Stuck onboard the Megafauna with the G-Self still in
Pirate hands, Bellri continues to assist the crew in operations, even if it
places himself in direct conflict with his comrades in the Capital Army. Disillusioned and confused by the build up of
Military power within the Capital Army, Bellri’s mother, Operations Director
Wilmit, engages in a risky operation to find her lost son. All paths lead back to the Capital Tower and
a revelation that changes everything. So
far signs have told Bellri and Aida that the Capital Tower and Ameria have been
preparing for war with each other. Only
now do they realize…both are preparing for something far worse, something
buried deep on the surface of the Moon.
Gundam: Reconguista in G is not making itself easy to
watch.
Even when it’s trying to double
down on the Mobile Suit action to compensate for the lack of a clear story and
good characters, it’s failing pretty damn hard.
It did try to distract me with a quick visit to the lower atmosphere for
a brief space battle, where Gundam usually shines the best.
But it’s not enough when you compare that to
a main character who quickly brushes off killing a mentor before whining about
not being able to pilot his Gundam and other character who are equally
obnoxious.
Plus, even with a clear
destination in mind, the story is still hidden deep beneath random bouts of
dialogue.
I think Tomino was given too
much free reign here cause there’s no way a Gundam series, especially a
celebratory title, should’ve launched in this bad shape and somehow be getting
worse.
Bellri continues to be one of my most hated leads in a
Gundam series and he’s quickly reaching Shinn Asuka levels of bad.
However, whereas Shinn was a cruel bastard
from the get go and never grew, Bellri is a constantly smiling and entitled
brat who isn’t really learning from his experiences.
At one point, he kills his mentor, Dellensen,
in battle.
While the episode where he
does this ends with him trying to come to grips with it, Bellri’s fine and his
usual aloof self by next episode.
Other
Gundam pilots in the past have wrestled with the guilt of actually seeing their
human opponents or knowing that its someone personal to them.
Amuro Ray, Kamille Bidan, Banagher Links, Uso
Evin, everyone had an entire episode or episodes dedicated to this drama and
most came out better for it.
Bellri is
just treating the tragedy like it never happened and is continuing dancing his
happy go lucky ass off while being chased around by Raraiya and Noredo cause
they cant be separated from him when not in a Mobile Suit for more than five
seconds.
Bellri himself is a sum up of several things wrong with G
Reco, mostly that it doesn’t feel like a Gundam story, even an alternate
universe one really.
Unless it’s a Build
Fighters or Divers series, Gundam is typically a cautionary tale about the
horrors of war and hope that springs eternal for those forced to fight until it
nearly breaks them.
G Reco rarely wants
to sit on the horrors of war aspect and just treat everything like a game or a
casual day at the office.
It’s the same
problem that Gundam ZZ had in the beginning but at least it had a strong
villain in Haman Kahn and Bright Noa to keep things slightly bearable until the
second half fixed everything.
And yet
I’m not really holding out for a mid series course correction like ZZ had, that
turned Judau Ashita and his gang of junk yard brats into heroes I wanted to see
make it to the end of the show.
Bellri’s
a mess, his supporting cast is a mess and did I mention there’s a scene where
he actually runs around the Mobile Suit deck screaming his ass off cause he
cant pilot the G-Self cause its being outfitted for battle?
Holy crap this actually is worse than the
beginning of ZZ…that’s really not good.
Another major problem I have with G Reco is Raraiya.
Since this is still technically part of the
Universal Century, I doubt Newtypes have gone by the wayside and that also
means we’re gonna have characters heavily traumatized by some event that tears
their mind apart and regresses them to the mind of a child.
That’s Raraiya but she’s become more
obnoxious than tragic, mostly cause this show doesn’t know how to do tragic
properly.
In this set, she’s been given
an emotional support animal, specifically a fish…and she’s shoving “Chuchumy”
in everyones face.
It wouldn’t bother me
so much if Tomino wasn’t forcing Raraiya onto the screen at random intervals to
show her doing cute stuff in the middle of an actual battle.
This girl isn’t Lalah Sune…but some
characters seem to want to treat her that way.
In what seems like more of a Char move than anything Luin does in this
set, Kilm coerces Raraiya into test piloting the G-Self by sweet talking her
and telling her even her support fish wants her to do it…that is kind of a dick
move dude and why is he so interested in seeing Raraiya pilot the G-Self
anyway?
This girl isn’t well and no one
seems to be taking that seriously.
Story wise, the continued confusion of random words
strung together to form some kind of important plot continued hard in this
set.
If I were to break it down simply:
there’s something building up strength on the Moon and both the Capital Tower
and Ameria have been building up their own forces in response to
investigate.
However, because no ones
supposed to be looking at the Moon because of that treaty that wants to forget
the Universal Century ever happened, this isn’t public knowledge and both sides
just assumed they were gearing up to fight each other.
The situation in the Capital Tower is getting
more and more hectic.
For being the Head
of Operations of Capital Tower, Bellri’s Mom is super not in the loop about
Capital Army matters…in fact she’s just as in denial as her son is about
certain things like expecting people to honor a pact that prohibits weaponized
Mobile Suits.
Again, this is me piecing
together parts from all five episodes because nothing is made clear in any
scene really.
Even the battle scenes
suffer from all the randomized dialogue spewed about.
You might as well throw in your own dialogue
for the subtitles.
Me personally,
everyone is just shouting out random foods…i don’t know why but neither does
this series with its own script so there.
Lastly, I wanna mention Luin, who as we saw at the end of
last set is taking on his own Char Mask with the codename…Mask.
We got to see him several times in action and
wow I thought Zeheart from Gundam AGE was a terrible Char Clone (though he’s
mostly redeemed by the OVA, Memory of Eden).
There’s no cool factor to be found in this guy.
In fact, he’s just as much a shouter and
whiner as Bellri.
His piloting skills
are sub par and he gets smacked around so much it’s practically comical.
There’s even a point where he leads an attack
on a decoy ship meant to be the Megafauna…and it took Mr. Mask and the Capital
Army how long to figure out they were attacking a decoy balloon even when they
were up close?
There’s no cool factor,
no sense of menace or any sense that Luin is in control of anything.
He’s just a poser, a Char poser.
Pick any other Char Clone from Gundam: Zechs,
Harry Ord, Zeheart, crap even Rau Le Cruset and Neo Roanoke could beat the mess
out of this guy.
Ugh, the
disappointments continue in new and seemingly impossible ways.
At the very least, everyone seems to be moving into
space.
Wonder if we’ll waste anytime
getting to the Moon and if we’ll find anything meaningful there.
I’ve been pretty hard on this show but if a
Gundam show isn’t doing things right then it irks me, it irks me big time.
I don’t care what Tomino thinks he intended,
Reconguista in G is a terrible series so far and I don’t know if another 16
episodes is gonna change that.
I’ve been
wrong before though: ZZ certainly got its act together big time in its back
half.
Guess we’ll find out.
See you back here Friday for more Gundam:
Reconguista in G right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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