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Char’s Counterattack, An ending three times as fast!

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Ernest Hemingway once said that, “All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.” And with that in mind we come to the end of the story of Amuro and Char that began in the epic Mobile Suit Gundam. The Universal Century time line and stories would continue on in a variety of fashions including the Gundam F91 movie, the Victory Gundam TV series, and the upcoming Gundam Unicorn OAV. But this is the end of the story that introduced us to the Universal Century. This is the culmination of legendary rivalry of Amuro and Char in the most spectacular fashion possible. Whoever wins shall determine the future of humanity.

Ah, Char’s Counterattack, with a name like that who wouldn’t want to watch this movie? There is a duality to having an ending for a series. On the one hand, it is great because you receive closure as a viewer, perhaps secrets are finally revealed or a love is finally confessed. On the other hand, it can be a bit depressing because the ride is over and you have to say goodbye to characters you have watched for so long. And on either of these fronts, there is a possibility of an unsatisfactory finish. Char’s Counterattack has a big job to do, showing us the last story of Amuro and Char.

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Zeta Gundam, Punching people in the face = Saying hello.

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When it was announced that Yoshiyuki Tomino was coming to NYAF Narutaki and I jumped for joy, it was without a doubt a dream come true. While it was fantastic news it also meant we had to radically change our viewing schedule to accommodate watching one of Tomino’s most respected works, Zeta Gundam. While Zeta Gundam does not go without criticism it is one of the few parts of the Gundam franchise that gets universal approval by all but a few heretics. So this is one of the few Gundam series I went into with high expectations.

Even if I wanted to go into Zeta Gundam without expectations, it was virtually impossible. After I watched Original Gundam, all I heard was talktalktalk about Zeta and chastising for putting it off as I have. Well, that is all over! I have watched it kids, and though we aren’t doing a full run down of the show, we are sharing some choice thoughts from the series.

Seven years after the One Year War things are very different. While Zeon has been defeated, remnants still remain after all these years and plan to overthrow the Federation. In response the Federation created the Titans a task force given extraordinary powers to root out any Zeon or other anti-federation forces. But with extraordinary powers can come extraordinary abuses and the Titans have abused their power to the extreme. The Titans do what ever it takes to ruthlessly crush anyone who gets in their way including people who speak out against them and any bystanders. Zeta starts when Kamille Bidan helps the Anti-Earth Union Group steal three new Gundam Mark II prototypes. Soon Kamille is caught up with the AEUG’s three way battle against the corrupt Federation forces and the Axis Zeon forces.

Taking the Federation and making them the ones with the crazy plans this time around was a nice change. This also helped press the idea from Original Gundam that both factions have people in positions of power who abuse it. In conjunction with this it was great to see characters switch sides even if some of them happen very abruptly. One problem I found was that the opposing side didn’t really have a rival for Kamille considering Jerid is more of a joke and usually only survives by the skin of his teeth. There was tension there due to many deaths of many characters for each of them but I never wondered who was going to be victorious. So while many of the plots of the Titans put things in dire straights, the personal factor of suspense was sometimes lost. Though such was not the case in the final episodes when characters square off and it’s a coin toss to see how it was all going to lay out after the dust settled.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #057

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I recently attended the Student Anime Film Screening & Discussion with anime scriptwriter Dai Sato at the Japan Society. There, 25 students attended the A*NI*ME: Japanese Animation Production class for two weeks to learn the basic philosophy, theory, and techniques behind anime production. They were split up into 5 teams which had to create a full write up for an anime series or movie complete with character descriptions, plot outline, and a small trailer for their pitch. After the trailers, Dai Sato and the other instructors mentioned what they liked and what could have been worked on. They were always very polite and kind but Dai Sato did give them legitimate feedback in a constructive manner. The first group did a pirate adventure very similar to One Piece called Casa Dulce in which a band of pirates are looking for the legendary Utopia but instead find family through their crew. The students in group two did an adventure series called Floreixen about a society were peoples’ destinies are determined by the eggs they are hatched from. The third group did a western horror influenced series called Scindo in which a mad scientist calling himself Grandfather kidnaps a group of teenagers and injects them with a drug called Scindo. The fourth group proposed a title called 99 where everyone is a partial conversation cyborg but one day a man who is 100% human is found and he is quickly draw into a conflict. Our last group was the only on to pitched a movie, it was called Hybrid where a half human/half robot boy goes on an adventure that makes him wish to seek peace between the warring human and machine sides. We were then shown a dubbed episode of Samurai Champloo about a graffiti battle. After the episode each of the groups was given an award. The first group won the grand prize but all of them got some award of recognition for what they did best. Even though the projects were clearly amateurish they were enjoyable considering they only had 2 weeks to complete the project and much of their time was spent learning how to do the writing and the philosophy behind it. Kishotenketsu the 4-part structure for Chinese and Japanese narratives seemed to be an important part of the classes and was mentioned by each group. After the award ceremony I got my Eureka 7 case and Narutaki’s Cowboy Bebop case signed by Dai Sato.

The Walking Man by Jiro Tanaguchi is a simple, short piece about a man exploring his new town which emphasizes the beauty of noticing the little things in the world and taking a minute to appreciate them. It also seems like a great excuse to draw incredible backgrounds and environments. In fact this is one of the few times where those take precedence over our character so much so that he doesn’t even have a name. The dialogue is sparse with some chapters having none at all. It doesn’t even come across as slice-of-life but just these very brief, serene moments in time.

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