The old-school anime DVD/BD news thread.

[llj]

It's been a while since I've seen G-Gundam, but you may be right about Rain. 08th MS Team is the only one I feel really is an exception to the rule on that front. But all the other ones are pretty bad. Gundam Seed in particular gets greatly overrated by fans on this issue. Lacus Clyne is fan service, completely unrealistic as a person and an example of a "good" girl who gets deified to the extreme, yet doesn't really have an active part in the series aside from being a human incarnation of symbolism. Cagalli's ability as a badass soldier quickly gets de-emphasized as she becomes Kira's love interest.

Gundam Seed is more representative of anime trends since the 2000s than anything it's doing by itself. Many anime have figured out that a way to appease feminist 101 fan thinking is that anime girls should be either positive role models or completely badass. If you stick with either stereotype, you'll never get too much criticism. But that's creatively limiting and actually even reductive. If you dare to write people as flawed, contradictory, human, and even unlikeable, then fans are all over your ass today for whatever reason.

Don't get me wrong. I did actually enjoy Gundam Seed. I'm not someone who sees entertainment through a filter of politics. I watch and enjoy a lot of pretty sexist entertainment, like film noir and gialli, so I'm not a guy who goes out and becomes a militant SJW or try to paint myself as being some male feminist who only enjoys entertainment that "meets" my standard of progressive politics, because I'd easily fail to meet those standards under any kind of greater scrutiny. It's just that I wanna call bullshit on a lot of what fans deem as "progressively worthy" or "good characterization". It always bugs me when today's fans attack Tomino for not living up such and such a standard, when there's certainly plenty of fodder for me to at least propose that it may be the complete opposite. And I don't even have a personal attachment to Tomino. I think he's a complete nut. And I think that people accusing him of being a muddled storyteller has some merit. But I really do think Tomino is a better writer of people than he's given credit for.

I won't even start to go into why Wing and 00 have the worst written characters of any Gundam series.

[DKop]

So by saying that, surely Bubblegum Crisis, Gunsmith Cats or Gall Force won't get criticism because its an all female cast in which they all kick ass in space and in exoskeleton mech suits. I've always wondered how the feminist community would treat those series, then again, better if I don't know.

Your absolutely right about Gundam Seed, to me there were more problems than just the female roles in that series. All I know is that I did a podcast about Seed maybe two years ago, and I put the link up on the MAHQ facebook group for people to listen. I was rather surprised that after a decade later, there are still Seed defenders and apologists for that series telling me that I was wrong in my review. I personally thought they grew up or all died out .

Well, probably better to end our convo here for now, I don't wanna take this forum off topic to badly.

[llj]

So by saying that, surely Bubblegum Crisis, Gunsmith Cats or Gall Force won't get criticism because its an all female cast in which they all kick ass in space and in exoskeleton mech suits. I've always wondered how the feminist community would treat those series, then again, better if I don't know.
.

I'm of the understanding that those series are respected by most people on that front. Any criticisms they get are unrelated to the feminist aspect of those series and more on the plot, storytelling, etc,. I suppose the nudity could be a problem...but if you're an anime fan who can't stand nudity, you won't find many anime that will meet your standards anyway. I want to clarify that I didn't mean to belittle characters of those types or argue that they were somehow lesser for sticking to 1 or 2 stereotypes only. It's just that I don't think those should be the ONLY models writers should use when crafting good, meaty, characters. If every show had characters who were either "positive" or "badass", we'd run into a creative rut pretty quickly.

Your absolutely right about Gundam Seed, to me there were more problems than just the female roles in that series. All I know is that I did a podcast about Seed maybe two years ago, and I put the link up on the MAHQ facebook group for people to listen. I was rather surprised that after a decade later, there are still Seed defenders and apologists for that series telling me that I was wrong in my review. I personally thought they grew up or all died out

Oh, you're absolutely right, but I will say that I enjoyed Gundam Seed on a purely soapy level. Every episode ended on a cliffhanger and the show moved along at a pretty good pace. I threw in DVD after DVD at one point of the series because I wanted to see what happened next. Even if the characters were all wooden and there would be an eye-rolling plot development every 2 episodes, it was still addicting if you grooved with it. After finishing the series I knew I had binged on trash, but I could see how some people could mistake that for actual quality.

[whitesnake]

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but the Dororo Anime TV Series from 1969 is now available on DVD for pre-order on Amazon - it will be released on April 26, released by Eastern Star (Discotek Media). The series was based on a manga by Osamu Tezuka. Dororo was also made into a Japanese live action movie made in 2007. On the Amazon pre-order page for this, there's a sweepstakes chance to win a prize package trip to Anime Expo 2016.

[usamimi]

http://amzn.to/1qsmSty Found the pre-order, but I didn't spot the sweepstakes you were talking about...maybe because I'm on mobile? lol

[whitesnake]

The sweepstakes offer was on the pre-order page yesterday morning. I just checked and the sweepstakes offer is gone already.

BUT... I Googled the Anime Expo sweepstakes and it's on http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=14103044011
Deadline to enter the contest is April 25, 2016.

[llj]

Looks like Gundam Build Fighters is coming to BD. I know this show has its fans here (haven't seen it yet).

[usamimi]

I've been wanting to check that one out! I know it's geared towards selling kids toys, but I've heard it's fun! XD

[SteveH]

I've been wanting to check that one out! I know it's geared towards selling kids toys, but I've heard it's fun! XD

Gundam Build Fighters (and GBF Try) are excellent, fun shows, full of cheer. I don't think it's a good idea to marathon it, it works much better a couple of episodes at a time.

I will caution you, there are likely to be two effects that will seemingly come from nowhere and possess you.

1. You're gonna want to build some Gunpla. It's gonna happen.

2. You will cry and curse the gods because there isn't a Gundam Fight game system in real life.

[DKop]

See Steve, I thought the Gunpla Builders Beginning G was supposed to be a pitch to sell the idea to either Sega or Namco in making one. I think its totally possible, but I know it would have to require some sort of chip either installed in people's gunpla, or buying a gunpla that has something embedded in the plastic to register on a pad to play.