![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAdvance reports of a new Gundam series did get my attention. It hadn’t been all that long since The Witch From Mercury; for all of the complaints from other fans feeding into my self-pitying thoughts that “mecha series don’t get a fair shake these days,” perhaps the temptation was to now think the franchise was actually doing all right. (In reflecting on the years between that series and Iron-Blooded Orphans, though, I did wind up reminding myself the “Build Divers” shows had appeared in between them.) The peculiar subtitle of the upcoming series “GQuuuuuuX” at least got my attention too, for all that I felt very tempted to anticipate knocking out the “u”s in private record-keeping of episodes watched. (While it’s not the exact same thing, I’ll admit to forever being tempted to think of “The 08th MS Team” as “Gundam MST08,” even if this didn’t extend to trying to cast that OVA’s characters in yet another “non-standard MSTing...”)
I did start picking up on comments the upcoming series was some form of collaboration between the familiar “Gundam studio” Sunrise (so far as that name is still used with Bandai Namco in the corporate chain above it) and Khara, the studio that made the “Rebuild of Evangelion” movies. Those comments stretched so far as to suggest Hideaki Anno was involved to whatever small extent in the production, getting to take on one more thing he was interested in during his formative years for all that I kept telling myself “Khara has to be bigger than ‘just Anno.’”
A trailer showed up; I noted “cartoonier” character designs than I tend to associate with Gundam series (or at least they were “cartoony” in a different way than the designs of the “Build” series), but might have been more content with that than a rather complicated new Gundam design (or, rather, how it relied on computer animation). A main character in a short skirt with shortish hair got my attention; descriptions of Mobile Suit “battles” that amounted to illegal gladiatorial bouts had me supposing another tweak on a line that had run from the “Build” series to the opening episodes of The Witch From Mercury. Then, I got to understanding the first episodes of the series were to be compiled and shown in theatres in Japan to drum up interest.
At some point after that, I picked up on reports there’d be special screenings of that premiere on this side of the Pacific. I did start daydreaming about the possibility of going to one of them. Maybe I was thinking of how a more legitimate movie, Gundam Seed Freedom, had also been screened over here. There’d been some comments that movie had, even after so many years, improved how some felt about that subfranchise in providing decent treatment to some characters apparently denied that (in different ways) in Gundam Seed Destiny. My only problem there was that I’d tried to preserve my own initial positivity towards the beginning of the subfranchise by letting Gundam Seed stand on itself, and chancing the crumbling bridge between that known quantity and the distant promise still seemed rather uncertain. To get away from that, and Gundam as a whole, perhaps I’d also been thinking of the years that had passed since I’d seen the first three Rebuild of Evangelion movies in theatres. (I then managed to stretch my thoughts to “live action” in remembering I’d seen both Pacific Rim movies on the big screen, even if that leaves me stuck with the awareness I’d happened to miss being viscerally offended by the sequel to the point of trying to deny it exists...)
The blurb for a review of the Gundam GQuuuuuuX special presentation mentioning it couldn’t be discussed at any length without getting into “spoilers” intrigued me; maybe I’m going so far as to tell myself the blurb had declared the unknown situation intriguing itself. After that, though, I just happened to stumble on a comment that gave things away. Gundam GQuuuuuuX, it seemed, wasn’t just one more “alternative universe Gundam” where you start with “near Earth space” and the most powerful Mobile Suits having a particular head design (and the most important of them story-wise being white, blue, and red) and then try to come up with a new take on things; it started with a “if this had happened otherwise” declaration involving an established series. Despite that, I still bought a ticket and headed to the theatre.
There weren’t many other people in the theatre, even if this wasn’t the only screening there’d be. When the trailers were past, I realised at once just what the opening was intended to bring to mind. That then had me wondering what someone with less exposure to the bit of the franchise in question would make of the unfolding action. I told myself that potential situation might not have been all that dissimilar from what people seeing the original story for the first time could have been confronted with (which, I suppose, might start to hint at the specific “point of divergence” I’ve tried to be coy about...) As things got further into the action I did become conscious of just how many “things you might be familiar with” were being tossed onto the screen, though.
I was also conscious of the difference between the established character designs being used in the opening and the character designs from the trailer I’d already supposed “cartoony.” (The “mechanical designs,” at least, were a bit more peculiar to start with; however, I just might have been better able to accept the computer animation than I’d first feared.) When the big shift happened, though, I seemed to be able to deal with it. I’ll admit to contrasting the new situation to another part of the established story I’m not all that enthralled by (which is another hint masked by another attempt at coyness); maybe it wasn’t altogether “a better situation,” though. The question is where things go from the second build to action shown in the compilation. I’m stuck with the awareness of all the other Gundam series on this side of the millennium that “came in as heroes but went out as bums” in the general judgment, and of my own personal disagreements with several (but not all) of the more celebrated older instalments. Whether that did help with taking interest in this theatrical presentation is a question, anyway.
I did start picking up on comments the upcoming series was some form of collaboration between the familiar “Gundam studio” Sunrise (so far as that name is still used with Bandai Namco in the corporate chain above it) and Khara, the studio that made the “Rebuild of Evangelion” movies. Those comments stretched so far as to suggest Hideaki Anno was involved to whatever small extent in the production, getting to take on one more thing he was interested in during his formative years for all that I kept telling myself “Khara has to be bigger than ‘just Anno.’”
A trailer showed up; I noted “cartoonier” character designs than I tend to associate with Gundam series (or at least they were “cartoony” in a different way than the designs of the “Build” series), but might have been more content with that than a rather complicated new Gundam design (or, rather, how it relied on computer animation). A main character in a short skirt with shortish hair got my attention; descriptions of Mobile Suit “battles” that amounted to illegal gladiatorial bouts had me supposing another tweak on a line that had run from the “Build” series to the opening episodes of The Witch From Mercury. Then, I got to understanding the first episodes of the series were to be compiled and shown in theatres in Japan to drum up interest.
At some point after that, I picked up on reports there’d be special screenings of that premiere on this side of the Pacific. I did start daydreaming about the possibility of going to one of them. Maybe I was thinking of how a more legitimate movie, Gundam Seed Freedom, had also been screened over here. There’d been some comments that movie had, even after so many years, improved how some felt about that subfranchise in providing decent treatment to some characters apparently denied that (in different ways) in Gundam Seed Destiny. My only problem there was that I’d tried to preserve my own initial positivity towards the beginning of the subfranchise by letting Gundam Seed stand on itself, and chancing the crumbling bridge between that known quantity and the distant promise still seemed rather uncertain. To get away from that, and Gundam as a whole, perhaps I’d also been thinking of the years that had passed since I’d seen the first three Rebuild of Evangelion movies in theatres. (I then managed to stretch my thoughts to “live action” in remembering I’d seen both Pacific Rim movies on the big screen, even if that leaves me stuck with the awareness I’d happened to miss being viscerally offended by the sequel to the point of trying to deny it exists...)
The blurb for a review of the Gundam GQuuuuuuX special presentation mentioning it couldn’t be discussed at any length without getting into “spoilers” intrigued me; maybe I’m going so far as to tell myself the blurb had declared the unknown situation intriguing itself. After that, though, I just happened to stumble on a comment that gave things away. Gundam GQuuuuuuX, it seemed, wasn’t just one more “alternative universe Gundam” where you start with “near Earth space” and the most powerful Mobile Suits having a particular head design (and the most important of them story-wise being white, blue, and red) and then try to come up with a new take on things; it started with a “if this had happened otherwise” declaration involving an established series. Despite that, I still bought a ticket and headed to the theatre.
There weren’t many other people in the theatre, even if this wasn’t the only screening there’d be. When the trailers were past, I realised at once just what the opening was intended to bring to mind. That then had me wondering what someone with less exposure to the bit of the franchise in question would make of the unfolding action. I told myself that potential situation might not have been all that dissimilar from what people seeing the original story for the first time could have been confronted with (which, I suppose, might start to hint at the specific “point of divergence” I’ve tried to be coy about...) As things got further into the action I did become conscious of just how many “things you might be familiar with” were being tossed onto the screen, though.
I was also conscious of the difference between the established character designs being used in the opening and the character designs from the trailer I’d already supposed “cartoony.” (The “mechanical designs,” at least, were a bit more peculiar to start with; however, I just might have been better able to accept the computer animation than I’d first feared.) When the big shift happened, though, I seemed to be able to deal with it. I’ll admit to contrasting the new situation to another part of the established story I’m not all that enthralled by (which is another hint masked by another attempt at coyness); maybe it wasn’t altogether “a better situation,” though. The question is where things go from the second build to action shown in the compilation. I’m stuck with the awareness of all the other Gundam series on this side of the millennium that “came in as heroes but went out as bums” in the general judgment, and of my own personal disagreements with several (but not all) of the more celebrated older instalments. Whether that did help with taking interest in this theatrical presentation is a question, anyway.