Kidou Senshi Gundam NT

As someone who has yet to see Unicorn Gundam, I was worried that my enjoyment of Gundam NT would be hampered. To my surprise, however, the quality of the film is irrelevant to whoever has watched Unicorn Gundam or even has seen a previous Gundam series at all. Gundam Narrative is just bad. Whether the person watching it is a die-hard UC fan or a newcomer to the franchise, the movie is terrible on its own merit. Story: 2/10 Here is Gundam NT's biggest flaw: its paper thin and boring story. The story, at least, does a decent job of explaining the events that happened previously which are relevant and important to the events of NT, meaning that people who missed out on Unicorn won't be completely lost. The big issue here, however, is just how uninteresting. The film just drags on and on with this philosophical nonsense about how humans should not be tampering with the power of gods or the corruption of the Federation in testing on children. It doesn't do anything profound to portray these themes, and the characters just talk about these issues in rather bland dialogue. Another issue to note with the story is how detached it feels to the viewer. It attempts to portray violence or traumatic events in such a way that the person watching the movie will feel shock or empathy, but it fails at this task. The movie shows these events, but fails to show to a significant extent how the effects of such horrors. The beginning of the film, for example, shows the destruction caused by Operation British, in which a colony was dropped on Earth, in the original Gundam, but it is presented like something out of a Hollywood film. It lacks any sort of nuance or emotional attachment. Art:7/10 Considering that this is Sunrise, it is to nobody's surprise that Gundam NT's animation is absolutely spectacular. It's fluid and detailed. The mecha action is well animated and fun to watch. My biggest gripe, however, concerns character design and mecha design. On the topic of character design, Zoltan's design just looks ridiculous. He has such an over the top and blatantly evil look as if he were pulled out of a Saturday morning cartoon. His one red eye is just cheesy and unnecessary. On the topic of mecha design, it was pretty disappointing. Considering the story only takes place one year after the events of Gundam Unicorn, I wasn't expecting a huge departure from that series' designs, but I expected more than what we got. The Gundam Narrative's design, the Narrative is what this film's lead Gundam is called by the way, looks generic and uninspired, as if the designers simply slapped elements from previous Gundam designs together and just called it a day. Sound: 4/10 The English dub I honestly have no complaints over. It's well acted and gets the job done. My biggest gripe, however, is the music. Having heard tracks from Unicorn Gundam and his work in other shows such as Kill la Kill I expected something decent at least. I will admit that I am not the biggest Sawano fan, but I just couldn't bring myself to like any of the tracks he made. The vocal songs were just generic pop songs and failed to induce any excitement in the scenes they were present. The instrumental songs were insignificant, and I honestly can't think of a single track that I enjoyed. Character: 2/10 Here is Gundam NT's other greatest flaw: it's characters. I honestly couldn't believe just how annoying and uninteresting the characters were. For starters, Jona Basta is a terrible lead. He fails to show any character development or growth throughout the movie and simply mopes his way through the film's duration. He has no outstanding qualities or anything that makes the viewer care for him. The film does nothing to ensure the viewer actually becomes invested in Jona's character or his struggles because of how lackluster he is. Another character that requires special mention is the main villain, Zoltan. Zoltan is a terrible villain because, like Jona, he has absolutely zero unique qualities or anything that makes him unique. The writers fail to give Zoltan any depth, for there is literally nothing about him that we learn. We learn nothing about his past, motivations, or struggles. His only purpose in the story is to serve as some sort of arbitrary villain for the main characters to fight in some sort of grand finale. He's just some crazed guy who only seeks to fight for no reason whatsoever. The only character in the entire story which shows some sort of growth or development is Michele Luio, but even that is hardly anything to talk about. Enjoyment: 1/10 The fight scenes, though fun to watch, were still boring in that I had no emotional investment in them. It was like I was watching some guy clash two toys together. Why should I care about these characters possibly dying if I have no reason to? Why should I be watching this when I could be watching something else? There were times were I was legitimately tempted to walk out of the theater simply because of how bored I was with it. Overall: 3/10 The creators of this film state that this will be the start of another chapter for the Universal Century, which has me worried for future entries. Just read the summary online if you really want to be caught up with the lore. It's a waste of your time.

I just watched earlier & being my 1st review i hope it does help in a way to those who wanted to catch up with it in the near future. WARNING LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD! Mobile Suit Gundam NT Review: Story: This adaptation is based off the Unicorn lightnovel which initially was completed but due to the popularity of the series, was inserted late into the whole Gundam UC Timeline. All i say is that you need knowledge prior to watching this (or better yet watch the whole UC animes) if not you will not know what is happening. They don't even throw a bone. So its hard to watch this as a standalone movie. Sideline-wise, at least i am glad they didn't discard the original ZZ timeline & abandon the Zeta movie ending instead. Also too many backtracking to the past then to the present, but diehard fans will appreciate all these easter egg nuggets (hence why i mention that watching the previous UC series since the beginning of OYW is a bonus). They also touch on the neverending topic of being a Newtype/ Cyber Newtypes & how society deemed them. For me as a hardcore Gundam fans, i give this movie a 7. Story 7/10 Art: Same as Gundam UC movies/Series, the art is great with not much of complaints. Of course since this is a big budget movie, the art is reminicing of the older Gundam movies. I gave this a 9. Art 9/10 Sound: As Sawano Hiroyuki is part of the team again (who doesn't listen to Gundam UC soundtracks & screams epic!), the soundtrack is superb & there is some hints of familliar to UC. No complaints here, i gave this a 9. Sound 9/10 Character: Again the way how this is being portrayed, going back & forth with storyline-wise, it's rather hard to like the new characters. Their motives, resolve.... Its difficult to vote them at all. Too messy i can say. Still the saving grace is that there are cameos round so... I can only give a 7 Character 7/10 Enjoyment: like i said if you are not a diehard fans, it is difficult to enjoy this as a standalone movie without prior knowledge. But since i am a hardcore Gundam fan, i do enjoy watching it, with all the references as well as the action scenes. There's even one part which i was caught surprised with. The only complaint that i got is that it does seems to be abit messy with the storyline. Overall i gave this a 7 Enjoyment: 7/10 Overall: Again to highlight, for those who have yet to watch a single UC series, i will advice that it is difficult to understand the whole plotline. For those like me, you will enjoy the ride. As a bonus, it would be advise to know Mobile Suit Gundam UC: One of Seventy Two (a short movie that was shown at G-Dome which unfortunately had not been screen outside Japan) plotline before watching this. I gave this a 7 Overall: 7

Mobile Suit Gundam NT Review Story (5/10) Mediocre More Specifically (5.75/10) Good The story for Mobile Suit Gundam NT was mediocre, it follows a tri-protagonist story about three children known as the miracle children that were known to predict an upcoming catastrophic event that happened during the time 0079. This causes the future of these three children to be used and manipulated for the ravages of war between the Earth Federation and Neo Zeon. I thought the overall execution was good but this movie definitely requires a hefty knowledge of at least Gundam 0079, Gundam 0087 Zeta, Gundam 0093 Char's Counter Attack and Gundam 0096 Unicorn. For a heavy Gundam fan this is fine but for everyone else that is indeed asking a bit much as this movie will constantly flashback to scenes of the series or movies that I mentioned. So if you have no knowledge of them the call backs will indeed fly right over your head clean. It's indeed a double-edge sword but seeing as this was only in theaters for 1 day, Sunrise assumed only hardcore Gundam fans would be there for this so it is what it is. Nonetheless I thought it was wasn't anything worth complimenting. Art and Animation (8/10) Very Good More Specifically (8.75/10) Very Good+ The art style I felt for this move was very good and so was the animation. Although the mech fights were cool at times it would get so chaotic sometimes, you could easily loose track of what's going on. So it can get high maintenance to keep track of everything when the going gets tough. The CG animation on the Phenex Gundam wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it is a tinsy bit weird to see everything else hand drawn while the Phenex is in full CG and sometimes it'll go handdrawn itself so the consistency between that, I wouldn't be surprise if it bothered people like it did me. Sound (9/10) More Specifically (9.50/10) Great The sound in the movie was the best thing about it, the background music ost of VigilaNTe made every scene it played it two times better to me, I watched it in English dub and I thought every voice actor did a great job, nothing outstanding but definitely nothing big enough to complain about to any degree. Characters (6/10) Good {Minor Spoilers} Like I said in the story section this movie is a tri-protagonist movie, which was a new different take for a Gundam. At first I didn't really have an issue with the three but after a bit of hindsight, Jona Basta didn't really showcase any good characterization to really care commend. He wasn't a bad character but he definitely wasn't anything to compliment, we was just there continuously talking about his mission where you could see his character wasn't right in the head for basically the entire movie (and also his piloting skills weren't all that either). Rita is a bit more interesting as she was positive with hopes and dreams 24/7 but you know where that usually leads you in a Gundam series, nonetheless I thought the little dialogue she did have was interesting enough to say she was a good enough character. Michele is the one that surprisingly gets the most characterization and character development of the three as her actions causes her to go down many different paths through the movie one of jealously one, one of self discovery for both herself and humanity and lastly one of redemption, she may be the least likable but from a character standpoint I would definitely say she's got the most depth to her. That antagonist of this movie I felt could have been handled a bit better as his backstory and reasoning behind doing what he does wasn't really explained as well as it should have been in my opinion, it was hard for me to care for anything he did. Enjoyment (8/10) Very Good As I watched the movie, all I wanted to see was some good ole Gundam action, but I also did get a decent enough story and characters. The many call backs I appreciated and the return of "you know who" at the end of the movie. Overall (7/10) Good More Specifically (7.60/10) Good+ Overall the movie wasn't very good but I wouldn't say it's bad either. I thought it was enjoyable for the most part and that's mostly probably because i watched it on the big screen. Can't wait for Hathaway's Flash!

“In my next life, I hope I get to be a bird!” The Universal Century, the main timeline of Gundam. For years it’s always been a huge point of love for Gundam fans. Since it’s creation, the Universal Century has been revived with the likes of Gundam Unicorn and it’s somewhat confusing Laplace Box shenanigans. However even with Unicorn’s problems, it showed that the heart of original UC remains in the creators of Sunrise, and this film represents that well once again. I’ll begin this review with a few questions. First off, do you love the original 4 Universal Century entries? Ignore the side stories, OVAs, everything. Focus on the original shows and film. Do you love the original Mobile Suit Gundam? Do you love Zeta Gundam? Do you love ZZ Gundam and Char’s Counterattack? If you do, if you really do, then you should probably watch this movie. Did you think Unicorn was “neat but not amazing” but still enjoyed all the callbacks to UC? If you do, watch this movie. Are you curious on what the potential of newtypes are, and what things they offer? If you do, watch this movie. Narrative is similar to an Avengers: Endgame of UC, and I’ll explain why in the review. Story: 7 Before the colony drop in Australia, 3 children go to a beach and see a vision of a colony drop. They warn their town and convince them to evacuate, this leads to a town surviving the colony drop. Their premonition was recognised as a stronger version of Newtype power, and became known as the “miracle children”. Years later, they’re taken in by the Federations in order to study newtypes, and they would eventually be experimented on for further newtype research. In truth however, there was only one miracle child, the Rita Bernal. Her abilities are found and she’s modified in order to become the pilot for the third Unicorn Gundam unit, Phenex. However during joint evaluation tests with the Banshee, the Phenex loses control, turning into destroy mode, destroying the bridge of the “Shallot”, and escaping the federation in an event known as the “Shallot Incident”. Since then, the Phenex was lost and never seen again. However, due to the events of Unicorn and it’s usage of psycoframe, the Phenex reappears, once again showing mystical powers like dismantling machinery and communication of souls, something that we saw during the ending of Unicorn. Since then, both the Zeon and Federation want to recapture the Phenex, and harness the power that it has obtained since then. The story follows Jona Basta, one of the false “Miracle Children”, and a very, very close friend of Rita. During The Shallot Incident, Rita went missing along with the Phenex, and her disappearance has haunted him since. He joins the operation with the intention of one goal, to see Rita again. There’s a lot more to the story of course, but I’ll leave that to the actual movie to showcase. This film is very focused on newtypes and their potential, far more so than any other UC entry. If you’re a fan of realistic war stories of UC like 08th MS Team or War in the Pocket and only those, you aren’t going to find a lot of that here. Of course, the theme of “war sucks and people in power are awful” still holds true, that’s a Gundam staple, but in comparison, Narrative delves far more into the mysterious side of UC. Gonna be honest, the actual story can be considered a problem, simply because not everything is explored enough. Not everything gets an explanation, it also expects you to piece together parts of the story through your prior UC knowledge. The newtype potential is never actually given any solid answer of explanation, and you can take this one of three ways. The first one is lazy writing and leaving plot holes. The second one is seeing it as messages left to interpretation or theorise about. The third, and what I believe, is that the writers want to keep newtypes a mystery, as the theme of newtypes being impossible for humans to truly understand is an underlying theme. The story could’ve also been longer in order to focus more on the actual lore of certain characters but if you ask me, it’s not a requirement. This is why you watch this as a fan of UC. It generalises a lot of origins of characters and events because it’s assuming you’re familiar with UC, however that’s also the merit. There are an insane amount of links and callbacks to the entirety of UC. Characters remember events that happened in earlier UC series, that or they were literally directly affected by them. This is why I compare this to Avengers: Endgame, there are so many things in Narrative that mean nothing if you’re not familiar with UC, but if you are, they become some of the best scenes and callbacks to it, and you like the characters because of it. The story is not perfect, but it’s serviceable and if you ask me, heavily enjoyable, and if you’re a UC fan, you’re going to get a lot out of every little reference. Art: 8 The art style is very similar to Unicorn before it, with a style that relies heavily on color usage and scene palette that while looks nice, isn’t too cleanly “refined”. It’s got little streaks in the lines and movements, like it was less “digitally made” and more “physically made” even if it’s obvious this is mostly digital animation. It’s a style that makes Narrative feel like a modern UC work like Unicorn, but also has the “imperfect” tone of the much older Gundam series, obviously to give the best of both worlds. What I love about the art style is that, it captures the tone of classic UC series perfectly while also taking the advancements in anime animation. There are a lot of cues and imagery used from classic UC, like the Newtype flash and the purple scene pallet for newtype mind immersion, but reimagined and refined in a more modern light. It’s main charm is how well it captures UC rather than the quality itself, not saying that the animation is bad by any stretch though. Things like the Phenex’s psycoframe is beautiful, and the mech animations are on point. But the usage of homages and such is what really stands out. Sound: 10 Easily the best part of the film from a quality standpoint. The sound design is top notch in every category. Starting with the foley and SFX, everything is amazing, from the power of the beams, the force of the thrusters, and the mystic powers of psycoframe, the sound is top notch. Everything sounds so good, I cannot exemplify it enough. The sound design is godlike and everything sounds super well down. Not painfully realistic, but if you’re into high tech sounding stuff and huge force, you’re gonna love it. Score-wise, it’s perfect. Hiroyuki Sawano is always known for his fantastic use of techno beats and drops to make some truly epic scenes feel that much more impactful. Some of the tracks are remixed tracks of Unicorn, but that doesn’t change the fact that those tracks to begin with was top Sawano. The hype doesn’t just come from the drops, throughout the movie there’s a constant thrill created by Sawano’s fast techno tracks that just convey the rush of the power of these machines and the speed of the chase. It’s an absolute ride and Sawano’s score completes every combat scene. Even when it’s not combat, the tracks can be peaceful and have a beating heart that fits the scene it needs to. The ending has this accepting open sounding song and I can’t say enough, the sound design is perfect. Character: 7 This is probably the weakest part of the film overall due to one thing: movie runtime. The characters simply are not fully delved into or properly developed due to it. A lot of the characters’ motives and origins are left for the watcher to assume and piece together as they watch the film, and it never explicitly states enough of the backstory for the film to truly make these characters realised. Despite this, I can say this, the characters are very likeable. A lot of the characters are simple but all do their job, although the only ones I can really talk about are the main cast. Jona Bast…

One could say this had a messy.... narrative. To wit: STORY/CHARACTER: The story is extremely messy and not well told. None of the characters are particularly interesting or fleshed out. Especially the ultimate villain. He's literally nothing and his mecha are just retreads of stuff from the Unicorn series. There's interesting nuggets in the overall story but nothing to actually give this movie a reason to exist. ART: Also messy. The designs are good, but the actual implementation and animation are not great all the time. Some returning characters look really derpy. SOUND: Sawano score so if you've heard one of his OSTs you know what you're in for. Dub was fine. Not amazing just fine. Good overall sound design for the foley. It's a fine ride (in theatre) but outside of the theatre its not worth it imo. It doubles down on the most controversial part of UC Gundam (newtypes) so if you're a 0083/08th MS/Thunderbolt kinda fan, don't bother. If you like the weird stuff in UC, you'll be more inclined to give it a shot. Final rating: super OK/10

First off, if you haven’t watched the original Gundam, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and Gundam Unicorn, not a single second of Gundam NT would make any sense. Whether bc of lore, locations, power scaling, characters, or the geopolitical situation, this is not an entry level Gundam. On one hand that’s good because it can get right into the good stuff, but on the other hand, it’s a damn shame bc this was an excellent Gundam movie, and not as many people can enjoy it. The fights were beautiful, flashy, and made sense based on power levels (looking at you original Gundam). Of the Gundams I’ve watched, this one has the most dialogue during battles, which I’m not sure how I feel about but it definitely wasn’t disruptive enough to be a strong negative. The story was great and told really well. It used flashbacks to the MCs’ childhoods a lot but they did it in a way that was both interesting and non-repetitive and mostly non-disruptive. My biggest complaint would be that the antagonist was a “Big Bad Guy” something that really no Gundam (that I’ve watched) had done. Big Bad Guys aren’t nearly as interesting because the second you see them you automatically think “oh this guy is evil.” You don’t get the chance to hear them out first - if they even have anything to say. Sgt Zoltan, the Big Bad Guy, actually did have a real motivation which was revealed in the last few scenes but even that was only inserted at the end when you already had an unchangeable opinion of him (the motivation sucked anyway which is also a negative). There were some points that the philosophy was a little heavy-handed and some points where it fit to a T. Story: 7.5/10 Art: 10/10 Sound: 9/10 Character: 6/10 but mostly weighed down by Sgt Zoltan Enjoyment: 9/10 Overall: 8/10

This movie is simply awful. If you're an older fan like me, your tolerance for poor storytelling becomes lower and lower. Nothing about this felt like a Gundam property - the returning cameos from Unicorn are barely seen and look awful without YAS's guiding hand - Mineva Zabi looks okay, but mostly because she stays seated in a chair and doesn't turn her head or change expressions. The rest of the characters look like turn of the century central casting - the female lead looks like low-budget Faye Valentine, the flashbacks to the kids look like Elfen Lied. And everything has a bad fit and finish to it - even the promotional stills for this have a grainy, digipaint quality to them - nothing like the high polish of Unicorn. Oh yeah - and did I mention that there's this time travelling golden 3rd Gundam that looks like a throwaway concept from Zoids? Everything about this is a weird revival of the worst tropes of late 90s/early 2000s anime - fisheyed cockpit views of maniacal unglued evil guy while he cackles being the thing I keyed in on. Anyway, this was just a giant disappointment and in the Fathom Events showing I was at, there were people from 5 to 70 watching and NONE of them seemed to be very enthused by the time the credits rolled.

(TLDR at the bottom, thanks for reading.) This review is going to be split up into two parts, part 1 will be a very opinionated take from a gundam fan and how this entry affects the overall canon and the second part will be a less opinionated, more standard review of the film. Part 1 - Gundam: Harutoshi Fukui seems to of had 3 specific goals when making gundam NT. The first one was "how can I make sense of all the newtype bullshit in gundam?", "How can I make a thematic end to UC?" and, "Why is there no psycho-frame in F91?" Fukui tried to make sense of what a newtype is by retconning everything we previously knew about new types by giving his own definition. But to understand what the issue with this is we will need to understand what a newtype is and what's so wrong with NT's version. Newtypes have never been easy to explain but if I had to sum it up in two word's it would be "wordless understanding", one of the major themes of gundam is understanding. If all humans could understand what everyone felt then we wouldn't have these petty conflicts beyond ourselves, if humans could understand each other they could stop fighting and build a better world for each other, and not trying to make it worse. This is the direction char's counterattack went and it works as a perfect conclusion for that as it sums up all of gundam's thematic ideas as well and laying to rest the story of the characters. Then there is gundam NT which tries to change it so newtypes are "humans who can reach into another dimension where the souls of the dead exist and that they can manipulate this dimension to do all kinds of things, including time travel". Does this answer some of the newtype bullshit present in other series? It can but at that point, you are bending over backwards to provide an answer for gundam because it is not giving you one. Does this completely damage any of the previous thematic aspects of gundam? Absolutely, if new types are more akin to Jedi's or sorcerous then some of the pivotal moments of the series lose all their impact. Because if newtypes have these godlike powers then it loses all weight when they can achieve something because it is no longer something they achieved through their actions but something that was achieved through the superpowers that they magically got. Because of this retconned new type meaning it now means that psycho-frames essentially allows humans to have the power of God so an alternate dimension has to send the time-travelling. self-piloting Phenix to stop it. You can dislike an anime because of what it does (or doesn't) achieve in its runtime but anime that retroactively make other series worse are on a whole different level of bad. Part 2 - Gundam NT: Story: Even ignoring the ramifications that NT has on the overall gundam canon it is still a bad movie. Its characters are flat and unappealing, its plot is poorly explained, even what plot is understandable is bland and reused from other gundam series and at the end of it, it is just a gundam style retelling of the myth of Icarus, even though that the myth of Icarus is used in multiple pieces of fiction and has lost most of its impact. And a forced return of Banarger links makes it clear what the point of this film is, to be fanservice for unicorn fans. Audiovisuals: This is the one thing the film succeeds in, while some of the character designs are a bit ridiculous (Zoltan) on average the mecha and character designs are fine, and so are the visuals and sound. The only issue is because of the lack of emotional investment stemming from the paper-thin protagonists the fights can only serve as eye candy. At least the film is only 90 minutes long TLDR: For people who like the magical aspect of gundam you might enjoy gundam NT but for anyone else you probably won't enjoy this film. Just don't take its plot ramifications too seriously.

This is an excellent ending for the UC timeline, even though some things might change after the Hathaway´s movies. The visuals are even more impressive than the ones you see on the Gundam Unicorns movies, but I believe that Sunrise should had remake the scenes from previous Gundams (mainly the ones from Zeta, ZZ and Char's Counterstrike). Pace is a little quicker, but it doesn't hurt the story to much. However, the most amazing thing about this anime is the soundtrack. Powerfull songs like Vigilante (that I'm quite sure represents Jonan and Rita relationship) and the ending them by LiSa, Narrative make you feel that this 1,5 hour movie is pretty worth. If you are new to the franchise, I won't recommend you to start here, since there is a lot o references you will miss from past series, if you are already hooked on the UC timeline, this is one of the best stories told about this universe.

This was probably the kind of sequel that Unicorn deserves. Personally, I actually enjoyed this more than Unicorn, but that's because enduring Unicorn is like watching paint dry, paint that retcons several important story elements of the universe with an incredbly silly central conflict. NT strives to improve on the formula by not having a central conflict instead. Much like my review, this film is a mess. By the virture of it being mercifully shorter than Unicorn, I enjoy it a bit more. It still suffers from nearly every problem that it's predecessor does. Lame characters, thin narrative, and too much super robot nonsense. I know the franchise isn't afraid to dip into the supernatural once in a while, but NT officially jumps the shark into science-fantasy territory, as the powers of newtypes are expanded once again to include time travel. Nearly every battle in NT is resolved by people shooting mind lasers at each other. The conflict in this film is absolutely impossible to care about as a result. The "story" of this movie is as follows, three children are credited with saving a town after they have a vision of the incoming colony drop that begins the war in UC 0079. Decades later, a mysterious golden gundam is inflicting havoc on zeon and federation ships. In search of the secrets behind the psycho-frame system, both the federation, zeon and private companies begin moving to capture it for themselves. The three children find themselves interwoven with this mysterious machine, as it links to their past together. About halfway through the film, this plot is thrown out of the window. Eventually, everybody has a big fight and the film kind of ends without an actual conclusion. The main antagonist is a generic crazy man who looks like he walked out of a Tokyo Ghoul cosplay event. He's also yet another attempt to clone char, becuase NT is a distilled parody of everything people hate about modern UC. For some reason he completely derails the plot near the end and takes over the entire movie. He sucks. He really sucks. The protagonist is a strong contender with Seabook for blandest Gundam protag in history. He has no personality, barely has any scenes to himself, and generally just goes along with whatever people tell him to do. I won't hold it against the film that he's not the main focus, becuase there is something that resembles an attempt to make an ensamble cast here, it just fails at it. Most of the characters aren't on screen long enough to leave much of an impact. The writing in this movie is completely wretched. From the moment that the film makes it's first bird allegory you know you're in for a bad time. Discussions about god, heaven, and how being a bird isn't possible for a human being follow. If this sounds like something that would make you want to bash your own head in, please heed my advice and avoid watching this. The film also likes going through the same flashback over and over again, which feels like padding. This film is not good. I really hope that somebody puts this poor, abused timeline out of it's misery before any more of these get made.

Perhaps this is one of the worst creations that mankind could ever create this far. It's just a horrible, disgusting and fully talentless incompetent piece of "ART". The name "Narrative" for the movie is highly ironic since it completely lacks a plot - there none of it. Things just happen, characters just doing some stuff and somehow creators come to idea thats that it - it works. Hell if it was. If "Unicorn" at least tried to build a decorations of the "Just OK" anime, but meanwhile stayed completely derivative to the UC context without telling any of its own story... "Narrative" as its sequel goes further and turns into an absolute void. The original idea of Newtypes here descends to ridiculous oracles that can see the future and manipulate time, that is completely bullsh*t even in compare of any previous funny Newtype iterations. For basics: a) anime visuals is mediocre and unpleasant - the style is sloppy and action is too unattractive ; b) soundtrack is missing like it was never been here; c) characters are bad as Hell, all they do is drop the NARRATIVE (huh) and say something that will never be important. There is no reason on Earth for this title to exist, you should never watch it.

[Edit] As someone who watched all the Gundam series, I must say that I was excited for NT Gundam. Although the movie is fair, I have some complaints and some mixed opinions about it. Overall I think that if this was a series it would be 100% better. See more below. Story: Good story but badly directed. NT Gundam is the latest release of the UC (but not the last, chronologically), taking place after Unicorn. I would say that you need to have seen MS Gundam, Zeta Gundam, Char`s Counter Attack, and Unicorn Gundam before attempting to see NT. The story takes a HEAVY, and I must emphasize a HEAVY focus on Newtype lore. If you are used to the UC, you know Newtypes are a big deal in this universe and NT Gundam brings them to new heights - and that`s my complaint. The UC, in general, always had a balance between the political aspects of the world and the Newtype lore, which is by default metaphysical. NT Gundam has no balance and its 80% metaphysical. Don`t get me wrong, it is a fair movie, and you should watch, but don`t expect a compelling story. Since the Newtype lore is only acceptable by metaphysical terms, they spend half the time explaining this reality so it becomes acceptable by us, the viewers. This takes away the focus on the story and creates a gap that is filled by something we don`t actually care about and never cared until now. So far, the Newtype lore was acceptable like "Ok, we don't need to understand more because is metaphysical, now give me more politics and war". Now is "Ok, get this, Newtypes are the core of the UC and we will revolve around them". Thus, the story lost me in this aspect because it wasted so much time trying to convince me of the Newtype reality instead of just delivering me a story. But it is well done in its psychedelic reality. If this was a series I think it would be 10.000x better because this Newtype focus would be diluted and not invasive as it was. Also, there are way too many flashbacks and that's pissed me off, particularly. Art & Sound: It is the latest Gundam, so... HD, good sound, solid OST, nothing to complain. I am, though, not a big fan of the kind of rock they put in there, its a sort of pop-rock. I rather have some epic orchestra ou harmonics. But hey, it is not bad. Characters: I feel that the characters are well done and would be marvelous if this was a series. They clearly have depth, emotions, motivations, and an intricate relationship with each other, but that got rushed and butchered because of the nature of NT (a movie, not a series). Hence, you have no time to explore these characters. I don't have much to say here except that they are good, but they didn't have the time to explore them. I, once again, blame the directors. The writers did their job, but the directors' choices butchered their potential. And surprise... no character is annoying. Victory! Mechas: Hohoho. Saying the mechas look amazing is not enough. Phenex, the major Gundam of NT is f****** amazing! Narrative is also magnificent and the others look all awesome. Phenex, of course, is similar to Unicorn and Banshee, but Narrative looks like an RX-78 Mark II fused with Unicorn. I liked to the point I want to build their gunplas now. Overall, this is a decent film, a solid addition to the UC. However, the metaphysical focus of the story created a major problem in therm of the script which diminish your enjoyment of the story. The constant use of flashbacks also affect the pace and that's why this should have to be a series instead of a movie. All the elements for a potential "best UC story so far" are there, but they did not play their cards right. I blame the directors for all these weird choices and Bandai for making this a movie instead of a series.

I don't like to give spoilers in my reviews, but this movie is so garbage that I have to make an exception. Spoiler warning ahead, I guess, in case you're really determined to go into this sorry excuse for a film blind. Narrative centers around 3 "miracle children" (never mentioned before), who have been trapped in a cyber-newtype lab for a large portion of their lives, presumably during the Gryps conflict. Only one of them, apparently, was an actual newtype, and the other two only have powers due to some vestiges of proximity to her. Years in the future, the two escaped non-newtype kids are Federation soldiers. A year has passed since the events of Unicorn, but tech has once again progressed at an absurdly unrealistic speed, and the Unicorn is no longer called by its name, instead referred to as "singularity one." But woah, in addition to the two "Unicorn brothers" the Unicorn and Banshee, there was a secret third one, the Phenex!!! It was covered up by the government, but now it's being piloted by the soul of the third miracle child, and needs to be hunted down. The two other miracle children are deployed to find it. The Axis Shock, Newtype resonance, whatever you want to call it - it's the final culmination of 150 episodes and a movie, a series that had gone on for almost a decade by that point. It's the combined wills of all of humanity, born of their squabbles and flaws, but representative of the hope that humans can be better than what they are and have been. In Narrative, it's a handy-dandy shonen deus ex machina power-up that happens whenever someone tries hard enough, or a weapon that psycho-frame machines can shoot from their hands at will. Narrative is an adaptation of the 11th Gundam Unicorn novel (11?? God, why), but it's very clearly just rehashing Unicorn's own nonsense, just as Unicorn brought back soulless cameo after cameo to hold viewer attention. Narrative takes all the flaws of Unicorn and cranks them up to the highest possible degree. Full Frontal had great potential, which Unicorn fully squandered, but Narrative's villain is entirely without a personality, and every scene he's in is a slog. He even pilots the II Neo Zeong, which is, as the name suggests, nothing but another Neo Zeong. I've been struggling to write this review in the week since I watched the movie, because even directly after finishing it, every plot point left my mind. Even skimming through the movie again, nothing stands out. This is the absolute bottom of the barrel for mecha. This is the type of mediocre, fake deep, shiny object super robot mecha that you can find anywhere. I've never a true super robot show, but I have no bias against the genre - I have a bunch of super robot manga and shows I'm excited to watch in the future. Super robot is fine, but for UC it's not. Gundam is a series with some of the most realistic characters I've ever seen in writing, but in Narrative, the characters are cartoon characters. Narrative is filled with things like that, which would be ignored as part of a standalone or a series where they were the norm, but this is UC Gundam, and for this movie to exist is a disgrace to the timeline. This is soulless, meaningless, worthless garbage. In reality I think it's probably a 4/10, but I'm taking another point off of it because I hate it. The issues with this movie are so numerous that they overloaded my mind and made me unable to remember them all, leaving me only with a lingering memory of pure hatred towards this movie. I tried to look for the best in Unicorn, and it was legitimately really enjoyable at some points. I went into this movie with an open mind, but it was a miserable watch, and just watching this lowered my tolerance towards Unicorn as well. Thankfully, I'm going chronologically, so I've got Hathaway and Victory Gundam next. Save me Tomino... save me... But all is not lost! The relatively new manga Gundam Pulitzer, which - in addition to its poignant premise of a college-age Kikka Kobayashi researching the life story of Amuro - also seems to be taking on the herculean task of making Narrative make sense, through a slow-moving B-plot of Luio & Co's Stephanie Luio supporting Kikka's quest in an ulterior bid to get their hands on Psycho-frame research. It takes place in 0095, but Michele Luio's adoption has been mentioned in passing, and Bosch Weller (apparently from f91) has also made an appearance in the most recent chapters. It's flawed but promising, and has shown a proficient understanding of UC's characters and themes. I went into it knowing only the premise, and it would have been strong on that alone, but for it to attempt the inhumane duty of cleaning up Narrative's mess is more than admirable. The plot is still in its early stages, but if it delivers it could well become required reading pre-Unicorn. Sometimes it's little manga like this that do the heavy lifting, so I'd recommend anyone at this point of the series to give it a read.

While this movie scores a 7 in my books, its mostly carried by how amazing the movie visually is. Gundam NT takes place about a year after Gundam Unicorn, and is a part of the UC storyline, so a lot of context from previous entries are required for you to fully grasp whatever topics are discussed in NT. Otherwise, the story is very thin granted just enough to be its own 90 minute entry. Gundam NT has amazing art, animation, score (thanks Sawano), the VAing can get your spine feeling chilly for how well the actors played their part, the MS designs don't stray from previous entries yet feel distinct enough for you to pick certain models out from a crowd. TLDR, Gundam NT is an enjoyable movie thanks to the visual and audio design, only let down by how much context is required and how little plot they tried to fit into a 90 minute timeframe.

After seeing Dragon Ball Super: Broly on the big screens (and the last couple of DB movies) I really wanted Sunrise to put out a good Gundam movie. I paid to see this in the theaters with my brother, who is a bigger Gundam fan than me. Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed. This movie proves that Sunrise has no respect for their franchise and that the Japanese Gundam fanboys will literally just accept anything because of their love for robots punching face. I don't like Gundam Unicorn because it's just a bad rehash of Universal Century with new animation, but with far worse characters. I'm not in love with the Gundam franchise either, I don't care for Zeta, but I do like 0079, Wing, G, and IBO. This movie ended up being one full priced ticket just to see a TEASER of Hathaway's Flash. Such blatant disrespect. Gundam NT just sucks, regardless of whether you've seen every Gundam series or not. The story was paper thin, which is infuriating for a movie called NARRATIVE. The characters are just as thin as the story (and I swear if I hear "I want to fly away like a bird!" one more time, I will lose it). This movie is cliche anime super robot nonsense, and not in a good way either (this is no Gurren Lagann). Ironically, the most interesting character is the character that is the most poorly developed, Zoltan, who is a failed Char clone. But they don't really explore that idea, he just fights and predictably gets defeated. It also wasn't lost on me that they expanded the powers of Newtypes, now they can time travel (because reasons). The story revolves around three children who see a vision of the coming colony collapse, but halfway through the film this plot is dropped in favor of the action. If you like this movie, you have incredibly low standards for mecha anime. Even if you have low standards, don't watch this.

An awkward, melodramatic, ineffectual episode in an otherwise decorated cinematic history. Gundam Narrative is an unfortunate hiccup in the UC timeline for the simple reason that it has nothing to add to the continuity or mythos. In spite of solid animation and exciting combat scenes (plus solid English performances, particularly from Emma Martello), the central character drama meant to drive this movie is painfully underbaked and inflated far beyond the capacity of a ninety minute runtime. It is arguably still entertaining to a mecha junkie, but insofar as it packs a broader narrative that deserves your attention... Well, it kinda doesn't.

I heard pretty negative opinions regarding Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative in the past, so I approached it with rather low expectations. Even so, I ended up greatly disappointed. In my opinion, this movie is not only a bad Gundam movie, but also a bad animated movie in general. Well, it is hard to achieve such a low level, so I am genuinely impressed! The plot is a convoluted mess. There are random main characters that are introduced in a very superficial way, and bizarre, generic villains (seriously, the classic "twirling mustache" type of villain has more depth than Narrative's cardboard cutout evildoers, with the main baddie standing somewhere near the top among the worst Gundam antagonists). There is also a powerful organization that did not appear earlier, and insane superpowers are clearly visible left and right. Regarding the latter, one could say that it is the consequence of Unicorn. It would not be wrong to say it, of course, because it is true. However, Narrative goes even further in terms of craziness and arguably expands the concept in a bad way, as vague as that might sound. I do not want to include any spoilers in this review, so let's just leave it at that. Going back to the main characters, I wonder why there are not more scenes featuring their backstories, desires, and dreams. What is offered in the movie is serviceable, but was it necessary to waste time constantly repeating a certain moment from a flashback, turning it into a random occurrence that just pops out of nowhere? Instead of hearing the same quote multiple times on numerous occasions, or seeing the same short sequence yet another time, I would prefer to learn more about those characters. This is especially true when they are, well, new characters, unseen before and all. Brief cameos of characters known from Unicorn are pretty much fanservice due to how small of an impact they have, feeling as if they were added just to be there in the movie and to serve as a badly constructed bridge tying Unicorn and NT together. At least, that was my impression. The story itself is full of pretentious preaching that could have been shorter without losing its impact. Maybe it would have been more impactful that way, in fact. Instead, what sounds good at first and becomes okayish when repeated can become a nuisance pretty fast if you hear it yet another time in a very similar manner, especially in a movie that is not even that long (1 hour and 30 minutes). On top of that, this movie throws classic Gundam lore about Newtypes into the trash and, like I highlighted before, continues the trend known from Unicorn, albeit by taking the most intense elements from Unicorn, intensifying them, and adding more "super wizards in space" type of superpowers. The saving graces are the action scenes and the overall animation quality (as one would expect from an anime movie created by Sunrise). The same goes for the soundtrack composed by Hiroyuki Sawano (which is as marvelous as always). Sadly, while they make this movie bearable to watch, they cannot carry all the cons I listed earlier. Ironically, its length can also be seen as something positive. At least this kind of not-so-entertaining movie experience did not last that long. Well, this movie is definitely forgettable and full of flaws. I do not recommend it, no matter if you are a Gundam fan or if you are just looking for a good space anime movie.

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative is a confusing and frustrating entry into this franchise that borders on being offensive to those who so deeply love the central themes that it has tried to build up for the past half century. Newtypes in this film are just full-on sorcerers doing space magic, though the story attempts to dress this up as them communing with higher dimensions of spiritual communication, which, while technically correct to a degree, does not justify the absolutely heinous power creeps found in this movie. The resulting civilian casualties from these events, most likely numbering in the thousands, are rarely ever addressed directly, with most of the focus being on how our core protagonists can uncover the secret of Newtypes for the good of connected consciousness and human evolution, which, to me, kinda just sounds like doing a Third Impact but with extra steps, and the fact that most of the characters are either kind of insufferable or have the personality of a wet paper bag certainly doesn’t help in convincing me of their mission. This lack of care in crafting a narrative can also be found in its visual components. While not outright bad, save for some questionable attempts at splitscreening, this is an immensely mediocre-looking project overall. The character designs are overly simplistic, leading to an unpleasant flatness to their aesthetic; the action often becomes confusing to follow, partly because of the directing but mostly because I simply don’t know what is even happening a lot of the time; and the color palette is shockingly basic and lacking in necessary depth to truly breathe life into these designs. The Narrative Gundam is also just really boring in terms of design since it’s just an RX-78 head slapped on a Unicorn body, which is also a pretty good analogy for how the events of Unicorn don’t seem to have mattered at all to this story despite it taking place only a year after the opening of Laplace’s Box. In the end, I think I understand what they were shooting for, but, much like the out of nowhere double-suicide-by-mobile-suit in the final act, it was a poorly executed attempt that I don’t think should even have been attempted in the first place.

On my first viewing of this movie, I thought it was alright. After I fully watched and completed all of the UC timeline, I realized this movie has a lot in such a small package. It's a great culmination of everything that has happened in the UC timeline so far, we get some really nice fanservice, and we also get some great story with it. So I would definitely recommend watching the UC timeline up to Unicorn before watching this, or else you'll just be watching great animation and great music but nothing else. The characters are really awesome, and as always, Sawano kills it with the music, even remixing some of his tracks from Unicorn. Back on my first watch I thought some of the scenes were kinda "Ok this doesn't make sense." but then I rewatched CCA, Unicorn and Zeta, and it actually does make a lot of sense that they're like this. Narrative adds a lot to the UC timeline and gives some new perspectives on events that we've already experienced in the timeline so far, and I would say it's a must watch for anyone who wants to enjoy the UC timeline to the max. Seriously give this movie a try if you're a UC fan.

To be fair, Newtypes have been strange since the beginning. After Unicorn, NT follows and expands dramatically on the Newtype. On the other hand, there's much too much focus on Newtypes that it drowned all the other parts of the story. This film feels weak, though it starts to develop in an interesting way with the ever evolving Newtypes, and mankind's new mission to become immortal among some of the characters. Hardly any of the new characters are likeable. Jona is the only decent one though an hour and a half movie and the weak story didn't do enough for his character. He's friends with Rita, a Newtype who really wants to be a bird. The more she said that, the funnier it got. They debate whether or not there is a heaven or hell, or reincarnation. Rita, however, is devoid of any real character, or a face for half the film. She spends the movie flying around saying the same things and talking like a child. I don't blame her since she was sliced up and experimented into oblivion. Michele is the third friend of the group, and has a plan the rest don't necessarily agree with. Compared to the other two, her interest lies with immortality and her interest in how Newtypes can still live on and communicate after death. At least, one thing this film does is show what happens to Newtypes and how harsh the experimentation is on them to the point one child busts her head open on thick glass from being so unstable. Zoltan is by far the worst part of the film. He annoyed me more than Katz. He's a Char reject that failed to become the new Frontal. As a result, he has this extremely annoying over the edge personality and horrible facial expressions. He is a bastardized version of Char without intelligence. Even so, he's so comical I couldn't take him seriously. I can't take several parts of this film seriously, in fact. There's the Dragon Ball tier detections the characters get, and I laughed at "It psycommu-jacked it!" The Newtype powers are even more out of control this time, and along with Rita and Jona's meaningless like bond, it felt like the climax of a kids film. Jona isn't even that good of a pilot, he just happens to have the ridiculous powers of the glittery rainbow. Then there's the poster for this that looks just awful. Mineva doesn't do much besides sitting in the dark which is a waste of her character after her build up in Unicorn. I can't be too harsh at least. The best parts of this definitely were the original Gundam, Zeta, and ZZ flashbacks. Unicorn characters do return, though the poor production values made many look unrecognizable or bland. Some of the new minor characters are drawn so odd they feel out of place. With this film I was fighting with the pause button for better things to spend my time on. The production values dropped so much on this film that it feels depressing. It could have tried to be better as a theatrical release, and yet the downgrade is so painfully obvious. Besides the "attempt" at expanding the Newtype lore and making their powers even more ridiculous than they already were, Sawano returns with another decent score to redeem whatever this was supposed to be. A shame that the arrow of the original timeline entries has started to dip with this for me. At the very least, the film felt more enjoyable towards the end.