Gundam: G no Reconguista

A few times in these reviews, I've suggested that a show, typically a 12/13 episode run, would have benefitted from bring twice as long. Sometimes, 12 episodes isn't enough to tell the story it wants to tell with as much detail and development as the story requires. I'm not sure I've ever come across a show that IS twice as long as that, that I still think needed to be twice as long. And yet, here we are. 'Gundam: Reconguista in G' is a show with a lot to like. The visual style is fantastic, with some mechanical designs that have quickly become some of my favourites in the franchise. The setting design is similarly brilliant, with a really unique design language, that allows different settings with different histories to feel distinct while clearly in the same world. And, thankfully for a Gundam show, the mecha battles are generally pretty great, with a few particular standouts. Yugo Kanno's soundtrack is a lot of fun, with plenty of very memorable tracks. And, more generally, this show is, in concept, incredibly interesting. There are a lot of really interesting ideas locked away in this show, some of them very much what you expect from Gundam, but others feeling distinct and unique to this particular installment. But it's here that we start to hit a roadblock, because I really do mean 'in concept'. In execution, things get a little messier. Not always, not by any stretch. In fact, the first half of the show I have very little negative to say about. It introduces interesting ideas, interesting characters, storylines I was excited to see explored. But, with only 11 or 12 episodes left to go once it passes the natural midpoint of the story, it starts to buckle under their weight a little bit. And then it keeps piling more weight on. The core issue with G-Reco is this; almost every idea and concept it introduces is good and interesting, but because it just keeps adding more interesting concepts, more conflicting factions, and most importantly, more characters, it never really gets to do anything with any of them. Very few characters, protagonists included, get any meaningful development past that midpoint, because instead on focusing on what it's established, it keeps adding more to the pile. And, in the end, it does sort of collapse under that weight, because how could it not? The ending is, without any reservations, a bit of a rushed mess. The main battle, the purpose of which is a little vague to start with, carries on (and is, admittedly, a very good one where action direction is concerned), until it just sort of... stops. There isn't really a conclusion, everyone just sort of gives up. And then it fades to a few months later, gives us a load of 'where are they now?' scenes (albeit ones that give us very little idea where they are now), and then just sort of... ends. So here, we come back to where we started, with a show that's 26 episodes and yet had enough plot that it probably should have been 50. It's a shame, in so many ways, because I really did enjoy a lot of this show. Really, up until the last episode, I saw no reason I wouldn't come out of this feeling decently satisfied, even if it would have had to leave a couple of bits slightly underdeveloped. Instead, I've come out of it feeling like this show just tried to juggle 10 balls, while spinning six plates, and balancing a sword on its chin, and ended up with all of it in a cluttered pile on the floor. If this show had time to develop the ideas it's interested in, I honestly think it could be one of the strongest and most interesting instalments in the franchise. Instead, it's a compelling and entertaining, but ultimately somewhat underbaked entry into the Gundam franchise.

Wow. What a ride this was. And unfortuneatly rather bumpy and unplesant one. Plot: Firs couple episodes weren't that bad , there was some world building , character introductions and a bit of action but i could allready see that its gonna be rough. The longer i watched the whorse it become .This series tends to run at breakeneck spead trough the story with little to no explenation resulting in massive leaps in logic and even biggeer plot holes. Dialogs usualy dont bring anything to the table being ether a monolog exposition or pointless banter, very rearly we get some actual meaningfull conversation. Don't get me wrong i dont expect hugo awards level storytelling , but as far as gundam series go this is absolute rock bottom. Characters: Another thing that went from bad to worse. As with story it started preety ok, main crew had some actual motivations and personality but it quickly dissolved into bland mix of generic archetypes and flat side characters. The ammount of them introduce with every other episode didnt exactly help either but the worst thing was their sheer stupidity and incompetence, jumping from one bad decision to doing something absolutley morronic and illogical right after, and never get punished for them. Character devalopment suffers the same problems everything gose so fast that it feels like they change by a press of a button, someone may have a lifechanging event happen to them , but litteraly in the next scene thy will comfortably sip juce in the cockpit like nothing happend. It truly mindboggling and makes it very hard to care about them. Art: Its realy the only saving grace for this anime ,generaly holding steady guality in both animation and sound. i especialy liked visual design of the characters, each was uniqe and preety colorful at times patching up a bit terribly handeled personalties. Final thoghts:Two words that where constantly on my mind when watching Gundam: G no Reconguista where: What? and Why? story constantly jumped from one thing to another without any buildup or cohesion jus to see ouer protagonists do something stupid, and then resolve everything becose they have a unbeatable gundam. I honestly think this was meant to be be much longer series , with every episode i felt like i missed at least two that would make bridge betwene events but was cut for some reason. Whith all that i cannot with clear conscience recomend this anime to anyone, even die hard gundam fans. You realy dont miss anything by skipping it.