Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

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TheGundamMKII
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Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I just finished watching, and I don't have any idea how to feel about this show. I like most of the cast well enough, but the story leaves a whole lot to be desired.

The sad thing about it is that there's a whole lot of potential there. Even more Cyber-Newtype weirdness, loads of new mobile suits, not to mention the momentous implications of the AEUG being the only organization to oppose Haman.

However, none of this amounts to any epic tale, at least not in my opinion. The story rambles around pretty badly until they travel to Earth and really start fighting Neo Zeon.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't really expecting anything particularly epic or fantastic. I'm just curious to hear some other thoughts on what Double Zeta did right, and what it could have done better.
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kayone73
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Didn't like it much the first time I saw it unsubbed back in the early 90s, I recently watched it subbed a couple months ago...still didn't like it, but at least I understood the finer points of the story this time.
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pd771
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

The first 20 episodes when Tomino was doing comedy were not very good and I'm happy the tone and story were changed when he got the greenlight for Char's Counterattack. Overall I though it turned out to be an OK entry overall. Judau is one of the most likeable Gundam characters in my opinion but I wish I had never met Beecha or Mondo.
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TheGundamMKII
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I kind of feel the same way. Once things sobered up it did get better. Judau was a refreshing main character, too. I liked the fact that he was; more or less, and 'ordinary' kid. Not that his situation was that ordinary, but that he had real-life concerns- taking care of his sister, providing the both of them with food and shelter, etc.

Beecha and Mondo. MEH. I'm glad they get it together, but I really could have done without their nonsense.
2NA Fish
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I found it quite entertaining. A bit of a disappointment in direction after Zeta, but it was a bit of fun watching those brats play with MS. I found the characters fairly likeable, even Beecha and Mondo.

Although my biggest gripe with ZZ is that ZZ Rommel was nowhere near as badass as the real Desert Fox. If they were gonna rip off a historical figure, they should have researched a bit more.
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ZeonsSilverStar
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I didn't hate the first half but the show did improve as it went on. I didn't care for the Moon Moon episodes and by extension the Tigerbaum episodes, the latter more so because they occured at the worst possible time. If I had any real issues with ZZ it would be the final battle between Judau and Haman. I wasn't expecting Haman to win but I felt she kinda threw the fight.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

It's my favourite UC TV show. The comedy was funny and was a very welcome change from the bland bleakness of Zeta. Even when it did get more serious it still had that sense of fun to it and it didn't wear me out like Zeta and Victory did.
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Captain Anonymous
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I actually liked ZZ quite a bit. The lighter parts I think work well, in that when something grim does happen, it seems all the more shocking.
I do hope we someday do get a U.S. release of the series, to finally bookend Zeta and fill that hole, especially considering how much of it ties in with the currently running Unicorn.
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zerogradius
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Following the epic Zeta Gundam, I expected ZZ to be a lot like it. Instead I saw a comedy show that denegraded characters like Bright (the chicken stuff was ridiculous) and Yazan (his entire presence on the show was a waste considering he killed off more members of the AEUG than anyone else), and it also made the Zeta Gundam look bad more than once (Fa's and Judau's early piloting of it made fights look like slapstick comedy and need I mention the Zaku head). The comedy was not horrible, but at times it seemed like Tomino was trying too hard to be funny, and a lot of it was forced and repetitive. I liked the crew of the Endra and Mashymyre, they were entertaining, as opposed to Yazan and that big toothed idiot he always hung out with.

The series began to pick up when Leina was kidnapped, and progressed steadily from there. There were a couple slip ups like Moon Moon and Tigerbaum, but it did not take away too much from the series. As for the characters, most of them were likeable. Elle and Ru are two of my favourite female characters in all of Gundam. They both have qualities of Emma Sheen, who is my fav female character overall. They both are tough and don't take crap from anyone, especially Judau. For a main character, Judau is a breath of fresh air. He is a welcome change from the angsty, anti social type present in the previous two series. Beecha and Mondo were annoying from the time the show started. Beecha eventually grew on me, but Mondo remained annoying throughout. If any of the main cast should have died, it should have been him. Bright, as usual, was what you would expect from him (aside from the previously mentioned chicken incident).

The only things that left me confused/annoyed were:

1. The supposed love triangle with Judau, Elle and Ru. It was clear that Elle liked Judau, but Ru never showed any interest in him, nor did he in her. Elle and Ru argued a lot, but as far as I can remember, it was never about him. Then at the ending, Judau leaves for Jupiter with Ru out of the blue. I think this should have been developed more before the finale.

2. Haman only engaing in one battle the entire series, and then she uses her old Quebley. Given that Neo Zeon had constructed many new MS, why would she use one that was over a year old. Mashymyre and Chara had better MSs than her, and she did not give a damn about them. Then there was the actual fight with Judau. In Zeta Gundam, she was able to best both Kamille and Char, but she loses one on one to Judau?

3. What exactly was Elpeo Puru? Was she a newtype who was cloned by Glemy, or was she turned into a cyber newtype and then cloned. When she died defending Judau from Puru 2, no mention was made of her afterward. It was like she never existed. The only times she had a presence in the show after her death was when she spoke to Judau and Puru 2 from beyond the grave. And then there was the fate of Puru 2. Did she die like her final scene would suggest, or did she pass out? Like Puru, no mention was made of her after her final scene.

4. Glemy's ambitions. What was Haman doing, or not doing, that made him feel that he had to rebel against her. They both seemed to have the same goals, so why not work together? Did he just want to be the one in charge? Haman mentioned that Glemy is worse than her because he wants to revive the Zeon of old. Isn't that what Haman was trying to do? And how could Haman not be bloodthirsty enough for Glemy? She successfully staged a colony drop on Dublin. What more did he want?
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mcred23
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I thought ZZ was a pretty good show. It's not the best Gundam series ever, and certainly not as good as Zeta, but nowhere near as bad as some people try to make it out to be. It's a much lighter show, which fits the cast, particularly Judau, who is a very upbeat character (As are most of the new characters) and quite a contrast from the pessimistic Kamille. I didn't have any problems with the comedy stuff in the early episodes, and honestly think it's really over blown and over criticized. Not to pick on zerogradius's opinion, but I've heard the word "slapstick" applied to ZZ since I first heard of the show (Even the old Animerica guide book many of us have claims ZZ is "heavy on the slapstick") and I really don't agree with it. Like I said in the Current Anime thread when I watched the show this summer, people make it out to be The Three Stooges with Mobile Suits when they talk about the show, which I certainly didn't think it was.

Even stuff like Moon Moon and Tigerbaum I really didn't mind. I can understand some of the complaints about the latter, since if you didn't like the early episodes of the series I wouldn't expect you to enjoy the Tigerbaum ones, but Moon Moon I really had no problems with it. After a series where giant robots can be made indestructible from the power of dead people, and really take your pick of any of the other Newtype wackiness from any other series, the idea of a space colony where people reverted to some Aztec Ninja culture didn't require much more suspension of disbelief from me. 8)

Honestly, the biggest thing I took out of ZZ was just a further reinforcement of ignoring what most people say about a show. This isn't directed at anyone in this thread, but it became very clear to me after watching ZZ that many people I'd seen comment on it over the years hadn't seen the entire series, if any of it at all. I think back to things people said, or stumble on to something in an old thread here, and it's obvious they didn't actually see the show (Or just had awful, awful memory :roll:). It seems like a lot of people just read the summaries on MAHQ or some other site and they "know" ZZ is bad without having actually seen it. I can understand why it has a fairly poor reputation, I didn't mind the comedy but I can see why people would be unhappy with it and other elements of the show, but I think it's really blown out of proportion.
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TheGundamMKII
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Loads of people bad-mouth Double Zeta; and I can see why people would say its not the best, but I certainly don't believe it's the worst.

I enjoyed the comedy, but sometimes I felt it was inappropriate. I really liked the cast, but I have to wonder how the Argama was able to do all that it did without any real support. The White Base was at least getting re supplied and had it's crew supplemented. The Argama didn't seem to take on much more crew after Judau & co and wasn't getting the T.L.C. that the White Base enjoyed in MSG. (this shows later when Bright is taking Hayato around the ship, but it isn't touched on much in the earlier episodes.)

I suppose my biggest two problems are this~ We never really learn what exactly Neo Zeon is after and never really get to know any of the Axis people, and the writer's conveniences the story sometimes takes in regards to resupply/repairs.

My biggest gripe isn't with the usual things, it's really with the nature and directive of Neo Zeon. I thought Haman was trying to take over the whole Earth Sphere, but the story seems to imply she only wanted Side 3 later. And then there's the Feds. They come along to sweep up at the very end of the story. Had they been active in space the whole time, or were they just 'late to the party'? Did the Feds take over the AEUG or make them surrender?

Honestly, I have more questions about the end of this show than the beginning, but no one seems to have tried to cover it or flesh it out in any detail, unlike the other series that get novels and manga.
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zerogradius
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

The AEUG/Federation relationship confused me as well. They were seperate entities in Zeta, but by ZZ, it seems that they allied, at some point. Those EF generals in Dublin spoke of decommissioning the Argama, which should not be possible seeing that it was an AEUG ship, which also means that the EF had taken somewhat of a leadership role over the AEUG.
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

The AEUG/EFF thing goes like this:

The EFF creates the Titans to prevent another One Year War. The Titans turn out to be psychotic mass murdering jerks. Some members of the EFF (better-placed than most to learn about the worst of the Titan's activities) defect to form the AEUG and fight the Titans. The Titans, meanwhile, are plundering the EFF's ranks to swell their own. Between these two opposing pressures, the EFF is stripped of virtually all its men and machines. Eventually the AEUG manages to convince the Earth Federation government that the Titans are bad guys (see: the speech at Dakar), which prompts them to turn against the Titans and support the AEUG, but by then the Titans have enough resources to keep operating even without government support. The AEUG and the Titans then proceed to annihilate each other, leaving Axis Zeon basically unopposed in the field. While the remnants of the AEUG (essentially the Argama by itself) do what they can to counter Neo Zeon, the EFF is scrambling to reassemble its fighting force. It's not until the end of ZZ that they actually succeed; thus the sudden appearance of shiny-new GM IIIs on the battlefield.

So, short version, post-Dakar the Earth Federation government is officially on the same side as the AEUG, but the AEUG continues to act independently until its combat losses prevent it from doing so. I do recall the Argama's crew being formally re-drafted into the EFF at some point during ZZ (thus why Bright has them "steal" the Nahel Argama to continue acting independently) but I don't remember the details.
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TheGundamMKII
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I know that by the end of Zeta the AEUG and EFF were running on a parallel course to fight the Titans, ( if you can call what the EFF does 'fighting' these days,) but I don't remember when exactly the EFF took over the AEUG, if ever. I never remember anyone saying anything about it, but I DO remember several conversations about the AEUG's leading council; which is implied to reside in Granada.

Maybe those guys Judau & Bright went a dinner crashing on were both AEUG and EFF affiliates, like Bright?
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I thought that ZZ was overall a fairly mediocre show. Not bad, just not particularly good. At it's best (Dublin and the Blue Squad episodes) it was as good as anything out of Zeta Gundam. At it's worst (most of the first sixteen or so episodes) it was truly bad. It just didn't feel ike Gundam to me, in terms of writing quality.

Ironically, I actually liked Moon Moon, which puts me in a very small minority of fans, apparently. The Luddite primitive colony was kind of a cool concept and added a bit of color to the setting. It was, at least in my opinion, vastly superior to the episode that followed (Gottn's painfully incompetent attack on the Argama) and the arc that preceded it, which mostly involved Chara Soon being, well...Chara Soon.

I'm actually surprised nobody mentioned her.

Chara Soon very nearly killed ZZ gundam for me. She was a walking idiot-ball. The writers used her as a vehicle for randomness, and saw nothing wrong with making everyone absolutely, inexplicably incompetent in order to facilitate her unlikely escapades. It all began when they let her roam the Argama freely. And her escape in the Gundam Mk II was an extra dose of mood whiplash, taking Gundam to a bizarre level of repetitive humor I didn't entirely appreciate. Chara Soon was pure, unadulterated irrationality, and the fact that nobody, not even Bright, thought to just lock her up left me nearly headdesking.

Mashymyre, that delusional romantic, was actually funny. I wanted Chara Soon to just shut up.

Aside from that, I thought ZZ gundam was at least watchable, in spite of stretches that really tried my patience. I managed to finish the damn thing. I only wished there'd been a lot less focus on the random shenanigans surrounding the Argama, and more focus on Haman, who in Zeta Gundam was made to be a dangerous antagonist.

Plus, it would have been nice if Amuro and Karaba's efforts had actually been featured in the show, seeing as they were the only major power left to oppose Haman on Earth.. As far as ZZ is concerned, I gained very little insight into the First Neo Zeon war, which seemed to happen in the background.
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TheGundamMKII
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

The whole show makes Neo Zeon look incompetent at best. Aside from Glemy later; whom they make a point of following, everyone else just seems, well, downright stupid most of the time. It's like they take the whole 'Neo Zeon pilots are all n00bs' to a ridiculous degree.

I guess this presentation as a whole makes Neo Zeon look like it just wasn't the threat they were made out to be in Zeta. They're really made out to be an intimidating force in Zeta for the little bit they're featured in the show. Haman's flagship is about two or three times larger than the Argama, not to mention the multiple mentions of the size of their fleet on a whole, hence the pressing need to work out something, even though it backfires anyway.
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Black Knight
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

TheGundamMKII wrote:The whole show makes Neo Zeon look incompetent at best. Aside from Glemy later; whom they make a point of following, everyone else just seems, well, downright stupid most of the time. It's like they take the whole 'Neo Zeon pilots are all n00bs' to a ridiculous degree.
I'd say it makes the Rock Zeeks look like they're run by teenagers. Which, in fact, they are. When you remember that pretty much no one in the Axis faction has even a military education, much less military experience, a lot of their antics make much more sense.
TheGundamMKII wrote:I guess this presentation as a whole makes Neo Zeon look like it just wasn't the threat they were made out to be in Zeta. They're really made out to be an intimidating force in Zeta for the little bit they're featured in the show. Haman's flagship is about two or three times larger than the Argama, not to mention the multiple mentions of the size of their fleet on a whole, hence the pressing need to work out something, even though it backfires anyway.
Or it shows that Haman, being a Newtype politician, knew how weak her forces were, and used them as little as possible in Zeta to prevent anyone else from knowing how terrible her troops were, too. Which worked out quite well, given how many concessions she got from the Federation during ZZ, when she seemingly had the largest military in the Earth Sphere. Until it fractured underneath her because, well, it was run by teenagers, and teens of any culture don't like to be told what to do.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

It's true that Axis Zeon undergoes some off-screen rot between seasons, but there's an important qualifier to that statement: We don't see the "real" Axis until ZZ.

Axis's success come purely from Haman playing politician. Her troops aren't particularly competent or reliable, which was probably why she spent so much time relying on cloak-and-dagger tricks in the Gryps War. It was the only card she really had to play.

By the same token, when Neo Zeon finally collapses, it's because Haman's wrangling has finally gotten out of hand between obsessing over Judua and giving Glemy too long of a leash. At the end of the day, Haman's political savvy was the only thing keeping Axis afloat. When that goes, so does the entire movement.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Yeah, I do recall reading somewhere that at least the Gaza series was given stronger beam weaponry not only to counter its "simplistic weakness" (at least with the Gaza-C), but also because of the pilots NOT being all that great in the first place, so things like the Gaza swarming (like when Axis first revealed itself in Zeta by having Gaza-C's beam spam the Titan MS) are ways to make up for it.
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NastyNate
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I watched this show years back and liked it ok. I watched via a bad sub of import dvds I have. After watching Gundam Unicorn and seeing how awesome Marida is, and seeing her flash back in episode 3. I just had to give zz another watch. I got a really good subbed version. I am on episode 26 and I absolutely love it. I really like elpeo ple and Juduo. Haman is a much more interesting character in this one, she seems much prettier too. Some parts where they are showing the horrors of war almost made me tear up. Really good stuff. I can't wait to finish it up. I am going to have questions and thoughts and I will probably post them here.
Last edited by NastyNate on Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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