7 ms·
Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to include giant mech suits
- hinkley 11mo agoThere are only so many stories and we are all telling variations on them. How much of Hollywood is bad copies of Shakespeare?
- rilindo 11mo agoWhere is my janpla model kits, then?
- 0x457 11mo agoFine china tea sets.
- underlipton 11mo agoJane Austen crossover series based around customizing your china sets.
- inerte 11mo agoMoonrise Kingdom and Snow White too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARoKJ00cEZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARoKJ00cEZ8
- fellowniusmonk 11mo agoIs it as funny and does it "make ridiculous" it's framing culture as much as Austen? I love Austen, still don't get why people consider P&P a romance primarily.
- underlipton 11mo agoI haven't read Austen, but there's an infamous exchange in the original series where the ceremonial head of the Space Nazis compares his son, the acting head of the Space Nazis, to Hitler. The son replies, essentially, "Thanks." There's a tension in Mobile Suit Gundam and its direct descendants. The Space Nazis (Zeon) are also sort of, kind of a stand-in for Imperial Japan during WWII, and between the implicit relatability therein, and the charisma and popularity of series antihero Char Aznable (a Zeon officer), there is an enthusiasm in fan circles (leaking into later productions) for humanizing grunts on the "villain" side while emphasizing the corruption of the side the heroes happen to be on. But this as subtext to the headline narrative of Zeon being mass-murderers and the Earth Federation trying to stop them. There's also running, unspoken theme of the various corporate conglomerates playing governments and ideologues against each other for profit, and occasionally stepping in (usually with a particularly powerful prototype robot) when one side threatens to blow up the Earth Sphere for realsies. The end result is a lot of people dying for no reason, and constant backsliding into a state of war, and main characters who realize how ridiculous such circumstances are, but (as per TFW) don't have much power to do anything other than try to survive and protect their loved ones. Viewers are able to see where the shape of that society is warped. That's without speaking much to the alternate universes. In Gundam Wing, the greatest threat to a global aristocracy-cum-junta is a small, loosely-associated paramilitary group made up of 5 teenage boys and their supporters. The machinations of colonial-era Europe are so philosophically feeble as to be legitimately challenged by NSYNC and Greta Thunberg.
- RobotToaster 11mo agoThere's also that the republic of zeon was started as a legitimate independence movement, but was subverted by the Zabis.
- panzagl 11mo agoThat must have been in the BBC version of Pride...
- jerf 11mo agoIn the end, almost everything has a soap opera in it somewhere. People have a hard time processing stories that don't have a soap opera in them somewhere. For some people it's just impossible. There's really only a minority of people who are interested in stories that have no personal relationship stories in them at all. That's not to say that the parts that aren't soap opera aren't meaningfully different. I disagree with the reductionistic claim that "everything is just a soap opera in the end", and leave it to the reader to determine whether or not the original link is making that mistake. I would say it's more like salt in cooking for the vast majority of people; they expect a certain proper amount and trying to engage a normal human's taste without it is an uphill battle at best. As a result, across a wide variety of genres and styles, you'll find soap operas. (I use soap opera as a bit of shorthand for things focusing on human relationships a lot. Soap operas tend to focus on the romantic end more than average, so the embedding is not quite perfect. But I use "soap opera" as the shorthand here because they are one of the more pure embodiments of the idea, because they are basically nothing but human relationships churning and spinning, with generally not much more going on. Yeah, a couple of them have a more exotic framing device, but all that does is move them slightly off the center of the genre, not really change them much.)
- throw4847285 11mo agoHere's what's funny. You know what they used to call a book that foregrounded the soap opera elements you're talking about? A novel. That's why Tolstoy called Anna Karenina his first novel. Now, if you go to Wikipedia, War and Peace is also categorized as a novel. What else could you call it? But it's funny to imagine a time when novel was a genre.
- thrdbndndn 11mo agoWhat else would one call War and Peace at its time?
- throw4847285 11mo agoI don't speak Russian, but whatever the Russian word is for "book." Or maybe others called it a novel but Tolstoy rejected the label. I'm not sure. Either way, the word "novel" wasn't necessarily equivalent to how it is used today: any book length work of narrative fiction. Though watch out, this is a rabbit hole. Just look up novel on wikipedia. You'll see a big orange message at the top which is the first sign there is a problem. And then the article is excessively long. A lot of ink has been spilled trying to define what a "novel" is.
- ErroneousBosh 11mo agoAvatar is Pocahontas repainted. Fight me.
- redwall_hp 11mo agoI believe the comment I saw, back when the first one came out, was "PocaHalo." The second one developed its own story much better.
- LargeWu 11mo agoI mean, Avatar is a pretty on-the-nose allegory for the decimation of American Indian tribes and western colonization. I don't think this is at all a controversial take.
- adrian_b 11mo agoActually, when I saw the first Avatar, I thought that it was much closer to the "Treasure of Silver Lake" ("Der Schatz im Silbersee") by Karl May, combined with many scenes from the earlier novels of Karl May. Many characters of that series of Karl May novels have a direct mapping, e.g.: Old Shatterhand => Jake Sully Winnetou => Neytiri (gender swapped) tamed mustang => tamed flying dragon and many others.
- an0malous 11mo agoAnd Pocahontas is Fern Gully repainted
- btown 11mo agoThis was an incredibly mainstream meme, back in the day! https://mattbateman.net/writing/avatar-pocahontas.php https://mattbateman.net/writing/avatar-pocahontas.php describes his contribution to the comparison.
- throw4847285 11mo agoWhat an excellent piece! I have some Gundam experience and I recently picked up Pride and Prejudice to try and fix the total lack of Austen in my life. This article made me realize that despite writing stories that can be broad and melodramatic, Yoshiyuki Tomino has a keen sense of character. It's an interesting counterpart with his closest American counterpart, George Lucas. Both funneled 60s anti-war politics into their science fiction worlds, but Lucas was obsessed with Joseph Campbell and wrote plot driven stories while Tomino always puts the soap opera elements at the forefront. Also, I suspect the author hasn't seen Turn A Gundam yet, and if not, they really should. That one is Tomino saying, "what if I took out 90% of the space combat and really just made a comedy of manners." It's wonderful.
- stevenwoo 11mo agoI find I always have to lookup the value of the monetary stuff and Georgian British rules about inheritance whenever I go back and read Austen, it's the only part that's really dated, after one gets used to the sentence structure. It's really deep in the series (about ten books deep) but Lois McMaster Bujold writes a sci fi space version of Jane Austen in a couple of the books of the Vorkosigan Saga one might appreciate more after reading a bit of Austen.
- FuriouslyAdrift 11mo agoGlad they mentioned Iron Blooded Orphans... the best gundam (and very cynical and dark)
- exBarrelSpoiler 11mo agoThis essay about it is a good watch- it concludes that IBO might be a cynical and dark show rooted in realism, but the ending is hopeful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRjwktvPV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRjwktvPV8
- kjkjadksj 11mo agoWhich Jane Austen book has a character rip off their own arm and use it as a club?
- entaloneralie 11mo agoThat would be Fanny Price
- toast0 11mo agoDidn't you read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?
- arjie 11mo agoSpoilers for Iron Blooded Orphans below. I watched the one 'except' that OP has listed there "Iron Blooded Orphans". It's the only Gundam I've ever watched and I really liked it, to be honest. It was full of subversions of anime tropes. There's a prophecy, a stoic soldier like none other, a charismatic leader playing a dual role, another heroic leader trusted by his people. And there's the instrument of the establishment, playing the establishment role. And spoiler spoiler spoiler, spoiler spoiler spoiler the establishment wins, the charismatic double-role leader dies trying to fulfill the prophecy which isn't real, the stoic soldier is cut apart in the final battle, and the remainder of the loyal band either gets their people rights in parliament or gets picked off in violent engagements over time in the denouement. Fantastic story. You don't see that kind of thing very often. Western shows are all about the "you don't have to sacrifice anything to win" and Eastern shows are all about the "you're the chosen one" but this one was "the establishment is the establishment and most of the time it wins".
- TeMPOraL 11mo ago> Western shows are all about the "you don't have to sacrifice anything to win" and Eastern shows are all about the "you're the chosen one" but this one was "the establishment is the establishment and most of the time it wins". What's sorely missing is the very rare theme of "the establishment wins, and for a good reason, and it's actually a good thing".
- neaden 11mo agoIsn't that basically every cop show for instance? Like an episode of Law and Order is this person does something bad, the establishment finds and punishes them hurray.
- Supermancho 11mo agoLaO doesn't always follow that forumula. In some LaO the trial is botched or the law doesn't protect the victims or the perps escape justice due to political influence, et al.
- neaden 11mo agoI don't really agree with this authors analysis of Austen. Like on Pride and Prejudice, "Elizabeth Bennet wants to marry for love and respect, but in her world marriage is fundamentally about economic security and social alliance." Elizabeth grew up with her parents fairly disastrous marriage (where her Dad doesn't respect her Mom) and inability to think in the future which put the girls in such a bad situation (her father should have saved money up instead of just assuming he'd have a son eventually). She is reacting against that, wanting a husband that will have mutual respect AND the economic security of someone who is responsible. She wouldn't just want to marry someone for love who wasn't able to provide her economic security, just like she doesn't want to marry Darcy she doesn't respect him. This article makes it sound like she is rejecting the social expectations of her society, but only her mom really wants her to marry Mr. Collins and as seen by her own marriage and support of Lydia's marriage she is a pretty bad judge of what's going to make a good life. Later they say "They also both, mostly, focus on characters who have enough privilege to have choices, but not enough power to escape circumstances. Characters in both aren’t peasants without agency, but they’re also caught in larger systems they can’t opt out of" But that just describes basically everyone, none of us have no agency, but all of us are also caught up in larger systems we can't opt out of. But even within Austen you have Emma, who is entirely economically and socially secure and doesn't need to worry about anything and Fanny who lives entirely at the whims of others.
- macleginn 11mo agoNeveress all Austen's happy endings are due to the magical alignment of respect and love with security and social alliance. Jane's heroines are playing a (relatively, see below) high risk/high reward game of not wanting to sacrifice _anything_, which leads to their triumphs in the novels but most often led to loneliness and economic insecurity in the real world. Similarly, all people have choices, but these choices are often pretty agonising ones, and Jane almost never has her protagonists or us confront such life-and-death, very-bad-vs-infinitely-worse choices. And this was a conscious choice since the novels of the 18th century had been more or less filled with them.
- neaden 11mo ago
- Starlevel004 11mo ago> A friend recently asked how to get started watching Gundam, and as I tripped all over myself, equal parts excitement and not wanting to sound like a lunatic, I fumbled around for a good answer. But there is a good answer. It's Gundam 79. That's not hard. There are few forces in the world as strong as somebody seeing a long-running Japanese series and twisting and turning themselves into how to avoid release order.
- nemomarx 11mo agoThe memes around Fate were especially annoying for this. Anything but a "dated" entry, I guess.
- terribleperson 11mo agoI think fate is a fair one to struggle with because not only is it a complex franchise, none of the Fate anime are even close to perfect. Zero tells an interesting story but you have to put up with Gen Urobuchi and it spoils parts of Stay Night. Stay Night is the classic, but calling the original anime dated is an understatement. Unlimited Blade Works (Ufotable) is very shiny and a lot of fun, but I think it's less interesting and more straight up shonen. I started with Zero, and I feel it was a good way to start, but a lot of people disagree.
- kasool 11mo agoIf insisting on anime-only: Zero. Otherwise the true way is the game (which is now fully available on modern platforms with translation).
- underlipton 11mo agoBecause most Americans started with Wing, which (for whatever reason) turned out to be a brilliant synergy between timing and executive choice. I think we almost got X or Turn A first, and I don't know what that timeline looks like. MSG remains a masterpiece and a watershed and all of that, but it is possible to choose a Gundam series that incorporates many of its objective strengths without the aspects that can be hard for newcomers to approach. (But whichever one that happens to be depends on who you ask.)
- gabriel666smith 11mo ago"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a robot suit to ride around and fight things with." I was visiting Jane Austen's House Museum last year and it always gives me pleasure to see how wildly popular her work remains. There always seem to be tourists there visiting from all over the world. That is really heartening. She was very innovative. Maybe even underrated as a craftsperson at the sentence level. My favourite trick that I believe she invented is slipping from prose into a soft Iambic pentameter, essentially unnoticed. Lots of people have copied that from her. And class-pressure narratives will never not be relevant to people's lives. She's a very very humane storyteller in that respect. I am slightly biased - she's my great aunt (x 6). Used to find that embarrassing but now I feel quite proud.
- mrsvanwinkle 11mo agolaughed and was warmed by the end reveal. i support gushing over literature in HN
- pfdietz 11mo agoGo ahead, be proud! Be Austen-tatious!
- vintagedave 11mo agoDo you have an example of her writing moving into iambic pentameter in prose, please? I googled for examples from her books but — search results are terrible.
- gabriel666smith 11mo agoOf course! This is my favourite example, from Sense and Sensibility, because it announces itself with "burst", and that's the novel where she deploys it most: "Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease." She 'tends towards Iambic' in literary criticism terminology. So it's not a strict Iambic, more like a 'soft Iambic' which is a term I can't remember if it's actually used in lit crit, or if I made it up. You need to drop the "at" syllable, in that example (which you would do in vocal rhythms of English, then and now), for it to be a true Iambic. There's lots of good writing on the King James Bible "tending towards" Iambic, which should be more Google-able, and her father was a preacher, so that's a likely influence there, I would speculate. Some others I like that I remember: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." - Persuasion (I think?). "Till this moment I never knew myself." - Sense and Sensibility again? I can't remember off the dome. That's a gorgeous strict Iambic. There are much longer examples - whole paragraphs that close chapters of Sense and Sensibility specifically. I'll try and find the version I have notations on when I'm next around my books. She regularly slips into it to close moments of emotional crescendo - "Cursus" being the Latin term for an analogous technique, when it was more frequently used in a more stylised manner.
- jpm_sd 11mo agoPatrick O'Brian (author of the Aubrey/Maturin series) was a huge Austen fan and intentionally modeled his writing style after hers. Post Captain (book 2) is the most explicit homage, with a number of character names borrowed from Austen's work.
- BLKNSLVR 11mo agoI'm (very) slowly collecting the Aubrey/Martin series from second hand bookshops. For some reason I stopped reading the first book 50-odd pages in, but I will be returning!
- dghf 11mo agoThe early books in particular are Austen with sailing, swearing, and sex.
- BoxOfRain 11mo agoI couldn't recommend Patrick O'Brian more, I binged the entire Aubrey-Maturin series during lockdown and was genuinely sad for a week when I reached the end of it.
- Onavo 11mo agoThe Witch from Mercury is excellent. It's almost like a space opera version of Open AI board drama.
- PaulHoule 11mo agoWas funny, I was using Copilot to analyze a certain light novel to reverse engineer the storytelling techniques so I could write a fanfiction the other day and I asked it if it could apply a certain method to any other stories and it said, yeah, The Catcher in the Rye, The Bell Jar, The Great Gatbsy and Neon Genesis Evangelion Funny after a lot of this I think I broke it because it now loads a personalization context where it tries to apply this framework to everything and can't quit talking about a character that we seem to share a crush on.
- popalchemist 11mo agoThis comment is literally delusional.
- PaulHoule 11mo agoI'll agree it is the product of a schizotypal mind and one might think the whole project is wrong-headed and there might be a wrong interpretation here but it is factual that: 1) I got that list of stories 2) It has kept mentioning the same character for a few days even when I am talking about something else, even in other conversations (I would do that if I "had a crush") 3) It has been trying the same 'mini-framework' for analyzing problems using the same vocabulary over and over again In the last few months, for me at least, Copilot does make some attempt to build a personalization context (RAG?) and it quite often talks about something I talked about the day before or offers a suggestions about how the current discussion relates to a prior one and if I ask "remember how we talked about X?" it sometimes seems to respond accordingly. It is really fun and probably does increase the risk of rabbit holing, but my experience with agentic coding is that if you talk with an agent long enough the context does have a way of going bad and pretty soon you are arguing about things and going and circles and the only way out is to start a new session.
- gsf_emergency_6 11mo agoUs schizotypes need to work on our storytelling, HN hilites+Copilot is great. You're further along than I :) Optimistically, this is the way our "thinking" will make HN highlights without the crutch of "experience". (I'm envious of their style, not their substance)
- vl 11mo ago> A friend recently asked how to get started watching Gundam So what is good order to watch Gundam in 2025? What should be skipped? Are mangas/novels worth it or is it better just to watch anime?
- ranger207 11mo agoGundam is several universes that are unrelated except they have giant robots colored in primary colors. The main universe is called Universal Century (UC), and started with the original Mobile Suit Gundam show in 1979. It's retroactively called 0079 ("double-oh seventy nine") after its in-universe date. It's good but has significant lumps, like the haphazard animation and villain of the week fillers. I'd recommend starting with one of the 90s OVAs: War in the Pocket (0080), Stardust Memory (0083), or 08th MS Team, as they're fairly short, self contained, and have fantastic animation. Alternatively a modern UC show is Unicorn, but there's a lot of references in it you won't get unless you've seen some of the older shows. Another option is the latest Gundam series, The Witch from Mercury. It's set in a new universe unconnected from UC so there's no prior knowledge necessary.
- Gazoche 11mo agoWitch from Mercury isn't the latest show, FYI. The latest is Gundam GQuuuuuuX (yes, really, that's the name). But I wouldn't recommend it as a first entry. Despite being set in its own universe, it's supposed to be a sort of alternate version of UC and assumes viewers are already familiar with the original.
- Barrin92 11mo agoif in doubt watch it in release order but here's a good overview of the in-universe timelines (https://imgur.com/a/v5FNHoq https://imgur.com/a/v5FNHoq) for a bit of orientation. The shows outside of the UC timeline are their own thing, a lot of folks outside of Japan saw Wing first, those you can watch in whatever order you like. I'd say start with the universal timeline in order, it's the backbone of the Gundam universe. The shows between Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta are side stories during the events of the original show but don't skip them (except for IGLOO) because they're straight up some of the best shows in the Gundam universe. The "core" of Gundam is the original show, Zeta, ZZ and Char's Counterattack. Those in particular are one story and Zeta is widely considered (one of the) strongest Gundam shows.
- ge96 11mo agoLove the lore in gundam, usually ends in sadness but yeah Watched almost all of them except igloo/build fighter type Hathaway had a great fight sequence where you felt the scale of Gundam and the violence/heat the soundfx tooo ahhhh https://youtu.be/oiiIkSuiios?si=ylHdAqVnE2pPeSKv&t=202 https://youtu.be/oiiIkSuiios?si=ylHdAqVnE2pPeSKv&t=202 Thunderbolt has great graphics too and the jazz And unicorn the bell pepper gundam
- frmersdog 11mo agoGBF is a love letter to the franchise and to the gunpla subculture. Its animation quality is high, the characters are fun, and Easter eggs are fun to look out for - including more than one where characters who met unhappy fates in their original series seem to be living happily in "our" world. Highly recommended. The Build Divers series is not very good, but I still recommend it to people who have some time to spare, because Re:Rise retroactively makes it so satisfying. Re:Rise itself is deceptively sophisticated, and touches on some mature themes that even most serious Gundam series don't get to.
- ge96 11mo agoAlright I'll try GBF again I forgot to mention the hype of that Zgok lol in Seed Freedom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvyAa4CgaOs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvyAa4CgaOs ugh I don't like these 60FPS things on YT makes it look worse my bad, updated
- kasool 11mo agoHathaway honestly blew me away the first time I saw it. One of the few movies I've watched 3-4 times now. It's exactly like you say, you can really _feel_ the weight and scale of mobile suits. It's honestly a fantastic start to this new era of UC. Also lol @ kshatriya being called bell pepper. It's probably my favorite non-gundam mobile suit. I wish they'd make an MG kit for it despite how massive it is.
- wisty 11mo agoI read somewhere that Code Geass originally didn't have mechs in the script. Every anime has a production committee who figures out how they pay for it (anime make miney from a wide range of sources) and they told the writers they needed to write mechs in to get the gunpla bucks.
- femiagbabiaka 11mo agoIf you are someone for whom this article resonates, you should watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes, the old one, not the new one.
- skybrian 11mo agoWhen reading Jane Austen you learn a fair bit about the English upper classes of that time period. What do you learn from Gundam?
- _carbyau_ 11mo agoThe many Gundam series are not a historical account obviously. From what I gather - having never actually watched any - there are anti-war themes (IE armies are commanded by people who don't have to sacrifice, how that corrupts), sacrifice vs outcomes and more. It's a thematic experience rather than an education in robotics or history. I like stompy robots. I have to yet to start on Gundam because I am hesitant as to where to start and which path to follow in watching it all and I know it would consume me once I start. Maybe after Xmas, in my break, I'll "waste" some time with it.
- rsynnott 11mo agoLearning stuff is a weird primary motivator to read fiction. (I’m not sure you learn as much as you think; I mean some context leaks through but Austin’s characters aren’t necessarily _that_ archetypical. If you want that you might be better with a social history.)
- skybrian 11mo agoSometimes it’s the fiction itself along with other commentary that helps you understand the historical background. There’s plenty written about Jane Austen’s novels. Also, Austen was definitely commenting on society of that time, though sometimes you need other background knowledge to get the reference.
- throw4847285 11mo agoYou learn a lot about post-War Japan and the New Left. Just because a writer dresses their story up in futuristic or fantastical trappings does not mean that they aren't writing about their own cultural milieu. Tomino is explicit about this in the interviews compiled for the supplementary material in the Gundam Origin manga. They are a fantastic read (and the manga is a masterpiece).
- ndesaulniers 11mo agoI feel attacked. Where my Gundam Wing fans at? (there are literally dozens of us...dozens!)
- yomismoaqui 11mo agoObligatory meme about what really Gudam is about: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gundam/comments/y3766d/i_just_watched_war_in_the_pocket_i_did_not_expect/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Gundam/comments/y3766d/i_just_watch...
- zhivota 11mo agoNow someone tell me the equivalent of P.G. Wodehouse and I'll check it out. Wodehouse feels like the lighthearted successor of Austen, focused more on the comedy and farcical plots, than serious romance. Funny enough, I started reading his stuff on the recommendation of Paul Graham.
- underlipton 11mo agoI can't speak to Wodehouse's style, but as far as mecha series that weave comedy into plots that are fairly serious but also genre-aware (and ready and willing to take the piss out of them), in a well-constructed setting, I would look at Martian Successor Nadesico for old-school, Majestic Prince for a newer series.
- 3r3rni9 11mo agoPosting because someone has to say that "Witch From Mercury" was literally Shakespeare's Tempest (which I thought was amazing). I mean the Gundam's name is Ariel.
- quanto 11mo agoA mech eng PhD said that he watches Gundam/Macross for drama and Romance (as in Romanticism).
- dluan 11mo agoI thought it was pretty well known that Gundam is a commentary on class and the effects of imperialist wars on normal people. The OG series didn't glorify violence and instead showed a lot of gratuitous civilian deaths, and most of the main characters are the poor-orphan-becoming-a-knight archetype. Plus Jane Austen at the time was a sharp critique of English nobility and high class, but presenting it in a stylized and popular way.
- khelavastr 11mo agoGundam Seed is 1000% emo.
- stuaxo 11mo agoAh, so thats why I find Gundam boring.
- HelloNurse 11mo agoWeapons and violence in Jane Austen's novels include characters hunting with shotguns and (remotely implied) armed Navy ships. Nothing comparable to treating a mobile suit like an extension of the body, or killing people, or both at the same time (e.g. the "duel" between Char Aznable and Kycilia Zabi).
- 6P58r3MXJSLi 11mo agojust the same as Jane Austen is one hell of a statement. Gundam actual influences are well known, Tomino himself talked about it, more than one time. Gundam was inspired by WWII stories, but the direct source of inspiration is Gerard O’Neill’s “The High Frontier”, in which there is depicted the O'Neil Cylinder, whose design has been literally copied verbatim for Gundam's space stations/colonies.
- rsynnott 11mo agoBut does Gundam have an awful vicar? If not, not interested.
- otikik 11mo ago> Jane Austen No idea who that is, but I assume she writes Gundam stories without mechs.
- miladyincontrol 11mo agoOn a note of Gundam, an unpopular opinion but I actually do really enjoy how in the moment G Reco is, and while not quite Gundam another of Tomino's works similarly, Overman King Gainer. The latter being vaguely based off of La Compagnie des glaces. Some people find it harder to follow along in light of a rather anti-expository method of storytelling, personally I find it all the more compelling for story occurring during wartime. Combat is complex, people take action in the moment, not everyone's thoughts or plans need to be spelled out, leaving plenty to inference rather than narration builds for a better story.
- ericmcer 11mo ago> "the tragedy isn’t just that war is bad, but that institutional logic and personal desire are fundamentally incompatible" Pretty good quote from the article and a succinct way to sum up the human dilemma of existing in a society.