The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk II

[Xixedi]

It IS a miniature biplane... I don't want to spoil the story for you tho...

[Zeonista]

The teaser trailer for #2 looks like more of the same fun we got with #1. Excellent! More characters, more MS, more action.... I will have to be patient for a few months! ^_^ A link on the trailer page informed readers that production has started on #4, so Sunrise seems confident in #1 being a hit, and is proceeding accordingly. So we'll have Unicorn episodes at regular intervals through 2011, no problem. B)

[Arsarcana]

Somehow I don't think they ever needed to worry all that much about Unicorn doing well...

- It's Universal Century so it's got a built-in fanbase

- It's set near enough to an established time period to serve as a sort of sequel to the original story arc while also being relatively new and unexplored territory. Double points here.

- It's got cameos by major characters and full on appearances by minor ones which is always good for bringing the fans in.

- It answers a long-running question about what happened to one of said minor characters (while making you wish it hadn't about one of the others).

- It's got nice new mechanical designs to move merchandise while hitting the nostalgia buttons. Come on, who didn't fangasm when they saw Sinanju for the first time?

- The novels were quite successful so they almost would have had to consciously try to screw up the animated adaptation in order for it not to do well.

- The entire thing was written before work on the OVA started so no mid-production rewrites or uncertainty as to where to take the story and the format means they've got the time and budget to make it turn out just right.

- Full Frontal, full stop.

- Oh, and it's got a good story and characters and some pretty awesome action so even people for whom the above reasons don't apply can still get into it.

I believe the phrase for it is 'a license to print money'.

[Zeonista]

There's a lot of things, especially anime things, that got off to a great start, then tapered off or stopped without completion. It almost happened to 08th Platoon, in limbo for 3 years with the story half-done. It was still good seeing Sunrise moving on with confidence! Someone over there must have confidence, considering the close scheduling of Unicorn #2 and the OO movie. The last time two major Gundam productions had a close release schedule was the F91/0083 promotion debacle. If hidebound Sunrise can serve up two Gundam projects at once, they must really be pleased with the sales reports. Smiles all around for studio, sponsor, and fans.

[ORegan]

So, I tried to rent the first episode through PSN, since it said under audio "English 2." After about a half hour of waiting for the blasted thing to download, I turned it one only to find out it's Japanese with Englush subs..anyone else have this problem or heard of it? It kind of pissed me off that the movie I wanted to watch turned into trying to read tiny scrpt at the bottom while also attempting to look at the picture.

[Kratos]

So, I tried to rent the first episode through PSN, since it said under audio "English 2." After about a half hour of waiting for the blasted thing to download, I turned it one only to find out it's Japanese with Englush subs..anyone else have this problem or heard of it? It kind of pissed me off that the movie I wanted to watch turned into trying to read tiny scrpt at the bottom while also attempting to look at the picture.

Beggars can't be choosers.

[ORegan]

So, I tried to rent the first episode through PSN, since it said under audio "English 2." After about a half hour of waiting for the blasted thing to download, I turned it one only to find out it's Japanese with Englush subs..anyone else have this problem or heard of it? It kind of pissed me off that the movie I wanted to watch turned into trying to read tiny scrpt at the bottom while also attempting to look at the picture.

Beggars can't be choosers.

I'm pretty sure expecting something that states English to be in English isn't begging. I'm not sure if you know where and when to use that quote.

[Chris]

There's a lot of things, especially anime things, that got off to a great start, then tapered off or stopped without completion. It almost happened to 08th Platoon, in limbo for 3 years with the story half-done. It was still good seeing Sunrise moving on with confidence! Someone over there must have confidence, considering the close scheduling of Unicorn #2 and the OO movie. The last time two major Gundam productions had a close release schedule was the F91/0083 promotion debacle. If hidebound Sunrise can serve up two Gundam projects at once, they must really be pleased with the sales reports. Smiles all around for studio, sponsor, and fans.

I don't think any of the things you mentioned have any relation to the current situation. The 08th MS Team was delayed because of the director's death. If not for that, I'm sure it would've had a much faster release. There have been plenty of times where multiple Gundam productions have come out simultaneously, so there's nothing particularly special about Unicorn and the 00 movie. Besides, in 1991 you had two brand new entries competing for attention, whereas now you have the movie sequel to a TV series and the second episode of an established OVA. They're not really comparable.

[Zeonista]

The 08th MS Team was delayed because of the director's death.

Exactly! That was an event outside the usual production events, which is why fans should never take 100% completion for granted until the final episode is available. Nowadays fandom says "yeah they completed it later", but at that time after 2 years with only LD ads for completed episodes, we thought at the time it was finished, for better or worse. The renewal was welcomed, just as everyone had given up hope. Sure, 08th Platoon was quality Gundam, but there have been many quality anime shows which have never been followed through to the completion of their stories. that's why the announcement for #4 in production was welcome news, since it showed Sunrise (and mega-sponsor Namco-Bandai) was making a commitment instead of just proceeding on independent films.

There have been plenty of times where multiple Gundam productions have come out simultaneously, so there's nothing particularly special about Unicorn and the 00 movie.

But, there have been no major stories released in competition from 1991 to now. IGLOO was fun and all, but it was not in the same class of production investment. Same thing for the SD Gundam shows, they were not major productions. Unicorn and 00 are both big-budget productions with expected levels of audience appeal, and subsequent expectations of commercial success. Like I said earlier, the suits are feeling confident right now. (They could be also sweating over the quarterly reports and going all-out to stimulate production too, but optimism first, right? )

[Chris]

Zeonista, you're still ignoring my larger point, which is that it's not a big deal that these two things are coming out together. Neither of these things are new properties. The big deal here is that 00 is getting a theatrical movie, which is only the 3rd time ever for Gundam. The fact that Unicorn's second episode is coming out around the same time doesn't really mean anything.

[ZeeTwentyFour]

I just watched the subbed production crew's commentary which can be downloaded from BD-live. They give some good insight as to the adaptation from novel form to animation and the pacing of the episode. They also reveal some of the minor details of the production which I find very interesting. I even got an answer to my previous question as to why the one ReZel pilot acted the way he did!

They also explain why the last few minutes of "silent main characters" is the way it is. They said they were working with time constraints and that if they had created lines for those characters, like Alberto, then it would lead to them having to flesh them out even more which would take up too much time.

Here is a quote: "We cut it out, as if we'd put in a little it would have led to a lot more. When we edited, we thought at the time, "we have to have this." We didn't have the Nahel Argama, so to add that, we had to make lots of cuts."
It seems like latenlazy hit the nail on the head in the last page.

At the end of the episode, during the credits they all say they're last pieces and make it clear they are taking their time to make these episodes as best they can. We might have to expect a multiple month wait in between all the episodes; but this is speculation. Also Yasuyuki Muto (script writer) was talking about how he was already working on episode 4. This can give us some indication as to how far along they are in the project. Based on their comments, they are well along with episode 2 and definitely working on episode 3 already, so I have faith things will move as fast they can.


There is also a voice cast commentary which I have not downloaded yet.

[Dark Duel]

I even got an answer to my previous question as to why the one ReZel pilot acted the way he did!

Care to enlighten those of us not fortunate enough to have access to BD-Live?

[latenlazy]

I even got an answer to my previous question as to why the one ReZel pilot acted the way he did!

Care to enlighten those of us not fortunate enough to have access to BD-Live?

I'm going to assume it's the same reason they left out lines from Albert, and I wonder what Shinji103 thinks about those reasons.

[ZeeTwentyFour]

Care to enlighten those of us not fortunate enough to have access to BD-Live?

Sure, back a few pages I asked

I do have one question, kinda irrelevant but here it goes:
When the Gera-Zulu that was guarding ID7 is fighting the RGZ-95's, it seems like one of them was about to stop the other from destroying the Gera-Zulu. Whats up with that?

during the production crew commentary they were discussing many things, including giving a "play by play" of certain scenes, like the fight towards the end between the Gera-Zulu and the ReZels. Here is the quote which answers my question and hopefully some of yours;

"...Here you can see the civilian ship coming into view. This next one is a ReZEL. After this, the ReZEL fires a Guillotine Burst. And the C.O. says "Hey you, stop!" like "We've stopped here." "you might hit the colony.""

All of the above conversation was more than just one person speaking, they were all interjecting their own thoughts and ideas that went into that particular fight scene.

I also watched the voice actors commentary, and at the end of the episode they were all saying how episode two will be full of new characters and more development. I also remember a comment about how Full Frontal will play a large role in the next episode.

[Amadi Akintunde]

Hee hee. You said dominated.

More development is certainly good. Can't wait to hear Full.

[ZeeTwentyFour]

Hee hee. You said dominated.

More development is certainly good. Can't wait to hear Full.

There I fixed it

[Dark Duel]

"...Here you can see the civilian ship coming into view. This next one is a ReZEL. After this, the ReZEL fires a Guillotine Burst. And the C.O. says "Hey you, stop!" like "We've stopped here." "you might hit the colony.""

Yeah, that's what I figured when I saw the scene. Just glad to get confirmation.
Also, "Guillotine Burst"? I LOL'd a bit.

[ZeeTwentyFour]

Yeah it was strange to hear that was called a guillotine burst, but it makes sense since its like a slicing laser shot.

[Kishiria]

I watched episode 1 of "Unicorn" this morning and really liked it. I may end up buying the Blu-Ray (saw it on PSN) because there's a lot going on in the backgrounds and the battle scenes are worth a second look. This is definitely not a show to start watching Gundam with; I don't think I've seen anything previously that required knowledge of so much backstory.

Looking forward to the next.

[mobiusdiablo]

So, I tried to rent the first episode through PSN, since it said under audio "English 2." After about a half hour of waiting for the blasted thing to download, I turned it one only to find out it's Japanese with Englush subs..anyone else have this problem or heard of it? It kind of pissed me off that the movie I wanted to watch turned into trying to read tiny scrpt at the bottom while also attempting to look at the picture.

That's because on the PS3, "English 2" is a subtitle setting. With English movies it'll have things like "Spanish 2" and "French 4" under some options while viewing the movie. Besides, was this downloaded from the Japanese PSN or the American one? As a question of curiosity (since I blew the cooling unit on my PS3) how much is it, and for how long?