Better (30 years) late than never
Double Oh Nineteen hundred seventy-nine AD. The One Year War begins. Char Aznable, the Red Comet, meets the Federation’s ultimate weapon, the Gundam, for the first time. And White Base begins its long journey.
At least, that’s what happened in the animated world.
In the third dimension, something somewhat less earth-shattering happened: I was born.
Fast forward thirty years. Gundam celebrates its anniversary with a new series announcement, international Tomino appearances, and of course a giant life-size Gundam in Tokyo, while my birthday goes by without so much as an whining post.
I have, however, set out to celebrate my thirtieth year in a truly Gundam-tastic way by finally starting my journey into the grandaddy real robot franchise. I am beginning, appropriately, with the 0079 movies.
Fifty episodes for the series is a bit of a stretch for me these days, and besides — mechafetish and ghostlightning pointed me to the movies with their helpful Gateway Gundam Chooser®.
I’m partially through the second movie, but rather than keep waiting to post, I thought I’d get out my impressions of the first.
War Sucks
The big thing that sticks out in my mind is the grim, unending portrait of war: Even in the spacefaring future, war is a bleak proposition that kills families, keeps you from sleep, and conscripts unwilling civilians by virtue of the the simple fact that everyone else is fucking dead.
Kawamori, as big a hippie as he is, has always been just goofy enough in Macross’s execution that he couldn’t dream of getting his anti-war message across as effectively as Tomino (I’m thinking of Super Dimension Fortress’s portrait of the scorched earth and Macross Zero’s valkyrie attack on Mayan island). Then again, that’s likely the intent — it’s understandable that he’d want to make something of an antidote to Gundam’s incessant darkness.
The power behind Gundam’s “war is hell” message is in how it tests of your endurance. Like Amuro, you’re never given a break from White Base’s endless assault. It is a tiring, interminable thing. That’s not to say it’s repetitious, like a monster-of-the-week thing. The monotony of the fight actually adds to the intensity of viewing.
Sound effects (of war sucking)
Have you ever paid attention to the sound effects in Gundam?
The grinding and creaking of metal on metal, the clink of spent shells falling to the ground, the endless sounds of gunfire and cannon explosions: this too contributes to the grimness of the viewer’s insertion into the middle of a war. Sound effects are an aspect of anime that’s often pushed aside in favor of the more “glamorous” parts of audio, like voice acting or background score. But here, the reality of the sounds (exact opposite would be Macross 7’s awful sound effects which were obviously created on a single synthesizer by a drunken panda, or any anime that uses energy weapons instead of rattling bullets) immerses you further, and helps put the “real” in “real robot.”
Sophistication (with caveats)
Those are only two of Gundam’s traits that, along with superior script, animation, and acting, lead to its status as a truly sophisticated anime. Take a step back: what does sci-fi anime mean pre-Gundam? It means super robots and Leiji Matusumoto. I love both of these, but at their heart they are simple boyish fantasies of running around with pirates or giant robots and saving the world. Sunrise’s animation (which still tends to rise above most others) brings Tomino’s story to life in a way that Yamato and Harlock couldn’t have dreamed of, and when you plop the hard-ass script in there, you have a new generation of animation.
That said, it still feels transitional in a lot of ways, and the biggest is Char. The Red Comet, brilliant as he is in his Don Johnson leisure suit and shades, is basically a super villain, and as a result he undermines the “realities of war” aspect. He’s less one-dimensional than say, Dr. Hell or the Burning Legion of Matsumoto’s Misogyny, but he remains a single Cobra Commander-like target when a more appropriate message would be that there is no head to the beast you fight in a war.
Scope of influence
Well, duh. I knew. To say Gundam is influential is probably the understatement of thirty years. But to really see it in action — the real robots, the unwilling mecha pilot, the works — is to know where the things you love came from.
SLAP
I don’t think there’s much I need to say about Gundam’s face-slap fetish, either. It’s not just the legendary Brightslap. It starts with Amuro backhanding Fraw Bow and doesn’t stop until war suddenly becomes pleasant.
Here’s a further visual aid (courtesy ghostlightning).
Moving on
Complaints aside, the first movie was a riveting watch, and I’ve been more than pleased that I don’t have to watch it as a “well, that’s cool for its time” academic exercise. It’s well-animated (not exactly Do You Remember Love?, but what is?) and sufficiently exciting to watch on its own merits nowadays. I’m stoked to continue on with these movies, and from there, who knows?
Sooo glad you’ve started and are enjoying yourself. It took me multiple viewings to really start having fun with Gundam and you’ve mentioned pretty significant things that make it such a riveting viewing.
At some point you’ll want to read the Crossbone Gundam manga, which is basically space pirate Gundam lol. Gundam inspires love, and is an ace at remembering it too!
I watched the TV series while I was in Japan just recently. Really made me see the awesomeness of that which is Gundam. I haven’t seen the movies yet but I’m sure they’re a lot better since it takes out all the fat of the TV series. Have fun!
The sound was one of the things I noticed first when I reached the movies. I think they re-did a lot of the foley work (or whatever it’s called), or perhaps the movie soundtracks are better-preserved, or perhaps the dubbing of the tv series flattened its sound — whatever the cause, I thought the movies sounded much more believable and visceral than the version of the television series that I watched first.
It’s better to read Crossbone if you’ve already seen F91, which is sufficiently detached from the rest of UC.
I recommend to try out the OYW sidestory OVAs right after the movie trilogy.
The movies only get better from here too. I have to say that it’s definitely good that you went with the movies because the original TV show cut is too much like the old school enemy robot of the week formula (see every toei robot series ever made) and it’s very easy to say that many of these episodes feature content that is just not up to par with the events that are featured in the movie. One in particular with Zeon soldiers on bikes trying to fly around and stick bombs onto the Gundam comes to mind, but also the rather lame Gogg episode that has the Gundam going through a ridiculous number of transformations to beat the stupid thing that clearly give the feeling of filler. And then there’s the Zackerello…..
Luckily most Gundam series (sans G Gundam which is it’s own thing) would take from the movies examples and rarely waste time with silly robot skirmishes of the week that would have little bearing on the story. If there was combat usually it was with named characters we’d come to know and at the end of it something was accomplished.
This is the type of post I secretly want to write when I get around to the Gundams.
@ghostlightning
thanks for pushing me toward it!
@Koji Oe
Thanks. After reading Kaioshin’s comment below you, that “fat” sounds like it’s worth a miss.
@IKnight
“Visceral” is a great word for my feelings on the sounds, and on Gundam’s treatment of battle scenes in general. I suppose it’s probably common practice to improve the sounds, just like the animation, in movie versions, but I’ve never quite noticed the sounds like this.
@schneider
thanks!
don’t worry, he’s already recommended I do that as well
@Kaioshin Sama
Sounds kinda hilarious, someday I’m sure I’ll sit down and check it out. But I’m glad that I seem to have done the right thing here.
@Owen S
Thanks, I appreciate that. But isn’t this what you mean:
That’s right, I don’t. I just will them into existence through sheer willpower and strength. Been running a bit low on both lately, though, which is why.
I’m glad there are blu-ray versions of some of the Gundam shows. Not sure if the first series is out in that format, but even if it isn’t, it’s bound to happen… What I’m trying to say is that I’d rather see a more crisp version. Since I’ve waited this long, I might as well wait for the blu-rays =3
Hmmm, after all the moe I’ve seen, some bitch-slapping would fit quiet nicely…
Not sure if these will come out in Blu-Ray. Technically, since they came out in theatres, I think there would be sufficient resolution to work with, but I’m not sure about that.
I love that you mentioned Cobra Commander, if you haven’t seen them, do yourself a favour and youtube Attack of the Show’s Cobra Commander sketches, they are awesome!
I sometimes tell myself it probably would have been better had I watched Seed Destiny in its condensed movie version rather than the series.
Think of it, I could have missed all that awful crying and whining. Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted Shin to die as bad by the end of the whole thing had I done so.
I dunno, if you ask a lot of people the SEED Destiny mess is a travesty as a whole. But I can’t really speak to that, since I haven’t moved on since this post.
“…exact opposite would be Macross 7’s awful sound effects which were obviously created on a single synthesizer by a drunken panda…”
Sounds like you had never watched classic mecha shows.
Those were standart sound-effects used in pratically every robot anime in the 80’s and 90’s, including the Gundam franchise.
Before being remastered, the movies had exactly the same sound-effects as Macross 7 and many others…
it’s my understanding that the sound effects were redone (along with some animation) for the movies, while the TV series does match the Macross 7 kinda sounds (and it does — overall what I’ve seen of the series seems far less revolutionary than the movies, excepting the robots of course). It’s the distinction between the movies and the TV, not the original and remaster, much like Macross and Do You Remember Love?
But to lump Gundam and M7 together in the same “classic mecha” pool, I dunno. It seems that the nearly 20 years separating the two series should really make a difference, and you can’t deny that 7’s production values are barely anywhere past the original SDF Macross’s. It hardly looks like something that came out just a couple years before Evangelion or Gundam Wing.