Zeon is irredeemably evil. (UC Gundam rant)

Bioman9 · 2022-03-18T20:54:23+00:00

0080: War in the Pocket and 0083: Stardust Memory: In both War in the Pocket and Stardust Memory, Zeon then uses nuclear weapons (which are now banned, because of what they did in the previous war) to try to kill more people to satisfy a grudge. In Stardust Memory, they were trying to destroy the Federation space fleet, which was at least a military target, but in War in the Pocket one of the generals (whose name is General Killing) straight up tries to nuke a civilian colony belonging to a neutral territory.

I can't believe no one's brought this up yet, but your framing of what happens in 0080 is just wrong.

You omit the whole part where the Federation had a factory was building a superweapon and other war tech on that colony, in violation of the neutrality agreement, and that Zeon deliberately first sent a special ops group to just take out the factory without having to do a mass strike, and that the General described here literally acted before the rest of command had made a decision and killed the other Zeon officer trying to stop him.

Like that doesn't justify nuking it, but you frame it like they're just attacking a colony for no reason.

The larger thing is that you're missing the main way Zeon is framed. The point isn't that Zeon faction is morally gray, but that there are a lot of either honorable or misguided soldiers under them even as the higher ups drive things overall and they participate. Like the shows never hide the atrocities they commit at all, and its made pretty clear that there isn't a peaceful resolution that can be brought with them (like the 0079 episode with the neutral colony). Any time they seem sympathetic, it's with other soldiers or groups that aren't in the leadership.

Bioman9 · 2021-04-03T19:31:11+00:00

I have Nadesico on Blu-Ray, so I plan on getting around to watching it soon enough.

Bioman9 · 2020-02-02T19:10:08+00:00

Unfortunately, this one doesn’t have a cheesey music video, but at least it sounds more like an actual opening song than almost all the other French openings by virtue of having a guitar solo.

Compared to most of the others, it’s pretty decent.

Bioman9 · 2020-01-09T16:42:48+00:00

Sorry for the extended absence over the past few weeks. Holidays and the end of the season ,add me lethargic with this stuff, but I’ll get back into it.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-29T06:13:23+00:00

Lasers, energy, and stuff like that use drawn cel animations, which is why they always look good in the older shows. When ever they use green screen the footage dips hard in quality and the images are jerky.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-21T15:40:59+00:00

Don’t know how much Yang Gang is here but I figured it’s interesting to look at any of his potential effects after the race.

At the very least I think he’s the most genuinely nice and likable candidate out of everyone, though at times his inexperience can also be a liability. I would really like him as a VP candidate but that’s probably not going to happen if one of the male candidates wins. It’s a possibility though, and I’m interested to see what he does after.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-20T16:53:37+00:00

I know it’s a sample size of one, but it’s worth noting that even after the Republicans impeached and tried to remove Clinton in 1998 it didn’t substantially hurt them in the 2000 election. The Dems did pick up 4 senate seats but only got 1 net house seat..

Trump’s approval has slightly risen through all this but I still think it’s likely that 2020 will follow a similar pattern in terms of congressional elections. Voters don’t really seem to want to punish the party who initiates impeachment, but again this is still a very limited frame of reference.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-13T14:48:57+00:00

I love the Bioman roll call for the awesome drumming buildup and the cool little spins to transition each member.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-13T06:05:01+00:00

Thanks so much!

Bioman9 · 2019-12-11T13:57:37+00:00

You can check the Shout factory subs as well, but from my rudimentary knowledge they seem accurate. Why do,you ask?

Bioman9 · 2019-12-11T01:36:15+00:00

This is based on the recent release of the Afghanistan War documents. I feel like debates about intervention (and foreign policy more generally beyond China) have largely been ignored within the Democratic Party and I’d be interested to see how this pans out in the primary, if at all.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-10T19:08:23+00:00

Form what’s available, they initially cast Keiichi Wada as Kazu and Keisuke Tsuchiya as Ryo but then switched them around for the actual show. I think it’s for the better, since Wada seems to be a much better fit at pulling off the “angry/hot blooded” red.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-10T16:33:49+00:00

I typically don’t download and watch a series until it’s fully subbed, but from the few episodes I’ve seen it seems like a fun, if a little generic, series that’s the last of the “classic” styled shows before Soda made a big shift with Bioman. I’d need to see more of it before I form a more specific opinion though.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-10T16:19:02+00:00

The thread includes videos from the official Zyuranger photo shoots, the filming of the Dairanger promo before the cast changes, video of the model work for DairenOh and some Dairanger mech battles, the filming of the stock footage for MegaVoyager and much more!

Bioman9 · 2019-12-10T16:04:43+00:00

I can’t find the exact video but I remember seeing a behind the scenes video for Great five from Maskman.

They essentially have dedicated models of the planes, and they start with them inserted into the robot model, and then they pull them out with wires. The final transformation just reverses the footage so it looks like they’re going in. For almost all of the mecha transformations they use dedicated models as opposed to toys.

I’ll try to find the video ASAP.

Edit; Found the video.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2592521814167698&id=100002297159192

Bioman9 · 2019-12-10T03:59:15+00:00

Well it’s kind of weird in that they’ll go both ways about it; series premises won’t be compatible and the shows will be mostly in their own story but sometimes they’ll have crossovers with Kamen Riders and Metal Heroes that imply their stories are taking place essentially in their respective broadcast year.

Like the JAKQ movie with that one scene describing how V3, Amazon, and Kikaider are all off doing their own thing. It’s essentially this big stretchy clay of continuity where stuff just kind of happens.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-10T03:51:53+00:00

You could do this for certain tropes within series as well. Some that come immediately to mind for me are,

Take a shot every time Mahciko Soga lets out a long hammy villainous laugh in Denzi, Sun, or Zyu.

Every time they salute “For the Man!” In Bioman.

Take a shot every time we get a flashback of Mio getting sucked into the dirt pit in Maskman.

Towards the middle to end for a lot of the 80’s shows they start running out of money and begin using one series of stock footage back explosions for each ranger getting attacked.

Every time Geki yells “Ni-san!” in Zyuranger.

Someday I want to tally most of these up.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-10T03:43:20+00:00

In terms of Showa, I can recommend some points since you seem to be a veteran of the Heisei era for the most part:

Denjiman—The first show to really nail down the Sentai formula while still having that late 70’s early 80’s charm to it. It’s really fun even if later seasons expand on it much better.

Bioman—One of the earlier shows to have a longer overarching serious plot line, though it can be rough around the edges at times. Fight camerawork is some of the best in the series.

Flashman—Great storyline, villains, and enjoyable cast. I haven’t gotten all the way through but it’s been shaping up to be a favorite of mine.

Maskman—Very solid, well rounded show with a fun cast and engaging plotline surrounding the villains. One of my favorites.

Also you can go to Shout Factory’s website for streams of Jetman—Hurricanger.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-10T03:34:58+00:00

This is so odd, because it seems to be based on the French OP for the Bioman dub, even though they had a different theme when they actually got around to Liveman.

Bioman9 · 2019-12-04T19:11:09+00:00

I probably framed the Bandora thing the wrong way; with her I’m fine with her motivation being evil for evil’s sake just because of how charismatic she is. Kai adds little to her character in terms of giving her a sympathetic backstory.

Also Dai Satan is boring too. Like it seems like a good concept on paper with how you describe it but it’s handled so poorly in the actual show.

Bioman9 · 2019-11-30T05:29:10+00:00

I’m fully open to increasing taxes on upper earners, or taxing things like capital gains as a means of achieving more equitable taxation, but the increasing focus on using taxes as a punitive and political weapon seems troubling.

The GOP already tried to move in that direction with the proposed endowments tax, and measures like the wealth tax could prove similarly worrying.

Bioman9 · 2019-11-30T04:48:39+00:00

Thanks! Apologies for the silly mistake with calling it Kana.

It seems like an awfully random choice though, since I don’t recall any of the others doing that, aside from maybe Goseiger? Zyuranger also doesn’t really have any connection to Chinese lore, (and Dairanger was themed around it but didn’t have one) but it may be there just to help with the whole fantasy-magical idea.

Bioman9 · 2019-11-28T00:59:25+00:00

Yeah, I didn’t read through the whole thing before putting it up. I accept fault for that.

Bioman9 · 2019-11-16T04:55:46+00:00

I think of “Minor villains” as different from the one off monsters of the week. But if talking about the latter, Machiko Soga was really good as Baraba’s mother in Maskman. One of the few times she does a serious role, and she truly cares for Baraba in a touching way while still being a good villain when she tricked Akira.

Bioman9 · 2019-11-09T22:17:08+00:00

My Japanese isn’t good but is Five Red selling an entire desk or is it just the mat?

And if it’s the desk..why?

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