The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VI

[Heaven Piercing Man]

Yeah, especially that "punch the enemy's fist so hard it breaks" move.

[gunform1010]

I second that notion of bizarreness. A bit of great fanservice, but other than that, WTH..

[Mythgarr]

Can someone please explain to me what is the mechanism of Neo Zeong's sudden rupture?

[Strike Zero]

Psycoframes, son.

[domtropen]

For me Unicorn's magic is still less than Nu -Axis Shock- magic

[Rawinder]

Can someone please explain to me what is the mechanism of Neo Zeong's sudden rupture?

Spoiler

After Frontal and Banagher's mind trip to the end of time, Frontal sees that everything is dead and gone anyway and that nothing he does will really matter or affect anything, so he gives up. Banagher, instead, insists on keep going.

The immense psycowaves emanating from their suits is a direct reflection of their pilots thoughts and feelings. Because Frontal decided nothing was worth anything more, the Neo Zeong reflected this impulse and just disintegrated. The Unicorn stayed intact because Banagher didn't want to give up.

[MaC]

I really didn't find any of the newtype magic in this one so over the top. But a lot of people here seem to strongly want a hard sci-fi style in UC Gundam and I personally enjoy the crazy Newtype insanity and I find it usually represents the spine of UC Gundam and the optimism and hope that makes the often depressing series worth watching.

I strongly strongly don't believe nor did I get the impression while I was watching that Full Frontal and Banagher actually went time traveling in the Doc Brown/DeLorean/1.21jiggawatts sense of the term. I also certainly don't think Neo Zeong and Unicorn went tumbling through the universe and physically traveled to the end of existence and sat in nothingless having a conversation. I view that entire sequence as in the same vein as say Lalah's death when Amuro watches a wave crash in space and wash over him. I mean I really don't think the implication was that they popped out of nothingness, watched some historic moments, then continued bouncing through time.

And really, not much here is really that out of line with the previous UC Depictions of Newtype power. There is no explanation within Zeta for how he creates and invincible aura around himself and overloads his beam sabers. Same for when Judau does it. It's just a fact that within the UC Universe, human thought and emotion can manifest as physical phenomenon. That's how it's been for ages. As for explanation on how/why... I just don't see the point in bogging down the story with needless exposition that, like any explanation for unexplainable events in fiction, ultimately boils down to "Blah blah blah fake nonsense and pseudo science explanation for clearly impossible events in this clearly impossible fictional scenario" and ultimately, to me, is a boring waste of time. I would rather they do what they did here, focus on important emotional beats and stay consistent with their depiction of the magic, which imo they did. I mean I'm sorry but the souls of your dead loved ones making your giant robot superpowered or if you prefer the emotional trauma of war overloading weird machines designed to channel thought and intent and resulting in magic has never ever been semi-plausible.

For Full Frontal, in my head his origin is the same as the novel. Someone hollowed out and stuck in the Sazabi's psycho-frame who got a psychic imprint of Char. And over time, like Frontal implies in 7, this twisted psychic impression of Char's despair started to drive him and fill him in place of his former self. Thus when Lalah came and told him it was time to let go and Char, finally visited by the Ghost of Lalah he yearned so much to see while he was alive, was able to let go and when he did, Frontal was left empty once again.

I'm not particularly thrilled that Neo-Zeong got Moonlight Unicorned(maybe the implication is the power of the Moonlight Butterfly is Newtype-magic related or at least an easter egg to connect Turn A to UC) but I'm more annoyed that it was essentially a stationary weapons platform and I am also annoyed that there wasn't a real "Final Battle" featuring it vs the Unicorns. I also was really really hoping Sinanju would detach and get a chance to strut.

And ultimately one of my major misgivings in the series is the truncated timeline necessitating Unicorn being a super robot who never is damaged or faces a real threat. But ultimately I can forgive that storytelling concession since Unicorn being damaged would throw the breaks on the series. I only wish it had faced a credible threat to it's NT-D mode at least once or at least that Banshee hadn't been steamrolled.

I also wish Marida's death had been handled better. Nahel Argama trying to intervene on her behalf to stall Riddhe enough to let her assist Unicorn or just to save her from his onslaught, only for him to turn his attention to the ship and have her sacrifice herself to protect it. Works much better then her completely disarming Banshee then standing still until it's beam magnum floated into it's hand and it fired.

Those misgivings aside, I really loved the final episode and the series as a whole. I think it took the Newtype magic to it's logical conclusion, had some amazing mecha action, great voice acting, incredible music, phenomenal directing and pretty decent writing. I've been reading a rough translation of the novels and I can't begrudge anyone who read those first and was let down by the changes in the series, I know that feeling all to well from watching Game of Thrones.

For me though, I think Unicorn was an excellent addition to the Universal Century and the Gundam franchise in general. I'm happy to have watched it and a little sad it's gone and over.

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

And really, not much here is really that out of line with the previous UC Depictions of Newtype power.

I would disagree with that. Newtype manifestations have always been either a) psychic communication between two people, or b) fairly simple power-boosts to the character's mecha, vaguely explained by technology like the biosensor or the psycoframe. (The Axis Shock is an exception to this, but I'll get to that in a minute.) Full Frontal and Banagher's newtype journey through time doesn't fit either of these. It's not a telepathic thing -- they watch events which neither of them were present for, so it can't be an exchange of memories. This includes the heat death of the universe, which Full Frontal explicitly identifies as "the end of time", so it's not a metaphor for his nihilistic despair or anything. That, plus the fact that the Neo Zeong disintegrating resembles nothing so much as all the years between "now" and "the end of time" catching up to it in a matter of seconds, makes it seem like they were, at least in some sense, actually travelling through time. That, plus the use of "psyco fields" to block a damn colony laser, put the use of Newtype Magic in Unicorn way above the level of what we see in most of the rest of UC Gundam.

The only thing that's anywhere on the same scale is the Axis Shock. Now, here's the thing -- the Axis Shock was a fight between two men with a history that went back almost 15 years, with the literal fate of the world at stake. The intensity of the emotion involved, combined with the experimental psycoframe technology, created a phenomenon that was completely unexpected and not at all understood. It was pretty much literally a miracle -- inexplicable, unrepeatable, and powered by the sacrifice of the greatest Newtype in the UC timeline (plus Char ). In a meta sense, it was the grand finale of the story of Zeon -- the decisive victory of Deikun's theory of newtypes as a force for peace and understanding over the Zabi's use of newtypes as weapons of war. Going a bit over the top is not only acceptable, but expected.

What Unicorn does is turn around and commoditize that. By turning psycoframe resonance into a standard technique for improving the performance of your Gundam (and stripping out the need for the depth and intensity of emotion displayed during the Axis Shock, or the consequences of using it that way), it cheapens the whole thing. It takes "breaking physics with Newtype Magic" from a powerful combination of newtype ability, technology, and circumstance and makes it into something that anyone can do with a bit of newtype potential and the right mecha. The Axis Shock was a powerful, experienced newtype accomplishing the impossible in an extreme circumstance with the fate of Earth itself hanging in the balance, and dying to do so. Unicorn makes the same thing possible virtually at will through the use of technology alone. It lessens the impact of the whole thing by making it easy and consequence-free. Just build a mecha with a couple psycoframes on it, drop a cyber newtype in the cockpit, and you, too, can ignore the laws of physics with the greatest of ease!

I also wish Marida's death had been handled better.

I interpreted that whole thing as Marida deliberately sacrificing herself in order to pull off the newtype shenanigans that she did immediately after her death -- not just snapping Riddhe out of his psychosis, but warning everyone about the colony laser, sharing her feelings with Zinnerman newtype style (which I don't think he would have been able to pick up on without her death), etc. She certainly had plenty of time to kill Riddhe while he was distracted by the voices in his head, if she'd wanted to, and the image we're shown as Riddhe fires is of her smiling serenely, rather than her freaking out and/or trying to defend herself. Maybe she knew that they needed to not just end Riddhe in the Banshee as a threat, but to get him to join their side? Certainly things would have played out differently if she'd killed him and/or destroyed the Banshee.

[MaC]

@BraveFencerKirby

Can't say I agree with you re the Newtype stuff though I appreciate your well reasoned and well expressed counterpoints. The Bio-Sensor isn't even mentioned once in Zeta's two animated forms. It's just a pink glow of invincibile, MS freezing, beam saber extending for miles magic. Yes, blocking the colony laser is on a scale beyond this but for me, it's the same general thing. The characters gain unexplainable impossible power beyond reason. We may have to agree to disagree here, but for me Kamille's beam saber overload is in the same realm of unrealism(realism is not something I demand from fiction, as long as they establish and follow their rules consistently) as the Colony Laser block and honestly there is more of an explanation and precedent for it then there was the Bio Sensor shenanigans. We also have examples in CCA of the Psycho-Frame bending beams before the Axis Shock so there is in animation examples of the Psycho-Frame manifesting impossible physical power. As well the suggestion that adding more Psycho-Frames to the battlefield will increase the resonance and power. Which kinda foreshadows Full Psycho-Frame MS being capable of crazy stuff.

Regarding the time traveling, your explanation for Neo-Zeong's disintegration is a good one and one I hadn't considered. Though still, I don't agree there was literal time travel so much as there was as you said "metaphor for his nihilistic despair". The emptiness Frontal shows Bangher is as much as a metaphor as the entire Newtype 'God of possibility" thing. Frontal shows Banagher the end of the universe as an example of how nothing they do can change this. Much like how nothing we do in life can change the fact that ultimately we die and are nothing. Just like how Banagher's "Even so" is a metaphor for not giving up and giving into that despair and believing in possibility and using that belief to live your life without fear or despair of it's end.

As for the shared memories, I chalk it up to the Newtype power as well. I've always thought the Ghost friends hanging out and appearing was representative of an energy field that binds the UC Universe, one that we become a part of when we die. As they say in Unicorn, "This light isn't just coming from us." If the light is coming from everyone, it stands to reason that everyone is in the light and so are their life experiences. After all, it's heavily implied they were able to imprint Full Frontal with Char's skills and some of his memories using a Psycho-Frame. I'm also basing this belief on what I've read of Unicorn's novel ending, which features a mind trip through time as well after Banagher merges with Rainbow Unicorn and I don't think hints at literal 88 miles per hour flux capacitor fluxing time travel either.

I also think you give Amuro alone too much credit for the Axis Shock(AND NOT ENOUGH TO CHAR DAMNIT!), though I may be misreading sarcasm . I've always recognized it as the combined will of Amuro, Char, the surrounding fleet, and the population of earth being picked up by the overloading Psycho-Frames of Sazabi and Nu and converted into the magical rainbow energy of hope and friendship. Not Amuro's sheer grit and determination allowing him alone to accomplish the impossible. I think the whole point of that sequence is to show how Amuro is correct, because he never gives up on humanity and he fights for it to the bitter end because he believes that we can be better then we are. And this belief inspires others and everyone and they do become something more. The final nail in Char's ego and pessimism and pettiness.

I think I both agree and disagree with your stance on Unicorn making the Newtype magic less unique and miraculous and more of a reliable weapon/power. However I don't think the animation supports this in the way you describe in the sense of cheapening the Newtype magic. It takes 5 episodes for anything truly batshit insane to happen in regards to Psycho-Frame phenomenon and even then it's only hinted as a possible outcome from the prolonged fighting of Banshee and Unicorn, two Full Psycho-Frame MS, causing the Psycho-Frames to resonate. Throwing Marida into Banshee did not result in on-command Newtype magic, so right off the bat we know that Unicorn doesn't establish that within the animation. Even Banagher is not breaking the laws of the universe as soon as he steps into Unicorn. So there is nothing in the animation that supports the idea that you can build a Psycho-Frame machine and throw a corner palm reader in it and start Psycho-Fielding your way to victory. So we'll have to agree to disagree that the events depicted in the finale of UC7 were easy. I feel that there situation was as crazy and stressful and dire as any situation that has resulted in Newtype madness and surely UC7 being a send off/celebration to the entire UC Franchise is a meta a reason to go big as the finale of Char and Amuro's rivalry. As for consequence-free, it nearly consumed Banagher's soul, though this wasn't depicted so well in the anime.

On the other hand, one can argue that the entire Universal Century has had the theme of trying to turn human potential(Newtypes) into commodities(Newtype Weapons) and the Unicorn Gundam is the ultimate representation of that, as Full Frontal states. It's technology to hunt Newtypes.

Re: Marida

I agree with your assessment and I got the same impression. I just would have preferred a different scenario.

Thanks for the debate

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

The Bio-Sensor isn't even mentioned once in Zeta's two animated forms. It's just a pink glow of invincibile, MS freezing, beam saber extending for miles magic.

True, the use of Newtype Magic isn't very well explained in general, which is just as true for the small instances of its use as it is for the large ones. I guess it's just a matter of scale for me -- it's one thing for the Zeta being powered by dead people to allow it to win its final battle, but it's another for Nu to save the world by pushing back Axis or Unicorn to block a colony laser. The smaller instances don't bother me much because the general gist of what happens -- a newtype pilot uses newtype powers to kick lots of mecha ass -- isn't particularly different from how newtype powers are normally used, regardless of how it's depicted. The Axis Shock and the Unicorn shenanigans, though, are something else entirely. They're large-scale effects that have major impact on the story and can't be written off as anything but straight-up Newtype Magic.

To put it another way, if you wanted to rewrite Zeta or ZZ without the Newtype Magic, you could without much trouble. Just have Kamille/Judau have their newtype abilities turned up another notch -- they get even more inhumanly fast, accurate, and precise than they already were -- and you're pretty much set. The Newtype Magic seen in CCA and Unicorn can't be explained away like that, though. The things that Nu and Unicorn do are physically impossible -- no amount of narrative handwaving can change the fact that Nu should not have been able to push Axis into a stable orbit, or that Unicorn should not have been able to block the colony laser, but they both did it anyway. That's the defining difference between "regular" newtype magic and psycoframe-level Newtype Magic, in my mind.

We also have examples in CCA of the Psycho-Frame bending beams before the Axis Shock

We do? I don't recall that, when does that happen?

Regarding the time traveling, your explanation for Neo-Zeong's disintegration is a good one and one I hadn't considered. Though still, I don't agree there was literal time travel so much as there was as you said "metaphor for his nihilistic despair".

Really, even ignoring the time travel acid trip, the ultimate physical effect that can't be rationalized away (as symbolism or simply a mental projection of a nonphysical phenomenon) is the fact that the Neo Zeong disintegrates (and Full Frontal dies) for no apparent reason. We don't even see a psycoframe light show -- the Neo Zeong simply decays and falls apart. Even if they didn't actually travel through time in a physical sense, something definitely happened, on a physical level, due to the Newtype Magic being thrown around.

I also think you give Amuro alone too much credit for the Axis Shock(AND NOT ENOUGH TO CHAR DAMNIT!), though I may be misreading sarcasm . I've always recognized it as the combined will of Amuro, Char, the surrounding fleet, and the population of earth being picked up by the overloading Psycho-Frames of Sazabi and Nu and converted into the magical rainbow energy of hope and friendship. Not Amuro's sheer grit and determination allowing him alone to accomplish the impossible. I think the whole point of that sequence is to show how Amuro is correct, because he never gives up on humanity and he fights for it to the bitter end because he believes that we can be better then we are. And this belief inspires others and everyone and they do become something more. The final nail in Char's ego and pessimism and pettiness.

That's pretty much my take on the Axis Shock too, though the main difference between that and the Unicorn Time Travel is that the latter doesn't make a point of showing various people all over the Earth Sphere being part of the connection made. Quite the opposite, in fact -- while the link with Riddhe included Marida and Banagher and a bunch of people on the Nahel Argama (and even Alberto down on Earth!), the link between Full Frontal and Banagher involved just the two of them. It wouldn't have been much of an example of the horrible emptiness at the end of time if Banagher had brought his friends along for the psychic ride, after all.

A bit off topic, but regarding Char's contribution to the Axis Shock... well, I wouldn't say that he didn't make a difference, in that I don't think it would have happened without him being there, but to say he deserves part of the credit for it is a little much for me. Char deserves credit for the Axis Shock the way a baseball pitcher deserves credit for a batter hitting a home run. Without the energy from Char and his psycoframe, Amuro probably couldn't have started the Axis Shock -- but that doesn't change the fact that Char certainly wasn't trying to help Amuro do that. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I don't think the animation supports this in the way you describe in the sense of cheapening the Newtype magic.

It took two natural newtypes who each had three wars and almost 15 years worth of experience in using their abilities to start the Axis Shock. On the flip side it took Banagher, what... a month, on the outside? to start pulling the same level of shenanigans in the Unicorn. I'm not really sure of the timeline of Unicorn, but it seemed like a pretty concise event, from the Unicorn's unveiling to the revelation of Laplace's Box. Ditto for Riddhe, and Full Frontal (who certainly seems to be a cyber newtype, based on Syam's comments among other things, but who has only been around for ~3 years at most even if he is a natural newtype) is in pretty much the same boat.

So we'll have to agree to disagree that the events depicted in the finale of UC7 were easy. I feel that there situation was as crazy and stressful and dire as any situation that has resulted in Newtype madness and surely UC7 being a send off/celebration to the entire UC Franchise is a meta a reason to go big as the finale of Char and Amuro's rivalry. As for consequence-free, it nearly consumed Banagher's soul, though this wasn't depicted so well in the anime.

In CCA, the fate of the entire planet and everyone on it was at stake. In Unicorn, the worst that would happen is some political upheaval that may have begun another war (which ended up not happening, when Mineva broadcast the contents of the UC Charter and the end result was apparently nothing much). As for Unicorn being the UC send-off, I've always seen CCA that way (at least in regards to the Zeon conflict, anyway), which is why Unicorn sort of annoyed me from the start. It's like someone writing a sequel to Lord of the Rings where a fake Sauron returns to rebuild his empire, and new heroes have to fight him because all the old ones are gone. I mean, that could be a decent story on its own, I guess, but as a sequel it fails miserably. The story is over. It had a great ending. Don't mess with it by taking on extra after the fact.

About Unicorn eating Banagher's soul... yeah, that didn't come through at all. The sorta kinda foreshadowed it with the "make sure Banagher returns" stuff, but it was pretty cursory and it wasn't at all clear what exactly was happening (did he just go total PTSD freakout? Did he become one with the Unicorn, Evangelion style? Did the strain of controlling the NTD style finally get to him, so it was controlling him, rather than vice versa, as it was in the beginning of the OVA? I have no idea), so it did come off as pretty easy. Especially since Riddhe was doing the same thing in a virtually identical machine and nothing like that happened to him.

[Soma Taozi]

As for Unicorn being the UC send-off, I've always seen CCA that way (at least in regards to the Zeon conflict, anyway), which is why Unicorn sort of annoyed me from the start. It's like someone writing a sequel to Lord of the Rings where a fake Sauron returns to rebuild his empire, and new heroes have to fight him because all the old ones are gone. I mean, that could be a decent story on its own, I guess, but as a sequel it fails miserably. The story is over. It had a great ending. Don't mess with it by taking on extra after the fact.

Just wanted to jump in quickly and say that I have to disagree with this comparison; CCA was not the same ending as the Lord of the Rings. CCA's ending was, imo, vastly incomplete and abrupt that resolved little. With most fans pointing to Char and Amuro's rivalry coming to a final head as the 'big' moment of the movie.

But really, CCA didn't do it for me. What happened to the Zeon fleet? Why did Zeon soldier's suddenly decide to help push Axis away from the earth? Did they switch sides? Did they get captured? Did all of them help out or only a few? What about the rest of the Zeon fleet? What happened to rest of the original cast? What were they doing during this crisis? What did the Earth Federation do after the -Axis Shock-? How did they treat the remaining Zeon threat? Ect, ect, ect. (If this was explained in novels or manga I do not care, I am talking about the individual animated feature).

Unicorn attempted to provide answers to many of these questions, and although it may not have succeeded in every account, at least it gives me a better idea of where the world is going after the events of CCA and how they tie into F91.

This wasn't like making a sequel to LoTRs. That had a definitive conclusion with many different endings and resolutions to show that the story really was OVER (maybe too many endings?).

In the latter you get hard resolution and a clear cut final, in CCA you get newtype magic that pushes the asteroid away. A miracle happens sure, and that is beautiful. But that's it. A more cynical reviewer would say that it resolves zero and was nothing but a deus ex machina with little set-up (Unicorn actually made this ending of CCA easier to swallow...since they try to explain it and psycho-frames). While as a optimistic 20-something like myself raises an eyebrow and thanks her lucky stars that at least Awaking of the Trailblazer had an epilogue.

Unicorn EP 7 falls into some of the same pitfalls as CCA, since clearly nothing had changed since Minerva's announcement as shown in F91, but at least their is possibility of change as Universal Century goes into its 100th year (even the old warriors of the One Year War decide to leave it to the new generation)...and that I feel is a good way to end out on for Universal Century.

[Chris]

For Full Frontal, in my head his origin is the same as the novel. Someone hollowed out and stuck in the Sazabi's psycho-frame who got a psychic imprint of Char. And over time, like Frontal implies in 7, this twisted psychic impression of Char's despair started to drive him and fill him in place of his former self. Thus when Lalah came and told him it was time to let go and Char, finally visited by the Ghost of Lalah he yearned so much to see while he was alive, was able to let go and when he did, Frontal was left empty once again.

That's nice for you, but people shouldn't have to read a novel or novel spoilers to get such an important detail left out of an anime adaptation. The anime reveals nothing about Full Frontal's origin or purpose beyond his vague ramblings about being a "vessel" for the will of the people. The OVA definitely fails in this important regard.

[LightningCount]

I've been in and out here, and it'll still be a little while before I have time to catch up with UC6 and UC7, but skimming the recent discussion, trying to avoid spoilers (and being pretty successful at it for a change), it seems like Unicorn's conclusion is drawing a line between even the most diehard of UC fans into different camps. It's going to be interesting to see how things end. And if it had a number of book-only gaps in it, I can only imagine the trouble it caused Mark around here. Oh, and if it had trouble telling the story in 7 episodes, was it really only supposed to be 6?

[Xenosynth]

I... honestly think they would have maybe needed 8 episodes really. I don't know HOW they thought they could do it in 6.

[Kratos]

Or at least added another half an hour to 7 (so...effectively 8 episodes, yeah).

[Soma Taozi]

I never read the books and I was able to follow the story. I can tell there are more details but it never got in the way of my personal enjoyment or understanding of Unicorn. Of course, I rewatched all 6 episodes before my viewing of the final...so maybe I am a little biased considering all the events of the series are fresh in my memory.

As for Full Frontal they could have been more clear; but the idea of who or what he was allowed many causal viewers (like myself) to draw their own conclusions...so at least that has a silver lining?

Oh and by the way, OST 4...how good is Re: I am Marie? That song brought me to tears when it was played during episode 7 and I cannot wait to buy it for myself...I keep listening to the sample over and over...

[Kratos]

It's a great OST, and I like that it comes with a second disc that's basically my favourites from the last 3!

I think I'm (most) in love with Sternengesang though. Why that's not in episode 7, I'll never know.

[Juumanistra]

I really didn't find any of the newtype magic in this one so over the top. But a lot of people here seem to strongly want a hard sci-fi style in UC Gundam and I personally enjoy the crazy Newtype insanity and I find it usually represents the spine of UC Gundam and the optimism and hope that makes the often depressing series worth watching.

As someone who actually does wish UC Gundam would embrace the crunchy sci-fi ideas it's flirted with in the past, this made me laugh. Because UC Gundam ever resembling anything reminiscent of hard sci-fi is the dominion of fanfiction. A rather more reasonable expectation is for UC Gundam to have some semblance of internal consistency and narrative coherence. And Unicorn's finale relishes in its utter lack of both.

While the problems of Unicorn's last half-hour have been talked about to death, the sequence that I think best encapsulates the final episode's problems is the catapult-storming sequence that begins more or less at the 14:25 mark. In it we see:
1. A blue Neo^3 Zeon mobile suit charge towards the Nahel Argama and tethers itself to the flight deck to decelerate.
2. The blue mobile suit casually deflects beam shots with its knuckle-guards, as a Friendly Gaera Zulu enters into the scene armed with a Jegan's beam rifle and shield.
3. The Friendly Gaera Zulu throws away the rifle, so as to draw and wield a beam saber.
4. A Jegan land on the flight decade behind the mobile suit, armed with a beam rifle and shield, and then throw both away to draw and wield a beam saber with both hands.
5. The Jegan proceeds to run along the deck as if under the influence of gravity to strike the blue Neo^3 Zeon MS.
6. The Jegan's beam saber is parried by a knuckle-guard and the Jegan is incapacitated by a punch to the gut that does no visible damage.
7. The Neo^3 Zeon MS then proceeds to kung-fu kick the Friendly Gaera Zulu back towards the hanger door. The Friendly Gaera Zulu is then delimbed by another, green Neo^3 Zeon MS armed with a mecha shotgun that has landed on another catapult off-screen.
8. The blue Neo^3 Zeon MS deploys a whip made of landmines, which are grafted to the hanger door and detonated, reopening it but seeming to do little actual damage.
9. The Neo^3 Zeon MSes are interrupted by the appearance of a Sniper Jegan, that potshots them with a pistol.
10. The blue Neo^3 Zeon MS deploys a grappling cable from its shoulder at the Sniper Jegan. The Jegan cuts the cable and throws so grenade-pellets at the Neo^3 Zeon MSes.
11. The grenade-pellets set off some manner of white phospherous-esque flame that burns in space, which causes the green Neo^3 Zeon MS to panic (complete with arms flailing) and fling itself off of the deck of the Nahel Argama. Where it proceeds to fall "down" relative to the camera angle.
12. The blue Neo^3 Zeon MS then climbs the hanger to engage in fisticuffs with Sniper Jegan, only to have a booster from the Full Armor Unicorn careen into it from off-screen and end the fight.

The sequence runs a little north of 90 seconds, and in it features more nonsensicality than I can hope to capture in this post. It is a scene in which we witness effect divorced from cause: Why is there a giant robot on fire in space? Because it's a cool visual. Why would a giant robot that's on fire flail its arms wildly? Because that's what people do. Why would a giant robot that's on fire and flailing its arms throw itself off of the deck of the Nahel Argama? Because it neatly removes the enemy so that the other one can get kabonged by Banagher's booster. None of which, you know, makes a lick of sense in context: Stuff happens solely because one or more of the writers thinks it's cool or serves a transparent narrative need, which is immersion-breaking and immensely corrosive to the narrative's integrity. And at that point, all you're left with is an incoherent mass of gibberish.

Which is what, at the end of the day, Unicorn's finale. A very pretty and lovingly rendered incoherent mass of gibberish, it is true, but an incoherent mass of gibberish nonetheless.

[latenlazy]

The mobile suits on the flight deck are probably equipped with magnetic soles (not the first time we see this in UC). This is heavily indicated when the Jegan lands on the deck and you see electric sparks coming from its feet. I assumed the grenade had oxidizers.

And I'm pretty sure Full Frontal and Banagher didn't actually travel through time. They just experienced a vision that was probably enabled by some spiritual spacetime voodoo from the psychoframe, newtype expanded conscious and all.

[Xenosynth]

The lack of using the beam rifle in close combat was also probably to avoid shooting the Nahel Argama, since IIRC only the Jegan had one. The Jegan getting cockpit punched could have caused the pilot to have gotten injured. The Federation mobile suits seemingly don't have airbags in them (We've only seen them on Zeonic suits, I believe). The chainmines have been used before by the Kampfer in 0080, which they were about the same strength. That Jegan is not necessarily a sniper Jegan. It's a customized Ecoas Jegan. The Shotgun, again from 0080, was shown to tear through mobile suits.

The grenades are the only thing that kinda bother me from that scene. Everything else has before been shown in Gundam consistently (Mines, shotgun, Jegan's magnetic feet). A small piece of psycommu enhanced a newtype's power and amplified the willpower of everyone on earth to push back a giant asteroid. Having an entire MS made with one... would probably enhance a newtype's powers to crazy levels.