Gundam Franchise.
Oh boy… Well, I was warned, even by the creator of the show himself (literally Tomino told people not to buy the DVDs in an insert on the DVD release…) but now I’ve finally started to watch Victory Gundam and it’s not good! Who would’ve thought that a show with a bad reputation even among diehards of the meta-series would actually not be very good? Well, at least the first quarter-ish, we’ll see about the rest, obviously. Want to know more? Read on!
I can just about write a Bond film and a TV Doctor Who episode review a week at the moment, but I did manage to review MSG Origin V and VI for Anime UK News, which can be found HERE. I’m glad I did, because that’s another part of the UC Gundam series covered, as to when I’ll get around to Victory, I have no idea any more, but hopefully soon! (Who invented having to work for a living? Seriously…)
It’s time to continue forward in the Universal Century, though we’re now so far away from Amuro and co. that it doesn’t really matter, beyond similar designs and faction names. Gundam F91 is a straight up theatrical movie by Gundam creator Tomino himself, but the problem is that it started off life as a new TV show, and therefore this comes across as a compilation movie to a series you haven’t seen… but is it still worth a watch?! Well, since you asked…
My review of the second MSG Thunderbolt movie, Bandit Flower, is now up on Anime UK News and can viewed by clicking HERE. Again, some time down the line I’ll do a more detailed review here on the blog, but this gives you my overall thoughts for now!
The last of the “classic” Universal Century OVAs, Stardust Memory takes place in between the original series and Zeta Gundam, doing an unnecessarily long and twisty version of events that led to the formation of the Titans group so prominently featured in the latter series. It also features a very interesting villain and a fun, if not always likeable, protagonist to face off against him. Let’s take a good look at this 13-Episode series…
Have you been wondering why I haven’t been posting game reviews, specifically modern game reviews, recently? Well, I thought I’d finally give the Super Robot Wars series a proper go and imported the English language Asia version of the first PS4 game, V (as in the letter, not the roman numeral for five…) The little “that would be fun” idea ended up absorbing nearly three months of my gaming time… Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every second of it, and have already made plans to import the next in the series when the gaming world goes quiet again, but yeah… this was a marathon rather than a sprint, that’s for sure! Let’s take a look…
I uncharacteristically spent a little extra money on importing the latest entry into the Universal Century Gundam timeline, Narrative having English subtitles and a dub on the Japanese blu-ray disc. Why not, right? So what’s it like? It’s a bit short of time for character development beyond the lead trio, but I did really enjoy it, and it filled in a plothole that Unicorn created very neatly, so now we can move on to Hathaway’s Flash without wondering why everyone isn’t using crazy Psycho-Frame Gundams… Let’s have a look!
Here we go then, let’s get this out of the w- … hang on, this is really good?! The first of the three episodes was actually great?! Well blow me down, this MS IGLOO OVA series is actually worth watching. I don’t know if it was worth sitting through the other two OVAs to get to it, but at least I feel I got something good out of the whole thing. Want to know more? Read on!
Here we go again… *sigh*, and I mean that far more literally than I’d like, as for the most part these three episodes follow the exact same story as the three previous. More of the same cast of uninteresting characters, more prototype weaponry and more test pilots dying. Oh, and of course, more cheapo looking CGI! Hooray?! Let’s take a look at the second IGLOO OVA then, at least there’s only one left to go!
This is a rare treat, a Universal Century Gundam review where I’m seeing it for the first time! Wow! … oh, wait, there was a reason I never bothered to import it. It’s IGLOO, the CGI OVAs that became terribly dated just a few years after they released in 2004, let alone now! Seriously, my review of the first Resident Evil CGI film was harsh on the then-infant technology, but this takes the biscuit, which is a shame because the actual plot is quite enjoyable! Oh well, let’s get the first of these THREE OVAs out of the way…
Hogan Reviews 