Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「明日へ」 (Asu e) by Galileo Galilei
Watch the OP!: Streaming ▼
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「救世主ガンダム」 (Kyuuseisha Gandamu)
“The Savior, Gundam”
So what’s this about being disappointed with Gundam AGE before it even started airing? I get the feeling people were confusing character designs — a stylistic choice — with production quality, just because Sunrise has gone back to the franchise’s roots. Well, I personally love it, as it really feels like Gundam AGE has brought back Gundam’s “boyish charm”. By that, I don’t only mean how the story stars a young protagonist in Flit Asuno (Toyonaga Toshiyuki, who humorously enough was associated with another “AGE” in Onii-chan no Koto). That sentiment also encompasses the opening theme by Galileo Galilei, the inclusion of a Haro, the uncertainty seen in Flit’s character, and his heroic-like struggle against an overwhelming oppressive force, Unknown Enemy (UE). Unlike the recent Gundam 00 and Gundam SEED, the white mobile suit with its trademark V-fin antenna and red tongue isn’t portrayed as a completely overpowered unit, but rather as the only thing that can even match up against UE.
It’s been fourteen years since they first appeared, destroying Flit’s Ovan space colony and killed his mother Marina (Tsunematsu Ayumi, Marina Ismail in Gundam 00), and only now has mankind been able to destroy a single enemy unit. That’s a pretty stark contrast to when Celestial Being cracks Trans Am or Kira/Athrun cracks SEED Mode and wipes out everything in sight. In short, Gundam AGE feels like a return back to the start of the Universal Century timeline, both in terms of style and progression. At the same time, I anticipate that the century long war will escalate as Flit gets older and the entrusts the Gundam to his descendants, Asemu and Kio, just like it did in the UC timeline with Amuro Ray in the original Gundam and his return in Char’s Counterattack. That was “only” a fourteen year time frame and the technology already advanced so much, so I can only imagine what will happen in Gundam AGE over the span of a hundred years.
The mere thought of that gets me excited just much as I am about seeing Flit turn the tides of the war with his Gundam. It’s worth noting that he wasn’t planning to pilot the Gundam himself since he’s an engineer, and was going to entrust it to Largan Drace (Hatano Wataru), further emphasizing the reluctant pilot theme that’s been a mainstay in the franchise. The difference with Flit is that he has a resolve quite unlike all the Gundam pilots before him. Not only is he driven by the loss of his mother and the AGE Memory Unit she entrusted to him, but he’s also up against a “potential” alien enemy — something that was only recently introduced to the franchise with Gundam 00’s movie. Of course, I haven’t ruled out the possibility that UE is actually a secret human organization with advanced technology, seeing as they were quick to scan Flit’s Gundam and destroy their damage mobile suit so that information about it couldn’t be reverse engineered, but even if that’s the case, it’s not quite the same as a war between mankind. In Gundam AGE’s Advanced Generation (AG) timeline, all the fighting after mankind immigrated to space is supposedly over and UE has appeared as a new threat that mankind is united against.
In any case, I really liked this first episode’s quick introduction to Flit’s character, showing what drives him to create the savior for mankind and introducing some characters that we’ll be following for his generation of the story. I’m already pretty convinced that his childhood friend Emily Amonde (Endo Aya) will become his future wife — especially when Asemu has blond hair — which leaves their friend Dique Ganhale (Oohata Shintarou), Emily’s grandfather Vargas Dyson (Bandou Naoki), and Yurin Leshell to round out Flit’s close friends. The trembling Deputy Commander of Alinston base and soon-to-be captain of the warship Diva, Grodek Ainoa (Touchi Hiroki), can probably be considered a “main” character too since he’s listed only after Flit and Emily in the credits, leaving the rest of his crew from ace pilot Woolf Enneacle (Ono Daisuke) to Millais Alloy (Shimamura Yuu) to round out the Earth Federation side of things. Overall, a good start to the latest iteration of Gundam. I’ll be looking forward to Sundays more this season.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「君の中の英雄」 (Kimi no Naka no Eiyuu) by 栗林みな実 (Kuribayashi Minami)
Watch the ED!: Streaming ▼
Preview
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Omake
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Retro Gundam FTW!
Still havent fixed the bloody site, you lazy shits.
Might I ask what needs fixing you Highness? – Just asking since it looks fine for me.. Or do I have a severe brain damage that I do not realized them? It’s ether my brain or yours right? :p
I think he’s complaining because the site dropped the ‘d’ at the end of his name and he wants it back…NAO
hahaha, I LOL’d hard. You, good sir, are a genius.
Liking the modern-retro style =O
The animation was well done, but it’s to be expected of pilot episodes. Though.. the episode felt a bit rushed and I’m not too sure about the decisions that some of the characters make/have made…
I don’t know, it just feels kinda weird cuz its trying to target younger audiences… maybe this show will turn into a bloody mess after few episodes or so, who knows. (C^3 nudge nudge):D
i doubt that they’re trying to target younger audiences, it seems they’re trying to emphasize the timeline by showing him start as a kid. remember, before flit uso was the youngest gundam pilot at like 14 i think, and v gundam was the biggest kill em all tomino gundams ever.
they said themselves it’s targetted at a younger audience, you dumb person.
Usso is 12, hence he’s still the youngest Gundam main character.
My complaint is not with the story or character designs, but the execution of the first episode. It was way too rushed. It seems like a lot of these new directors don’t understand the values of pacing themselves. They’re trying to stuff too much into the first episode to get action in and not taking into account the bigger picture or how well the story will flow. Oh well, let’s hope they slow it down in the coming eps and focus more on the characters’ emotions than trying to fly through content at the expense of depth.
I think for premieres, a lot of directors try to pace it so that they provide some sort of introduction to the premise and then leave off with an exciting cliffhanger. I feel Gundam AGE did that well. We’ll just have to see if they allocate enough time for exposition in the second episode onwards.
I’m not even talking particularly about exposition, I mean little details like focusing on a character’s facial expression to capture their emotions in a scene. For example, I thought that scene with Flit and Vargos in the hanger was really poorly done and could have been a lot better had the director decided not to try and rush through it just to get to Flit piloting the Gundam.
My complaint is about the characters — They’re all so stupid! The people in the military are a bunch of idiotic amateurs who operates based solely on emotions. Why are they in a military in the first place? Seriously, why cheer on a child, and allow him to use a very expensive equipment?
There’s the generic introduction and the cheese too
You do realize that Flit is a genius (unlike virtually all other previous Gundam protagonists) and designed the Gundam himself right? (Only other characters who can take credit for such a thing is Kamille with the Zeta and Amuro with the Nu Gundam, and even then, they only did the BASIC designs, not the more in-depth stuff.) So it’s only natural that they still let him pilot it as he would know it better than anyone else, even experienced MS pilots.
I guess it can’t be helped since the anime’s target audience are the young ones.
So I guess making everyone dumb, except for the main character, was excusable
Do yourself a favor and go back to watching the first episodes of the original MSG. Then tell me there wasn’t any pandering to “kiddies” there.
I really started to like gundam when I first watched Gundam Wing, the political theme in WING is what made me fall in loved with the series, I did watch the classics but I still enjoyed WING more since I liked more the Silent Solo soldier (Heero) more than the Macho boy/man (Kamile/Amuro Ray). SEED wasn’t bad but seemed more focused on the characters struggles, 00 had some politics and some characters struggle, which I loved. This seemed more childish and less mature, I know its targeting a younger audience which I am sure will bring more funds for the franchise, however it is making me sad since I do not think my stomach can handle this smile face genre. I highly doubt any of the major characters will die. War is brutal, sad and brings the worst and best of us.
The way I’ve been looking at Age for the past few months:
Seed, Destiny and 00 and emphasized mechanical design over storytelling, and the end result was below-average-to-awful shows. When I saw Age’s character design, I thought, finally, they’re switching the priorities around: narrative over mecha design for once.
And it looks like the show will be good. A post-Turn A gundam show that doesn’t suck? Hard to believe, I know. But I’ve got a really good feeling about this one.
My only real concern is that A) the UE dragon suits don’t seem particularly threatening, and B) the omission of Flit’s father from the story makes me fear for a secret mad-scientist twist behind the UE, with daddy dearest being the evil mastermind.
But still, I’m really psyched for how they’ll do this 100-year story. It has a LOT of potential to be awesome. As for Emily ending up as Flit’s wife, I hope not, if only because that’s too obvious. I fear that the shorter amount of time spent with each protagonist will make the story more predictable.
Which is your favorite Gundam series, Divine? (and any other RC commenter, for that matter)
for mine is still Gundam Unicorn, never seen Gundam series as epic as that (for my own opinion, it surpass Gundam 00 even with its Movie).
I’ll watch this Gundam because all Gundam (except SD Sangokuden) will get my love ^^
I still haven’t gone through the original, Zeta, and ZZ completely, but of the ones I’ve seen in their entirety, Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory is among my favorites, as are Char’s Counterattack and F91.
I really liked SEED (first one, Destiny not so much) and Gundam 00 as well. Unicorn I can’t really say for sure since it’s not over yet, but it’ll likely be one of my favorites too. It’s UC, it looks amazing, and the story’s really intriguing too.
My personal choice:
Gundam Wing>Gundam Zeta>Gundam F91>Gundam(original)/Gundam ZZ>> Everything Else
That’s my personal taste for now…but sometimes it might change and stuff
I loved the original Mobile Suit Gundam with Amuro and Char. I hated Zeta. I disliked ZZ. I loved Char’s Counterattack. SEED was great, but it’s still just an ‘update’ to the original; omit the Bestfriend/rival theme… Doh, long story short; CC>MSG>Seed… and I have yet to watch this show too.
My first Gundam series was on Cartoon Network, Gundam Wing. It might just be the nostalgia factor, but SEED and 00 didn’t match the sentimental feelings I had for Wing and its movie, Endless Waltz. Hell, I still have my Wing Zero and Heavyarms gunpla from years back.
And let’s not mention G Gundam and its laughable shining finger… One of the reasons I started watching subs.
Dude don’t even compare Gundam Wing with this series. Wing is like my all time favourite. Especially Heavy Arms and Wing Gundam. 🙂 both are awesome.
I’ve watched many different Gundam series on different times of my life (and some I’ve re-watched in recent years). There were series which I never really understood when I was young (like Wing and X) that I liked when I was older. I guess what to like differs from age.
In any case right now my pick is on 00 simply because of the scientific concepts. 00’s concepts are closely plausible than in other Gundam series (like solar power and orbital elevator). And I’m really interested in programming an AI like veda. :p
Gundam 0083>Unicorn>Char’s Counter Attack>Gundam SEED (Prefered original not Destiny)>00 Gundam are my favorites atm 😀
My favorites are Wing and 00. SEED was also good (Destiny was a travesty) and G was awesome. I absolutely love Gundam Unicorn. I’m still in the middle of watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Afterwards I’ll watch Zeta, ZZ, and Char’s Counterattack.
08th MS Team, 0083, Unicorn, 00, Seed… then the rest.
Thank you! Most people forget about the 08th Team because it wasn’t Char vs Amuro, Federation vs Zaft ,etc. 08th Team was the true pinnacle of war in the UC ‘verse, with realistic battles where the main character was not invincible in his gundam and all others were just cannon fodder, but 1 shot to the cockpit and you were dead.
It was just good old war, with no true winner.
Gundam G, Wing, SEED and perhaps 00 and Unicorn, in that order, but honestly, in terms of critique and not the fact that G and Wing were the first animes I ever watched, 0083 was actually perfect. 🙂
Wing, Unicorn and 00 takes the cake for me… But that not saying much as I have never watched and of the series before wing…
I still like the original Gundam series the most(as in original Gundam, Zeta, ZZ, and Char’s counterattack). Well, I wasn’t too fond of ZZ because there’s no Char or Amuro in there, but was still compelled to watch it because I think of 4 of them as one big main story(while the other UC as side story, and the AU Gundam as spin-off).
00 and SEED are my favorites. Destiny was an epic fail.
For me it would have to be: 00 > Wing > SEED > G Gundam and then After Wars coming in last. Haven’t got to watching any of the older ones and holding off on Unicorn so I can marathon through it all at once.
00 > 08th MS Team >> Wing > Waltz > SEED >>> Destiny
The only pieces of the UC timeline I’ve seen are a few episodes of the original gundam (I really need to find time to finish that and watch Unicorn). I personally prefer the ‘war is gritty and this is war’ take that the recent gundam series have employed, and thus I was a bit disapointed.
But just becuase I prefer shows that fall further toward the side of ‘real robot’ doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy AGE. In my opinion, like most shows, it’ll all depend on the execution, it definitely has potential.
This is the only Gundam I’ve seen other than 00 but of those two, I like this one the most.
While there were doubts whether this series was going to keep up with the attractiveness of other gundam series, this first ep fortified my hope that this will be a solid series. The visuals aren’t exactly stunning, and the animation makes me reminisce about pokemon and digimon type animation, the story still felt pleasing. I liked it, and I can see more great things for this series. Thanks for the blog!
I thought it was great too. And it didn’t feel like it was targeting kids, rather just a Gundam anyone can enjoy.
ooo ooo I like Yurin Leshell!
If anything, they succeeded with getting the new kids to the show.
As much as for people like me who has seen a lot, the first episode is standard first episode Gundam fare with [peaceful times -> colony attack -> kid gets in the Gundam -> explosions everywhere].
I wasn’t expecting much except for character and setting introductions, and I think they did quite well. It wasn’t intended to be ground-breaking, they got the job done.
I’m keeping expectations low on every episode since I’m still interested in the quasi-trilogy approach within the show, like how they’ll do 0079 -> Z -> ZZ in a span of 50 episodes.
Awesome! Looking forward to seeing more >:)
Honestly, this would be my first gundam series that I’m looking forward to since GD/GSD. What have drawn me in is the OP/ED music (mostly the op). I’m not really a gundam fan, but I’m loving this a lot, especially the composition of music throughout the episode and the simplistic designs of characters. This is my favorite premier of this season so far.
An EXCELLENT first episode. Very solid all around, good animation, appealing designs, good shots and cuts. I think this is the beginning of the best Gundam series in the last 10 years. And for those people who are frustrated because they think its targeting a “younger audience” you need to get off your high horses and realize that Gundam has always targeted the 6-11 boys demographic and i can say this with certainty because i work in TV animation. Just because something is colorful doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it!
Always to 6-11 younger audiences? Hell no. Haven’t you watched Gundam Seed? There are heavy themes and kisses and even sex(although not shown, OBVIOUSLY) in it.
Doesn’t matter if you allude to sex, 6-11 is the age group that buys the most toys. Now let me think, who owns Gundam…?
What do you mean? Kira was having his little emo fit while banging Fllay in episode 16. On camera only covered by sheets.
Sympathetic antagonists (Char!) is what makes Gundam so great. So, I’m leery about this whole humanity uniting against some bigfoots meme. Three generations over a 100 year span also has me concerned at the amount of growth we’re actually going to see for any of the characters.
I can’t say episode one fired me up (and I’m an unabashed Gundam fanboy from the 80s). Of course, I’ll keep watching (Mobile Fighter G Gundam is the only series I simply couldn’t force myself to finish), but my expectations for AGE are not very high so far.
And, for the record, Zeta and Turn A Gundam are the best main series Gundam shows. It gets a bit more complicated if we factor in OVAs and movies. ;p
Its a good first episode. Certainly better than 00 at least. Its actually suspenseful, and the animation is great. I was never turned of by the characters designs, since UC was just as guilty of stupid designs. Its amazing how people forget that. Just shows that haters are stupid.
Flit is such a refreshing character, having actually built the Gundam, and not wangsting about his situation. I like the fact that he was making the Gundam for someone else, but used it anyway when the pilot was injured. His hair sucks though, but that’s irrelevant.
The biggest selling point to me is the UE, since this is the first time in Gundam where the actual antagonists are a mystery. Their robots also look quite intimidating.
Within this kiddy stuff lies maturity(not adult contents) in the future.
i’m sorry for all Gundam fans…
Even though i love Gundam, i think i’ll pass this one…
I don’t get what you’re sorry about. Many Gundam fans are watching and enjoying it.
Which means you don’t really love Gundam.
My apologize to all first-rate Gundam fans…
I think my last post made a bad impression to this show…
Maybe i’m just a second-rate Gundam fan afterall…
and it was to soon to judge it from just 1 episode…
Overall the show worth watching…
Hey it’s cool. Not all Gundam fans are going to watch ALL the series. Take Divine for example. He still hasn’t finished Zeta. I for one did not watch a lot of series (well, the really obscure series like OVAs), so it’s no problem.
I’m not a gundam fan, I’m a super robot wars fan.
It’s not big deal, nor is there first-rate or second-rate. I’m going to say right now, you can decide to watch whatever you guys want. I’m just going to see how this anime is.
Pfft, the only people whining have only seen Wing, Seed, and 00. This classic Gundam design. Anyways, as with all Gundams, this can either be some really awesome stuff or total, total crap (I’m lookin’ at you Wing).
I’ve seen all the Gundam shows to date and I’m still worried.
I have to say, the Star Crossed Anime Blog has a point here:
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. The big selling point of Gundam AGE was that it would show a completely different version of the regular Gundam series. In the end though, all that that amounted to was a new coat. It actually did nothing to remove the most obnoxious parts of the franchise. The male lead still is a teenager who for very convenient reasons ends up piloting a giant robot stronger than all others, he instantly knows how to pilot it, the female lead is completely useless, and there is a lot of angst about how bad war is. Sunrise, for the love of god try something new for a change. Probably the most insulting part is how pathetic the military is: even though they have never been attacked, they’ve only got one capable pilot. On top of that, they allow a twelve year old boy to design new mobile suits for God knows how much money. Really guys: designing and coordinating such a large-scale project isn’t so easy that you can just take off to school at the same time. Oh, and another cliche: everyone is an idiot in order to make the male lead look smart. Throughout the entire episode he is the only one who worries about the incoming invasion. Please Sunrise: you’re mecha series rocked because of how creative they were. This is not the way to do it.”
Except that blogger has no idea what he is talking about. Flit is fourteen, he helped build the Gundam so of course he knows how to pilot it. There was no angsting about anti-war messages largely because the UE are just boogeymen entities that attack for no reason. And its not so much as the military sucks, as it outright shows that UE have superior hardware, and the Gundam is the only one capable of fighting them.
Its clear he isn’t paying attention and just looking for faults.
I agree, the blogger really doesn’t know what he/she is talking about. As the blogger is doing is picking on the most ridiculous things out of the ep, without the slit bit of using their head to that a second to think on what the series is truly about. It has been very clear from the beginning that AGE is going to target younger audience as well, so it very natural to have these parts where it might seem a bit off. Also it was obvious from the beginning, in fact it was stated that AGE is some what a remake of the original series. I don’t see this as a problem, it attracts younger generations, gives the older generation a feeling of the older series, and able to make decent profit from doing so.
It’s a matter of taste. In fact, I agree with the blogger 100%.
also just because he helped build it does not mean he’ll be able to start pawning in his first try. Also, it’s not just the military sucks, but they are all idiots
Flit was not “pawning” at all. He only disabled one enemy, largely by being lucky, and then the UE finished its own comrade off. He spent the first part of the fight getting hit. YOu would get that if you actually did pay attention.
When bashing a series, point out facts, not make stuff up to bash it. Most of his comments are just complaining, when they all have explanations and context.
So you’re not gonna defend the fact that the people in the military are a bunch of idiots?
No, I’ve already answered that question above. You really don’t like to pay attention do you?
You mean the superior hardware part? what does that have to do with the people in the military being idiots?
you payin’ attention?
The fact that it is clearly shown that the UE has tanked direct fire from beam guns and missile racks shows that the enemy is clearly superior. If you payed attention of course. You obviously didn’t. Try comparing a WWII Tiger tank vs. a Sherman Tank, and you can clearly see how easily superior technology can steamroll anyone.
But go ahead and keep grasping straws. You’re pretty cute like that.
Allow me to make it CLEAR to you — I’m talkin’ about people, not technology.
You’re pretty much saying that the enemy technology makes the people in the military dumb
Yes, how dumb of them to go to fight invaders the best they could with inferior tech. Its almost like what an actual military should do.
Keep grasping those straws, my good man!
I don’t see how that’s dumb. To each his own I guess xD
Someone needs to fix his Sarcasm Detector.
wow fragb, you’re fucking retarded.
The truly sad thing is he really never does (he’s far from the only one as far as this premiere is concerned though) and has IMO poor judgment on top of that fatal flaw in his writing. Listen to PSGels at your own peril folks…..
And yeah I sort of get that impression of not paying attention and looking for faults from a lot of people that are criticizing this show. It’s kind of hard to take most of them seriously, like as you point out the whole realism thing which is basically a fan invention to describe the portrayal of some of the robots in the OVA’s of the 90’s as gritty and dirty which was really just sort of the popular hand-drawn style back then that was applied to many mecha shows like Patlabor, Macross Plus, Nadesico, Gundam, Votoms Shining Heresy, and various one shots.
Unfortunately it’s not the 90’s anymore and anime is done via CG drawn techniques now and the popular trend for that is crispness and flashiness, thus that’s what we get with the newer Gundam TV shows. I think it helps to have gone through those periods to properly understand the aesthetic of anime in it’s proper context and time periods and how it’s change but unfortunately that’s not an option for most people and they seem confused.
In fact on this page you seem to be one of the few people that really genuinely know what they are talking about there fragb85. Not to mention you know how make this come across in your dialogues with the others. I’ll just say keep up the good work.
As for others like Alec, seriously bro, just how desperately do you want to hate this show? Be honest, because I think that’s the first question you should be asking before trying to find things to complain about.
I look at it this way, if people want to hate this show they will listen to people like Alec, tristanyx and PSGels. If they have any intention of enjoying this show whatsoever though then the likes MAHQ, Divine and fragb85 are the ones you want and ought to pay some extra attention to for their insight and having their facts straight.
>_>… I have to agree with fragb85 and Kaioshin Sama. Also, I’m assuming he created the basic OS System for the Gundam, so he has some understanding how to make it move in the very least. Also, there is an assumption that he’s very smart, jsut by the fact that he’s a head of the project. Either way though, he definitely did not pawn in his first try, as not only did he get hit face on by the gatling gun only to be save by the armor, he also spent a lot of time beating that one UE unit. If the other 2 joined in, he would have surely died making him extremely lucky.
Also, I’m not sure how the military was dumb to begin with. They were ambushed by the UE, they have inferior technology, other then one Gundam which was barely ready to roll out. Heck, the UE were just basically taking a walk while the military practically nailed every shot on point only to fail because, the UE armor is even stronger. I hardly see how the military were a bunch of idiot when they actually did manage to surround the enemy, or roll out actual units and manage to get a hit in the very least. The only possible dumb thing, was let Flit ride the Gundam, cause they could have lost their only chance to victory. But hey, it worked out. Either way, it feels like a ton of people are going to nitpick at some stupid things.
If I’m not mistaken, psgels doesn’t like anything mecha to begin with, so he’s nitpicking at things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. It sounds like he’s generalized Gundam altogether and criticizing stuff like military realism… a military that uses mobile suits…
Unfortunately I pick at the military realism as well. I know it’s just me, but I can’t stand it when there is no realism involved
Then you better jump ship now. Gundam has never been realistic. EVER.
Interestingly enough, despite my dislike of Gundam 00, its first season had the most realistic fights, thanks to its accurate description on how superior technology goes against tactics and skill.
@Alec
What kind of fucking retard complains about realistic military in a mecha anime. Some bitches will complain about anything. The main point of any Gundam series has never been about about realistic machines of war but the realistic emotions that come with war, politics, friendship, etc. Get the fuck out.
Please, Gundam AGE isn’t targeted for us. This is for kids and no matter how much you defend this series. It’s really dumb compared to 00 and Seed. Dropped.
@KAZUHIRO:
Good for you. If that means you won’t be commenting anymore, I guess we both win.
Well, Gundam has been a step towards realism. Unlike Super Robots which is complete handwave and magic, Gundam it pretty legit. It just doesn’t work very well on earth because its 60 meters tall and all, but in space, remove the legs, give it some sort of propulsion system that isn’t made of special particles, and all is well.
Gundam is in the real robot genre but seriously, the amount of materials you use to make a gundam could have been better off with making 00’s Fangs. You could make 1000(?) fangs from 1 gundam and i don’t see even setsuna winning against 1000 fangs
Additionally the arms and hands in a machine of war is quite silly. It would have been more economical and useful to replace the entire arm/hand structure with turreted weapons. Full and faster weapon fire arc changes. The giant walking mecha is also silly as we can see from our current robots that walking is extremely troublesome.
VOTOMS style mecha vehicles and stuff like power suits from tiger and bunny are actually more realistic for military machines.
But hey its a giant robot. It appeals to us in its humanoid shape even if its totally not practical
I think the review made by MAHQ is better than the crappy review you posted:
To say the announcement of Gundam AGE was controversial would be an understatement. The announcement of any new Gundam series is always greeted by some complaints from Western fans, but AGE brought it to new levels. There were endless complaints then and now about the series appealing to a “kiddy” demographic. To be sure, AGE is appealing to a younger audience with its character designs and the involvement of Level 5. But that doesn’t automatically mean that it’s bad. What we have here is a pretty standard (if predictable) opening to a Gundam series that resembles the mood of early UC shows. There are some differences, of course. The Federation is under attack by the Unknown Enemy that remains unknown after 14 years of attacks. Given that they’ll destroy their own suits to prevent examination by the enemy, that’s not surprising. Since people assume the UE are aliens, I think that pretty much guarantees they won’t be. I expect a situation similar to Nadesico where presumed aliens turn out to be humans, but we’ll have to wait and see. As far as Gundam protagonists go, Flit Asuno seems to be cut from a different cloth. In a way, he’s the opposite of Shinn Asuka from DESTINY. Whereas the traumatic loss of his family made Shinn angry and vengeful, the same trauma has caused Flit to want to be protective and save everyone. This episode is not without its problems, however. It lays on a bit too thickly the notion of the Gundam being a savior. Flit also comes across as a Doogie Howser of mobile suits given his young age and genius that surpasses adults. I can accept that the kid’s gifted, but hopefully he won’t always be right about everything. As far as the savior aspect goes, the Gundam painting evokes thoughts of Turn A Gundam, with talk of historical Gundams saving the world. Only time will tell if there’s anything more to this, or if it’s just a visual nod to the RX-78-2 that many shows throw in. Gundam AGE doesn’t come across as the horrible baby’s show that some made it out to be, and I’m curious to see where it goes. I’ll temper my expectations in that regard – I’m an adult Westerner, so I’m clearly not the target audience for this series, but that’s ok.
Sorry, I don’t write reviews. Never have. You can only really review a series after you’ve seen the entire thing. Episodic blogging doesn’t really allow for that.
I find it interesting how everyone’s pinning the character designs as the reason why it’s “kiddy”. If anyone’s having the hardest time accepting the retro designs, it seems to be the younger, post-UC generation of Gundam fans. Kids these days only care about what looks cool, so pretty visuals are a surefire way to grab their interest.
Anyway, if this “review” is so good and you prefer it, what are you doing on RC and commenting here? You should keep your comments over there.
@Divine: I think he’s talking about Psgels review xD Thouh at first, I thought he was talking about yours xD
Oh if that’s the case, my apologies to RickDias.
As a huge fan of psgels and his work, I have to first say that you in no way have any right to bring another blogger’s review to use as your OWN idea for why you or do not like a certain piece of work. PSGELS has his own opinion on the show, and that’s fine; I don’t think it is in any right to judge his worth based on that just because he’s not a superbly huge Gundam fan like the rest of us (i find it disconcerting that you think that in order to be able to judge a Gundam series you have to be a Gundam fan- this is completely untrue, and maybe psgels doesn’t like mecha series). If you have a problem with his work and opinion, then please do so at his blog, but not over here.
That said, as a Gundam fan, I was really happy about how they took this. It really does capture the charm of Gundam which inspired me as a child, and does so nearly 10+ years later. I won’t deny that I too criticize the Gundam series for the lack of military realism- something I feel Gundam 00 almost breached but never really truly touched upon- but then again, like everyone has been saying- when has the GUNDAM series ever had military realism?
No, Gundam’s strength relies on the humanity of its characters- and how despite facing the most terrible decisions they manage to pull out with the right one in the end. It may not be realistic, it may not be completely cruel and practical and unforgiving, but that is exactly what give Gundam its charm. I see a lot of potential for this show and honestly, I don’t see any reason why people are complaining about the ‘kiddiness’ or the youngness of the cast and the feel of the show, because Flit seems like a pretty good character to me so far. Combine the retro looks with the refreshing feeling of going back to my youthful days of sitting in front of the TV and eating cereal and watching the Gundam series, and you’ve got me hooked in. In terms of execution, I won’t lie- there were some shabby parts, but it wasn’t a complete and utter disaster like some of the folk are saying on here. Give it a chance!
The goofy character designs are kind of a turnoff for me, especially since they are such a seem so out of place among a lot of the 00-esque art they seem to have reused elsewhere (I swear I saw Union and AEU uniforms in this episode). Also, I’m afraid that if they try too hard to keep it less dark and more kid-friendly, they may come off glorifying war instead of condemning it, which is supposed to be a common theme in Gundam shows.
I don’t know, maybe I’m being unfair to Sunrise when they are trying to do something new. While my expectations haven’t been terribly for this show from the beginning, I’ll give it a few more episodes and see where they’re going before I make any decisions.
well, this episode should’ve been a 2-parter that’s an hour long…
still, I’m hooked already, though I’m expecting Flit to scream GUNDAM like Setsuna some time in the future… =P
another thing, I wasn’t expecting such an upbeat OP (even if it somehow match the tone of 00’s first OP after listening to it a few times), the ED OTH had the tone that made me think that it should’ve been the OP.
(fyi: haven’t checked the lyrics yet.)
Every Gundam series seems to be equally hated and loved by Gundam fans (Wing, Seed, 00, name it, even Destiny) and I guess this one will be the same too.
The childish design at first startled me, because I am not an old nor avid Gundam fans, basically I just watch it for stylish fights, animation and sometimes good story and character designs. But somehow this is a good approach. I just hope that Sunrise doesn’t only plan on targeting this on children and make the series mature as it progresses.
Although as Yo_L2 states, there are some obvious flaws in the story for the first episode.
To me, it’s pandering more to the younger generation with the designs. =/
And, the only thing that would make this even worse would be if they stopped in the middle of the episode, put a few lines of text on the screen that explained where to grab the action figure of that suit, then restart the action, only to do it every…single….time.
It’s just….meh. =/ I might end up watching it, but right now, nope. =w=
Finally some worth reading comments. I don’t see why so many people judge a book by its cover. Yes I admit, when I saw the first PV of AGE, I was disappointed, then I gave it a thought and realized this series has ALOT of potential. So many people need to use their brain before they make a first impression comment. There is a strong crew behind the series, plus Gundam is one of Sunrise’s most successful franchise, you think they let a crappy series ruin itself? There is 3 generations in this series and we are only on the first. If you guys out there still remember, 0079 had a childish drawing, but at the same time it had a very mature theme to it. It was aimed for both younger and older audience. Then there is Zeta, one of the darkest, if not the darkest Gundam series out there. Then it pretty much finish off with ZZ, which had both a light and dark tone. Age has this potential to sum up all these qualities of all three series. Why??? Maybe because it’s 3 generations??? This concept is brilliant, if the fans think the first generation is too light, they can make the second generation darker. It allows the series to have room for flexibility and growth. As for now I wouldn’t comment on the series, it’s only the first ep, and in the PVs it pretty much tells you what happens, so all we can do is sit and watch. Judge it after its been aired for a longer period of time.
“There is a strong crew behind the series, plus Gundam is one of Sunrise’s most successful franchise, you think they let a crappy series ruin itself? ”
While I’m behind you on folks not judging a book by it’s cover, in terms of a series ruining itself, I’ll refer you back to S-Destiny. So much potential to follow in the steps of Z Gundam with the first 10 or so episodes just thrown away.
Definitely, Seed and Destiny was horrible from a Gundam fans point of view. Even so, both series brought in many new fans into Gundam, which came with new income. Though it did ruin the image of Gundam to a certain degree, the new fan base plus the profit from them allowed Sunrise to move on forward with better quality of future projects such as 00. But I have to say, the animation for the first 10 ep for Seed was outstanding, same with the story…but yea like you said, it ruined itself…
I did enjoy the first episode but I can’t say I’m wowed by it. There wasn’t anything that impressed me particularly aside from the usual good animation by Sunrise. I am optimistic though.
The retro look is pretty refreshing (it reminded me more of the older Mega Man franchise than Gundam) but it’s undeniable that the characters designs do look especially young (even when we compared it to the older Gundam series). Flit looks like a 6-year old? I get that this is not something new for animes (Yune from Ikoku Meiro supposed to be 13 for goodness sake) but it’s not hard to see why some people might not appreciate it as much too.
I’m not sure “boyish charm” is how I would describe what Gundam stands for. Just judging from the opening and the first episode, this probably won’t become my favorite Gundam show. Nevertheless, it left a better first impression than I thought. Despite the art style, it showed at least some promise.
There’s already a planned prequel called Gundam Under Age and a sequel called Gundam Old Age! :p
Emily = wife, no question about that, just look at Asem’s silly hair spikes along with Emily’s ponytail and her blonde hair color and you get gundam age pilot #2. Even though I dont enjoy Bandai throwing in an early and pretty obvious “I’m the mother” spoiler, I’m pretty sure Bandia setup themselves this way so they’ll focus less on how Flit gets into Emily’s pants and more on how Flit will own the UEs. Looking forward to the the new Gundam packs, which is the only good/coolest thing they got from seed/destiny. I’m all for packing on armaments onto Gundams, but when you have a million guns capable of owning billions of mobile suits, thats when you cut costs by reusing old scenes (old seed scenes in destiny). I’ve seen pictures of Age Gundam ver 2 and 3, and I’m sad to inform you that the Age Gundam WILL get more bigger guns and more armor, thus leading to Bandai showing reused scenes of UE’s getting gunning down in massive numbers, GG production cost.
You do realize those designs of AGE-2 and AGE-3 were fake right? So GG on getting fooled by trolls.
Speculative, I hope Bandai doesn’t go through with those plans, because everyone could prob predict the story line
OP has this UC feel on it. ED is also Good/Catchy(and promotes child relationship according to haters).
Flit Asuno (which look like 10) is 14 yrs old and may turn 15 yrs old in 7 months, not far from the age to the other Gundam Protagonist.
Character design is childish? I remember when the first PV for Gundam Unicorn came out Gundam “Fans” complained about the retro look and Gundam 00 got the same criticism about the design when it first aired. And the target audience for MSGA are children (your mother died in front of you, UE kills people in the colony, stabbing the enemy, UE killed there own kind. Minus the blood and gore).
The plot? is a Generic Gundam Plot and not Cards games in Gundams.
Overall I enjoyed the first episode. (i love how the crouching Gafran)
There is no such thing as a terrible Gundam series. Seriously.
Yea, you’re right, SEED DESTINY was not terrible and so bad, even though it reused half of SEED’s mass killing scenes(i.e. same crew dying in ship engine) and excess amounts of emo bs from Shinn Asuka and every other pubescent character (even kira). But I thoroughly enjoyed a nonterrible Gundam series like DESTINY only because I like watching overpowered Gundams own 15 zakus in 2 minutes (ep ref) and especially liked it when Shinn Asuka got owned hard in the bum during the last episode (call me a masochist). Glad I waited 49 episodes for a “not terrible Gundam series”. 🙂
Also, I forgot to add, I’ll be the FIRST to speculate on who/what the UE dbags are. Two things will help support my theory. Since the butler in Flit’s flashbacks talked about some white knight Gundam who brought about pacifism in the previous era and how Gundam AGE loves to recreate throwback Gundam in brand spanking new high res video, UE reminds of some sort of “Republic of Zeon” faction that broke off in the previous era and went somewhere else on their own accord and came back recently to screw with the new pacifist earth federation. UEs imo are part of those factions who went off to some other world, maintained and improved their mobile suit technology, and have now come back to seek revenge (its pretty well along most Gundam themes of the baddies coming back to wreck havoc, just for the lolz), if anyone has a better theory, discuss plz, kthx
Very satisfied with the way this first episode introduced things; Flit, Emily, the rest of the supporting earth cast and finally, the unknown enemies. It’s given me another reason to look forward to Sunday. (:
For those who think Flit is young, Uso Ewin of Victory Gundam still remains the youngest Gundam pilot at 13 years old. He was a lot of fun to watch too, especially since he still had that “boyish” ideals/innocence and didn’t see eye-to-eye with the military. Victory Gundam kind of dragged out, but I really liked Uso’s character. Flit’s kind of reminiscent of him.
Ah Victory Gundam… the show that said “You want a show darker than Zeta leaving you no hope for the future? Here you go!” I still enjoyed it though. As for Age, I find that you can’t really judge a gundam series until at least a quarter of the way through but for a premiere it was okay.
I fire up a little Victory Gundam whenever I’m feeling a little too happy with life. Good old Kill-’em-all Tomino!
To be honest, I didn’t think much of the character design, but perhaps Sunrise has been pampering us too much with art perceived as having good standards.
To predict and look at the bigger picture might be a better thing to do though, especially if AGE spans two generations. Rather than looking for faults that any Tom, Dick or Harry are capable of pointing out/creating, it seems to make more sense to get the good points instead of simply focusing on the bad and making comparisons.
With one episode, it’s really hard to say how good or bad it will turn out to be. I’m not overly impressed, but the pilot has piqued my interest quite a bit more than any run-of-the-mill anime. Probably putting this higher on my anime-to-follow list.
Im not a fan of the character designs, or the fact that a pokemon kid is piloting the gundam. but ill give this show a chance since i love gundam in general. I dont know why bandai choose to go that route though. Genius kid builds and pilots gundam and hes only 14, really?!!
I really don’t have a problem with the character design. Honestly, my bone was that the scenario writer is Level 5. Now, I don’t hate Hino in fact I love most of Level 5 games. But, this is Hino that writes for White Knight Chronicles. And the story for that game is shit. However, I rest my case. 1st ep is okay and the intro and ed remind me a lot of the old series so I’m down. But yeah, its okay.
P.s: The purple haired girl is so gonna die.
Nah, I say Emily dies after having Asem and Fritolay marries Yurin.
Only saying so because Hino has done something similar in Inazuma Eleven/GO.
is it harsh to judge the book by it cover.
i gave all anime i see chance of three episodes at last and i was afraid that these so harsh
who know it may be the best gundam ever .
after all that happened all the times
people says that Jackman will be bad at wolvrene before men
and the joker in dark knight
stop the childish act . gave gundam age the chance
Every gundam series I’ve watched has been entertaining and AGE looks like no excption but I’m still on the fence with this variation of gundam, story wise it seems okay, but the character designs really annoy me. BTW is it just me or the heads of the Unknown Enemy suits look like evangelions?
Anybody else a Genoace fanboy yet? it’s smooth and simple and elegant, proving that grunts don’t need to be overdone to be cool. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Genoace evolve over the course of the series.
this space ship kind of remind me of leopard from Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo
https://randomc.net/image/Gundam%20AGE/Gundam%20AGE%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2034.jpg
this!
Uh… that’s not a spaceship. That’s a space colony. That design has been a mainstay in the Gundam franchise.
The Island Three/O’Neill Colony design has been around and used in fiction (e.g. Gundam) for a long, long time, going back to the original.
And here I’am hoping that the first episode of Gundam Age will be of like the first episode of Ga-Rei Zero. Sigh!!
Well guess am gonna wait for episode 3: Show Spoiler ▼
I was actually pretty impressed by the first episode. I’m definitely looking forward to what’s in store next.
I’m not going to call it horrible yet, but this was a pretty deeply flawed first episode. A few details that just jumped out at me:
1) 14 year old kid, still in school, leading the Gundam R&D project. Even for a Gundam series, it’s stretching suspension of disbelief a little to far when they expect the viewer to believe that the military would turn over leadership on a project like that to a middle school kid.
1a) As for the “he designed it, so he knew how to pilot it” deal, I don’t buy it. Hand an F-22 over to the Skunk Works guys, and I strongly doubt they’d be able to outfly a trained pilot. It’s not that much of an issue to me, though, since I accepted Amuro dropping into the RX-78’s cockpit with no idea what he was doing, and at least Flit had some idea. It’s just that the whole “designer = proficiency” equation just doesn’t work out.
2) Flit figures out the UE’s attacking pattern, and that the Nora colony would be hit next. Does he give this information to the military commander, who greets him by name, while he’s holding the document? No, instead, he says nothing about it, and then tries to convince his homeroom teacher, who has no clue at all.
3) The Genoace has no weapons that can even scratch a Gafran. The Gundam has a beam knife (and beam rifle next ep), which has undoubtedly gone through its own prototyping stage and can at least damage the UE units. How the hell are they not standard issue yet? The same question applies for why the Genoace hasn’t been retrofitted with Gundam armor yet. Say what you will about the prototype/MP unit production costs, but the number of units that they lost here should more than justify having 1-2 high-durability units instead of 2 (shown) MS and a horde of fodder, all with weapons that do exactly nothing.
4) This one is more for the future of the show than this episode, but they’re going to have to give a lot of info on the UE by the time the show’s over. Keeping them as hordes of faceless mooks would be absolutely horrible.
In short, it’s off to a very rough start, and my suspension of disbelief is stretched pretty thin already.
Ah here we are, a well articulated argument, and you’ve stated many of the same things that bothered me throughout the episode. Expecting realism in a show about giant fighting robots is one thing, but my theory has always been that within the logic of the universe presented, things need to make sense. Each of the first three things you listed there simply doesn’t fit that criteria.
A 14 year old, regardless of how intelligent, would [i]never[/i] be allowed to not only work on, but actually be the lead designer for a high end military project. Bypassing that and assuming he was allowed to do so, why then would he not present his suppositions on the UE to a military officer, several of which clearly knew him? Surely a boy of his proposed intellect could realize that even if his teacher agreed with him, he would hardly be in a position to do anything about it?
The third point is the most egregious. By what logic does this suit have not only weapons not found on any other mobile suit by apparently thicker armor as well? I believe previous gundams have explained it as gundanium alloy being made of stronger stuff, but if that were the case here why would it not be used for mass produced models? If rare, why spend it on the experiment of a kid, and why was it never tried before?
I’ll admit that I was wary of this Gundam going in, as the characters and style put me off a bit, but the way things have been handled so far are not doing much to improve my opinion. The direction thus far [i]does[/i] make it seem far more “kiddish” than previous Gundam’s, regardless of how some defend it. Compare it to 00, or Wing, or Seed which all had heavy political machinations from the very first episode. Sure, they all follow a group of teenagers, but the detailed background provided an intensity that gave a more mature feeling. Here I feel like I’m just following the story of some youth as he saves the day.
Yes, it is still the first episode and there is plenty of time yet to grow, but unless something changes, I don’t see myself watching this series much longer.
A concise and cogent review. These problems, among with others, are bugging me a lot. Having watched Gundam since “The 8th Mobile Suit team”, I am not condemning the series by any mean, but this is the least promising start of all Gundam series. Pacing is horribly fast and unrealistic
Show Spoiler ▼
Well The new Season of Gundam is here and the first episode is better than expected. Why? Because, in the past Gundam series like SEED and Gundam 00 1st season, I always felt that the first episodes of those series is underwhelming at best, fact is it took me 20 episodes of SEED and at least 8 episodes for Gundam 00 to really get hooked, Gundam AGE first episode is still a bit underwhelming but it’s a good primer overall, at least a tad better when I compare my impression on the episode of SEED and 00.
As for the animation, coming off from the very impressive HD visuals of Gundam 00, I think AGE has a splendid animation, the animation is smooth, the character designs might be something old-school but this kind of stuff is something that you can eventually get used to in the next couple of episodes when you get used to the designs. So far, I like it, and since this is supposedly a story that will span 100 years, I’m guessing we will see this young men and women eventually grown ups in the near future.
For the mean time, it feels like it’s a fight between aliens and humans(not really, the opponents looks like robotic/mechanical which means they could also be humans, and seeing how the GN-X from 00 looks absolutely not like the Zakus from the past, I beg to differ), but this is just the first episode of a 4-cour series, I’ll reserve my judgement once the story starts revealing itself to the viewers on the coming episode.
Also, new Gundam season? It’s time to collect Master Grade (MG) Gunplas again 🙂
Can never go wrong with a gundam series. Just wished I could shave 15 or so years off my life, before watching. So I’d be able to dig the toon designs.
Sorry the only reason why Sunrise/Bandai created Gundam Sage is for money alone, not introducing kids to Gundam. Just imagined all the sales of cheap & mass produced Gundam Age models they can sell to this type of audience instead of the complicated/hard to assembled models reserved for adults.
I’ve built 2 Perfect Grades and 10 Master Grades, and 1 High Grades, there is nothing really complicated or hard about it, well they took time to built, my PGs averaged 70-100hours/kit, MGs averaged 20-40hours/kit. What is complicated and hard though is if you didn’t do a straight built but modded it.
That first episode of AGE was terrible. Generic as hell and the worst character designs I’ve ever seen in a gundam series. Not to mention the fact that he ran past the base commander with his calculations for the enemy attack and instead of showing them there he shows his teacher… frito confirmed for retarded!
I agree man. The character designs made the show nearly unwatchable. Too many other shows to watch this season.
I watched the 1st episode and i gave up. I didn’t expect to watch the next episode anymore. Mostly story and characters that I can’t accept. Still 00 is the best because they use the highest quality to design the Mobile Suit and Mobile Armor, and even the characters. To be honest, people can accept the 1st Gundam. I think they want to make back to the 1st Gundam but that is too impossible at all.
Ok, this was way too deus-ex machina in all aspects. Not only the character designs are way too childish for a series like Gundam, but the storytelling is more like a super-robot show. 14 years of not beating this UE and then a sole MS appears and turns things over? More over. Even if it’s not a Gundarium Gamma armored MS, the Age wasn’t even scratch by solid shell rounds and even hold a point-blank beam cannon blast without flinch! This is not Mazinger, SRW of Koutetsu Jeeg, this is Gundam for God’s sake.
Flit is even more Gary Sty than certain Kira Yamato and more annoying than Setsuna F. Seiei. Like a tone-down version of Shinn Asuka. This looks, feels and reeks like a kiddie’s show. That’s 0-3 for Sunrise in their series this season. Age dropped faster than a colony.
Hopefully, we have still Unicorn and the fact that Origin is on the way…
Maybe they will add in the tech details in some publication later on.
Where’s my Char character with his red mobile suit? 😛 Maybe it’ll be replaced by a red alien? After all, red makes everything 3 times faster XD
Perhaps a mecha that looks like Beowulf’s Gespenst MkIII will suddenly appear.
Oh, btw Largan wears sun glasses. Char?
First, I don’t like the character design (it’s just not my type), second, the Gundam gives me a feeling that it’s really short, but the animation quality is very good, I’m happy with it.
And for Divine, I’m sure there will be a time in this series that has human faction fighting against each other (maybe ’cause of dif’ reason/way of doing things/ideology etc…), and the timeline is more than a hundred years, I’m sure there’s enough for alot of surprise, I’m looking forward to see more of the action and new types of MS/Gundam too.
Oh and there’s one more thing, in Seed/Seed Destiny or 00 the “grunts” (of all sides) are pretty much just made to be there for more actions of OP Gundams, I really hope this series doesn’t have that kind of thing ^^
fix : “Human Factions”
One more thing 😛
The introduction of the characters are ok, but the Gundam “debut” is very disappointed.
I too think Emily will be Azam’s mum.
Similar way they put their ponytail on their shoulder.
As usual, parallels with older Gundam series are seen.
Bad guys landing on colony then invading (MSG, SEED).
The second ep gives me the vibe of the colony breaking up and the characters escape on Diva (SEED).
00’s first ep was pretty original to me compared to Age’s.
Killing their own.
The UE got something to hide or its just to safeguard their tech.
Made me think of CB hiding their Gundams.
I guess it would be a turning point when they can get a UE specimen.
Perhaps copy their variable frame technology? And an insight to UE’s identity?
If they are aliens than it would be too Macross.
Or they are just another bunch of people seeking independence?
Thinking ahead to Azem’s time.
Wonder by Azem’s time how would the Gundam have affected the technology?
MP Gundam? What if UE became like Titans and Azem’s side becomes like AEUG?
Looking forward to new mecha designs.
I HATE the character designs, personally.
I do too, it’s aimed at 8 year olds
The gundam movement in this series is one of the worst, the gundams move like your typical human with no weight to it. In gundam 00 I say they’ve got the gundam movement right but not good enough, Mech movement like full metal panic is perfect.
Thats my only complaint.
I find the Gundam extremely agile when it hop/summersault over to grab the gun.
I was surprised by that movement.
yeah that’s the problem, unlike seed and 00 the movement is way to unrealistic, might as well change the huge gundam robot to a huge person.
Yes..G Gundam
Gundam Age-1 moves like a Mobile Fighter, without the Mobile Trace System!
😛
I don’t think I’m going to watch this season of Gundam. It was pushing it with previous seasons where the main characters were like 17. But now the kids are like 11. And are creating Gundams? And fighting in the war? Yeah, right. Where are his parents? Someone should call child protective services. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s definitely targeted at a younger audience. I’ll keep an eye on the show but don’t except to watch it.
He’s 14 and his parents are dead (at least his mother anyway). It requires a little suspension of disbelief that Flit could build a Gundam buy they did support his resolve with the loss of his mother, and more importantly, the premise that he comes from the wealthy Asuno family that develops mobile suits. The AGE memory unit presumably contained initial blueprints too, which Flit completed with the help off Vargas and the other engineers.
WHAT his mom is same name of marina in 00 geez & twenty bucks his did is set-light?
yea seeing pics of looking at how goes yea indeed is like gundam version WWE’s PG era.
i rather take another season of GS era than the “finger poke of doom” aka age gundam.
indeeed come back & save_US GS era & Lacus.
lol reminded me of astroboy for some bizzare reason.
These comments are entertaining! 😀
They are aren’t they. :p
I got all the “awesome” shows this season for comments. :\
Yeah, when I used to blog it happened to me too and was part of the reason I ended up stopping. I’m pretty sure it happens to everybody, though I’ll say this, the commentary for when I blogged 00 was a “special” experience like no other. You’ll almost certainly deal with all kinds when blogging this show, some will just be there to drop a line and show support, others will have a clear agenda that may not be a constructive one at all, but obviously just stick to the program and remember to never put other people’s enjoyment exclusively before your own like I made the mistake of doing 4 years ago.
You’ll have my support. 🙂
I personally think that this anime isn’t childish because of its art, but because of just a couple scenes that happened in the episode. Basically when the first mobile suit went off to fight the UE, they did not show it get destroyed. I don’t know if they did that on purpose to have a little suspense or if it was a censor. I am really hoping that if was to make the episode more interesting than to censor the death of a pilot.
The Genoace wasn’t destroyed because Largan probably possesses some sort of plot armor. He might be the 2nd main character line.
No that was the second one, I’m talking about the first one that was launched while Flit and Emily were running inside.
I am gundam fan too. I love Gundam Unicorn but I am avoiding this one like the plauge!!!!
I loved the alien element in Gundam 00 because it gave a tottaly different perspective to the story, for the first mankind fighting united as a whole aginst a common goal. That´s something never seen in gundam universe, where each side has a lot flaws like any real war.
I don´t really like the character designs but it got me hook at first sight so I´m looking for another incredible gundam series.
I’m pretty sure we are going to be introduced to characters on the UE side and may build a relation with them. Its kinda hard to have a series not be formulaic and still have developed protagonists.
Hopefully the “kiddy characters” won’t stay all season long and we see them grow up (and stay grown up)…but it doesn’t look like that…
Best Gundam show with (little) kids is (without a doubt)Gundam 0080 – War in the Pocket.
Honestly, I much preferred this episode to 00’s episode, mostly because we got to know the characters better here than we did in 00’s premiere. In addition to that, the visuals and characters are wonderful and aside from the visuals during the OP, I don’t have any faults with this episode. A solid 4/5 since there’s a little room for improvement.
*this first episode to 00’s first episode
I love the haterade being spread about Gundam Age, but before putting AGE on the back burner of Gundam disasters, AGE actually took a slow route of development seen in great series such as Turn-A Gundam and the original gundam. The fight actually reminded me of the first episode of Seed (which came out great, unlike the horrible mess that is destiny). Although I am not a fan of the throwback animation nor the pubescent 14 year old mecha pilots, I can appreciate Age’s attention to future generations. If anyone hates watching Flit fight in his very old school Gundam type suit and only being able to kill 1 enemy at a time and not multiples, I’d recommend skipping this generation and waiting for his son Asem (mother is definitely emily no doubt) to start demolishing the UE (who I believe are a divergent version of “Republic of Zeon” like humans that have come back to wreck havoc on the AGE “pacifist” society).
Probable result
Gundam AGE – Digimon/ZOIDS, reminiscence of early 90’s robo anime featuring children.
Gundam AGE s2 – later 90’s robo anime probably in the same league as Gundam Wing.
Gundam AGE s3 – I hope it turns into Gundam Unicorn type of quality.
Did you really just compare this show with Digimon? lol
This is classic Gundam.
I thought it would be a Gundam for kids, but it’s pretty much what Gundam have been being (LOL) since the its first series.
Really nice.
I hope to see something better than Gundam 00 (and by better I mean something without aliens, clone army, pilots with magical powers, etc).
I didn’t approach this series with the contempt that many may have; I was willing to give it a chance to impress me. While I really don’t care for the U.E. designs on any level, the AGE-1’s design was enough to interest me on the mecha side of things. I was off-put by the character designs at first, but I am used to them a bit more now, and it does seem to invoke the UC in some ways.
Not sure what it is yet, but this episode didn’t do it for me. From the intro, the op and even through the rest of the episode – I was really bored. There was a sense of “been here, done this” to the whole thing. After watching enough Gundam, I guess that may be inevitable, but nothing here really surprised me or was really that interesting. The whole episode and the events therein just seemed stale to me. I’m going to continue watching, its only the first episode afterall, but it failed to leave me wanting more on pretty much every level.
The Genoaces remind me of Ideon. Shouldn’t they be a bit stronger?
Or bigger? 😛
So cold these nights
Gundam brings joy
Nevermind; lackluster, formulaic
I cant really watch this to be honest. I didnt watch any of the old school Gundam series so their plot and story continuity is completely unknown to me. I’ve only watched the more modern ones, so I dont think I’d enjoy an “old school” version that much, especially given that I knows nothing of the old school timeline and such.
This Gundam is not related to the Gundams from the Universal Century, so in terms of background story you’re fine. This this a original story.
And Gundam has always been more or less oldschool. The only modern Gundam that they tried with something completely different was Gundam 00 (with those aliens, clone wars, pilots with magical powers and lots of fails because all this pure crap).
Gundam 00 is in no way crap, a lot of these fails you mentioned have reasonable explanation to why they exist etc.
By modern I meant the artwork, like Gundam Seed/00 had amazing more modern-day artstyles and character design while this reminded me of a HD old school look.
If this series has nothing to do with UC I might still give it a watch, if its really a standalone serie. Thanks for clearing that up.
As a post UC fan, I’m fairly disappointed so far. Everyone’s already mentioned the designs, suspension of belief, etc, but what really gets me is that there’s so much cheese. You can tone the kid down a notch, redo the whole ep and I think it would be easier to take in.
I’ve tried watching the original UC series, the melodrama overkill and the constant saluting was too much.
Off topic: the designs of the UE units look like the dragon form of Escaflowne or a variation of the Yugioh monsters.
Also, one of the reasons I like the 00 series is they predict an economic collapse of oil producing countries when an alternative energy solution is found. It’s thought provoking and pretty spot on.
just finished the episode.
Some details are missed, just like the comments around here, thinking back how should Gundam is a Real-Robot, for me it’s kinda a disappointment.
And throughout the episode, I reminiscence Gundam Unicorn ep.1 here, the painting of Gundam (Unicorn in UC), colony got whacked, encounter with Gundam and so on but with inferior conflict… well, I think it’s not comparable to Universal Centuries Gundam though.
Overally, I’m pleased for whatever Gundam series available, even if Gunpla Battle is being serialized I’ll watch them.
There are something weird about gundam AGE.In my country when someone post about gundam AGE,there will be many comments about it.However when someone make a poll about “which anime you will watch in this season?”,no one mention gundam AGE.Strange,isn’t it?
I dont know why but the ideal about Age is the far future of U.C. poped up in my head.
Maybe Flit is the descendant of Anaheim in U.C. 😀
So far looks ok but the enemy mecha don’t look nice while the gundam is …. with the big A in front. The waist is too much like the original RX-78. Not as bad as Turn A but definitely no interest in getting the gunpla.
Of interest is that the backgrounds are very beautiful, especially of the city. Contrasted to the digimon look of the kids, it stands out more.
Dialogue wise, it sounds natural like the old mechanic asking the kid whether he’s mad, standing in front of the enemy mecha like a statue (which is exactly what i was feeling) as well as both the old mechanic and the commanding officer allowing him to pilot the mecha because he was ready to die in it (not to mention their own GM wannabes were being trashed like rotten fruit).
Looks like it has potential in anime terms, not s sure about the gunpla
The first episode for Gundam AGE really didn’t grab my interest. I mean I would watch several episodes before deciding to continue on it or dropping it. The character designs are just not what I expected. Plus, a kid piloting a Gundam? It’s not like I’m against kids piloting Gundam but really when you wanna make a kid pilot a Gundam at least make him or her look like a 14 year old. Flit looks like, i don’t know, a little kid.
And I expected the Gundam to pop up weapons but it didn’t. Instead it took a, well I don’t know, a star wars weapon and it sounds like one and starts to shoot the crap out of that thing which actually reminds me of the fake dragon Drogma if any of you watches fairy tail.
Anyways, this series is looking bad in my book. When I first watched Gundam 00, I was totally hooked up on it.
Hate to break it to you, but with rare exception has there been a Gundam series where the kid isn’t the pilot. I don’t understand why people find this revelation that a 14-year old kid like Flit is a Gundam pilot so groundbreaking other than the probability that they in fact have VERY little experience with Gundam and probably shouldn’t be sounding off to much about the franchise as a whole as a result.
Flit is 14 years old right? Shouldn’t they make him look like 14? I mean age doesn’t really matter to me but his looks. I find it very hard to not feel weird about Flit’s look. He looks like an 8 year old to me.
Let’s approach your question from a bit of a different angle. What in your mind should a character design for a 14 year old look like? Keeping in mind we’re talking about anime here where a character that looks like a little girl can be anywhere between 12-18 and where character designs can look very different in style from show to show.
Clearly he acts like a 14 year old. Independent streak, feeling of knowing more than adults, aura of vulnerability between a phony gruff exterior that some teenagers like to put on with that faux deep voice. These are all things I’d kind of expect to see in a 14 year old boy, so I don’t see why anyone should care about the way he looks when what matters is how he acts. Just ponder this for a second.
Disappointing but will keep watching it since I’m a gundam fanboy myself. OP and ED were great though.
Sure is overly defensive Gundam fans in here.
Well im in for something new, but you lot who say character design doesnt matter, well actually it did matter.
I’m trying to get hook into this one as i have been following gundam series since forever, uso erwin as young as he is back then, his character design is still… acceptable, while this one.., i dont know, are you trying to be serious? Gundam is a space war drama, im not into cool character or w/e but seriously with how its drawn it kinda take the whole “seriousness” and it went more into “childish pandering” part.
Now for a bit of contradictions, when i first saw msg, i didnt complain about amuro and crew “design”, then i went to 0083, zeta, cca, f91, g, 8th ms team, wing the character design is actually evolving from childish like to somewhat more mature one which i already get used to it now. Then bam i get this digimon look alike character, call me a hater, but color my surprised myself, how do you invalidate it? if given a chance will you take unicorn/zeta/cca character design or this one eh gundam fans? answer it honestly though.
But meh ill try too keep watching this, usually i decide to drop a 2 cour or longer series after watching a good 10 or so episode, but yea we will see, but for now, im quite disappointed.
I was surprised by how much I liked the first episode. Being self-classified as one of the newer generation of Gundam fans (00 being my first then going on to watch Seed, Wing and Unicorn), I was extremely hesitant on watching Age because of the character designs. It feels like it’s targeting children as their core audience, but that’s not really the case.
It’s also pretty interested that the Gundam is overpowered since I’m such a big fan of the protagonists being the underdogs and climbing their way up. 🙂
I can definitely see why you’re hyped about this AGE divine! 😀
zomg, I mean “I’m also pretty interested that the Gundam is not overpowered” >.<
This was a fir episode of a gundam series. There is no other way to describe it. I am really interested in the generations thing. And I wonder where they are going to go with the UE. I also wonder why the UE scanned the Gundam.
Stupidest moment of the episode though:
1)flit is running to school.
2)flit passes the Commander on the way
3)sits in school
4)Shows his prediction about an enemy attack to his school teacher……
Flit is supposed to be a child genius, right?
I LOL at number 4, yup a typical kid wanting attention, misses out the commander to only argue with the teacher and got degraded.
all of you guys complaining are pretty weird, here you are comparing it to other gundam anime. especially UC or the 00 era.well i hate to break it to you but its neither of those and that is a great thing. I enjoyed the UC era in that it showed what happens to a person who pretty much grows up to become a hero in a 1 year war. Gundam Seed is pretty much a remake of this exact same scenario, one person who against all odds becomes a hero in a war(dont mention destiny…i prefer not to think about that particular train wreck). while 00 was about economic collapse and bringing peace through war by giving the earth a single enemy(in the first season it was celestial being, then aliens) and gundam 00 was more comparible to gundam wing than anything else. We dont know anything about gundam Age yet, in fact only the first episode has come out so i dont believe anyone has anything to complain about yet except characters designs. while it may seem kiddy at first we do not know if that will last long. before the eventual flames come let me finish with this. you cannot really decide on any type of show with the first episode always give it(depending on how long the series is supposed to be) at least 3. yes the first is supposed to be the hook but you cant deny that this will be a loooooong series. dont give up divine this show is supposed to be 4 cours…it’ll be awesome
Gundam 00 season 1 : Gundams trying to prevent war like seed
Gundam 00 Season 2 : making everyone hate the gundams then uniting world
Gundam 00 movie: United world fight against the main threat, aliens.
I think its pretty good storyline.
It doesnt look that bad like people predict it to be, but i still have a few complains.
-The character design seems almost fine (except 1 or 2 characters) but the mecha design is pretty bad. Anything except for UE looks laughable. Even the Gundam.
-The technology seem a bit simple for Real Robot Genre, like in Gundam 00, but it’s
understandable for 1st episode. Hopely doesnt handwaved as plot magic like 00. I would loved a well thought up fictional technology and logical science element like in the UC series.
-The army is like most anime army, as usual. Hopely they improved thru this series.
-The ship on the preview seem annoyingly colourful. Hopely that paintjob gets ruined during atmospheric reentry.
-There seem to be a quite a stretch with the kid building the Gundam but i speculated that as a way how Bandai want it to be. To show kids that you can build your own gundam and you should go to your nearest hobby shop to purchase your very own gundam building materials. NOW.
-While I know the series for kids, I still hope for it to be a bit darker. Only a bit darker wouldnt hurt,right?
I think people are overlooking that the military on Ovan is probably inexperienced since they never expected to be attacked. Just take Deputy Commander Grudech’s trembling for example.
As for Diva’s color scheme, I think it’s kind of cool because it’s reminiscent of the White Base. It matches the Gundam color scheme.
“- The character design seems almost fine (except 1 or 2 characters) but the mecha design is pretty bad. Anything except for UE looks laughable. Even the Gundam.”
I really don’t see any problem with the designs. It’s no fancy schmancy design like Wing Gundam Zero (Custom), Strike Freedom, or 00 Raiser, but that doesn’t make it “laughable” to me.
“-The technology seem a bit simple for Real Robot Genre, like in Gundam 00, but it’s
understandable for 1st episode. Hopely doesnt handwaved as plot magic like 00. I would loved a well thought up fictional technology and logical science element like in the UC series.”
Universal Century (and X and Turn A) are “Real” Super Robot where it’s usually as equally focused on character and plot development as MS tech, which itself is also usually fairly simplistic with the only “out there” designs usually being prototypes/limited production units that don’t usually pan out for some reason (cost, practicality, limitations, etc).
Wing, SEED, SEED Destiny, and 00 were all “True” Super Robot that revolve a lot more on flashiness, plotarmor, fancy (even if otherwise impractical) designs, etc.
“-The army is like most anime army, as usual. Hopely they improved thru this series.”
As said, chances are that that one small section was completely ill-prepared, ill-equipped, and/or ill-trained because of the colony being assumed to be off the UE’s radar, so it’s understandable that they weren’t instantly ready to fight back, and even when they started to, they still knew very little about the UE at all, so it wasn’t very effective.
“-The ship on the preview seem annoyingly colourful. Hopely that paintjob gets ruined during atmospheric reentry.”
Also as said, it’s reminiscent of the White Base. And almost all “main” protagonist ships are colorful like that; White Base (Mobile Suit Gundam), Argama (Zeta), Nahel Argama (ZZ/Unicorn), Ra Cailum (Char’s Counterattack), Archangel (SEED/SEED Destiny), Minerva (SEED Destiny), etc.
“-There seem to be a quite a stretch with the kid building the Gundam but i speculated that as a way how Bandai want it to be. To show kids that you can build your own gundam and you should go to your nearest hobby shop to purchase your very own gundam building materials. NOW.”
Considering said kid is a genius, it’s not TOO farfetched, but even then, I highly doubt he did it ALL by himself either. More than likely, there were a number of other engineers, mechanics, and such assisting in the construction while he most likely was responsible for the general design and such (just like Kamille with the Zeta Gundam, who was also 14 mind you, and Amuro with the Nu Gundam).
“-While I know the series for kids, I still hope for it to be a bit darker. Only a bit darker wouldnt hurt,right?”
Chances are that it will get darker mid-way through the series, if not sooner. In some ways, it ALREADY is a little dark. People just don’t realize it because of the “kiddy” character designs and such. It’s nowhere near Zeta or Victory Gundam dark, but it’s definitely not all laughing and fun and games like ZZ started out as either.
Well,thats just a honest opinion as well as my hope for this series as a gundam fan.
-I said the mech design is laughable is because the mecha design is a bit simplistic. They doesnt look very “mecha-ish”, something like actuator, hydrolics, wires and robotic stuffs. The design on UE at the very least looks intimidating, so when i look at the Genoace, I kinda laugh a little. They look like some guy in super sentai costume,too simple and clean design just like in 00. Its not too bad but i laughed….a little.
-About the technology bit that i mention, my HOPES are that the technology in Age gets the backstory like in UC, with explaination of how the mecha works, what kinda of logical energy that drive them. The tech in 00 dissipoints me, while in Wing its way too preachy to show about the tech. In Seed, there are a few clever bits like Phaseshift armor. UC has the best with the tech which being cleverly explained with a lot of backstory and an arms races serves as a believable reason. Age had it quite tough considering the alien-like nature of the enemy and the mysterious gundam savior of the past. That means writer are more likely to not care about logic and simply pulling out bulls*** to continued the plot.
-As for the ship, I know that it’s suppose to reminiscent of the White Base and the Gundam but, the looks is still weird. Mostly because I usually see only the gundam in that color scheme. Seeing the ship almost make me think the ship is some kind of a METOER-like attachment to the gundam. Unless its meant as a bulleye for enemy to go after (at some degree, just like White base and Archangle), i see it as anooyingly colorful.
– As for the army, I know that they are unprepared. So I hope they wull improve through out the war.
I don’t have the time post anything extensive on the immense amount of hate that seems to be surrounding Gundam’s latest incarnation (Sure would love to), but what I will say that is the nigh total lack of objectivity in many people’s evaluations of this show is appalling; with subjective issues such as art style and target demographic mattering more than objective qualities like art quality and plot integrity. Gundam AGE certainly isn’t without it’s problems, but it definitely doesn’t deserve all this shallow rage that it’s been receiving either- people need to wake up and realize that just because something doesn’t fit their subjective preferences/expectations,that doesn’t mean that it can’t still be objectively good.
So does Blood C, I think that anime is pretty good just people expected it to have fast pace and more like blood+.
I’m pretty sure a large chunk of is actually just trolling, but unfortunately when it comes to Gundam a lot of people have their favorite series (usually the first one they saw) and it seems like they feel the need to compare whatever the newest one is against it unfavourably and with extreme prejudice. There’s a certain closed-mindedness and tendency towards inter-warring within the fandom itself (my favorite Gundam is better than your favorite Gundam and because this is my favorite then all others must be shit) and what’s worse a lot of these people seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they and really only they are the ones at fault for what’s happening with the reaction to AGE and are more than likely the sole cause of their inability to enjoy this new entry more than anything. Far moreso than Sunrise and Level 5 for sure, since they made it expressly clear that this one would be skewing younger and that it’s not necessarily aimed at the old school Gundam fans. It frankly makes for an awful shallow, greedy and obnoxious looking fandom indeed, but I’m basically just tuning out most of it at this point cause it’s completely and utterly useless and a waste of my time to read anyway.
Just want to continue to reiterate that not all of us Gundam fans are like that. Some of us do indeed take the time to enjoy the franchise and give it some credit the way any fan should. Not all of us are batshit crazy and unpleasable in the extreme. In spite of the fact that the show was never directly targeted at an old school Gundam fan like me (proud viewer of every animated entry in the franchise and more than a few types of side stories) I’m quite enjoying it, so yeah it’s a completely subjective thing that comes down to the individual and the mentality with which they approach it. If you want to hate it and see no good in it you will, if you are open to the idea of getting any sort of enjoyment out of it and love Gundam I don’t see why one wouldn’t take away at least something positive from the first episode.
^ QFT
I am SO glad to see others like you look at this far beyond, “It’s not like Wing/SEED/SEED Destiny/00!”, “It’s not pretty enough!”, “Gundam isn’t overpowered!”, “Character design looks stoopid!”, and so on.
I’ve also watched each animated work of Gundam up to now, but have found the UC-era (and G, X, and Turn A for AUs) to be more enjoyable. Not ONLY are most of the MS battles cool and fun to watch, yet balanced (as in one MS doesn’t totally, completely, and one-sidedly dominate the other, even when it’s “prototype vs. grunt” sometimes), but the plot and character development is given equal treatment, so we can truly see a character(s) skills and personality change (for better or for worse) in a much more believable way.
On a more personal bias level, though, it’s also because, from Wing to 00, it felt like more emphasis was put on making the main male pilots “prettier” (both pro and antagonist alike) for the female and/or yaoi fans, which got a little irritating…seeing Tieria dress as such a convincing-looking female was the last straw for me on that subject…only other that reached that level was Loran in Turn A Gundam, but at least he was the ONLY one in that series to do so.
UC is actually my favorite as well, but yeah that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it at the exclusion of the AU series nor that I don’t understand that AU is very different from UC in terms of “realism”. AU is for experimentation and trying out new ideas with the Gundam concept and when it comes to AU I don’t really care how powerful or not it wants to make the Gundam or whatever because it’s not bound by the rules of U.C or any other AU. It’s free to experiment.
To date there’s actually only one Gundam entry that I disliked and that was Gundam Seed Destiny because of it’s meandering it’s plot into a corner and cost cutting measures by the director that I found extremely cynical. It was just a bad production that even soured the taste in the mouths of much of the cast, but that’s a whole other story in and of itself.
Also pretty boy characters don’t bother me. I see them as nothing to get bent out of shape over as long as they stay on model and aren’t bland somehow. That’s kind of why I like Gundam AGES design now. All the characters are pretty detailed (no same face Hirai like with CE) and oozing with personality, especially Vargas. These people look like they have a story to tell and those are the kinds of things I pay attention to, not whether they confirm to an undefined standard of what Gundam designs should look like. That said my favorite Gundam character designer is and probably always will be the original in Yaz who also designed for Unicorn most recently
“AGE dropped faster than a colony”.
That was a hilarious comment.
i love the gundam series but what ever happened to actual space ship battles? ya know like cowboy bebop, outlaw star, and martian successor nadesico? i wish more sci fi animes would be like those.
If you want to see some interesting ship battles check out MS Igloo. The problem with ships in the Gundam universes though is that they are so outclassed by mobile suits in terms of speed and mobility that they can rarely hit them. They’re really only useful for covering fire, it’s more common to see Mobile Suits deployed against ships and if they can get up close that ship may as well be considered sunk.
There are still some decent ship-to-ship battles. They’re just not nearly as focused on as Mobile Suits are.
In terms of the Universal Century…
As said, battleships essentially became “obsolete” with the advent of Mobile Suit combat and, consequently, the design of battleships afterwards (at least after 0083) were based on Mobile Suit combat where they’re more about ferrying in Mobile Suits, launching them, then supporting the Mobile Suits from a distance with long-range cannons and missile fire while including more point-defense weaponry (machine guns, smaller beam guns, appropriate missile sizes, etc)in case enemy Mobile Suits manage to break through and attack their ships directly.
At least with the Federation battleships of the One Year War in 0079 and the Delaz Conflict in 0083, with the exception of the Pegasus-class battleships (which were the Federation’s pioneer Mobile Suit carrier battleships), were still based heavily on ship-to-ship combat, thus most of their weapons are not suited for fighting against fast and agile Mobile Suits that manage to get in closer to them, which is why we tend to see enemy Mobile Suits so easily take out Federation ships once they get in close while Zeon ships AND Mobile Suits help keep the Federation battleships from moving into decent positions for any ship-to-ship combat.
Only once the Zeon ship is stripped of (most of) its Mobile Suits (like we see the remnants of the Delaz Fleet in 0083 in the last episode) can the Federation battleships then move in and engage them where they have the advantage. (Earlier Zeon Mobile Suit-based battleships like the Musai lacked point-defense weaponry because of the Federation not having their own Mobile Suits at the time. Only generally heavier ships like the Chivvay, Zanzibar, and Gwazine-class had substantial weaponry otherwise for defense.) Afterwards, with the creation of the Titans and the total realization of the change in warfare (a lot of the Federation probably assumed that, with the end of the One Year War, Mobile Suits and Mobile Suit combat would end up fading into obscurity, hence why their rebuilding of their forces after the One Year War was still so heavily focused on battleships and not so much on improving their Mobile Suit forces outside of the Gundam Development Project), the Federation finally began focusing its constructions based on Mobile Suit combat.
Though, they didn’t completely axe out ship-to-ship combat either as early ships like the Salamis Kai-class are still around for as long as UC 0153 in Victory Gundam, putting the design in its late 70s to early 80s by then, making it the oldest surviving ship class in the Earth Sphere still in active use (by any side) followed by the Clop-class and Ra Cailum-class of Char’s Counterattack and Gundam F91 in their 60s by the time of Victory Gundam.
Somebody knows their Gundam history 😉
WTF is unicorn???? and can i have my diaper changed with this kiddie snack???? hmmmm?
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn…go look it up and watch it/read it and you’ll see it’s FAR from a “kiddy snack”.
wow i never thought this would come out of my mouth, but a Gundam actually felt lame -.-
The issue I have with this entry into the Gundam franchise so far isn’t primarily the character designs although they are kinda distracting for some characters (I just cant shake the Professor Layton vibe)but its the UE. To me Gundam series are always defined by their characters and more often then not in the great Gundam series the main characters ALWAYS have worthy rivals or somebody who’s ideals must be met, challenged, and eventually overcome.
Amuro wouldn’t have been nearly as great without Char, and the entire Universal Century wouldn’t be as great without Char either, hell the entire franchise would suffer if Char never existed. Over the course of dozens of hours of Television and movies’s Char goes from a villain, to Anti-Hero, to Hero, to ultimate Villain all the while evolving as a character and challenging the views and ideals of everyone around him including the main characters of their respective series. In many ways the Universal Century was defined by its Villains (and Char personally did anyone else think ZZ was missing something? It was Char).
Now before people think this is a love letter to Char Aznable I have other points. Lets move to possibly the darkest Gundam ever I say possibly because Zeta is up there as well, Victory Gundam. Continuing with my theme of villains this brings me to (if I may borrow a line from Sarah Kerrigan)the Queen Bitch of the Universe Katejina Loos. To me she is the perfect example of how a monster should be treated in a Gundam. A person with a face (a pretty one at that) who is so twisted, dark, and unrepentant that even Kill Em all Tomino thought Death was too good for her. What does this have to do with Gundam AGE you ask? Well so far (it may change) the Gundam is going up against monsters, but they’re of the faceless, nameless, soulless variety. Sure they are big and bad (the mook military proved that) but there is nothing to attach feelings to one way or the other to with them. However with Katejina you always felt something towards her be it pity, hate, disgust emotions were always present and those emotions helps you get involved and invested within a television show which makes it better then if you otherwise didnt care.
In the end my biggest problem is by creating a nameless faceless enemy (so far) we’re being robbed of what makes the great Gundams great the emotional connection and understanding that comes from being able to see and relate to the enemies personally, I loved Treize Khushrenada from Wing just because I could understand so clearly where he was coming from and that made the entire series better because their was a reason behind the violence other then “oh they’re the bad guys who killed my mom”. However I realize this is only an opinion and it will almost certainly evolve over time and I hope it does but right now I’m not totally hopeful one way.
On a side note I find myself quite alone, I’m a post UC Century Gundam fan (started with Wing) who has actually gone back and watched everything (the series, movies, OVA’s everything)and liked it all. However while alot of the opposition to this series seems to come from those brought into the metaseries by SEED especially I find that so strange. SEED was in many ways what started us down this path. In many ways SEED was a recreation of the UC with all those annoying things like nuance and questionable morality taken out. Art direction is just that art and Gundam’s art changes with every entry and one can look past it for the most part, but what truly makes something childish is as I said before is tone and story. Right now I just hope the story and characterization doesn’t suffer in a quest for youth audience but right now like I said I’m not hopeful.
PS: This was very Gundam snobby of me so I think I should also add something I’m still going to watch this and probably enjoy it for what its worth. Also if it gets too unbearable one always has Unicorn for a nice quick fix.
Very well put, sir. If only there were someone level-headed like you on forums like animesuki!
I can only guess that a lot of the Gundam AGE haters (not all) are ones who didn’t start watching “Gundam” titles until Wing hit the US on Toonami, thus are only used to the “true” super-robot style Gundam titles (Wing, SEED, SEED Destiny, and 00) and how they went about things, and rarely, if ever, even bothered seeing the other AUs (G, X, and Turn A), much less the more “real” super-robot style of the Universal Century (the old “bad animation” excuse is one I commonly see).
I for one am VERY glad to see the huge change compared to Wing, SEED, SEED Destiny, and 00. It really gives me the nostalgic feeling of watching a far more “balanced” Gundam series like most UCs and named AUs were.
As said, the Gundam AGE doesn’t give off the impression of an “overpowered” MS right off the bat. Just something better than what was normally fielded, but still pretty simplistic otherwise (no numerous modular components, no “superpowered” standard weaponry ala buster rifle, etc), but it wasn’t like it and Flit just instantly and easily owned all the UEs there. It felt like when Amuro took down the Zaku IIs at Side 7 at the start of Mobile Suit Gundam with nothing more than the RX-78-2’s vulcans and beam sabers. Even still, Flit really more or less just disabled it. The UE was completely taken out by one of its own instead, which is something we never really saw before in antagonist units, so it only makes them more mysterious as to their workings and structure.
So I’ll definitely be looking forward to how the series develops. Hopefully the focus will be equally highlighted upon the character and plot development like it used to be about, and not so completely on flashy MS battles, plotarmor, etc, etc.
I think the best way to deal with this animosity would be for everyone to go and watch an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, then we could love and tolerate the crap out of each other
you cant be serious..? going from gundam unicorn to this? hell…even gundam 00??? really……..
Let’s be fair, 00 had it’s right share of cheese with character designs like Mileena, characters like (H)Allelujah being given less screentime, the fail-Char-clone that Mr. Bushido tried to be, the boyz band clothes that celestial being wore. I love 00, but I wouldn’t be so quick to shoot down AGE because it’s a gundam that doesn’t sport a character design ‘you’ would enjoy.
I haven’t seen anything thing in this first episode that didn’t make sense. From the teacher shutting down Flit to avoid hysteria in the class and generally distracting his fellow students, to the military commander knowing full well that their last hope lies in the Gundam, cheering on their last resort because god/chutlu knows what will happen to them if Flit failed at that point.
Flit being a genius? What’s wrong with that? How old was the scientist who designed the YF-19 in Macross Plus? Yep. Geniuses of that caliber exist in real life as well graduating with degrees and MDs, while some are discovering pr0n on the netz. But I still think this part is a bit silly: There is one moment where I face palmed hard with Flit and his super-formula to deduct where the UE will strike next, because it simply doesn’t make any sense for an enemy to strike with a set pattern as if some overlord was looking at the system map and was like, “hey guys, so we attack colonies lying in this pattern, 1 square down, 2 square right, if you find a colony in that sector, attack it! for the horde!!!1111oneoneone”.
Like Victory Gundam’s first episode, you just don’t get enough information to find out what’s happening. And I think it’s too early to pass judgement on this show until it’s over.
I should also note that Unicorn and any other Gundam OVAs have always been in a different category whether in terms of budget, storytelling, animation and overall quality. I don’t expect AGE to hold up to Unicorn, or Zeta Gundam with 0083 Stardust Memories or 0079 with 0093 Char’s Counterattack.
Like others have mentioned, Flit being able to predict the enemies attack pattern is an obvious audience mind conditioning trick – they are trying to paint the enemy as some sort of alien robotic hive mind AI or something, but I think most people have already guessed that UE is certainly going to turn out to be actually human. There’s nothing wrong with that scene at all.
I can’t be the only one glad about the character design can I?
For the past few TV series one complain that you hear a lot was that the character designs went for the “pretty boys” and reeks of catering to a fujoshi/yaoi fanbase that came about due to Wing. Both SEED and 00 did the same thing. It also prompt for too many scenes for these pretty boys in those series to act “cool” almost like a boy band idol from SMAP or Arashi or something. To me, THOSE are distracting, I hate the glorification/idolization of these pilots in those series. Some of my favourite Gundam series almost never has these types of “pretty boy” designs, eg Turn A and Victory. So I actually have high hopes for AGE.
Hell no would be my answer, I am digging the retro art style since it’s not something you see a lot these days, and it beats the “pretty thing”-syndrome anime some shows suffer from.
Do you know why this series is going to be a success? Simple… because it’s a Gundam.
This is a nice change from the last two universes, feels more like Eureka 7 then Gundam.
The Gundam AGE model has a spoiler, lol
Gundam Age is an uber failure. How does a 7 year old has the ability to build a mobile suit??? Amuro was atleast 16 when he pilots gundam, but a 14 year old is really pushing it. And why does he look like MEGAMAN with or without the helmet.
Hates Turn A Gundam>Wing>AGE>G-Savior
Gundam Age was meant to be a game, it should stay as a game. The story is corny and a ripoff of the recent Gundam 00. The difference is the alien is playing the role of Celestial Being. I bet those aliens is a small army like CB that owns high-tech weapon. Their goal is obviously opposing to char’s ideal, they are forcing people back to Earth. Gundam is possibly UE’s earliest Weapon, just like O Gundam was.
Sunrise should focus on speeding up UC and releasing the new Gundam series that Tomino is working on.
Hates Turn A Gundam
Ok, I think we can just leave this one alone. That speaks for itself.