No.1141
>>1140If you like Votoms and LoGH try out Dougram. It was made by the director of Votoms, though honestly it isn't much like that show, and has an ambitious and politically based story (though nowhere near as massive as LoGH). You'll like it if you can stand a long show with bad animation for the outstanding story with different factions and political commentary.
I'm currently watching Betterman, I'm enjoying it a lot so far and I'm not sure where its going to go, though I can't really stand the MC and it definitely deserved an HD release.
No.1142
I'm watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam. I pretty much decided on watching it due to wanting to watch 00 Gundam for years now since I promised a friend, but my autism wouldn't allow me to watch something so far into a series I've never watched before and so I decided to watch the original and go from there. I'll most likely watch the "main" parts of the original MSG, like Zeta and Char's Counterattack (now that better be good) and then jump to Double 00 in like 2 months.
Anyhow, so far it's been a fun ride. I wouldn't say I love the show but I do enjoy it. Currently on episode 37 and nearing the end. It's hard to really explain what I like about the show much. Character wise, I liked them all. Amuro is a good MC who has his flaws that are eventually worked out, when he stole the Gundam in a fit because Bright wanted to take him off piloting duty I honestly couldn't believe how careless he was being. Fraubow feels very underutilized in the show since she has her moments but is mostly being sidelined in a lot of scenes and is only around to be there for Amuro. It feels like she should've taken Sayaka's place in piloting another Gundam, although I do understand why Sayaka is piloting a Gundam and I do enjoy that both women and men pilot Gundam's in this. I like Bright a lot and feel he's a great leader and laughed very hard when he punched Kai in the fucking face for his attitude, honestly, this anime has a lot of people getting punched and slapped for no reason half the time. I wonder if he'll get with Mirai despite her seemingly going for others. I also really enjoyed Matlida, Ryu, Miharu and Slegger and it's a shame they all had to die. Honestly great characters.
Kai was a fucking bitch at the start but I've come to enjoy him, when he piloted the other Gundam's and ran out to help Amuro defuse the bombs I could see he wasn't a coward and had some more respect for him and his wise ass remarks. I honestly love the three kids in this too, I feel kids in war is an aspect that should be utilized more in media, less fighting and more just unfortunately being there and having to deal with the horrors it has, but I love seeing them help out by attempting to put out fires and that entire episode dedicated to them defusing the Zion bombs was really good. Then there's obviously Char and yeah he's cool and all but I sort of wished he would be around more. For a character with a very cool design, it's odd that he was just not seen for around 15 episodes. I get Amuro had to get better at piloting the Gundam but it feels odd that we never saw him for ages. It was sad in the early episodes to see his men cry out to be saved by him when they were near death.
I sometimes lose focus when the big Gundam fights are happening, sure it's flashy and cool but I just forget what is even going on in the fighting and have to rewatch it, especially when it's just Amuro slicing up some random armors for 3 minutes while we see shots of the White Base crew. I liked the music too.
Hoping it ends well and the sequel is better since I don't *love* this anime as others do but I am enjoying it a bunch. My favourite episodes so far have been the ones that mostly deal with character drama over Zion/Federation fighting so I hope I see a few more in the last few episodes.
No.1144
>>114200 is an alternate universe, so it's all right if you haven't seen any of the previous series before starting it. That said, UC Gundam is good so if you like it keep watching.
UC is the original + a ton of sequels and side stories. If you really want to, you can cut straight to CCA after MSG, since it's kind of made for people who watched the original Gundam then fell away, but be aware that CCA is fast-moving and hard to understand the first time. It's absolutely beautiful and I love it, but I was lost the first time I saw it. You really have to pay attention, because while Tomino actually has characters explain stuff in this, it goes fast and a bunch of characters will lie or be misinformed. Bright and Amuro generally have the real score, though.
If you're still into UC Gundam afterwards, I really like 0080: War in the Pocket, which is short and sweet.
There's a Gundam for (almost) every taste, so even if you don't like it maybe one of the other series will appeal to you.
No.1145
>>1144>00 is an alternate universe, so it's all right if you haven't seen any of the previous series before starting it. That said, UC Gundam is good so if you like it keep watching.Yeah, I know. It's just that my autism won't allow me to experience something so late into a series unless I experience the original even if disconnected. I'll jump into it once I finish the original series. I guess.
>UC is the original + a ton of sequels and side stories. If you really want to, you can cut straight to CCA after MSG, since it's kind of made for people who watched the original Gundam then fell away, but be aware that CCA is fast-moving and hard to understand the first time. It's absolutely beautiful and I love it, but I was lost the first time I saw it. You really have to pay attention, because while Tomino actually has characters explain stuff in this, it goes fast and a bunch of characters will lie or be misinformed. Bright and Amuro generally have the real score, though. Alright cool, I'll keep that in mind.
>If you're still into UC Gundam afterwards, I really like 0080: War in the Pocket, which is short and sweet. Always wanted to watch War in the Pocket since I really liked that name for some reason and it always stuck with me. It'll be on the list soon enough.
>There's a Gundam for (almost) every taste, so even if you don't like it maybe one of the other series will appeal to you.If there's a Gundam out there where the MC is a lucky idiot who gets by through sheer dumb luck over skill and mogs all the newtypes through accidents, I'd be in heaven.
Also, I started up Zeta a few days ago. Interesting to finally watch the one Gundam show I've heard a lot about. This is the Char I remember seeing all the time and Camille is a very interesting MC too. Hope it lives up to the hype.
No.1146
Could never get into Zeta or double Zeta, they both seemed too immature for me. Liked War in the Pocket reasonably well, probably my favorite OYW side story.
How well do these shows compare to Tomino's other works like Ideon for instance?
No.1147
>>1146I've had Ideon downloaded for a few years now, I think a thread on /a/ make me take notice of it. All I know of that show is that by the end of it there are kids involved in the defense of the ship and they have no idea what's going on so die through inexperience, or something along those lines.
I've never really watched any Mecha stuff beyond a few shows in the 2000s
No.1148
>>1142Alright, well I finished Zeta yesterday and honestly while I liked some parts of it I also found other parts to be quite...boring. I'm not sure if it was just me barely paying attention but a lot of the time the plot was just be something I'd completely blank out as I watched the episode and by the time it's the next episode I've already forgotten what the hell anyone is fighting for.
Character wise, there are a lot more memorable ones this time. Kamille is honestly a great MC and I liked him right from the start even as a bratty teen, Fa is another great character even if she's quite an emotional one who is sadly sidelined as a solider a bunch of times. Bright remains a great captain and I thoroughly enjoyed Emma, Quattro (lol), Shinta/Qun, Sarah, Haman, Four, Scirroco, Jerid. Honestly, a very strong cast of characters which is surprising when I always thought Gundam was about big robots fighting in space with no nuance (unsurprisingly, I care little for the big space fights). I do wish we saw more of the original cast though. The final few battles were really good though, real heart wrenching stuff to hear Rosamia happily shout she found Kamille as she died though even if the memory was fake.
I liked the design of the Mark 2 a lot and didn't really like the Zeta that much until it grew on me through sheer dominance of all scenes. As for the other Gundam types I really don't care that much, the Hyaku Shiki is probably the only other I remember by name. Hard to pick a favourite episode or moment but I liked episodes set on colonies and even the few set on Earth.
Started ZZ today which I'm enjoying so far although I've heard it's pretty bad. Will just have to see.
No.1151
>>1149I watched this in the last few months as well.
I liked it as a early example of The Giant Robot combination is metaphor for the team coming together. They can't execute it until like halfway into the series when they've sorted their teammate shit. Working through the team angst like First Gundam is where the series is at its best.
I disliked how the production values got worse as it went on. And the ending before and after the ovas is pretty weak. There's one big retcon anyone who's seen this knows that I really didn't care for.
>missing subsYeah it's one of those recap movies with new scenes annoyingly sprinkled in here or there. The old fansubs never bothered to sub the parts of the film that are recap. The only way to watch the new stuff is scrubbing through the thing until you see subs and then watching those parts.
No.1235
>>1148Oh yeah, forgot to update this when I was watching ZZ. Finished ZZ about a week ago and enjoyed it a lot honestly, moreso than the original and Zeta. I know people dislike it for how it takes the serious tone of Zeta and throws it out the window so we can have wacky teenage hijinks but I really liked that aspect of it. Hell, when the teens are left to pretty much man the ship in the final episodes it really made the whole situations a lot more tense as they don't have Bright to really give them commands and have to do everything themselves. This entire part felt like the crew of Argama were barely holding on and were greatly outmatched and outclassed. In the beginning when all they had was Fa to really fight anything it was a tense time and I liked that about it, everyone else was either incapacitated or dead, she was all they had left.
Character wise, I liked them. Judau was a nice middle ground between Amuro and Kamille I found and giving him a sister to fight for was a nice touch, a shame Leina didn't get a chance to really pilot a Gundam and was instead placed under the care of someone else who seemed to want to refine her a la My Fair Lady or something which was both funny and disturbing. I actually liked seeing the other members of the crew pilot Gundams too. Seeing the Mark 2 and Zeta get a lot of screentime while fighting was nice as well, so it wasn't just the ZZ all the time. I did hate Beecha and Mondo for a while since they truly felt like scum with their actions in the beginning and even
betraying the Argama but that turned around fast, was very glad Mondo was
able to take his revenge after Rasara died, felt like something a side character wouldn't get a chance to pull off.. Iino was someone I wished did more though, he was my favourite of the side characters and was glad he had his several fights but wished he had more. Puru was a fun character just for how insane it felt like she was and I liked how completely oblivious she was as it added an interesting part to her character and how others had to deal with it. Bright remains my favourite character though, guys is incredibly based and I laughed at how Chara and Emary tried to get with him a bunch and he had to reject them. Speaking of Emary
she had a sad death.
It wasn't entirely perfect though, I still found myself somewhat bored in a few episodes, with MoonMoon and the arc in the desert being really boring.. Plus I felt that the ending was a bit lackluster.
Haman's death felt shit honestly, and a huge step down with how Zeta ended too. I also grew really fond of
Chara and it was a shame to see them go, I did like seeing
Leina back though even if that never really happens in this series and feels a bit "off".
I did watch Char's Counterattack right afterward but I didn't really care for it that much. Had some cool moments but was surprisingly not as good as I initially thought it was going to be. I did like how all the Gundams came together at the end though.
After finishing these I do wonder if Gundam is even for me, I find myself drawing a complete blank on Gundam names beyond the ones you see the most and find the designs to be fine. I sometimes just drift off during fights and completely lose track of what is going on until I'm jolted back into the scene by a big explosion of the bad guy or something. I find the interactions done on the ship or with others to be much more interesting than the big space fighting and for the life of me I really couldn't tell what most of the bad guys even want anymore. This could be entirely on me but this is the first anime where I just cannot recall a majority of what even happened in it beyond certain parts. I don't know if I'll watch anymore Gundam after this for a while but if I do I might follow the sequel Unicorn, or keeps it chronological and go with IGLOO but I'll see.
No.1236
>>1235I always try to take two steps back to try to see what the other guy is seeing, even if I don't agree, but ZZ is one of those things so singularly awful I can't even comprehend people liking it in even in the abstract.
The show isn't bad because it's at odds with First or Z. It's awful because its at odds with itself.
No.1237
>>1236That's honestly fair, I know people hate it for a lot of reasons but I honestly found it enjoyable for all those reasons people hate it. I like the comedic aspects, I like the new characters, I like how stupid it can be sometimes and I just enjoyed it because of that. *shrugs* I mean honestly when people were saying how much they hated it I expected to hate it too but I just didn't, I'd laugh at all the stupid things that would happen even though last series you had awful death and destruction everywhere. The complete 180 is just something that didn't bother me in the slightest as it did others.
I'm all for things that ZZ did, hell if there was a Gundam show in the same vein as Captain Tylor or Golden Boy where the MC was a lucky idiot/genius who won fights through underestimation of the enemy while running away the entire time or something I'd find it incredibly enjoyable despite the fact that's not Gundam at all. It's just the kinda show I like.
>The show isn't bad because it's at odds with First or Z. It's awful because its at odds with itself.What do you mean by this? The fact that it tries to balance the serious with the comedy, or how it just seems to have no plot for a majority of the time before rushing it all near the end?
No.1238
I actually liked ZZ better than Z too, though I didn't like either as much as 0079.
Z made me feel like I was missing stuff even when I watched every episode, ZZ generally hung together better. There was a bunch of goofy comedy, but I liked how it got to be silly sometimes. I even kind of liked Moon Moon. (Tomino really does like the idea of hippies that forgot what their technology does, it keeps showing up)
The whole thing with Glemy was weird, though. Definitely feels like they changed their minds on what to do with him halfway through.
No.1241
>>1235>>1237>>1238This lines up pretty well with what I've seen with people in general. Those who quite liked Zeta Gundam don't like ZZ and people who didn't care too much for Zeta like ZZ.
I guess at the end of the day it boils down to what you're looking for in an anime, and with both shows being as different as they are despite being directly related there's a lot of contention there.
I personally consider Zeta to be my favourite anime so I had a pretty similar opinion to
>>1236 for a number of years, but I think I've softened up to it a bit with age, and I think quite a few parts of the show can be really enjoyable (even if it's still my least favourite Tomino Gundam).
No.1254
>>1140There's so many SF anime out there to watch, but I feel like I've cleared out a lot of the peaks
>LotGH>Gundam '79, Z, ZZ, CCA, F91, Victory>Ideon, Zambot, Daitarn, Xabungle>Gainax's early works>Macross, DYRL, Plus, 7>Galaxy Express 999>Megazone 23, Iczer, Bubblegum Crisis>all of Patlabor>all the Gundam AUs from the era>Toei Getter and ArmageddonI still have the J9 trilogy, the Robot Romance trilogy, as well as the Brave series (ignoring GGG, already seen it), but it does feel like I've hit all the high points for SF TV anime.
No.1257
>>1256Gonna complete the Leijipill later on, forgot to mention it.
Also forgot to mention I watched every dogshit UC Gundam side story. Not worth it, same with the AUs.
No.1273
I remember that when there still was a channel dedicated at anime and manga in my country they once aired a sci-fi anime that spoke about the story of a group of knights that had to protect a princess during her travel.
Unfortunately i don't remember the name of the anime, the only thing i remember is that the drawing were of the lowest quality and the animation was even worse.
No.2078
>>2074give VOTOMS a go if you haven't already
No.2119
>>2074I finished 0079, I liked it a lot. I tried to watch other shows afterward, but couldn't get into them. Then I decided to start Zeta Gundam and wow...
It was just amazing.
No.2169
Started VOTOMS at
>>2078's reccomendation. I haven't gotten too far in, but it's already really cool.
I like the more human focus in comparison to Gundam. The robots here are just weapons of a war that ended right in the first episode as opposed to what might as well be a character of it's own. The suits are neat and seem way more practical, both from their scale, and also from the visible mechanisms. Also, they're all pretty similar rather than there being a couple types of mass production suits and then a ton of totally different over-the-top prototype suits.
I've found the color used in the animation to be impressive. With how moody and gritty it is, I wouldn't expect it to be so vibrant.
No.2170
>>2169I could never get into gundam because of the lack of focus on the robot fights and the untouchable OP new gundam gary stu's.
Regardless of all the pretending and WW2 fanatics speculating around the Universal century war, there's also no real small unit tactics in gundam like there is in VOTOMS. No charging in like an idiot and using exclusively melee weapons is retarded.
Doesn't matter how cool Barbatos is, the ending to IBO should have happened the very first time the idiot tried to fight like that back in season 1. Though to its credit, barbatos has to be completely rebuilt several times vs traditional UC era gundams that maybe lose an arm once in a while but are still Gary stu's and the pilot is able to miraculously recover completely from being in a full body cast in between episodes.
VOTOMS is more grounded and enjoyable. Its a shame how obscure it is.
No.2198
After trying to watch Macross a few times, I decided to watch DYRL instead. It's a rather bleak and gruesome movie. What I watched of the show was not so harsh. Still I thought it was very good.. A lot of what I liked without the (in my opinion) poor pacing of the TV series. I also preferred the updated designs, particularly Hikaru's. I thought he looked dumb in the TV Series. Valkyries are cool as ever.
Maybe I'll go back and finish the series soon. There's some stuff that only got touched on that probably has more in the show, also to see the other differences that I haven't come across yet.
No.2651
>>1140The robot in the pic looks like a smiling clown with his red nose to high on his forehead.
You can't unsee it now :)
No.2653
>>2616Funny, I've seen a bunch of Mecha shows since Gunbuster which might've been the first one I saw but I think it's still my favourite and I've come to notice that I don't really like mecha that much. From around the 20 I've seen the only ones I really liked were this, Macross and I guess Gundam ZZ but I found that one more humourous than anything.
Maybe there's one out there that's truly amazing and will make me see the light but honestly ever since Gunbuster the Mecha genre has kinda been a downwards slope for me.
Even now I'm watching Full Metal Panic and while it's a mecha show for like 30% of the runtime, I just drift off whenever the big mecha fights happen and don't really care. It really makes me wonder if mecha shows are for me, but I'll keep at them to see if one day I'll watch the one that'll turn it all around.
Anyhow, hope Gunbuster 3 won't be shit
it will ;-; No.2674
>>2653>I've come to notice that I don't really like mecha that much.Sad.
No.2675
>>1140I've been watching SPT Layzner, same director as VOTOMS (which I've seen, as well as The Cockpit, Gasaraki, FLAG, and I think one more I'm forgetting so I guess I'm quite ingrained into him and his style). Just under the halfway mark, and I vaguely remember reading reviews that mention there's a Nazi-style occupation of Earth, so I'll have to look forward to that. But currently, it's a fun enough action series, the part that grips me the most is that the mechs are equipped with computers which feed information to the pilot, and as the computer processes information in a certain way, it comes into disagreement with what the pilot wants to do, so hopefully I get to see that point emphasised. Only real complaint I think I have is that sometimes the robots pull off these crazy moves where they do these huge full body rotations several times per second when 99% of the time they seem to be going for a plausible enough sense of cold war realism.
No.2676
>>2675I've given Layzner a couple of tries of the years, but for some reason I keep dropping it around 10 episodes in.
Honestly it's just never really grabbed me, which is a shame because I love Takahashi's anime (Votoms and Dougram being some of my favourites) and the animation is for the most part pretty great, but the Jesus Christ the mars part of the show is so fucking slow.
I'm still gonna give it another try though. No.2677
>>2674I'm sure I just need to watch more and more. Haven't seen Patlabor or the other well known Gundam's like War in the Pocket, IBO and 00 and such. One of them will hit that's for sure. I've also got a bunch downloaded ready to go like Escaflowne, Ideon and Daitarn 3 so I haven't given up on the genre yet.
Although when I do check the Mecha shows I've seen (ones that have a Mecha genre) I actually do enjoy most of them like TTGL, Bokurano, Big 0, Sakugan and Gridman. I've also really been enjoying the final season of Full Metal Panic. I guess adding a bunch of stakes to the show has really made it more interesting.
Doubt I'll be buying a kit anytime in my life but one of these shows might bring me to. One day.
No.2678
>>2677That's understandable, I can at the very least strongly recommend Patlabor, each installment brings something unique to the table in my opinion.
No.2680
>>2675Lots of that is Sawako Yamamoto particularly, I think - she broke off from Anime R (subcontracted for a majority of the show as Sunrise never had their own in house animators) with the others on her episodes after Layzner to form Studio Mu, and they went harder in a more stylized direction where the rest of Anime R doubled down on realism. I love her work there though, so visceral and creative, and I love 80s tv anime for being so conducive to individual animator expression, often with less top down oversight than with later production models.
No.2718
>>2675I finished Layzner, the plot point I sorta predicted with computers and their pilots being in conflict with each other was something that got a lot of attention in a manner that I found to be engaging, moreso than Psycho Pass or a lot of others that go along that sorta trajectory
The arc with the alien Nazis (from around ep 26) was definitely the best part (I've seen a few commenters online say it's an analogy for Japanese-occupied Korea, but seeing as they invoke the Nazis literally and directly, I think that kind of removes any ambiguity about who they represent), I also really dig the unmanned mech designs
it is a good series and I definitely recommend any mechahead gives it a shot
No.2719
I finished watching Space Battleship Yamato and started Mazinger Z last night. Someone in another thread posted an image with a bunch of stuff categorised by genre and I decided to just go across the whole thing filling in the gaps in my retro anime knowledge.
SPY was pretty good! I'm not sure how I feel about Mazinger Z yet, it feels like it might be a little bit too kiddy, bit I'll stick with it for a few more episodes.
No.2720
>>2719Good luck, I didn't manage Mazinger Z and ended up dropping it.
No.2724
>>2720Thanks. I watched a few more episodes and I think that it's going to be my morning show for a while, just a couple of episodes of monster of the week stuff before watching something with more plot that I can focus on in the evening. I do like the art style of Mazinger Z though. The line art feels very rough in a way that I enjoy.
No.2729
>>2720I have ended up dropping it too after all. I might come back for the odd episode here and there when I'm feeling a little bit mindless, but not enough actually happens in this show to warrant watching 90 episodes of it. I got through 10 which I feel is enough to get the idea.
No.2730
>>2729My case was similar, I believe I watched 7 or so, then I sampled a few episodes through the whole set and found them to be too indistinct and lacking in any development at all.
No.3173
Casshern. It was mostly monster of the week stuff but it was a fun show. Haven't seen sins yet but it's supposedly much darker.
No.3181
Right now I'm watching Captain Harlock (1979), Samurai Flamenco (not wap), Gundam X, and Ideon with friends.
Only a little bit into Captain Harlock, so mostly I'm just impressed with how stylish it all is. I sing along with the theme song every time.
I'm enjoying Gundam way more than I thought I would. Yes, it loses some of the post-apocalyptic feel after the first couple of episodes and it feels like the world has stabilized on a bit higher of a standard of living than I think is entirely reasonable, but it feels very…refreshing, for lack of a better word. Garrod openly likes Tiffa and is willing to say so, and she clearly returns his affections, which puts them both above 95% of anime couples at the get-go. Newtypes feel less like space magic and more mysterious, like in 0079 (yes I know about DOME, I played Alpha Gaiden, but I'm trying to take the show as its own thing) The adults feel like adults, and the kids are plausible kids that were forced to grow up fast. It's just feels low-bullshit.
Ideon is incredibly Tomino. This is both a good and a bad thing, but mostly good for me. Kitty Kitten :(
No.3191
>>1140I've been having fun with Appleseed recently.
I wouldn't call it great, because I don't think it is a great work of sci-fi, beyond the artwork, but I will call it very good. There are too many issues with the writing to be great. But there's more than enough there to be very good.
I think it does count as the first real 'solarpunk' work, however. So it did innovate in that lens.
Otherwise it is very close to Otomo's work.