Curse you Sunrise for killing Gundam!!

I’m not a huge fan of mecha anime, truth be told the shows i like can be counted on one hand. One of those shows however is the Gundam franchise, which I’ve rather enjoyed for the past few years. I picked up the franchise late in life, only getting into it with Gundam SEED, but quickly tracked down all the others and surprisingly found i loved them all. That was until the last series, Gundam AGE, which felt ridiculously childish. Watching it felt a lot like i was watching a Zoids episode, which isn’t bad, it’s just not Gundam.

Gundam has always had this rather interesting vibe to it. Even it’s younger ones, such as Gundam Wing, had the vibe that made them really interesting to watch. You got into the characters and felt attached to them. Sadly Gundam AGE had none of that and went for a purely childish version of Gundam.

That should have been warning enough, but when the new series launch i was eager to get into it. However this time Sunrise have gone complete childish with the series. Granted we’re only three episodes in and there’s a chance the series can be redeemed, but I’m not thinking so.

So this time round they went for an Angelic Layer style of show. For those of you who don’t know Angelic Layer is, here’s what ANN has to say about it:

12-year-old Misaki Suzuhara has just gotten involved in Angelic Layer, a battling game using electronic dolls called angels. Even as a newbie, Misaki shows advanced skills as she meets new friends and enters Angelic Layer tournaments to fight the greatest Angelic Layer champions of the nation.

Now, swap out the characters for Iori and Reji and we have the new Gundam series. A show about kids who make Gundam plastic models and then use them to fight on ‘Layer’ that changes to random settings.

Watching the first three episodes it’s like the guys over at Sunrise just didn’t put any effort into thinking up a new plot for the series. Rather they saw what was good in Angelic Layer and carbon copied it over to Gundam.

Thing is, if it was any other franchise than Gundam, it could have been an interesting series. The concept behind Angelic Layer has a lot of potential and I’m really surprised that no studio has tried to run with it. It could be adapted in so many ways to appeal to just about every demographic out there.

The problem however isn’t with the concept, but rather it’s application. Gundam has always been about the ‘man in the machine’, politics, and how people handled the situation they were trapped into. I’ve always liked how the politics in Gundam was done, and while it certainly got softer over the years, up to the SEED/Destiny shows it was really good.

Now however we’ve got a show that’s essentially Gundam Pokémon. Added into that adverts for the toys taking up a huge chunk of the actual episodes, it feels like a slap in the face. It’s almost as bad as when they released that bastardisation called Phantom Menace.

This is now almost completely off my to watch list, I’ll give it another few episodes to see how it grows; but i can’t see it improving.

For me this was the last blow, Gundam AGE broke my heart, and this Gundam Build Fighter garbage has just ground the pieces into the ground. I’ll never watch or buy another Gundam show again.

This is such a shame after the amazing series that was Gundam 00 and it’s movie, both amazing successes IMO.

Thank you Sunrise for breaking my heart, and i hope you go bankrupt!!