ingvild | Entries tagged with gundam

I need to collect my DW fanfic as well, right? Oh, so much of it... (That's sarcasm, BTW) (Edit: Actually, it is quite a bit of it now.)

( Gundam Wing )

( Avengers )

I will add other fandoms as I write for them.

Hi, long time no speak. I've updated my LJ more often than my DW (barely), but right now, I'm considering moving, and so, I'm currently on my third day of trying to import my LJ to here. Should it take this long?

Also, looks like I'm not doing NaNo this year either, but I have another goal: to do all the prompts I have missed in

gw500, which means...posting a fic every day, and two for six days. Piece of cake.

(What have I got myself into?)

So, after a lot of time and much nagging on my part, my off-line friend just finished Gundam Wing. As the end credits of Endless Waltz rolled, she turned to me, bright-eyed and hopeful (yes you were. Don't argue) and asked if there was any good after-the-series fic around. And with heavy heart I had to answer truthfully: "No".

This is a slight exaggeration. Manifestations was, and has remained, one of the best fanfics I've ever read. But in general, Gundam Wing fandom can be broken down like this (at least it seems so):

Half haven't seen the show (1/2)
Half of the rest saw it once 15 years ago when they were 12 and didn't understand anything, and don't remember anything now (1/4)
Half of who's left remember how it went, but don't care (1/8)
And of the final 1/8, those who remember canon and care, half are too scared to go against fanon, 1/4 have been scared away, and 1/4 try but are drowned out.

Also, me rediscovering het due to GW nonwithstanding, this isn't the right fandom to not be interested in yaoi in.

So...a canon-compatible, after-the-series not-yaoi fic. Any recs?

Over to my current time-waster: Nanoha. Yeah, big surprise.

One thing I think is fun is to see how different people make different fanvids to the same song with the same show. I didn't realise I thought that was fun until I found three Nanoha vids using the song "Gong" by JAM Project (this is apparently the opening song to one of the Super Robot Wars games).

GONG
1
2
3

Here's another one from the same group:
SKILL
1
2
3

Also, I wonder if they've made a Nanoha for every damn Gundam opening there is. Omnicat, this one's for you. (They cleaned up some of the Nanoha animation for the DVD version, BTW. This is the TV version in all its hilarity.)

BTW: Shining Buster?

I'm having a busy week with preparing for Japan and work, so naturally I took the time to get hooked on and read a new manga series, Buso(u) Renkin (by the same guy who did Rurouni Kenshin).

The plot is basically this: Boy sees girl about to be attacked by a monster, pushes her out of the way and gets stabbed through the heart. Girl puts ~~magic rock~~ alchemical device in his chest to act as a heart for him, and reveals that actually, she was just pretending to be helpless to lure the monster out, she's actually a kickass Alchemy Warrior. The alchemical devices, called kakugane, turn into weapons whose shape depend on the user's personality or something. The monsters are homunculi.

The words "alchemy" and "homunculi" are the only similarities with Fullmetal Alchemist. It's more like Bleach, only without the endlessly dragged out story arcs and fight scenes (it clocks in at ten volumes of manga and 26 anime episodes). The main character's power ups are also plot relevant and not a good thing.

Male lead and main character Kazuki is one of those idealistic sweethearts. Female lead Tokiko is awesome. And then there is Papillon.

Anyway, watching this show finally clued me in to why I took to Judau of Gundam ZZ immediately, but it took Kamille of Zeta Gundam so long to grow on me. I'm pretty much an omnivore when it comes to female characters - as long as she has agency and a personality, I don't actually care what the personality is. With male characters, I'm much more picky. Basically, I like two types: socially awkward/dorky and complete sweethearts (often also wide-eyed idealists). Judau, like Kazuki, falls in the second category.

I guess this is also why I prefer Superman to Batman, and Captain Marvel (him with the Power of Shazam) to them both (Superman is a Good Person, while Captain Marvel is both a Good Person and still keeps some of his innocence).

So...I kinda finished Gundam ZZ. Heh. I actually liked it better than Zeta, even if Zeta probably was objectively better. But ZZ really got good after ep 21.

( 11-21 )

( 22-31 )

( 32-40 )

( 41-47 )

Overall, I actually really liked this. I want to write fic, which is a first for UC Gundam for me.

So...this is quite a change from Zeta, isn't it?

( Reactions and possible spoilers below the cut )

Well, that was depressing.

( Cut for spoilers )

No. Sorry. Why would they make a war machine that's unarmed?

That new opening is creepy. It seems like it's a lot like the old one, bum bum Char's face gets shadowed, and then BAM! SCIROCCO IN YOUR FACE!

It's rare that I hope for the death of a character, but Scirocco and Yazan could die next episode and I'd only be happy.

Uh, Reccoa? Huh?

Hey Mariemaia, now I know where your creators got your character design from. Minerva Zabi acts more like a real child, though.

Only 15 more episodes to go! Omni, I'm catching up with you

Now for something completely different.

I thought I'd figured out screencapping, but two problems arose. When I didn't pause the vid I was capping, it just kept playing in Paint. Okay, that's fine, I thought, I'd just pause it. And it seemed to work. But then when I'd exited the file, it went all black! Whut? ETA: Works just fine on vids on the net. It's just vids from a DVD that's a problem.

ETA 2:
( Cut for spoilers, Zeta 36-38 )

Right, so now I'm halfway through Zeta Gundam, and I've noticed something.

When they're still on Earth, Amuro tells Kamille that he has to go back to space, because it's impossible to see the big picture on Earth. In the episodes on Earth, I couldn't tell what was going on, but in space it was much easier to understand. Coincidence, or deliberate?

Also, I had no idea how much I missed Emma until she was back.

By the way, Zeta is going insane with the number of female pilots. Kamille even comments on how many women there are fighting. How good they are at it varies, but damn there's a lot of female mobile suit pilots here.

The ones I remember:
Emma
Reccoa
Fa (after a while)
Four
Rosamia (Fear of colony drop girl)
Lila
Muoar
Sarah
Holly
That person who died that Holly replaced, her name began with S

Anyway, I'm slowly but steadily catching up. Omni, how are you doing with Nanoha?

Thoughts:

Poor Hong Kong.

I'm still not sure where this is going. They seem to be adding new people to chase them all the time, with little reason besides "The Titans are horrible people, let us show you why."

I'm liking Kamille a lot better now. I really like the brotherly-buddily relationship he and Amuro have. I was afraid they'd be all steadily trampling on each others' nerves, but they're not, and I rather like that.

Poor Four.

The Psyco Gundam reminds me of the Zero system. Wing, I can see where you've stolen it from!

I hope Mirai and Bright's daughter grows up to be a kick-ass pilot. She's got more of the spirit of it than her brother.

I'm now 15 episodes into Zeta, and I'm still not sure what I think.

I like the worldbuilding, and the science fiction-y feel of it. That's good. I like the central conflict.

On the other hand, I have no idea how this is going to keep from getting aimless. I also think there are too many characters. I can't seem to get to know most of them, and the ones I do get to know (*cough*Kamille) I don't really like all that much.

I felt like they wasted a good subplot about the tension between the Titans and the Federation forces by killing off Lila.

A lot of the time, I can't tell which suits belong to which side. The Gundam and ~~Char's~~Quattro's golden thing are nice and distinctive, but not so much the others.

I thought it was funny that the original White Base crew was in the opening, but that it took so long for anyone other than Bright to show up. Right now, I wonder what's going on with Amuro. I seem to be more attached to the holdover cast from the first series.

Now to something that bugged me, not from this series, but the side story miniseries: Spacenoid. Can anyone remember if they used that word in the original series? I don't think so. It's being used here, but the first time Kamille heard it, he didn't recognise the word.

In 0083, Kou points out that the spacenoids themselves want to be called that. It was going into fashion then. I can accept that Kamille just had his head in his ass for four years and completely missed the word. But why did they use it in MS IGLOO, which takes place at the same time as the original series?

HMMMMM.

For me, who was first introduced to Gundam Wing through fanfiction, it was a real shock to actually watch the series and realise that the female characters were actually

a) Present
b) Important to the plot (some more than others, but the same can be said for the male characters)
c) In possession of different personalities
d) Personalities which were not solely dependent on their “designated male”.
e) Heck, some of the women were more developed as characters than some of the men!

I fell for them all. Some more than others, but to a certain extent I appreciate every single Gundam Girl. So here is my love post. Warning: Image-heavy.

(And please, if you don’t like one or more of them, could you please save that for the quarter million webpages where you’d get a chorus of “Word!” if you said so? This is my squee. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t harsh it.)

(Also, I didn't cap these myself. I found them somewhere - if I can remember where, I'll put it up.)

( The Wonderful Women of Wing )

I have now finished Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, which means that with respect to UC Gundam I have watched

Mobile Suit Gundam
Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket
The 8th MS Team
Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory

and what I have left is

MS IGLOO
Zeta Gundam
Gundam ZZ
Char's Counterattack
F91
Victory Gundam

I am slowly, but steadily getting there!

The thing about 0083 is, I felt like half the episodes were missing five minutes to explain how they tied in with the next episode. Also, and this is something I felt about 0080 and 8th MS Team as well, it felt kind of aimless. There were clearly stated goals - get back Unit 2, prevent a colony drop - but the show itself seemed to amble about. Maybe it's because they were, strictly speaking, filler shows.

I call myself a mecha fan, but can I truly do so when I haven't seen all of Gundam yet?

(If the answer is yes, I'll be very worried.)

I should at least watch everything in the UC timeline, right? I'm well under way! Only 170 episodes and two movies left! Why, if I watch three episodes a day, I'll finish before the first season of Patlabor arrives in the post!

The second and third season have been sitting on my shelf, taunting me, for most of January. It says something that I bought the whole thing after watching only one episode at the Anime club in York and reading some descriptions. It's so frustrating that I couldn't find it anywhere else, the only way to get it was to buy it. I've been resisting temptation for so long, but when I got money for X-Mas I could resist no longer. Now, if only the first season would get here soon...!

ETA: "Season" is misleading. It's a box set in three parts, and I have part two and three.END ETA

In better news, the third season of Avatar: TLA* has been shipped, and should arrive soon. Yay!

I really should reign in my shopping habits. Still, Patlabor was pretty cheap, and I've already watched Avatar: TLA twice, so I know I love it.

*I feel like I need to specify now that That Movie By The Same Name is out.

And here comes the block of anime I've watched some of, and hope to finish one day...I just don't know when.

Gundam series
(I'm slowly working my way through all the Gundam series.)

Mobile Suit Gundam
The original Gundam series. Once I got over the sheer 1979-80's of it, and they changed the intro song, it was really, really engaging.

The 08th MS Team
Takes place during the original series, but was made in the late 90's. I watched this with the Anime Society at York University, but missed the first three episodes and a couple in the middle. It places a lot of emphasis on making the suits seem realistic.

Gundam Seed
I like the storytelling and the animation, and the characters are mostly engaging - but it's just so depressing!

Non-Gundam Series

Azumanga Daioh!
This is weird. It's sort of like a sketch show about a group of high school girls and them being weird. Something I can watch an episode of now and then just to unwind.

Cardcaptor Sakura
So far it looks good, but I haven't watched much of it, only the first couple episodes. I got distracted.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
I'm a bit put off by Haruhi's casual molestation, and it's very confusing when the episodes aren't in chronological order. I wonder if I should give up and find out the chronological order to watch them in instead of wondering what the heck is going on.

Neon Genesis Evangelion
I actually stopped watching this not because of the brain-breaking weirdness (I didn't really get that far), but because I bought the first two DVDs on sale and couldn't find the rest (this was when I was on dial-up, so watching online was out of the question (I only buy series if I know I like them)). But if I stopped watching Gundam Seed because it was depressing, I don't know how I'll survive Evangelion.

Sailor Moon
The only reason I stopped after episode one is that it would be harder to stop later on, and the length of it - 200 episodes - intimidate me.

Wolf's Rain
I like the mythology of the series, the worldbuilding and the characters. I can't see how it would possibly end in something other than sadness, though, so I'm hesitant to continue.

There it is! Anyone have any reccommendations?