HF Makalov Fanboy Kai's Opinions and Overviews (review series)

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

since I've returned i decided to use this section for my aforementioned Opinions and Overview's.

Q; what is the purpose of this?

A: two main reasons, one is to go over the details of a game or an anime and to give my recommendations, two is that i want to expand my tastes and this'll give me motivation to get on those series i never found the time previously to check out.

Q: cool, how will you be deciding in what to talk about?

A: that's where you come in, ya see i have a difficult time making up my mind, this also follows my above answer of motivation, as i'll feel more motivated to write these if someone else asks me too, compared to my own motivations where i suffer from being lazy if i'm not given an objective, so this'll also be a way to improve myself and spend more of my time actually doing something.

Q; are you accepting demands right now?

A: yes i am, i'll even go over stuff I've already done if you happen to ask me something I've already watched.

Q: what do you do differently?

A: i have 4 main category's Story, Gameplay(for videogames)/ Originality(for anime, this will be based on how original it is at its time, not currently), Music, and Characters. Some people consider characters to be part of another feature like Story, but not me, you can have amazing characters with a not so good story and an excellent story with a cast of mostly unlikable characters.

i'll use spoiler tags to post them here.

wait a second i'm stupid, can someone tell me how to make spoilers tags? its been at least a year since i used this site

also feed back is nice, tell me how i can improve this, maybe adding in more subjects or reworking them.

chapter 1, Mobile Suit Gundam

My Overview’s and Opinion’s

Chapter 1: Mobile Suit Gundam A.K.A 0079

Welcome to the first chapter of my new project, let me start off and say that I am a very old school based person, despite not living in those times, I enjoy those product’s a lot more than the newer stuff (atleast until I get some recommendations, cause who knows how my view on this will change?), my interests generally lie with the aforementioned old-school stuff, mecha shows, and nearly any form of videogame but my preferences are strategy, fighting, and hack and slash ,with that said lets go over the category’s I will rate. The four categories are Story, Gameplay/Originality (the first part isn’t used for anime reviews like this one of course) ,Music , and Characters.

Why do I have a separate slot for characters when most people put those along with story? Because you can have good stories with shitty characters or a shitty story with great characters, these things are separate to each other, and a truly great product combines everything I’ve listed for an amazing experience, with that out of the way let’s get started.

Story

The year is Universal Century 0079, a War between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon have broken out, within 6 months of fighting the population of both sides has been reduced by around 70% due to this horrific war and tactics employed by Zeon, we begin around the 7^th month of this war with a desperate group of teenagers trying to flee from their space colony home that’s been attacked by the Zeon forces for holding a secret federation weapon, The RX-78-02 Gundam made by Tem Ray, who is the father of the main character, Amuro Ray.

Amuro manages to find the Gundam and fights back the Invaders, but not before accidently causing the further destruction of the colony which launches his father out into the vacuum of space. Along with this and some survivors of the attack, military men and civilians alike, must work together to win this brutal war, and hopefully make it out alive.

Originality

I will rate this based on how Original the product was AT ITS TIME, not how original it is by today’s standards, as even the most groundbreaking genre creating products can get shat on for not being with today’s times.

Back in 1979, nothing like this has been done before, this blend of sci fi robot action, war drama, and character development for even side characters. While it’s true the show didn’t do good on its first run, on reruns it picked up a huge enough following for spawning one of the biggest names in mecha anime ever. In fact it did so well that others tried to follow suit with stuff like Armored Trooper Votoms, Macross, and most other shows revolving around these kinds of robots (smaller, more focused on military combat then fighting giant monsters with your chest beams and giant swords)

Music

The music is rather good for the most part, with the depressing music matching the depressing scenes, action music matching the action scenes, and so on. It’s this form of old jazz music but also has another element in it, as much as I love the opening theme, its rather unfitting to the tone of the series, either way, lets Fly, Gundam!

Overall the unique themes are very awesome to listen to, but others are just alright and fitting, its music is good but not the strong suit.

Characters

Now I shall talk about several noticeable characters in the show, the show has a lot of characters so I cannot list them all.

Amuro: He’s this story’s main character, we first see him as a shut in technology nerd in his underwear who’s not even aware that Zeon’s attacking because he’s so caught up the machines he was tinkering with machines is an quite unusual way of introducing us to the boy who becomes the hero, but also interesting as he’s not what you’d call “a born hero” like you see in more newer stuff, while he does start off as childish, anti-social, and somewhat difficult to work with others. Throughout the war and military life he develops to greatly mature into a well-respected young man with strong, idealistic morals.

Char: He’s the mysterious masked rival of Amuro who fights for Zeon, but he has his own motivations behind that mask of his, he also serves as a foil to Amuro, with Char being negative minded, calm, and cool. While he didn’t start the masked mystery man character type, he was the one that inspired a lot of other similar characters, more so in later Gundam series’. While he disappears for one third of the series, his design, personality, and custom mechs along with skills, made him one of the most popular anime characters in japan, to put it in retrospect, He’s what Darth Vader is to the western audiences .

Bright: After his captain dies in the attack on the colony Side 7, he’s promoted to ship captain as he’s the highest ranking member alive on the crew, and is in charge of everyone in it. Being a young military officer with zero experience on leadership except from watching his captain, he has to struggle with all of the difficult choices on stuff like living conditions, military discipline, and combat orders, making things all more difficult when having to deal with civilians onboard with less training then himself and our start of the series Amuro. From surviving the ordeals of the war he eventually becomes a father to his men and a popular captain.

Kai: Oh God where do I begin with Kai? Well for starters he’s a civilian from Side 7, Kai is an abrasive young man with a mean streak, and little respect for authority, He’s also a cynic, snarker but it doesn’t get in the way of his new soldier duty’s, hell his skills generally do good in combat . Of course he wouldn’t be anything unique without some character development, which the series gives him a lot with the Jaburo arc, or as I like to call it, the Kai arc, where he finally gets to jump ship, which is what he wanted to do from the start, then discovers that not only does he realize how selfish this is, he also realizes that the group needs him as much as he still desires to be with this group who he use to mock around with, there’s more detail then that but I can’t spoil anything too big despite being a super old series. He was a character who wasn’t seen on the hero’s side in anime before, let alone a side character who changed beyond his first appearance, one of my all-time favorite characters.

Sayla: this civilian woman quickly becomes a competent officer, though it takes her awhile to get good at the fighting part, then again it’s like that for everyone. If I had to list a main female lead it would be her, my favorite girl in this series, every female does their part to help out which is nice and surprisingly progressive for a show in the late 70’s, which surprises me when a few of the newer series actually end up with less than useful females.

Ramba Ral: Since he’s always called by his whole name in series I’ll just put that down. Anyways while this guy’s on the Zeon side, he’s still shown to be a cool man and rather honorable, while there’s Garma who also shows up earlier to show that not all soldiers of Zeon are bad humans, Ramba Ral lasts longer in the show’s running and cements that further that not all people on the side your fighting is bad, being a skilled fighter who hands Amuro a defeat other than Char helps too.

Conclusion

Mobile Suit Gundam still holds strong today in its setting, storytelling, and characters, while the art is pretty outdated with a few moments of freeze frame bad quality if you can overlook the art style then you should be able to enjoy this show if you were interested in the origin of several mecha shows , or if you just want a good robot show.

With that said, if 43 episodes is abit much for you, then look at the movie trilogy and if you like that, THEN check out the original series, as the movies do a good job, they don't go over everything and miss out on some iconic scene's

Edited April 19, 2014 by HF Makalov Fanboy Kai

[Kon]

[spoiler]Here you go, Kai~[/spoiler]

Here you go, Kai~

And if you want to add something in the spoiler thing, just do this

[spoiler=Example]This is fun :D[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Example]This is fun :D

I'm looking forward to seeing your reviews~

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

it took me a good while longer then it should've to get the spoiler tag thing down, thanks though that really did help once i stopped being an idiot.

anyways, now the first episode is OFFICIALLY up, i'm open for requests, on my own time i might do a fire emblem since i haven't done a game yet, so it might be good to familiarize myself with writing this in game form.