I find it infinitely difficult to quantify Turn A Gundam (∀ Gundam) as a narrative. After watching it on and off over the course of a few years, I finally finished all fifty episodes this week. This is probably the longest I’ve ever taken to finish a show of any length, a dubious record usually held by titles I deemed to be mostly unfit for consumption. And yet having watched most of what the Gundam metaseries has to offer, I have to say in retrospect that, in spite of all its glaring flaws, Turn A Gundam offers a special ineffable something that lands the title a spot in my heart.

The lunar sovereign

It is my personal opinion that Gundam titles directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino all have poor storytelling. The themes are insightful, the ideas are grand and the creative visions are commendable, but the delivery is consistently awful as Tomino simply lacks the attention to details needed to synergize all those great concepts into coherent narratives. Every major titles directed by him (79, Zeta, ZZ, the semi-aborted F91, Victory) suffers from the same half-baked storytelling that overlooks character-level consistency in favour of big-picture ideas.

Loran (left) was originally conceived as a girl

Comparing his works to the mini series (80, 83, 08th) directed by various other individuals over the same time frame, a clear distinction emerges between the two groups of Gundam titles in terms of storytelling and attentions to plot details such as character motivations.

Characters in Tomino’s works often assume illogical out-of-character positions for no apparent reason beyond creating plot tension, while characters in other works behave within parameters one can empathize with. Underlying themes in Tomino’s works tend to be more visionary and abstract while the shorter works focus on the wartime human condition within limited contexts. Turn A Gundam is, as I see it, an attempt by Tomino to combine these two distinct aspects of the franchise. I won’t say that he succeeded completely, but I do like the final result.

The series describes an Earth that has recovered from a past global catastrophe and has a thriving industrial human population that is technologically equivalent to the turn of the 20th century. A highly advanced human civilization exists on the Earth’s moon, descendants of past refugees from a devastated Earth. Loran Cehack, the protagonist, is a member of an advance team sent to Earth to live among the local population in preparation for the moonrace’s return to their ancestral home.

As anyone with a slight irking of history, politics or economics can immediately gather, the sudden immigration of a large number of foreign strangers attempting to lay historical claim to your land can only lead to tensions and conflicts over resources, particularly if they are heavily armed and more advanced than you. (Doesn’t this sound familiar?)

The first quarter of Turn A is largely dedicated to exploring how in a climate of mutual distrust and asymmetric bargaining power, two sides can be driven by circumstances into a state of war in spite of the peaceful intentions of their respective leaderships. While I can’t say that this portion of the series is well written (character interactions and political powerplays all suffer from the usual Tomino effect), the premise itself is refreshing enough to keep things alive most of the time.

Coffee is universal, along with masked men

The shining point of the series comes somewhere in the second quarter with the development of Queen Dianna Soreil as a character, along with character interactions between Loran Cehack, Kihel Heim and Sochie Heim.

The desire of the queen of the moonrace for her people to return to Earth peacefully drives her character to lead with honour, and yet she is often powerless to stop the conflict’s expansion. Loran, a loyal moonrace who believes in the queen’s message of peace, nevertheless finds himself piloting a mobile suit and fighting against his own people on behalf of the local militia. His desire for the moonrace to return to Earth becomes anathema to his attachment to the Heim family who took him in when he first came to Earth.

There’s quite a fair bit of good material in there involving the four aforementioned characters and the second quarter of the series does a competent job covering it, if one overlooks the usual flaws. Interactions on a personal level between these characters generally make sense and produce the intended effects, if somewhat hampered by the poor directing and screenplay. I consider this to be the highlight of the series.

*wub*

However, all that is cast aside for most of the second half of the series where the story takes seemingly random detours that neglect and weaken the interesting character dynamics developed in the first half. This is so particularly in the last quarter where the story steadily descends into increasingly abstract discussions of war and free will, cumulating in a beautifully-animated mecha duel that somehow manages to be both symbolic (as a metaphor for the abstract concepts relating to war and human nature) and meaningless (in its relevance to the story leading up to that point) at the same time.

Towards the end, it becomes kind of hard to tell what all the major players are fighting for beyond some vague ideas of honour and hope, a stark contrast to the goal-driven political and physical conflicts depicted at the start of the series. Several illogical choices made by some of the characters also serve to undermine motivations developed previously over the course of the series. At times, it seems like things happen more or less for the lulz, or in this case dramatic effect.

Girls have a thing for mustaches, right?

As a result, I consider the last quarter of the series to be one of the weaker parts of the story. It’s a good thing that Turn A decides to hastily revive the neglected relationships established earlier in the story for a Hail Mary emotional ending backed by the poignant vocals of Aki Okui, or it would’ve ended on a weak note without a timely reminder of the things it did right.

All in all, I can’t say that Turn A Gundam improved significantly in terms of storytelling from Gundam titles predating it. For a show made in the post-Eva era and coming from a production team that was by then highly experienced after two decades of Gundam, it falls short on many counts.

Still, it manages to present an entertaining and at times touching viewing experience which I found much superior to Tomino’s older works. (Here comes the flame.) A purge of unnecessary plot detours, a more sensible screenplay and a better ending would’ve probably landed it a spot in my top five. As it stands however, Turn A Gundam is a show I found enjoyable and intriguing, but not one I can recommend to everyone.

On a side note, it is unfortunate that Sunrise chose to employ some unconventional mechanical designs for this series. If it had used regular Gundam designs, or if it had not marketed the show as a Gundam title, Turn A would’ve been saved from a lot of unfair expectations and undue criticisms.

It’s wearing a skirt

Okay, so I guess Gundam mecha designs have always been kind of whacky

It’s different from a Zak…wait it’s not

Also, Queen Dianna was totally the prototype for Lacus Clyne.

And now it’s time for me to return to hibernation.

Why does everyone assume that I would be blogging Gundam 00 Season 2? I never said that I would. It’s not good to be overly presumptuous. I mean, it is true that the only thing keeping this blog from becoming a desolate wasteland is my weekly episode “review”, but that doesn’t mean anything! So yeah, you can take your baseless preconceived notions and stuff them up that place where you stuff things up into! (Turkey?)

So anyway, let’s get this thing going.

Summary

Don’t tase me bro!

These guys called A-LAWS, who sound like a cross between A-HOLES and ARROWS, are totally bad ass dudes who have been running the post-Celestial Being solar system like their own private Sim City, except that Will Wright didn’t make slavery an option in the game. If I had to compare them to one classic group of assholes in a previous Gundam universe, it would probably be Titan from Zeta.

“This is so not in my contract”

Saji is finally realizing his true potential, not. After appearing to be cool and grown-up for the first 30 seconds of his appearance, the degeneration process kicks in and he’s the same old crybaby by the end of the episode. This is to prepare him for the journey to real maturity that he is about to embark on, something he should have already completed in the five years since season one. But let’s give him a break: he’s not been getting any.

He grew up into yaoi doujinshi material

Now, I’m not one to read up on background stories from magazine articles, so I don’t know what the heck is going on in G00 right now. Judging by this episode, I guess there’s a lot of political tension between the regular Earth Special Forces Earth Sphere Federation and the elitist A-LAWS, just like in Zeta. In addition, there are some random third parties like Celestial Being wandering around messing things up, just like in Zeta.

Saji should consult an optometrist

Everyone is all grown up and cool now (just like in Zeta) and Setsuna even changed his suit colour to a less gay shade of blackish grey. Peries and Sergei are living together and there’s some rather disturbing chemistry going on between the two of them that I want to pretend is just my misunderstanding. I like Peries more now that she’s not loli anymore. Louise is an A-LAWS pilot now, which I totally predicted one year ago when she lost her hand.

I quote myself:

… But seriously, I can just imagine Louise being abducted by some top secret joint Union-AEU-HRL black project to manufacture cyborg pilots for whatever super weapon they plan to build to counter the Gundams …

They sewed her hand back

In Gundam, losing an arm means that it’s time for an upgrade! That said, Louise’s a pretty crappy pilot so far, but I guess she’s due for a berserk pwnage sequence sometime in the next few episodes, Stellar style. I think I may be in love.

Thoughts

I realized that my summary didn’t actually summarize anything about the episode, but screw you! I’m sure everyone’s watched the first episode by now! Leave DarkMirage alone!

“AI EIMU GANDAMU”

In any case, the first episode is great. I can’t say that that’s unexpected since the first season had an awesome start too. I want to believe that this is a sign of improvement from the ending of the last season, and that this season will finally be awesome now that everyone’s grown up and not so whiny. I really want to believe it, but unfortunately Sunrise made a cynic out of me with the false hopes it’s been giving me over the years.

In order to not raise my hope again for nothing, I’m going to be a pessimist and assume that episode two will drop right back into clichéd dramaville and it will be a one-way ride to hell from there on. In fact, I’m going to just call this a “trainwreck” right now at this stage, before anyone else does. Remember: I did it first!

Of course, I may be proven wrong. Perhaps the forgettable first season was intentionally meant to be an awful prelude, so as to accentuate the awesomeness that will be season two. Maybe now that the main characters are all grown up, both literally and figuratively, the real story behind this boy-love franchise can finally take its ultimate shape. I want to believe, but let’s not.

In any case, this show should be worth watching, considering the number of female cast members who have now reached full fan-service maturity. Mmmmm.

She’s legal now, right?

It’s a good thing Grace didn’t die. Christina did a great service to mankind

(*ﾟДﾟ*)

Setsuna is most definitely gay

So…*cough* I wonder when the next swimsuit episode will be?

Screencaps

He sounds like a good guy, but his eyes look evil

What’s going on here?

New loli to fill the loli gap now that everyone’s grown up

In space, no one can see you pose

The cameraman is upside down. What an idiot

They repainted their Realdos and call it an upgrade, just like an MMORPG

Red vs Blue, just in case you can’t tell the two sides apart

Tachikoma rejects

Pew pew pew

Twice the penis size

This thing actually looks way cooler than all the Gundams

After Louise left him, Saji became a crack addict

*Cue Imperial March*

I should really be studying.

The title aside, I actually enjoyed the first episode. Unlike every other Gundam series ever, no mobile suits were stolen in this episode, although for a moment it looked like one was about to be but it was just a false alarm. That’s good news.

Background

G00 is set in AD 2307, unlike the other Gundam series that use UC, CE and other arbitrary era names. This means that in 300 yeas’ time, by 2307, if we still don’t have Gundams flying around in space, we can look back and laugh at Sunrise for their silly predictions.

After running out of fossil fuels, the world presumably descended into chaos and eventually consolidated into three giant blocs, the Union, the AEU and the Human Reform League.

Union

President of the Union

The Union’s full name is “Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations” (太é½ã‚¨ãƒãƒ«ã‚®ãƒ¼ã¨è‡ªç”±å›½å®¶é€£åˆè»), which is frankly a very stupid name and that’s why they like to be called the Union instead. Anyway, it’s formed around United States, which makes the “solar energy” part extremely ironic if you consider the current president’s energy policies and the country’s infatuation with SUVs. But I digress.

AEU

Councillors of AEU

AEU stands for “Advanced European Union”, which is just like EU, except better! Also it sounds like “Anti-Earth Union Group” from Universal Century.

Jinkakuren

Chairman of Jinkakuren

Human Reform League jinrui kakushin renmei (人類革新連盟) is a bloc formed by China, Russia and India, which explains the nonsensical name. The name is shorten to jinkakuren (人革連), which can also mean “People’s Revolution Alliance”, so you can say that it’s a futuristic spin of Communist naming sense. Of course, as per mandated by the Law of Anime Stereotypes, Jinkakuren people are required to wear traditional Chinese costumes such as qipao so that no one would question their Asian heritage…

As usual, Sunrise’s story setting seems to be pretty influenced by current events, although I doubt that in 300 years’ time the geopolitical situation of Earth will be so predictable, considering how fast and drastically things change with every generation. I mean, just half a century years ago Japan took two American atomic bombs, just a century ago the Communist Party didn’t exist, just two centuries ago the Brits burnt down White House and three centuries ago USA didn’t even exist. But I digress again.

The three superpowers control the sources of Earth’s energy production, namely giant space elevators with solar panels in orbit.

Prologue

The start of the series takes place in AD 2301, in a yet-to-exist country in the Middle East. A group of mechas advances slowly through a town, killing everyone while declaring themselves as warriors of god fighting a holy war to cleanse the land of infidels. Save for the mecha, it sounds like something I just read on BBC.

Setsuna F. Seiei, the main character of the series, is still a young guerilla fighter struggling to escape from the fanatic jihadists, but all he has is a rifle that looks like 300-year-old technology. Just when all hope seems lost, an angelic mobile suit makes a deus ex machina entrance and save him, marking the beginning of his new life.

Hallelujah!

Fast forward 6 years, Setsuna is now all grown-up and cool bishounen-ish. He’s now an elite pilot working for the Celestial Being, a mysterious armed organization that is quietly and secretly executing a plan that will change the world.

I’m cool now

Celestial Being

Celestial Being’s goal is to eradicate war through armed conflict (平和の為の武力行使). There are four Gundam pilots, called Gundam Meisters, who pilot the four Gundams manufactured by Celestial Being.

GN-001 Gundam Exia

Setsuna pilots GN-001 Gundam Exia, a high speed melee combat unit.

GN-002 Gundam Dynames

GN-002 Gundam Dynames, a sniper unit, is piloted by Lockon Stratos.

GN-003 Gundam Kyrios

GN-003 Gundam Kyrios, which has a flight mode transformation, is piloted by Allelujah Haptism

GN-005 Gundam Virtue

GN-005 Gundam Virtue, a heavy weapons unit, is piloted by Tieria Erde.

Hmmm, but where’s GN-004? I wonder…

Summary of First Episode

As part of the Celestial Being’s plan, Setsuna attacks an AEU training base in order to destroy their new experimental mobile suit and to expose AEU’s secret arms build-up which exceeds the agreement set by international treaties between the three superpowers.

AEU’s experimental prototype

AEU’s experimental prototype getting pwned

Actually I’m reminded of Gundam Wing now… Oh shit. Well at least Setsuna didn’t steal the experimental prototype as that would have induced much worse déjà vu.

The rest of the episode involves an attempted terrorist attack on Jinkakuren’s space elevator which is foiled by Celestial Being’s Gundam Kyrios and Gundam Virtue. Like this:

Jinkakuren’s space elevator

Terrorists

Jinkakuren’s useless response team

Celestial Being to the rescue!

Mysterious cute girl interlude

Jinkakuren’s still useless response team

Terrorists

Gundam Virtue: I’m a camping whore

No more terrorists

Thoughts

Actually the first episode is pretty good. It has very nice animation, it introduces most of the important characters and factions and it has explosions. Not bad. I also realized that having Yun Kouga, the artist behind LOVELESS, do the character design isn’t as bad as I had imagined. I don’t like the opening theme song, though. I hate L’arc~en~Ciel.

On another note, Haro is in G00 too!

Haro in Gundam Dynames’ cockpit

And, going by the OP animation, this girl, Marina Ismail, appears to be the main love interest. Knowing Sunrise, the OP is usually quite a good guide for predicting plot directions. :P

Marina Ismail

It’s weird that she’s the queen of a newly-founded Middle Eastern country but she looks East Asian…

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that G00’s setting is partially based on recent events of our time, just as the original Universal Century was influenced by the second world war. I shall continue to follow this series because I’m really curious as to how Gundam’s usual anti-war message will be influenced by today’s headlines.

If you’ve been keeping up with tech blogs or digg, you would have no doubt heard about WikiScanner, a project by computer hacker Virgil. Basically it’s a script that, using the freely-available copy of Wikipedia’s database that is regularly updated, search through every single edits for IP addresses that fall in pre-defined ranges. The tool uncovered many interesting edits, mostly corporations and politicians who edit their own articles to delete unfavourable sections or whitewash certain words. Read more about it in Wired and Wikipedia itself.

Anyway, the site was recently translated into Japanese and the bored people in Japan were all over it in like 5 seconds. According to this ITmedia article, some of the interesting edits uncovered so far include Ministry Of Internal Affairs And Communication editing an article related to e-voting security flaws, MEXT edits that praise their own website, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare edits on drugs and, for some inexplicable reason, an 18+ game “Nanatsuiro Drops“. Maybe this falls under the “Health” part. And also, tons of Gundam-related edits from an IP address belonging to Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Conspiracies at work or bored salarymen? Go try out WikiScanner for yourself.

The promo on the official site is distributed via Bandai Channel, which means those of us who are not in Japan cannot access it. Therefore I have embedded the YouTube version above.

Where are the pretty girls? :(

[ Source: Gunota Headlines ]

Interestingly, according to the video there are a lot of plastic model factories located in Shizuoka because the Tokugawa shogunate gathered woodworkers there from all over the country to build and maintain shrines and created a woodwork industry there. When plastic modeling first began, the design prototypes were carved from wood and the companies naturally looked for the best people in the field. I’m sure their shrine-building ancestors would be proud of them for their great contributions to otakuism.

Of course with 3D prototyping machines and precision laser cutters these days, 3D Studio Max is probably a more relevant skill than wood-carving.

I love how their work uniforms are designed based on Gundam military uniforms. LOL. It’s so geeky that it’s cool.

[ Via Japan Probe ]

Quote:

ガンダム新シリーズ、来年10月放送にむけて始動！…らしい。

「天保異聞 妖奇士」の後番、来年の土6は新ガンダム。監督は水島精二氏とのこと。一応、内部リークでããŒã€å®Ÿéš›ã“の通り順調に企画が進むかどうかは不明。

Translation:

New Gundam series, starts airing October next year!… Apparently.
Taking over the time slot of Ayakashi Ayashi, a new Gundam series will air during the Saturday 6pm slot next year. The director will be Seiji Mizushima. Although this is, technically, an internal leak, it is not confirmed whether the project is really proceeding as stated.

You can just feel the journalistic confidence oozing out of this little article… On another note, Seiji Mizushima is most well-known as the director of Full Metal Alchemist.

Unlike most people, I still have hopes for the SEED franchise, especially if a new director is being brought in to continue the series. While it is not certain if the new Gundam series will continue the C.E. timeline, or indeed whether it even exists at this moment, I have this to say: BRING STELLAR BACK!!!

P.S. Moon Phase has also confirmed, with information from Comiket 70, that the third Nanoha series will be a full-fledged TV series and not OVAs. I don’t care for Nanoha, but it’s on the same page as this news so might as well….

Dubbed the “HYPER HYBRID MODEL 1/12 RX-78-2 GUNDAM”, this model kit (if you can call it that) will be on sale in Japan from December 16 for a reasonable price of just 350,000 yen (roughly 3000 USD). Perfect Grade, eat your heart out.

1/12 Gundam. The robot, not the girl.

According to ITmedia News, the model kit consists of roughly 260 parts and has 14 movable points that use metallic parts for additional support. Using a special remote control, you can even play sound effects and make the lights located in the vulcan gun barrels flash.

This is a continuation of the large size Zaku that was sold 5 years ago for 207,900 yen. A total of 1500 Zaku was sold.

I’m guessing this guy will be getting himself a few of this.

Located just outside the east exit of Matsudo Station in Chiba Prefecture on the JR Joban Line is Bandai Museum, a place where all true Gundam fans must go once in their lifetime… and not more than once.

Well, it looks like a big building, but Bandai actually only takes up 4 floors and most of them are merchandizes so the actual Gundam Museum is quite small. Entry to most places is free except for the Gundam Museum which requires a 500-yen day ticket.

Kerokerokero. Kerororororo.

A model of a colony from Universal Century. All the displays in the Gundam Museum are printed in both English and Japanese. If you look at the three mirror structures from the front of the colony, you can actually see the landscape inside.

Creepy mono-eye. This is a 1/1 scale model of the head of a Zaku. The eye switches on regularly and look around, presumably for Federation spies. It even produces the distinctive switching-on sound.

Apparently a Zaku weights about 9 elephants and runs much slower than a cheetah.

You can pay 500 yen to rent a costume and pose in front of…

A 1/1 replica of the Gundam. You can also pay 500 yen to fire a miniature (airsoft) replica of the machine gun of a Zaku. Or you can pay 500 yen to enter the Gundam’s cockpit and then pay another 1000 yen to get a commemorative picture taken…

And if that’s not enough money wasted spent, you can find all forms of overpriced food at the G-style Cafe. G for Gundam that is. There are deserts with names like “Akatsuki no Kuruma” (New York Style Cheese Cake), “Kira no Namida”(Oreo Cheese Cake) and “Lacus no Kyuujitsu” (Chocolate Cheese Cake). There are also Haro cocktails available in four different colours. (Actually Calpis drinks mixed with fruit flavouring) A cheese cake costs about 500 yen and a Haro cocktail is 600 yen. Don’t even ask for the main menu.

Oh yeah, pictured above is “Lacus no Kyuujitsu”. I am a fanboy. :3

And here we have the toilet.

And here are the rest of the photos.

Although it kind of ticks of my inner fanboy when this guy is able to let his son meet people like Tomino Yoshiyuki using his contacts as a professional writer when he didn’t even know what Mobile Suit Gundam was… ._.