Gundam Franchise.
It’s time to take that tentative step into the world of Gundam ZZ (pronounced “Double Zeta”, for the record!), a show wildly inconsistent in its tone, though sadly for this first chunk of episodes, the tone is actually consistent…ly bad. I don’t mind a more light-hearted approach, but I do mind it when it’s not done very well! So let’s resume our look at the Universal Century timeline of Gundam by taking at look at ZZ’s first eleven episodes…
Time for a quick (ignoring the large copy and pasted Cast of Characters section…) look at Zeta Gundam’s overall ability to tell a good story. At 50 episodes it’s one of the longer Gundam series in general, but that’s not always a good thing… So, let’s finish this part of Universal Century off, shall we?
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam comes to its grizzly and depressing conclusion! Yes, it’s well known now that creator Yoshiyuki Tomino fell into depression during the course of Zeta, leading to the extremely dark ending to the series, and … yep, it is that, but is it still enjoyable, in a sick, “realistic war scenario” kind of way? Let’s find out!
Zeta Gundam begins its march towards the series’ end as it introduces a third faction into the mix with the remnants of Zeon joining the fight between the Titans and the AUEG… as if my “Cast of Characters” section wasn’t full enough! Let’s take a look at this collection of smaller arcs leading up to the big finale, shall we?
20 episodes into Zeta Gundam and we finally see the Zeta Gundam! Also: lots of fighting on and around the moon, plus some political manouvering and backstabbing for good measure! Let’s take a look!
In a shorter batch of episodes (as it was so well contained as a stand alone story arc, I couldn’t resist) but a significant one. We not only get to see Amuro Ray return to piloting suits, but we also get our first mentally unstable Cyber-Newtype, a trope that will appear endlessly throughout all future Gundam shows… Let’s take a look!
My sort-of-in-order watch through of Universal Century era Gundam continues, sadly skipping the OVAs (as I may as well wait for a possible blu-ray release…) and heading straight for Zeta Gundam. I haven’t watched the show in nearly 10 years, but I still haven’t forgot never really liking Kamille, and it seems for good reason! Let’s take a look at the opening chunk of 13 episodes, shall we?
I actually watched this back in September, so it’s been existing as a few notes I took while watching for a while now. I was busy at work for most of that time, but I also think it’s a hard series to get motivated to review because it’s not … that good. But it’s also not so terrible that it will be fun to sarcastically tare apart, either. Hey ho, I wanted another Gundam series I never saw before done (and was in the mood as it was in the run up to the release of PS4 game Gundam Versus) so there we go. I had planned on watching the Universal Century stuff in order, but never mind… This is technically the “Regild Century” anyway, even if it is the same timeline! So let’s take a look already!
Although I normally don’t do “overall reviews” for series without a clear narrative throughout the series, Gundam falls awkwardly in between the two extremes. A lot of the episodes or smaller story arcs are stand alone, but the development of Amuro and Char, as well as the latter’s revenge against the Zabis, and their budding rivalry does go across the whole series. Plus the One Year War itself, although already underway when the series starts, is also sort of a running narrative. So let’s take an overall look at the original Mobile Suit Gundam series…
To celebrate the last part of my review of the Original Gundam series going up on the main review site, I thought I’d review the first Gundam game I ever played over here on Hogan Game Reviews. Dynasty Warriors: Gundam was not only the first Gundam game I played, but it introduced me to the world of Gundam outside of Wing and Seed, the only two series I’d seen at that point. Ignoring all that, though, what’s it like to play now?
Hogan Reviews 