Gundam ZZ Wrapup (REPOST/CARRY-OVER)
make no mistake; i really had a lot of fun with zz.
it might have helped that i took a month off before beginning it, but i never found the lightness of the tone jarring even after zeta's ending, and i like it when characters have a level of zaniness, so the first half, mixed with its very gundam political undertones, was just my style. i also think that zz handles its tone change incredibly well, making it feel natural. it never gets as dark as zeta, which helps, but judau's gradual character arc helps guide it slowly and surely into its bigger themes.
0079 was a basis for the themes of war and its societal & environmental effects. zeta elaborated on that more, focusing on the sociological and unfairness of war as an inevitability. zz narrows its themes even moreso; to the frustrations of the youth. and it does it quite well.
youth who are radicalized. the youth who struggle in a post-war environment they have no control over. youth who can only sit back and watch as the older generations that are meant to be paving the way for them only work for their own comfort and greed. the shangri-la kids are dear to my heart, and i was really invested in what they as characters had to say on those exact themes. judau is an excellent main character in this regard, and his growth into a man who refuses to give in to the will of the elite and despair whilst also still being able to stake independence for himself feels very rewarding after witnessing the fates of both amuro & kamille(both specifically in zeta).
i also really like how they elaborated on bright's character, with his flaws being put fully on display. kamifa were also great to follow whenever they got screen time, wrapping up fa's arc and finishing kamille's through judau's. but, alas, this leads into my biggest issue with the series; i like its ideas so much, that i got disappointed when they were underdelivered.
i'll preface that this may be less criticism and more my own wish-fulfillment, so apologies if i'm just writing fanfiction at this point. but i find that, while the last two episodes of zz have a lot of good moments, the finale felt underwhelming for me. this ending, while following similar beats to the first two series, leaves me with a lot to be desired. which sucks, because both 0079's and zeta's conclusions felt really good. but i think that's where the differences between those shows and this show lie.
0079 wasn't extraordinary, but it was satisfying and very well-done. zeta, on the other hand, while still being my favorite so far, also left me wanting a little bit more. and i think i figured out where my issue is; similar to zeta, zz has too many characters. throughout 0079, i never felt myself wanting more from the characters. aside from amuro, sayla, char, and perhaps mirai, we never really get any elaboration on the backstories of the crew of the white base; sure, we get hints for quite a lot of them, but i never felt like i needed more in order to understand them. and i think that was partially due to the fact that 0079's themes are a bit broader, leaving the characters to fulfill more of a broad purpose. i don't need a rundown of kai's backstory to understand his role as the skeptic. i don't need hayato to have an episode of malding in his bedroom to understand his inferiority complex in the face of amuro's extraordinary abilities. likewise, i don't need entire episodes dedicated to seeing ramba ral working with deikun and getting with hamon or the interpersonal relationships of the zabi family in order to get and understand them. some might argue that this makes the characters in 0079 shallower, but i think that shallowness works in service of the story. these characters fulfill their purposes, and because of that, they receive satisfying conclusions.
but then we get to zeta, and we're almost immediately presented with a much bigger cast. not only do you have the argama, but you also have multiple warring factions; the titans & axis. within both, you have characters who immediately feel as if they have more going for them compared to the opposition the white base faced. scirocco, jerid & his girlfriends, haman & mineva, and the cyber-newtype girls all serve to introduce not only more moving parts to the story, but to the storylines it wants to tell. storylines, plural.
and i can concede that perhaps this is completely on me and my strange subconscious metric, but compared to 0079, i feel as if my frustrations with these characters—specifically jerid & the cyber-newtype girls—come from the fact that i think they had the perfect set-up for even deeper explorations on the themes presented throughout the show, which were ultimately not delivered in a way that left me satisfied. i felt as if they had a lot more to say about the world, just to have their roles in the story end abruptly. i don't need challia bull's or scirocco's backstory. i don't even really need lalah's. but i think characters like four & rosamia would have benefited from having those sorts of aspects explored. because, even if it's just psychosis, i can FEEL as if they have... more!
whether it be because of four's room or her psychology, or rosamia's backstory with witnessing a colony drop and having a brother that looks exactly like kamille. they were obviously setting up something with those three(sarah included)and their relationships with kamille to the point of him hallucinating them blending into the same person, but it just. never felt delivered on. i think it doesn't help that zeta wanted to talk more about relationships, specifically those between men and women, but we never really got to see enough of that for me to say that they achieved anything, aside from leaving me wanting. zz has the same problem, but somehow even worse.
gundam is a toy commercial first and foremost, which is why it needs its obligatory battle-of-the-episode, so i'm not expecting a deep sociological exploration of all its characters re: utena or eva. but i feel like i'm going crazy, because i think zz has perfectly set-up quite a few interesting traits and ideas within their cast that just never get the pay-off that i so want. ple's character is perhaps the best/worst example of this; her death is not poorly executed, but the rest of her character arc that is carried on by ple2 ends incredibly unsatisfactorily.
a child soldier specifically built for war, discarded because of her behaviour which is normal for children, who is then replaced by another child who seems to be "mature" enough for combat, but who ultimately cannot overcome her own desires which match those of her "failure's". her desire to discard all of her compassion for the sake of achieving the love that she believes she will not otherwise have to "fight against her nature" for, but in the end, she cannot help but grieve that compassion and the companionship it did offer her. after being saved for what SHOULD be the final time, to prove that she isn't incapable of receiving and giving love, embracing her past and trauma whilst also being given a proper chance to get the support she needs to grow into a better person... ple2 dies as well.
she helps rescue judau in spite of suspicion being thrown at her, and then dies. nobody grieves her. what is this meant to prove to me? that war is unfair, even to children? i don't need to be told that when the entirety of the series before this point has been spent explaining just that to me. hell, that was the point of zeta's entire conclusion. ple2's, and thus ple's, fate just feels incredibly mean-spirited. i cannot think of a single reason that would hamper the narrative if she had survived to see judau off.
i keep thinking back to that scene where ple contemplates killing herself so she can be grieved as much as leina was when judau thought she was dead. this is even worse; not only is she never properly grieved, but nobody even notices or says anything afterwards about her death. after all that set-up, and the promise of being able to rescue this ten year old girl from the forces looking to manipulate and use her... she never actually gets to feel as if she's in a family. and no, i dont care if she dies "relieved that she no longer feels alone". that's bullshit!! in her final moments, elle is the only one to give her any kindness, and all SHE did was tell beecha that she was still "ple" at heart!
further talking about characters that had a lot of potential... i think all of the teen pilots are fine, but i'm kind of frustrated when it comes to roux. i immediately liked her just by design alone(even before starting zz), and maybe that's part of it. but as is, i feel like she doesn't really justify her own inclusion in the story beyond being a more experienced third party pilot—and even then, i don't remember ever getting to hear more about the la vie en rose through her. she matched my tastes based on personality, but i was disappointed we never got to really go "introspective" and get more depth out of her beyond what we've already seen in different gundam characters, even though she's one of the side characters who actually gets time dedicated to her own subplot.
but one thing that did stick out to me was the fact that i think she's, at least somewhat, a lonely character. her admonishment of judau when he was grieving over leina's "death", her tendency to behave cheerfully even when in potentially life-endangering situations, her brief relationship with that one non-glemy blond guy, "i'll never forget that you loved me"... i think loneliness and isolation in the face of tragedy was also a big theme in zz, so i figured she would be a natural addition to that. except, compared to ple or even haman, roux isn't afforded the screentime to really develop that aspect of her character, leading me to wonder if it was even intentional.
given the chance, i think i would have rewritten her to be a young girl who buys into bioessentialist ideals and the expectations placed onto women by the patriarchy in an attempt to be "accepted", hence comments such as "loosen up or no guy will ever like you" or her being self-aware of her mistakes to the point where it almost feels like its implying that she's playing up a "cutesy gap moe" facade. i feel like they WERE going for that on some level, with her outbursts of frustration serving as "slips" of the mask, but i don't think the gender-specific commentary was intentional or meant to be seen as criticism of such. i think i would have also liked to see her blame herself more for leina's supposed death, especially since she was the one who brought her into the position where she was able to be kidnapped in the first place, which might help explain why she is so harsh on judau in that scene.
i would have also rewritten her relationship with glemy under this pretext to just... honestly give them more moments together. glemy's crush isn't very relevant to the plot or his character besides adding to his traditional perceptions of masculinity, when i think you could have done more with it. i mean, he already sort of infantilizes her("how dare the aeug trick roux into becoming a spy!")while assuming, as he does with every woman in his life, that he understands her when in this case he would only be seeing her "mask". i don't think roux should have been glemy's main motivation, but i do think it'd have been interesting to make him even worse in regards to his feelings towards her, perhaps gradually increasing into the desire to "own" her and explicitly developing the belief that he is the only one who can understand her.
(i also think that it could be used to make judau x roux work better. amplify their conflict after leina's "death", and then give them some more serious heart-to-hearts where roux's "mask" completely falls in the face of judau's authenticity. it's already been consistent that the women in glemy's life keep gravitating towards judau due to the fact that judau is able to see them as people and understand them instead of the images glemy superimposes onto them, so this would have added to that LOL)
i don't want them to be a rehash of reccoa&scirocco, as i think roux's consistent pitying of him from a distance is interesting, but i wanted to see them... THINK of each other more! maybe through him trying to make more of an active attempt to contact her...? i think that level of parasociality he has for her is important, so i don't really want them to interact in person, but i would have liked to see roux potentially reminiscing on her relationships before zz and that non-directly reflecting her rel w/ glemy.
also, i don't like how he was telling the truth about being "content to die so long as it was by her hands". glemy must also be a lonely individual, but we don't get enough of his character for me to find that justifiable. i wanted him to feel genuinely "betrayed" after assuming that roux returned his romantic feelings for him based only on the times she spared him.
speaking of glemy; what was up with the mama and papa gag?? i understand he's gihren's descendant(shoulda been kycilia's)somehow, but i can't actually remember if they actually say that in the show... WHO IS "MAMA & PAPA"??!
there were other characters who i would have liked to see more of. i complained about the lack of explanation regarding the cyber-newtypes of zeta, and zz shares that same problem. not only with the ples, but with mashymre & chara. mashymre i feel more dissastified with; i get the idea of the "enhancements", but i think i would have liked to see him go "madder" with power in the endgame to the point where he even begins to ignore his respect & supposed feelings for haman for the sake of committing violence and feeling in control of the battlefield(i also think this would have made sense on account of his lusting for haman seeming to overpower any actual romantic feelings he had for her). chara's ending was perfect tho. no notes LOL
you think illia is going to pull off some crazy yazan(dont even get me started on THAT guy)-type moves, but i don't even remember her death scene. haman's sister seems to be one of her main motivators for what she does, but she's literally only mentioned in one line, and you never get any sort of flashback to haman's past(you would have thought this sister would be deemed important enough to her to appear in her newtype confrontation w/ kamille LOL).
i think the thing that leaves me the most frustrated about all of this is the fact that i feel like this COULD have been handled so much better, considering there were over 47 episodes to work things out in, and i don't even feel like every arc in zz was fully necessary.
i can understand the importance of their time on earth as being used to showcase how much the average people are struggling in the wake of not only the ongoing wars, but also ever since the earth nobility started forcing people into space, but i feel the arcs in africa did not need to be as long as they were—or, at least, not when there was so much character stuff that could have been explored in its stead.
i know that it's an obligation to have at least one mecha fight every episode, but surely there could have been ways to balance both those and flesh out the themes within the pre-existing cast better?
tigerbaum also felt like it could have been made way more concise for similar reasons.
i'm not really good at concluding these sorts of rambles. but once again, i want to say that overall, i really enjoyed zz. hell, my complaints come mostly from the fact that it did such a good job at making me attached to these characters to the point where i want more of/from them.
you could say maybe that my expectations were too high, especially considering it's an anime made more to entertain and sell toys... but in my defense, the first thing i got told about it was that it WASN'T an anime. can't blame me!
