Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I never saw ZZ as balanced. I always saw it as a friggin' monster. :lol:

I sorta feel that ZZ's weaknesses seemed to all have been retconned. During the series, it often felt like "Oh, ZZ's combined and transformed now. Fight's over." Despite all the enemy MS being overpowered as well, I never once felt ZZ would actually lose a fight, even against Haman.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Personally, I saw that as a pacing problem, and not really a problem with the combat.

On the subject of the ZZ itself, I wish we could see the Gump animated. Grey Stokes(Judau) is awesome.

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Arbiter GUNDAM wrote:I'm going to have ten people run across a field, five of which I believe have superior qualities. I shall then toss a grenade in front of them to see who survives even though that course of action might kill all the people I wanted to save.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Well, when you consider the amount of power and speed the ZZ had, it was obviously meant to either destroy the enemy before they had a chance to do anything to it (just being NEAR the shots fired from its double beam rifle could take off limbs and cripple/disable MS) or to be able to easily dodge otherwise (as we see in its debut battle).

Though, it still took decent pilots to make good use of it like Judau and Roux. As we saw with Beecha, he ended up demonstrating the ZZ's frame weakness when he tried to take it out to prove he was better than Judau, resulting in the ZZ being knocked out of the fight with 1 hit.
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Andrew86
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Yeah the Double Zeta was pretty awesome most of the the time. I really think it was more the writing of the show itself that made the zz outclass the zeta more than the machine itself. I swear Roux has a scene in each Gundam (Z and ZZ) where she just wrecks every one so bad Amuro OYW style, but other times she is seen struggling. Judau showcases a bit of the same though he is more consistently good.

I think if we take it as a 30 episode series it definitely gets around an 8/10. That being said it is a 47 episode series so I would have trouble ever giving it more than 6/10 on a whole due to just how bizarrely bad the early arc is.

I have to say that episodes 30-40 were stronger than the final ending, but it still was pretty good overall. Aside from the missteps of Bringing anyone related to moon moon and the dumb "harem" business the other episodes were enjoyable (but man those episodes in the late 30's definitely were as good as almost any other series across the board)

Chara's return was not too bad aside from a little weirdness and her use of the phrase "catwoman". She was actually pretty cool in battle and certainly fits the bill of Cyber newtypes being crazy.Oh and her MS is ridiculous!! All those beam cannons and whatnot, that suit is a monster. I don't feel her return or the time on that little mining post hurt the pacing nearly as bad as the whole harem nonsense. Mashmyre also was good to see get some character redemption/correction.

I can't say how much I WISH WISH WISH! things would have gotten off to a much faster and much better start, and that is only a testament to how enjoyable things got at times. All in all i am happy that he was able to salvage the series and make it almost 2/3 good. I will just have a personal mental ret-con of the first 16 or 17 episodes that lent all of nothing to the series, in fact I'd say it dug it into such a whole that anything less than a perfect episode tried your patience and probably is the reason people are so critical of the most minor flaws that pop up later in the series.

Oh and final thoughts LOVE Elpe Puru!
Leina's death/revival is alright, not needed but did not bother me too much.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

You know speaking of Leina, I always found it slightly odd that Judau spends all of the show worried about her only to kick her to the curb and go off to Jupiter? She should have stayed dead, it would have been one of the best death scenes in Gundam!
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

The ZZ was also one of the only Gundams (along with the Zeta, Ground Combat Gundam, and Alex) to NOT show up in the first episode, yet showed up quite quickly after it started (episode 11-12? I forget) for a longer series (Zeta was almost halfway through).

Only OVAs like 08th MS Team (episode 2, IIRC) and 0080 (forget) were faster by not revealing the "main" Gundam(s) in the very first episode, but later on and both were only 12 (though some don't wish to count the epilogue episode) and 6 episodes respectively.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Arbiter GUNDAM wrote:You know speaking of Leina, I always found it slightly odd that Judau spends all of the show worried about her only to kick her to the curb and go off to Jupiter? She should have stayed dead, it would have been one of the best death scenes in Gundam!
I found that odd as well. Why didn't Leina go with Judau and Roux at the end of ZZ? Makes you wonder if Judau had some kind of ulterior motive for leaving with Roux to Jupiter, since NO one went with him but her.

Actually, that made me wonder about a few other things. The Jupiter Fleet would have profited immensely by having Judau Ashta, Roux Louka, the ZZ and the Zeta added to it. Mayhaps they were part of the reason that the Jupiter Empire got so strong. We know that Judau is still alive during the time of Crossbone, because he shows up as Grey Stokes...

Hmm....

-Raptor, out.
Arbiter GUNDAM wrote:I'm going to have ten people run across a field, five of which I believe have superior qualities. I shall then toss a grenade in front of them to see who survives even though that course of action might kill all the people I wanted to save.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I suppose Judau might have just wanted her to go to a good school in the earthsphere but I still maintain that she should have died.

As for Judau going with Roux... I just never got that one. There was more chemistry being played out between him and Haman than Roux. Roux just confused me, like the time she got mad at Judau for no reason. I believe it was after Leina died and Judau kept saying she wasn't dead?
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

IMO, Roux was trying to get him to snap out of it and realize that in all reality, Leina was dead(Or so it seemed). I think she was trying to make him get over it. Reality, though, is that Judau was still pretty much fine while believing that, so there really wasn't much reason for her to be that way.

I've always thought of it more as Roux going with Judau than Judau going with Roux. Mainly because Elle had hooked up with Beecha, she had been forced to kill Glemy, and the only other respectable guy left that she knew, was about to leave. New beginning for her. Not only that, but the Evolve's show us Judau was still upset about Puru and Puru 2's deaths, and she might have been trying to comfort him for that, as she does in the Evolve.

For clarification sake, Roux Louka is actually one of my favorite female pilots, so if It seems like I'm bashing her here, I'm not. Just trying to understand.

-Raptor, out.
Arbiter GUNDAM wrote:I'm going to have ten people run across a field, five of which I believe have superior qualities. I shall then toss a grenade in front of them to see who survives even though that course of action might kill all the people I wanted to save.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

I suppose in all fairness, Judau probably still went off to Jupiter to support Leina. That's what he was doing before the show, after all.

I never really understood what was up with Glemy, to be honest. I wish the show had done something to explain how he went from "schmuck with the hots for Roux" to "scheming smug snake traitor villain...with the hots for Roux, still, for some reason."
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Well, Evolve isn't exactly 100% canon as far as we know...unless I missed something...the Zeta and ZZ (and Mark II) were pretty much trashed and abandoned at Axis though, with only the Neo Core Fighter getting out.

I do wonder though, if the leftover 2nd Hyaku Shiki that was never taken out in the final episodes (at Judau's insistence for protection of the Nahel Argama if he didn't return from fighting Haman) could've ended up becoming the Delta Plus in Unicorn or something, given the various ZZ (and beyond) references made.
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Andrew86
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

ShadowCell wrote:I suppose in all fairness, Judau probably still went off to Jupiter to support Leina. That's what he was doing before the show, after all.

I never really understood what was up with Glemy, to be honest. I wish the show had done something to explain how he went from "schmuck with the hots for Roux" to "scheming smug snake traitor villain...with the hots for Roux, still, for some reason."

I kind of just took it that way. Also not that it is significant but I took it more as Roux accompanying Judau to Jupiter as well.

I have to agree on Glemy. He was pretty much nice guy grunt with a silly crush as you say, and his turn to a vicious traitor was a bit strange. I think Rakan would have been better suited for that role with Glemy as his aid. Honestly it is kind of strange that he was able to rise to power like that anyway. It seemed Haman did put more under his control, but it was still a little unexpected.

As for Roux, I actually like her a lot. Perhaps it is more a reflection on the history of female pilots in Gundam, but she definitely has to be one of the better/cooler ones I can recall.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Compared to simply selling scrap parts from junkyards, harvesting Helium-3 and transporting it back and forth from Jupiter to Earth (which is 5 months all around, IIRC? Or just one way?) probably pays damn well a lot better.

Glemy only "fits" now due to more and more info being revealed. In terms of the anime alone though, I agree that it would've been nice if we saw more obvious transition with him.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

HalfDemonInuyasha wrote:Compared to simply selling scrap parts from junkyards, harvesting Helium-3 and transporting it back and forth from Jupiter to Earth (which is 5 months all around, IIRC? Or just one way?) probably pays damn well a lot better.
5 months? Hardly. It's more like 32 months one way. So yeah, it probably paid very well, but Judau wasn't going to see her again for more than five years. :|
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Which actually is kinda funny because if he left sometime in mid 0088, then he would get back in mid 0093 so Judau actually could have participated in the events of Char's Counterattack...
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Except they didn't leave until March 15th, 0089 according to the timeline, so at the earliest, assuming my math isn't totally off (I don't get along with math :|), they wouldn't get back until sometime in the summer of 0094. And that's also assuming they didn't linger out at Jupiter for several weeks or months or some such extended period of time (I have no idea how long it may take to collect helium 3 and whatnot, or the status of any Jovian colonies they might have stopped at), or do something else that could further delay when they got back to Earth Sphere...
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Oh, my bad, I thought they left sometime in 0088.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

Of course, that's assuming Judau even wants to go back to the Earth Sphere. He sort of took a "screw you all" approach and seemed fed up with pretty much everyone--hence the scene where Bright let Judau punch him to vent his frustration with the Federation.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

It would also unofficially explain "Grey Stokes" still hanging around the Jupiter area in the Crossbone Gundam: Skull Heart manga and everything.
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Re: Double Zeta: What do you think about it?

We know he goes back eventually, since he helps out Uso as a old man...

However, quite a bit of time passes before then, and Roux is nowhere to be seen, though most assume she's dead by that point.

-Raptor, out.
Arbiter GUNDAM wrote:I'm going to have ten people run across a field, five of which I believe have superior qualities. I shall then toss a grenade in front of them to see who survives even though that course of action might kill all the people I wanted to save.
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