Gundam General Audience?

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Quiddity
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Re: Gundam General Audience?

I would presume he means "scam" in a sense that the show was sponsored by a toy company and yet Tomino used it as a vehicle to tell a powerful war story (albeit one that due to said sponsors had to suffer through stuff like the mid-air combination sequence, the Gundam upgrade modules and lots of enemy mechs that only appear once or twice). He then proceeds to do that for three more TV shows before he finally steps aside and Sunrise puts out the toy commercial type show they wanted that gets to ignore all the previous continuity (G Gundam, which despite original intentions ends up being a very strong show and far more than just a toy commercial).

I haven't heard of elaborate designs being an issue for Dunbine, although I've heard that the fantasy setting wasn't that popular, driving the decision to move the setting to Earth for the last 20 episodes or so. A devastating decision for me as the show gets worse and worse every time I rewatch it, primarily because of that decision. I believe the elaborate designs thing was a problem for Mamoru Nagano though, who designed mechs for Tomino's L-Gaim, as well as some for Zeta (and perhaps ZZ, someone with better knowledge would have to say for sure). Leading to them going with other designers instead for future works.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Gundam General Audience?

Mafty wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:43 am So how exactly did Tomino scam the sponsors ?where they mislead about the shows actual story? I've heard that Dunbine was a loss because it didn't sell enough model kits to recoup the costs of building new molds for the elaborate designs.

Also the whole Multiple Demographic Appeal thing really did work in the long run, something you can even see in newer shows. For example a previous post pointed out how there are numerous Easter Eggs in newer series to older Gundam shows/older mecha shows in general (Ie the "Walking War Museum" in Unicorn, The Ideon References in 08th MS team and Gundam SEED, Gundam Sentinel ALICE system references in Gundam Wing, numerous visual and mecha shout outs in CE in general etc,)
Now, you see, the sponsors usually don't care about what story you put up. All you need is to have enough cool stuff happen on screen with the cool toys they want to sell. Heck, you even get to design those cool toys.
Tomino on the other hand, give little screen times for the cool toys, or the cool toys doesn't do what they submitted for the sponsors to make(FG's Clover's toy line was vastly different from FG anime other than their appearance, but the appearances are still some what off even if you take into account the quality they can possibly make at the time), make cool sounding allegations like "This is the next Space Battleship Yamato" with a seriously small budget(The Grey colour palette of Yamato is larger than the whole colour palette of FG) and not really that much of similarity in plot.
Many of the things said by Tomino is well, Tomino. You can't completely believe them and he changes his mind pretty quickly. A lot of times he just burps out whatever can get him out of the situation and not really meant what he said, or even worst, what sounded cool(he thinks) at the time.
Consider Tomino right out say that he thinks the sponsors as his enemies in an interview the April 1989 issue of Newtype but finally admitting you need sponsors in a much more recent one(post 2010)
This is not actually that much of a problem considering a lot of directors do pretty much the same thing for even worse performance and the sponsors bite the bait because they are greedy and doesn't really watch the shows or even try to understand the demography that's watching their shows.
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Kuruni
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Re: Gundam General Audience?

MythSearcher wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 12:19 am Tomino on the other hand, give little screen times for the cool toys, or the cool toys doesn't do what they submitted for the sponsors to make[...]
You know, it's irony that the suit that show off most gimmick in the first episode of G-Reco is Recten (big arm unit, make shift beam rifle, wire remote camera, face-changing monitor) yet it never got gunpla release.

Another irony. I remember read from a wiki (completed with source, but I can't remember where I read from) that Gundam Age actually praised for being faithfully show off the gimmick of wear-swapping in show. Yet plamo magazine got noticable less fan mod design submission. I guess it's up to your opinion if that's because the show did too good and there isn't much room for builder's modification, or the design themselves are just fail to strike builder's imagination.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Gundam General Audience?

Kuruni wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:44 am You know, it's irony that the suit that show off most gimmick in the first episode of G-Reco is Recten (big arm unit, make shift beam rifle, wire remote camera, face-changing monitor) yet it never got gunpla release.

Another irony. I remember read from a wiki (completed with source, but I can't remember where I read from) that Gundam Age actually praised for being faithfully show off the gimmick of wear-swapping in show. Yet plamo magazine got noticable less fan mod design submission. I guess it's up to your opinion if that's because the show did too good and there isn't much room for builder's modification, or the design themselves are just fail to strike builder's imagination.
I don't know, but the Titus Madoka seems to be pretty dominant? XD

But AGE overall problem is the story and presentation isn't really good enough, and the designs are too toy like so it is not going to be appealing the generally more militaristic minds of modellers and the balance just being so bad that kids don't find them appealing as well.(consider LBX designs seem to be better received by the lower age groups as well as the higher ones and by the same company) AGE is obviously that kind of show that is trying to fool kids and not for kids.
Mafty
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Re: Gundam General Audience?

Agreed, the design's in AGE have a plastic toy feel even in the animation. As for the Tomino not caring for merchandisers thing, well who knows? It's hard to always get accurate sources. That being said you can actually see some area's wherein UC Gundam dodged common merchandising tactics. Gundam ZZ for instance had a lot of Neo-Zeon MS, but only one new Gundam unit, the rest stayed on from the previous series. Likewise the federation is seen using the same mass produced mecha and ships(like the Jeagan ,Salamis Kai, and Clop) for decades. Compare this to SEED Destiny where every pilot character got several new mechs during their run on the show (Like Cagailli's Golden Unit which was never mentioned before).
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MythSearcher
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Re: Gundam General Audience?

Mafty wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 12:29 am Agreed, the design's in AGE have a plastic toy feel even in the animation. As for the Tomino not caring for merchandisers thing, well who knows? It's hard to always get accurate sources. That being said you can actually see some area's wherein UC Gundam dodged common merchandising tactics. Gundam ZZ for instance had a lot of Neo-Zeon MS, but only one new Gundam unit, the rest stayed on from the previous series. Likewise the federation is seen using the same mass produced mecha and ships(like the Jeagan ,Salamis Kai, and Clop) for decades. Compare this to SEED Destiny where every pilot character got several new mechs during their run on the show (Like Cagailli's Golden Unit which was never mentioned before).
If we count the most efficient Gundam anime, it must be Stargazer. It has the highest count of MS to air time ratio. Other than that, 0080 and the movies.
mungfalii
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Re: Gundam General Audience?

I meant it basically as anime fan(Otaku kinda gets that usage outside Japan in anime fandom), but now I remember it's original term as obsessed over a specific subject(not just anime).

mobdro 2022
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