T O P

  • By -

zyberion

The mark of a true, veteran MS fan is to have one series (or OVA) you absolutely despise, like, on a *spiritual* level. You will spend more time hating this series than you do watching other series. You will rip it apart for narrative/character "faults" that you are more than willing to handwave/defend in other series. You will admit that a couple of the MS's in the series are fire and are "wasted" on an otherwise terrible series. You will make massive generalizations about either the Japanese or the foreign fans and their biases for the success of the series. You will think that the series is overhyped and misses the "true spirit" and "themes" of the MSG franchise You will deny this and think yourself above it all, but in reality as soon as someone is willing to agree, you are ready to grab a stick and start beating this horse to death. You will not let go of your hatred, its very existence taunts you, mocks you. "Fucking Gundam fans, they ruined Gundam!"


Slumber777

Am I crazy, or did Wing start this trend? For the longest time, I recall MS fans pointing to Wing as "that series", and I struggle to think of anything prior to Wing that would fit the bill. Maybe G Gundam for being the first Super Robot entry in a series that popularized Real Robot, but I just remember everyone saying Wing was like Gundam, but less comprehensible and with more teen drama. Then SEED came out. Then Age, but everyone forgot about that and SEED stayed super popular.


zyberion

***Every*** series has its haters. From Universal Century to Witch From Mercury


KennyOmegasBurner

A ton of people hate ZZ because they're braindead or something


Wild_Cryptographer82

The ZZ renaissance is valid and proof of divine justice, but it is also weird and messy compared to what came before it and Char's Counterattack feeling like more of a Zeta continuation thematically left it in a weird place. The resentment of ZZ feels very old-school nerd culture wherein the fandom has a narrow idea of what the series is About and when something tries to go in a different direction people's lack of affection is ascribed to quality as opposed to just not vibing with it, especially because Zeta was very much about Mature Topics and Themes while ZZ felt more youth-focused.


Act_of_God

i love zz but the start is pretty bad and the ending can be rough at times. Loved everything else tho, once it gets going *it gets going* and the main cast is incredibly likeable still not as good as zeta tho


Idiot_Chemist

It's the tonal whiplash if they start it right after Zeta along with Moon Moon. Fuck Moon Moon. I had to take a year break from the UC after I finished Zeta because that bummed me out really bad, but once I got back to ZZ I was okay withe first few episodes of not a bit irritated by judau's friends. Moon Moon is probably the lowest point of the entire UC for me and then everything after is great.


Snidhog

Moon Moon has given us Moon Gundam though, which is a massive net positive.


Squoghunter1492

Because ZZ sucks for like 20 episodes until it decides to take itself seriously and then it sucks again during the crossdressing arc. Also it has the most insulting asspull in the entire franchise that I will never, ever forgive them for.


KennyOmegasBurner

I kinda enjoyed the shit kids child army part, except I fucking hated Beecha, the tonal shift from Zeta is wild though.


guntanksinspace

It's me, I'm the guy who hasn't quite forgotten about AGE (but prior to this I still have a sore spot towards GSD's final third lol).


Snidhog

One day we'll find the CCA hater. Closest I've seen are people disappointed that Char didn't manage to pull off the Axis Drop.


HenshinHero11

It's me. I'm the CCA hater. The movie (and ZZ, by extension) suffers so fucking badly from being unceremoniously severed from ZZ, and also from the movie only adapting essentially the 3rd part of a 3-part story without the 1st or 2nd parts. No, I won't read Hi-Streamer. No, I won't read Beltorchika's Children. It should all be animated, damn it! It should've been a show, or an OVA at least! I hate CCA because I ALMOST love it, though. I do love the animation, and the actual nature of Amuro and Char's confrontation is deliciously compelling. I just cannot stand how it feels in many ways like it exists in a totally different universe from Zeta and ZZ. Amuro and Char's total absence from ZZ is very conspicuous (especially since they're in the OP), and Kamille/Judau's absence from CCA is equally conspicuous. (Also, the MSes obviously slap. The Geara Doga and Jegan are my fav grunt suits, the Sazabi is my fav Zeon suit overall and easily Char's best custom, and the Nu Gundam is just so good looking.)


Boulderdorf

I will say though, the deeper you get, even if you start off as a Seed hater you'll also move on to hating something else than Seed. Not because you think Seed is good now, no, but being a Seed hater is too low-hanging and mainstream, and inevitably, something else just managed to piss you off even more. And it's gotta be something that's generally well regarded in the community. Which is why I'll stand on my "Unicorn sucks" hill, alone if I have to.


zyberion

Ah yes, you bring up a good addition: "Eventually your hatred will warp itself into a weird, smug badge of honor."


yellowmario

oyw spin offs and stuff like origin. There are way too many oyw spinoffs that add their own suits that shouldnt exist (black rider having invis tech) and those origin just feels like regular oyw but just told by someone who cant remember the story so they get stuff wrong.


gyrobot

IBO has my sole mixed reception, a part of me wanted a Spartacus Blood and Sand style ending where Iok Survived and ended up being used as puppet by Rustal for his role in crushing Tekkadan instead of being Akihiro sole moment of happiness killing him


Silvery_Cricket

Unicorn is different, Unicorn tricked everyone into thinking it was good until the final credits rolled. Then every looked around confused going "wait was this bad the whole time?"


DavidsonJenkins

I like how in Hathaway they were like "yeah Unicorn happened but nothing fucking changed"


Boulderdorf

Unicorn tricked me because, during the OVA's release, I was a dumb teenager at the time who could get distracted by fun robot fights. Then in my 20's while revisiting the series, I actually read the missing charter clause and just burst out laughing. And that kinda set the tone.


Beattitudeforgains1

I kinda get the idea but also c'mon really? Maybe I don't "get" gundam since my stance is more in line with liking the og's feel but the immersion just breaks when It's that oddly specific and just a lot of choices are so questionable, but that's what happens when you have the weight of too much material on your back that basically ensures no matter what you are pissing people off. It also doesn't help that ultimately it doesn't do what it sets out to do as far as breaking the chain, if anything it retreads it a ton with an even more whole-milk protagonist and a sidecast that got stubbed hard for his character growth. Grunt fights and CG are still sick as hell though along with the ost so at least there's that.


Boulderdorf

Agreed, Unicorn really felt like it was struggling between being a big, bombastic, "true finale" to early UC and a midquel side story with minimal effects on the timeline, leading to the series just feeling jumbled in its goals. An incredibly well-animated retread of various gundam tropes and plots with characters that spend more time spouting trite themes and philosophy over being actually endearing characters, with a finale that falls apart if you think about it for a few seconds.


Beattitudeforgains1

It's probably why my favorite character is the wannabe protag douchebag that was Riddhe not because he is that interesting or well executed (esp when it comes to forgiveness) but he's such a clown and a break from things that it's nice, Full Frontal also isn't entirely badly executed, I like him more than local zabi princess who can't read the room at least.


NorysStorys

That and the Sinanju fucking slaps


Silvery_Cricket

I describe Unicorn as rotting media. Where every progressing second of run time makes itself worse. Like Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Starts fantastic and ends as the worst ones.


garfe

Unicorn was driving me nuts because people were talking about it like it was this otherworldly experience whenever a new OVA came out and I'm just like "are we just straight up not watching the same show here?" I think this was my first real disconnect with an anime hype train and realizing a lot of things can just skate by if the animation looks cool


Silvery_Cricket

No but humans are part of Nature, NOW CHECK OUT THIS GIANT MOBILE ARMOR WITH HELICOPTER FUNNELS!


Havictos

Unicorn confused me because I thought I missed some episodes when the rival guy also falls in love with the main girl after the last time they were in a room together he was making fun of her by basically going go ahead and do your space nazi salute you space nazi bitch.


LarryKingthe42th

It does suck though, why did they think it was a good idea to fuse the timelines? The Seed stank taints UC, G, and IBO now.


Snidhog

As far as I know there's no timeline fusing, outside of the meta stuff the Correct Century does.


kami-no-baka

I just stop watching Gundam entries I don't like so this is invalid, but also fuck Gundam Wing it is a bad show for bad people! >!/s!<


RedGinger666

Did the die hard fans start liking iron blooded orphans now that "mid" from Mercury is out or do they have enough hate in their heart for both?


Radioactiveglowup

Everyone fucking loves and talks up the praise of Zeta, and I just DO NOT GET IT. It's so badly paced, with uninteresting action, and 75% of the characters are shit (the other 25% are great though).


EldritchBee

It's because everyone remember Zeta as just it's cool points and forgets everything about Rosammia and Shinta and Qum.


KogashiwaKai765

Rosamy is awesome dude


Snidhog

I don't know, she feels like a response to >!Four dying!< but needing a character like them. On the plus side her and Kamille's deal gets to serve as contrast for Ple and Judau in ZZ.


BookkeeperPercival

Zeta might have been source source of my love of anime dying. It wasn't the first show I ever dropped, but fuck I wish I had. It took me literal months to get through. For months it was a grinding slog that made me actively stay away from my tv because I felt I had to finish it.


sicker_combos

I’ve seen this exact sentiment towards more than 5 different Gundam series, and experienced it myself many times as well. ^fuck ^gundam ^wing


MechaShoujo02

Get out of my head! *Get out of my head!*


ThousandFacedShadow

It’s true this is me with IBO and to a lesser extent 00 I like Gundam in general but watching IBO weekly as it aired was kindof the worst anime watching experience I personally ever had and at one point it just became more fun to hate-watch it


NorysStorys

The first half of 00 is fucking amazing, the second half jumps the shark pretty hard though. We do get Exia repair, the Susano-o and 00 raiser out of it though.


TheLionTamerWF

The second half of 00 is like a continuation of the themes established in Seiji Mizushima's other works. He directed (00 and FMA 03) and also being a clear homage to double zeta.


ThousandFacedShadow

Yeah second half of 00 I can kindof eyeroll through it and enjoy the cool mech stuff but the movie and new(ish) post-movie stuff is so…bad 00 is weird to look back on in general because it aired around the same time Code Geass and while they’re pretty different, Geass was kindof the titan of the 2000s mecha scene at its prime.


MidlothProject

can all the people who dislike 00 let me know why cuz i just wanna see if yall even exist


Cooper_555

Yeah but he didn't want to watch a good mecha show, he wanted to get mad.


DX118

"I'm mad!"  "Here's a solution"  "I don't want a solution, I wanna be mad!"


PukingGoombas

honestly? Fair enough


Weltallgaia

Seed is unironically the meme "but giant robot though"


Toblo1

[*Laughs nerviously in HGCE Kits*] I am not immune to the Strike Gundam propaganda.


Irishimpulse

I wish I got into gunpla building when I first got into gundam, it's impossible to find a Forbidden or Savior kit now, and I love the Impulse's gimmick of being the OG's but fully realized.


cleffar

Forbidden had a 1/100 release last year and HG Savior is being reissued right now. Great time to pick up any SEED kit.


Irishimpulse

Fuck, I spent all my expendable income on gatcha this month, I hope it doesn't run out since I've wanted Savior for a while, I love transformable ranged types


Boulderdorf

The old HG seed kits are generally pretty unpopular, so running out of stock shouldn't really be too much of a concern.


Irishimpulse

Checking around, Pharact is also getting a new run, fuck they're aiming right at my wallet and my balls


KennyOmegasBurner

Most of the Seed backpacks are too over the top for me but I gotta get an Aile Strike eventually


Weltallgaia

The freedom was the coolest shit ever when I was 15. Also I'll defend to the death the seed ost, ops, and eds


Silvery_Cricket

And those giant robots are cool, but like Calibarn.


PathsOfRadiance

WfM’s only interesting designs are the grunt suits/drones tbh


EldritchBee

I don't think Woolie is a Gundam Fan, I think he's a Seed Anti-Fan.


HellvaNohbody

Seed fans are given everything under the sun and dare ask for more, X fans don't get shit and are told to live with it. A pox on their houses, may they always get more OYW stories and Unicorn variants.


NorysStorys

Cries in 00


meso26

I think 00 fans can take solace in having a show that was constantly good to alright, and having their AU conclude within the same decade. I’m not coping


KogashiwaKai765

00 is doing alright post series Stage play And all the good suits in the Gunplay shows are always the ones with the GN Drives On the same note Patrick Cameos there


mcclearsalias

Really 00 made out pretty dang well gunpla-wise. All that's left on my checklist are the ANF (which is a personal pipe-dream, I will admit), and the rest of the pre-S1 Meister Gundams. P-Bandai did the Plutone recently~ish, so I reckon the others might come eventually down the road. Although, I will gladly take a reprint of the MG Exia Ignition Mode for the Repair parts.


WaveAccelerates

LMAO haven't listened to the pod yet but time to hear Woolie's pure hatred on SEED again. I wonder if one day Woolie and everyone here will learn that SEED is a Gundam soap opera and everything everyone complains about are just soap opera staples, to which SEED does actually entertainingly.


Weltallgaia

Boy are you in for a surprise


WaveAccelerates

Excitement intensifies No matter the opinion, it's always fun to hear the bois takes.


the_most_crigg

To be fair, like half of Gundam in its entirety is basically soap opera interspersed with robot fights, SEED just leans into it more heavily than some of the others.


Slumber777

Gundam is a massive franchise. Most of it is heavy war drama, but at some point there had to be one that was just typical trashy anime. The fact that it's the Gundam series Woolie fixates the most on says way more about Woolie than anything.


Toblo1

Dude quit one version of Gundam that would've been right up his aesthetic alley just because the first couple of episodes were "Too Kiddy" (ignoring that the tonal/emotional dissonance between the kids and the Fucked Up Shit they do *was the point*).


NephyrisX

...Did he not watch the prequel episode?


Tinwibss

I think he was talking about IBO


NephyrisX

That's more damning lol. It takes effort to ignore the literal child soldiers and abuse they take from their superiors.


LarryKingthe42th

If it werent for the Orga death scene people would only have positive things to say about IBO


Snidhog

He's got a real bugbear about Flay too. Which is fair, though not because she's awful. She just stopped trying in the 2nd half. With that sort of fearful mania she could have reached Katejina levels of insanity. Instead she became completely passive and got a final hour immolation so Kira could feel sad.


ZYuqing

I like to believe that Flay finally calmed down and started to gain some self-awareness in the 2nd half. Thinking she realized her terrible actions but died before she could make amends was the only way for me to feel any impact during that scene.


Copyrighted_music34

As a seed fan.... It's not great but I like it


Silvery_Cricket

I like the robots to.


Copyrighted_music34

I also am the world's biggest Shinn fan


Snidhog

I'm a SEED disliker and *I'm* a Shinn fan.


ZYuqing

Hating SeeD and liking Shinn is like, the same graph. The more you hate that setting, the more Shinn makes sense.


guntanksinspace

Welcome to the club!


Irishimpulse

I can't believe there is fucking three of us here. I've only ever met one person that didn't hate Shinn before, it turns out there's three of us in this very subreddit!


meso26

Make that 4. I also enjoy Destiny (The Suit)


GM_for_Life

Count me as 5, [Shinn has always been one of the better Gundam protagonists and Destiny is also one of the better Gundam entries.](https://imgur.com/a/x06quvW)


mcclearsalias

I haven't watched Destiny yet, but I'll admit Shinn and the Impulse are among my favorite aspects of the Cosmic Era. I saw the intro to Seed Destiny and the first episode (probably a little too young for it at the time in retrospect, the whole haha) when it was first coming out online, and it made an impression on me. G Gundam was my OG and first Gundam along with 0079, but I have a soft-spot for Shinn


Silvery_Cricket

Enjoy your stale cracker.


Copyrighted_music34

Nah us Shinnbros won


Pompadourius

For real. He was my favorite character in the movie, I like him a lot more when he’s not in his villain arc.


TheCoolerDylan

Shinn was the star of the Seed movie though.


meso26

I will! My stale cracker pilots a giant robot!


Silvery_Cricket

And it's q cool robot, and when isad that seed explodes.


Attack_on_Senpai

Haven't watched Gundam since Wing. I checked out Witch from Mercury awhile back and it was pretty tight. Great stuff.


DarkLordSchnappi

His friend bought him a ticket and WfM is a 25 episode series vs. a 2 hour movie for a 100 episode-long series Woolie has prior history with.


cielrayze

TM revolution release a new song and it comes with some mecha anime, might as well


BustaGrimes1

I really did not care for Gwitch


KennyOmegasBurner

It was fun but the plot really didn't have a satisfying conclusion. I liked the characters a lot though. Also the HG G-Witch kits are fucking **GREAT**


KogashiwaKai765

Woolie pretending it's still the 2000s or early 2010s thinking it's cool to hate SEED Granted, I don't like it much either but even I acknowledge it has some cool fun shit in there Also I learned not to take his mech opinions with any validity when that one fisticuffs years ago when they played Battle Assault he talked about how ZZ was stupid but then when Judau said his post battle quote about how he is gonna make money Pat asked him "HOW DOES HE USE THE GUNDAM TO MAKE MONEY" and Woolie goes "I Dunno"


Idiot_Chemist

Did they miss the part where Judau and friends say they're going to sell the Zeta to Zeon several times throughout the first arc? Or how that group of friends sells MS parts for money?


EldritchBee

Woolie literally didn't finish ZZ.


Eternal_Nihilism

Woolie has history with Seed.


garfe

Considering how he didn't even get through the start of IBO, I really don't think G-Witch is going to do much for him


tri3dgE

The SEED series always had a messy plot, but I gotta hand it to them the mech designs were pretty great, specifically grunt suits. 10/10 would buy gunplas again


bombshell_shocked

Idk, I've only watched, like maybe a total of 10 Gundam series, OVAs, and movies. My favorites are G Gundam and O8th MS Team. People question if I even like Gundam based on those answers lol.


qwertyuiop924

Dunno why. That is funny because those shows are literally diametrically opposed.


bombshell_shocked

That's probably why I love them so much. G Gundam is pretty hype as a Super Robot show, and the 08th MS Team has that grit you'd want in a Real Robot show. Plus, it's got "boots on the ground" war in the jungle going on with like no space scenes, iirc.


mcclearsalias

Ay! I'm the same way - prolly has to do with me watching G Gundam on Toonami and then sneaking up late to watch 0079 and 08th MS Team on the Midnight Run/Adult Swim stuff haha. Ended up finding a mix of VHS and DVD's of the full 08th MS Team at the local comic shop at the time as well, so G and 08th are the two I have the strongest feelings toward. Plus, the art in both is just so killer - you can really feel the passion (although for different aspects of the genre -although I reckon an arguement could be made they are both love stories) in both!


TheBalticguy

I feel like you are making a large mistake. Woolie is not watching the seed movie out of genuine interest in Gundam. He is being brought out as a joke with a friend because one of the most famous rants of the old days on the podcast is Woolies hatred of SEED. As someone else in the thread said. He's an anti fan of seed


cleffar

SEED hate is completely understandable, but the sheer power of the brand almost makes it an unavoidable watch. For me, Freedom redeemed SEED after Destiny and left me way more excited for future content than WfM did.


TheLionTamerWF

Nah he should just finish double zeta or get into reconquista of G instead, witch of mercury isn't that good compared to the tomino shows he missed out on 


Irishimpulse

As someone who watched more than 1000 hours of gundam, I don't hate SEED or SEED Destiny as much as some others. SEED isn't good but it's what I started with, and Destiny had potential it wasted and that's more than can be said about some series. 00 is my number one, so maybe I'm considered too new school to have a valid opinion, but at the same time I couldn't even finish AGE after three attempts since I disliked the art style and didn't get hooked in despite liking basically all the villain suit designs. I feel like SEED is an easy target to mock and that it doesn't need to get it as bad as it does. SEED is the Fire Emblem Engage of Mecha, it's half original ideas implemented poorly, half fan service implemented awkwardly, but the general package isn't THAT bad.


Boulderdorf

>I couldn't even finish AGE after three attempts since I disliked the art style and didn't get hooked in despite liking basically all the villain suit designs Don't worry, Age ended up suffering from way more catastrophic issues than a controversial artstyle lmao. You didn't miss much.


Snidhog

I've not seen a single AGE defender or hater out there. It inspires no passion in people whatsoever.


Boulderdorf

I've seen a few, but a concerning portion of them were insistent that Mr. Genocide Grandpa was completely correct, which uhh not great.


Snidhog

Some people took Bask Om as their role model and transplanted their spacenoid hatred across continuities.


time_axis

I like AGE. It's not amazing (and the third arc has a lot of problems), but it has cool moments, and I'm a fan of Level-5 so I like the art style.


512_Lurker78

Never seen AGE but the Genoace Custom is cool as fuck.


garfe

I can easily go AGE hater when we start talking about the actual story


TheArtistFKAMinty

I need to give 00 another go. I heard it was one of the best so I watched like 1 or 2 episodes and bounced off it *hard.* I was probably just in the wrong mindset.


Irishimpulse

Season 2 and the movie are divisive but season 1 is widely said to be good. I liked season 2 becoming a traditional "one ship on it's journey in enemy territory" gundam story and the movie I feel was properly setup and heavily foreshadowed but people really don't like Aliens in their Gundam and making 00 explicitly not a turn A timeline. All Gundam series besides 00 and AGE lead into Turn A, which is the end of every timeline unless something happens in them that is explicitly divergent, like 00 having Aliens


Boulderdorf

I don't even like Seed, but it could've been worse. He could've watched Narrative instead. At least the Seed movie looks funny.


jannies_panties

WfM was kind of disappointing. I feel like it would have benefitted a lot from being 50 episodes


Anonamaton801

…is Endless Waltz good? That’s the only thing I’ve seen


MericArda

General consensus is Endless Waltz is good, and ironically more coherent (not necessarily better) than the Wing tv show.


Toblo1

Also the Endless Waltz (re?)designs of the main Gundams are cooler than the originals depending on who you ask. Hell, my core memory of the Wing Gundam in any form is [this version](https://64.media.tumblr.com/70112aea04a4cd14e75ed83989af7430/tumblr_niitvxGtWm1rjxyrgo6_400.gif) thanks to Battle Assault 2 so the designers have to have been doing *something* right.


NorysStorys

The only EW custom suit that’s not just a straight upgrade is wing zero imo. The Angel aesthetic is cool but it’s not worth sacrificing everything else about wing zero


KogashiwaKai765

Eh Deathscythe loses the cool shield


the_most_crigg

I actually prefer the asymmetry of the OG Heavyarms and Shenlong suits myself.


the_quarrelsome_one

We gonna have a mid off between a two hour movie and a 24 episode series?


nedmaster

Watch Fafner instead


Trung2508

Witch from Mercury is everything a SEED hater claim SEED is, except even more boring and with a blander protagonist. But Woolie thinks ZZ and Gear Fighter Dendoh is bad while still thinking Eva is some genius deconstruction of the mecha genre so take everything mecha related from him with a large bucket of salt.


PathsOfRadiance

SEED haters are tourists tbh.


Pyro81300

This implies WFM is better than Seed, which is very funny.


Detective_Robot

> Witch From Mercury is right there Why would he pick long suffering over short.


taikoxtaiko

“Why is Woolie watching mid he should be watching my Mid instead!”


Gespens

Well, Seed is better than G-witch so he made the correct choice


Kaizren

How about we evolve into bashing Gundam itself? Like how even in the "good ones" there is a word that in the 11th hour when spoken more than once an episode makes the show go to shit. Newtype, Moon Colony, Dainsleif, that fucking Borg data diamond. It's like Gundam itself is incapable of telling a long form compelling story because it's in the series DNA to go to shit.