Judau finds himself in a race against time to save his
sister, Leina, when the Argama is ordered to attack Axis with its new Mega
Particle Cannon. Not only that, but the
hyperactive Elpeo Puru stands in Judau’s way, desperate for his attention. The theater of battle begins to change as
loved ones are forced to turn spy for the enemy and Haman’s eyes drift towards
Earth itself, ready to seize control of the defenseless planet in one fell
swoop. Decisions must be made and
resolves must be strengthened if Judau and his friends want to survive the war
that is finally getting underway.
Before we begin this review, we’re gonna talk about
Dragon Ball GT.
Why?
Allow me to explain.
For those unaware, Dragon Ball GT was the
successor to the mega hit Dragon Ball Z, airing in 1996 right after Z
ended.
GT sought to return the Dragon
Ball franchise to its more adventurous roots as seen in the original Dragon
Ball series.
GT was also done without
the involvement of Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama.
The end result was disastrous.
When the more lighthearted comedy adventure
proved unpopular, the powers that be did a drastic 180 on GT and returned it to
a more action oriented epic like Dragon Ball Z.
However, the damage had been done and Dragon Ball GT would end its series
run in 1997 with an embarrassing 64 episodes, compared to Dragon Ball’s 153 or
Z’s landmark 291 episode.
Eventually,
Toriyama would return to the franchise in 2015 with Dragon Ball Super, which
basically picked up directly where Z left off and erased GT from the official
cannon.
Why bring this up?
Well, I’d been waiting to talk about that ever since I first heard the
stories about Gundam ZZ’s troubles and couldn’t help but note the
comparisons.
My opinions on this show
have been pretty clear: it sucks.
The
humor betrays everything Gundam teaches and the characters have been a stain on
the legacy of Gundam characters.
The
villains feel straight out of a Saturday Morning cartoon and the brand new
conflict between the AEUG and Neo Zeon feels more like a kids game than the
high stakes war we saw in Zeta.
It’s
been bad, real bad and its enough to make me question how it lasted this long
on its own.
Well, it looks like
something was heard somewhere.
Because
as we hit the halfway mark, steps have been taken and they are drastic and
borderline miraculous.
For the first
time in over 20 episodes, Gundam ZZ is starting to feel like Gundam again.
It’s not free from the usual problems but for
once, I finally started to give a damn and I didn’t think that was ever going
to happen with ZZ.
The midseason set of episodes focused on two major plots:
Judau’s quest to rescue Leina from the Neo Zeons and Torres’ childhood friend
Cecilia being used as a Neo Zeon spy.
Of
the two, the latter was my favorite because it felt like a storyline befitting
a Gundam series.
Torres has been a
supporting player since the early days of Zeta and I’m glad he’s being treated
better than his unfortunate friend and Argama copilot Saegusa (who was killed
way back in the beginning of ZZ thanks to Yazan).
It also gave us a chance to see the comical
Neo Zeon acting like true bad guys.
Gottn has been a joke from his first appearance but here, he felt
menacing at the very end of his tenure on the show: pressuring Cecilia to work
for him and then secretly double crossing her with a bomb in her reward…one
that would ironically lead to his downfall.
Finally, we were back to the hardships of people living in space during
wartime, desperate to survive and make sure their family did the same.
Such desires almost got Granada destroyed by
Neo Zeon and it’s Cecilia’s sacrifice that made sure that didn’t happen.
It’s a level of tragedy ZZ seemed incapable
of and they didn’t even laugh it off.
Characters died and sorrow was felt, particularly by Judau, who started
to show signs of Amuro or Kamille type qualities and make him a decent
successor to their legacy.
Oh and as
icing on a surprising good desert, we got some stellar action sequences that
show ZZ is no slouch when it wants to take things seriously
Speaking of Judau, his quest to save Leina took him back
into the heart of Neo Zeon for new encounters with Puru and Haman.
Judau might still be a bit on the selfish
side, prioritizing saving Leina over protecting the Argama from enemy attack,
especially now that Neo Zeon is finally getting serious.
The kids heart can be in the right place when
it needs to be.
Not only does he stand
up to returning AEUG head Mr. Wong (and hit him, that’s a surprising one up he
has on Kamille) but Judau also risked his life to protect the civilians of Axis
when Puru went on a rampage because Judau refused to play with her.
Puru might very well be a pure Newtype but
her powers are out of control and she’s only ten years old.
She had no qualms killing everyone in sight
because she wasn’t getting her way.
As
for Haman, she seems oddly interested in bringing Judau over to Neo Zeon.
Now that we’ve started to see more of his
insightful intuition and ability in battle, I can see Judau’s value.
Also, wont lie, creepy as it kind of is,
Haman in her awesome Empress get up trying to sort of seduce Judau into coming
to her side was entertaining…wrong but entertaining.
For all the good ZZ finally found midway through the
show, the usual problems were still ever present.
Most of that falls to Beecha and Mondo, who
are back on the Argama and quickly forgiven despite the mess they’ve made…and
are continuing to make.
At one point,
they convince Judau to threaten the Neo Zeon fleet with bombs dragged by the ZZ
and secretly hope he’ll die so Beecha can take the hero spot on the
Argama.
One episode ago we were dealing
with a poor woman trying to redeem herself for committing a terrible
crime.
Now we’re back to the terrible
comedy hour of these two asshats?
I also
wasn’t really sure how Bright could defend the antics of Judau and friends to
Wong.
I hate Wong, who doesn’t?
The guy sees war from afar and isn’t a
commander like Bright is, he doesn’t know the first thing about it beyond
looking at expense reports.
But he and I
did have to agree on one thing: just because the show is doing a hard reset on
its tone doesn’t mean that Judau and the others should be forgiven for being
the terrible people they’ve been from the first episode, and this goes double
for Beecha and Mondo, who frankly should have been left at Granada to fend for
themselves.
The attempts at ZZ to still
hold onto the humor make no sense.
There’s proof this show can do 0079 or Zeta level drama and show
characters becoming better people.
Leave
the comedy that doesn’t deserve a laugh track behind and let’s get back to what
makes Gundam good.
Also I Still cant and
never will take Chara seriously, no matter how serious the show gets.
Maybe with Gottn dead she’ll become an actual
bad guy rather than the cartoon character she has been.
I cant believe I spent most of this review complimenting
Gundam ZZ on a job well done.
Now if
only it could remove the rest of that terrible humor and do something about
Beecha and Mondo, that’d be great.
The
fight is moving to Earth and Haman’s done letting the Federation have its post
Gryps Conflict breather.
If anyones
still treating this war like a summer camp experience, theyre going to get
killed.
I wont declare it too soon…but
Gundam might be back.
Let’s see if
Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ can work its way to a passing grade when the second half
kicks off Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
Oh…and wait a sec but was that Kaneda and Testuo doing
maintenance on a shuttle on Granada during one of the battles? Guess Tomino
mustve been a fan of the Akira Manga to give them a cameo.
Nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment