Pon. This is an idol show! Fuck! [throws pen] Goddammit! Fuck! [throws pen again]
Oto. Holy shit! What even? How did? Are they? Did she just? WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN HIDING FROM ME? You failed to mention the part about how every fight is a concert. This is my favorite show of all time. This was my favorite show of all time 10 minutes in.
Pon. Yeah, did I not mention that?
Oto. No. This is like a mix between JoJo’s, Strike Witches, and Macross.
Pon. Well, two things about the idolness of it. One, I can appreciate how all the songs sound like 90s anime openings. Even if they are eurobeat. And two, we live in a world in which the US Army makes video games as recruitment tools, so I can’t find it too weird that Earth’s super-soldiers are popular entertainers.
Oto. Going from Love Live! to Symphogear is like being at a Ranka Lee concert and walking across the street to go watch Sheryl Nome.
Pon. That’s fucked up, man. I lol’d.
Oto. You could say that the pacing is a little fast, but I was in JoJo’s/Sentai mode from second 1 so it didn’t really bother me.
Pon. I’d complain about the pacing if there were two fights in one episode. But jamming in that half a fight at the end … I’m just impressed. Damn.
Oto. I think it successfully got across everything that it wanted to. I don’t see a reason to complain.
Pon. If you look at the first episode of certain Tomino shows, like Zeta Gundam or King Gainer, it’s just a mess. It tries to do character introductions and action all at once, and it falls apart. This episode had basically the same elements of a Tomino first episode, and yet somehow I know generally who everybody is and what’s happening, and there were 2.5 fucking fights. I have to say, shows that are made of symbolism or cinematic craft are fine, but nothing impresses me like straight-up entertainment when it’s well-written. It’s a lot harder than anybody ever acknowledges. I was worried that this show wouldn’t give us enough to talk about, but I can probably talk about the writing 38 more times.
Oto. This show is fucking brutal. The Noise isn’t fucking around. They’ll just straight up murder your ass. And that transformation in the end, man. It was like some FLCL shit.
Pon. So edgy. These people have more blood than minor characters in Akira. And the German names for things, and references to Norse mythology … could the edge be sharper? Only if the hero were a manchild with an unnatural hair color, probably.
Bros Before Shows 
Damn, aren’t you glad I said this should be your next show to blog?
Also, having watched roughly three-fifths of Zeta Gundam, I have to say I am not at all impressed with it. This is supposed to be the best of UC? Shit.
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Yeah, Zeta Gundam…I think the problem is that you get these people who play it up as a stirring war story with great action scenes, which creates false expectations. It’s fucking ridiculous. Why are all these machines with perfectly good guns always grappling each other? Who the fuck would trust Kamille with a weapon anyway? I do like it, though. It’s funny. Through Kamille, it ends up critiquing the whole newtype trope. And it’s an interesting take on a certain kind of war insofar as it’s a bunch of senseless assholes flailing at each other, accomplishing nothing much. Nobody comes out looking very good.
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Yeah, folks really do emphasize how deep and meaningful and serious it is. I am aware of what ultimately happens to Kamille (which ZZ cheerfully neutralizes!), but its hard to see how the remaining 16 episodes I have to watch will turn it around. I’m also skeptical about how much I could really draw from a critique of Newtypes as I didn’t get around to the early UC works until pretty recently, and those are the ones that really utilize them (and in ZZ, 90% of the cast is a Newtype, which, of course, means that no one is a Newtype). My first encounter with a Newtype was X, and that really takes a different tack in its approach to them (X has a Newtype dolphin; fucking brilliant!).
TL;DR Kamille sucks.
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The way I look at it is, Kamille’s sucking is directly related to his being a newtype. The last episode makes this more clear, but his deal seems to be that he’s just as weird and generally non-functional as any of the UC side character newtypes ever are, only nobody seems to notice this because, hell, at least they have someone to pilot the Gundam. He doesn’t really parallel Amuro at all–he’s more like a very angry Lalah Sune. I mean shit, he even has Char manipulating him.
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I’m new to this blog and I’m not sure how the structure works. So “Pon” and “Oto” are two different people?
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Correct. I force my brother to watch cartoons with me, and then we talk about them. See https://brosbeforeshows.wordpress.com/about/
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Aww yeah glad to see you guys covering The Best Show Ever.
Otouto, you will Believe in Justice and Hold a Determination to Fist
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I had my doubts. But it seems to fall within my narrow band of…I don’t want to say “shows made for me,” since I expect some people get very different things out of it, so let’s go with “shows that feel like home.”
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