#chibodee crocket

[alonelyhollowgram]

hmmmm

[slobozan-shitposting]

RIP doctor Freud, you would've loved Gundam

[tristanzook]

Chibodee, Domon, an Rain! My faves from G fighter! G fighter may be one of my faves along w 79, Z, ZZ, and Seed! I love Rain sm ❤️❤️❤️ I’ve been really enjoying drawing chibis lately so expect more of that!

[cephalopistol]

[yourfavisatransman]

I love this concept! <3 On behalf of my tiny fandom I have to request Chibodee Crockett from G Gundam

CHIBODEE CROCKETT is a TRANS MAN!

thankyou so much for donating FIVE DOLLARS !!!!! to help me get top surgery !!! ^^

[stupidfuckingdeer]

G Gundam was fucking peak.

Besides the thematic elements of “we are all human and must band together as friends to defeat the powerful people that want to hurt us all” the finale had, I now really want a model kit of Neo Sweden’s lobster/crab Gundams.

Shoutout to Chibodee and his polycule. Chibodee somehow managed to both be an amazing parody of Americans while being the gayest straight man in existence. Bravo.

[harumiju501]

Started watching Mobile Fighter G Gundam and I hate that I saw this

[billveusay]

I just watched G-Gundam and...

Wow.

This one I liveblogged with the excellent @gremoria411. You can find the first post here and the index here. Also, here be spoilers.

So, first off... well it was certainly a breath of fresh air. 450 episodes and 23 movies/long format OVAs of sad teenagers shooting at each other and having angst about it, and then this.

Obviously, the elephant in the room is that this show has absolutely no limits. An old sensei decapitates a mobile suit with a scarf and jumps from bullet to bullet being fired at him, there's a windmill Gundam, the Japanese space colony is a flying island in the shape of Japan, while the US one is a giant star with a giant Statue of Liberty that can fire its torch like a cannon, there are giant laser boxing ring ropes around the earth, and at some point, the protagonist flies into space, and bounces on them to get from Guiana to Hong-Kong. And this wouldn't be so delightful if the show didn't 100% commit to the bit. It's easy to write wacky, random nonsense, that alone is not special. It's the sheer sincerity with which it delivers one crazy set piece after another that makes it endlessly fun to watch.

And staying on the topic on sincerity, you could tell that they were taking the story pretty seriously because they were often willing to go pretty dark, and regularly address the fact that the Gundam Fights are a dick-waving contest between the privileged rulers on the colonies at the expense of most of the population and the earth itself. A bunch of pilots have backstories rooted in tragedy, either being coerced into becoming pilots or choosing this path as a last resort. And that's not even mentioning the fact that the main antagonist (or at least antagonistic force) is a Lovecraftian monster that can corrupt and zombify the people it comes into contact with. Pacing is also quite good. The way it alternates between stretches of episodic duels and forwarding the main plots in about equal measures means that whenever you get tired of one, it switches to the other and you rarely get bored.

It's nonetheless very formulaic. I mean, it's a fighting tournament martial arts shonen anime focused on a five-man band with a leader, a brash rival, a big guy, a pretty guy and a kid, plus a girl. So it's definitely not trying to reinvent the wheel where the broad strokes of the story are concerned, but it provides a well made enough crust for the punchy fillings, so I won't count it as an issue.

What I will count as a issue is... well obviously there's some egregious racism in here. Surprisingly less than you'd expect in some areas, and much much more in others (Chandra Sijiema being the most egregious of the lot. Dear God, it might honestly be the most racist character design I have ever seen). Also, France had the inverse problem of glorifying the colonial era in a way that made me equally uncomfortable.

As for other flaws... they did a mandatory third act breakup between Rain and Domon after his victory in the tournament, but since they already went through a breakup and reconciliation a few episodes prior, their relationship was clearly too strong and healthy at that point, so it felt very contrived.

Onto the characters! Domon is a pretty basic angry shonen protagonist, but the fact that they let him grow and open up to his entourage over the course of a nicely paced character arc is enough to make him effective and enjoyable to follow.

Rain was such a cool surprise. I definitely didn't expect this show to have one of the more compelling romances of the franchise (although, save for a few outliers like Stardust Memory, the competition wasn't very stiff).

Chibodee Crocket, yee haw! I am so happy that part of his backstory is "he is scared of clowns because he was taken hostage by clowns armed with assault rifles that killed his mum" and how can you hate a boxing cow-boy with this haircut?

Sai Saici was a fun little rascal, and I found him as delightful as the animators did, judging by how much fun they had animating him. He also managed to get me somewhat emotional during his second fight with Domon.

George de Sand. J'avoue, même si je suis généralement pas quelqu'un de très patriotique, c'était amusant de le traiter comme s'il était mon footballer préféré. Qui plus est, le fait qu'il soit l'un des membres du quintet de pilotes principaux m'a fait me sentir très privilégié. La plupart des autres pays n'ont pour eux qu'un adversaire de la semaine, un caméo ou dans le pire des cas, la représentation la plus raciste de tous les temps. Même si, comme mentionné plus haut, George a le problème inverse de romanticiser la période coloniale de la France de manière assez cringe. Also, as I mentioned, if you enjoy rooting around the big closet of anime characters to find where they're hiding the delicious eggs, there are several metatextual elements for you to chew on with this one.

Argo Gulskii is a fun big chonky guy, quite effective at being scary and imposing, and his arc with Graham was quite endearing. Plus now that I'm thinking about it, I realise it was basically a WWE storyline.

Allenby is so cool! It's impressive how she manages to still be one of the coolest female characters in the whole franchise despite the show being more than 30yo. She does lose quite a few points by being damseled and brainwashed (something that also applies to Rain, thinking about it) for a large stretch of the plot but still, very cool.

Schwarz Bruder/Kyoji. I'm embarrassingly proud of calling the twists at every turn, but that in no way detracted from the fun of German robot ninja Tuxedo Mask.

Master Asia is the greatest antagonist to have ever piloted a Mobile Suit. All of the Char-clones combined couldn't reach half of the level of drama this man operates at, and he somehow backs it up with some genuinely good character writing. Not consistently, it felt like they were rewriting his character and motivations every other episode, but it's all small potatoes compared to THE SCHOOL OF THE UNDEFEATED OF THE EAST! THE WINDS OF THE KING! ZENSHIN! KEIRETSU! TEMPA KYOURAN! LOOK, THE EAST IS BURNING RED!

Wong was also a great antagonist, I love a delightfully hatable villain, and they came up with a million different ways to make him supremely irritating. I kept hoping he choked to death on his pocky sticks, so well done there.

But somehow, he was still leagues above Ulube in terms of likeability. God what a prick, but all-in-all a fitting and effective final boss.

And the Shuffle Alliance... was also there. Briefly.

In conclusion, the reason why it took me this long to write that review is because I genuinely struggled to find things to say besides "look at how cool it was when the big robot dude rode the big robot horse and kicked the dickhead in the head/dick". It's not a show that makes me want to delve deep into its writing, pacing and structure, it's a show that makes me want to grab a bag of popcorn and shout along to the power-up speeches. So let's conclude with the visuals and music.

Animation is... I guess pretty decent for the time, and it does improve over the course of the show, but it's still far from the quality and consistency of Wing (god Wing was beautiful). There were very cool flashes of animation going into overdrive though, especially when the Devil Gundam was doing its Akira shtick. The music was also really cool, and Flying in the Sky is one of the best Gundam openings.

Phew, done! Again, thanks to @gremoria411 for tagging along on this wild wild wild wild ride, and I'll see you in the next one, which is After War Gundam X. New liveblog coming out tomorrow!

Gundam Reviews:

> Hathaway's Spark > Mobile Suit Gundam > Gundam Zeta > 0083: Stardust Memory > 0080: War in the Pocket > 8th MS Team > The Witch from Mercury > Gundam Thunderbolt > The Origin > Turn A Gundam > F91 > Gundam Unicorn > Gundam 00 > MS IGLOO > Gundam Narrative > Iron-Blooded Orphans > Gundam Wing > Twilight Axis > Requiem for Vengeance > Gquuuuuux > Gundam ZZ > Reconguista in G > Cucuruz Doan's Island > Mobile Fighter G Gundam > After War Gundam X