Watching some old school mecha anime

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zerogradius
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Watching some old school mecha anime

And I started with Ideon. I'd heard so much about it, I felt I had to see it. I'm about half way through, and I have to say, thus far, I am not impressed. The episodes are mostly repetitive, almost at Sailor Moon levels. The Solo Ship heads either deeper into space or to some planet, they are attacked by the Buff Clan, they fend them off, and then move somewhere else. The original Mobile Suit Gundam did this a lot better, because there they had purpose. First to get to Earth, Amuro runs away, recovering Amuro, getting to Jaburo, the battle of Odessa, their return to space, the attack on Solomon and the eventual defeat of the Zabis. In Ideon they are just wandering aimlessly, with no reason to any of it other than getting away from the Buff Clan. That can work for a couple episodes, but its gone on for way too long.

Another problem I have is the characters. Cosmo doesn't interest me. I don't understand him or his motives, and he comes across as a generic mecha protagonist minus the personality. Kasha is cold, bratty and comes across as really unlikeable. What happened to her? Why is she like this? I hope she has some arc to redeem her later on because she right now is near unbearable to watch. Sheryl is similar to Kasha but at least she was humbled by Karala and changed her disposition as the show went on. I'm not sure what there is to say about Bes other than he is a less interesting Bright Noah clone. He apparently falls in love with Karala and it is a good thing we are constantly told this by everyone else because I saw no sign of it other than him not disrespecting her as much as the others did.

As for Karala, I don't understand her motives. Why was she so interested in the Earthlings that she inadvertently started a war with them? Why did she renounce the Buff Clan in favor of the crew of the Solo Ship? They treated her like crap, blamed her for things she did not do, tried to assassinate her, imprisoned her, and killed her subordinate Mayaya right in front of her eyes. Yet she tosses in her lot with them over her own family?

This isn't to say there wasn't anything good so far. The episode with Camyula finally gave Cosmo some development even though it came at the expense of her life, and the episodes on Ajian and Kyaral were a breath of fresh air. Though I found the romance between Cosmo and Kitten to be even more forced than the one between Bes and Karala. Did they even embrace or hold hands? And we're supposed to believe they're a couple? And what was either Lotta or Deck thinking telling Cosmo what happened to Kitty right after he woke from a coma? Are they insane? And, of course, Kasha had to belittle the guy's manhood because he was upset. What is wrong with that girl?

They're heading to Earth soon. I'm waiting to see how this turns out.
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Chris
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

The first half of Ideon is a really rough watch. It's really repetitive with the plotline of "Hey, I'm Buff Clan [person] using [mecha]. I will surely take down the Giant God!" *person dies* "Curse you, Giant God!" The cast is also almost wholly unlikable, with the exception of Karala and Bes.
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

I'm a big Ideon fan, going back 15+ years at this point, but won't deny that the show has its flaws. I'm a bit softer on it than Chris is, I think the first 10 or episodes are a real slog, but things pick up quite a bit after that with the occasional down note. No questions asked, Mobile Suit Gundam has a better plot, and on an individual level, better characterization. Simply put, Cosmo is a jerk a large percentage of the time. Much like Amuro really needed to go through the stuff he goes through in the first half of MS Gundam, like his theft of the Gundam, Ryu's death, Matilda's death, etc... Cosmo is basically put through the same with characters like Camyula and Kitten. MS Gundam handles it considerably better, although I will say the Ideon movies tweak things around a bit to be more effective. I won't say more to avoid spoiling you.

Kasha really is a brat, and unlikable, there is no debating there. At least in this era, I feel that Tomino doesn't really care if some of his main characters come off as unlikable brats. Kappei was very much this in Zambot 3. My recollection with Karala was that she was interested in learning about the Ide, and Logo Dau and quickly got in over her head and abandoned by her race and family to the point where she has no one else to turn to.

I feel that a lot of this ties into Ideon's key themes. A big one is the misunderstandings we have with each other, the inability to get over them, and how that can escalate into such bad things happening. Karala's interest in Logo Dau quickly spirals into this interstellar war. We also get events like the white flag incident, where our heroes are simply trying to stop the fighting and it just makes the Buff Clan react even worse towards it. I think the traveling from planet to planet ties in with another theme that can be traced right back to the title. They are space runaways. Forced to flee the planet Solo and now traveling from place to place to live in safety, only for the Buff Clan to continue to chase them, lusting after the power of the Ideon.

Anyway, Ideon TV's peak is the last third of the series, which you're getting into right now so hopefully you enjoy it more. The ending movie, Be Invoked is a true masterpiece, and it is worth making your way through the TV series to be able to watch it.
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

Okay, so I finished Ideon, and what a ride it was.

On the negative side, there were WAY too many generals on the Buff Clan side. All of them are overconfident, all of them under estimate the Solo ship, and most of them die within the episode they were introduced in. I swear one of them looked like a hippie, but I can barely remember anyone else. When Abadede died, it seemed like a big deal until they started killing off generals like flies.

The finale was abrupt. I don't understand why the Ideon suddenly chose that moment for the final judgment. There should have been an event that led to this instead of the Ideon whisking Karala away to the Buff Clan spontaneously.

They never explained why the Buff Clan and the Earthlings are of the same race. I thought Karala sharing her blood with Cosmo was going to lead somewhere, but it was hardly ever mentioned again. I guess this was something left on the cutting room floor due to the cancelation. The show seemed to imply that Karala's baby was self aware and may have been growing faster than normal in her womb, since it continued to live after she died, but that never really panned out either.

As for the characters, Cosmo did come off better as the series progressed, but it came off the clichéd dead girlfriend trope. He wasn't as hardheaded and seemed more reasonable after it happened. The rest of the characters were pretty much floating in the wind, except for Kasha. That girl got more miserable as the series progressed. I thought she was bratty, but she seemed more to be a cold hearted monster. Kasha openly mocked and taunted people when they were in anguish or showed any weakness. Like when Cosmo discovered Kitty died and she emasculated him. She also frequently targeted Karala. Even though everyone else got over Karala being an alien, she kept up her barrage. One particularly tasteless moment was when she asked Karala if she was worried Bes would leave her for another woman when he returned to his hometown. What made it worse was that he was captured and being held prisoner while she was getting her kicks. I don't know why Tomino created this character. She is wholly and completely unlikable. I was wondering why Cosmo and Deck were trying to get away from her at the start of the show, and it became more understandable as time went on. I feel sorry for them to have to deal with her crap.

On the plus side, the show took a significant turn with their trip to Kyaral and kept going as they visited Earth. It had to be tough on them to see their home just in front of them but be unable to return. Their own countrymen also turn on them more than once as they are forced to continue drifting in space. Unlike in the earlier episodes where they were travelling with no purpose, it makes sense in the second half why they were in that predicament. Constantly being attacked with no home to go to and no allies to rely on, all they could do was run away. One of the best aspects was the Ideon itself. There were hints that this power was more than it seemed, and it becomes clearer that it is not a force for good as they thought. Rather a sentient being with a god complex. The psychological turn this show took in its second half was appreciated. Afraid to death of the very power they need to live. Ideon could easily be part horror.

And then we have the movies. I was lukewarm on the first one, but the second one starts out with a bang that simultaneously sets the mood for the rest of the movie. Kitty's death is unimaginably brutal, but killing off the kids who lived in the TV series was just as bad. The constant attacks on the Solo ship show how crazed and violent the Buff Clan were. Even when their home world was lost, they still persisted like a bunch of crazed loons. I understand the Ide killing off the Buff Clan, but why the Earthlings on the Solo ship. They did nothing but defend themselves. Harulu showed how ruthless she was in killing Lotta and her own sister.

Karala's death surprised me. I didn't expect her to die at that point, especially not the brutal way she went. And her father is even worse, praising her for killing her own sister. They both were loathsome people. Sheryl going crazy wasn't surprising, but the Ide could have prevented it by saving Lyn and Gije. It chose not to, just like it chose to save Piper Lou and not her. Kasha surprisingly decided to protect Karala, which was out of character for her. She'd been the hardest on her next to Sheryl so why the sudden change? Because she was pregnant? She didn't care about Karala before so why would a baby make a difference. She and Cosmo also suddenly had a romantic relationship which came completely out of nowhere, especially since he was still pinning for Kitty. I guess this was shoehorned in to drum up sympathy for Kasha before her eventual death.

And there were a ton of deaths on both sides and I wasn't bothered by it. Ashura's was the most brutal, and Bes was made to look like supermen. He got shot multiple times, including in the back of the head and still kept going. I was surprised Rapoh and Fard were there near the end, and it seemed to me that even though they were shot, neither of them had died, though I could be wrong. It was pretty harrowing near the end when Doba and Cosmo communicated through the Ide, knowing that they were going to die regardless of what happened. The final battle was spectacular, as was the damage it created.

I had been told that the Ide destroyed the universe, but that clearly was not the case. At most it destroyed a solar system. You can still see creatures as well as collateral damage from earlier episodes, so the universe wasn't nuked, so I don't know where that narrative came from. The part with the naked souls was weird, but wasn't surprising as the Ide did intend to amass more consciousnesses to increase its power.

The Ide seemed to me to be calculating and potentially evil. At the very least apathetic toward human life. The Buff Clan and the humans might never have met had it not attacked both races with meteors. It instigated a war, and then judged the participants for not kissing and making up to its liking. I think every thing it did was for the sole purpose of gaining more power, and that it would continue to kill more civilizations in the future.

I also wonder if the sixth civilization really created the Ide. And what did they mean by civilizations, anyway? Did they mean races of humans? That would suggest that the human race had gone near extinct six times prior, pointing to the Ide being the culprit. I also wonder if Earth was like our Earth or was just a later civilization Earth. Perhaps the Earth we knew was the 1st civilization and was long gone by the start of the series.

So may questions...

All in all, I was impressed with how this series ended. Be Invoked is one of the most thrilling animated movies I have ever seen and I highly recommend watching it after seeing the TV series, even with its faults. Space Runaway Ideon deserves its place in anime history.
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

On the negative side, there were WAY too many generals on the Buff Clan side. All of them are overconfident, all of them under estimate the Solo ship, and most of them die within the episode they were introduced in. I swear one of them looked like a hippie, but I can barely remember anyone else. When Abadede died, it seemed like a big deal until they started killing off generals like flies.
Agreed. It seems odd that they give characters like Abadidi and Damido a fair amount of time against the Solo Ship early in the show, but by the time you get to the latter half of the show outside of the occasional character like Rukuku Kil or Hannibal Gen, the Buff Clan generals are basically coming in and dying in the same episode. And those 2 characters maybe last 3-4 episodes tops. Maybe the intent was to show that the Ideon was just so powerful that no matter what the Buff Clan put against them, it swatted them away like flies. In any case, rather lackluster story telling.
The finale was abrupt. I don't understand why the Ideon suddenly chose that moment for the final judgment. There should have been an event that led to this instead of the Ideon whisking Karala away to the Buff Clan spontaneously.
You're not going to get an in-show explanation, but there is an outside the show explanation. Just like with MS Gundam the year before, the show was originally intended for around 50 episodes, but got cancelled after 39. With MS Gundam Tomino & crew were able to get a 4 episode extension to finish off the show. With Ideon, they lobbied for the same thing, and actually planned out and storyboarded the last 4 episodes. But Sunrise wouldn't give it to them. It seems like it was a rather last minute decision (or they may have just been delusional about their chances). So episode 39 comes, they planned for 4 more eps, but they don't have the 4 eps and have to throw in that extremely abrupt WTF ending. The 4 eps that were supposed to occur then get turned into the Be Invoked movie (along with redoing the final episode).
They never explained why the Buff Clan and the Earthlings are of the same race. I thought Karala sharing her blood with Cosmo was going to lead somewhere, but it was hardly ever mentioned again.
Much like with say, Dianna and Kihel in Turn A Gundam (who look like identical twins, but the reasons for which are never explained), I don't think it really mattered. I don't think they needed an explanation. Humans and the Buff Clan being the same race was there because it was able to tie into one of the main themes of the show, humanity's inability to get along with each other. They are for all intents and purposes the exact same race but get into such a massive conflict with each other that both species end up getting completely wiped out.
I was surprised Rapoh and Fard were there near the end, and it seemed to me that even though they were shot, neither of them had died, though I could be wrong.
I think both got shot in the chest, so they'd be dead pretty soon, but you do at least see Fard still breathing after being shot. Of course the entire ship blows up shortly afterwards, so they, along with Piper Lou (the only character we don't see killed or at least shot) die.
I had been told that the Ide destroyed the universe, but that clearly was not the case. At most it destroyed a solar system. You can still see creatures as well as collateral damage from earlier episodes, so the universe wasn't nuked, so I don't know where that narrative came from.
So this goes back many, many years to around the early 2000's when Ideon was not even fansubbed yet and pretty much no one, at least in America, had seen it. When I first saw it, around 2002 or 2003 or so I was able to get raw VHS tapes, that's all there was. No fansubs, no fan sites, pretty much all you could find about it was the occasional mention of it from someone from Japan in usenet posts. The misconception had gotten out there in "versus" discussions that the Ideon destroyed the universe. Basically discussions of fanboys online arguing which mecha were the most powerful and would defeat the others in fights. The arguments would go on and on, with people often piping in about how the Ideon was the most powerful because it destroyed the universe, and because pretty much no one had seen it, they believed such things (the person who said them probably hadn't even seen it) and it got totally out of control.

Anyway, glad to see you enjoyed it! I'm awaiting the official bluray release to do my first rewatch of it in many years.
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

i did the weirdest thing with Ideon. i first discovered it through the episodes review here. read them all first before actually watching any episode. after that i watched any Ideon clips from SRW. fast forward some time and i watched Be invoked. that movie blew my mind away.

here's a thought: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica is considered the new Evangelion of Magical Girls. that series has some amusing reversals with Ideon. Ideon ended abruptyly and was then followed by two compilation movies. Madoka finished its run with what many consider a good ending. and then it was followed by two compilation movies and a
third, true sequel movie.
Ideon's world goes boom while Madoka's better world for the Magical girls goes poof.
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

So this time I decided to tackle Zambot 3 and boy, was I surprised by what I got. I knew Tomino got his Kill 'em All nickname from this series, but I thought some of the cast would die in the last episode. What I got was a harrowing tale of sacrifice that had me at the edge of my seat.

During the good episodes, anyway.

The episode format is the familiar monster of the week used in these type of shows, but the antagonism by the general public to the Beal family was unique. Instead of being greeted like heroes, they were chastised, criticized and demonized by even their close friends. It's easy to wave away the collateral damage in these super robot shows, but not here. Cities are destroyed, homes lost, family members never heard from again, and the public ensures the Beal family feels their wrath, justified or not. The people even sidestep the Beal family and try to negotiate with Gaizock but it ends in one of the most evil scenarios I've ever seen in such a show. Killer the Butcher tying balloons to people and shooting them down showed exactly how evil he was.

From there we got the human bomb arc, which upped the ante even more. Butcher installed bombs onto people and detonated them not because it was part of some master plan but because it was more economical to do so. What made it even worse was when he got to Kappei's friends. That scene where that one guy tried to play it brave before bursting into tears and calling for his mom would be hard to forget. Just as disturbing was Aki being blown away without knowing what was coming for her. Characters like her don't die in shows like this from that era, but no one was safe.

The same went for Kappei's family. Those who remained in space to fight the Gaizok all lost their lives in heroic fashion. Though I was disturbed by Keiko's death. It seemed really pointless as Uchata was the only one whose machine was inoperable and she got dragged along with him. The final reveal of Gaizok, what it was, and the questions posed to Kappei at the end were all pretty impactful. I know I've said it before, but I really did not expect all this from a 70s monster of the week giant robot show.

With the good comes the bad, and there was some of that here, too. The first half of the show is bogged down by its format. The episodes are too formulaic. I was more interested in the public's reaction to the Beal family than random monster fights.

Kappei as a main lead was terrible for much of the show. He's arrogant, selfish and conceited more than any person should be, let alone a child. He clearly was the template for Kasha from Ideon, except he is redeemable, unlike she was. His cousins are with him most of the time but get very little character development outside of one episode each. And Keiko's death was really, really pointless. Kappei's dad went out with a bang, but there were two instances before that where it seemed like he would die in the same episode. On top of that, the sacrifices made were all the same head on collisions over and over again. Couldn't Tomino think of something else?

I know there are those who didn't like Butcher's silly nature, but I think it worked for him. He was a sadistic killer who saw everything as a game until his own life was on the line. Sort of like the Joker, but more cowardly.

Anyway, overall, I loved this show and would love to see it revived in some way in the future, whether a sequel of remake.
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

but the antagonism by the general public to the Beal family was unique. Instead of being greeted like heroes, they were chastised, criticized and demonized by even their close friends. It's easy to wave away the collateral damage in these super robot shows, but not here. Cities are destroyed, homes lost, family members never heard from again, and the public ensures the Beal family feels their wrath, justified or not.
For sure one of the highlights of the show and what made it so revolutionary. People throw around the term "deconstruction" so often these days that its largely lost its meaning, but Zambot 3 really is one of those shows where it truly is that when you consider the era it was from and the audience it was intended for. This isn't the typical super robot fare where the heroes come in and save the day, all is right with the world and we simply move on to the next enemy in the following episode. Fighting in heavily populated cities is going to cause a lot of damage. People's lives are going to get ruined over it, and they're not going to be happy. What is brushed aside in pretty much everything else from the era is treated seriously and we get a more realistic view.

I feel that the Kappei character is a bit of that as well, the deconstruction, because he is just so incredibly annoying and frustrating, the exact opposite of what you want your hero to be. I think I eventually came to the conclusion that him being so arrogant and selfish, etc... was done on purpose and just went with it.
What made it even worse was when he got to Kappei's friends. That scene where that one guy tried to play it brave before bursting into tears and calling for his mom would be hard to forget.
Agreed, this is one of the most effective and saddest fates for a character you'll see in a Tomino anime, even though he is at best a minor supporting character who if I remember correctly was one of Koizuki's friends. Eventually deaths in Tomino shows lose a great deal of their effectiveness because he is so over the top with them with the frequency or the level of violence (especially by the time we get to Victory Gundam), but he handles things quite well here. One of the best scenes of the series.

Overall good show! I've only seen it the one time and find myself too busy to revisit it, but it was enjoyable experience and the good stuff is easily enough to cover up for the bad, a lot of which I feel was just a product of its era, like the combining mechas, always using the moon attack to win, the monster of the week stuff, etc...

So what old school mecha show are you doing next?
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

I'm a little surprise that people seem to unaware of how Zambot 3 is a cosmic horror story. I don't think Sunrise staff plan to make it as such, but it fit the bill nicely.

The destruction of Beal and Earth's invasion is just a process of Gaizock's systematical "cleaning" process. I've no idea where Wikipedia got that Computer Doll the 8th gone mad and kill its creators. What I got from Japanese SRW Wiki is more objective, we never get to see the real Gaizock civilization, and there're at least seven more Computer Doll out there. So ultimately the Jin Family's sacrifice mean alomost nothing.

This, in turn, is also a deconstruction of typical super robot - nah, scratch that - heroic scifi story that always has a vast galactic empire put everything to conquer Earth (and get the emperror himself killed in the end).
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

Kuruni wrote: Sat Dec 29, 2018 1:01 am I'm a little surprise that people seem to unaware of how Zambot 3 is a cosmic horror story. I don't think Sunrise staff plan to make it as such, but it fit the bill nicely.

The destruction of Beal and Earth's invasion is just a process of Gaizock's systematical "cleaning" process. I've no idea where Wikipedia got that Computer Doll the 8th gone mad and kill its creators. What I got from Japanese SRW Wiki is more objective, we never get to see the real Gaizock civilization, and there're at least seven more Computer Doll out there. So ultimately the Jin Family's sacrifice mean alomost nothing.

This, in turn, is also a deconstruction of typical super robot - nah, scratch that - heroic scifi story that always has a vast galactic empire put everything to conquer Earth (and get the emperror himself killed in the end).
If mere Earthlings can have the power to get rid of one of those, I am sure there are many other more advanced civilizations out there that can take out the other ones without any problem.
They don't even seem like anything reaching Kardashev type 2(at least the incoming force is not), and can be wiped out by a way less than type 1 civ(single company, Human added together doesn't reach type 1, but somewhere in the 0.7 zone, a nuclear CV is somewhere in the 0.5 or late 0.4. Saturn V during launch is somewhere 0.6. Zambot 3 should be at most 0.7) a type 1 is at least about 1000 times a 0.7(simple log scale) and thus already pretty easy to go against what Zambot 3 can do. So a type 2 civ can easily dispose of them since type 2 is at least 10 billion times more powerful than a type 1.

It is like pitching Freeza in Namek arc (a planet destroying entity, I like to refer it to the destructive Kardashev scale) to Goku in Cell arc (Super Saiyan 2, roughly a star destroying entity, and the fun thing is, it seems like the Super Saiyan form numbers roughly matches the destructive Kardashev scale, the 3rd form seemed like it can destroy a galaxy)
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

MythSearcher wrote: Sat Dec 29, 2018 3:30 am If mere Earthlings can have the power to get rid of one of those, I am sure there are many other more advanced civilizations out there that can take out the other ones without any problem.
Except that "mere Earthlings" cannot, it's remnant of another alien civilization that take them down. And it cost them everything, with only a kid survive.

Scale of power isn't that important in cosmic horror story (and in the case of Dragon Ball Z, I prefer Gintama's version).
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

Kuruni wrote: Sat Dec 29, 2018 5:39 am Except that "mere Earthlings" cannot, it's remnant of another alien civilization that take them down. And it cost them everything, with only a kid survive.

Scale of power isn't that important in cosmic horror story (and in the case of Dragon Ball Z, I prefer Gintama's version).
Though if they don't possess planet shattering power, they would still be hardly a match to Type 2 civ.
So unless they have really special reason holding back a lot of power and not just use their available power and resources to destroy everything else. (Yes, I know it is super robot etiquette to just send in one at a time against one enemy, but still, their single champions do not seem to have the power to single handedly destroy, say, Eurasia, in one blow)
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

Well, I don't bother to check whatever type 2 CIV or Kardashev is. Can you give explain in simple english, without jargon?
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

Kuruni wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:29 am Well, I don't bother to check whatever type 2 CIV or Kardashev is. Can you give explain in simple english, without jargon?
Kardashev scale civilization has:
Type 1: power of a planet (the power its mother star is giving it)
Type 2: power of a star
Type 3: power of a galaxy

Putting it in perspective, humanity against a type 1 is like you trying to fight against 500 men of your build without using any powered weapons.(swords, bows, etc.) Not too bad if you are King Arthur, who fell 960 men in a single day.

Think of a M4 rifle.
Now think of a Tsar Bomba (Yes, the most powerful weapon ever created by human beings, has an 8 km fireball at its peak)
A Type 2 can use something like the Tsar Bomba like humanity use a 10 M4 bullets in terms of energy cost.
Imagine a single soldier carrying an assault rifle with each magazine having the destructive power of 3 Tsar Bombas, and each carrying 8 magazines.
Alternatively each bullet will be equivalent of around four B83 at its maximum yield, the most powerful nuclear weapon in active service in the USA military inventory, or about 300 Hiroshima bombs.

It is quite hard to imagine what happened in Zambot 3 showed any level of power close to that. With that kind of power, Zambot 3 fighting against a single enemy soldier will already be destructive enough to humanity even if Zambot 3 has the ability to take all the hits. Collateral damage can still take out a few dozen major cities with no problem, even without considering the attacks made by Zambot 3.
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

In short, it has nothing to does with being cosmic horror story (as I should have known from start).

Remember that in Call of Cthulhu, all it take to send Cthulhu back to his slumber is ship ramming to head, and that end his global madness. Cosmic horror story isn't about how powerful the destruction is, it's about how said destruction is done like norm and all of characters' effort is insignificant on large scale. What make it count is that Gaizock, through the Computer Dolls, systematically wipe out s whole civilization in uncaring manner, like get rid of pest. And ultimately the Kappei loss almost everything to just destroy one of the Computer Dolls.

A story of solar system being destroyed by a galactic god to prevent the birth of a hero on Earth isn't cosmic horror story. Even if they do it easy with a single beam from a finger, because they do it with emotion (fear) and they do it because of something important is about to happen on Earth.

However, if said god is in conflict against another god several hundreds lightyears away from Earth, but few of their ammo misfired and land on Earth, then it would count even if the heroes can stop every ammo from causing serious damage. They're fighting so far away and not aware of Earth and yet it cause problem here, and even if the heroes save the day everytime, their effort mean nothing to the source of problem.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

Kuruni wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 1:26 am In short, it has nothing to does with being cosmic horror story (as I should have known from start).

Remember that in Call of Cthulhu, all it take to send Cthulhu back to his slumber is ship ramming to head, and that end his global madness. Cosmic horror story isn't about how powerful the destruction is, it's about how said destruction is done like norm and all of characters' effort is insignificant on large scale. What make it count is that Gaizock, through the Computer Dolls, systematically wipe out s whole civilization in uncaring manner, like get rid of pest. And ultimately the Kappei loss almost everything to just destroy one of the Computer Dolls.

A story of solar system being destroyed by a galactic god to prevent the birth of a hero on Earth isn't cosmic horror story. Even if they do it easy with a single beam from a finger, because they do it with emotion (fear) and they do it because of something important is about to happen on Earth.

However, if said god is in conflict against another god several hundreds lightyears away from Earth, but few of their ammo misfired and land on Earth, then it would count even if the heroes can stop every ammo from causing serious damage. They're fighting so far away and not aware of Earth and yet it cause problem here, and even if the heroes save the day everytime, their effort mean nothing to the source of problem.
My point is, a fly being annoying to the more advanced civilization isn't really that much of a horror.
It might be horrific to humans, but not really that much of a cosmic horror.
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Kuruni
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

MythSearcher wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:04 am My point is, a fly being annoying to the more advanced civilization isn't really that much of a horror.
And yet Beal is destroyed. "More advanced civilization" has nothing to do with a story if they don't appear in a story.
MythSearcher wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:04 am It might be horrific to humans, but not really that much of a cosmic horror.
And the cosmic horror story is all about insignificant of human's quality.
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tHeWasTeDYouTh
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

I just got my Ideon bluray from Maiden Japan and as soon as an episode ends I come to MAHQ and read the review of it!!! Surprised that the scores for episodes 1-8 are kind of low even though I really enjoyed them and think the show is pretty solid so far.
Last edited by tHeWasTeDYouTh on Wed Mar 27, 2019 2:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

^ I'm the one who wrote them! :P

I am working my way through the bluray now as well (up to episode 29). Still hard to believe the day is here when I have an official US bluray release of Ideon in my hands. I remember when all that was available was raw VHS tapes with no subs.

I think while it has some cool concepts in it (like the white flag thing), the first 10 or so episodes of the series are dragged out and slow moving. It goes a good job setting the initial foundation of the series, but I don't think we needed that many episodes to get there. The show improves quite a bit after that in my eyes.
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tHeWasTeDYouTh
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Re: Watching some old school mecha anime

Quiddity wrote: Tue Feb 12, 2019 12:45 am ^ I'm the one who wrote them! :P

I am working my way through the bluray now as well (up to episode 29). Still hard to believe the day is here when I have an official US bluray release of Ideon in my hands. I remember when all that was available was raw VHS tapes with no subs.

I think while it has some cool concepts in it (like the white flag thing), the first 10 or so episodes of the series are dragged out and slow moving. It goes a good job setting the initial foundation of the series, but I don't think we needed that many episodes to get there. The show improves quite a bit after that in my eyes.
You are right the show really takes off a few episodes in!!! I left off in episode 24 a few months ago and I finally have the time to finish this series in hopefully 2 days. can't believe how good some of the episodes are.
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