At 12:22 PM 2/4/2007, Matthew Robinson wrote:
From: Chris Campbell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Way I remember it -- from both versions -- is that he was good, but
not exceptional (Max falling into the latter category). He had a
history as an amateur pilot, and was capable enough to move into a
command position, but he wasn't gifted by any stretch of the
imagination (unlike Amuro, Kira, Shinji, Ayato, and so on). He was
just competant, or perhaps a little better.
I'd hardly call Shinji gifted, aside from being able to pilot Eva in
the first place. Asuka's raw skill was far better; even if her
judgement was often lacking. Shinji simply didn't have any real
talent for fighting or strategy.
Ability to pilot the Eva is what I was getting at.
Hard to judge Ayato on skill; he's the only one we see in the
Rahxephon, and thus the only one able to harm the Dolems for most of
the series. We're getting into Useless What-If Fight territory now,
but I'd wager Hikaru in the Rahxephon would show far more talent.
I dunno 'bout that; Hikaru's a *pilot*, and operating the RahXephon
is more of an art than a science. There are plenty of superior pilots
in RahXephon, after all, but none of them can pilot the RahXephon
itself. That's why Ayato is gifted.
Kira OTOH, even more than Amuro, is practically an Ubermensh by the
end of SEED (haven't seen all of Destiny yet, but IIRC from reviews
the only time he loses a fight is when Shinn takes advantage of his
reluctance to kill).
I'm not sure there's even a direction for Kira to go as a character;
he's TOO competent in his field to evolve further and too
level-headed by now to mature further. There's no room for
character development.
True. This is, in fact, why I didn't want to see a sequel -- there's
really nothing left to do with Kira, and that proved to be a big
problem in Destiny.
While Hikaru's not in Amuro/Kira territory, I'd expect he's in the
top 5 or so on the Macross, probably second only to Maximilian,
Fokker (while he was alive), and Millia. Upper end of real-robot
talent without going into superhuman status.
Yeah, and along with Kamjin (who's probably even with Hikaru) and
Hayao Kakizaki those are about all the named pilots we see in the
series. If he's number four out of six that's not terribly
impressive. He's a good pilot, yes, but not superior; there's nothing
that makes him special or gifted in the vein of Amuro or Camille (to
say nothing of Kira and the other coordinators).
Here's a character I'd like to see evaluated by the list, at least
as far as talent goes: Chirico Cuvie from VOTOMS. Seems like
VOTOMS sticks very closely to real-world talent levels (or at least
as close as you get in anime), and even at the end of the series
with Chirico at the height of his Perfect Soldier talent, plenty of
Chirico's foes manage to score hits on him. Same goes for shows
like Gasaraki and Blue Gender.
Haven't seen VOTOMS, but I thought Blue Gender handled this pretty
well. Same with Macross, like I said; even Max wasn't superhuman by
any stretch of the imagination.
--------------------------------------------------
The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected]
Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml
Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in
the BODY: help list
