Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

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Soul Bro Ryu
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Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Gundamn! @ MAHQ Ep. 107 - "Kio and the High Price of Placebo"
- Download Now!: 64 kbps - 139 min., 45 sec. (2:19:45) - 64 MB

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Segment Breakdown for this Episode:

01. Intro: "Neo's News"
Runtime: 0:00:00 - 0:26:03

02. Second Opinion Games (Podcast)
Runtime: 0:26:03 - 0:27:02

03. I Thought They Smelled Bad on the Outside (Podcast)
Runtime: 0:27:02 - 0:28:09

04. 1st Segment: "Mobile Suit Gundam AGE - Generation Three - Episodes 37 - 40 Review" (Discussion)
Runtime: 0:28:09 - 1:16:06

05. Pretentious Internet Theatre (Podcast)
Runtime: 1:16:06 - 1:16:33

06. SSAA Podcast: The Ass-Backwards Anime Podcast (Podcast)
Runtime: 1:16:33 - 1:17:23

07. 2nd Segment: "Mecha-Pets! - Notable Anime Cohorts in Mecha Anime" (Discussion)
Runtime: 1:17:23 - 1:42:28

08. Anime Addicts Anonymous (Podcast)
Runtime: 1:42:28 - 1:43:11

09. Judau & the Junkyard Kids! (Commercial?)
Runtime: 1:43:11 - 1:44:00

10. Outro: "The Gundamn Mailbag!/Closing/Peep the Websites!"
Runtime: 1:44:00 - 2:19:45

Back to the grind as we review Eps. 37 - 40 of "Mobile Suit Gundam AGE"! Then, we have a spirited discussion about notable animal cohorts in Mecha Anime!

Our hearts and thoughts go out to the victims of the July 20th shootings in Aurora, Colorado. For those who are interested in helping the victims please visit these websites:

- ColoradoCrimeVictims.org
- GivingFirst.org

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Make sure to peep their latest pow-wow below!
- Ep. 001 - Favorite Mecha Anime Relationships (The Premiere Episode!)
- Ep. 002 - Top 5 Mecha Final Battles (NEW! Feat. Soul Bro Ryu)

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Peep these Podcasts also!:
- Chaos Theater: Ep. 027 - The Films of Pixar (Mechatalk Thread)
- Chaos Theater: Ep. 028 - Torchwood (Mechatalk Thread)
- Fighters Ready!: Ep. 004 - Show 'em tha' Guap, man! (FightersReady.net Thread)

Want to have your Gundamn-centric works featured in the next episode? Then, send in your creative entries for the next "Gundamnation Spotlight" to [email protected]!

Many thanks for listening!
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Music featured in this Episode:
Details coming soon!

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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Just to be clear, the space tic-tac is not placebo. It's actually medicine that treats the symptoms, but does not cure. It's just like any over the counter cold medicine. For example, a cough suppressant such as Dextromethorphan help with the patient's cough, but actually does nothing to kill the cold virus which is the cause of the cold.

Where the hell is the Vagan colony? Isn't it supposed to be in Mars orbit? Do the writers have any idea how far Mars is from Earth or how long it actually takes to get to Mars orbit? Oh wait, it's the writers of Rage. They have clearly shown their understanding of space time with the myriad battles where ships only move in two dimensions. Forget I asked.

Asemu is a moron. His grandiose plan, the plan he thought it was worth abandoning his wife and child for, is such a stupid plan I have no words to describe it. He's trying to maintain the status quo between Vagans and Earthers? By making sure neither side gets an advantage? What? Really? Why don't you come up with a plan to sell weapons to both sides? Asemu is a death merchant. He's prolonging the conflict so both sides can keep killing each other.

I witnessed the birth of Jesus Asuno. *sigh* The Gundam Rage FX is a cross between Strike Freedom and the Gundam Qan-T. Lame.

Okay, I have to agree. This mini-arc of kidnapped Kio is ridiculous.

At this point I'm going to finish watching Rage just to see how it ends, but the show has been a huge disappointment.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Pets of Mecha anime, hmm I can think of a few other examples:

Princess Ana's 3 rodent pets from King Gainer, I believe there was the ferret from Gravion. Also recently there was a weird Goobaba like white rabbit pet thing in Aquarion EVOL.

My personal favorite is the small and lovable rascal Beluga whale named Poipoider who pilots and talks through a human sized powered armor alongside the talking cat Clara from Mars Daybreak which is a wonderful lighthearted show about Pirates and underwater mechs on the waterworld of Mars. Poipoider also apparently bangs human chicks in every harbor so that also makes him quite memorable.

While not mecha anime, there was Julian's cat from LOGH whose name I can't remember.

Let's also not forget about Trombe! Retsal's favorite horse and who can't stop naming all his mechs after. Also is the best theme song in SRW.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

I have to thank Chris for adding that bit at the end of the Gundam review section telling the pre-haters to stuff it before they even get started cause you just know they're their waiting to gleefully declare that they "told you so", when as you say there's a world of difference between watching a show and weighing what it offers you as time goes on and just hunting for things to bitch about from week to week which sadly has become the pass time of more than a few Gundam fans. Also there's a difference between criticism that comes from disappoint in a show and criticism that comes from a mean-spirited desire to just nitpick a show to death before it even gets under way. Those people clearly enjoy the fact that Gundam AGE's writing is struggling at the moment, while the real fans can only lament.

That said, I wonder if it's fair to say that the majority of AGE's issues with character reasonings stems primarily from the shows failure to depict even one sympahetic Vagan throughout the show aside from Lu who isn't even part of the regular Vagan army and has no way to influence anything. Had they managed to do that then Kio has more of a cause for acting the way he is right now, but as it stands he really doesn't and as time goes by and Kio keeps failing to accomplish anything it makes me wonder what the point of taking this route with his character is. I keep having to hope that there's some twist waiting in the wings where all the characters realize that they've been going about things completely the wrong way and that they take more logical actions throughout the finale, but the way Chris makes the point of how the show doesn't appear to have that sophisticated level of writing and how the show keeps continuing to support that assertation by playing completely to expectations like with Girard's storyline has me worried. I truly have no idea what to expect from the finale if the characters continue to stay the course throughout I don't see anyway in which it can end and make any sort of sense unless during the final battle the entire plot bends over completely backwards to give Kio some sort of out.

At the very least if things do implode at the finish line Sunrise has an out from the usual "hurr durr" trainwreck crap I have to hear from the peanut gallery during practically every show (IMO it has only ever been true 2 out of the 50 or so times I've heard it since the turn of the century) they produce and that is that the fault here will rest solely with Level 5 who came up with the idea and failed to deliver the writing necessary to make it work. As it stands the professional relationship between Sunrise and Level 5 is all but certainly over for a long long time following this show considering it's already failed to make a splash. I still believe there's time to get things back to being enjoyable in spite of Kio and the Vagans though, it's just a matter of the show actually being willing to do it and being smarter in it's writing in the last 7 episodes than it has ever been before.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Don't have anything to say on Gundam Age.
But for mecha anime pets, well there was Luna's(from Gravion forgot to put that) pet ferret she had I believe.
That comes to mind, since you covered pretty much most of them though that I can think of if there are others out there.
Last edited by Mu La Flaga on Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

I'm starting to see a bit of an allegory between the Vagans and the citizens of North Korea. The citizenry with the exception of the military elite live in near constant poverty and we see that like North Korea, Vagan spends a vast amount of it's resources building armies of mobile suits and fleets of ships rather than using those resources to improve the lives of the citizenry (as Neo said).

The second example is in the blind devotion that everyone has to Ezilkant draws a very strong parallel to the North Korean population's devotion to the will of "The Great Leader". I'm guessing that the Vagan propaganda machine must be on par with North Korea's because after 60 years of failures the population still has the will to fight for Ezilkant's lie and blame all their problems on the Earth a foreign power (hmmm dose that sound familiar).
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Damn, I was really hoping that AGE would've turned out better. I liked the multi-generational concept and was hoping it could've been "saved" after generation 2... (Wait, why the hell weren't the 3 generations divided into 3 individual seasons? or would that have made too much sense?)

Also, does Bonta-kun from FMP? count as a mecha-anime pet?
Yazi88 wrote:white rabbit pet thing in Aquarion EVOL.
I think its name was Shu-shu. (Adorable little cock-blocking "cat" from Hell or something like that.)

Good episode as always Gundamn!.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

the Gatekeeper wrote:Damn, I was really hoping that AGE would've turned out better. I liked the multi-generational concept and was hoping it could've been "saved" after generation 2... (Wait, why the hell weren't the 3 generations divided into 3 individual seasons? or would that have made too much sense?)
Because Bandai figured out quickly that AGE was unpopular and decided to give it the minimum number of episodes needed to actually work, instead of actually trying to make it good by waiting until Hino and Level 5 worked out the story for the game, then making the anime. Bandai is essentially banking on the next show and Unicorn to offset the negative PR gains they made with how they announced AGE.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

bullethead wrote:Because Bandai figured out quickly that AGE was unpopular and decided to give it the minimum number of episodes needed to actually work
This is completely untrue. The show was never intended to run longer than a year.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

What's the clip at the beginning?
From 00 S2 ep 25

Tieria: As long as you keep looking down on them, you'll never understand them!
Ribbons: *has Newtype-y flash of AGE, of Kio and his UNDERSTANDING replacing his show* I DON'T WANT TO UNDERSTAND!
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

mobiusdiablo wrote:What's the clip at the beginning?
Training Day. A Denzel Washington Classic. King Kong ain't got #@&! on him.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Well let me just say this about AGE, I don't want to hear crap about Destiny being the worst gundam show now (although I know I will), because these episodes certainly sent this show right into the crapper.

Ezelkant's big plan turned out to be a mass murder of millions of not only Earthers but his own Vegan people making himself the biggest butcher of humanity of all time. Even the Destiny plan had a logical if far-fetched outcome. Ezelkant's plan in nothing short of madness, yet all of these Vegan treat him more like a religious figure than a military leader, kinda makes you wonder if they are all brainwashed.

Kio now has thousands of deaths on his hands by giving the AGE device to the Vegans, making him a traitor villain in disguise. Has any gundam pilot ever done something so amazingly stupid and dangerous.

But one point you seemed to miss is that for almost 2 episodes we barely saw a mech, forget a battle, we barely saw the mech standing there. Didn't we show up for the mech battles and stay for the story. Then, finally when we do get a mech "battle" it basically a show of the Vegan Gundam's power.

Also am I the only one who thinks the AGE FX is just ugly, its design is poor and its "funnels" make it look like a poor man's jedi gundam, its just awful.

AGE has officially jumped the shark..............and we still got a few episodes to go.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

You've been hanging around Neo and Austin too much, Jabman. I also wouldn't rush to say that AGE is the worst of anything when there's still three more episodes to go.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

MUST............FIGHT............THE HATE.......MUST NOT.......TURN.....TO........DARK SIDE
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Let your hatred flow, Jabman!
Here I'll help, go Rams!
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

hawk of endymion wrote:Let your hatred flow, Jabman!
Here I'll help, go Rams!
whats really weird is that I read that in the voice of Emperor Palpatine
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

jabman025 wrote:
hawk of endymion wrote:Let your hatred flow, Jabman!
Here I'll help, go Rams!
whats really weird is that I read that in the voice of Emperor Palpatine
How's that possible? He's in an EU prison.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Don't give in to hate Jabman! That leads to everlasting troll!
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Only listening to this episode now and normally I don't join the discussion this late, but it seems no one else has brought it up.

There was nothing stopping Ezelcant from torturing Kio to get access to the AGE device. If he refused they'd have just taken what they wanted by force. At least this way he gets something out of it.
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Re: Ep. 107 - Kio and the High Price of Placebo

Destiny_Gundam wrote:Only listening to this episode now and normally I don't join the discussion this late, but it seems no one else has brought it up.

There was nothing stopping Ezelcant from torturing Kio to get access to the AGE device. If he refused they'd have just taken what they wanted by force. At least this way he gets something out of it.
In all truth, it should have come to that. Either physical torture or if the sick girl was some sort of master plan manipulation that Ezelcant staged, then I would have accepted it more. Instead, Kio randomly met Deen and his sister and then put the keys of the castle in Ezelcant's hand.

That was way too convenient, story-wise, but to each his own.

EDIT: I sense Chris is on his way to add his 2 cents. Brace yourself, Peter ^_^
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