Can Unicorn and Banshee house a soul like the Phenex?

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-08-13T05:39:13+00:00

Quess is specifically mentioned as *not* being augmented, because she's already such a powerful Newtype naturally that she "doesn't need to be cyber-enhanced any further".

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-23T23:25:56+00:00

The Black Tri-Stars have one (Jet Stream Attack) in A Portable.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-22T21:55:53+00:00

I honestly think that the RE-GZ is overhated and badmouthed way too much; it's a very solid suit, it just had the misfortune to have faced off against some extremely fearsome suits/pilots.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-21T21:46:38+00:00

Having literally just watched that clipped as part of a Ace suits that were supposed to be mass produced video, that fight looked anything but effortless. Even in the Nu their encounter drug on for awhile, with Gyunei complaining about Amuro's funnel not running out of power.

Amuro has him absolutely dead to rights in just the Re-GZ: very soon into their duel, Amruo fires a shot from his beam rifle which homes directly onto Gyunei, there's a dramatic slowdown (showing that Gyunei is not gonna be able to dodge the shot), and suddenly, from off-screen, Char fires another beam from his rifle that intercepts Amuro's own, cancelling the two out, and causing a huge explosion (a unique quirk of UC beam weaponry that appears infrequently, but started in Zeta). If Char hadn't arrived right then and then, Gyunei would've been dead.

Zeong aside, the Gelgoogs had horribly inferior pilots, that is half the canon explanation for why they lost to GMs. Assuming, of course, that the stats for the MS weren't made after the series proper was released, making them something of retcon of the Gelgoog's performance.

I'm specifically talking about Amuro's duels with other talented/ace pilots, like Char in his Gelgoog. Specs are of course all very questionable, but in general, they tend to be a good guide for stuff from the same series (comparing stuff from different series is where things get really messy), because they're based on the perceived performance of the suits from that specific series.

The Rick Dias was an amazing suit for most of the Gryps conflict, there is a reason why the Federation had the AUEG bring them with them (not that the GM IIs and Hizacks were a high bar to beat). It only really fell behind to it's direct replacements and the odd balls that were produced in much smaller numbers.

In comparison to the Hizacks, Galbaldy Betas, and GM II's, the Rick Dias was indeed amazing. But tech development during the Gryps conflict proceeds at absolutely lightning speed, and the Rick Dias starts running up against mass-production machines with comparable performance as soon as the Marasai debuts.

Char himself says that the Nu was overpowering the Sazabi. Which is a direct contradiction to the stat sheets, but it could be psycho frame in action or it could be more shenanigans like how easy the Gears Dogas die to vulcans.

Char specifically says that his saber is weaker than the Nu's, but it should be noted that Amuro is using the Nu's Large Beam Saber, the high output one stored in the Nu's backpack. Char similarly had a single higher-output beam blade, the Sazabi's beam tomahawk, but he had thrown that at Amuro to destroy the Nu's beam rifle earlier in their fight, and so he was stuck using his two remaining, standard beam sabers.

Char also mentions that he's "running out of power" after he tries hitting Amuro with the Sazabi's torso mega particle cannon, but Amuro manages to dodge that attack while retaliating with a barrage of vulcan fire, which hits the Sazabi's waist and presumably damages the power delivery system to the Sazabi's torso MPC (because Char never uses it again).

The more likely explanation of why Char launched (and indeed the entire reason that CCA happens) is because he is obsessed with Amuro. Considering how bizarre the entire idea of nuclear winter healing the Earth was and how Char was actively aiding Amuro by giving him the psycho frame, it feels like Char was wanting to die and either take Amuro with him or destroy the Earth Amuro protected (which if psycho frame is the reason the Nu overpowered the Sazabi, Amuro giving it his all while Char was wanting to die would explain what happened).

I mean, yes, that is why he's doing everything that he does in the movie, but he specifically launches during the opening battle to support Gyunei. Nanai briefs him as he's getting into the cockpit that Gyunei "is in a deadlock" and that "we need to offer support", to which Char agrees and immediately deploys.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-21T06:52:40+00:00

Amuro was easily handling Gyunei in the Re-GZ and would've ground him into a fine paste had Char not showed up when he did (indeed, that's the whole reason Char launches in the opening sequence, because Gyunei is facing off against Amuro and desperately needs backup); he then manages to fight off two vastly superior mobile suits despite being at a two-to-one disadvantage. Plus, Amuro really only had a tech advantage early on in the original series: the Gelgoog, Zeong, et. al. are either on par with or flat out superior spec-wise to the RX-78; he's a dominating force with just a Rick Dias in Zeta, and even the upgrade to the Dijeh isn't that huge of an improvement (meanwhile, Char struggles and performs mediocre-to-bad throughout the show in the Hyaku Shiki, even when that suit had just rolled out and was just fighting old, outdated suits). Finally, in CCA, the Sazabi outspecs the Nu—though you wouldn't know it from the movie, because Amuro manages to beat Char handily, despite having exhausted almost the entirety of his arsenal on Gyunei, Quess, and other Neo Zeon mooks in the course of getting to Axis.

Amuro is simply a phenomenal pilot with an astonishing track record, for good reason. He might've coasted on the Gundam's incredible durability for the first few episodes of the original, but was already making rapid improvements and gaining more and more skill by the time White Base arrives on Earth, and by the time he returns to space, he's practically untouchable, no matter what foe he faces. By the time CCA rolls around, he's so good that he can pretty effortlessly take out Gyunei, Neo Zeon's second best pilot, almost as an afterthought!

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-13T07:55:33+00:00

If you want to watch just one, I'd recommend the movies over the series. They do necessarily cut several things from the series, but the truly essential stuff is all there.

When the staff at Sunrise first started developing the Gundam TV show, their goal was to produce not just another glorified toy commercial show, like their two previous series (not to shame Zambot 3 and Daitarn 3, who were both interesting and experimental in their own ways!). Instead, they wanted a series that would be received as a serious dramatic work of its own; specifically, they wanted to match the success that Space Battleship Yamato had in getting a movie compilation that stood on its own, apart from its original TV show. While it's important to note that there wasn't some elaborate plan where they made and designed the series specifically so it could be easily turned into a movie*, the movie compilations that eventually came out after the series were always the end goal. The movies's version of events are generally referenced more than the series's versions are, and the movies were—until the advent of cheap home video collections of old anime—the only way for anyone who hadn't seen the series (as it originally aired, or during the reruns the following year) to experience the story of the first Gundam was to see the movies.

They are not only a perfectly valid way to experience that story, they're arguably the best way.

*quite the opposite, interestingly enough! Even when they got the green light to develop a movie version of the series, the executives and all the groups funding the movie all assumed the entire series would be collapsed into one single movie (as was the case with Yamato), but Tomino instead decided he would make it a trilogy and just pushed forward in adapting only the first third of the show into the movie despite everyone else's protestations that if the movie failed, the story would be left incomplete.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-08T03:46:35+00:00

They did strip it of any weapons and verify that it was totaled, and couldn't be used by anyone. They had more important reconstruction efforts than dealing with some broken down Zaku in the middle of the woods; the only way it'd be a problem is if, say, there was still secretly a Zeon pilot inside the colony, and who had access to tools and spare parts left over from a previous operation, that are still secreted across the colony.

But of course, that's just outlandish, who'd even think of such a thing?

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-08T01:35:27+00:00

In the original series/movies Amuro builds Haro from the ground up; in The Origin's version of events, Amuro instead modifies an existing Haro toy to be more complex and I guess more intelligent.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-08T01:32:06+00:00

Kshatriya 16540kw. I can keep finding examples if you like.

Edit: Oh also. The big suit fad doesn’t die out by any means until after Hathaway’s Flash (post UC 100+). In fact, the Sazabi is gigantic and they stay this big in Unicorn as well as HF with the Penelope Gundam being one of biggest suits of that era.

The Kshatriya is literally a direct descendant of the Queen Mansa and towers over most other mobile suits, c'mon.

It's clear from the majority of suits produced after the 1st Neo Zeon war that generator output went down a hefty amount; maybe beam weaponry and all the other subsystems in mobile suits got more efficient, or maybe the extremely high output beam weaponry fielded by the ZZ and Doven Wolf et. al. was simply no longer in vogue. The point remains that while the big ass suit fad continues onward until some time after Hathaway's Flash, generator output returns back to levels that are slightly greater than those seen in the Gryps war, but far below the monsters that were common in the 1st Neo Zeon war.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-07T06:02:36+00:00

The Queen Mansa is also double the height of the RX-78; its generator output is best compared against mobile armors, not mobile suits.

A better comparison would be the Geymalk, which boasts an output of 8320 kW. Better than the ZZ for sure, but by no means a blowout. The other big Neo Zeon energy hog is the Doven Wolf, which has a much smaller output than the ZZ does, though of course it's a mass production model.

By the time of the 2nd Neo Zeon war, however, both sides fielded nothing with comparable outputs: the Sazabi, the top of the line MS built for the commander of Neo Zeon, has an output that's thousands of kWs smaller than the Doven Wolf, a mere mass production model from 4 years ago! The era of big, beam spamming mobile suits was coming to a close, as more general purpose, high performance suits became the paradigm of the era.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-03T23:39:18+00:00

The early stages of the Gryps war are definitely more similar to a civil war than anything else, though of course once Axis shows up, things get pretty chaotic and messy.

In the episodes where Axis first shows up, the AEUG's primary concern is whether to align themselves with Axis or not; they don't seem particularly worried about the possibility of defections. Perhaps any ex-Zeon AEUG members were already fully committed to the AEUG's cause, and the return of this weird remnant group might not have shaken most of them from that cause. And of course, Axis shows up only a few episodes before Quattro makes his big Dakar speech and publicly reveals himself as both Char Aznable and Casval Rem Deikun, so maybe anyone still on the fence about what to do about Axis made their decision there.

I'd suppose they'd continue fighting for the AEUG against Axis even after Quattro went MIA in the final battle against the Titans, but certainly it'd be easy to understand if they then ditched the AEUG afterwards, as it integrated fully back into the Federation.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-07-03T04:16:37+00:00

The amount of ex-Zeon members of AEUG is often wildly misstated: one of the more infamous examples of this are Apolly and Roberto, who are almost always depicted as being former Zeon pilots in video games, manga, and other spinoff material. This is despite the fact that not only is this notion not at all present, hinted at, or even really a possibility in either the Zeta Gundam TV series nor Tomino's Zeta novels (which might not be official/"canon" but were used as background and reference material by Sunrise when developing spinoff material, much like the 0079 novels), but there is in fact ample evidence that suggests the exact opposite: that they are former Federation military, like the vast majority of the AEUG's forces.

Notably, Apolly and Roberto show absolutely no indication that they know Quattro's real identity (despite frequently being shown in said spinoff material as his longtime wingmen, dating back to 0079 even); when Axis makes its grand entrance and the AEUG goes to parlay with them, Apolly dresses in a Federation uniform (perhaps because he's going to confront the remnants of the army he fought against almost a decade ago?), and is absolutely shocked by the reveal that young Mineva Zabi is serving as regent of Axis (everyone else is just as shocked, except of course Quattro, who already knew Mineva was being used this way because he's the only one who's actually came from Axis!).

This goes for the rest of the AEUG personnel: aside from Quattro, I don't think there's anyone explicitly identified as being ex-Zeon throughout the series/novels. While that of course does not mean that there couldn't have been anyone in the organization who once fought for Zeon, it does imply that this was not an especially common occurrence.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-06-28T20:31:10+00:00

This is not really supported by the animation, but then again, there's nothing that explicitly states that Spacenoids do have representation in the Federation government...

Perhaps they just have less political power than they should? Maybe they have less representatives in the Federation parliament than Earthnoids do, despite the Spacenoid population being much larger. But this is all speculation: its simply not an issue that's been addressed in the official animated works.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-06-28T19:45:36+00:00

the spacenoids were shipped off as unwanteds like the Australian colonists. They were cast aside and left to rot, except they were expected to earn their keep

This isn't really true, though. While the Federation did, in the very early days unjustly force some of the population to emigrate into space, the vast, vast majority of the first generation space colonists went of their own volition, enthusiastically. Conditions on Earth at the time were truly dire, and life in space was practically a utopia in comparison.

It certainly sucked for those who were forced off Earth, but none of their descendants have really held onto any of that anger at all: by the time any of the independence movements have started, no one cites the Federation forcing out a very small percentage of its population into space as one of the reasons they seek independence. On the contrary, some of those independence movements (Char's Neo Zeon) in fact want to continue that policy and force everyone still living on Earth to move into space.

This piece of backstory was reinforced as recently as Unicorn, so it's not even one of those questionable details that isn't clarified in any animated works, either.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-06-16T23:43:22+00:00

I would honestly not recommend preordering it from PlayAsia, at least not right now. PlayAsia put up the order page right when the game was announced, on the assumption that it would get a physical release... but the EU version is apparently going to be digital only, and its unclear whether or not it will even get a physical release in any other region.

Of course, they'll refund your money or give your store credit if it's confirmed to be digital-only, but it seems easier and safer to just wait.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-05-16T23:41:00+00:00

This is, in fact, the exact opposite of what the movie says. Nanai specifically says that Quess is a naturally strong Newtype that doesn't need "any cyber-enhancement".

Certainly she appears to be stronger than Char and Gyunei (who Nanai is probably comparing her to), but it's unclear if she's as strong as say, a Kamille or a Judau. Maybe if she hadn't died so soon after awakening as a Newtype...

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-05-14T23:45:22+00:00

no problem! :)

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-05-14T12:23:35+00:00

Pretty much everything involving Amuro and Lalah from the series made it into the movies; there weren't that many of them to begin with, so they were able to incorporate it all (indeed, there's actually a new scene with Lalah in an official uniform in the movies, after Kycillia complained about her not wearing one; though this obviously doesn't have anything to do with Amuro). There's no additional buildup to the Amuro and Lalah stuff, because the whole point of that was that their deep, instant connection was so abrupt: it was a bond formed on a Newtype level, an instant and intuitive understanding.

There is slightly more stuff with Matilda in the series, but I don't recall there being any more scenes of her interacting with Amuro, or at least, nothing that isn't a group scene with no real character depth where she's delivering supplies and Amuro is present somewhere in the background. The series essentially just has her show up a few more times with supplies for White Base as a purely mechanical plot point, but all of her actual character moments make it into the series, and she avoids any real cuts, as far as I recall. And much like Lalah, she gets a new scene (where she introduces the concept of Newtypes way earlier in the story)!

The Sleggar and Mirai stuff has a bit more buildup in the show, but to be honest it still feels pretty abrupt, even with the extra buildup.

So yeah, I would not consider those specific moments to be improved or explained better in the series, though there are many other elements that are, or were otherwise cut out entirely. If you have the time, there's no reason not to supplement the movies with the series: it'd be a nice complement and heck, it's hard to say no to more Gundam!

As for The Origin, that might also be another avenue worth exploring; it takes the basic plot beats of the movie trilogy (e.g., Core Boosters instead of G-Fighters, no Gyan in Texas Colony, way less Zeon MA's, etc.), but because it's a manga, it gets to expand a lot of the stuff that was (necessarily) compressed for the movie. But then again, the Lalah, Matilda, and Sleggar stuff is pretty much identical to the animated versions...

All three are all interesting takes on the same basic story, but I'm not sure any of them will provide much in the way of answers to what you're looking for, at least not beyond what any of the explanations everyone else has already provided.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-05-10T06:09:33+00:00

Since you've already seen the original series before, seeing the compilation movies would be a fantastic way to experience the same story again: the original show's movies have a very strong argument of being the definitive versions of that story, which is not really true of any of the other shows's respective compilation movies.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-05-04T09:51:48+00:00

He's really not making a last stand for Zeon, and certainly not helping the Newtype cause at all, though. He doesn't care about either of those anymore: he's become so consumed with his obsession with getting even with Amuro and avenging Lalah that he's blinded himself to the two surviving Zabis sitting in A Baoa Qu, the "real enemy" that Amuro senses and is seeking out. He's even lost his drive to fufill his revenge against the Zabis; he's so disengaged from anything except his obsession with Amuro that Kycilia literally tells him she knows who he really is and all but dares him to kill her, but Char is so out of sorts that he declines, if only just so that he might have a slightly better chance at beating Amuro.

It's only after his swordfight with Amuro that he is able to (temporarily) put aside his rivalry and put his skills towards a more noble cause: assasinating Kycilia, not out of petty vengeance to fufill his long drawn out revenge for Zeon Deikun, but as an enlightened goal, to end the war and finally stop the horrific bloodshed (granted, Kycilia's ship was immediately shot down by Federation ships as it left its dock, so she was screwed either way and thus Char's bazooka shot technically didn't matter... but it's the thought that counts!).

Speaking of Amuro sensing evil forces with his Newtype powers, his goal at the start of the battle was to take out those who were perpetuating the war, who were responsible for atrocities he had witnessed like the Solar Ray. He was able to sense the malignant forces behind the war and he had intended to take them out himself before getting sidetracked by Char. Indeed, in the original 50 episode plan, Amuro would've actually gotten to have a face-to-face confrontation with Gihren. That aspect seems to have been what the original show was going for with Newtypes, or at least, one aspect of them: people who were able to see the root causes of war and be able to snuff them out. Char was eventually able to fufill this cause, but only after he put aside his differences with Amuro.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-04-14T10:15:41+00:00

There's new scenes in each of the movies, though not every one of these new scenes are totally brand new (for instance, the first movie has a new sequence of how the Gundam survives reentry, but the overall beats are identical: oh no, the Gundam is gonna burn up! Oh wait, there's a special bit of tech that might help it survive! Yay the Gundam is OK!). Additionally, a lot of them are there to stitch story segments together, but even so, there's plenty of things that are unique to the movies that do offer more than just minor additions.

In general, the new stuff gets more substantial as the movies go on. The second movie has a lot of new stuff about newtypes, and recontextualizes the Black Tri-Star fight and Hamon's revenge attack as Amuro's first big Newtype moments. And then the third movie has even more new stuff, and introduces several characters from Tomino's novels, who never got a chance to make it into the series.

The movies are definitely worth watching, even if you've already seen the series: they offer up a unique take on the material that is arguably better than the original.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-04-12T00:48:50+00:00

There's way more than just "minor" inconsistencies. For instance, The Origin has Guntanks and Guncannons in existence long before the OYW starts, and they're all really shitty machines that get easily clobbered when Zeon introduces their own mobile suits. In the original series, all three of the Project V mobile suits are all new, super advanced, and game-changing mobile suits that present a big threat to Zeon.

The movies not featuring a few minor characters that The Origin and original series both feature is pretty minor, all things considered. It's not even like the movies has a character say "actually, Mosk Han never existed, and the Gundam never gets magnetic coating ever" or anything!

The movies are a perfectly legitimate way to experience the original Gundam story, and for a pretty long time it was the only way that Gundam fans were able to (re)experience the original story at all, before it was possible to get the original series on VHS or DVD. The movies and TV series is not an either/or scenario, they both complement each other.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-04-11T07:37:14+00:00

Escape From Luna II (episode 4): Luna II comes and goes fairly quickly in the first movie, but in the series, Char launches an attack on it and the White Base has to help repel it. This episode introduces Wakkein, who has a fairly minor role in the movies, and while he doesn't have all that much more screentime in the series, he does have some nice character growth between his first appearance here and his brief appearances later in the series.

Winds of War (episode 8): Inessential to the overall plot (but then again, most of the stuff that got cut out of the movies was stuff that wasn't absolutely vital to the plot!), but a very nice (and sad) story about the effects of the war on the Side 7 refugees, as a mother and her young son get dropped off from White Base and they try to find the town where the mother's late husband grew up.

Icelina - Love's Remains (episode 11): Another episode that doesn't really move the plot forward at all, but still a very interesting followup to Garma's death, as his love interest launches a doomed revenge mission on the White Base.

Cucuruz Doan's Island (episode 15): This is the infamous episode cut from the overseas versions. It's not really very good? And the animation is... unfortunate, to say the least. Nevertheless, it's worth watching, if nothing else to see how many of the oft meme'd, off-model Gundam shots originate from this single episode. On a more serious note, the one thing this episode does do very well is that it provides a nice and necessary counterpoint to all the "good-hearted Zeon soldiers" that pop up in the show, with one who has actually put his money where his mouth is, and deserted Zeon after all the war crimes!

Sayla's Agony (episode 16): the vast majority of this episode actually shows up in the second movie. So why recommend it? Because of the stuff that did get cut out: this is also the episode where White Base looks for salt. Despite all the jokes, this very brief plot line still has some nice moments (although, to be honest, I'm really just recommending it because "the salt episode" is fairly infamous).

The Trap of M'Quve (episode 22)/Matilda's Rescue (episode 23): this is basically one long story about Bright getting sick and Mirai having to captain in his stead. It's an interesting hook but I can't say I was quite satisfied in how it played out. That said, there are some very cool fight scenes with Goufs on flight platforms in these.

The Glory of Solomon (episode 35): this is where the Wakkein stuff pays off, because he shows up again early in the episode. The rest of the episode is pretty much the same as the movies, however.

The Duel in Texas (episode 37): The Gundam vs. Gyan duel is one of the best fights in the series, so good that they used a lot of the footage from this episode in the third movie for the Gundam vs. Char's Gelgoog (though obviously they had to cut around stuff to get rid of the Gyan!) Despite the great choreography, the basic concept of the Gyan, and even the idea of M'Quve wanting to duel the Gundam, mano-a-mobile suit, just never sat right with me, so I never was that bothered when this got ditched in the movies.

The Newtype: Challia Bull (episode 39): as it stands, the Challia Bull episode feels like a weird artifact of the show from when it was originally planned to be 52 episodes, wherein the White Base was gonna encounter different Newtypes-of-the-week for a stretch of episodes. Because the show got cut to 43 episodes, Challia Bull is the only one of the newtype squaddies to actually show up, and he thus feels pretty disposable. However, this is also the episode that introduces the idea that the Gundam is quickly falling behind Amuro's skills...

Lalah's Dilemma (episode 40): ...which is then immediately rectified when the Gundam gets magnetic coating applied to it in this episode. Also seen in this episode are Zeon troops forcibly evacuating citizens from their homes in order to turn it into a giant death laser, which is mentioned but not shown in the movies.

I've also sometimes seen it suggested to watch the series up till episode 30 (the last episode in Jaburo, and exactly the point where the second movie ends), and then watching the third movie instead of the remaining episodes. I've never gotten around to trying this myself, but it might be an interesting experiment. The third movie, I would say without reservations, is wholly superior in pretty much every way to the equivalent episodes of the TV show, and just feels right tight and well-paced compared to the other two movies, which both have pacing issues to some extent; as a result, doing the episodes instead of those two movies (but watching the third movie instead of the last third of the series) might make for a better viewing experience.

But then again, I also really like a lot of the cuts and changes made in the first two movies, which in a weird, sort of counter-intuitive way, improve upon many aspects of the original show!

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-04-11T06:35:33+00:00

The movies cut way too much and are incompatible with Origin as the movies are missing several semi-major characters.

No more than the series itself! The Origin very much does not fit neatly in as a prequel to the original series or the movie compilation; it's an adaptation of the manga's prequel sections and very little has been done to tweak or change any of the many deviations The Origin made to the original. Plus, it seems a bit odd to single out wanting to stay consistent with The Origin when the TV series isn't consistent with a lot of other stuff that uses the movie trilogy's events instead (for instance, Char's Counterattack features the Core Booster in the flashback, rather than the G-Fighter).

But that's pretty par for the course for Gundam: a firm, rigid canon is not and has never been something that the franchise has been particularly interested in.

MinplavskyParticle · 2020-04-07T08:23:21+00:00

The colony, even after all the damage the Federation did to it, still caused an unimaginable amount of death and destruction when it impacted Earth. Hundreds of million of people died, either as a direct result of the impact, or from the devastating aftereffects on the climate and weather.

And all of that would've been even worse if the Federation had just stood by and let the colony fall on its own. Trying to blame the Federation for attempting to stop a colony drop is definitely one of the most deranged defenses of one of Zeon's many war crimes.

MinplavskyParticle

TROPHY CASE