Argevollen and Aldnoah
Ok, seems interesting enough. Bookmarked.
If you want a legit serious, cold military sci-fi show like you say, Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the best one for that.
Hehe, I'm quite familiar with Legend of Galactic Heroes. A big fan in fact. And yeah, it's a real masterpiece. I can't imagine anime that will ever come close to it because... just everything is perfect in that show?
Stil, thanks for suggesting. Nice to meet another LoGH fan.
Hm, interesting. Personally I feel original Gundam series is still superior to every other UC series (bar War in a pocket and 08th MS team OVAs; and yeah, I'm one of those few who thinks Zeta was a stinker), but this is still enough to get me interested. Might check it out after all.
All UC is pretty excellent, but War in the Pocket, 08th MS Team and MS IGLOO overshadow them all.
IGLOO somehow slipped under my radar, will have to check it out.
All in all, I thank you all for suggestions that came flying my way. Thanks. Now...
Really? I can understand finding ZZ to be bad, but what's your issue with Zeta? (Honestly curious, I can only think of a few soft spots in the series, and am wondering if they're the problem.)
Ah, Zeta... You know, I've had a plan on doing a comprehensive review of Zeta, explaining everything what I find wrong in this show in detail, episode by episode. But this just didn't materialize yet. One day, I promise, you could read it all. For now though, I can only offer you a few opinions you are welcome to not agree with as I confess it's been a few years since I watched Zeta. AND I only watched it full just once, I started watching it for the second time out of sheer hate for it. Really, I was so disappointed by it I wanted to make sure it was not all just my imagination. And I'll confess some things make
a bit more sense. But I didn't finish because of reasons I don't remember anymore.
Anyways. Be prepared my rant won't have much sense. And do note this is purely my opinion. I'm actually adding this line after I finished writing at the bottom and now I realize I wasn't short at all but here, have at ye.
To understand my disappointment with Zeta, you must first understand my general stance with UC series. I watched original Gundam first (watched Wind and SEED before it, but never finished either of it) and I was completely blown away. To me it's a serious military action dram that can get quite shocking despite being cleverly masked by it's shonen-y, up-beat opening score. After that I watched War in a pocket, 08th MS Team and Stardust Memory and apart from the later, all of them impressed me greatly. So here comes Zeta then. The series which, I was told, is so groundbreaking, deep, shocking and all in all hardcore I could have nothing but high expectations for it.
And what I was left with was shallow characters, lack luster action sequences, military aspect that was a mess and forgettable music. Apart from opening scene which is one of the best things to happen to anime world ever. Because here's the thing - despite what I've just said, those things are not why I thing Zeta is bad. Not at ALL. The tantalizing prospect of Zeta is that I don't find it to be a complete, dismissible shit. Oh no. There's quite a few stuff that's actually
good. But the problem is it's surrounded but a mess of interests. Zeta doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Or to put it better - Zeta knows
exactly to whom it wishes to cater. And that is EVERYONE. Seriously. You have a
monster-gundam-of-the-week for all the model enthusiasts/kids on one side, complete with "let me show you my secret technique!" moments and villains that are shallow to a point of being just your ordinary Sunday-morning-cartoons villains (at first glance). But on the other hand Zeta tries to be your serious military story about guerrilla force, fighting something much more subtle than a full scale war AND the people in this fight a supposed to actually have feelings. But it... it all just feels
wrong. Or maybe over the top? Extreme? Zeta's characters DO have emotions, feelings, ambitions. But After initial introduction I never felt like they built on them. Never felt like they overcame them OR succumbed to them. Or if they did succumb to the "dark side", it just left me questioning "Why is this anything else than a plot device for the sake of dramatic plot device?". There just some much angst a show can serve before it all becomes a dull slap-his-mug-for-the-nth-time farce.
And even after being disguised by the show's empty characters compared to original Gundam,
even then I can't say Zeta is crap.
It may sound crazy but it's true and it has to be told - Zeta has BALLS.
It has massive, moon-sized balls of pure gundamium. It has balls to paint a universe of bleak, evil antagonists so pure in their evil it actually makes them impressive. Some shows have your classic evil guys, some have evil-but-with-moral-agenda thinking evil guys, but Zeta's evil guys, in a world that is not entirely unbelievable, are incredibly shallow
human beings. Despite everything, they are human. Even if the chief douchebag is just a douchebag in charge, he does not try to persuade the watcher of how very evil douchebag he is, no!, he will stick to his plan of universe domination and actually forgo the classic mocking and flamboyant ways of shonen-type commercial anime. Zeta's baddies are douchebags, but they stick so firmly to their ways you
believe them.
And Zeta has balls to take the characters you've known (and LOVED!) from previous series only to kill,
murder their spirits. There is no catharsis for wonder boys, no catharsis for ace pilots that got revenge in the end, no catharsis for captains who are heroic veterans of the past war. And good luck finding that sweet precious child that brought tears to you eyes amidst the fires of the 0079-0080 war - that child has grown into an angsty teenager extraordinaire whose repeated bashing with his head against the ever the same wall win him only your, the viewers, joy at his ultimate demise, no matter how sickened you feel at the destruction of his character.
Yes, Zeta has balls to paint a nihilistic existence where being just a
rational human is something unheard of and those who try are ultimately swallowed by douchebagery of dickheads on BOTH sides. Yes, it takes BALLS to do a show where you absolutely don't look forward to ANY side winning because the "good" guys are just the same shallow, weak, dull creatures as the "bad" guys.
But all that being said, balls or no - I find the final product of all things just so. damn. dull. I don-t mind the bleakness of Zeta. Nor it's character destruction. But it makes it does make the show boring to watch. The overreaching problem of Zeta however is still the "everything" it tries to accomplish. There are good things there, for sure. But it never feels like it does something completely, at least when you keep all the parts in the picture. So my ultimate conclusion would be I don't despise Zeta for what it
is. But for what it
could be.And don't get me started how animation feels worse than that of original Gundam. Or how downright fugly some mechs are. But boils down to personal preferences I know.
To give you an example - Gundam ZZ. That show is just a commercial spin-off shit show raping Gundams name. But you know what?
It doesn't even try to hide that. You have robo-boxing, your characters turned into a caricature of themselves and kids, KIDS, cheering when the kill, KILL, an enemy. All in just first few episodes. No, I actually do not dislike it for this as I dislike Zeta. ZZ has another problem - it actually has a premise of becoming
decent.
See, when the arc shifts to land war on Earth, the series actually becomes more serious. Kids finally realize what war is, how you kill and can be killed. Lot's of sweating, lots of heavy breathing. Tactics, battle plans. Sure, whats-his-name-again main character goes super-sayan at one point and overall the whole action never reaches the quality of, say, original Gundam. But the ambition is there. Let's not forget how previously dismissible villain suddenly becomes the-man-with-the-plan and let's not forget the all so real, all so brutal colony drop. But the point where ZZ become frustratingly bad is after the Earth arc. When kids go back to space. It's just the worst of the 1st part + the drama of the second and the final, unholy hell-spawns this unity gives birth to are things like research ship sacrificing itself instead of letting military ship do it's real for the sake of !!DRAMA!! and previously completely unimportant one-episode character suddenly becoming important and then dying in most spectacular "but how the hell did she even die, that thing didn't even hit her" way.
Yes, I would in fact recommend ZZ over Zeta out of sheer consistency-turns-somehow-interesting stuff the former has if it wasn't for the 3rd arc.