Zeta Gundam: Why is it so great?

[Destiny_Gundam]

I was big on Emma at first, but when I rewatched it I realised there's not much to like (sorry Soulbro). Think of her piloting career: what did she do that was particularly noteworthy? The fact that I can't think of anything except her killing Reccoa should tell you something. Honestly Elle did a much better job in the Mark II then Emma ever did.

While she's on the Argama she didn't do much other than nag nag nag. On top of that she constantly blew Henken off despite his obvious affections. Henken was one of the few nice guys in the show and didn't deserve that treatment.

Fa also nagged a lot and what a crap pilot, but I'm more lenient on her since she's still a kid. Most of her nagging was directed at Kamille, but Kamille did a lot of things that he deserved to get nagged about and it was clear she was doing it because she cared about him.

[Imperial]

She's not an absolute ace, but Emma seems to have held up well enough. Not everyone has the luxury of fantastic Newtype powers or a suit like the Zeta. This woman made it to the final day of the Gryps War in the Mk II, which wasn't all that impressive. Even the Super Gundam was a stopgap more than a proper upgrade.

Yeah, she nagged, but she had reason to on ships run as slipshod as the Argama and the Irish. With all the idiots and mobile suit hijackings going on, it's a wonder any of the more professional crew (Emma, Bright, etc.) were able to stay sane.

Finally, her relationship (or lack thereof) with Henken shouldn't be a mark against her. Sure, he was interested. Yeah, he was nice. So what? Emma isn't obligated to reciprocate in any way if she doesn't want to. She could have handled it a touch more gracefully, but, by the same token, he should have wised up when she spent all that time dodging him.

He's like one of those guys who is obviously, desperately pining after the attractive girl who will only ever see him as a platonic friend. It's time to move on, buddy.

[Destiny_Gundam]

Still, I can't remember a single noteworthy deed she did as a pilot outside of killing Reccoa. Sure getting to the end of the war in the Mark II is something, but then Elle made it to the end of the Neo Zeon War in the Mark II when it was even more outdated.

"A touch more gracefully" is being generous. Rather than just going "I appreciate your feelings but I don't see you that way" she was always giving him the cold shoulder. Plus at the end it's hinted that she did reciprocate, or was at least slightly interested.

[Ouroboric]

It's been awhile for me, but i do remember that she started to warm up to him a little bit more near the end,before he got blown away that is. I do recall one episode of her telling him to get some rest so " he wouldn't be too tired for a date" at one point, and she was either genuinely starting to get interested, or was just playing with him.

One character who i wish was just a bit more developed was Four,her effect on Camille was quite profound as it was supposed to be,and her place in the story as a whole is quite important and well done.I also understand that their brief meeting, and newtype connection/romance, was meant to mirror the Lalah incident in a way. But if she was maybe introduced a few episodes earlier, i think she could of been filled out a bit better as a character, it's a very minor complaint though.

I was very indecisive about Fa,i enjoyed her presence, but she never really became someone i was super interested in, Kamille sure was right to be against her piloting a mobile suit though.I find the symmetry between were Kamille started and ended in the serious to be really interesting. Starting off as a disgruntled kid with a dysfunctional family, with only Fa really watching out for him, and nagging him half to death in the process. He gets bullied by the Titans,ends up taking action against them,and by the end the majority of people he developed relationships with are dead or missing, parents are now dead,his brain is fried, and he has Fa taking care of him. Only with the cost of everything else he wanted in life ,were the Titans finally defeated.And while Amuro came out of A Boa Quo on a fairly happy note, Kamille ended up in a similar but worse position then he started in.

[Black Knight]

Emma spent an awful lot of time fighting Yazan's Hambrabi team, and not getting her ass kicked. That's more than Kamille can say about his time in the Mk II, since he abandoned it after getting his ass kicked by Yazan's Hambrabi team. The fact that Emma survived, against such tough opposition (Yazan would go on to kill more named characters than pretty much anyone else, after all), I think speaks well of her piloting ability. She doesn't have the screen-time of Kamille or Quattro (the latter of whom also doesn't accomplish very much in the cockpit, IMO), so lack of on-screen accomplishments doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me.

Additionally, Emma wins because she displays some common sense, an unusual trait in Gundam characters. She tries to keep focused on the mission (the two times she doesn't, she gets her Rick Dias disabled and then herself killed), and tries to mentor the other pilots (specifically, Kamille) to be more professional. She's a team player. I see a lot to like in Emma.

[Destiny_Gundam]

That's another thing. Why did she think going outside of the cockpit during a battle was a good idea?

[Imperial]

That's another thing. Why did she think going outside of the cockpit during a battle was a good idea?

Tomino had run out of arbitrarily cruel ways to murder his cast.

More seriously: I think she was trying to abandon what was essentially a floating coffin at that point. Her suit was damaged, but not so badly that a passing Titan might not take a pot shot at it. Emma must have assumed Reccoa's suit wasn't in any danger of exploding--or at least the chance was remote enough that she would risk in order to escape to safer territory.

[Seraphic]

That's another thing. Why did she think going outside of the cockpit during a battle was a good idea?

Also, pretty much the entire cast had a bad habit of doing his, especially Kamille when he was trying to save his various crazy girlfriends. It may have been rude, but if it were me, I would have just stayed inside my MS and grabbed the other person with the MS hand, destroying the abandoned enemy MS before leaving back to base with my friend in tow. Rude and perhaps startling, but safe.

[Ouroboric]

I think anyone irl would think the same. But hey, who needs common sense when your a space psychic right ?

[Zeonista]

Well, those have been some good reactions. Reccoa seems to have left an impression on people! I honestly always gave her a partial pass, because her will was overwhelmed by Scirocco, and so her defection was added to his list of sins. She did strike me as a person who was dissatisfied with life in general, not just the Titans.Unfortunately she ended up with a greater dissatisfaction, compounded by guilt in having to work for the Titans. As Tomino-sama would say, we all have plenty of time to regret our bad decisions in life.

Imperial and Black Knight have nicely summed up Emma Sheen, so I will say no more about my personal favorite female character of the show. Just so you know, Destiny_Gundam, Emma at the end was seeing if she could extract Reccoa from the disabled Palace Athena, and return with her to Argama. She was trying to do a former comrade & friend a good turn, but forgot to check twice to make sure Yazan was truly gone from the area. It only takes 1 mistake in UC Gundam...

Fa was supposed to be the Frau Bow of Zeta, but she did display more staying power. Especially since Camille didn't blow her off completely like Amuro did to Frau. Being a MS pilot probably wasn't the best way to get Camille away from his nee-san complex, but it did get his attention! And like Ouroboric said, she was the one constant in Camille's often topsy-turvy life.

The other female character that did make an impression on me was Four Murasame, the girl with no name, only a number. She really took over the Doomed Newtype Romance role from Lalah Sun in a big way. She really was an unfortunate person, definitely a tragic heroine, and it was a shame that Camille couldn't break her free from the Titans. Of course, that would bring up the question of what to do with her afterward, but he would have been happy to try to deal with it. (I suppose the Judau+Plu relationship in ZZ was the light & fluffy version of what might happen when the Newtype Girl follows the Gundam Hero home?)

[Ouroboric]

It almost seemed that Four's purpose was just to give Camille a ray of hope, only for it to be taken away and reintroduced, again, and again, and again(Rosamia seemed to have the archetype, just coming from a different angle). Even though Newtypes are the future and hope for humanity, with this comes a great amount of suffering for the individuals who have this power, this can be seen in real life, it is'nt easy to make positive change, i always felt that Zeta hammered out this point and really fleshed it out, great things require great sacrifice.

[Destiny_Gundam]

Emma at the end was seeing if she could extract Reccoa from the disabled Palace Athena, and return with her to Argama. She was trying to do a former comrade & friend a good turn, but forgot to check twice to make sure Yazan was truly gone from the area.

That's still incredibly stupid of her.

1.) Emma rammed her beam saber into the Palace Athene's cockpit. What was there to extract?

2.) Emma specifically tells Reccoa that no one will morn her. Why would she go around and get her body so the others could mourn her?

3.) To paraphrase Gato "She's the enemy you idiot!" She stabbed you all in the back. You don't owe her any favours.

I think I prefer the fan explaination that Emma suddenly came down with a case of Space Madness.

[Ouroboric]

"No one would morn her" could of easily been her trying to motivate Reccoca to return to the Argama, were she could go back and maybe make ammends. I think it also makes sense that while flying around at high speeds in a giant robot, your reasoning outside of combat and staying alive probably takes the bench. These people aren't robots, they have conflicting emotions and irrationalities to them, and will make stupid decisions in the heat of the moment, that's what people are like, even the most professional of people are going to slip up at times.

[Destiny_Gundam]

She's a soldier. An ex-Titan at that. She should have been trained to know better.

Then again, the Titan qualification exam seems to involve colouring with crayons...

[Ouroboric]

"Should of been" generally doesn't stack up with reality though.Not that space psychics do, but i think the "bad decisions" made by the cast just makes them more relatable and lifelike. Were someone who played the role of say Kira from Seed/Destiny who is mister perfect, seems like a fake archetype of what someone wished they could be, rather than a realistic character, though he was not bad throughout most of Seed, it was more so Destiny were his character fell apart. I definitely liked Kira, but i also felt happy when

Spoiler

i thought Shin had actually killed him,favorite episode in the series, only to have the impact lessened by the next episode

. Not to derail the discussion, i just felt that a comparison would help my point. And the feddies are generally incompetent up until uc0090 or so it seems, the Titans should be no exception. Just like how the modern bodies of power like UN are quite inefficient and employ idiotic people, resulting in long bureaucratic decisions that result in little action, the only way to get quick results with that kind of ideological base of a unified world were culture and tangible differences don't matter, is with totalitarian tendencies and oppression, which we can see allot in US after 9/11, and even when employing that style of government, the incompetence still is present, as it always will be in a globalized world. The world of UC has allot to say about our modern world, and seems to hit the nail on the head before the fact allot of the time even, one of it's greatest strengths.

[Destiny_Gundam]

Well it seems that we at least agree that what she did was incredibly stupid.

I feel less sorry for people who get pointlessly killed due to their own stupidity. Like Katz.

[Ouroboric]

Yeah Katz was irritating, Zeta's biggest flaw for me is the amount of MS jacks and disobedient kids,Katz got what was coming to him.Though the selfish and disobedient attitude of most kids these days makes me wish a Titan would come blow them up after they run off selfishly and cause problems for everyone. I think Zeta is my second favorite Gundam series because the viewpoint matches up so much with the way i see the world.

[Scorpius7692]

It was certainly strange that they had so many different kinds of MS to hijack. How many mobile suits did the Titans need to design anyway? I do like a lot of the designs, but if Zeta is supposed to take place in just 0087, then the Titans must have a lot of spare mobile suit parts lying around.

But to get back on Katz, I personally think that he was perfectly in character. Kids whine. A lot. I've had to babysit them, and I once was one. Katz did take things a little too far, but he is still just a kid. Who can pilot mobile units and kill people.

Which is not to say that he didn't do stupid things. But so did I.

I will admit, though, that there was a little too much hijacking. Even when I first watched Zeta and loved the beginning, I did think that there was a little too much jacking. Made me think either the Argama should step up security, give Kamille a 'One Man Army' license so he can do as he pleases, or maybe just stop getting into so much trouble that his Newtype senses start tingling.

[Ouroboric]

They must of been building up designs since the Titans formation, and i suppose the Aeug had probably already made some kind of action before Camille got involved.

[Black Knight]

Possibly the Titans were feeling the power of the essentially-unlimited bank account, and began commissioning all sorts of things. Though the Marasais were a free bribe -- I mean gift, gift -- to keep the Titans from looking too closely at what AE was doing. The first episodes of the show are, however, said to depict AEUG's first overt act, which presumably means "first act as a military force".