Kidou Senshi Zeta Gundam

This was more gundam with most of the same positives and negatives. A heavy focus on "Space wizards" which is it's weakest part. However the positive is FAR more mobile suits including the absolutely awesome Qubeley. Since so much of this series focused on Cyber newtypes, and yet the anime is SO afraid to define what a new type is because they might want to change that definition later to give some new space power... that is a little annoying. But I'll give it a point higher for one important reason... In the original series Earth federation good, Zeon Bad... But in the new series it's flipped on it's heads Titans (An offshoot of Earth Federation) bad, AEUG (A not quite Zeon rebel force) is good. I hate black and white material and this at least leads the ability to say neither the Federation or Zeon is fully in the right or wrong, even though... AEUG is good, Titans bad here too... though it's a big more nuanced than the original. I'd give it more credit but Kamille's our main character big trait for a while was "I Don't like being called a girl! I'm a boy" ... bruh. This does fade away but ..it's just such a stupid plot point. Also Kamille just kind of runs around a military base steals a suit, and then escapes with it like it's the most normal thing in the world. However I will say how they show that there's no black and white, and the Titans really do suck in the first couple episodes... perfection. Wish there was more development of Scirocco, but you can't have everything. Also there's this guy Quattro Bajeena who looks a lot like the villain in the first series. Odd, I'm sure that won't come up in the series... (He basically took the name "Quarter Vagina"... Love it) So yeah.. 8/10, which Kamille wasn't a whiny runt at the beginning (or at least not just about his name). But the variety in the mobile suits is far better than the original.

The original Mobile Suit Gundam (MSG) was something of a sleeper hit, having failed to garner a lot of attention during its initial airing. The successful merchandising of gunpla, reruns, and other factors helped it reach a wider audience by the mid-80s. A sequel seemed inevitable. Yoshiyuki Tomino returned as the director, the legendary Kunio Okawara was once again the mechanical designer, and even Yoshikazu Yasuhiko pushed the project forward with his striking character design. The result is a confident sequel that retains the creativity of its predecessor while throwing in more than a few tricks of its own. The original MSG has been derided for its stiff animation, a shortcoming that Zeta dodges thanks to its fluidity and style. My favorite part of the visuals is the character design, which pops on the screen with variety. You need look no further than the second opening of the show to see it in action, with its villain in bright white and heroes in darker hues. The mobile suit design is sleeker and arguably less blocky, with a lot more color variation. The Dijeh and The O stand out in particular. The story of Zeta Gundam is a brilliant inversion of the preceding entry, and the returning characters are vital in demonstrating that the Universal Century has changed for the worse. The protagonist Kamille Bidan is a young man who has been shaped by cruel times, and his journey on screen is a slow but rewarding one. Supporting characters have narrative arcs that get nurtured and developed alongside the main character, which I found interesting if not occasionally dull (50 episodes stretches it). In particular, I enjoyed the character of Katz, who serves as an excellent foil to characters old and new. Every episode has a sortie, a new mission, but the danger and events differ wildly with each one. As I watched I learned that every fight would pose a question: who is fighting who? Who are the dreamers, the cynics, the bastards? Zeta uses every scene as an opportunity to build its characters and world but only rewards those who pay close attention. It's closer to a character drama than the adventure show 0079 was, which will understandably throw many off: but if you stick with it, you'll find it's an outstanding tale. Zeta Gundam is a great franchise entry and consistently ranked as one of the best for good reason. If you are interested in anime and have patience for deep plots and quirky characters, Zeta is a must-watch.

Writing this for personal note-taking purposes, since I have a lot of personal thoughts on the show upon completion: <Good things to say> - Enjoyed the first third-or-so strech of the series (from beginning up until and including the Karaba arc, ending with Kamille leaving Earth for the first time). Has some low points within this stretch, but tons of high points to sustain interest. - Handful of extremely memorable mobile suits and mechs - Art is good enough throughout, but becomes impressive when you realize there are not many reused shots or footage. Paired with the sheer variety of ships, suits and action scenes, it's pretty good for it's time. - Individual characters have strong initial characterization, but... <Negatives> - Characters are utterly underutilzied accross the board. Supoposedly relevant characters dissapear for long stretches of time, either stunting their development or worst: just resetting their development upon reappearance. Most episodes are just characters repeating mistakes and relearning the same lessons over and over again. Even great characters are hurt the further the show goes either due to loss of audience investment, or just having their roles deterioted due to their absence. By extension, pretty much all the villians are poorly utilized. - The dialogue is really terrible at times, and seems to be at its worst when the show is trying to tackle its more nuanced or abstract ideas (the parts where it really needed to stick its landing). It actively sabotages the conveyance of the show's ideas and themes, and many supposedly important scenes are hurt by this. Some scenes you can tell what they were going for, but the script can be so undercooked that character interactions become disjointed or devolve to gibberish. - Pacing problems, especially a general sense of aimlessness in the middle parts (a period where the protaganists just go through space encounter-by-encounter, skirmish-by-skirmish). Could have been greatly improved if there were more well defined arcs or sagas throughout. Instead, what we have consists of tons of stakelss skirmishes that seem to only fulfill the one-battle-per-episode rule the show abides by. Overall this complete squander the spurts of enjoyment in the beginning and final parts of the show. Overall: Came away very dissapointed with the foundational flaws which persist throughout the show. It really hurt my personal experience with the show, drowning out the handful of things that I do recall enjoying. Unfortunately, I don't feel that MSGZ lives up to its reputation within the gundam community as on the best in the franchise. It may be the second show in the franchise, it may be influential, and as a Gundam fan I may respect it for how it contributed to the franchise's foundation: It just isn't very good when judged as a show based on its own merits.

Mobile Suit Gundam instalments are built like an alternative to the same plotline. There is a powerful rivalry between two individuals (one rightful and moral and the other – full of power and ambition but just as righteous) in the midst of a major political and military conflict. Always present is a bratty protagonist who is a Newtype and needs to find his place. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam delivers all of the above. Unfortunately, using Char Aznable and Amuro Ray (the main rivals from the prequel Mobile Suit Gundam) as a couple of ageing sad adults is not working. I would rather see completely different people play their parts and serve the same purpose in nurturing the new protagonist and antagonist of the series. Their behaviour is boring and mostly inexplicable. Amuro Ray appears and disappears without any explanation or continuity and the once-unrivalled genius pilot Char Aznable is now just Joe Bloggs in a Gundam. We also see captain Bright Noa pretty much doing the same he was in the previous instalment, however without Mirai Yashima who plays housewife. So many recycled characters who lost their edge is just overwhelming. The new characters themselves are mediocre. Kamille Bidan is a carbon copy of Amuro Ray, only without the obvious reason to fight and with a much bigger appetite for the ladies. As for his supposed great rival Jerid Messa, he is just unlikeable and motivated by far too erratic reasons. Not even close to the charismatic, dramatic and super-talented Red Comet Char Aznable. The females in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam are a pathetic mass, mainly whining about male attention and the lack of it. All of their actions, be it poisoning a colony or defecting to the enemy, are motivated solely by where they can find male affection. I can only reminisce the strength and determination of Kycilia Zabi, the dramatism and resolve of Sayla Mass, the dedication of Mirai Yashima, the hypnotic charisma of Lalah Sune… The animation, while keeping the usual Gundam style, often plunges to deformed shapes and lack detail. Still, I would not complain if there was a story to go with these rough pieces. The sound is more than adequate and serves its purpose well, creating the atmosphere for a proper space epic. Too bad the characters cannot deliver. What keeps the anime together are the details disclosed about the Newtypes, the political intrigues and the Gundams themselves. The idea and story as a whole, are not half-bad. However, inventing someone more powerful than the super-powerful one you needed 50 episodes to build, never worked for any anime, book, movie or whatever story. This is just an endless cycle which eventually becomes progressively boring until, eventually, no one cares anymore. I give the series a 7 because I have seen that many horrible anime, I do not think it deserves less. However, as compared to its predecessor, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a pale copy with the only focus on discrediting the main characters from the previous instalment by using them to serve its storyline with no regard to continuation or credibility. All in all, if you would like to know everything that happened in the Gundam Universe, you have to watch the series and your time will not be totally lost. However, you will probably not meet your favourite character here.

I had no f*ckin clue what was going on with the plot in any episode (as in, I was routinely confused as to whether a character was alive or not, where they were, what happened to them, and I've watched denser plots with more characters than this and was not nearly as lost as to what the plot was doing). Also, the way that romantic sub-plots are written are confusing at best, laughable at ... well what they are. Tomino and the writers just kinda threw two characters together suddenly without much, if any buildup before one or both inevitably die because it is Gundam after all. But the characters, art direction, and vibes are good, so it shakes out aight. Would I recommend this to another person? Probably, but only on the conditions that they've seen MS Gundam 0079, didn't hate it, and are okay not being able to follow the plot from episode to episode.

So take everything that made the previous series unique and throw it out of the window as the series gets dark, and the bad guys are jerks. The themes of war, survival and death return but the grey morals are gone and we know who the good guys are, in fact, said themes are even bleaker. In terms of the main protagonist, the somehow autistic Kamille Bidan, he took a while to warm up to me. All I saw was an angsty teenager who got beaten up once in a while, because they think beating the mental disability out of him is the only cure. As he fights in the war, he matures and even ends up getting girls being magnetised to him, but it doesn't end well. The other characters in terms of people in the AEUG and Armada, are still for the most part likeable, not as memorable as 0079, but still written well. Apart from Katz, who had potential to grow as a great fighter like Kamille but sadly doesn't. And then there's Reccoa Londe, her character development is borderline ridiculous, because she couldn't get into Char's pants...oh, I mean, Quattro Bajeena's pants, she defected to the enemy's side to get Scirocco's pants, and it didn't make any sense. Anyway, Kamille has a rival, Jerid. No, he's not Char, and yes, he's a failure at being a proper rival to Kamille. The animation has improved tremendously this time round, meaning the Mobile Suit fights are much better and intense, you never know who's going to get golden crispy in space. The Mobile Suit designs this time round are insane, they're much more diverse, mostly from the Titans' suits and most are fully realised, they can change into different shapes and sizes for more strategic elements. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is probably my second favourite series so far, it's a damn bleak series where you don't know if most of the heroes are going to make it because the Titans are bloody ruthless. Zeta fully realises the horrors of war and is never shy of making it known at times. And in the end, you feel empty inside. Check it out!

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a series that has has some amazing content, but is frequently bogged down in a variety of areas, preventing it from reaching its full potential. However, in the moments where it reaches that potential it is one of the best shows I've ever seen. I hate to shit on an anime as old as this, but the animation is one of the factors that brings this series down for me. The battles are rarely visually interesting and most of them meld together for me, making it often hard to remember specific battles throughout the series. It also doesn't help that many of the battles end in nobody dying, I lost count of the times Kamille and Jerid fought eachother without one of them managing to die, having the same outcome repeated so many times takes away the tension and excitement I want in the battles (there are a number of other characters who die throughout the series, but Kamille and Jerid fight way too often to not have killed eachother in my opinion). Also it feels like some episodes had to remove scenes to fit the 30 minute T.V. time slot, sometimes things happen off screen and left me confused. I also feel there are political aspects to the setting that are glossed over too much, things like the Titans and the A.E.U.G. were not explained well enough for me to follow as well as I'd have liked. Also the next episode previews reveal way too much about the next episode to the point of spoiling most of it. It also feels like they sacrificed some of their integrity to sell more toys, new mobile suits and mobile armours are constantly introduced, but they don't serve much purpose to the story and just come off as pointless. While what I've said so far is pretty harsh, it's with the characters and story where this series is at its best. The characters are really interesting and often are put through hell so the show can explore their minds when the war pushes them mentally in various ways. I especially love what they did with Char and Amuro from the first series, every episode with Amuro in it was a high point for the series in my opinion. I also thought it was brilliant how they handled Char's relationship with the remnants of Zeon, this plot portion probably couldn't have been done better to be honest. We also see the a lot more of newtypes in this, especially with Kamille, and this aspect was executed extremely well. There are quite a few cyber-newtypes as well who are all one of the more interesting aspects of the story. I would also just like to say that the ending really was something else that hit me really hard. Overall, while often sloppily executed and with dated animation, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam manages to be an extremely impactful series with its story and characters being unique and extremely interesting, it's definitely worth watching as long as you're familiar with the first Gundam series beforehand.