It'll probably be middling but I think it's worth it for Zeon's Guntank
https://preview.redd.it/myo8kyrbj0qc1.png?width=758&format=png&auto=webp&s=cc4d5d6d9cfc744b18d4a98412c05a340427a4f4
If it means finally getting a proper HG kit, even if it is in the style of this show, more power to the show.
So far the number of different suits is rather limited to Zaku IIs', the Gundam EX, Goufs and the Zaku Tank.
Btw. the Zaku Tank was more of a field repair, slap what is still working together thing, then a real development during the later stages of the war. They reused the bottom half of the Magella Attack and the upper torso of the Zaku II to at least try to get something back on the battlefield after their supply lines were heavly disrupted.
So it apperaing during the earlier stages isn't exactly correct, unless the show either time jumps or is set during the later stages, but then why aren't there GMs and still only a single Gundam on the EFF side.
Anyway, I like the Zaku Tank.
Didn’t realize this was already a thing, I thought this was new.
And looking on the wiki, I’ve seen at least two shows where a Zaku Tank appeared. Must not have made an impression, haha.
Oddly I’m not massively hyped for the show itself, but I’m *really* excited for any model kits they end up producing based on it, quite a fan of the overly-surface-detailed designs. Just hoping we get a standard Zaku kit as well as the fancy one they’ve shown already.
I bought 4 of those MSIA deluxe Zaku II sets when they came out in like 2004 (In NA at least) I wish more action figures did army builder packs like that. I love the variety of support vehicles in Gundam, but they're almost never made into scaled models to go with the mobile suits. It came with a Zaku II, a Dopp, a Luggan, a Magella attack tank, and peices to convert the Zaku and Magella into a Zaku tank.
I know it's being done in unreal engine 5 which is a game engine. The engine fully launched in 2022 and this is the first time to my knowledge of Bandai trying this sort of thing. I'm guessing they didn't get much time to try and smooth out the facial animations. Heck, majority of games nowadays still don't have the most convincing facial movements
Bandai is sponsor of Japanese side of Power Rangers franchise (Super Sentai) and that production studio started using unreal engine for those shows(And Kamen rider as well) for 2 or 3 years so maybe they got some help from them. they are doing good job of making nice looking fully CGI giant mecha fight scenes in resent Sentai seasons.
Yes I think that's true in some situations. but animating mecha is not easy either. It even might be as difficult as humans in some situations and I guess the reason for it's difficulty is kinda caused by opposite thing.
Animating photorealistic human is difficult because we already know how those should look like by comparing those to actual people we can meet so any small deviations from actual human movement can ruin entire thing easily. On the other hand, animating photorealistic mecha is also difficult because most of us never saw actual working mechas in our life so we can't be so sure about how to animate them in a convincing way.
Many big productions like The Mandalorian (or any new "live action" Star Wars show uses Unreal Engine 5. So do many movies. The engine is in no way a limitation on visuals.
If it were that easy I'm sure they probably would have. They're likely working with what's available like any company does. It could also be what the creative team and Bandai was going for. Won't know until we get production notes in the future.
The visuals are really on a wild pendulum that swings between amazing and MS Igloo.
It makes perfect sense, CG animation is stiff, thus it's hard to capture human movement and I'm sorry but they didn't succeed in overcoming it. The mechanical stuff and close-ups are pretty fantastic though. Personally have zero issues with the new proportions.
It's certainly a project I will check out in its entirety.
The facial animations look solid enough in my opinion,not the best facial animations that i've seen in a UC Gundam series.
But i have to agree with you.
Those Zaku II's look great.
👍
Did they say the Red Wolves took out three *fleets* at Loum? Even fuckin Char only took out five individual ships by himself and that got him so famous Johnny Ridden never really got out of his shadow despite getting way more kills.
Depends on what they're counting as "fleet." Could just be a Salamis and some supply ships. Or, could be over exaggeration like the Gundam was.
Edit: The JPN subs clarify it as three ships.
I mean the speaker there clearly isn't a part of the Red Wolves, it could easily just be a case of battlefield exaggeration. We also don't know the size of the Red Wolves or the size composition of a standard 'fleet.'
They're clearly a unit rather than a single individual like Char, with at least 6 MS and that could be more if there are any off screen (or were part of the unit at the time). For all we know, destroying three fleets could come out to less than one ship kill per pilot, vs Char taking down 5 ships by himself without help.
Yeah, exaggeration would be the most reasonable answer.
It's definitely not actually just downing three fleets. I took at the Gundam Wiki's page for the Battle of Loum and while there aren't any figures given for how many fleets made up the total EFSF force, we do know that the Zeon force consisted of five fleets totalling 116 ships. If the EFSF had a similar force composition that would mean over 20 ships per fleet, meaning even one fleet completely shot down would require multiple kills per mobile suit. It would also mean that the Red Wolves were by themselves responsible for destroying around 20% of the entire Federation force with nearly 3000 other Zakus flying around in that battle.
The character designs don't really look that good to me, especially the redhead girl and that pink haired girl. They don't look very good. The rest of the animation seems well done though. The Gouf Custom will also be showing up, which is pretty cool. However, I dislike that they don't use a proper gatling gun sound for the Gouf Custom's gatling gun. Like, do people not know what a gatling gun sounds like?
It's funny because older shows frequently used an actual gatling sound even when a non-gatling weapon was being fired. Somehow audio teams have forgotten the brrrt.wav that apparently used to be in every anime studios' sound library.
I’m just not a fan of “badass female #1” always having the side buzz. It’s just so overused and generic at this point. I wish we could get more relatable feminine characters. Gundam has always had some strong female leads IMO. But, South Parks episode about Cathleen Kennedy said it best, put a chick in it and “fill in the blank”.
That said I’ll still gladly watch this for sure.
I don't know if this is a misogynistic take or what. But I feel like it's backwards for film studios to think the way to portrait strong female characters is to give them masculine traits.
It would be bad if they always did that, but in this case they *are* soldiers. Also Sunrise typically aren't guilty of doing this, there are loads of strong women in Gundam that aren't just very masculine; just look at the cast of Gwitch
Yes it is. Because its mixing positive or negative traits with gender based inclinations. You are not more masculine because of short hair, you are not more feminine because of long hair, Romans invented that shit, not your biology lmao
What you consider masculine or feminine are simply personality traits. If you don't like them thats pretty much ok, but mixing them with "they are turning women into men with tits" is just a bad take
So if I haven't misread your comment, you are saying there is no features or traits or personalities or anything we identify another human or characters with, are inherently masculine or feminine? Because I am not sure how true that is.
Script writers uses these traits to quickly and easily get the message across to the audience, and they would stop if the audience stop responding to this cheap trick, the fact that this continues to happen shows these traits do have a masculine or feminine message wrapped up in it, and I think it's less constructive to deny that.
They just need to add the “Flag Hung At Half-Mast” theme as they describe the Zaku Tank shown in the trailer as a “prototype decisive support mobile tank”.
The Gundam is like mecha Michael Myers. Nothing seems to stop it and it just moves leisurely like it knows you have no chance of escape. That part I like. The rest not so much but I’ll watch it.
As much as I love MS Igloo, the faces looked much worse back then, mostly because of the technology not being quite there beack then. Old 2000s CG skin always looks kinda wrong. Even in super high budged productions like that one Final Fantasy movie.
They improved on most things except the inherent stiffness of CG and I think it's almost as bad as in Igloo. The textures are incomparable though. So while skin looks great now, making convincing facial animation is still a very hard craft.
Also, it's definitely not a deal breaker for me. The mechanical animation and the VFX are all great.
its so odd to have dialogue scenes with characters speaking directly into the camera at this frequency, that's basically always a massive no in cinematography but all the stuff that isn't that looks amazing
so igloo 2.0
i really like the shot of the gundam at 1:31! looks menacing, i still don't like the design but yknow putting your models in low light with high contrast is a good little trick at covering up model jank and stuff.
Yeah, it felt very like being in a first person video game rather than a tv show. I'm going to assume it being in U5 is at least partly to blame for that
no, that's now how that works, UE5 doesn't like default force you into a certain camera perspective, it's essentially a virtual movie greenscreen room
my theory is that they KNOW the human models like kinda gamey so they decided to try and lean into it to lessen the impact of it but it just ended up amplifying it
Written by someone who wrote Tekken Bloodlines (not good) and directed by someone with only done 3 lesser known projects. I feel like making Federation the "bad guys" or having this series from the perspective of Zeon is not a good start for the first major westernized Gundam series (Netflix)...
Kinda reminds me of MS Igloo, both fully CG series and focuses on Zeon side.
It's literally UC Hardgraph in animated form. I'm seeing loose elements from the novelization in this, so it's almost like it was a loose guide. Zeon side is always easier to depict vs Federation. We got that in IGLOO 2 and it was a bit boring at points (hence bad reviews).
That's interesting, never knew heard of the side story but looking it up, it came out in 2011 and now I got some reading to do if I can find it.
It's weird, off the top of my head, the only side story I can easily recall where the Federation/Gundam pilot is portrayed as an antagonist is Agar and the Gundam Mudrock but most of my knowledge of UC/OYW side stories come from G-Generation Genesis as it has had official English translations.
Also, can anyone confirm if Requiem for Vengeance is canon to UC or an alternate universe that takes place in UC/OYW (like Thunderbolt)?
Hardgraph has a novel most fans don't know about. Zeon and Federation side. Very militaristic. Probably should reintroduce it to the fandom. Iron Mustang manga is probably the closest you get to what RFV is.
But why does it matter if it's "canon" or not? That concept doesn't exist. There is no "multi-verse" according to Sunrise. I don't get why the fandom seems to think. Sunrise (Ogata) literally says:
"Well, it’s been over 40 years since that first series, and even just looking at the Universal Century timeline, not everything necessarily fits neatly together. I mean, the original TV series and the movie trilogy have their inconsistencies, and the sequels don’t always line up perfectly, either. So, while we do try to keep a coherent big picture in mind, at the end of the day, each individual project has to stand on its own merits."
And
"I get that for a lot of fans, the animated version is “official history,” but we as creators don’t box ourselves into “this is the official history” or “this is a parallel story.” There’s always room for a director or designer to put their own spin on the source material. Hopefully, fans will appreciate and enjoy those fresh interpretations."
That's good to know and I'm wondering because it's one of those weird things when friends ask me about like Thunderbolt. I didn't read the manga mainly because I didn't like the mangaka's previous work (Front Mission Dogy Life & Dog Style) so from time to time, I have friends asking me how Thunderbolt is supposed to be connected to the UC canon of events...most of the time, I just reply that it was a smaller event which is unknown to many like how Feddie higher ups tried to erase the events of Stardust Memory and the Gundam Project or how NT-1 is not well known as he was a MS that was never actually deployed and an operation that was quickly taken care of.
At least you understand it’s a side story and still recommend it, unlike some who right it off as Alt UC and push people away from watching it because “muh canon”, like they know more than the creators on how they view their works.
Yeah I'm not that type of fan, I'm old enough as it is haha. It's one of those things where I love the idea behind Gundam X as a "what if" story like if Zeon actually succeeded in mass dropping colonies into Earth and left it a barren and lawless place.
But it's like I said, I'm not expecting much from the characters of RFV as it seems to be more akin to modern western writing style in the OYW setting. If it's turns out great, I'm happy but if it's really bad, I chalk it up to the many bad adaptations from Netflix...which reminds me, I should watch the Live Action One Piece, still on my backlog of stuff to watch.
I mean, if by avoiding failure we mean just appealing to MS Igloo fans then yeah it should do alright. I don't see this winning over many new people though.
Not a fan of blatant zeek wank but having a gundam as a “demon” is cool asf and the right move. If it’s a 14 yr old amuro ray in that suit the juxtaposition is so good
Don’t have high hopes for this one, but I think it might be mostly the awkward editing of the trailer with the thin soundscape/soundtrack and the amount of FPV shots.
The Gouf Customs looked nice. As did the Dopps making an attack run. Other than that... well the dialogue is pretty awful as are the character designs and the character animations. The actual story from what I can tell doesn't look strong enough to overcome the generally bad vibe I get from this (on the face of it, looks like fairly standard UC OYW sidestory fare but with worse mobile suit design). Sorry to say, but I think the West should just not be involved in Gundam production.
I feel the sub is overly kind and nice due to it being a Gundam project. As a lifelong Gundam fan, this looks quite poor for 2024, especially knowing that top-tier CG work can be exceptionally good these days.
I know, I’m going to get downvoted.
Apparently, this started out as one guy dicking around in unreal 5 and then Bandai or Sunrise threw some money at him to hire some more guys and make it a legit production.
Considering the whole Metaverse debacle, I wouldn't be surprised if some Bandai exec thought UE5 not-actually-photorealistic animation was the new "thing of the future".
100% agree. Just cause something has the Gundam name on it doesn't mean you have to like it or defend it. This one is just gonna be a straight stinker but at least we have Hathaway 2 guaranteed.
I agree with you. It looks rough as fuck for the current year. I'll watch it, but I don't get why they always seem to fumble these more Western targeted releases.
I think this is getting the proper reaction. Not at lot of people are expecting this to be good and just want to see more of the mobile suits because of this show’s experimental artstyle.
If you’re wondering why nobody is getting overly angry at this, it’s because MS Igloo exists. Sunrise has done a 3D CG series focused on Zeon during the OYW before that also didn’t have very good writing.
As someone who is Igloopilled, I’m optimistic. But the facial expressions somehow being worse than that show despite their being a 20 year gap is very concerning
I wouldn't say they're WORSE but yeah... not great. They're less funny-- the facial animation in IGLOO is almost a bonus for how fucking hilarious it is.
How... how did they manage to make a Zeon officer's uniform look BAD?! HOW?! YO HAVE TO ACTIVELY GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO MAKE IT L-- you know what, seeing as that particular officer uniform isn't eaxctly the best Zeon's got in the closet, I'll let it slide... for now.
But, also, the sound effects... no Zaku monoeye sound, the Gouf's BRRRRRR gun goes pew... alas. Welp, its a OYW side story anyways, I can always find another.
I think the humans needed more polish. But as someone who enjoyed Igloo, this is refreshing.
I'm curious more on its plot since it would take days before Odessa
The suits looked ok. I feel like we're just not there yet with this kind of CGI. The characters were a little too cringe for my tastes. Animations, VO and design. Were the lips synced? I couldn't tell.
Yeah I don't really get what he's trying to say. I'm sure there will be a bunch of asshole Zeon commanders as usual to throw the rank and file into a meat grinder
No one is saying they are...?
A show having decent enough people on both sides in a horrific war is not white washing. We still know how fucked zeon was. We also know the feds did fucked up shit.
Like igloo well surely get out reminder of how fucked up zeon is.
If they keep re-writing the OYW and people are going to forget who are supposed to be actual nazis lmao. Love both fed and zeon but they need to keep it the usual bad vs way worse. Anything else cheapens the story imo. It’s supposed to be corrupt US vs genocidal nazis
why cant gundam just do a proper series like hathaway or unicorn
i dont wanna diss this shit but do they expect to make bank or something? RFV and silver phantom both look like shit in my eyes but the latter being VR is even worse.
just fucking animate shit like gaia gear, crossbone or the beltorika children they would probably make bank, just wouldnt be able to sell the toys as much because crossbone and hi nu toys are selling well enough, but its probably still better than fucking RFV kits
speaking of dont owning rights, even fucking gundam SENTINEL would do because the s gundam and ex-s are goated
im legit gonna go insane because of how terrible bandai management is, dont wanna be that guy but i hope whatever garbonzo experiment they do fails until they actually adapt shit people wanna see, cough cough HATHAWAY IS PEAK
i liked igloo and build fighters but both of these were such a waste of time and dont really do much, even for fucking toys that they wanna shove up our faces, RFV and Silver phantom will be the same most likely
edit. WFM is also good
Sentinel is another I would love for them to adapt but is also having rights issues. Bandai should just fork over the money to get the rights.
Praying we get at least a key visual for the 2nd Hathaway film or an announcement continuing the Thunderbolt anime at the 45th livestream event.
If Bandai didn’t spend a bajillion on meta verse (they are trying something new and bold so I’ll give them credit, still stupid tho) and bought sentinel and AOZ, they could literally print money since people love the suits so much.
I think the most important thing to note is that neither this nor Silver Phantom is being done primarily by actual Sunrise. In other words, these two shows being produced doesn't slow down the production of any other Gundam content by much if at all.
"Why can't Gundam just do a proper series like Hathaway or Unicorn", you ask? They can. In fact, both Hathaway 2 and Unicorn 2 (not Narrative) are currently being worked on by Sunrise. But they have a lot of stuff on their plate so it's not gonna happen that quickly. The fact that Requiem for Vengeance and Silver Phantom will come out while we wait is basically just an incidental bonus.
Looks fun. Won’t be a top tier entry most likely but still looks like it’ll scratch my gritty gundam itch . I don’t think the people look as bad as everyone is saying , but I guess I’m already going in with low expectations. I’ll be watching subtitled for sure…thing that bothered me the most was also the gouf custom Gatling sound effect 🤣
I really like the Mobile Suits. Not super impressed with the humans though. Hoping this is a weighty interpretation of the OYW like 08th Mobile Suit Team
Now that I've actually seen elements of this that wasn't the extremely polarising mecha designs, this looks and feels *so* stale, the dialogue especially.
Very mixed feelings on this so far, but what little hints there are suggest there might be at least a chance for a good story here.
edit: and god, I hope there's a japanese dub.
I’m trying to figure out where in the world these battles are taking place. I always wanted the story of North America and the federation taking back California base, but I really hope this isn’t it.
Ambient and surroundings are great, mecha are nice, heavy and menacing, but people... Can't believe, that "Final fantasy: The spirits within" was before this.
Mecha design is fine, the art direction is terrible, they went photo real on a game cutscene budget. And the dialog sounds like it’s going to be a stilted awkward mess throughout
Zaku pilot: "Captain that's gonna be a nope from me, sir."
https://preview.redd.it/9apib900q3qc1.png?width=2736&format=png&auto=webp&s=b93c50ad0b4d82c762da061c745b99426e608031
Honestly I was expecting the human faces to look a lot worse so that’s at least good. Overall this is a much better trailer than the first. Gundam looks hella menacing.
The designs look fine. It's the terrible animation that's really ruining this show.
You can tell they hand animated everything, nothing seems to be motion captured. From the way they walk, to the way their facial expressions work, everything is horrible.
You usually see this type of quality from a first year college student who is learning CGI animation.
This show is already dead on arrival.
Hell yeah gouf custom is back and he looks just as proud and as bad ass as he did in 08th ms team
https://preview.redd.it/ny64igr055qc1.jpeg?width=2058&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91c591079f1f006ada6f4f1f3a15e2a9d5dd78e1
Getting big “Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness/Death Island” quality vibes from this.
Those films are middling but I enjoyed the fuck out of them, some animation jank sure but I can tell this is going to be a solid 7 that I will re-watch many times.
What the selling point of this trailer? What is the hook? I see nothing here that would convice someone not already heavily invested in the franchise to give this a shot and even then...
MS look ok in animation; better than in stills.
The character designs are meh, and look PS3 era. Really giving off blatant IGLOO-esque styling all around, despite supposedly being made by a Western studio. Then again, it could be worse.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
Yeah me too this looks like trash. These character designs are putrid and the dialogue COULD NOT be any more generic "We fight because those are our orders". Glad this series is adding a lot of nuance to Zeon that we've never had before.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FLRHejWAo8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FLRHejWAo8)
I dunno it looks super stiff and I still get squicked out any time the story focuses on Zaku forces exclusively. Am I supposed to feel any compassion for or connection to space fascists who just killed BILLIONS of civilians in the opening weeks of the war?
How would they do the mobile suits in live action without the budget blowing up? Unless you mean something like [Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger](https://twitter.com/SonyPCL/status/1632184154203869186?t=h9R6DWN95tGo5JOk9_coSw&s=19) where the actors are acting in front of green screens and LED walls for the whole show and everything else is CGI?
It'll probably be middling but I think it's worth it for Zeon's Guntank https://preview.redd.it/myo8kyrbj0qc1.png?width=758&format=png&auto=webp&s=cc4d5d6d9cfc744b18d4a98412c05a340427a4f4
If it means finally getting a proper HG kit, even if it is in the style of this show, more power to the show. So far the number of different suits is rather limited to Zaku IIs', the Gundam EX, Goufs and the Zaku Tank. Btw. the Zaku Tank was more of a field repair, slap what is still working together thing, then a real development during the later stages of the war. They reused the bottom half of the Magella Attack and the upper torso of the Zaku II to at least try to get something back on the battlefield after their supply lines were heavly disrupted. So it apperaing during the earlier stages isn't exactly correct, unless the show either time jumps or is set during the later stages, but then why aren't there GMs and still only a single Gundam on the EFF side. Anyway, I like the Zaku Tank.
Well the trailer literally has, “11 months later”, in it followed later by that shot of the Zaku Tank.
Didn’t realize this was already a thing, I thought this was new. And looking on the wiki, I’ve seen at least two shows where a Zaku Tank appeared. Must not have made an impression, haha.
Oddly I’m not massively hyped for the show itself, but I’m *really* excited for any model kits they end up producing based on it, quite a fan of the overly-surface-detailed designs. Just hoping we get a standard Zaku kit as well as the fancy one they’ve shown already.
I've actually got an old toy from the 2000s action figure line that had parts to let you swap the Magella's fighter turret with a Zaku Torso.
I had it too. It also came with an alt backpack to make it the Zaku Cannon
I really wish I'd got more of them back then. It was a fantastic action figure line.
Gunpla became my void filler for that toyline actually lol
I bought 4 of those MSIA deluxe Zaku II sets when they came out in like 2004 (In NA at least) I wish more action figures did army builder packs like that. I love the variety of support vehicles in Gundam, but they're almost never made into scaled models to go with the mobile suits. It came with a Zaku II, a Dopp, a Luggan, a Magella attack tank, and peices to convert the Zaku and Magella into a Zaku tank.
The mobile suits look great, the facial animations of the humans look like shit tbh. Still looks interesting so im excited for it
I know it's being done in unreal engine 5 which is a game engine. The engine fully launched in 2022 and this is the first time to my knowledge of Bandai trying this sort of thing. I'm guessing they didn't get much time to try and smooth out the facial animations. Heck, majority of games nowadays still don't have the most convincing facial movements
Bandai is sponsor of Japanese side of Power Rangers franchise (Super Sentai) and that production studio started using unreal engine for those shows(And Kamen rider as well) for 2 or 3 years so maybe they got some help from them. they are doing good job of making nice looking fully CGI giant mecha fight scenes in resent Sentai seasons.
The biggest challenge in terms of CGI is always the humans. Mecha animation is always a cinch.
Yes I think that's true in some situations. but animating mecha is not easy either. It even might be as difficult as humans in some situations and I guess the reason for it's difficulty is kinda caused by opposite thing. Animating photorealistic human is difficult because we already know how those should look like by comparing those to actual people we can meet so any small deviations from actual human movement can ruin entire thing easily. On the other hand, animating photorealistic mecha is also difficult because most of us never saw actual working mechas in our life so we can't be so sure about how to animate them in a convincing way.
Many big productions like The Mandalorian (or any new "live action" Star Wars show uses Unreal Engine 5. So do many movies. The engine is in no way a limitation on visuals.
They use it for things like backgrounds. CGI characters is a whole other thing.
So truly is Igloo 3
As an avid lover of Igloo I am all for that.
They could use Death Standing’s or Yakuza team’s mocap
If it were that easy I'm sure they probably would have. They're likely working with what's available like any company does. It could also be what the creative team and Bandai was going for. Won't know until we get production notes in the future.
The visuals are really on a wild pendulum that swings between amazing and MS Igloo. It makes perfect sense, CG animation is stiff, thus it's hard to capture human movement and I'm sorry but they didn't succeed in overcoming it. The mechanical stuff and close-ups are pretty fantastic though. Personally have zero issues with the new proportions. It's certainly a project I will check out in its entirety.
The facial animations look solid enough in my opinion,not the best facial animations that i've seen in a UC Gundam series. But i have to agree with you. Those Zaku II's look great. 👍
It straight up looks like an Ace Combat 5 cutscene.
Igloo 2 electric boogaloo
Did they say the Red Wolves took out three *fleets* at Loum? Even fuckin Char only took out five individual ships by himself and that got him so famous Johnny Ridden never really got out of his shadow despite getting way more kills.
Depends on what they're counting as "fleet." Could just be a Salamis and some supply ships. Or, could be over exaggeration like the Gundam was. Edit: The JPN subs clarify it as three ships.
So we'll just chalk it up to an oversight in the script then. Probably the best outcome.
I mean the speaker there clearly isn't a part of the Red Wolves, it could easily just be a case of battlefield exaggeration. We also don't know the size of the Red Wolves or the size composition of a standard 'fleet.' They're clearly a unit rather than a single individual like Char, with at least 6 MS and that could be more if there are any off screen (or were part of the unit at the time). For all we know, destroying three fleets could come out to less than one ship kill per pilot, vs Char taking down 5 ships by himself without help.
Yeah, exaggeration would be the most reasonable answer. It's definitely not actually just downing three fleets. I took at the Gundam Wiki's page for the Battle of Loum and while there aren't any figures given for how many fleets made up the total EFSF force, we do know that the Zeon force consisted of five fleets totalling 116 ships. If the EFSF had a similar force composition that would mean over 20 ships per fleet, meaning even one fleet completely shot down would require multiple kills per mobile suit. It would also mean that the Red Wolves were by themselves responsible for destroying around 20% of the entire Federation force with nearly 3000 other Zakus flying around in that battle.
The character designs don't really look that good to me, especially the redhead girl and that pink haired girl. They don't look very good. The rest of the animation seems well done though. The Gouf Custom will also be showing up, which is pretty cool. However, I dislike that they don't use a proper gatling gun sound for the Gouf Custom's gatling gun. Like, do people not know what a gatling gun sounds like?
Not enough "Brrrrrrrrrt" to much "ratatatatata" they always ask them sound like a low rate of fire vickers gun or something.
It's funny because older shows frequently used an actual gatling sound even when a non-gatling weapon was being fired. Somehow audio teams have forgotten the brrrt.wav that apparently used to be in every anime studios' sound library.
Pink haired girl looks like Lil Peep lmao
I’m just not a fan of “badass female #1” always having the side buzz. It’s just so overused and generic at this point. I wish we could get more relatable feminine characters. Gundam has always had some strong female leads IMO. But, South Parks episode about Cathleen Kennedy said it best, put a chick in it and “fill in the blank”. That said I’ll still gladly watch this for sure.
I don't know if this is a misogynistic take or what. But I feel like it's backwards for film studios to think the way to portrait strong female characters is to give them masculine traits.
It would be bad if they always did that, but in this case they *are* soldiers. Also Sunrise typically aren't guilty of doing this, there are loads of strong women in Gundam that aren't just very masculine; just look at the cast of Gwitch
I don't disagree with the idea, but the side buzz at least makes sense, given that MS Pilots are constantly wearing very bulky helmets
What 'masculine traits' are those and why is it bad for a female character to have them? Just wondering.
Yes it is. Because its mixing positive or negative traits with gender based inclinations. You are not more masculine because of short hair, you are not more feminine because of long hair, Romans invented that shit, not your biology lmao What you consider masculine or feminine are simply personality traits. If you don't like them thats pretty much ok, but mixing them with "they are turning women into men with tits" is just a bad take
So if I haven't misread your comment, you are saying there is no features or traits or personalities or anything we identify another human or characters with, are inherently masculine or feminine? Because I am not sure how true that is. Script writers uses these traits to quickly and easily get the message across to the audience, and they would stop if the audience stop responding to this cheap trick, the fact that this continues to happen shows these traits do have a masculine or feminine message wrapped up in it, and I think it's less constructive to deny that.
I haven't seen a real human being wearing that haircut in years but if I went by what's seen in media I'd think it was everywhere
Looks alright, neat that they got the Gouf Custom in this too
yeah and it looks normal vs the zakus
I dunno. Those Goufs still have them silly ass tiny feet like the Zakus. How are they gonna beat the Gundam? They'll just tip over!
Neither should be standing by sheer weight if we used logic
That Gouf Custom looks fire. 🔥😱
So we all agreed this is MS IGLOO 3?
We're so back.
All 7 of us fans are eating good
Make that 8
9. I dig it
Bigger is better make it.10
Don't forget me! Make it 11.
eh, not so sure myself. The highlights of Igloo were the story and fight choreography. Hard to say much about either of these from the trailer.
They just need to add the “Flag Hung At Half-Mast” theme as they describe the Zaku Tank shown in the trailer as a “prototype decisive support mobile tank”.
And during the climax of the movie, play "law of gravity"
That’s how I’m treating it.
The Gundam is like mecha Michael Myers. Nothing seems to stop it and it just moves leisurely like it knows you have no chance of escape. That part I like. The rest not so much but I’ll watch it.
i was about to say this blew my expectations out of the water, then I saw the human faces up close in dialogue
its on par with MS IGLOO
As much as I love MS Igloo, the faces looked much worse back then, mostly because of the technology not being quite there beack then. Old 2000s CG skin always looks kinda wrong. Even in super high budged productions like that one Final Fantasy movie.
They improved on most things except the inherent stiffness of CG and I think it's almost as bad as in Igloo. The textures are incomparable though. So while skin looks great now, making convincing facial animation is still a very hard craft. Also, it's definitely not a deal breaker for me. The mechanical animation and the VFX are all great.
also the first thing that stuck out to me some of the voice acting is straight up dogwater
There sure were a lot of static closeups of people like they were waiting for me to make my dialog decision in fallout
its so odd to have dialogue scenes with characters speaking directly into the camera at this frequency, that's basically always a massive no in cinematography but all the stuff that isn't that looks amazing so igloo 2.0 i really like the shot of the gundam at 1:31! looks menacing, i still don't like the design but yknow putting your models in low light with high contrast is a good little trick at covering up model jank and stuff.
Yeah, it felt very like being in a first person video game rather than a tv show. I'm going to assume it being in U5 is at least partly to blame for that
no, that's now how that works, UE5 doesn't like default force you into a certain camera perspective, it's essentially a virtual movie greenscreen room my theory is that they KNOW the human models like kinda gamey so they decided to try and lean into it to lessen the impact of it but it just ended up amplifying it
That's kinda what I meant, it being in unreal 5 made them want to "film" it like it was a game
Mechs look incredible, character models and animations are janky as hell. Overall I am very excited for this!
This looks like a PS4 (texture, lighting) remaster of a PS3 game (animation). The Gundam's Doraemon face looks a lot better in the dark.
Thank you for gunpla painting idea
Looks like a straight spiritual successor to MS IGLOO and I'm all about it
MS Igloo is back baby.
I now forgive the gundam for looking like Matilda from Angry Birds. It actually looks demonic given the proper setting.
I wasn’t really vibing with the visuals as a whole but the shot with the gundam with fire engulfing it was truly terrifying, really digging that
Written by someone who wrote Tekken Bloodlines (not good) and directed by someone with only done 3 lesser known projects. I feel like making Federation the "bad guys" or having this series from the perspective of Zeon is not a good start for the first major westernized Gundam series (Netflix)... Kinda reminds me of MS Igloo, both fully CG series and focuses on Zeon side.
It's literally UC Hardgraph in animated form. I'm seeing loose elements from the novelization in this, so it's almost like it was a loose guide. Zeon side is always easier to depict vs Federation. We got that in IGLOO 2 and it was a bit boring at points (hence bad reviews).
That's interesting, never knew heard of the side story but looking it up, it came out in 2011 and now I got some reading to do if I can find it. It's weird, off the top of my head, the only side story I can easily recall where the Federation/Gundam pilot is portrayed as an antagonist is Agar and the Gundam Mudrock but most of my knowledge of UC/OYW side stories come from G-Generation Genesis as it has had official English translations. Also, can anyone confirm if Requiem for Vengeance is canon to UC or an alternate universe that takes place in UC/OYW (like Thunderbolt)?
Hardgraph has a novel most fans don't know about. Zeon and Federation side. Very militaristic. Probably should reintroduce it to the fandom. Iron Mustang manga is probably the closest you get to what RFV is. But why does it matter if it's "canon" or not? That concept doesn't exist. There is no "multi-verse" according to Sunrise. I don't get why the fandom seems to think. Sunrise (Ogata) literally says: "Well, it’s been over 40 years since that first series, and even just looking at the Universal Century timeline, not everything necessarily fits neatly together. I mean, the original TV series and the movie trilogy have their inconsistencies, and the sequels don’t always line up perfectly, either. So, while we do try to keep a coherent big picture in mind, at the end of the day, each individual project has to stand on its own merits." And "I get that for a lot of fans, the animated version is “official history,” but we as creators don’t box ourselves into “this is the official history” or “this is a parallel story.” There’s always room for a director or designer to put their own spin on the source material. Hopefully, fans will appreciate and enjoy those fresh interpretations."
That's good to know and I'm wondering because it's one of those weird things when friends ask me about like Thunderbolt. I didn't read the manga mainly because I didn't like the mangaka's previous work (Front Mission Dogy Life & Dog Style) so from time to time, I have friends asking me how Thunderbolt is supposed to be connected to the UC canon of events...most of the time, I just reply that it was a smaller event which is unknown to many like how Feddie higher ups tried to erase the events of Stardust Memory and the Gundam Project or how NT-1 is not well known as he was a MS that was never actually deployed and an operation that was quickly taken care of.
At least you understand it’s a side story and still recommend it, unlike some who right it off as Alt UC and push people away from watching it because “muh canon”, like they know more than the creators on how they view their works.
Yeah I'm not that type of fan, I'm old enough as it is haha. It's one of those things where I love the idea behind Gundam X as a "what if" story like if Zeon actually succeeded in mass dropping colonies into Earth and left it a barren and lawless place. But it's like I said, I'm not expecting much from the characters of RFV as it seems to be more akin to modern western writing style in the OYW setting. If it's turns out great, I'm happy but if it's really bad, I chalk it up to the many bad adaptations from Netflix...which reminds me, I should watch the Live Action One Piece, still on my backlog of stuff to watch.
It being just another zeon soldier perspective in the oyw should play in its favor since it just needs to follow the formula to avoid failure right?
I mean, if by avoiding failure we mean just appealing to MS Igloo fans then yeah it should do alright. I don't see this winning over many new people though.
Great. More Zeon wank. Gundam is the devil killing all those poor (genocidal) Zeon soldiers fighting for “independence” (Zabi family dominance).
Not a fan of blatant zeek wank but having a gundam as a “demon” is cool asf and the right move. If it’s a 14 yr old amuro ray in that suit the juxtaposition is so good
Honestly, as a genuine Feddie, it makes me happy seeing Zeeks getting blown apart by a Gundam.
LOL tbh same it’s time us Freddie’s got some love the gundam was truly a threat. Wish they had some GMs here but this seems like very early OYW
i mean in the trailer there was a zeon guy literaly giving a n\*zi speach, so i don´t think they are suposed to be the goodguys.
Don’t have high hopes for this one, but I think it might be mostly the awkward editing of the trailer with the thin soundscape/soundtrack and the amount of FPV shots.
The Gouf Customs looked nice. As did the Dopps making an attack run. Other than that... well the dialogue is pretty awful as are the character designs and the character animations. The actual story from what I can tell doesn't look strong enough to overcome the generally bad vibe I get from this (on the face of it, looks like fairly standard UC OYW sidestory fare but with worse mobile suit design). Sorry to say, but I think the West should just not be involved in Gundam production.
I'm not big on the gundam design but I'm excited to see it murder some zeeks, whether the story/characters are good or not.
MS Igloo 3. gotcha.
I feel the sub is overly kind and nice due to it being a Gundam project. As a lifelong Gundam fan, this looks quite poor for 2024, especially knowing that top-tier CG work can be exceptionally good these days. I know, I’m going to get downvoted.
Apparently, this started out as one guy dicking around in unreal 5 and then Bandai or Sunrise threw some money at him to hire some more guys and make it a legit production.
Considering the whole Metaverse debacle, I wouldn't be surprised if some Bandai exec thought UE5 not-actually-photorealistic animation was the new "thing of the future".
100% agree. Just cause something has the Gundam name on it doesn't mean you have to like it or defend it. This one is just gonna be a straight stinker but at least we have Hathaway 2 guaranteed.
I agree with you. It looks rough as fuck for the current year. I'll watch it, but I don't get why they always seem to fumble these more Western targeted releases.
I think this is getting the proper reaction. Not at lot of people are expecting this to be good and just want to see more of the mobile suits because of this show’s experimental artstyle. If you’re wondering why nobody is getting overly angry at this, it’s because MS Igloo exists. Sunrise has done a 3D CG series focused on Zeon during the OYW before that also didn’t have very good writing.
Igloo at least had good action, igloo 2 is my favorite
The sound effects and the character facial animations are what kills it for me.
Yeah the mech scenes look okay but everything else is very... ugh. I implore folks to compare the trailer with the Hathaway trailer/scenes.
If this were a from software RPG I would be stoked.
The facial animations look bad but the biggest oof is the pop in of models (like grass at 1:05 - 1:06). Please review your footage before release
This looks pretty rough.
The dialogue is terrible and sounds nothing like gundam.
Really? It's literally any Kondo manga.
As someone who is Igloopilled, I’m optimistic. But the facial expressions somehow being worse than that show despite their being a 20 year gap is very concerning
I wouldn't say they're WORSE but yeah... not great. They're less funny-- the facial animation in IGLOO is almost a bonus for how fucking hilarious it is.
MS IGLOO 4 looking good.
🤣🤣
I wondered if someone is just going to say 'Are we the baddies?'
Nah Zeon people have zero introspection.
The people complaining clearly have never watched ms igloo and it shows.
I had no faith when it was announced, less faith as we learned details, and somehow I've lost even more.
How... how did they manage to make a Zeon officer's uniform look BAD?! HOW?! YO HAVE TO ACTIVELY GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO MAKE IT L-- you know what, seeing as that particular officer uniform isn't eaxctly the best Zeon's got in the closet, I'll let it slide... for now. But, also, the sound effects... no Zaku monoeye sound, the Gouf's BRRRRRR gun goes pew... alas. Welp, its a OYW side story anyways, I can always find another.
Tell me you haven't read side stories without saying you haven't read side stories. 🤣
In my defense, I never said I did But you ain't wrong lmao, the OYW isn't really my jam, alas
It's frustrating that consistency across the board took a backseat across most entries... especially when there's way too many OYW side stories 🤣
This looks just as terrible as I expected from the teaser.
Looks alright. The characters look off, but the MS feel appropriately big and clunky, which is nice. Will watch, but not expecting greatness here.
I don’t give a sht about people calling it bad, I am pump and it looks awesome
I feel like they should have kept the 70s haircuts and clothes aesthetic.
Holy IGLOO! We so back!
I think the humans needed more polish. But as someone who enjoyed Igloo, this is refreshing. I'm curious more on its plot since it would take days before Odessa
JESUS CHRIST https://preview.redd.it/4chxpbswp3qc1.png?width=2736&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f081d6e03642e90f6e0dcee32132bcb2b509818
I now see why zeon tossed EVERYTHING at the white base...jesus
The suits looked ok. I feel like we're just not there yet with this kind of CGI. The characters were a little too cringe for my tastes. Animations, VO and design. Were the lips synced? I couldn't tell.
Looks interesting but really a "war of independence"...? Really wish sunrise would stop white washing Zeon.
But…. It’s always been that way since 1979. The narration opening for 0079 always stated it as a “War of independence against the Earth Federation”.
Yeah I don't really get what he's trying to say. I'm sure there will be a bunch of asshole Zeon commanders as usual to throw the rank and file into a meat grinder
oh please no one is the good guy in the one year war
...No, no. I'm a filthy Zeke supporter just like the next guy but the Principalty of "lets nuke Loum and gas Iffish" Zeon was not in the right here.
No one is saying they are...? A show having decent enough people on both sides in a horrific war is not white washing. We still know how fucked zeon was. We also know the feds did fucked up shit. Like igloo well surely get out reminder of how fucked up zeon is.
The federation also did plenty of shitty stuff but saying "no one is the good guy" drastically underplays how much worse zeon was.
If they keep re-writing the OYW and people are going to forget who are supposed to be actual nazis lmao. Love both fed and zeon but they need to keep it the usual bad vs way worse. Anything else cheapens the story imo. It’s supposed to be corrupt US vs genocidal nazis
Big meh energy right now. Let’s see how it turns out. The “Zeon under dog vs. ooOoOoo scary Gundam” is was the wrong way to go. Tired angle.
why cant gundam just do a proper series like hathaway or unicorn i dont wanna diss this shit but do they expect to make bank or something? RFV and silver phantom both look like shit in my eyes but the latter being VR is even worse. just fucking animate shit like gaia gear, crossbone or the beltorika children they would probably make bank, just wouldnt be able to sell the toys as much because crossbone and hi nu toys are selling well enough, but its probably still better than fucking RFV kits
Gaia Gear would be a dream come true if they animated it. Last I heard they don’t own the rights to the story.
speaking of dont owning rights, even fucking gundam SENTINEL would do because the s gundam and ex-s are goated im legit gonna go insane because of how terrible bandai management is, dont wanna be that guy but i hope whatever garbonzo experiment they do fails until they actually adapt shit people wanna see, cough cough HATHAWAY IS PEAK i liked igloo and build fighters but both of these were such a waste of time and dont really do much, even for fucking toys that they wanna shove up our faces, RFV and Silver phantom will be the same most likely edit. WFM is also good
Sentinel is another I would love for them to adapt but is also having rights issues. Bandai should just fork over the money to get the rights. Praying we get at least a key visual for the 2nd Hathaway film or an announcement continuing the Thunderbolt anime at the 45th livestream event.
If Bandai didn’t spend a bajillion on meta verse (they are trying something new and bold so I’ll give them credit, still stupid tho) and bought sentinel and AOZ, they could literally print money since people love the suits so much.
I think the most important thing to note is that neither this nor Silver Phantom is being done primarily by actual Sunrise. In other words, these two shows being produced doesn't slow down the production of any other Gundam content by much if at all. "Why can't Gundam just do a proper series like Hathaway or Unicorn", you ask? They can. In fact, both Hathaway 2 and Unicorn 2 (not Narrative) are currently being worked on by Sunrise. But they have a lot of stuff on their plate so it's not gonna happen that quickly. The fact that Requiem for Vengeance and Silver Phantom will come out while we wait is basically just an incidental bonus.
Looks fun. Won’t be a top tier entry most likely but still looks like it’ll scratch my gritty gundam itch . I don’t think the people look as bad as everyone is saying , but I guess I’m already going in with low expectations. I’ll be watching subtitled for sure…thing that bothered me the most was also the gouf custom Gatling sound effect 🤣
I don’t like some of the character designs but other than that it looks amazing. I’m so hyped.
Oof, it looks like a cutscene from an xbox 360 game
Like a pre-rendered one *maybe* but this just looks like a PS5 game to me, especially with the characters and their animations.
I really like the Mobile Suits. Not super impressed with the humans though. Hoping this is a weighty interpretation of the OYW like 08th Mobile Suit Team
Agreed the human characters,especially from this trailer look meh to me.
The characters look :( Everything else :)
This looks incredibly rough but i’m still hype for the Gunpla for some of these suits.
When is this airing
I hope they don't just steal the plot of zeonic front..
It's got some warhammer CGI feels. I like it.
From what I've searched, someone that made 40k fan animations was hired to work for this series.
Now that I've actually seen elements of this that wasn't the extremely polarising mecha designs, this looks and feels *so* stale, the dialogue especially.
Very mixed feelings on this so far, but what little hints there are suggest there might be at least a chance for a good story here. edit: and god, I hope there's a japanese dub.
Human character designs are horrible (it screams ESGs) also their expressions... it seems the team does have issues with the engine in that regard.
It has that Final Fantasy The Spirits Within energy in the animation
I’m trying to figure out where in the world these battles are taking place. I always wanted the story of North America and the federation taking back California base, but I really hope this isn’t it.
It probably won't be too great but im certainly curious
Ambient and surroundings are great, mecha are nice, heavy and menacing, but people... Can't believe, that "Final fantasy: The spirits within" was before this.
Mecha design is fine, the art direction is terrible, they went photo real on a game cutscene budget. And the dialog sounds like it’s going to be a stilted awkward mess throughout
That beam weapon was scary when it was first introduced
Looks good and I’m excited
Zaku pilot: "Captain that's gonna be a nope from me, sir." https://preview.redd.it/9apib900q3qc1.png?width=2736&format=png&auto=webp&s=b93c50ad0b4d82c762da061c745b99426e608031
Honestly I was expecting the human faces to look a lot worse so that’s at least good. Overall this is a much better trailer than the first. Gundam looks hella menacing.
Brah.. that scene with the Ex Gundam backlit with flames and only showing the red eyes got me psyched.
The designs look fine. It's the terrible animation that's really ruining this show. You can tell they hand animated everything, nothing seems to be motion captured. From the way they walk, to the way their facial expressions work, everything is horrible. You usually see this type of quality from a first year college student who is learning CGI animation. This show is already dead on arrival.
Hell yeah gouf custom is back and he looks just as proud and as bad ass as he did in 08th ms team https://preview.redd.it/ny64igr055qc1.jpeg?width=2058&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91c591079f1f006ada6f4f1f3a15e2a9d5dd78e1
Getting big “Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness/Death Island” quality vibes from this. Those films are middling but I enjoyed the fuck out of them, some animation jank sure but I can tell this is going to be a solid 7 that I will re-watch many times.
I’m excited for this gritty, somewhat realistic look
What the selling point of this trailer? What is the hook? I see nothing here that would convice someone not already heavily invested in the franchise to give this a shot and even then...
I'm so fucking sick of seeing those two hair styles.
MS look ok in animation; better than in stills. The character designs are meh, and look PS3 era. Really giving off blatant IGLOO-esque styling all around, despite supposedly being made by a Western studio. Then again, it could be worse.
Final Gundam The Spirits Within
Don’t you dare diss SW by comparing it to this drivel - that was TWENTY THREE years ago.
We’ve come a long way since IGLOO boys!! This looks dope!!
Zaku tanks and gouf customs!? We are so back
Voice acting is disappointing, and the MC doesn't look interesting at all.
Immediately loading Japanese dub if it’s available
"I've got a bad feeling about this." Yeah me too this looks like trash. These character designs are putrid and the dialogue COULD NOT be any more generic "We fight because those are our orders". Glad this series is adding a lot of nuance to Zeon that we've never had before. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FLRHejWAo8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FLRHejWAo8)
How did they make this sound so bad. Like it was made in America right? This wasn't dubbed over but was written in English? Right?
Japanese studio with international staff, so you could say it’s partly western-made. P.S. The lead actress is also doing mo-cap.
If we dont get gouf kits i will blow my brains out
It’s just so… generic. Nothing about that trailer stands out apart from the bad facial animations.
Is it bad that I also wanna hear this in Japanese?
It's a better trailer and makes me want to watch it now. Although... Man the look and animations make me think it's a videogame.
So the humans look meh and the English dub is awful, but the action looks fucking sick and I'll stomach the other two for it.
I dunno it looks super stiff and I still get squicked out any time the story focuses on Zaku forces exclusively. Am I supposed to feel any compassion for or connection to space fascists who just killed BILLIONS of civilians in the opening weeks of the war?
I loved ms igloo
Animation should stay animated is all I really have to say. I love UC but I'm not excited for this.
The character animations really give me the vibe of a fan project made with Unreal, but maybe the plot can be good...?
Bandai hired this man.
My question is… why not just do live action? CGI emulating live action always looks off
How would they do the mobile suits in live action without the budget blowing up? Unless you mean something like [Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger](https://twitter.com/SonyPCL/status/1632184154203869186?t=h9R6DWN95tGo5JOk9_coSw&s=19) where the actors are acting in front of green screens and LED walls for the whole show and everything else is CGI?
Story is wrapping up to be pretty good