Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! It’s been a thoroughly productive week on my end, as our regular film viewings were accompanied by maybe fifty episodes of rapid-fire anime viewing, continuing our gallant charge through the extended Gundam universe. Unfortunately, that impressive episode total was only made possible because what we were watching wasn’t terribly interesting; as it turns out, it’s pretty easy to burn through anime when you only have to pay a quarter of a mind’s attention to it. Nonetheless, it feels immensely satisfying to again be making such rapid progress on this grand project, and I’m eager to continue on with the esteemed Char’s Counterattack. But for now, let’s explore the fruits of our labors, as we chart a course through the Universal Century and beyond!
The first leg of our recent Gundam escapades involved journeying back to the aftermath of the original series, following up the original Mobile Suit Gundam with its immediate sequel Zeta Gundam. Taking place eight years after the original One-Year War, Zeta situates us alongside new would-be pilot Kamille Bidan, who is absolutely not going to forgive you for saying he has a girl’s name. Though he’d engage you in fisticuffs for mentioning that, Kamille is otherwise a fairly committed pacifist – a predilection that proves hard to commit to once he becomes the colonies’ latest ace pilot, fighting alongside a poorly disguised Char Aznable for the sake of a more equitable future.
As a direct response to the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta proves a refreshing twist on formula, with its very premise challenging the purpose and finality of any given war. With Amuro and Captain Bright having secured victory against Zeon, it previously seemed like the earth and colonies might enjoy some well-earned peace. Unfortunately, the success of the White Base only ends up facilitating further injustices – the Federation is swiftly commandeered by the colony-oppressing Titans, forcing Char, Bright, and the young Kamille to fight against them within the A.E.U.G., the latest champions of peace in the colonies.
Through both Kamille’s reticence and the obviously cyclical nature of Zeta’s conflicts, the utter senselessness of total war, and the vast distance between who fights and who is fought for, is made clear time and again. The Newtypes, a concept that was only briefly engaged in the original Gundam, here become an easy stand-in for how the young always suffer for the crimes of previous generations, their potential for mutual understanding warped into new realms of psychic warfare. And yet our heroes can’t simply throw up their hands and abandon their values; instead, their attempts to navigate this new era imbue Zeta with a redoubled sense of desperation and consequence, as Bright fights just as hard alongside his former enemies, and Char reluctantly rises into a messianic figurehead.
With a compelling mixture of old and new cast members, significantly improved animation, and a deliciously ambiguous twist on the original Gundam’s narrative and ethos, Zeta proves a more than worthy followup to the first series. There are still a few stretches that meander into weightless episodic conflicts, but the balance as a whole leans towards persistent narrative invention and genuine momentum, expanding and enriching the world of the original series time and again. A thoroughly engaging watch.
Unfortunately, our continuing journey into ZZ Gundam proved a significantly bumpier ride. In spite of beginning just a few weeks after Zeta, ZZ largely dispenses with the continuity of the previous series, with only Bright significantly continuing on from the prior conflict. Instead, ZZ seems determined to inject the Gundam franchise with a bunch of variables that feel wholly out of place in this war-torn world: tonally peculiar Lupin-esque comedy antics, tediously ridiculous villains, and episodic conflicts that rarely contribute to any sort of larger drama.
I’m certainly not against comedy in my dramas, but I’d generally prefer it to be good comedy, and ZZ’s embellishments rarely pass that bar. More fundamentally, it too often feels like ZZ is simply wandering in circles, with neither our heroes nor our villains taking the ongoing conflict seriously enough for us in the audience to care about it either. The saving grace of these early episodes is how well they acquaint us with our new ship’s worth of child soldiers, who count among the best-developed of Gundam’s young heroes. And as ZZ’s second half rolls around, those soldiers are put to the test through a variety of shocking twists and desperate battles that shift ZZ more in line with the grim highlights of its predecessors.
ZZ’s cast eventually grow into worthy successors to the original White Base squad, emerging from under Bright’s tutelage to truly earn their own wings. I also quite enjoyed the ultimate evolutions of this series’ villains, with the ever-imposing Haman Khan and her ambitious subordinates again demonstrating how victory is rarely more than the first shot of the next war, as the victors turn on each other in their lunge for the spoils. And ZZ’s more extended exploration of life on the colonies was also appreciated; starting with junkyard salvagers rather than Gundam development royalty offers an immediate broadening of the franchise’s perspective, a choice that becomes a trend as we see how the ordinary people of various other colonies live. I can’t say I agreed with all of its choices, but I still had a fine enough time with ZZ.
Apparently fatigued with the real robot theatrics of the Universal Century Gundams, my housemate then insisted we jump over to G Gundam, the early ‘90s take on a super robot-styled Gundam. In a future where the earth is now suitable only for Gundam Fight Matches, Domon Kasshu stars as the representative of Neo Japan, who must compete in formal matches against other Gundam pilots in order to secure control of all of space. Along the way, he will seek out a mysterious man who has some tangled relationship with his past, hoping for both vengeance and victory on his road to the top.
It’s kind of funny – G Gundam and Gundam Wing were the first Gundams I became acquainted with as an adolescent, due to their regular appearances on Cartoon Network. As such, my first impression of the franchise was that it was all a bit too silly for me, mostly concerned with melodramatic clashes of no meaningful consequence, an assumption which prevented me from checking out the Gundams I would enjoy for far too long. As an adult I’ve come to enjoy the occasional melodramatic clash of no meaningful consequence, but I gotta say, there was still very little in G Gundam to interest me.
The best moments of G Gundam recall something like Symphogear or JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, impressing largely through their audacity of silliness. Moments like “Domon rides a horse who is also piloting a Gundam” or “The Netherlands’ Gundam reveals itself to be a literal windmill” are energizing and hilarious – unfortunately, such moments are only infrequently scattered across the series’ punishing fifty episode runtime, with all the rest dedicated to profoundly repetitive matches between one-note characters.
Even continuous episodic fights with no real larger context can be engaging, as JoJo readily demonstrates. But G Gundam entirely lacks JoJo’s invention when it comes to fight scenes; every single G Gundam fight follows the formula of “Domon is losing until he remembers Friendship, then beats his opponent with Shining Finger,” with practically no variation from the first episode to the last. How am I supposed to find that interesting? How does anyone find that interesting? With no meaningful characterization, an entirely ludicrous background conflict, and no interest even in the nitty-gritty back-and-forth of combat, I frequently found myself struggling to understand what G Gundam was actually trying to do, what it cared about and was trying to be good at.
I’ve watched plenty of shows defined by episodic constancy, but all of them offered something that made each episode worth watching – JoJo’s inventive twists on its powers, Pretty Cure’s distinct emotional conflicts, Sun & Moon’s humor and playful animation. All of these shows contain something to reward repeat visits, but outside of the brief, welcome narrative escalation characterizing G Gundam’s last few episodes, this show never did. And it’s not like the concept is the issue – “Gundams presented as extensions of their martial artist pilots” is a terrific idea, but G Gundam never makes more than the vaguest gestures towards articulating actual martial arts contests. I’m less disappointed than confused – is machismo really all it takes to make a show engaging, absent basically any other virtues worth mentioning? I guess I’m just not wired to understand it.
