Argonbolt. Thank you for being the best mecha channel on youtube.

Good vid but you're clearly omitting the blatant religious themes

❤Mutio is best fish girl❤

44:43 Song?

I actually considered giving him a link to rub this in his face, I quickly deleted it because I thought he was going to do something obscenely petty. I used to watch him, now I feel betrayed.

well done

This OVA is deeply flawed, but I still love it, probably mostly due to nostalgia from watching it on Toonami way back when. But I think a lot of my appreciation for it also comes primarily from recognizing the kind of potential that it has to be something truly great. Blue Sub 6 has always felt like a movie that was hurriedly adapted from a classic novel or short story, while missing out on a lot of potential character development and world-building due to how short it was. I wish this franchise could get a reboot of some kind.

I'd be interested to hear what you have to say on Victory Gundam. ZZ has some incredibly rocky bits, and I can't say I enjoyed all of it, but I enjoyed almost nothing Victory had to offer

1:25:25 the only thing that could have made that little animation sequence better was if the boat dipped into the water a bit (or a lot) when he springed off it. 9.5/10

13:57 That's the power of math, people! Yum yum!

You sir are a God sent. I'm artistically challenged. And I'm writing a story about mechas and armoured suits. I was stuck for a while trying to create a brain image of my idea, but i just keep on spacing because my brain couldn't process my feelings into words to imagine it. But now I'm unstuck thanks to you

Types like belon stank are absolute morons, but know what. Let it fly to mars and let it stay there, better off without that thing

Correct me if i am wrong, but the ruskies have never been european. Or at least aren’t part of it. Cuz they sure as heck don’t act as if they are part of it, since they seem so heavily against the eu Let’s get one thong straight, ronald is NOT a political strong man, just a cowardly cheater

Fantastic series of videos

Fuck, now I need to watch all of victory Gundam

I love how all the big video essays of yours I've seen go back to "the end of history".

I think you missed one of the most incredible cross-pollinations in this series, which is Kawamori working on the Japanese BattleTech art, released in '96, and then fairly soon after that doing the mechanical design for AC1, releasing in 1997. I think if you look at the specific mechanical designs for both series, the parallels end up blindingly obvious, and the implications for drawing new family trees is quite intriguing.

Watching this again, the part at 4:50 aged so well, as terrible as it sounds. The invasion of Ukraine had only gone for *only* three years (as of writing this comment) compared to the three decades of war against JAM in Yukikaze's first novel, but people had already taken Ukraine out of their minds and have grown indifferent to their struggles. It also certainly doesn't help that Ukraine is also on the far side of the globe.

Wow bro, this is pure gold. I think of Gundam deeply pretty much everyday. It finally makes sense when you trace it back so far and analyze it. Thx

The only thing you didn't mention was the "but Judau is the best UC pilot because he beats up Wong" argument I hear all the time. Judau is a one dimensional protagonist, boring.

2:00:30 strange point considering the soviets defeated the nazis so idk how one can look at Zeon and think Lenin and not Hitler 10/10 video tho hope you do more UC content

Any plans to cover F91, Victory, Turn A, G Reco? UC OVAs? Hell even Gundam X would be an interesting one to analyze.

You sound pretty down on victory but man it works for me. Still excited for your video.

This show may have been a terrible mess, but that second opening sequence was a total banger.

that's the mental spectrum I'm here for, good job. It's so enjoyable

The anime is so different to the two novels, they are way more focussing on the emotional part and the question of humanity

My interpretation of Requiem for Vengeance is that it's in-universe fiction meant for a Neo Zeonic audience. It's the kind of revisionist view of the OYW that guys like Mashymere would've been raised on, down to the call to action in the end to support the Zeonic remnants in Africa with "join the Rhodesian volunteers" overtones. On a surface level it's straightforwardly mediocre, but its framing in the terms of American cryshoot war movies elevates its hokey script into subtle satire. It's exactly how westerners view our participation in our own wars, where we blame our victims for resorting to extreme measures like child soldiery when - in the full unacknowledged context - we already killed their parents.

How about also covering biological mechas, such as the once from lancer?

Totally nailed it. Another banger.

Yo that intro was very morbid, but I dug it.

Hearing the district 9 soundtrack hit like a truck

As someone with a background in politics and history, I really liked ZZ despite its structural and writing problems as a show because of how it substantively expands on the universe of the Universal century. The first part of the series is extremely dark in very subtle ways that are papered over by the lighthearted tone, which is in effect a continuation of what helped Judau & his friends survive poverty in the first place. The first part and Moon Moon are illustrative of how space capitalism sucks ass. The very first colonies established by mankind, which should still be heirlooms and cultural heritage sites, have been either abandoned to primitivist settlers or turned into a landfill for the excess garbage of space. The kids' parents are all absentee as they're migrant space laborers, meaning they've been living on their own without adult supervision in the most extreme state of poverty in space. In a lot of ways, they had to be adults to each other and Captain Noah is the most mature authority figure they've had to deal with in a while. This is emblematic of the sheer corruption of a liberal bureaucracy like the Federation which only covets space in terms of the value it can provide to the Earth, which is why they've left so much of it to be abandoned when it became unprofitable. The social structure of Shangri-La is also interesting, with the trash pickers' union being a kind of fascist petite bourgeois formation that extracts value from those lower on the picking order like Judau & Friends. Yazan's turn is also important because it completely undermines his impression in the original series. Yazan was a pure savage, a fascist predatory animal willing to do anything to anyone at the whims of his urges. But you strip away all of that power from him and he's no longer a predator, he's a scavenger. A pathetic creature grasping at any opportunity to advance himself, which is why he so easily falls in with the trash heap ruling class of Shangri-La. Marshymere & Chara Sune also give extra context to the nature of Neo Zeonic society. They are both intensely weird and pathological, because they were raised in the context of a totalizing revanchist culture that instilled them with revisionist narratives about the OYW. Axis is a world to itself much more than Side 3, kind of like a gigantic home school, and their sense of aristocratic culture and privilege is much more heightened than a diverse nation-state like Zeon. Even Mashymere's underlings are willing to throw their lives away with kamikaze-like zeal over the most trivial affronts to their dignity. Even the colonial governor serves an important role, because he again expands on the condition of terror and corruption in space. Neo Zeon could subvert the Federation by literally buying out the administrators of the Sides with gold mined from the asteroid belt. The governor's motivation also has a dark twist, where the ruling class in space wants to move to Earth to escape colony collapse in war, while people on Earth want to move to space to avoid another colony drop. The experiences of the OYW and the Gryps War have created an absolute environment of terror in the entire Earth Sphere which Neo Zeon is able to take advantage of. And everything I've typed up enhances the context of every other UC series by reframing the UC in socioeconomically pessimistic terms. The tone is covering up for a reality of systemic decay & decline. I'll stop the essay here because it's long enough already. I just don't think ZZ gets a fair assessment because a lot of people tend to overlook its class and political elements. Which are intensely interesting even during the low points of the show. P.S. You've probably heard this already but the Africa arc is representative of real life anti-colonial and post-colonial movements which were ongoing in the 70s and 80s, drawing much of their inspiration from the Algerian War of Independence, Angolan War of Independence, and the various anti-Portuguese colonial wars which took down the fascist Salazar regime. The South African Border War in Namibia was still ongoing at the time of this series's production, and South Africa wouldn't be fully defeated until 1990.

I loved Gundam growing up and I’m not some super die hard fan now or anything but I can say that Mobile Suit Gundam and members of its franchise tell a story that not many want to tell. It basically is trying to humanize the experience of conflict. This scares a lot of people because it essentially is saying that genocide, violence and the darkest parts of the human mind and not evil but are just that- human. This and so many other pretty mature themes all wrapped up in a very entertaining “real-robot” saga.

I'm not so sure Tomino was being literal about writing Kamille as "autistic" since autism as a concept wasn't as fully understood or studied in the 80s. Kamille is "autistic" because like most teenagers he has a difficulty communicating his inner thoughts & emotions, and a large part of this stems from his New Type ability to connect with people on an extradimensional level that can't be conveyed through spoken or body language. Nowadays Kamille would be considered high functioning on the autistic spectrum. Kamille is one of the best protagonists in Gundam because his lived experience is one of the most effective framings of fascism in fiction. He grew up in a social environment that was brutalized by the experience of the One Year War, and his life is a constant gauntlet of corporal punishment. In MSG slapping was treated like routine military discipline, but in Zeta physical violence is elevated to systemic abuse. Being downtrodden and literally beaten down for his whole life is why Kamille has such a strong fighter's instinct, and serves to demonstrate why fascism destroys itself by producing its own gravediggers. I do have a problem with your critique of Reccoa though. While you can say that she's badly written her behavior and motivations also aren't unrealistic. The idea that she pursued resistance fighting for the thrill of it isn't uncommon in history, which is full of political and military adventurists who don't actually believe in the causes they're fighting for. Moreover, many of women are sexist and act as participants in their own exploitation. Reccoa's betrayal may be weakly supported in the writing, but it's not completely without basis in reality.

I'm going to have to disagree with how much emphasis you place on the decision to make the federation the bad guys in Zeta. After all, Japan is a non-European country that fought a war against America, and suffered 2 nuclear attacks and a 7 year occupation from them. It is not exactly revolutionary truth telling to question whether the western-led world order might be bad in an animated tv show written for a Japanese audience. Occupations are never clean affairs, and I'm sure many of the staff would have been old enough to remember it.

Unfortunately there are times that when you meet that person you let that armor slip you realize it was something toxic and probably manipulative You don't just put the old armor back on it's too weak it failed you in the you put a heavier thicker more cumbersome armor on you grab a heavier sharper blade

Can you do a breakdown on Gundam SEED?!! Man your analytically and articulately amazing

What the song at 3:01:45 when Amuro meets Lalah

This is a great and well researched essay, but you're being over-literal about Unicorn's treatment of NewTypes. The "Beast of Possibility" is not an unlimited source of psychic energy, as Banagher was about to expire his physical limits like Lala & Amuro. The Beast of Possibility refers to the ever-present potential to change the course of history, and NewTypes are in a special position to realize that change because of their extrasensory capacity for empathy. You can say that goes against Tomino's thesis about humanity heading for destruction, but it also completes the historical NewType cycle that Tomino set up in the original MSG.

Hi and Fairly new here but yes. I'm also a Gundam Fan however not the rest of those who did the same for UC they have reached Later Universal Century I Stopped at Gundam Narrative but also I am the most unorganized watcher I am still yet to watch ZZ. First of I actually watched the whole of Gundam Requiem for Vengeance and there are the points if I may point out. 1. I attempted originally with my big brother and particular reason him as what if we made intended audience for Netflix can enjoy the story. After results he bailed out., 2. I wanted to see how it was and I actually enjoyed it and never forgot how the music is actually made from the Composer of Helldivers 2 Music so I was actually Jam to it. 3. I was expecting the story to make really good things so I am hoping it works. And will skip spoilers for the rest but if you heard of the ending then thanks I am not alone. So, as I said, why am I making this comment is simple. Netflix didn't earn so much on Requiem for Vengeance and as in like it failed it's main objectives I think. Netflix must have hoped is that the Anime is hoping that the Gundam they acquired they can make the most of it cause Gundam The Witch from Mercury became a hit and most likely many kept watching Netflix for it. So what happens after was simple and more since I am also a Model Kit Builder / (Gunpla Bulder) as well. It failed badly indeed. So bad the Model Kit Batch you see right now is the last one. As in we will never see new made Model Kits. Since the series failed there is talks as to how far this can go. 1. According to Forbes the Live Action Gundam is now under a new director after how Requiem for Vengeance literal Flopped., 2. Netflix will try or will do drop Gundam Requiem for Vengeance Exclusive rights that it might Appear in Gundam Info (KZbin)., & 3. Since this Flopped so hard a 2nd season is likely to never ever be the foreseeable future which is why we will not be able to see it potentially have a continuation. So if you wanna have a new explanation it's forever dropped for what happened. Honestly I'd say this in a simple sense after what happened. Gundam Team / Sunrise made their best chances and they hoped that the series can do however it was too Gundam Fans Heavy new Viewers can't enjoy the entire series. Expect the sad situation, that is, its failure.

How about adding some colored bars to the sides of the VN? And try make the black saturation [or contrast] really sharp. Give it a definitive visual feel? For my, Armored Core after 3, 4 with a stretch just became too fantasy VTOL with dangly legs. It los the benefit of rapid booster movement versus regular armor walking or driving with tracks. ONly way it;s not going to break apart [at the wrists for example] is too much inbelievium for me lol. Put Keanu in a LCL pod!

Recently found your stuff through the ace combat stuff and I'm glad there's people actually talking about mecha stuff "rationally" (and I'm a fan of 70s Super Robots!) As a long time fan of the series, I really liked 6 on launch but I never got too far into it because my controllers all just disconnect all the time (I mean to get back to it, but free time and all that junk), but it felt very much like your build didn't matter; however, you could still just BRRRRR your way through all of the bosses with bulk, so I'm not sure I liked where the design philosophy went. I mean I played 4FA online against japanese players where the game was purely a laggy series of people swinging laser swords, but I felt like 6's meta, at least in the main campaign, was flattened to some degree. I like to play and make fast, pixie, IGPX mechs where you fly at mach 16, and that shit sucks ass in 6 when you can just quadped/tanktread gatling everything. formula front is my favorite game in the series, good ass game.

I really really enjoyed Stela I of Volt - I just sat through the whole thing in one sitting thinking "oh my god, there's still more?" - prog rock delivers this somewhat fantastical atmosphere and the world building doesn't let you go, really great stuff I wish there was somewhere I could leave a review - I boosted it to my meager 100 follows on masto, but I'm not meshed into visual novel fandom on that one social - I'll keep spreading the word

I've been thinking a lot about Unicorn. I think one of the biggest problems (apart from the awful main characters and the macguffin) is that they make Zeon do nothing wrong, and this ends up affecting the core themes. In the original, Zeon are obviously the bad guys. They are a believable faction with decent people in it, but the leaders of Zeon are basically all real bad guys. In CCA, even if Char is more than just power hungry like the Zabis, he is going to commit genocide. It makes sense why he needs to be stopped. In ZZ it's a bit more forced, and Zeon has to do random baddie stuff for no real reason, but that does effectively show why they need to be stopped. But Unicorn? Full Frontal's Plan is practical, would benefit the majority of people and involves absolutely no genocide. It would end up with everyone united basically. Zeon are just shown as right and sympathetic for the entire show... and they are still the bad guys. Them being completely beaten by the Earth Federation is a good thing. In the end the state wins, everything returns to the status quo, all the colonies don't get independence, and this is shown as the good ending. And I think this kind of ruins the message of the show, because there is no possibility here. Minervas plan with the Laplace Box is stupid and doesn't work. There has never been a time in history where infiltrating a government has worked. The Federation doesn't improve, the fundemental issues which keep spawning these extremely violent spacenoid movements aren't fixed. It's extremely unsatisfying and would only have worked if framed as a bad thing. If I'd written it, I would have made Zeon less sympathetic and then have Minerva and Banagher start a third faction, a bit like the AEUG, who use Laplace Box to give them legitimacy to make a new government that represents both the Earth and the colonies and is free from the political dynasties of the EF and Zeon. That would be a positive ending showing the possibility of the future. Anyway that's just my shower thoughts.

Phenomenal video

I'd love to play it but £19 is a bit more than I can justify spending on a game. Maybe when I'm in a better financial situation.

For what it's worth in regards to the cockpit discussion, my imagination for the NEXT "cockpits" specifically is some sort of fully immersed breathable gel tank that the pilot floats in. As far as we know, the NEXTs are completely controlled by neural connection, so there wouldn't be any physical controls to manipulate. Basically the Lynxes when piloting are completely out of their human body, seeing and feeling the NEXT as their "self." Someone made a post somewhere which I then incorporated into my headcanon, that since the Kojima particles can create the Primal Armor, they might also be able to form a cushion around the pilot and help mitigate the insane acceleration of the NEXTs.

You should link the VN in both the trailer video(s) and this video and future videos. Just treat is as like one of the social links you already include.

what a coincidence! i recently finished victory after reading some of the crossbone manga. your videos on uc got me to rewatch gundam after a long pause, so i cannot wait to see them 👍

Where's the link?