Ok, I am going to spill some serious spoilers, you've been warned!
The series is about a 603rd Technical Evaluation Unit charged with
field-testing, or even battle testing prototype weapons for Zeon. The
series started with 3 episodes called The Hidden One Year War, and a
follow-on 3 episodes called Apocalypse 0079. The 6 episodes started
with One Week War and ends with A Boa Qu, and weaves around the major
historical events of OYW, but other than a wordless sighting of a
famous red Zaku II, there's no involvement from the main and
supporting characters of the original MSG. Nonetheless, familiarity
with the timeline and mechas of OYW is prerequisite to follow the
story.
Well if you've read this far, you would be better off reading the
synopsis+review by Chris:
http://www.mahq.net/animation/gundam/gundam.htm
Save me some writing... Now my personal opinion:
Four out of six episodes were rigidly structured: The team receives a
novel weapon and a specialist pilot for that weapon. There are some
talking scenes for each mildly stereotypical character to do their
fist-pounding, teeth-grinding, yelling-at-each-other, melancholic
vexing and talking-to-him/herself thing. After the human conflicts
play out according to a somewhat predictable script, the operation
begins. Inevitably, a test op turns into actual combat. The battle
is of course very tough and the new weapon and/or the test team faces
mortal danger, the specialist pilot sacrifices himself to complete the
mission, saves the test team, saves his countrymen or just die. As
the credit rolls, the head technician writes his test analysis for the
new weapon and summarizes some sort of meaning out of the episode.
It worked well for a couple of eps, there were flaws*, but the novelty
of the series was worth it. Basically you get a military drama (as
opposed to most of the Gundam series, which are stories set in a war,
but not stories about war) made with the same cool 3D animation as MS
Evolve . By the second minute of ep.4 I was like "I know exactly
where this is going". That's not a good thing.
* - OK, here is one: at Loum, we are treated to a full-monty
ship-to-ship battle, I was practically pissing myself with excitement.
But nagging questions were just beneath the surface: why was
Jormungand deliberately held back? Was there any comprehensible
purpose (no matter how cynical it might be) that's served by NOT even
firing it once? No, the only reason is for Hemme and the 603 crew to
recite their tragiheroic lines. Was there any tactical or strategic
reason to hold back the Zaku squads for what seems like half of the
battle? Loum was the Pearl Harbor of OYW, but this time around, the
Zeon Navy put out their battleships for the Feds to sink a few BEFORE
pulling out the ace from their sleeves, does it make any sense? No,
the only reason is to create a dramatic crisis for the audience.
Thanks for the full-month ship battle! The fireworks is great, but
I'd prefer a plain drama than a fake crisis.
Here is another: remember I took one look at Zudah and commented that
it looks like Wile E. Cyote with an ACME Rocket strapped, very
unwisely, to his back. And guess what, Zudah's rockets explode in the
exact same way, in a not-funny way. This was supposed to be a
realistic improvement over regular Gundams not invite comparison to
Looney Toons! And how did Duvall (Zudah pilot) defeat the enemies and
die gloriously in one single scene? By running away really fast! And
what did the GM pilots do? Drop the big juicy prizes of ground Zakus
and two non-combat ships and chase after the escort which is fleeing
the scene. If it were one lone GM making the strategical mistake of
chasing the small fly and the tactical mistake of self-destructing by
means of red-lining his engine, ok fine, one guy can be stoopid, but
four of them making the same fatal double errors? Ehhh please, I just
don't buy the idea that one MS unit can protect MS and ship units from
numerically and technologically superior poachers by fleeing the scene
with "Gawd that's incredible!" haste.
Thankfully the last two episodes comprised a nice mini melodrama that
doesn't feel so fake. There's a lot of over-the-top emotions on
display, but it's more acceptable in the era of reality TV. People
like to crap on the angsty teens, but compared to Monique's prolonged
outburst, Amuro was downright stoic after the loss of Flau's parents,
Ryu, Matilda and Lalah, wasn't he?
I think a lot of "serious" UC fans love the series because, for
perhaps the first time, the main character isn't a whiny angst-ridden
teenage pilot. The main character isn't even a pilot, but the test
team, in particular the head tech and the intel officer. The action
scene doesn't feature one Newtype pilot in a super-MS casually
whooping every ass that comes even near him. The protagonist is a
veteran pilot in a gimmicky super-weapon but every mission carried
life-and-death tension which has been lacking in most Gundam series.
Especially no one ever score 90-100% hit rate in this series. The
flight mechanics and ground movement especially has a physics-cee feel
to it. There are a few problems but the combat scenes look more
realistic than any Gundam I've seen before.
I feel the action scenes alone were worth it, and the intention of the
series was laudable. But the story-telling was weak, acting was
all-around over the top.
On the models, Nightingale was sure that once I've seen Igloo I'd run
out and buy the HGUC Zudah. I did like Zudah a lot more having a
passable anime behind it. But the kit is still a sub-par embodiment
of a silly MS design. Anyway, there are so far 3 kits out of Igloo (2
originals), that's not bad. Nightingale is total psyched about EX
Hildofr and I am very interested too.
--
Dr. Core
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