The Official Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance Anime Thread Mk I

[Deacon Blues]

And my point is that, if the Principality of Zeon's youth brigades are anything like the historical organization they're modeled on, it would be extremely difficult for anyone from Zeon to be unaware of their existence. The HJ was an organization that existed for years before the war, participation in its activities was mandatory for children ages 10 and up, and it featured quite heavily in propaganda before and during the war until the situation got so dire that they were mobilized to the front lines.

Side 3 was a Zabi dictatorship for around 11 years before the One Year War began. If the historical parallel holds, the youth brigades were likely part of Zeon life for almost that entire time, which would've made it quite impossible to not be aware of them.

I guess I'm equating the youth brigade to a sort of child super soldier program and not a standard military school (for Gundam at least). We know that there are traditional schools on Side 3, though they do seem to have a bit more of a government control on them and some students aren't exactly able to get into them that easily. Shin Matsunaga's charge, for example, needs to have a letter of recommendation (seemingly from Dozle himself!) for her to get into a music school. That obviously speaks for something...

Based on the org chart and other materials presented for MS IGLOO, I would strongly disagree with this assessment.

First and foremost, the org chart that shows how the Technical Division fits into the Zeon armed forces shows it as an organization independent from the three main branches of the Zeon armed forces. It reports directly to the General Staff Headquarters.

The Technical Division still falls in line with a host of other organizations like the Science Dept, Public Security, Intelligence, Operations, War Directive, etc. You're active on a battlefield, experimental weapon or not, actively taking fire or firing back as part of a team. If he were back on Side 3 working in offices like his boss Albert, sure then I'd argue he's in that category. But he's active in the field, testing or not. If you're up against an enemy, you don't get to play that card.

Third, it's explicitly acknowledged that the 603rd did not develop any of the weapons they field tested. Their role was simply to observe and to collect test data. That's part of why they were unaware that they weren't actually expected to produce results until they protested the waste of life and losing valuable prototypes. They didn't develop any of the prototypes themselves, so they were blissfully unaware that the prototypes they were field testing were mainly concept weapons that'd already been rejected for use and were simply being thrown at the enemy as a distraction until headquarters told them so. If they'd developed those weapons, they'd have known that the Zudah was actually a rejected Zaku I competitor instead of a next-gen MS at the start instead of having to learn it from a Federation broadcast.

Oliver's background indicates he was developing weaponry (even as a student). Whether you take supplemental information (from the manga and novel) into account or not is subjective.

Where do you think that "huge ass fleet" was before the Battle of Loum? Zeon only has tiny fraction of the population of the Federation (about 1/70th based on available numbers). It's not like they can just throw millions of soldiers around willy-nilly, and they were attacking Sides 1, 2, and 4 simultaneously. Given that a majority of the Zeon forces participated at Loum, it makes it quite likely that any soldier who participated in the One Week Battle also fought there.

Not sure where you're getting 1/70th of the Federation. Zeon's personnel total was less than 13 million, almost one-sixth that of the Federation Forces. The entire population of Side 3 was somewhere around 1.3 billion. Even with their total population, 1.3 billion is not 1/70th of the Federation. Did you forget how spread out the entire battle was from the colonies? Yeah, it is perfectly acceptable for not everyone taking part in it to be blissfully unaware of other things going on. If you think a single Zaku pilot is going to have perfect situational awareness of something happening in another sector of the battlefield when they're taking heavy, concentrated fire from battleships, you're crazy.

Also, gas attacks were only a part of the destruction that went on during the One Week Battle. Many colonies destroyed during that period were just shot to pieces with explosives and beam weapons or destroyed by nuclear weapon-equipped MS-06C Zaku II's. The total number of Zakus available up to that point was only a few hundred machines (~84 A-types, ~236 C-types, and a small number of F-types), making it very likely that anyone who was a Zaku II pilot at the time of Loum was likely also operating a Zaku II in support of the attacks on Sides 1, 2, and 4.

The "few hundred machines" logic never made any sense. Entertainment Bible 39 had it right by saying at the outbreak of the war, the number of mobile suits deployed had reached 820 units of the MS-05 early production type, and 3200 units of the new MS-06 (including all types). Thinking there is anything less than this number is really just silly.

Massacres of civilians would seem to be a slam dunk to any normal person... though Zeon seems to be extremely picky about it given that they got all up in arms against the Cima unit for gassing a colony for Operation British but are seemingly A-OK with blowing colonies up with nuclear bombs and shooting them to bits with beam cannons and conventional munitions.

I guess you can dismiss the nuking when the Feds were shooting through the colonies? Or was that one of those weird things people still argue about? No nukes and no shooting through colonies (aka using them as a shield, etc)?

It's enough to make you wonder what it was about the Cima unit that made Zeon say "You in particular should feel bad about what you've done, but not everyone else who did essentially the same thing."

I mean, aside from her being the obvious scapegoat, the brass that were left were utterly befuddled that anyone from those units survived the war (let alone the final chaotic battle). So, yeah, when you can easily be implicated because you're still alive and kicking when everyone else is probably dead doesn't seem to bode well... I'm sure there's probably a post war list of participants somewhere in the Federation archives and those families probably had to change their names to avoid the shame.

[Mafty]

IMO 0080 handeled this the best by showing there were layers of responsibility amongst the Zeon. Col Killing is unsurprsingly the most ruthless, while Bernie is easily the most innocent. The Cyclops team themselves fall rather in the middle

Spoiler

They are willing to kill Al to keep their operation a secret and Kaminsky cause massive civilian casualties in Libot.

, they don't go out of their way to commit atrocties, but their actions show they aren't against getting their hands dirty. Again Bernie is the exception

Spoiler

He refuses to harm Al and both he and Christine draw the fight to the forrest

As to children in Zeon, as the UC wears on we see more and more blatancy. FG didn't actually show child soilders, However by ZZ the remenant has Elpeo Ple living as a child soilder in a gilded cage

Spoiler

Her clone replacement isn't even granted a real name, let alone the pretense of a normal life

Plus in CCA we have the 13 year old Quess, whom noone objects to making a soilder.

[Seto Kaiba]

I guess I'm equating the youth brigade to a sort of child super soldier program and not a standard military school (for Gundam at least). We know that there are traditional schools on Side 3, though they do seem to have a bit more of a government control on them and some students aren't exactly able to get into them that easily. Shin Matsunaga's charge, for example, needs to have a letter of recommendation (seemingly from Dozle himself!) for her to get into a music school. That obviously speaks for something...

If we're looking for a contemporary parallel, Zeon's youth brigades (like HJ that inspired them) would be something more like the Boy Scouts. It wasn't a school in and of itself, but rather a "mildly military" after-school activity program for children (at first). It provided structured group activities for kids and encouraged physical fitness, self-reliance, and indoctrinated the kids with "patriotic" values under the guise of teaching "good citizenship". Where the HJ and Zeon youth brigade differ from something like the Boy Scouts is that the program got more overtly military-oriented as its participants got older until it crossed the line into literal military training with students participating in military field exercises and being taught how to fight. The goal being to steer the mental and social development of children into obedient and loyal soldiers by the time they came of age.

With that kind of indoctrination program in place, and Zeon facing a manpower shortage, I'm not surprised Shin Matsunaga would need to secure a LOT of extraordinary approvals to get a child enrolled in something other than a school feeding into the military or the national labor force. It's very much in line with the German history being paralleled.

The Technical Division still falls in line with a host of other organizations like the Science Dept, Public Security, Intelligence, Operations, War Directive, etc. You're active on a battlefield, experimental weapon or not, actively taking fire or firing back as part of a team. If he were back on Side 3 working in offices like his boss Albert, sure then I'd argue he's in that category. But he's active in the field, testing or not. If you're up against an enemy, you don't get to play that card.

That, I guess, depends on your point of view? The 603rd are consistently described as being "bystanders" to the fighting in artbooks for the series, so the official position seems to lean "No" on their combatant status. The 603rd were in the field, sure, but they were typically well-removed from any of the actual fighting. When they were testing that cannon, they were hundreds of kilometers from the battle line, and most of their other testing was a weapon on the surface being observed from orbit.

Oliver's background indicates he was developing weaponry (even as a student). Whether you take supplemental information (from the manga and novel) into account or not is subjective.

It's not mentioned in his bio for the anime, so I'm inclined to question it... but it is a fair point nevertheless.

Not sure where you're getting 1/70th of the Federation. Zeon's personnel total was less than 13 million, almost one-sixth that of the Federation Forces. The entire population of Side 3 was somewhere around 1.3 billion. Even with their total population, 1.3 billion is not 1/70th of the Federation.

Zeon's population is said in the anime (specifically Encounters in Space) to be 150 million, and at Garma's funeral later on Gihren describes the Federation as having over 30x the national power of Zeon.

150 million is 1/73rd of 11 billion, the population given for the Earth Sphere before the war started. 150 million is also conveniently around 1/36th of 5.5 billion, the approximate population after the One Week Battle. It lines up neatly with Gihren's statement.

Did you forget how spread out the entire battle was from the colonies? Yeah, it is perfectly acceptable for not everyone taking part in it to be blissfully unaware of other things going on. If you think a single Zaku pilot is going to have perfect situational awareness of something happening in another sector of the battlefield when they're taking heavy, concentrated fire from battleships, you're crazy.

I'm not expecting perfect situational awareness, but with the size of Zeon's forces and the amount of area they had to cover between the One Week Battle and Loum, it's pretty reasonable to assume that most forces participating in the One Week Battle were also participants at Loum,

The "few hundred machines" logic never made any sense. Entertainment Bible 39 had it right by saying at the outbreak of the war, the number of mobile suits deployed had reached 820 units of the MS-05 early production type, and 3200 units of the new MS-06 (including all types). Thinking there is anything less than this number is really just silly.

That's more than the total number of units produced and/or delviered to the military according to other publications, though.

Master Archive Mobile Suit: MS-06 Zaku II, for instance, asserts that while 900 Zaku I's were ordered by the Principality's military the total units actually delivered was 793 in light of the model's early cancellation, units retained for testing, etc. Not all of those units were dispatched to the Zeon frontline forces either, as quite a few with withheld as training units and others for Zeon's home guard. Several are noted to have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair in particularly reckless training exercises. The total number of Zaku II's of the A-type and C-type combined in military hands was 320, and production of the first round of F-types had only just started in October 0078 concurrently with the last round of C-types, meaning that there were likely only about 200 Zaku II F-types in total at the time of Loum (because the size of that first batch was 200 units). If we sum all those up, that's 1,313 mobile suits spread across the entire Zeon armed forces including training units, the home guard, units held in reserve as spare parts donors, etc., meaning the actual number available in frontline service was likely a good deal lower.

I guess you can dismiss the nuking when the Feds were shooting through the colonies? Or was that one of those weird things people still argue about? No nukes and no shooting through colonies (aka using them as a shield, etc)?

In most books, the mass destruction of the colonies at Sides 1, 2, and 4 is attributed largely, and often entirely, to Zeon.

Going back as far as Entertainment Bible 1, the destruction of the colonies at Sides 1, 2, and 4 is described as a surprise attack by Zeon which massacred the population there with the indiscriminate use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

I mean, aside from her being the obvious scapegoat, the brass that were left were utterly befuddled that anyone from those units survived the war (let alone the final chaotic battle). So, yeah, when you can easily be implicated because you're still alive and kicking when everyone else is probably dead doesn't seem to bode well... I'm sure there's probably a post war list of participants somewhere in the Federation archives and those families probably had to change their names to avoid the shame.

That's a pretty reasonable explanation.

It probably also helps that, because her unit was allegedly involved in the seizing of the colony used for the colony drop, that her actions would have been considered a special kind of evil not just by the Federation but by the spacenoids in general because she turned their homes into a weapon of mass destruction. So she gets sh*t on even though the colony drop itself wasn't her idea.

[Mafty]

Did Cima's group knowingly posion the colony? I've heard some sources suggesting they were tricked into it, and in Mayfly of Space (which is a bit confusingly edited) Cima and her comrads are showing looking on the gassing of the colony in horror.

[Seto Kaiba]

Did Cima's group knowingly posion the colony? I've heard some sources suggesting they were tricked into it, and in Mayfly of Space (which is a bit confusingly edited) Cima and her comrads are showing looking on the gassing of the colony in horror.

Most of the publications I have that discuss Cima and her personal history either avoid the question entirely or seem to lean towards her and her unit understanding what they had been ordered to do and doing it anyway... but nevertheless ending up traumatized by what they did.

As I understand it, the "Cima was told it was sleeping gas" bit comes from the Gihren's Greed games and the manga 0083 Rebellion.

[ORegan]

That, I guess, depends on your point of view? The 603rd are consistently described as being "bystanders" to the fighting in artbooks for the series, so the official position seems to lean "No" on their combatant status. The 603rd were in the field, sure, but they were typically well-removed from any of the actual fighting. When they were testing that cannon, they were hundreds of kilometers from the battle line, and most of their other testing was a weapon on the surface being observed from orbit.

Personally, I would label the crew of guys firing a giant gun into an active battlefield as combatants. At that point it's just like any other artillery platform, even if this particular one's presence didn't achieve much.

I'm not expecting perfect situational awareness, but with the size of Zeon's forces and the amount of area they had to cover between the One Week Battle and Loum, it's pretty reasonable to assume that most forces participating in the One Week Battle were also participants at Loum,

Even if that assumption is incorrect, they would all be aware of the Antarctic Treaty in the very least. Kind of an important moment in the war. If they didn't know about the colony drop etc before they definitely did when the war's patch notes got released.

The "few hundred machines" logic never made any sense. Entertainment Bible 39 had it right by saying at the outbreak of the war, the number of mobile suits deployed had reached 820 units of the MS-05 early production type, and 3200 units of the new MS-06 (including all types). Thinking there is anything less than this number is really just silly.

That's more than the total number of units produced and/or delivered to the military according to other publications, though.

Master Archive Mobile Suit: MS-06 Zaku II, for instance, asserts that while 900 Zaku I's were ordered by the Principality's military the total units actually delivered was 793 in light of the model's early cancellation, units retained for testing, etc. ..... If we sum all those up, that's 1,313 mobile suits spread across the entire Zeon armed forces including training units, the home guard, units held in reserve as spare parts donors, etc., meaning the actual number available in frontline service was likely a good deal lower.

The size and scale of the war seems to be interpreted differently between sources. But with how effective and game changing Zakus are depicted in all of them, even a few hundred Zaku IIs would wreck shop at Loum.

I guess you can dismiss the nuking when the Feds were shooting through the colonies? Or was that one of those weird things people still argue about? No nukes and no shooting through colonies (aka using them as a shield, etc)?

I know that happens in the MSG novel, but where else is that stated? I thought that was the case but, like Seto said, most of the sources are either vague about who is responsible for colony nukings or put the blame solely on Zeon. I know the Federation had significantly more nukes but it looks like they were just used on Zeon ships from my current understanding.

IMO 0080 handeled this the best by showing there were layers of responsibility amongst the Zeon. Col Killing is unsurprsingly the most ruthless, while Bernie is easily the most innocent. The Cyclops team themselves fall rather in the middle

Spoiler

They are willing to kill Al to keep their operation a secret and Kaminsky cause massive civilian casualties in Libot.

, they don't go out of their way to commit atrocties, but their actions show they aren't against getting their hands dirty. Again Bernie is the exception

Spoiler

He refuses to harm Al and both he and Christine draw the fight to the forrest

This goes back to my suggestion; judge the character on their...character. We're intended to empathize with a good portion of Zeon characters. The entire point is to portray war as a tragic event that consumes the lives of regular people in a way that kids can understand. That's probably why the colony drop isn't really discussed in MSG. Honestly the only thing I remember is the opening narration that shows the drop without explaining how it happened. I think my first watch I actually thought the large scale fighting accidentally knocked it out of a stable orbit before seeing other material that explained it in better detail.

[Mafty]

While the source is as yet unclear, The Feds shooting through a colony would actually be seen in F91 in the Frontier Side, wherein they were trying to Destroy the Ronah Mansion. So maybe those sources are where the writers got the idea.

[Seto Kaiba]

Personally, I would label the crew of guys firing a giant gun into an active battlefield as combatants. At that point it's just like any other artillery platform, even if this particular one's presence didn't achieve much.

To briefly revisit a previous point, it wasn't until the very end of the series that the 603rd found themselves actually operating any of the experimental weapons that they were overseeing the "testing" of. The test pilots were soldiers from the combat branches of Zeon's armed forces sent over to the Jotunheim on detached duty or test pilots assigned to support the weapon's manufacturer (e.g. Jean-Luc Duvall). The 603rd's only contribution was to observe and record data until A Baoa Qu when a shortage of manpower saw Oliver May ordered to pilot the Big Rang.

The size and scale of the war seems to be interpreted differently between sources. But with how effective and game changing Zakus are depicted in all of them, even a few hundred Zaku IIs would wreck shop at Loum.

Most sources don't consider how many of a variant of mobile suit were available at a given time, they simply say "It was introduced on date X and Y many were built", which fans sometimes erroneously assuming all Y-many were available on date X.

But yes, it wouldn't take many Zaku II's to turn Loum into the massacre it was... but with so few Zakus to go around most, if not all, of those were likely units that participated in the prior actions of the One Week Battle.

I know that happens in the MSG novel, but where else is that stated? I thought that was the case but, like Seto said, most of the sources are either vague about who is responsible for colony nukings or put the blame solely on Zeon. I know the Federation had significantly more nukes but it looks like they were just used on Zeon ships from my current understanding.

Yeah, I'm not able to find anything related to the anime that mentions the Federation shooting through colonies during the One Week Battle. Almost every book to discuss it describes the Zeon attack on Side 1, 2, and 4 as a surprise attack that saw the Federation garrisons destroyed before there were any significant attempts to mount a proper defense never mind a counterattack and that the slaughter of the colonists was carried out by the Principality of Zeon alone.

[Deacon Blues]

Master Archive Mobile Suit: MS-06 Zaku II, for instance, asserts that while 900 Zaku I's were ordered by the Principality's military the total units actually delivered was 793 in light of the model's early cancellation, units retained for testing, etc. Not all of those units were dispatched to the Zeon frontline forces either, as quite a few with withheld as training units and others for Zeon's home guard. Several are noted to have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair in particularly reckless training exercises. The total number of Zaku II's of the A-type and C-type combined in military hands was 320, and production of the first round of F-types had only just started in October 0078 concurrently with the last round of C-types, meaning that there were likely only about 200 Zaku II F-types in total at the time of Loum (because the size of that first batch was 200 units). If we sum all those up, that's 1,313 mobile suits spread across the entire Zeon armed forces including training units, the home guard, units held in reserve as spare parts donors, etc., meaning the actual number available in frontline service was likely a good deal lower.

A strong word of warning when attempting to cite the Master Archive booklets for anything of "value" when throwing around numbers:

Note: Master Archive Mobile Suit XXX should not be considered official setting material but instead represents a comprehensive historical and technical analysis of the XXX as featured in the Gundam series. This volume is written as if it were a scholarly publication available to readers within the story's universe.

[Seto Kaiba]

A strong word of warning when attempting to cite the Master Archive booklets for anything of "value" when throwing around numbers:

I am aware, though in this case it functions as an adequate distillation of official information with a bit of extra that does not contradict anything in the official setting. It makes for a tidy explanation of the common sense point that, while 3,200+ Zaku II F's were produced in total, that 3,200 were not immediately available given that production started just two months before the Battle of Loum.

As a point of interest for a fellow translator, though, one thing I have noticed with these books is that original details which expand upon but do not contradict official setting material tend to "leak" into the official setting in books published later on.

Spoiler

I was discussing a few examples of this over on MacrossWorld a week or so back. One of the more blatant examples being that a ship that was invented by Master File's writers to double down on a historical in-joke in Macross Zero making a prominent appearance in an official manga a few years after the Master File's publication.

I'm sure it will be harder to spot in Gundam given the greater number of publications, but I would not be at all surprised to see it happen there as well given that it's happened across several other franchises which have done books in the same series. I'd have to do more checking to come up with a list of concrete examples for Gundam the way I have for Macross. Just not enough hours in the day for work and all the different books I'd love to translate.

[Deacon Blues]

A strong word of warning when attempting to cite the Master Archive booklets for anything of "value" when throwing around numbers:

I am aware, though in this case it functions as an adequate distillation of official information with a bit of extra that does not contradict anything in the official setting. It makes for a tidy explanation of the common sense point that, while 3,200+ Zaku II F's were produced in total, that 3,200 were not immediately available given that production started just two months before the Battle of Loum.

Does it, though? I mean, there's a reason why it's billed as "fanfiction" in so many circles. Sure, it all sounds nice, but a lot of it is insanely ludicrous. I mean, something like Tenneth A. Jung's profile in the book certainly reads amazing enough, but if you take tiny things in the write-up as anything, you start to find easy points of contention. There are a myriad of points that conflict with official setting material, despite the best efforts of the creative staff to try and spin it all with plausible theories and clever misdirection. I mean, a bulk of the stuff presented in the Nu/Unicorn/Sinanju books is just downright bogus, if not for a lot of the Zaku background material itself being outright contradictory. Look at the GM Spartan profile, for example. That's pretty much entirely wholecloth fabrication.

As a point of interest for a fellow translator, though, one thing I have noticed with these books is that original details which expand upon but do not contradict official setting material tend to "leak" into the official setting in books published later on.

Spoiler

I was discussing a few examples of this over on MacrossWorld a week or so back. One of the more blatant examples being that a ship that was invented by Master File's writers to double down on a historical in-joke in Macross Zero making a prominent appearance in an official manga a few years after the Master File's publication.

What may have leaked to Macross doesn't necessarily extend to the other series GA puts out in the collection. Then again, given how the setting for Macross works nowadays, so much of that stuff can work a lot easier than for Gundam.

I'm sure it will be harder to spot in Gundam given the greater number of publications, but I would not be at all surprised to see it happen there as well given that it's happened across several other franchises which have done books in the same series. I'd have to do more checking to come up with a list of concrete examples for Gundam the way I have for Macross. Just not enough hours in the day for work and all the different books I'd love to translate.

It's hard to say. I'll give the writers credit, though. They did dig deep with one-off comments that only appeared in magazine serial discussions and whatnot from years long passed (some never reprinted), but the reverse doesn't seem to hold true... at least not yet. I get the feeling that Sunrise is playing it close to the chest when it comes to that stuff nowadays. Tthen again, they didn't seem to care about trying to iron out so much of the inconsistencies of time past, why bother starting now, right? They're already starting to rewrite some of the Shoefitter lore this month.

[Seto Kaiba]

Does it, though? I mean, there's a reason why it's billed as "fanfiction" in so many circles. Sure, it all sounds nice, but a lot of it is insanely ludicrous.

From what I have read and reviewed, the vast majority of the technical material is reasonably sound, accurate, and logical and mainly just expands upon existing points from past publications. The story sections do get weird, but they're usually specifically tailored to shill for whatever mecha the book is about.

In fairness, the accusations of "practically fanfiction" ring rather hollow to me given how many contradictions and retcons that Gundam has in its existing body of work even if we're looking only at the unambiguously canon material. Many fans who would make such an accusation will also, with the same breath, cite works as evidence that are non-canonical or at best pseudocanonical under BNFW/Sunrise's own pre-"Next UC 100" policy.

I mean, something like Tenneth A. Jung's profile in the book certainly reads amazing enough, but if you take tiny things in the write-up as anything, you start to find easy points of contention. There are a myriad of points that conflict with official setting material, despite the best efforts of the creative staff to try and spin it all with plausible theories and clever misdirection. I mean, a bulk of the stuff presented in the Nu/Unicorn/Sinanju books is just downright bogus, if not for a lot of the Zaku background material itself being outright contradictory. Look at the GM Spartan profile, for example. That's pretty much entirely wholecloth fabrication.

Isn't Tenneth A. Jung a character from a non-canonical videogame? Haven't read the Nu, Unicorn, or Sinanju books in any depth yet, but I'd point out that the Zaku background material in official setting sources is itself inconsistent and Master Archive appears to be trying to put together what we could call a "most sensible up to date version" from the many contradictory statements elsewhere.

What may have leaked to Macross doesn't necessarily extend to the other series GA puts out in the collection. Then again, given how the setting for Macross works nowadays, so much of that stuff can work a lot easier than for Gundam.

This is true, but with supervision and involvement from the Gundam creative team and sourcing practices for new official publications it's rather likely it'll happen (if it hasn't already, which I'd wager it almost certainly has). Waste not, want not, writers are gonna fall back on existing explanations if they can find them and even though it's not strictly official setting the Master Archive books did get published with Sunrise/BNFW's approval and involvement so someone is likely to reference them for some obscure point of lore.

It's hard to say. I'll give the writers credit, though. They did dig deep with one-off comments that only appeared in magazine serial discussions and whatnot from years long passed (some never reprinted), but the reverse doesn't seem to hold true... at least not yet. I get the feeling that Sunrise is playing it close to the chest when it comes to that stuff nowadays. Tthen again, they didn't seem to care about trying to iron out so much of the inconsistencies of time past, why bother starting now, right? They're already starting to rewrite some of the Shoefitter lore this month.

Ironing out inconsistencies and errors of times past sells books like official encyclopedias... and Gundam is Bandai Namco's money spinner. It's little different, IMO, to how Unicorn turned into some kind of effort to get as many MSV designs into canon as possible to beef up the gunpla line.



I'm sitting down to finish my rewatch of Requiem for Vengeance tonight, so I'll veer back towards the actual topic in a bit.

[Seto Kaiba]

Having finished my rewatch of Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance, I have to say that I stand by my original assessment that it's just a glorified (and suitably impressive) demo reel for Unreal 5's animation technology with very little substance to it.

The new animation technology's teething issues aside, the biggest problem in Requiem for Vengeance is the barely-there nature of its story. It's not Gundam's first flirtation with an all-CG short series by any means, nor its first attempt to put a less bastard-y face on the Principality of Zeon armed forces, but it ultimately does a very poor job in both respects.

With only six ~20 minute episodes to work with, Requiem for Vengeance was always going to have a very limited amount of time to develop the cast and get the audience invested in their struggle. It ultimately does very little to develop or humanize any of the characters in the story. Most are no more than shallow stock characters with no background and no personality traits beyond being dutiful soldiers. Cpt. Solari's development is very shallow, amounting to little more than (other characters) acknowledging that she had a life before joining the Zeon military as though that made her special and different like the only natural human in a clone army. It's not enough to make sympathetic or even interesting, especially since she does almost no reflecting on it herself. Trying to make her likeable was always going to be an uphill battle no matter what because, unlike previous Zeon perspective characters, she's a direct combatant in Zeon's Earth Attack Force. While she's not as cruel, amoral, or axe-crazy as other Zeon MS aces from the One Year War, she never manages to have the Heel Realization that would allow her to understand the war she's fighting. Instead, she just clings to denialism and hypocrisy and doesn't seem to realize she's proving the Gundam pilot she's mourning the death of completely correct about her just being a terrorist who will only draw out the war if she's allowed to retreat when she joins the Zeon remnant in Africa and continues to wage guerilla war against the Federation. That she thinks that continuing to senselessly kill people after the war is over will prevent children from ending up fighting is frankly insane and really does feel like confirmation she's just another complete monster from Zeon.

One thing I did change my mind about is the action sequences. They're visually impressive, but they're all so one-sided that there's no real tension in any of them. That it was an expected outcome when there's a Gundam in play doesn't really help it either. That first couple fights is a great example, with the Federation forces one-sidedly overrunning the Zeon unit until the Zakus show up, then the Zakus one-sidedly overrun the Federation forces until the Gundam shows up, then the Gundam one-sidedly wipes out the Zeon forces. When the handful of Goufs and Solari's Zaku try to protect all the HLVs evacuating troops and go out against a Federation unit that significantly outnumbers them, they take no damage and lose no suits. It's a one-sided stomp of a bunch of Guntanks that seemingly forget how to fire their weapons. Even at the very end when it's the last confrontation with that Gundam, the Gundam isn't brought down by Cpt. Solari's skills or a feat of daring self-sacrifice like Bernie's technical-win over the NT-1. It's just stabbed in the back by a random guy everyone forgot was even there.

In every respect, Requiem for Vengeance is very pretty... but it's empty. Soulless. A form letter of a story wrapped around some action set pieces that exist to show off what Unreal 5 can do. And it's impressive for the tech demo that it is. But that's all it is.

[Mafty]

Having watched the entire series, I do find it enjoyable, but admittedly it dosent break new ground as Gundam side stories go, and probably stands out more for the fact the computer animation is well done. IMO the English dubbing was decent save for some actors who sounded bored when they were supposed to be stoic.

As for the characters , They really only work as likeable the less you know about Zeons actions during the OYW , so this does actually work more toward first time viewers.

As to the Aldnoah Zero comparisons, it's mixed. Aldnoah Zero does have a deeper developed story, and to varing degrees characters(Slain is fairly well rounded, but Asseylum is a bit too naive, and Inaho is rather bland through out the series, the supporting earth cast get better development, but the Vers Empiire largerly suffers from having too many arrogent jerks to sympatize with, if more characters were like Klancain and Mazurek things might've been different).

As to the ending of the series

Spoiler

It seems like Iria's decision is deliberatly meant to be ironic in the face of what happens in the UC , though the ending didn't exactly make that clear.

[Seto Kaiba]

As for the characters , They really only work as likeable the less you know about Zeons actions during the OYW , so this does actually work more toward first time viewers.

Do you see the paradox there? The protagonists can only really be likeable if you don't know anything about the Universal Century and One Year War... but the Universal Century as a whole isn't marketed to, or meant for, first-time Gundam viewers. It's aimed at the hardcore fans.

Requiem for Vengeance's audience was always going to consist largely of people familiar enough with Gundam in general, and the Universal Century in particular, for its attempt to paint the Principality of Zeon's Earth Attack Force in a heroic or sympathetic light to fall ridiculously flat. So all the show's attempt to dance around the fact that the Zeon forces are the Bad Guys by claiming they're fighting for their homes and families just does not work because much of the audience knows better. Having homes and families doesn't really excuse the fact that Zeon started the war, that Zeon are the invaders, or diminish any of the many war crimes that the Zeon forces committed during the conflict. The protagonists may not be a pack of Total Bastards like M'Quve or the Southern Cross team, but they're on the same side as them.

What's more, Requiem for Vengeance really is no ambassador to the non-fan. Its story assumes that its viewer is already well familiar with the One Year War as it makes no effort whatsoever to frame the depicted conflict in any kind of broader context. It expects the viewer to already know who's fighting and why, what the current state of the war is, and especially what major event from the OG series its story is building on and why the date the story truly starts on (7 November 0079) is significant.

A new viewer is still likely to suss out that Requiem for Vengeance's protagonists are villains, though. Invading Earth is pretty much universally villain-coded behavior in sci-fi, "the Federation" is a pretty strongly hero-coded name for a faction, and the titular mecha plays the role of the show's primary antagonist.

As to the ending of the series

Spoiler

It seems like Iria's decision is deliberatly meant to be ironic in the face of what happens in the UC , though the ending didn't exactly make that clear.

The ending doesn't play it for irony, though... it's presented like a standard war movie "and the fight continues" ending.

Only someone who knows what happens afterward, which the series itself DOES NOT mention, would identify it as ironic. Solari's narration does not mention or allude to those future events at all, so the irony is strictly left as out-of-context knowledge.

[Deacon Blues]

In fairness, the accusations of "practically fanfiction" ring rather hollow to me given how many contradictions and retcons that Gundam has in its existing body of work even if we're looking only at the unambiguously canon material. Many fans who would make such an accusation will also, with the same breath, cite works as evidence that are non-canonical or at best pseudocanonical under BNFW/Sunrise's own pre-"Next UC 100" policy.

If it's not supervised or overseen by the parent company, then yeah, it's more or less fanfiction. These books are no different from something like the Bungei Shunju book that came out that made major news stories out of Gundam events (eyewitness accounts, etc). They're quite hilarious and tabloid-like, they add a unique spin on things and don't break any sort of continuity, but are they classified as official or quasi-official? Heck no. You CAN license Gundam material to put out stuff that isn't official material. That's just what the Master Archive books are. Citing them for official purposes would be amazing, but, well...

Isn't Tenneth A. Jung a character from a non-canonical videogame? Haven't read the Nu, Unicorn, or Sinanju books in any depth yet, but I'd point out that the Zaku background material in official setting sources is itself inconsistent and Master Archive appears to be trying to put together what we could call a "most sensible up to date version" from the many contradictory statements elsewhere.

Originally mentioned in Entertainment Bible.39, so your non-canon attempt at dismissal is moot.

Waste not, want not, writers are gonna fall back on existing explanations if they can find them and even though it's not strictly official setting the Master Archive books did get published with Sunrise/BNFW's approval and involvement so someone is likely to reference them for some obscure point of lore.

If they can find them? You act like everything is a disorganized mess. Here's the point you're missing: there is no supervision/cooperation credit attributed to Sunrise/Bandai in these books, unlike those consistently published by Futabasha/Tatsumi/San-Ei/etc. That's why the disclaimer is there: it's not considered official material, no matter how well written it may be or how decent of a job it does to make sense of things.

Ironing out inconsistencies and errors of times past sells books like official encyclopedias... and Gundam is Bandai Namco's money spinner. It's little different, IMO, to how Unicorn turned into some kind of effort to get as many MSV designs into canon as possible to beef up the gunpla line.

You act like none of those suits were ever considered official prior to them appearing in the show to begin with

[Seto Kaiba]

If it's not supervised or overseen by the parent company, then yeah, it's more or less fanfiction.

I'm not sure if you ever looked at the publisher's website for the series, but the Gundam Master Archive Mobile Suit books WERE written under the supervision of Sunrise/Bandai Namco Filmworks. All of their in-universe tech manual-y books were written under the supervision of the owners of their respective franchises.

The first couple volumes of Master Archive Mobile Suit credited Sunrise's supervision and support under "Special Thanks" but after the first few books started explicitly calling their contribution out as Supervision. Books in the series with the explicit Supervision credit include:

• Master Archive Mobile Suit: MS-06 Zaku II
• Master Archive Mobile Suit Gundam: MSV Ace Pilot Log
• Master Archive Mobile Suit: RX-93 Nu Gundam
• Master Archive Mobile Suit: FA-78-1 Full Armor Gundam
• Master Archive Mobile Suit: RX-79BD Blue Destiny (credited under the new name Bandai Namco Filmworks)

So if the lack of a Supervision credit is your concern, then I am pleased to put your concern to rest as the book I cited has an explicit Supervision credit to Sunrise.

Originally mentioned in Entertainment Bible.39, so your non-canon attempt at dismissal is moot.

It was an honest question. I am not quite as familiar with the non-animated materials as others here.

I do find it a bit amusing that, after disdaining Master Archive for being written from an in-universe perspective that you yourself are citing one written from an in-universe perspective. (It has a foreword by its fictional author, Lt. General Vic Habakkuk.) I don't disapprove, I just think it's a fun little bit of symmetry.

[Deacon Blues]

So if the lack of a Supervision credit is your concern, then I am pleased to put your concern to rest as the book I cited has an explicit Supervision credit to Sunrise.

Interesting because none of my first print releases say such. Seeing second and third editions online, it seems to have been shoehorned in. Now I wonder if anything changed between those editions. It's possible their popularity resulted in modifications and Sunrise input, but you'd think that'd be stated.

Special Thanks credits are utterly meaningless anyway, so those don't really matter. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and see what changed between editions now.

It was an honest question. I am not quite as familiar with the non-animated materials as others here.

Sure were quick to write it off though. A simple search would've told you.

I do find it a bit amusing that, after disdaining Master Archive for being written from an in-universe perspective that you yourself are citing one written from an in-universe perspective. (It has a foreword by its fictional author, Lt. General Vic Habakkuk.) I don't disapprove, I just think it's a fun little bit of symmetry.

It's not disdain. Believe me, if I hated them I wouldn't have dedicated hours translating them all into English. But, they did it better back in the 90s, what can I say?

[domino]

Requiem for Vengeance's audience was always going to consist largely of people familiar enough with Gundam in general, and the Universal Century in particular, for its attempt to paint the Principality of Zeon's Earth Attack Force in a heroic or sympathetic light to fall ridiculously flat. So all the show's attempt to dance around the fact that the Zeon forces are the Bad Guys by claiming they're fighting for their homes and families just does not work because much of the audience knows better. Having homes and families doesn't really excuse the fact that Zeon started the war, that Zeon are the invaders, or diminish any of the many war crimes that the Zeon forces committed during the conflict. The protagonists may not be a pack of Total Bastards like M'Quve or the Southern Cross team, but they're on the same side as them.

One of the things I've always liked about Gundam was how it portrayed "both sides" as morally gray rather than "hero" vs "villain". Just because the protagonist is on the side of Zeon, I never felt like we should see them as the "hero" or that they should recognize themselves as the "villain". It's one of the many reasons why Gundam continues to stand out storytelling-wise from other mecha anime. The "good" guys aren't neutral good or good at all. It depends on the protagonist perspective and the world context (eg Earth Federation during OYW vs during Zeta vs during post-ZZ era). It's probably a fair criticism from your perspective but it's also an opinion that we can disagree with.

If we look at some other notable Gundam OVAs, we see that Iria's view of her role as a soldier isn't that different from other Zeon protagonist views like Aina, Char and as you mentioned Oliver and Bernie. They're all soldiers fighting in a war and whether it's explicitly stated or not, they're contributing to mass murder directly or indirectly. However, in each case, they're not mindless or bloodthirsty automatons working for Zeon, and they have found their own purpose in fighting the war. To me, I liked that they tied Iria's desire to protect her child to explain the "Newtype resonance" she felt with the Gundam pilot

That said, I do agree that RfV assumes a lot of the audience that may be new to Gundam but....which OYW OVA doesn't commit that same era? MS Igloo is a mess without further context as an example since you brought it up. Another example is the confusing first movie in the Hathaway series.

RfV has its (many) flaws....but it still deserves a fair shake.

[Seto Kaiba]

One of the things I've always liked about Gundam was how it portrayed "both sides" as morally gray rather than "hero" vs "villain". Just because the protagonist is on the side of Zeon, I never felt like we should see them as the "hero" or that they should recognize themselves as the "villain". It's one of the many reasons why Gundam continues to stand out storytelling-wise from other mecha anime. The "good" guys aren't neutral good or good at all. It depends on the protagonist perspective and the world context (eg Earth Federation during OYW vs during Zeta vs during post-ZZ era). It's probably a fair criticism from your perspective but it's also an opinion that we can disagree with.

While I'll agree that Gundam's usual habit of writing with more moral complexity than the simplistic Good vs. Evil storytelling you'd see in a toku series or super robot show, it doesn't go quite as far as you're saying.

Gundam AUs often indulge in Grey-and-Grey morality, but when it comes to the Universal Century it's typically more Grey-and-Black morality.

Yeah, the Earth Federation are no saints with the government suffering from the natural corruption that comes from an entrenched bureaucracy and the accompanying classism, but its overall aim is peace and that tends to make it at least benign where its theoretical goal is to be benevolent. The Principality of Zeon, on the other hand, was an overtly malevolent authoritarian power pursuing an agenda of conquest and genocide and its various successor organizations (e.g. Axis Zeon, Neo Zeon, the Sleeves, etc.) are generally no better. Organizationally, it's firmly in "Evil" territory and it stays there throughout its appearances in the Universal Century. One of the best examples of this being in Zeta Gundam, where Axis Zeon's entrance into the Gryps conflict sees the nearly-defeated Titans try to ally with them as a similar sort of evil and they ultimately supplant the Titans as the big threat.

There are occasionally characters on the Zeon side who are depicted as authentically decent people, but they tend to fall into two broad categories: the people who are in the dark about Zeon's objectives and activities (e.g. Bernie Wiseman, Oliver May), and people who ultimately try to undermine Zeon's objectives and limit the damage once they learn the truth (e.g. Mineva Zabi, Aina Sakhalin).

If we look at some other notable Gundam OVAs, we see that Iria's view of her role as a soldier isn't that different from other Zeon protagonist views like Aina, Char and as you mentioned Oliver and Bernie. They're all soldiers fighting in a war and whether it's explicitly stated or not, they're contributing to mass murder directly or indirectly. However, in each case, they're not mindless or bloodthirsty automatons working for Zeon, and they have found their own purpose in fighting the war. To me, I liked that they tied Iria's desire to protect her child to explain the "Newtype resonance" she felt with the Gundam pilot

Char is a terrible TERRIBLE example. He's not in the Zeon military out of any sense of duty in the OYW, he's there to get close to the Zabi family so he can assassinate them. Which he does. It's pretty clear he's not exactly concerned with the morality of his killing, he's out for REVENGE.

Aina Sakhalin's maybe a better example, but she definitely has a clearer perspective than Iria does and starts to recognize the doomed fanaticism of her own side as her story progresses. So she breaks orders and refuses to attack the Federation using the Apsalas III and tries to negotiate a cease-fire with the Federation Forces, ultimately helping them take down the Apsalas III piloted by her (mad) brother.

That said, I do agree that RfV assumes a lot of the audience that may be new to Gundam but....which OYW OVA doesn't commit that same era? MS Igloo is a mess without further context as an example since you brought it up. Another example is the confusing first movie in the Hathaway series.

I'm not sure if you just worded this weird or may have got my point backwards?

The point I was making isn't about the lack of exposition in OYW stories. That's pretty normal, as the UC is mostly marketed to long-time fans of the franchise who don't need to have those detailed reiterated.

What I was talking about there was how very odd it is that RfV simultaneously omits all the exposition you'd expect for a UC story intended for an audience of hardcore Gundam fans but also determinedly tries to present Zeon and its war as heroic as though its audience wouldn't know the Principality of Zeon were the bad guys in the war.