My thoughts on Super Dimension Century Orguss *SPOILERS*

[basedlilb1]

I just finished this several days ago, and my initial hype for it has died down a bit, especially after reading some other criticisms from other topics. Like others have said, I noticed the rehashed animations a lot. Normally I don't mind but a lot of the fight scenes no longer stuck out because of the uniqueness, but because I recognized them so much. Thinking back, it really does seem to have a lot of filler (although I suppose they need to pad out the episode count somehow). The following will be a bit lengthy since I'm trying to analyze it more in depth.

Even if it's not an extremely mature show, I see merit in some of the characters being inconsistent as a reflection of human nature. Kei is selfish and often acts without regard. He knows he's the cause and the key to repairing this mixed up world (and often thinks to himself he's got to set things right), he has sex with Mimsy and fathers a child, despite already having one whom he's been absent from (though not of his own free will), but from whom he may repeat the same mistake with again (ie. not being there for him/her). He'll risk his and Mhoom's life to go after Mimsy (and his unborn child) because he doesn't feel like life's worth living without her. That said, it's classic human behavior. Kei gets upset when Olson constantly reminds him of his duty, because he knows he's at fault and still careless. When he learns that he's having Mimsy's child, he's angry because he may repeat the same mistake with her, that he did with Tina/Athena (he knows what Olson is implying during the dimensional storm to Earth's creation period). The weight of the world is upon him and he's not mature/responsible enough to resolve to do right until the very last episodes.

I might be in the minority, but to me the most mature/vulnerable moment he has is when Mhoom dies in his arms and when he releases her into space. I don't think he cried before that, even regarding Mimsy. It might be just me, but it's as if Mhoom was essentially his surrogate daughter to a point, which Athena could not be because she was already an adult. Despite his general selfishness, he strived to treat Mhoom as an independent person and regretted giving her an order to get her to fulfill his bidding. Right before Mhoom dies, Kei asked her why she drained her own energy to fight off the Mu, it was because she knew Kei wouldn't want to live if Mimsy wasn't alive. At that point Kei realizes that all the things Mhoom did for him was beyond her being a helper robot, it was for his sake and happiness borne out of genuine love.

As for Kei and Athena, I feel like there was a lot more room to develop their bond and show Kei's maturity (as a father and owning up to his actions), as opposed to just building magical resolve from seeing Jayviet's destroyed homeland and finding out he's going to father Mimsy's child. When Kei cares for Athena on an island (during presumably WWII), neither of them know they're related. As the viewers, we already know they're related, so when he carries her on his back and treats her wounds, we're essentially seeing his paternal characteristics and relating it as such (at least I did). When Athena started talking about her mother and what she said about her father, I got the impression that Kei begins to suspect that Athena is his daughter. All in all, it's a great bonding experience and what I figured would be a hopeful foreshadowing of things to come...until Athena rejects him upon learning the truth.

Understandably their relations took a few steps back. Even though she knows that Kei isn't responsible for being absent from her life for the past twenty years, she resents his absence and the suffering that she and her mother went through. To make matters worse, he's seeing an Emarn girl (which she probably takes as not honoring Tina's memory) and doesn't seem to react as Mimsy shoots at Athena's hand (sure she's holding a gun but your daughter just got shot at). There were multiple occasions where Athena would try and stay with Olson (and the rest of the Glomar), but Olson would shoo her away. Kei wouldn't do much but tell Olson to consider her feelings, and then just let Athena go back to Chiram without trying to convince her himself. It's after he learns that he's about to be a father (again) that he begins to semi-seriously play more of a father role to Athena (despite the age difference). I feel like the scene where Kei peels an apple for Athena would've worked better as such:

Athena becomes critically injured when Henry attacks, and veers between life and death. Kei feels guilty for not rushing out immediately to support her (like he does when it regards Mimsy). While Athena is semiconscious, he spills out how he feels about being thrust into this situation, wishes he was able to be there for her growing up, how much she reminds him of himself and Tina, his love for Mimsy, her mother, etc. Basically this would be a great situation to really show his maturity, resolve, and harken back to the moment they shared on the island. I will say though it was a great metaphor when Athena gave into eating the apple Kei peeled for her, and cried saying it was sour (obvious reference to her conflicting feelings about him).

If not the above scenario, the moment where Kei and Olson say their goodbyes to Mimsy and Athena would've worked better if Kei and Athena shared an embrace where she states she forgives him, and gives her the necklace of Tina as usual. Then he gives her one of him or another that he has of Tina as a memento of both himself and her mother.

To self critique, maybe the way the writers wrote their contentious relationship made sense. It's unrealistic for Kei to feel that close of a bond to Athena given his nature, and their non-age difference. Than again, completely grown adults who've never been aware of each other's existences as family have been the same, so maybe it's not too unrealistic?

I think the whole Athena/Olson pairing only came into play once Athena learned of Kei as her father. I feel like Olson being attracted to Athena would've been a lot more uncharacteristic given his paternal relationship to her, even if they did give indication that maybe he loved her the same way she did. I honestly thought it was more likely Olson would pair up with Shaia at some points. Speaking of Shaia, there's times where she dispensed great inspirational speeches and wisdom, but was just a complete fool and incompetent commander. If anything, they really should've had her mature into a more competent leader instead of more comic relief.

Henry and Robert just sucked and were useless. Not compelling in the least.

Now onto the ending. The lack of a clear ending is good and bad. It sucks because we don't get a clear ending that we know is canon or at least satisfying. It's good because in show, no one really knows whether only one world will exist and the rest will cease to be, all worlds will just become their own timelines once again, or perhaps the combined world can still coexist (after all, they showed the Chiram/Emarn/Atlantean homelands as cities and not entire planets) without the threat of global warming or dimensional rifts. Now I wonder, with both past/future Kei and Olson dying, does that invalidate the events of the series, because the past Kei/Olson aren't there to cause the rift in the first place anymore? Can they even shape the corrected world(s) with their thoughts anymore since they're dead? Do the worlds all become their own timelines again? Would everyone still have memories of each other? I like to hope Kei and Olson chose for the combined Earth as the fixed world (with Mhoom and Taii back to life).

I know this is lengthy but I'd love to hear your opinions too.

[Chris]

Consistent character development is definitely one of my problems with Orguss, including Kei constantly defaulting back to his selfishness until the very end of the series. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd recommend watching the 6-episode OVA Orguss II. It ties back to the original series in an interesting way.

[Raikoh]

Haven't seen Orguss 2 yet, but I have watched Orguss and rather enjoyed it.

I think Orguss is a mixed bag. It has great, memorable characters, namely Mhoom; as well as Kei being a rarity among main characters (usually his type are the mentor or sidekick who gets killed off 1/3rd of the way through the series), but yeah, the development is constantly going back and forth. Like a lot of 80s anime, it has a really good central thesis. The question of "Who do you save? The 'normal' world or the new world?" would have been great, but it sort of got invalidated with the new world being doomed either way. Kei's reluctance to accept responsibility, in regards to Athena and in his role as a Tokuiten, both makes sense from a character point and is an interesting development, though. The ending is confusing, but that was to be expected. I think they wanted to leave it open to be interpreted, and I thought it as basically saying, "the happiest ending is possible."

Actually, now that I think about it, the entire series is about a conflict between idealism and realism. It's the main conflict between Olson and Kei, as well as Shaia and Manisha. I really like that type of conflict, since it really does get you thinking about what the right choice is.

The battle scenes aren't great, but they're really tangential to the plot. Honestly, Orguss is a series where cutting out most of the mecha aspects wouldn't have altered the story drastically. All in all, I think Orguss is a really solid series. Is it the best 80s mecha? No. But it's definitely an underappreciated one.

Also, the setting is perfect for crossovers (as SRW Z shows) and the OP theme is absolutely amazing.

[basedlilb1]

Yeah I actually read the plot summary for Orguss II also, seems like it would've worked better as a standalone rather than having some connection to the original (as I've seen others comment). And yeah I've been a long time fan of the SRW games, the various series interactions is (of course) a huge reason why I've loved the games for over a decade and a half.

Definitely agree that the main conflict is about idealism vs realism as you stated. One thing I forgot to mention is when the possibility of multiple "you's" (in this case Kei in many parallel worlds) comes up, Kei thinks about Tina aloud, which gets Mimsy upset. So in that instance you can see that the thought of wishing to go back to his original timeline is on Kei's mind.

[Amion]

My views on Orguss were that it if it had been about 25-26 episodes it could have been saved. It suffered from serious padding and filler. To be honest, by episode 20 I was getting bored, and then things started to just stagnate. Kei's behavior especially offends, simply because there's too much of it and we get no resolution until the VERY end. The Mahq reviews mention this wishy woshiness, and it kills the momentum the story and conflicts give.

Now oddly, this actually puts us in Kei's perspective more than a faster pacing would. He knows the end is coming, that it practically means death for him and Olson (most likely), and thus he tries to put it out of his mind again and again, with mixed results when he's forced to confront his duty.

The issue still stands though. It took way, waaaaaaay too long to get everything settled for the final arc, and then the fighting was dreadful enough that it acted as the worst filler. I do agree that it is a good series, but sadly I wouldn't rank it high enough to actually view. Now I really enjoy longer series most of the time, but Orguss' story is just one of those than could have benefited from a much smaller episode count with the quality it had in its art/animation.