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G-Gundam fin]
I saw this when I was a kid on Toonami and I really fell in love with it. How does it feel when watching it roughly 10 years later? Different. I'm more cognizant of things that both work and don't and so I admit that some of that wonder is gone. I also think I started watching the show around the Final Round arc which probably gave me a much better impression of the show.
First off, the Shinjuku and the Highlands arcs really don't work. The major reason is that both way overextend their welcome. Instead of something brisk, we get dark and brooding arcs that take way too long to reach their obvious points. That's actually a running issue with the show as a whole in that the arcs are dragged on for far too long. I think an edited version that cut down the episode count and increased the pace, would have done wonders for the show. The final arc is a perfect example of something that could have easily been truncated and the same impact would have been there. It reminds me of another show with supposed pacing problems, Eureka 7. The difference is that Eureka 7 utilizes buildups much more effectively compared to here and the climaxes themselves are to the point. I do think the climaxes in here are topnotch though such as episodes 24, 45, and 49. 49 while cheesy, did capture the essence of the show and displayed the emotions of the characters really well. Domon gave a hell of a confession.
The narrative itself is alright with a couple of decent plot twists but nothing major. The problem is that again, the show drags its feet on revealing and what we have is obvious plotlines that go on for half the show that are fairly obvious to everyone but the characters themselves. There are also a few plotholes such as with Wong but that's relatively minor compared to the pacing issues. Also the narrative builds up so well to episode 45 before dropping way back down until episode 49 which was a decent ending to the show. The problem is that 46-49 erode a decent amount of the goodwill gained in earlier episodes. The writers/director also use the same narrative structure for some of the episodic content which makes it fairly easy to predict how things will play out. A perfect example is with the episodes dedicated to the Shuffle Alliance and a lot of the episodic content in regards to the Final Round Preliminaries.
The characters themselves are fine except for a few. The main ones that really stick out are George and Argo. They're both in the Shuffle Alliance and they're both really fucking boring. George's shtick got old in the Highlands and Argo just is stationary like a rock. Master Asia was alright as a villain although I think he was overused way too much instead of for selective encounters. He did have a decent conclusion episode and his character was easily the best villain in the series (not that it says much unfortunately). Domon also showed a lot of growth over the course of the series but I did feel the jump around episode 25 was a bit drastic, in that it feels they got feedback and toned him down. Rain is another character that I thought was underdeveloped. She's mostly just there and there should have been more episodes dedicated to her interaction with Domon and her feelings. I thought Allenby was a fun character and she was great in spicing up some of the minor events in the preliminaries.
The animation is alright. There's a few scenes such as the one above which was done really well but I wasn't really blown away by the choreography or camerawork in any of the fights. Which is a real shame due to the way the cockpit is designed, it had some great opportunities but rarely lived up to it. Don't get me wrong, I do think some of the fights were awesome such as the Master Asia vs. Domon fight but I think there was too much reliance on specials and not enough on the fundamentals. It is interesting looking at the animator list as there are a ton of notables on there, a lot of Cowboy Bebop staff in particular such as Nakamura. I do wonder if there is some sakuga list somewhere that records some of the better fight moments. Some of the shots in general though looked fantastic.
The tone is something I think the show nailed for the most part. It never felt overly campy or absolutely insane. The show worked much better when keeping a lighter tone and I think it fell apart a bit during a few of the more serious points, mostly due to pacing. I do think the show is racist though, unintentionally but alas it's still there. Some of the stereotypes are so bad, sooo bad.
The soundtrack was a disappointment. There's certainly a few tracks I liked but I think Kouhei Tanaka's work was rather lackluster in that there isn't enough variety and it's not used enough. I think the duel between Master Asia and Domon was definitely lacking in the awesome music department and some of the earlier stuff as well. Some of the tracks they picked out was fun in a cheesy '80s sort of way and I wish that had carried through more.
Overall, I did enjoy it and had fun with it but I think the earlier arcs killed a lot of the love I had for the series. I am somewhat disappointed that it didn't live up to the memory I had of it but that's the way it goes. I loved the climaxes though and those episodes rekindled the inner kid in me.
ELEPHANT OATMEAL!!
