ferry.lula - 2016-05-20 01:49:08

In my eyes, a definite improvement over the original series. It's darker, the stakes are higher, and emotions run more rampant than before. The music game has been stepped up, thanks to the masterful work of Shigeaki Saegusa. The mobile suit designs are more diverse and worth drooling over. The cast has become larger and the emphasis on pathos and internal struggle has been turned up to 11, though some characters border on being unlikable - but never become uninteresting.

Ultimately a more taxing ride than its predecessor, but a much more rewarding one to any fan who gets drawn into its whirlwind of mecha action and human misery.

dzemlak - 2013-07-16 09:56:55

I seriously wonder why this sequel to 1st Gundam is considered to be, not only one of the best mecha ever, but also one of the best space opera and Gundam series period.All I hear from reviews is that: You should watch the 1st series/1st trilogy movies to fully understand the series.What I'll say before even starting my review is that none of the characters from 1st Gundam are even used the same way, none of the events are particularly referenced in detail to even make the 1st series worth remembering/backtracking for that reason, and that the plot relies so much on current matters instead of disturbing the achievements of the 1st series.Now I will start.(and this will contain heavy implications of layout details)One automatic positive of Zeta is its abandonment of over-reliance of stand-alone mech fights that utterly plagued the 1st series; more emphasis on being a space opera.Main character, Kamille, is labeled as being a femme (true) who isn't a real man (true) and, like Amuro Ray, has parents in high position. Thankfully (but this might be a bad thing in terms of character following), we don't see Kamille's status as being a femme being directly mentioned ever again after the first episode, but we do see more personal involvement with his loved ones/friends than Amuro ever did.Throughout the entire story, Kamille remains the most consistent and believable character in Zeta.I'll summarize the show's layout:- 1st 1/10th is to show the villains maliciousness in a "common-for-mecha, but uncommon-for-space opera" one-sided fashion.- 2nd 1/10th is for the 1st Gundam fans to care about why this new style for Gundam works for them and to show that this is a sequel in a technical sense.- 3rd 1/10th is a complete S**T-stirring of all the characters we've infrequently seen up til then take action politically.- 4th 1/10th is roughly the same as the 3rd except that there's finally some heated political revelations and character clashes that makes the...- 5th 1/10th the angst-driven grimy war drama that it's always wanted to be.In Tomino's desire to make a more plot-oriented mecha show, he still forgets the fact that it should be more dramatic but instead it all feels like an excuse.You may think that Tomino's talent lies in style and the technical and you'd be right that Zeta is pure class when it comes to the technical, but he also made something called Aura Battler Dunbine that mixed fantasy with reasonable territory politics in an even more foreign land than outer space and even featured more than one episode (sometimes even in a row!) that had no mecha, let alone mecha fight scenes; most of the intrigue was learning who was the bad guy, why, how they got more powers/technology, and Tomino even had some plot twists (not many) that scaled the philosophy that the show stood for to be an extremely memorable show. With all this done and made AFTER 1st Gundam... I dunno...Basically, I'm left to assume that Tomino assumes that we've seen the original and will understand that the political background is still just used to make use of higher budgeted mecha fights that are extremely varied... but I'll get to that a bit later.Okay so, beyond Kamille, there's only very few supporting characters are pitiable because of very obvious manipulation. I can't count this because this, like everything else in the show, all is served for Kamille. Admittedly, they use romance for developing his character better than Amuro (who cried and was a brat to everyone who doubted his abilities... and equally blindly followed those who told him what he wanted to hear).But overall, the plot is a joke and the "too-many, too-serious" characters actually make the show more worse off than in 1st Gundam!Now I'll get to the design of the show which is very fresh, consistent, and ranks as one of the best looking TV series animes of the 80's. But I've noticed something that keeps frequently happening during the 2/3 of the show: more and more transformable mecha. First off, I love Transformers; technically, it's the first mecha show I've ever seen. But even if I were to claim Tomino ripping off that, I'd also have to claim that he's ripping of Macross. And notice that Macross had only so few mecha designs that transformed and they only stuck by that because mecha battles were probably only half of the story, not to mention half of the struggle.In Zeta, transforming becomes a gimmick to the point that any large, controllable, lumbering device appears... you can guess with certainty it's a giant robot.I'll be honest and say that Tomino was a bit more cunning with his mecha's abilities early on, but, because the show has more characters that it can handle, that cunning can't be appreciated.Heck, even the show that many say rip-off Zeta's style, Gundam SEED Destiny has rampant designs a-many but the choreography is much more menacing/signature to the characters piloting them, not to mention that there were significantly less characters, a greater sense of being a sequel and - wait I'm going into SEED Destiny fanboy mode, sorry.Basically, the novelty of having pilotable mecha isn't enough for the show and the sense of urgency from that novelty - which was key to 1st Gundam enjoyment - is hardly present. No matter how advanced the mecha are, they're simply piloted by superhumans (yes, that means Newtypes hardly have the significance as before) so all that's left is the predictable, melodrama.Which leads to my next point about how too many cool mecha can spoil the experience. There's an abominable amount of characters switching bots/vehicles, in conjunction with funky names (both of the mecha and the characters) that annoy me when I'm trying to keep track of who's who and what's what.Kamille, thank God, doesn't have this problem, but remaining characters from 1st Gundam often do. Tomino kinda did this in 1st Gundam and even a bit in Aura Battler but he restricted it with villains who've we known since the beginning. There's only one villain in Zeta who we can remotely remember (because there's so many other characters to keep track of *huff*.... *puff*...) who makes it to the end.What's left? I guess music and enjoyment.The OP's have a very spirited, youth-driven angst feeling... that isn't carried in the show. The END is much the same way. So I guess they're fun to listen but hard to place as icons for the show that they represent.Having fun with the show is much easier if you turn off your brain to the plot and have fun remembering characters names much like I did when Bleach suddenly threw in a whole armada of new characters.Wait... if I'm using Bleach (i.e heavily commercialized shonen), then that means... oh, now I get why Tomino made Victory Gundam with anger on his mind.I guess you'll have more fun if you've, obviously, seen 1st Gundam but the style of the show feels so different that maybe that doesn't even matter... The pacing of the show, no matter why you're watching, will be hindered by the draggy characters and sporadic moments of political intrigue. Like most mechas of this time the most enticing moments are in the last 10 episodes and, like I've said before, it's because Kamille's growth has now reached the level where he, if you've kept up, will carry the show to the end.I'm not even gonna mention the Aura Battler inspired ending that completely goes against everything Gundam stands for... (not even SEED or SEED Destiny has magic...)Overall, I can't help but call Zeta Gundam a dated example of how hype can carry a franchise simply because it boosted the genre a bit when it could've done it a LOT!You almost wonder why every subsequent Macross title sucks so badly when the 1st series pretty much did it all...1st Gundam, despite its immaturity of being a Real Robot-mecha, had enough quirk, spunk, and consistent attitude that made it easier to enjoy in a cartoony sense, only taking itself seriously when things made sense to. Zeta is so bloated with misused sophisticated storytelling elements that it constantly scrambles any hope of consistency.That pretty much means that the only real positive reason to watch the show is historical/educational value to learn how far anime has come... and also what little has changed about what makes an anime famous. XDLGTStory: C- (My previous questions from 1st Gundam: "what is this all about? what was it all for?" are answered with now commercializing cool toys)Art: B (It's one of the best looking of the 80's but the designs are now milked from other sources and is now unoriginal)Sound: C (The music is generic and the OPs don't fit the show even though they're good; which makes it worse)Animation: B- (Solid, but restricted to mostly "power beats technique" in the end; setting the stage for subsequent mecha titles to follow)Characters: D (WAAAAAY too many disposable pawns to care about; not even Kamille - the only "person" in the show can't tilt the "quality vs. quantity" clause.Enjoyment: C+ (Summarizing the multiple reasons to watch this show, I'll sum up at this grade simply because I was too confused... and bored)Overall: B- (You're getting a classic title... but you aren't getting classic, timeless ingredients)