The Official Gundam AGE Anime Thread AGE-9

[Gelgoog Jager]

I found something interesting in a spanish review of Gundam Age. This is the google translation of the last paragraph:

Despite scoring ratings averaging four points (considered good in the block that aired, but low compared to other Gundam series), in the young audience, which was aimed at the anime, the thing was quite different and amount gradually decreased, even got to score zero points in Chapter 18 (for the arc Asemu). Situations like the one described above that the study did return to pick up items "childish" Flit arc to re-enchant the children and give less chapters to the second arc.

Basically it says that although it had good ratings for a TV show in general (but low for a Gundam TV show), the children became less interested over time, to the point that on episode 18 (Asemu's arc 3rd episode) they got zero points from them.

So, what did the studio did in response: they shortened Asemu's arc and brought back the childish elements from Flit's arc (Diva's 3 little kids anyone?) in an attempt to draw back the attention of the children target audience.

Unfortunately the review doesn't state its source or if the strategy worked, but if it's truth, I wonder if they considered for just a moment that such strategy would have the opposite effect on the mature audiences, which at that point were the ones actually giving them whatever ratings they still had >_> .

Anyone else think that maybe at that point they should have given up on the childish elements and instead focus on the mature audience? A change like that did save ZZ's second half after all...

[ShadowCell]

i actually like that they completely left out the tired old Brightslap meme

because, really, if you have to slap your subordinates to get them to obey you, then you are a godawful leader (and as it predictably turned out, not even slapping his subordinate actually worked for Bright himself). AGE had its crew either actually getting along (imagine that!) or having more mature alternatives to whaling on each other.

[Silver_August]

Who needed the Bright Slap anyways when we had the Grodek Kick

[Kuruni]

because, really, if you have to slap your subordinates to get them to obey you, then you are a godawful leader (and as it predictably turned out, not even slapping his subordinate actually worked for Bright himself)

At least in the original series, before it become meme, Brightslap is reasonable. He didn't slap Amuro to make him obey, but to snap him out of his shell-shock state. Not sure how effective it work in reality, but Hollywood and Chinese's Wuxia movie seem to agree with this method.

Anyone else think that maybe at that point they should have given up on the childish elements and instead focus on the mature audience? A change like that did save ZZ's second half after all...

I think they already known that, Gunpla isn't something you expect kid to buy. My guess is that they really expect PSP games to sell well.

[YazanGable]

Which, given the PSP game was prettymuch the entire raison d'etre for the anime existing in the first place...well...I can see why they put all their force into trying to make sure it hit that predicted million.

[Gelgoog Jager]

I think they already known that, Gunpla isn't something you expect kid to buy. My guess is that they really expect PSP games to sell well.

From my post on the fifth page of this thread:

Bandai rolled with it since he assured them this would get them a game that would sell a million copies.

Flashforward to now and... ...yeah.

Bonus for misery, they might miss that as well. In debut week, AGE PSP games is the best selling PSP game.

Unfortunately, prior to that, the implacable contender known as Hatsune Miku just boosted the sale of PSV by five digits. Can you guess how many consumers would choose PSV+Project Diva combo over AGE PSP game?

If it start as game and release few months before, things might turn out better...

By September 15th, after being out for 3 weeks, the combined total of units from both versions sold is:

44,892

That's less than 5% (50,000) of what Hino promised (1,000,000). I even have my doubts if the game will even manage to reach 50,000 >_> .

As for its rank during those 3 weeks:

Week 1 - 6th
Week 2 - 15th
Week 3 - 36th

So... anyone hoping for a sequel?

By September 22nd, the sales of the games increased to:

47,602

I suppose there do is hope for the game reaching 50,000 units sold after all, but in either case it is an abysmal amount compared to the original goal of one million.

[HellCat]

The only real time I cared for the Brightslap was the infamous 'You hit me!', because he's using it to make a point that even though Amuro is in a bad place they're all there with him and if he doesn't use his skills they'll all die. Later uses, Zeta in particular, just come off as violent. I've often considered the Brightslap to be one of those things that might have been normal at the time the franchise started but is less socially acceptable now.

[zerogradius]

Wong in particular should be imprisoned for the way he treated Kamille. He deserved to have Judau put him in his place.

Slapping, kicking and punching of subordinates, especially children, would be out of place in today's Gundam. Could you imagine seeing Grodeck kicking Flit in the stomach, or Seric slapping Natora to make her get her act together.

[YazanGable]

Wong in particular should be imprisoned for the way he treated Kamille. He deserved to have Judau put him in his place.

Slapping, kicking and punching of subordinates, especially children, would be out of place in today's Gundam. Could you imagine seeing Grodeck kicking Flit in the stomach, or Seric slapping Natora to make her get her act together.

That was kind of the point of Wong though. He was a businessman and not a military leader, and it showed in how ultimately unprofessional his behavior was. He got away with beating Kamille because he's one of the AEUG's primary financial backers, and their tenuous position means they can't really just tell him to step off. Other than that, the only time we see physical violence in use in the AEUG chain of command is more of a 'they're not listening' moment (Kamille and Torres getting into a fight on the bridge. By that point it's hard to get people to listen as you're going "Stop that!")

Additionally, the show further drives home the problem with Wong's style in the Axis talks when he continues to try playing armchair general until Bright finally has enough and tells him "Sit down and shut up or get off the ship!"

Really, I don't get why people act like the show endorses Wong's behavior. It looks jerkish because it's supposed to be.

and to be fair re: the AGE scenario - Grodek hitting Flit wasn't gonna happen and we all know it. Flit shared Grodek's view of "The UE must be destroyed" so Grodek simply needed to keep the kid focused and unleash him at the appropriate times. It sounds cold, but that really was their dynamic for a while until Grodek got older and tried (arguably too late) to try and steer Flit off the road devoted to vengeance.

[Kuruni]

I think that's point, violent maybe bad, but if there is reason dehind that suplex, it would be acceptable.

Then again, I start to suspect that many of us simply prefer Flay's method, Special Edition...which I kinda agree. (Bandai should really consider making the next series a 18+!)

[Mythgarr]

Now I am left wondering: what would the rating be if instead of three generations, we have three young pilots at once: One is Flit, the revenge-seeking knight piloting Age-1, one is Asemu, the dual wielding determined warrior piloting Age-2, and the last one is Kio, the pacifist with talent for piloting big destruction machine that is Age-3. I suppose it will be better and without feeling of being forced. Let Flit matured to 18 before introducing Asemu (15) and Kio at (13).
Flit is a mecha engineering prodigy from the Asuno family that made Age-1 for the army and then pilot it.
Asemu is a talented mecha hobbyist who piloted Age-1 by accident (Flit was psycho-shocked by a brainwashed Yurin on Asemu's school yard) and helped designed Age-2 by focusing on flight mechanism that Age-1 is lacking.
Kio is a proficient gamer who designed a custom Age-2 (called Age-2 Shards, because it has two parts) in the Gundam Age game that comes out after the first UE-Earth war. Age-2 Shards is then developed into Age-3 by AGE System. Kio pilots it after it was found that piloting two parts of a mecha is hard and somehow only Kio can do it.

[Compass]

Asemu's biggest development is from dealing with the fact that he can't live in Flit's shadow. Kio's biggest is that he has an MIA dad for 10 years who he nevertheless forgives and makes up with, to the point of trusting him.

[HellCat]

Wong in particular should be imprisoned for the way he treated Kamille. He deserved to have Judau put him in his place.

Slapping, kicking and punching of subordinates, especially children, would be out of place in today's Gundam. Could you imagine seeing Grodeck kicking Flit in the stomach, or Seric slapping Natora to make her get her act together.

That was kind of the point of Wong though. He was a businessman and not a military leader, and it showed in how ultimately unprofessional his behavior was. He got away with beating Kamille because he's one of the AEUG's primary financial backers, and their tenuous position means they can't really just tell him to step off. Other than that, the only time we see physical violence in use in the AEUG chain of command is more of a 'they're not listening' moment (Kamille and Torres getting into a fight on the bridge. By that point it's hard to get people to listen as you're going "Stop that!")

Additionally, the show further drives home the problem with Wong's style in the Axis talks when he continues to try playing armchair general until Bright finally has enough and tells him "Sit down and shut up or get off the ship!"

Really, I don't get why people act like the show endorses Wong's behavior. It looks jerkish because it's supposed to be.

and to be fair re: the AGE scenario - Grodek hitting Flit wasn't gonna happen and we all know it. Flit shared Grodek's view of "The UE must be destroyed" so Grodek simply needed to keep the kid focused and unleash him at the appropriate times. It sounds cold, but that really was their dynamic for a while until Grodek got older and tried (arguably too late) to try and steer Flit off the road devoted to vengeance.

I think part of the problem is, if I recall right, the adults seem to take a bizarre pleasure in Wong giving Kamille the beating and when he asks later why they didn't step in the excuse 'he's our sponsor' seems half baked. One thing I enjoyed about A New Translation is it did away with alot of the 'Kamille gets beat up because'. The show version just seems to do it for no reason beyond melodrama and I was very glad it vanished in ZZ and Victory.

[Gelgoog Jager]

Gundam has finally reached new heights...or rather depths:

Someone at animesuki has posted AGE's final ratings at TBS:

http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread. ... 58&page=59

*1.7%(*2.9%) 07/22 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE
*2.0%(*1.7%) 07/29 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE
*1.6%(*2.0%) 08/05 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE
*2.5%(*1.6%) 08/19 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE
*1.5%(*2.5%) 08/26 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE
*3.5%(*1.5%) 09/02 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE
*2.3%(*3.5%) 09/09 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE
*2.9%(*2.3%) 09/16 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE
*1.4%(*2.9%) 09/23 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE (End)

世帯 個人 KID TEN　M1　M2　M3　F1　F2　F3
*2.56　*1.14　*1.01　*0.95　*2.33　*2.06　*0.72　*0.85　*1 .17　*0.75 　2011　機動戦士ガンダムAGE
*3.22　*1.44　*0.97　*1.15　*2.69　*2.85　*0.88　*1.04　*1 .31　*1.08 　2011　機動戦士ガンダムAGE フリット編（01-15）
*2.33　*1.00　*0.85　*0.83　*2.03　*1.78　*0.68　*0.72　*1 .10　*0.63 　2012　機動戦士ガンダムAGE アセム編.（16-28）
*2.25　*1.01　*1.07　*0.92　*1.66　*1.76　*0.60　*0.81　*1 .30　*0.63 　2012　機動戦士ガンダムAGE キオ編　 .（29-39）
*2.23　*1.04　*1.23　*0.84　*2.90　*1.56　*0.65　*0.77　*0 .90　*0.56 　2012　機動戦士ガンダムAGE 三世代編（40-49）

40話　*2.9 *1.3 *1.6 *0.9 *4.9 *2.0 *0.4 *3.1 *0.6 *0.1　07/15 TBS 17:00-17:30
41話　*1.7 *0.8 *1.1 *0.1 *1.2 *1.4 *0.2 *0.7 *1.0 *0.9　07/22 TBS 17:00-17:30
42話　*2.0 *0.7 *0.0 *0.0 *2.6 *1.3 *0.3 *0.7 *0.5 *0.8　07/29 TBS 17:00-17:30
43話　*1.6 *0.6 *0.1 *0.3 *2.6 *1.5 *0.2 *0.0 *0.9 *0.2　08/05 TBS 17:30-18:00
44話　*2.5 *1.4 *1.8 *0.7 *1.2 *2.8 *1.3 *0.4 *0.9 *1.5　08/19 TBS 17:00-17:30
45話　*1.5 *0.7 *0.0 *0.8 *2.5 *0.3 *1.1 *0.5 *0.1 *0.6　08/26 TBS 17:00-17:30
46話　*3.5 *1.7 *2.2 *2.6 *5.9 *1.6 *0.9 *0.2 *2.4 *0.5　09/02 TBS 17:00-17:30
47話　*2.3 *1.0 *1.4 *0.7 *2.6 *1.1 *0.8 *0.8 *1.2 *0.4　09/09 TBS 17:00-17:30
48話　*2.9 *1.5 *3.7 *1.4 *3.0 *2.5 *0.9 *0.7 *1.4 *0.4　09/16 TBS 17:30-18:00
49話　*1.4 *0.7 *0.4 *0.9 *2.5 *1.1 *0.4 *0.6 *0.0 *0.2　09/23 TBS 17:00-17:30

I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, so for now I'll just mention that the average ratings for the entire series according to this information is 2.56.

You can check previous episodes individual ratings here, as well as the overall ratings of previous Gundam TV shows:

http://w11.zetaboards.com/gundamages/topic/7610064/1/

And quickly updating the Gundam TV shows ratings we would have:

*6.60％　1985　機動戦士Ｚガンダム
*6.12％　1986　機動戦士ガンダムＺＺ　　　　　　　　　（*6.1276％）
*6.12％　2002　機動戦士ガンダムSEED　　　　　　　 （*6.1240％）
*5.41％　2004　機動戦士ガンダムSEED DESTINY
*5.32％　1979　機動戦士ガンダム
*4.84％　2007　機動戦士ガンダムOO
*4.47％　2008　機動戦士ガンダムOO 2nd season
*4.25％　1995　新機動戦記ガンダムＷ
*4.11％　1994　機動武闘伝Ｇガンダム
*3.89％　1993　機動戦士Ｖガンダム
*3.10％　2000　G-SAVIOUR
*2.99％　1999　∀ガンダム
*2.75％　1996　機動新世紀ガンダムＸ　(前半*3.51％ 後半*1.21％)
*2.56％　2011　機動戦士ガンダムAGE

Any comments?

[DuelGundam2099]

Something tells me Bandai is going to hold off on new AU idea for a while. I also was going to post some translated interview with that Hino guy I found at /m/, but for some reason the server is not loading so I will have to post it later. One thing I read that stuck out was that according to him every female member on Age's staff thought the ending scene with Flit seeing Yurin's ghost to finally forgive than vagans was crazy.


On an unrelated note, happy birthday Arby!

Edit: It finally loads again!

http://randal.blog91.fc2.com/blog-entry-2014.html

Interview with Hino from Newtype November 2012

-Now that the show is over, tell us what you feel about it.
Hino: Well, honestly I think we could've used more episodes. For example it would've been nice if there were say another ten episodes for Asem's school part. In the project phase we were originally going to broadcast Age for a year and a half (6 cours = 78 episodes), so the whole show would've been better if we just had more time.

-Each generation was unique in its own way
Hino: Flit's a stubborn old man, Asem's a regular guy, and Kio is a child striving for his ideals, and each of them has their own different volume of emotions. I took Flit's "stubborn old man you can't understand" character from an old drama series with Kobayashi Asei.

-What is your image of the three main characters?
Hino: Flit's a father. He's stubborn and has his way, but you can rely on him. I think Asem is the one the fans can relate to the best, being jealous of his best friend and facing his barriers and limits he's pretty much a normal person. Kio's desire to stop the war and get everyone together is a valid way of thinking, I believe, but is a type of fantasy.

-Did you think of changing the balance of having one cours for each generation?
Hino: As it's a family drama, having the last cours star all three characters was necessary. Also necessary to link up to the three of them joining forces was the theme of Kio, at first fighting the enemy as if playing a video game, meeting Izelcant and eventually growing to disavowal war. As a result Kio required more episodes and we had to compress Asem's story a bit.

-Looking back, are there any particular episodes you liked?
Hino: I liked them all, but the one I liked the most would be Wolf's death. He left the words "Super Pilot" to Asem, but if you think about it those words are kind of ridiculous and compared to X rounders have no substance to them at all. But Asem took those meaningless words and turned them into a status, and used them to become strong. The visuals in that episode were great too so it left a really strong impression on me. I think it was a mistake to have Wolf die so early though, I really wanted to have an episode where the older Asem visited him.

-What do you think of the conclusion?
Hino: It was great because we managed to tie up the endings of all three generations. There was the feeling that we had to settle things between Asem and Zeheart once and for all. Also, the story of two forces fighting and eventually coming to accept one another is pretty standard for Gundam, I believe.

-How Flit who had spent his entire life wanting to destroy the Vegans stopped at the very last moment left an extremely strong impression on us.
Hino: The opinion that it wasn't that good to have him leave the final decision to a woman who isn't even his wife. I mean, he married Emily, has kids, yet in the end it's Yurin. But you have to remember that he didn't just part with her, he lost her at a stage of growth when he was at his most sensitive. Even though he's married he can't forget her. This kind of stuff happens in real life too, not just cartoons. The female staff on the team didn't understand at all, but I personally feel it was extremely realistic.

-Was bringing new elements into Gundam such as the three part format done for the sake of bringing new elements in?
Hino: The personality of the show I wanted to display the most was family drama with the passing of time. Aside from that we strove to keep a Gundam-like image. At the base of the whole thing is the history of Gundam, and we wanted to show that to the children. The designs of the Gundams evolving as if tracing the history of Gundam was done on purpose.

-Was that done to keep the "Gundam-like" image?
Hino: While we wanted to keep in line for the most part, there were also parts where we wanted to step out of line. We wanted to go crazy and put in really interesting stuff. But with Gundam you have to think about a lot of other factors, including the merchandise, so we couldn't really do everything we wanted. In exchange we at least managed to keep the balance in the games.

-In what way did you feel Age was "Gundam-like"?
Hino: I always had that feeling of "Gundam-like"ness even before I started creating Age. Basically it's the concept of humans pitting their thoughts and emotions against each other through the medium of Mobile Suits. What was difficult was whether to depict the Gundam as a hero or a weapon. The tuning there is what determines Gundam, I think. For example in one of the scenario meetings we discussed how the weapons and war need to be depicted more realistically, while in another meeting the opinion of how it should be a more crazy super robot thing turned up. This stuff changed every week. Everyone, even among the stuff and fans, has different experiences with Gundam, so not everyone has the same image.

-That's the difficulty of working with something that's been going on for 30 years, yes?
Hino: There are many different groups of Gundam fans, and I found that it's extremely difficult to please all of them at the same time. I never actually thought about that before we started creating Age, and now that it's over I'm not sure if that was for better or for worse. "What is Gundam?" is going to be the eternal theme for all future creators of Gundam as well as myself from now on. If you have a chance to discuss Gundam, I'd be happy if Age would be the subject of the conversation.

-What is your straight opinion on working with Gundam?
Hino: Gundam has strong influencing power, and I received a lot of advice and criticism from the fans. But even so I really enjoyed myself each time. I think the reason I managed to find this to be so much fun even though it was really difficult is because the DNA inside me received the influence of Gundam as a child.

-Finally, a message for your fans please.
Hino: I really love Gundam and was truly glad to be able to stay with the project to the end. I feel that we managed to achieve the concept of depicting protagonists of different generations, and that Age can be lined up alongside the other past Gundams. While I'm not sure if it managed to fulfil everyone's expectations, I created Age with the opinion that this is one way that Gundam can be great. Also working in the field let me feel the power of Gundam, and interacting with the fans showed me how big Gundam is. I will definitely use this experience to better whatever I work on from now on, and if I have a chance to work with Gundam again, I would love to.

[HellCat]

-How Flit who had spent his entire life wanting to destroy the Vegans stopped at the very last moment left an extremely strong impression on us.
Hino: The opinion that it wasn't that good to have him leave the final decision to a woman who isn't even his wife. I mean, he married Emily, has kids, yet in the end it's Yurin. But you have to remember that he didn't just part with her, he lost her at a stage of growth when he was at his most sensitive. Even though he's married he can't forget her. This kind of stuff happens in real life too, not just cartoons. The female staff on the team didn't understand at all, but I personally feel it was extremely realistic.

Says alot. This really bugged me about the finale. Flit doesn't really show any real feelings over Yurin following his arc. He remembers Desil killed her when they next clash but he doesn't even react to the likes of Fawnfarsia. The whole idea that at the end she's the one to get him to move on and not his loving wife of half a century is a perfect sign of AGE's backwards treatment of females. That Hino doesn't see a problem does, as I said, say alot.

[Khandri]

Hey, maybe now that AGE has the lowest overall ratings of any Gundam series, finally pushing GX out of that bottom spot, that will be the series they'll pretend never existed instead of GX, and that will finally get some attention again. [/impossible wishful thinking]

(No really, the chances of that actually happening are probably slim to none, because Sunrise/Bandai seem pretty resistant to giving anything they've deemed a "failure" a second chance.)

But really, it doesn't come as much surprise to me that its ratings were so low. They were trying too hard to market it to a younger audience, and that just ended up alienating the existing fans instead. Combine that with terrible pacing and lackluster writing, and that's a recipe for disaster.

[monster]

-In what way did you feel Age was "Gundam-like"?
Hino: I always had that feeling of "Gundam-like"ness even before I started creating Age. Basically it's the concept of humans pitting their thoughts and emotions against each other through the medium of Mobile Suits. What was difficult was whether to depict the Gundam as a hero or a weapon. The tuning there is what determines Gundam, I think. For example in one of the scenario meetings we discussed how the weapons and war need to be depicted more realistically, while in another meeting the opinion of how it should be a more crazy super robot thing turned up. This stuff changed every week. Everyone, even among the stuff and fans, has different experiences with Gundam, so not everyone has the same image.

This is my favorite part. I think Gundam can be both a hero and a weapon, but I also like when a series doesn't put too much emphasis on the name Gundam, maybe even make it a casual/unofficial term as in CE.

[bullethead]

-How Flit who had spent his entire life wanting to destroy the Vegans stopped at the very last moment left an extremely strong impression on us.
Hino: The opinion that it wasn't that good to have him leave the final decision to a woman who isn't even his wife. I mean, he married Emily, has kids, yet in the end it's Yurin. But you have to remember that he didn't just part with her, he lost her at a stage of growth when he was at his most sensitive. Even though he's married he can't forget her. This kind of stuff happens in real life too, not just cartoons. The female staff on the team didn't understand at all, but I personally feel it was extremely realistic.

Says alot. This really bugged me about the finale. Flit doesn't really show any real feelings over Yurin following his arc. He remembers Desil killed her when they next clash but he doesn't even react to the likes of Fawnfarsia. The whole idea that at the end she's the one to get him to move on and not his loving wife of half a century is a perfect sign of AGE's backwards treatment of females. That Hino doesn't see a problem does, as I said, say alot.

I can see where Hino's coming from, because Yurin was the probably the biggest personal failure he experienced while piloting the Gundam in the first arc. She was literally killed right in front of him and couldn't do a damn thing to stop it, even though he was in the Gundam. That's the kind of thing that leaves a mark on you, although they could've done more to emphasize the guilt aspect rather than making it seem like Flit was still in love with Yurin after all those years.

I'm surprised that the interviewer didn't ask about the whole Asemu pirate thing, but given how Japanese media seems to have a whole lot of absentee parents, I guess no one thought to ask about that.

[Gelgoog Jager]

Ok, so here's the explanation on the ratings table. First of all,t eh first able shows the rating of the last 9 episodes. As for what each number means, let's take the first line for example, whcih would belond to epsiode 41:

*1.7%(*2.9%) 07/22 (Sun) 5:00pm-5:30pm TBS Gundam AGE

1.7% is the episode's rating
2.9% is the rating of the previous episode, 40 in this case, which is for comparison purposes only I assume.

The next table shows the averages, starting with the series total and then an average per arc. However the important part is the first one that indicates what each column represents:

世帯 個人 KID TEN　M1　M2　M3　F1　F2　F3

These would be: rating per household, rating per indivudal, kids rating, teenager ratings, M1/M2/M3 are adult male ratings and F1/F2/F3 are female adults ratings. The ages represented by each of these are:

Kids: 4-12
Teenagers: 13-19
M1/F1: 20-34
M2/F2: 35-49
M3/F3: 50 and up

Finally we have the table with the detailed ratings of the last 10 episodes which also use the same column headings. It is interesting to see that despite the "solutions" implemented by the studio during Asemu's arc to regain children audience, after episode 18 got 0 points for the kids ratings, episodes 42 and 45 got 0.0 again with the same audience, closely followed by episode 43 (0.1) and the last episode (0.4).

On a similar note, I wonder if the Thielva's chances for getting a Gunpla, Gage-ing kit or similar will be directly affected by the 0.0 (ep 42) and 0.1 (ep 4.3) kids ratings of the two episodes where it was seeing fighting. The same could be applied to Sid (0.0 kids' rating on ep 45) and Vagan Gear (0.4 kids' rating on ep 49), though these two were unlikely to receive anything to begin with.

By the way, anyone knows if a rating of 1.4 for a final episode of a Gundam series is a new record? Even if it isn't, the last episode seems to be the one with the lowest ratings of the entire series, though I have yet to see individual ratings for episodes 38 and 39 to confirm this. If someone who can read japanese wants to give it a shot, I heard that TBS supposedly has its show's ratings on its official site.