Totally. I think Unicorn is a little overly convoluted (have still only seen it once though), but the final episode was 90 minutes of pure insanity and came full circle with so many perfect allusions to 0079 specifically. It blew me away and as time passes, I do think it's probably the better conclusion to this era than CCA was. I know most love 0080, but Unicorn is my favorite OVA by a long shot exactly because it feels so much like the Tomino UC material. So it really comes off as the ultimate true conclusion to all that for me.Gunstar Green wrote:Understand it wasn't a sure thing he'd be making the movie at the time. Thankfully Unicorn came along and rectified that for me by giving the Zeon era a proper sendoff.
That first part there is pretty new to me and cool to hear. I've personally never had issues with Char's dramatic changes, but I can see how some don't like it. He kind of seems crazy from the start in 0079 and was just a ticking time bomb haha. In Zeta, it seems like he just wasn't in a position of power to take on the Titans. So he kind of takes a backstep into the AEUG. But you clearly see some of the Han Solo good in him here and I think him and Kamille had a genuine good friendship. Plus the mutual exchange between him and Amuro. Char could have turned a leaf here. But it all lead to nothing so the man said no more with CCA... time to drop asteroids on Earth as he wanted humans to evolve and stop killing their home planet, haha. As an anti-hero from the start I guess dramatic shifts in personality don't bug me too much, no matter what Char does he's badass anyways, but yeah... (and hey it's not bad Luke Skywalker level changes at leastI read that the Hi-Streamer novel explains Char's changes a little better. Kamille's brain damage upset him greatly and the defeat of the Titan's ended up feeling pointless because the Earth Federation was still as corrupt as ever and arguably even more apathetic to the plight of the world so it all finally drove him over the edge. It still would have been nice to see this transformation in animation instead of dropping into it in the middle of the story in CCA.
I do think CCA had a lot of missed opportunities as well. I don't mind not seeing Kamille, I think ZZ Gundam gave the dude a happy ending and while it's clear he's doing better he might not be better enough to be piloting mobile suits given how telepathically sensitive to death he's become (apparently Zeta Gundam was supposed to be in the film, recovered from Axis but this was changed for whatever reason, maybe they just wanted new suit for Gunpla purposes and hence the ReGZ was born). Hi-Streamer has Amuro telling Char that Kamille went completely and inconsolably insane... I think I prefer to stick with the ZZ ending on that one. It would have been cool to see some of the ZZ crew in Londo Bell instead of all of the random new characters nobody cares about. And then there's the lame Hathaway and Quess plot who feels like he's only there to be a plot hook for a Hathaway's Flash movie that was never going to be made. It's just a lamer version of Katz and Sarah in Zeta Gundam which wasn't that great to begin with and much weirder since it's clear Quess doesn't care about Hathaway at all. Speaking of which, Char and Quess was just Glemy and Ple all over again only without cloning this time. Blech.
)Glemy being a fill in for his role in ZZ is a disappointment though. A MAJOR one, since they hint at so much history between Char and Haman, but we never really get to see any of it.
But man nothing annoys me more than Beecha and Mondo... freaking hated them. I loved all the female characters in ZZ though, even Puru was charming in a weird way. But I can see how it's not for everyone. I'm with you on Judua, he's the most stable and normal MC out of most Gundam's honestly, lol.
Ever seen these? Maybe it's the Hathaway's Flash movie concept, I forget.
Ultimately... yeah, it's kind of insane how much of a mess the transitions are between even Tomino's 0079 -> CCA era of UC Gundam. I remember hating Amuro even more a second time through Zeta and just how wasteful his character use seemed there. CCA could or should have maybe been another full scale series, or at least like a 13 episode OVA or something. All around I think it tells an awesome cool story and love it all, but a lot of stuff definitely could have been handled better. Sayla's VA quitting anime or whatever was a weird one too and I guess back then Tomino and studios didn't believe in replacing voice actors, so he weirdly just writes out Char's sister from everything. lol
I wouldn't put Dragonar above ZZ personally, but yeah it'd be about arguing 7/10's haha. There's just this really long boring arc in the middle of Dragonar that kind of dragged for me. Visually it's fantastic though, I'm sure you've at least seen the OP. And it's got amazing music. Rumors are that some left over Layzner designs were thrown into it... which pisses me off a little with Layzner being sandwiched between ZZ and Dragonar which got to conclude, but Layzner didn't. But there are many weird stories as to why Layzner failed and it's a shame. Sounded like Ryosuke Takahashi had huge plans for it.
