Having finished literally everything that came before it, I’ve started watching Victory. I’m still on episode 5, and I’m moderately enjoying it.
The 90s Gundam shows seem to have quite divisive reputations. For those who have seen all of them, how would you rank them from best to worst? Do you think any are actually worth skipping?
I wanted to share some thoughts I had after watching the original Gundam TV series in full for the first time earlier this year, having first seen the compilation films a couple of years ago. One thing that stood out to me was the famous Amuro-Lalah telepathy scenes. While the films show a noticeable improvement in animation and overall visual clarity, some scenes felt much stronger in the anime, and these were among them. A large part of that comes from the emotional payoff, but I also felt that the cinematography and use of music worked better in the TV version than in the films.
The two Amuro-Lalah telepathy sequences I had in mind were, first, the moment when Amuro senses her presence as she snipes Federation ships from afar, and, second, the later scene in which he fights and ends up killing her. The first begins with a distinctly 2001: A Space Odyssey-inspired sequence in which Amuro moves through an interdimensional vision of light reflected on his helmet visor and sees Lalah’s yellow dress dissolve into waves, while the second develops into the fuller telepathic communication between them, with the two moving through the lights before Char’s Gelgoog interrupts, Amuro kills Lalah, another interdimensional mind-bending sequence follows, and Amuro finally breaks down in grief.
One big difference is not just the length, with the TV version being longer, but also the lower animation quality, which somehow works better. The film sequence feels too ‘well done’ and clean, whereas the anime version, being much more retro and relatively low-budget, adds significantly to the mystery and absurdity of the situation.
The other major difference, of course, is the music. Both scenes in the TV show use very ‘proggy’ sound effects, almost like something from a Pink Floyd album, which make the whole sequence feel much stranger and more mystical rather than just being emotionally affecting. In the films, the second scene also uses ‘Beginning’ by Inoue Daisuke, which is a fantastic song in its own right, but it is somewhat overshadowed by the TV version’s use of ‘Ima wa Oyasumi’ by Toda Keiko, which feels much more emotionally fitting and moving.
I actually burst into tears when Amuro grieved after killing Lalah when I watched the TV episode for the first time. I had seen the film two years ago, and also once more than two decades earlier, but I never really understood what Lalah actually meant not just to Amuro but also the whole story. He was someone who was only just awakening to his Newtype hypersensitivity, and who had spent most of the series not being understood by anyone, until he finally met someone who truly understood him.
Also worth noting is that the film changes Char's immediate reaction to the tragedy. In the film, he stoically sheds a tear after discovering what happened and mentally asks Lalah to guide him in the coming battles. In the TV series, by contrast, he completely loses his cool and slams his fist on his dashboard. The latter is highly uncharacteristic of the way he is usually portrayed, and it shows that the tragedy affected him just as deeply as it did Amuro.
Anyway, sorry for the short essay. I just wanted to share a random thought I had.