The Official Gundam Reconguista Anime Thread Mk II

[latenlazy]

I suppose I should qualify it more as a "modern tsundere." The way she keeps switching back and forth between being friendly and antagonistic is like a tsundere, but it lacks a proper trigger like other shows. Bellri doesn't accidentally grope her or make a stupid comment, the conversation just turns to something vaguely related to Cathill and she snaps.

It's not that drastic. She doesn't really go from the extremes of loving him to hating him to loving him (tsundere by definition is about the extremes after all). I also think the trigger is kinda obvious, though not highlighted. I kinda discuss this in one of my replies but it really has to do with her internal schema with regards to Cahill. Arguing about energy politics? Cahill cared about that. He just died, so her mind will go there. Suddenly coming back "home", but without the guy you wanted to be there with you? That's going to be a trigger too. And really, that's what real life is like. Haven't you ever seen someone kinda just get triggered off and have no idea what started it, and when you think about it there was something internal to them that may not have been transparent to you?

[Destiny_Gundam]

Just doesn't feel like there's a proper transition. She goes from 0 to 10 and then back to 0 in an instant. Doesn't show us any sort of cooling down period where she tries to reign herself in. She doesn't apologise for her sudden outbursts or anything either.

And reminders can only be so minor before it gets ridiculous. Next thing you know she'll be looking at a hill and go "A hill... That was part of Cahill's name!"

Personally I'm waiting for her to say "CAHILL WAS 35! HE LIKED TO PLAY THE TROMBONE!"

Again, it's hard to care about this plotline because Cahill was barely even a character. We only have Aida telling us how great a guy he was and she's obviously biased.

[Kratos]

We get that you don't buy it, but there's no need to exaggerate, here. She goes from like 1 or 2 (she's not exactly buddy-buddy hanging-off-his-arm-Noredo-style with him) to MAYBE 5 at worst. The most hysteric she's been about it was right after his death. She sheds a couple tears again when she next sees Bellri, but she never yells, she never wails, she never tries to kill him and never engages in any of the extremes that "0 to 10" implies.

[latenlazy]

And I would say the triggers are pretty reasonable. It's certainly not the farce that you're making it out to be

[Destiny_Gundam]

Shouldn't the face of her lover's killer be the biggest trigger of all? Yet whenever she talks to him there's no sense that she's holding back her emotions until a second trigger pushes her over the edge.

[GX9900-Gundam-X]

Shouldn't the face of her lover's killer be the biggest trigger of all? Yet whenever she talks to him there's no sense that she's holding back her emotions until a second trigger pushes her over the edge.

Like I said before it was a tense situation, yes she is sad about Cahill getting killed but he was bashing on the G-self she was in danger and Bellri did what a person in a tense life or death scenario would do and defended himself and her, I think Aida has partially come to terms with the fact that he was rationally trying to defend himself and look past it as a soldier should do in that situation

[Kratos]

I'm gonna take a minute and quote Harry Potter here:

'Well, obviously, she's feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can't work out who she likes best. Then she'll be feeling guilty, thinking it's an insult to Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she'll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can't work out what her feelings towards Harry are, anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that's all very mixed up and painful.'

The point is, emotions are complicated, especially when involving death and love. The situation isn't one-for-one with the above, obviously, but let's consider this. For a bit, Bellri's presence is kind of a trigger - just his presence causes Aida to become withdrawn when he arrives at Cumpa's place in the third episode. But couple things, there. First, Aida is a soldier, so dealing with death is likely something she's trained for (if not experienced with). Second, Bellri didn't murder Cahill in person, face-to-face, in cold blood. She knows on a CERTAIN level that he killed Cahill, but MS-to-MS is a bit of of a disconnect and Cahill WAS attacking him. Third, likely because of that, she's obviously doing her absolute best not to hold it against him, and Bellri has been kind enough since then, and that along with the other intriguing aspects about him and the G-Self and her duty to her people and maybe even the deal she brokered with Cumpa caused her to put it out of her mind...until she's back with her people, a bit more at ease, and then reminded of it.

I dunno. I think it's handled well.

[Evex]

Well I think when only a small fraction of your target audience can fully grasp what you're aiming for, we can objectively call that problematic.

This reaction reminds me of how some people react to and talk about certain movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Big Lebowski or some of Wes Anderson's films. Non traditional styles of storytelling may be inaccessible and infuriating, but that isn't necessarily a problem. Some of these storytelling forms either get better with time (hence why the constant point on patience), or demand us to study and understand different ways of building narrative and story, which ultimately advances the art, and which eventually do become understandable after the a comprehension of how to read into the storytelling form becomes more common. Either way, we're only like 15% through the series. The equivalent would be rebelling after sitting through 18 minutes of a 2 hour film.

The world isn't square? WTF is that supposed to mean?

I think I heard somewhere that's an expression in Japan? At the same time, it wasn't that hard to figure out, but maybe that's because I'm coming from another Asian Language. I guess maybe being used to parsing the meanings of idioms in Chinese all the time helps a lot...[/quote]

It's not that complicated. In most cases its refering to before the days of columbias, back when people thought the world was flat. Back in those days sailors believed if you sailed to far in one direction you would fall of the world. In older cartoons this is often portrade as the world being a square, with water often times flowing over the edge. In context it probally means your thinking is to narrow, or that you are only seeing things from a single point of view rather then looking at it from various perspectives.

[latenlazy]

Shouldn't the face of her lover's killer be the biggest trigger of all? Yet whenever she talks to him there's no sense that she's holding back her emotions until a second trigger pushes her over the edge.

So...it's unusual for her to try to keep collected and then randomly lose that effort? Take it you've never talked with someone who's grieving before...

It's what a lot of people said earlier about not everyone being an instant hyper-sensitive ball of anger or sadness when they confront the death of someone they love. The emotional unrestrained phase is actually a rather brief portion of the grieving process and we already saw that the night Cahill dies. Everything else after is coping and coming to terms, which tends to lend itself to random emotional outbursts rather than instant ones (Yes, even when talking to the person who killed the person you cared about, it's not like the mother and father and wife are bawling at every courtroom hearing).

EDIT: Starting to wonder if this is one of those things where someone says they think a character is poorly written, and what they actually mean is that the character doesn't fall into an archetype or their expectation for how a character should be written and should behave, when in fact writing to fit an archetype or some kind of generic expectation falls right into bad writing.

[Destiny_Gundam]

So...it's unusual for her to try to keep collected and then randomly lose that effort?

How do you know she's trying to keep collected? She shows no sign giving any sort of effort. I'm looking at episode 3 here, and it's the morning after Bellri killed Cahill. So you'd agree the pain should still be raw, yes? But when she hears that Bellri has arrived at King Koopa's castle she has no reaction. When she enters the room she comes in twirling all care free as if nothing happened the night before. Even if she is aware that it's not really Bellri's fault, that she'd feel some resentment is unavoidable. A slight flinch when he's mentioned, taking a deep breath before meeting with him, a stiff smile, a slight crack in her voice, a little waver in her eyes. Any one of those tiny things would have gone a long way to show that she was internally conflicted but putting up a front. If what we see really is her acting, then give this girl an Oscar!

Except in the very next scene she's arguing with Bellri about Cahill's death and she's crying and stuff, so that means she doesn't have that much control over her emotions.

On that note, good on Bellri for not bukling in that scene. Shame he kinda backtracks later when he says he owes her a debt when he owes her no such thing.

EDIT: Starting to wonder if this is one of those things where someone says they think a character is poorly written, and what they actually mean is that the character doesn't fall into an archetype or their expectation for how a character should be written and should behave, when in fact writing to fit an archetype or some kind of generic expectation falls right into bad writing.

If "consistently characterized" is an archetype/expectation that falls into bad writing then guilty as charged.

Starting to wonder if this is one of those things where people blindly defend the work of a creator they like while demonizing anyone who dares to say anything negative

[latenlazy]

So...it's unusual for her to try to keep collected and then randomly lose that effort?

How do you know she's trying to keep collected? She shows no sign giving any sort of effort. I'm looking at episode 3 here, and it's the morning after Bellri killed Cahill. So you'd agree the pain should still be raw, yes? But when she hears that Bellri has arrived at King Koopa's castle she has no reaction. When she enters the room she comes in twirling all care free as if nothing happened the night before. Even if she is aware that it's not really Bellri's fault, that she'd feel some resentment is unavoidable. A slight flinch when he's mentioned, taking a deep breath before meeting with him, a stiff smile, a slight crack in her voice, a little waver in her eyes. Any one of those tiny things would have gone a long way to show that she was internally conflicted but putting up a front. If what we see really is her acting, then give this girl an Oscar!

Just like in real life, sometimes people are just very good at keeping up a front, and you can't detect any effort until something just flips? (Is that really so hard to believe? I don't know about you but I've seen it happen a lot...with a lot of people...)

And no, I don't believe the pain is necessarily so raw that she must be devastated. For some people grief only sinks in days after, and for others it comes in fits. To add to all this Aida is a soldier, it sounds like Ameria has already seen war, so none of this is probably new to her (which doesn't mean that she shouldn't have any visible grief or suddenly know how to wave it off btw).

I think what this comes down to is whether you as the audience really need fictional characters to telegraph these things for you to appreciate it. Some directors choose not to telegraph it precisely because it's not always telegraphed in real life. You don't always have the convenience of being able to read what someone's thinking in real life by how they're acting, and it's not deviant or bad writing to do that in a story.

Except in the very next scene she's arguing with Bellri about Cahill's death and she's crying and stuff, so that means she doesn't have that much control over her emotions.

Maybe she does and maybe she doesn't? No one's saying Aida's necessarily good at controlling her emotions. We're all just saying it's not unusual for her to make an effort, and it's not unusual for people who make these efforts to have fits and starts in their emotional condition.

On that note, good on Bellri for not bukling in that scene. Shame he kinda backtracks later when he says he owes her a debt when he owes her no such thing.

It's unlikely that Bellri didn't feel some kind of guilt and responsibility. Sometimes it takes a while for people to decide what to do about how they feel. People change their minds (and they don't always have to telegraph or explain why or how they changed it, and sometimes changing your mind isn't a rational decision).

If "consistently characterized" is an archetype/expectation that falls into bad writing then guilty as charged.

Starting to wonder if this is one of those things where people blindly defend the work of a creator they like while demonizing

nyone who dares to say anything negative

There's nothing inconsistent about people acting inconsistently! Human beings are all deeply flawed and contradictory creatures. We have a name for characters that fall under a consistent archetype or only display one tendency in writing. It's called flat one dimensional characters. And FYI Aida has exhibited these contradictory (very human!) tendencies before Cahill gets vaporized. She put up a tough face when she gets captured, then cries right before they open the hatch, then collects herself before anyone sees her. People in real life do things like that too.

It's not blind if you establish a standard set of rules by which you gauge these things and follow those standards. Maybe Tomino has broken yours, but he hasn't broken mine. You may find Aida's behavior strange. I personally find it believable and relatable. I can say that it has nothing to do with being a blind supporter because I'm drawing that relatability from my personal experiences.

I get the impression that this discussion is devolving over who's set of expectations and standards are better, but if it's headed in that direction we should all probably be ready to make up our minds if this is the discussion we want to have, or if we're all happy to live and let live

[Kratos]

And anyways, Aida is plenty consistently characterized. Everybody has different ideas of how grief looks, so I get maybe not initially buying Tomino's expression of grief through Aida, but there's nothing inconsistent about her attitude or her actions. Inconsistent implies a contradiction of some kind with the established character, NOT a character running counter to how one expects a person "should" act in a given situation, and what you're describing is the latter. Much like the tsundere comparison (where one person acts all cold and distant but only does so to mask their feelings towards others, something Aida doesn't do), "inconsistent" isn't the right word to apply, here.

[darkhunger]

Shouldn't the face of her lover's killer be the biggest trigger of all? Yet whenever she talks to him there's no sense that she's holding back her emotions until a second trigger pushes her over the edge.

Again, I think you need to go back to the episodes and watch again. She NEVER spoke to him with anything less than a dirty look on her face and a contemptuous tone until the end of Episode 4, AFTER Bellri saved the pirates' butts and he hinted to her that he felt guilty about Cahill's death and wanted to make up for it.

Just because she's not showing utter hatred or reacting the way YOU want her to doesn't mean she LOVES Bellri sometimes and is ANGRY at her at other times.

Give it up dude. Everyone here seems to understand her character much better than you and see nothing wrong with what her character's been like. So it's really a problem with you not understanding, and not a problem with the show itself.

[battletech]

This back and forth on opinions has gone on for quite a while. Let me try to change things up. They keep talking about using radar a lot in Gundam Reconguista . It also seems like Minovsky particles do not effect radar like they use to. I think I remember radar being used in Victory as well. Not to sure though. So my question is what happened? Has a new tech come up for a new form of radar that Minovsky particles doesn't effect? I was thinking maybe they are using Minovsky particles themselves as a form of radar.

[Wingnut]

No, it still affects radar like it always has. It's just that it's quite specific here about when Minovsky particles are spread and mentions of radar are only made before those points.

[Mythgarr]

Thinking on the whole minovsky thingie, I believe there is mention that Minovsky flight is used by G-Self and Montero. But why do they and Catsiths, an obviously winged GMs with hidden missile pods and beam sabers on their calfs, are unable to fly long distance?

I haven't watch V, but do V also need to have some kind of base jabber to fly long distance?

[latenlazy]

If I recall, the prolific use of minovsky particles during the OYW and following conflicts saturated the Earth Sphere with minovsky particles, so while radar was still around it was unreliable. By RC those clouds have probably dissipated so that radar can be generically useful. Furthermore, even if radar can't be used to target and detect, at the very least it's useful for figuring out when minovsky particles are around. So long as the background isn't normally filled with them, your radar can probably tell you when there's minovsky particles within its range and from where, which can then hone you in on something approaching that might not be friendly. Essentially it would serve as an early warning system in that use case.

[Destiny_Gundam]

This line of discussion is better suited for the mecha and tech thread.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Oh snap guys, check this out: http://www.gunjap.net/site/?p=211779

[Raikoh]

I don't even know who that is, his opinion hardly has any sway on me. "Oh he worked in Gainax in the 80s" well I never heard of him. I get the feeling he's just looking for some cheap and easy press coverage.

It's not even a quarter of the way through its runtime yet. Say what you will about individual episodes, but I'm getting real tired of people outright saying a show is a flop, makes no sense, and other things to that degree when we're not even ankle deep (this applies to more than just Reco). It's like going to watch a movie, saying, "Well, it sucks" fifteen minutes in and then just walking out. We've had series with bad first episodes that really pick up later on, as well as series with great starts losing steam and becoming crap in the past (lots of these). I know that people say that first impressions are important, but they aren't the only measure of quality.