughable. When was the last time Bandai Entertainment made any noise at all for a Gundam release? Seed Destiny, perhaps? |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4380 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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Well the original was made in the late 70's and people was a lot of voltron and robotech series so it shouldn't be a susprised it tanked. Also it aint bandai's fault that they couldnt get the OP for zeta. The japaneese licensors were probably asking too much to secure them which is why went with instrumental themes, though you might be right about it's campaign cause unless there's another Gundam Wing type crave in the US and on CN,i serously doubt there gonna be another one of those kinds of campagin. Also you cant forget about G Gundam which was seriously hyped on CN and was medicore at best and what CN did to gundam seed is what people would expect 4kids would do.Now that was a serious diaster, Either way, at least 00 is decent enough and after seeing it on the Sci Fi's Ani-Monday block i'm satasified of it's results, though i would have given the dub an A- or B+ at least cause though it's not as good as Seed was,it's still a decent enough which shouldn't susprise anyone since Ocean Group has been doing every Gundam series since the original series. It's a definate shelf worthy in my book and i'll be keeping an eye out for season 2's review. |
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Labbes
 Posts: 890 |
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I don't think it's appropriate to say this series has more brain than heart. While it may throw some things at us, like "politics" and "renewable energy", it doesn't go into detail at all. Also, the first big fight, which I think is at the end of this volume, is full off crappy "tactics" and one of the worst fights I have ever seen.
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RogueJedi86
 Posts: 501 |
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I've also been watching on Sci-Fi/SyFy, and my only big complaint has nothing to do with the show itself(SyFy's 3 commercial breaks per 30 minute period is annoying). I will admit to not quite liking Setsuna at first, he's a bit too obsessed with Gundam(he seems to venerate Gundam as a personal god), but I've seen far more unlikeable characters before.
The dub has been solid as far as I'm concerned, after being convinced of Ocean's dubbing prowess by Death Note. Aside from Sergei Smirnov in the early episodes(and even he's gotten better), the dub has been very good. I can't think of any standout roles though. Gundam 00 is my first Gundam series, and I like it. It's a much more consistently serious anime than I'm used to. Depending on how it ends, it'll probably end up in my Top 10. |
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krpalmer
Posts: 31 |
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I do have to admit that when I first saw Gundam 00, I may have started off suspicious not only towards the avowed goal of Celestial Being but also how well they seemed to be moving towards it... although right around where the episodes on this release leave off, I found myself starting to warm up to some of the minor characters, and that feeling spread from there to leave me most interested in how the cast in general would get out of their scrapes, and somehow convinced that hadn't been there to begin with. Given that, I suppose I was willing to think I'd watch this release most of all "to get ready for where it really picks up"... and I found myself surprised again that, this time around, I seemed better able to realise the "non-Celestial Being" characters kept expressing suspicion about "ending war through armed intervention." Maybe the subtitles really were different, or maybe it was just a case of paying better attention this time around; in any case, I appreciated the new feeling.
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Wooga
 Posts: 916 Location: Tucson |
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I dont know if this is right thread to ask but..does anyone know the difference between this set and the collector's edition? There's no indication an Amazon besides the titles.
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asimpson2006
 Posts: 3151 Location: USA |
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The special edition comes with 2 mangas as well. It comes with volume 1 of the Gundam 00 manga, and volume 1 of the Gundam 00F manga. I would have given the Dub a B+, since I though it was good but the VA's could have gotten into their characters a bit sooner IMO. |
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BleuVII
 Posts: 672 Location: Tokorozawa, Japan |
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Hmmm... more brains than heart? Yeah, that's fair. This is a different kind of anime meant at an older demographic than the standard shonen fare. I will also agree that it starts off slow and with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. This is definitely a series that gets better over time though. By the end of season 2, I would be willing to rank this #1 or #2 for the Gundam metaseries.
And the mecha designs... wow! Seriously the best I've seen. The ONLY one I wasn't too crazy about was Kyrios. But Exia more than makes up for that. I also like how the different factions on earth have distinct styles for the suits that they build. |
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Craeyst Raygal
 Posts: 1383 Location: In the garage, beneath a 1970 MGB GT. |
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I have to say I've been genuinely enjoying Gundam 00 in its television run. At first, I felt its biggest problem was that it spent its first act introducing character after character after character, giving us a huge cast that grew increasingly more difficult to identify or grow attached to.
It muddles around for a while, giving snippets of plotline as if each character had a bloody contract for screentime, meaning that the story plodded along not getting much done until the characters started to clash with each other and sides began to form. Once everyone was on the same page of the story, the series picked up a ton and became truly enjoyable, and also began to actually stop pulling its punches when it came to handling the various characters. I'd be willing to say, actually, that I feel Gundam 00 has had some of the most believable reactions and motivations for characters in some time. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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It is their fault for not telling anyone about it so that people opened up their expensive pre-ordered boxsets to find that part of the contents had been switched out for a cheaper alternative.
I swear, does every long-form anime series have to screw around before it actually start being watchable? Doesn't anyone know how to write a 50-episode series? Oh, wait, was this one 50 episodes? Well, actually some standard length series have that problem, too, and it's just as bad. |
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3186 |
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since this is a review (your review?) of a gundam series, i was assuming that what was ment by that statement is that the story never really "took off". i didn't think that had anything to do with the way bandai handled the north american release or sales. |
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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This is hardly unique to anime. A lot of book series have shaky beginnings (Harry Potter 1 and 2 are pretty so-so IMHO), and American series sometimes face the same issues (Seinfeld and Simpsons' first few seasons don't compare to the ones after, and Firefly's first few episodes aren't quite as impressive as the ones after, etc.). Beginnings are generally focused on interesting the cast and the plot. You can't expect to always be instantly attached to the characters, I only think that expectation is reasonable if the cast is pretty small (and for pretty much all Gundam series, that's not the case). |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1327 |
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Watching Gundam 00 on Sci-Fi/Syfy, during the whole first series it was something that didn't really stand out too much to me after having watched SEED a while ago. I still watched it since it was broadcast on TV and was still entertaining. But a little both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, the sequel series that's playing now is really picking things up, and really has my attention hooked. It's more exciting than it was before, and probably due to the first series I'm actually caring about and rooting for the protagonists. And I for one think the dub is fine for a show like this.
Last edited by pachy_boy on Sun Aug 30, 2009 5:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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