Tag: Mobile Suit Gundam

Editorial

Giant Robo and the Human Robot

Giant Robo is like a time machine, except you never know which direction it’ll take you in. Alternating between unusual predictions for the future and now humorously clichéd plot devices from the past, Imagawa Yasuhiro‘s classic shows its age without detracting from its initial quality. For an old-school super robot show, Giant Robo actually packs quite a punch with its story, providing something to hold the viewer’s attention beyond the awe of Robo and its sheer power.

Among the many things that a person could say about the show, one particular element stood out in my mind: the treatment of Robo within the story. It leads to some interesting food for thought about the early days of the mecha genre; the days long before Gundam and Macross.

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Community

12 Moments of Anime #10: Out with the New, In with the Old… and the New

In 4chan’s words, I’m a newfag. Or a moefag, however you decide to put it. Like many of the /jp/ denizens and unlike many of the most established editorial bloggers, my area of preference – and my specialty – will always be within the modern moe/eroge scene.

However, as we all know, level grinding to increase only one stat well result in a terribly unbalanced character. Unique skills are only useful when they can be backed up by a decent foundation. Knowing this, when I finally finished my initial trek through the world of VN adaptations and my favourites list was more or less solidified, I decided to take a journey through the annals of history – to the days before I was born, to VHS and beyond.

In today’s world, Mobile Suit Gundam is really more of an icon than a TV series or movie. It’s symbolic of a lot of things, relevant to – as they say – everyone’s interests. It can be a symbol of the early days of the real robot subgenre, it can be tangible evidence of the growth of anime as a medium, or it can simply be the spawning ground of memes that have been echoed out-of-context for decades. But either way, there is no question that Gundam is significant – and to tackle Gundam is less like watching a TV show and more like stepping into the infinite world of a ridiculously large MMORPG.

Looking at it that way, Gundam – and similar shows – make up my 10th memory of 2009, from a literal I-witnessed-the-Bright-Slap perspective and a more meta I-see-where-the-oldfags-are-coming-from perspective. Of course, my main focus is still on the general moe/VN/doujin culture, but with a bit of experience under my belt from the decades long past, I can start to understand what mecha fans mean when they debate the intricacies of LoGH and squee at the thought of meeting Tomino. I can’t promise that I’ll finish even half of the old-school anime classics in the next year, but I can say with certainty that my curiosity has been piqued to the point that I won’t automatically dismiss anything made before maid cafes and Megatokyo.

~ ETERNAL
つづく

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Editorial

Robots are in my Blog! 0080 and the Gundam Tradition

Well, this is quite a turn of events, isn’t it? No matter how diverse or focused a fan’s interests may be, it would be hard to call oneself a dedicated anime fan without exploring the beast known as Gundam. By “beast”, of course, I’m referring to one of the most massive and well-respected franchises in anime history. It’s the good kind of beast, a creature that must be tamed in order to reap your reward, like a secret boss with a legendary drop item.

That said, I don’t think I’ll get anywhere with the metaphors today, so I’ll stick to giving my first real impression of this universe of epic proportions.

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Editorial

Nostalgia Blinds…but it also Heals

Shh! This is supposed to be relevant!

Believe it or not, I’m not here to beat this dead horse, nor am I interested in whatever dorama was stirred up long before I knew that the anime blogosphere existed. Incidentally, I read that post when I first discovered aniblogs, which was before I knew wildarmsheero – I enjoyed it devoid of its original meaning.

But I digress. To summarize, DarkMirage wrote something about the bias that many fans have toward older series, and the fact that nostalgia can blind. It used to bother me when I was still in elementary school, innocently enjoying my Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker when the so-called vets would harp endlessly on Link to the Past. It also bothered me when I first started watching older anime, and I wondered how some of the Ghibli classics like Nausicaa could ever be better than modern anime films like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

In other words, I agreed with the sentiment without having put it in words, I agreed with it when I first read that post around a year ago, and I still agree with it today. But it’s also important to remember that nostalgia isn’t necessarily harmful.

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Fandom

Anime is Deep, Right? …Right?

If there’s one thing readers and writers alike quickly discover about the blogosphere, it’s that in a sea of casual reviewers and episodic summarizers, there are always a few people that feel the need to stand up and proclaim that anime is more than just ecchi and robots. For better or worse, this vocal minority – ranging in age, background, and upbringing, yet united under a single glorified goal – tends to force itself into the spotlight and steal the show using big words and plentiful paragraphs, fighting to the death for its belief that Japanese cartoons are not just Japanese cartoons.

But are they right? Are we right? Is the blogosphere truly fighting for a noble cause, to learn and to educate and to learn once more, or are we all simply delusional? We already know that anime isn’t creative, and TJ Han is always the voice of reason in the sphere, so what if this was all an elaborate lie? What if we’re all living in a dream world in which we’re the kings and queens of the universe, oblivious to the jeers of society?

Or worse yet, what if this is all part of The Internet‘s plan to seize control of the blogosphere using lolikitean cryptology?

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Memories of Eternity