The beginnings of an interview with Yoshiyuki Tomino. Click here to view the full interview. You have to install some media player though, which sucks. I didn't bother watching the full thing, it's in Japanese, a language I don't speak and probably never will. That's why subtitles were invented, a thing that this clip is lacking. Cool though... If a subbed version comes around, which I doubt, I'll post it. Check out the Zaku2 stood next to the presenter - that's what I call awesome.
You remember Duke Nukem on DOS? Then Duke Nukem 3D by 3D Realms? Remember the announcement of Duke Nukem: Forever THIRTEEN YEARS AGO?!?!?!?!?! Well 3D Realms recently went bust, but this gameplay footage has been leaked. Take2 games currently hold the license to the franchise, so hopefully they'll carry on it's development. It acctually looks pretty good.
Sup, Just finnished watching Aura Battler Dunbine. An anime from 1983 by Yoshiyuki Tomino. It's been 49 episodes of hard, yet rewarding slog. Here are my thoughts.
There are two worlds, ours, the 'Upper Earth' and Byston Well. Both are joined by the 'Aura Road'. Creatures known as 'Silkies' are made to open the 'Aura Gate' by the evil Drake Luft, the ruler of some country who is bent on total domination. Once the Aura Road is opened, humans from Earth are taken against their will to Byston Well. Drake trains them to become the pilots of giant insect like mechs called Aura Battlers, which are powered by humans 'aura' or life power. Aura Battlers are made by Shot Weapon, a mechanic also from Upper Earth. Show Zama, the series protagonist, is taken from his home in Japan and becomes and Aura fighter for Drake. After meeting with the young rebel 'Marvel Frozen', an American who was also taken to become an aura fighter, he is convinced that Drake is up to no good and subsequently he changes sides. Taking with him his Aura Battler, the Dunbine, he joins the band of rebels to fight against Drake, and find himself a way home.
The series starts slow and is slightly confusing. In the first episode, Show Zama, Todd Guinness and some other guy are essentially kidnapped and not one of them seem to be that bothered. Admittedly they get kidnapped and given a mech, but if that was me, i'd be raging. There's not a chance that i'd join some dude's army if i'd just been kidnapped.
After Show Zama joins the rebels, around episode 5 or 6, the show starts to pick up speed. The battles get more intense and the story becomes real easy to follow. The rebels made me laugh. There leader is Neil Given, an Irish guy with ridiculous pink hair and a ridiculously stereotypical Irish accent. I mean this guy tries to be the hard man, he really does try, but nah, with hair like that your just gonna make yourself look like a fool. A thing he does on many occasions. He looks stupid, he sounds stupid.
And speaking of sounding stupid, in the later half of the series, the battle for Byston Well begins to gets pretty epic and goes to Upper Earth. The battle involves all the major countries of the Earth joining forces with the good guys. Around episode 35 - 40, Princess El goes and requests aid from the Queen of England. I've never heard a more stupid sounding stereotypical English accent. I half expected her to jump onto a penny-farthing shouting 'EH WHAT? JOLLY GOOD SHOW OLD BOY! PIP PIP I SAY!', amusing though.
Dunbine reminds me of Gundam, which isn't surprising as it was made by the same guy. It was released two years before Zeta Gundam and at the time was tipped as being 'the new Gundam'. It wasn't, but the similarities are all there.
Aura Battlers - Mobile Suits
Aura Power - Newtype telekinesis
Zelana warship - The Argama (Zeta Gundam)
Burn Bunnings - Chronicle Asher (V-Gundam)
Does it matter if I give spoilers? Meh, its 26 years old, I doubt it matters. The series ends in good old Tomino fashion, a huge battle with both side throwing everything at each other.
The last two episodes are genius and make up for all the bad episodes. There is almost more main character deaths than Victory Gundam. I really didn't expect this many deaths. More unexpected than when Misato dies in End of Evangelion. Absolutely EVERYONE dies. All the goodies, all the baddies, all of them dead. It's really bad, Emily gets shot in the face, Marvel dies without Show telling her he loves her, Neil kills Drake then gets his battler shot in the back and Show gets stabbed jumping from his battler into Burn Bunnings cockpit.
This series is occasionally slow and in places the dubbing is terrible, but believe me, episode 48 and 49 are more than enough compensation. The animation looks extremely dated but hey, what do expect from a series that's almost 30 years old. The story is massive. A war that gets so huge its envelopes two entire worlds. Epic stuff.
Aura Battler Dunbine may look old but it is totally rewarding in the end. If you like Gundam, or any kind of mech show, then I highly recomend checking it out.
"It is the year 0079 of the Universal Century, a half century has passed since the Earth began moving it burgeoning population into gigantic orbiting space colonies. A new home for mankind, where people are born and raised, and die. Nine months ago, the cluster of colonies furthest from the Earth called Side Three, proclaimed itself the Principality of Zeon and launched a war of Independence against the Earth Federation. Initial fighting lasted over one month and saw both side loose half there respective populations. People were horrified by the indescribable atrocities committed in the name of independence. Eight months had passed since the rebellion had begun, they were at a stale mate."
And so begins the first ever episode of Mobile Suit Gundam.
So it's 1979 and kids are sat in front of their TV screens waiting to watch the latest mecha anime series. 1978 had been a home to series such as Battle of the Planets (Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman), Space Pirate Captain Harlock, and Daitarn 3, another mecha anime directed by Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino. Now it was 1979, and the age of the Gundam had arived.
The TV screen flickers to life, and we see a picture of the Earth being surrounded by a beam of light. We hear dark and brooding music begin and then... and then the most horrendous opening theme I have ever heard opens the show. If I hadn't seen other Gundam series before I watched 0079, I wouldn't of stuck with it. Ok, granted that it's the seventies, but it's no excuse for this. And it's one of those songs that plays games with you, you think it's finished but oh no, let's carry on with verse two. Ok, yeah, I do think it's a cool opening, but only because it's stupidly retro and it's Gundam. I mean the pictures are fine, we're seeing different mechas, people jumping into core fighters, and waves of Zaku forces preparing to fight, but that song is just dreadful. It's the stuff that nightmares are made of.
Ok, so the show opens with Zeon forces sneaking into the Side 7 colony and discovering an Earth Federation base. Along with the the base they also uncover the 'V-Project', the Earth Federation's top secret Mobile Suit (MS) project. The Zeon attack and 15 year colonist Amuro Ray takes it upon himself to jump into a MS and defend the colony. The MS he decides to take is the brand new weapon, Gundam. He defends the colony with the help of the Gundam's 'instruction manual' (a definite WTF! moment) - and due to his inexperience, he blows a hole in the side of the colony. He joins forces with the new Federation Battleship 'Whitebase' (which looks like a flying 2 car garage), and there you have it, Amuro Ray, a civilian with no MS piloting skills has become the soul pilot of the Federation's most powerful weapon. The series basically follows the crew of the Whitebase and Amuro as they continue the struggle against the Zeon forces. Along the way Amuro must learn how to use both his Gundam and his 'Newtype' abilities. I'll get to what a Newtype is later.
Now as with nearly everything ever, and mecha anime is no exception, for every hero there is always 'the evil nemesis'. It's that old 'good verses evil' chestnut. The evil antagonistic force in 0079 is the tyrannical Zabi family headed by the super fat Degwin Zabi, a man who wants nothing more than independence for those who live in space, and so he declares war with his 'Nazi-like' Principality of Zeon.
The Zeon to Nazi hints are subtle, but they're there. The Zeon uniform is the most obvious. In one of Degwin's final scenes he refers to his eldest son, Ghiren, as a self styled Adolf Hitler. There are five main Zabi's: Degwin, Ghiren, Kacillia, Dozle and Garma. We also get a small glimpse of Minerva Zabi as a newly born baby. Minerva plays a large part in MS:Zeta Gundam and MS:ZZ Gundam. The Zabi's are memorable, and I think they play there part as the 'big in your face' antagonists well. However compared to the series main antogonist, Char Aznable, the Zabi's are nothing.
Char Aznable is the most well known villain in the entire of the Gundam universe, and is most definitely my favorite character throughout the entire series. Char, unlike many of the characters in MS:G actually has a reason to fight. His real name is Casval Rem Deikun. Char Aznable is the alias he uses while in Zeon. His main goal is to over throw the Zabi's and get revenge for his father, the founder of the Zeon Empire, Zeon Zum Deikun, who was murdered by the Zabi's. He is also known among both the Zeon and Federation Forces as 'The Red Comet', on account of him being an ace pilot, and his MS are always painted red. This also reminds me of the whole Nazi thing, as in WW1 the Germans had an ace pilot nicknamed 'The Red Barron'. Both Char and Amuro are 'Newtypes'. The next evolutionary step for humans. Basically a newtype can sense other Newtypes on the battlefield, and they have exceptional piloting and mechanic skills. As I said in my brief Gundam history, a Newtypes 'powers' work in a similar way to the force. Also, Char takes a young apprentice named Lalah Sune under his wing. She is also a Newtype. While fighting in the Mobile Armor Elmeth against Amuro, she is killed. Both Amuro and Char become haunted by her spirit.
Ok, I feel like i'm starting to ramble. If you've seen the series you know just how massive is its, and how impossible it is to put it all in one blog, but i've managed to cover some of the main points and characters in this review. I can't even begin to try and summarise 43 episodes in one blog, it's impossible. To summerise; Gundam: 0079 is an old school anmie. The story isn't perfect and the animation can look really dated at times. But with memorable characters, retro mecha and definite re-watchability, it's pretty awesome. If your new to Gundam then its a great starting place, if you can get over the 70's style animation, and the opening credits that is.
Score out of ten? 9/10 - It's the original Gundam series, nuff said. Not my favorite series, but in my top three Gundam shows.
Right, thats it for my first Gundam summary/review/overview. If you've bothered to read this far then cheers, thanks for reading. I don't know what the next review will be, but since I just got Dynasty warriors: Gundam 2, it might be that.
Space colonies, masked antagonists, evolved humans and giant mechs. This is where it begins. My review of Gundam. Come on, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Back in 2001 I was intorduced to the Gundam universe when New Mobile Report: Gundam Wing was aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami. I watched all 49 episodes with friends and i've been hooked ever since. I went mental for Gundam Wing. I bought model kits, collected trading cards, graphic novels and even wrote my own fanfics... which were shockingly bad. And no, they'll never be read ever again.
Now, eight years and god knows how many viewings later, I think I can safely call myself a verteran Gundam fan. And for the record, G-Wing is one of my least favorite series.
Now with me being a massive Gundam fan, and with the 30th aniversary being this year, i've decided to do a breif recap / review / sumary of some of the Gundam series to date. I might get round to doing them all if I can be bothered, but there are rather alot. I might just do my favorite ones, who knows, depends what I feel like :P This post will just be a brief history and introduction to the series.
There are so many different series in the Gundam universe that they are not all set in the same timeline. The original, and most popular is the Universal Century (UC) timeline. The UC timeline is the home to 14 different series, including the 2009 movie Gundam Unicorn. The other timelines are:
Future Century - G Gundam
After War - Gundam X
After Colony - Gundam Wing, Endless Waltz
Cosmic Era - Gundam SeeD, SeeD Destiny, SeeD Stargazer
Correct Century - Turn A Gundam
Anno Domini - Gundam 00
Gundam was created way back in 1979 by Yoshiyuki Tomino. Before Gundam he was already well known as a director on numerous other anime's including Astro Boy. Tomino went on to write a further 4 full length Gundam series and 7 movies. A full list of his work can be found here.
Gundam has always been a story centering around politics and the effect that war has on the world. Generally every series involves a group of youths who get drawn into a war against their will, and one character will always ends up being the 'accidental' Gundam pilot. This is known among fans as 'The Gundam cliche'.
The concept of 'the evolution of humanity' or 'humanities next evolutionary steps' is a strong theme that plays out in every every series. Whether they are called Newtypes, Co-ordinators, or Innovators, these 'evolved' humans have abilities beyond those of a regular human. As well as telekenesis, hightened spacial awareness and response times, these abilities work in a similar way to 'the force' is Star Wars.
As well as this, there are always space colonies, a virtually indestructable battleship, a huge space laser, stupidly powerfull mid-season mobile suit upgrades, and a masked villan.
Right, I know thats a pretty breif introduction to Gundam, but in a round about way it's all you really need to know. The first series review i'm going to do will be the original Mobile Suit Gundam: UC 0079. The series that started it all. Should be fun.
