Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Gundam Infinity
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BeanBandit
Posts: 303 Location: Canada |
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I've followed Gundam since I first got into anime in the late 90's and as always with Mike's writings it's great to learn new things about this stuff.
Personally though I've always had a love/hate relationship with the franchise as wile there's plenty of Gundam shows I like there's also a lot I don't. Ironically I think the stuff I dislike about Gundam all stem from it's actual creator Yoshiyuki Tomino. I like original Gundam but only the compilation films which from what I understand were more the product of one of his collaborators then Tomino himself. Other then that I dislike all the other Tomino directed Gundam, and after having seen more of his work I can safely say I dislike Tomino's work as a whole. I don't hate him per se but I could just never really get into or connect with any of his work, such as shows like Zeta Gundam, no matter how hard I tried. For me my love of Gundam mostly stems from the various OAV and alternate universe spin-offs. For example the shows that got me interested in the UC Gundam stuff were shows like 0080, 0083, and 08th MS Team (and more recently Unicorn). Then of course shows like Gundam Wing and SEED got me into some of the alternate universe Gundam (though I don't like most of the alternate universe stuff on the whole either, mostly just Wing & SEED). Last edited by BeanBandit on Sun Nov 07, 2010 11:27 am; edited 1 time in total |
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DuelLadyS
 Posts: 1705 Location: WA state |
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While that would be Epic Awesomeness, I somehow think an article on bootlegs wouldn't slide here on ANN, even done in jest. (which kinda sucks, since anime jump seems to finally be gone...) |
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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Your reading comprehension (and possibly grasp of the English language; I'm not sure if you're a native speaker) needs work. Per the opening section of this column:
Gundam SEED is one of the single most popular entries in the Gundam franchise, and is therefore out of scope with regards to the subject at hand. I can't help but notice this recurring trend--especially among the mecha/tokusatsu fanbase--to respond to any sort of presentation on these given subjects with a "you forgot to mention [X]!" comment for the sake of showing everyone whose kung-fu truly is the strongest. In most cases, the author, panelist, speaker etc. has not "forgotten" anything: rather, they are quite deliberately omitting the mention of said topic for the sake of brevity, simplicity, or a combination of the two. The fact that Mike's writeup is over 5200 words long and only scratches the surface of the matter is testament to how much material we're dealing with here. But Gundam fans already know all about the finer details of things like "how Crossbone Gundam and Hathaway's Flash fit within the Universal Century timeline," which is why the primary audience for this article is not people like me who can understand the in-jokes of the Gundam Sousei manga. Nor should it be. What makes this writeup so great is the fact that Mike really went the extra mile: he tracked down the actual people involved in making these releases happen (in some cases, via their talent agents) and interviewed them specifically for the purpose of writing this! That's not something we see very often in anime journalism--I'll admit to being part of the problem as it typically doesn't occur to me to even try--and I'd like to see it become more commonplace. So my proverbial hat goes off to you, Mike: I can tell that putting this one together took a long, long time. |
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Lynx Amali
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The sad thing is, I saw and liked SD Gundam Force and G-Savior. Does that make me a bad person? I actually own the PS2 SD Gundam Force and G Savior games. (Which I still haven't beaten.)
I totally agree with the novels. That was actually my first "real" UC exposure. My dad had them and gave them to me. They were slow, very slow, and didn't really have the charm to me that the anime did. I do however own Tomino's Char's Counterattack novelization, Belthoka's Children, or something like that. I get the majority with my limited moon-runes knowledge(Japanese.) and it's fairly well done. Turn A was slow to me. The only thing that I liked was the design and plot and the occasional character. (Gym and Harry [UNIVERSE!] Ord come to mind) I really liked how it supposedly linked all the Gundam-verse together before SEED and crew showed up. The thing that surprised me though was the fact that Loran was originally supposed to be female. I guess that where we got "Laura Rolla" from? Tomino's revenge! I'm on the fritz with the whole AU vs UC debate. I like a few of the AUs (Future Century, Correct Century and After War [Which I still believe is post UC-Pre CC] but the fact that some of the AUs now a days resemble the old series really make me think that SUNRISE is losing ideas and doing what they know will work. But I still say we need a Crossbone animation. I mean, the F91 story needs a conclusion. |
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smilydude13
Posts: 11 |
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Yeah, those Toonami Promo's were incredible. I remember sitting in my room and that Wing promo came on and it got me extremely hyped. I think they even made Hamtaro look awesome.
I just hope Unicorn makes them a lot of money here so that they start localizing more Gundam for us. |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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You're absolutely right about that. It's this additional insight and those unique bits of trivia that give the article a relatively fresh outlook, when you get past all the usual nuts and bolts of the average Gundam discussion. Not that the topics covered weren't diverse and comprehensive in their own right, but such a massive universe can't possibly be exhausted in just one essay-length piece. I was particularly amused by the information on Gundam 0079: The War for Earth. You'd think such a campy game would have some sort of obscure cult following or something, but this is pretty much the first time I've ever heard about it. And as a Wing Commander fan myself (notably II and IV), the token reference was appreciated. As for the rest, well...I've already mildly criticized what Gundam Unicorn represents elsewhere, on a purely conceptual level, but it would be beyond me to deny that the OVA has been shaping up quite nicely so far. I'm definitely enjoying the results. It's not surprising to see Turn A Gundam get some deserved critical praise here and there, but I'll also acknowledge the show has its own quirks and not everyone will get past the unhurried pace of the earlier episodes. Tomino's works tend to have their meandering parts and this one isn't really any different in spite of its bold setting shift. Never suspected that there was a connection between Doozy Bots and SD Gundam, which just proves how little I knew about either of them. |
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crazychild
Posts: 79 |
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I kept putting off buying the newer edition of the Gundam novels until it eventually went out of print and people started selling them for ridiculous prices. I finally picked up the old editions a couple of years ago for dirt cheap (something like 8 or 9 bucks, almost entirely for shipping).
The only thing I really remember about them now is that Sayla loses bladder control at least twice (along with her bowels and vomiting at the same time on one occasion), and wondering what the hell was wrong with Tomino. |
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captainbanana
Posts: 191 |
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Other than disagreeing about the Gundam novels (I liked them quite a bit), this article was a great read. I've seen pretty much every other piece of Gundam media, but somehow I had never heard of the US adaption of the old SD Gundam show. Even with its missteps, I wonder if it is as bad as the SD Gundam show that would eventually come out in the 2000's and bomb (it was....my god it was colorful).
It's interesting to hear that Kokoro Don's Island may have been taken out of the US release because Tomino has a personal beef with the staffer that created it. With the exception of some poorly drawn frames, the story is actually quite decent in the episode, and no one would have picked it out as "the bad episode" in a lineup (like that one episode of Gurren Lagann that made everyone want to gouge their eyes and ears out) Thanks for the article. |
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Eivion
Posts: 569 |
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Nice article. Gave to some interesting info I didn't know about before. Thanks for finding that promo too, I don't remember that at all despite watching Wing religiously back when it aired.
Really like Turn A though I don't have the same amount of love others had for it. The ending felt a bit rushed to me though maybe I just got used to the slower pacing. |
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Mike Toole
 SubscriberANN Columnist  Posts: 105 Location: THE GOOD OLE U-S-A |
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Yeah, there's an Amuro-Sayla hookup scene that rivals TekWar in terms of awkward, hilarious "romantic" encounters.
you overpaid on your taxes
Yeah? I dunno, I feel like there was 25 episodes of "Amuro seems to have an odd intuition followed by Captain Coskone busting in at Side 6 with "THAT LAD IS A NEWTYPE! NEWTYPES ARE DANGEROUS PEOPLE, EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT NEWTYPES!" and in the very next episode, he meets Lalah.
Man, who was it who dressed up as Muttley? I should've used a screengrab of that.
Origin manga needs a reprint that isn't a semi-floppy affair like the old Viz releases. Hardcover would be nice.
Very little succeeds, at this point. All that Turn A needs to do is sell well enough to recoup its costs and keep fans and DVD shoppers interested in the brand.
I'm tempted to point to Shinya Sadamitsu as the obvious culprit, but he worked with Tomino for years afterwards. The world may never know.
Haro genki! Haro genki!
Oh, Tomino is definitely the problem on a lot of his own productions. That's why I'm so fond of him and his work - his body of work has a lot more failures than successes, IMO, but they're all very interesting failures that still succeeded in some small ways. Also, I've always been amused by how obvious it is that he considers the Wings of Rean/Dunbine stuff to be his life's work and keeps trying to repackage and reinvent it. Something tells me he tried REALLY HARD to sell Byston Well to fans, and is dissatisfied that it's still nowhere near as popular as Gundam. Unfortunately, he doesn't permit real interviews anymore (I inquired on his visit to NYAF last year and was told that only pre-screened, softball questions would be asked), so we can't ask him.
Well, in that particular case, I think one can draw a line between "bad" and "directed by Osamu Kobayashi," where the latter seems bad only because it clashes so baldly with Hiroyuki Imaishi's direction. Thanks for the love, y'all. I like writing these things. |
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TokyoGetter
 Posts: 416 Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards. |
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For the guy who didn't like Zeta Gundam: do you also not enjoy things like fun, high fives, cute kittens or awesome in general?
Excellent job, Mike. You pulled up some errata I'd never heard of! I wish Gundam manga was more plentiful. Sadly, with The Origin cancelled (why not just give it tankouban instead of that weird trade format?), I may be at a loss. |
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Otaking09
 Posts: 637 |
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If you haven't seen it, you should. I liked far more than I did with 1st Gundam, not to mention it's overall point is a little scary. It's up there with Escaflowne's spoiler[Hitomi created the story with her troubled expectations of things] except it's a practical twist; it sorta applies to our world. That being said, it still has some flaws like spoiler[how they don't go back to Byston Well,] or how the ending was simply spoiler[ambiguous]. I'd like to see a Mike Toole show about Dunbine(if he hasn't done it already), because it's a show I'd like to see re-released by Sentai, and it might satisfy the curiosity of those who want more non-Gundam from Tomino. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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This was a terrific read, as are all of Mike's columns. My only real exposure to Gundam has been watching 00 on SyFy, but I enjoyed that enough to want to seek out more of the franchise. I figure I at least need to see the original series, to experience how the whole phenomenon started. Gundam is too large a part of anime's history to not get exposed to some more of it.
(Speaking of Tomino, I still need to watch my King Gainer boxset, which I bought solely because of its fantastic opening.) |
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FaytLein
 Posts: 1260 Location: Williamsburg, VA |
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Ah man, Gundam. Probably one of my favorite franchises gets its luminous history at least partially dealt with. And with over 30 years of manga, anime and models to talk about, you could probably spend a solid week talking about everything and still leave some stuff out.
As for the last three series, I don't think its a mistake that those three haven't been tapped for distribution, since for a variety of reasons they either flopped in Japan or wouldn't make it over here in the US. ZZ and X? They both drew pretty poor ratings while airing, and looking online the fanbase over here considers ZZ a joke and X has been drooping lately. V has 13 year old kids fighting in a war, and is supremely dark and moody with tons of people dying left and right. And of course, with SEED and 00 being the new hotness, the appeal of 20 to 10 year old shows aren't that high on everyone's list. Don't get me wrong, if Bandai did announce all three, I would be first in line to pick them up, but I just can't see it. Besides, ZZ Gundam isn't even anime, so I doubt Bandai would bother with it. 
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3186 |
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Too bad BVUSA never finished MS Igloo...
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