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Otaku Evolution Episode 264 – Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (Part 2)

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is definitely my favorite Gundam title. The mechanical designs, the complexity of the competing factions, the mood and atmosphere, the characters and themes, all make this my favorite mecha series, period. Even above Evangelion, which features my favorite penguin! (But favorites positions are subject to change over time.)

But I don’t think Zeta Gundam is perfect, and in this video, I go over some of the problems with it, and especially the disappointing movie trilogy they made. read more

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Otaku Evolution Episode 263 – Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (Part 1)

Welcome back to Otaku Evolution! It’s 2025 and boy have I got things planned for you, the viewer! Assuming I’m not just screaming out into the void, that is.

Speaking of screaming, there sure is a lot of that in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Maybe not as much as in G Gundam, but there’s plenty. Everybody seems to be a little on edge, which is one of the reasons I like it (but also a reason some people dislike it). Characters might just fly off the handle completely at any time. It’s neat! read more

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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #4: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)

 

Director(s): Yoshiyuki Tomino
Script: Akinori Endo, Hiroshi Ohnogi, Miho Maruo, Minoru Onoya, Tomoko Kawasaki, Yasushi Hirano, Yumiko Suzuki
Music: Shigeaki Saegusa
Zeta Gundam my favorite Gundam– no, favorite mecha anime- of all time. Why, you ask? Well, first of all, it outclasses the original series in quality of storytelling and concepts. You get the feeling you’re watching a real, fleshed out tragedy. No Gundam title does as good a job as Zeta does in showing how truly desperate people are in a war situation. All of the characters lash out to fulfill a sense of helplessness or to control the world around them through others’ helplessness. This means the characters are all predators or prey. In a swirl of desperate madness, the characters play outo a tragedy that claims lives and chews dreams, and spits the characters out broken, flawed, but intensely interesting. The characters are tempered in raw desperation, raw despair, which makes some of them heroes and some of them monsters. Now, I know there are flaws. Some awkward, unnatural dialogue, characters who act irrationally with little reason to, plot elements that seem to crop up at inopportune times. But I think the pluses far outweigh the minuses. In the end, you understand the tremendous price to be paid for a better future. 
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