At 01:33 AM 6/5/2007, Minh-Nhat Le wrote:
--- Chris Campbell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Whereas I have never understood your nigh-pathological hatred of all
> things Okiwara, to the point where you even dislike designed based
> on such.
What do you mean? I hate Okawaran design philosophies. They're just
ugly. Last I checked, Kaempfer and Dogas are Izubichi.
You are correct. I don't know where I got Okawara from; you never
even mentioned him. Must have gotten my wires crossed somewhere.
> You can call the Dogas or the Kaempfer out of place if you
> like, but that's no more true of them than it is of the Dom Tropen
> or the Sniper II or any of the other retrocon designs, and it's
> certainly less true for them than for anything from Sentinel,
> Victory, or even F91.
Not true. The Dom Tropen and Sniper II are logical derivations from
existing designs. The Kaempfer is completely new. In engineering,
such things are very rare, and in war time, it's rarer still. That,
plus the way the Kaempfer looks just doesn't seem to fit with the
Zeon design philosophy.
I'm not sure I agree with that. I don't think it's any more out of
place than, say, the Gyan (though perhaps it's not the best example,
since it was not mass produced -- possibly for this very reason). I
would definitely agree that the engineering aspects are out of place,
particularly given the time period. The notion of scratch building a
suit during the OYW era is utter lunacy.
It's unfortunate that Izubuchi's Gundam designs just so happen to not
be what I like. Nothing against him, since the AV-98 is one of my
favorite mechanical designs, but the way most people gush about the
Dogas and the Kaempfer makes me wonder why.
The Dogas (the Geara Dogas in particular) are a natural evolution of
the Zaku, and they are pure practicality given form. The
panzer-fausts are the epitome of short-term, high-powered warfare
(perfect for the hit and run style missions Zeon has always
preferred) and the weapons designs look modernized without being
ripoffs of existing military hardware. They're a very nice balance of
form and function, the very picture of "neo-Zeon."
The Kaempfer...well, it doesn't fit, necessarily, but it's just a
slick idea. The thing is bristling with weapons and it's basically a
kitbash. Also, many of its weapons are unusual designs, which make it
more appealing to SF military afficionados. it's the sort of thing
I'd expect to see if Zeon was a terrorist network in a Patlabor-style
setting; perhaps not the best choice for Gundam, but still very, very slick.
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