It's a Gundam!

I've long since resigned myself to the fact that, with all of the Gundam series out there, I'm going to love some of the (the original Mobile Suit Gundam, the 08th MS Team, War in the Pocket, Turn A Gundam, Gundam Wing), be bored by some (Gundam Seed), find some endlessly amusing (Mobile Fighter G Gundam, G-Saviour), and feel oddly betrayed by some (Gundam 00).

00 was weird for me.  The pre-release advertisements had me interested, then I watched it, and . . .  I really wanted to like it, but there was no hook.  Nothing grabbed me.  It was like Gundam Wing without whatever it is I liked about Gundam Wing.  I stopped following it.  Then I read some synopses of later episodes, felt intrigued all over again, and watched later in the series.

Nope.  Whoever wrote those synopses clearly picked up on something that either I missed, or it missed me. 

Gundam Wing I liked--my first experience with Gundam had been the English dubs of the three movie versions of the original series.  And then nothing for a very long time, until I starting watching Wing on Toonami.  Mostly it was the characters--they build up Heero and Trowa as these almost-supernaturally skilled pilots, and then, when faced with two mobile dolls programmed with all of their piloting skills, Duo dispatches them with two slices of his beam scythe and turns away with the line "You're just dolls to me."

One of my friends refused to watch Wing.  Mainly because he couldn't take a series seriously when it called something a "doll."  He also couldn't get into Gasaraki because one group of mecha were called "fakes."  In reality, I think, mecha anime just didn't appeal to him--he was really into stuff like Slayers and Excel Saga--both of which I've enjoyed, but I've never started a series because I thought "Oh, it looks like Slayers."  I have started a series because, "Oh, it looks like Gundam.  Or Macross.  Or both!  Maguncrossdam!!!"

Looking back at the collected series of Gundams, I think it's interesting that one of the series that started the "real robot genre," as opposed to the "super robot genre," has, from series to series and over time, drifted pretty seriously into the super robot realm.

Turn A Gundam's title suit and its counterpart, the turn X, would probably give the Ideon a run for its ridiculously super-powered mecha money.  And the Ideon could slice planets in half with its sword!  But then, that may have been a narrative conceit to convey the idea that the lost technology represented by the Turn-A and Turn-X was way beyond the series' present.

Anyway.  I always find the infighting among Gundam fans amusing.  You have guys my age or slightly older who are "UC or nuthin!"  Then you have the ones who were kids when Gundam Wing and its big-eyed boy-band starring cast came out.  And then the Seedlings and now the 00-or-nuthin' fans.  I have a certain fondness for the UC-timeline series, but I'll typically give anything they've slapped the name Gundam on a chance.  Sometimes it's hit or miss.

I haven't seen any of Gundam Unicorn, or whatever they're calling it these days.  I'll get around to it.  Eventually.