Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative

I just watched earlier & being my 1st review i hope it does help in a way to those who wanted to catch up with it in the near future. WARNING LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD! Mobile Suit Gundam NT Review: Story: This adaptation is based off the Unicorn lightnovel which initially was completed but due to the popularity of the series, was inserted late into the whole Gundam UC Timeline. All i say is that you need knowledge prior to watching this (or better yet watch the whole UC animes) if not you will not know what is happening. They don't even throw a bone. So its hardto watch this as a standalone movie. Sideline-wise, at least i am glad they didn't discard the original ZZ timeline & abandon the Zeta movie ending instead. Also too many backtracking to the past then to the present, but diehard fans will appreciate all these easter egg nuggets (hence why i mention that watching the previous UC series since the beginning of OYW is a bonus). They also touch on the neverending topic of being a Newtype/ Cyber Newtypes & how society deemed them. For me as a hardcore Gundam fans, i give this movie a 7. Story 7/10 Art: Same as Gundam UC movies/Series, the art is great with not much of complaints. Of course since this is a big budget movie, the art is reminicing of the older Gundam movies. I gave this a 9. Art 9/10 Sound: As Sawano Hiroyuki is part of the team again (who doesn't listen to Gundam UC soundtracks & screams epic!), the soundtrack is superb & there is some hints of familliar to UC. No complaints here, i gave this a 9. Sound 9/10 Character: Again the way how this is being portrayed, going back & forth with storyline-wise, it's rather hard to like the new characters. Their motives, resolve.... Its difficult to vote them at all. Too messy i can say. Still the saving grace is that there are cameos round so... I can only give a 7 Character 7/10 Enjoyment: like i said if you are not a diehard fans, it is difficult to enjoy this as a standalone movie without prior knowledge. But since i am a hardcore Gundam fan, i do enjoy watching it, with all the references as well as the action scenes. There's even one part which i was caught surprised with. The only complaint that i got is that it does seems to be abit messy with the storyline. Overall i gave this a 7 Enjoyment: 7/10 Overall: Again to highlight, for those who have yet to watch a single UC series, i will advice that it is difficult to understand the whole plotline. For those like me, you will enjoy the ride. As a bonus, it would be advise to know Mobile Suit Gundam UC: One of Seventy Two (a short movie that was shown at G-Dome which unfortunately had not been screen outside Japan) plotline before watching this. I gave this a 7 Overall: 7

Mobile Suit Gundam NT Review Story (5/10) Mediocre More Specifically (5.75/10) Good The story for Mobile Suit Gundam NT was mediocre, it follows a tri-protagonist story about three children known as the miracle children that were known to predict an upcoming catastrophic event that happened during the time 0079. This causes the future of these three children to be used and manipulated for the ravages of war between the Earth Federation and Neo Zeon. I thought the overall execution was good but this movie definitely requires a hefty knowledge of at least Gundam 0079, Gundam 0087 Zeta, Gundam 0093 Char's Counter Attack and Gundam 0096 Unicorn. For aheavy Gundam fan this is fine but for everyone else that is indeed asking a bit much as this movie will constantly flashback to scenes of the series or movies that I mentioned. So if you have no knowledge of them the call backs will indeed fly right over your head clean. It's indeed a double-edge sword but seeing as this was only in theaters for 1 day, Sunrise assumed only hardcore Gundam fans would be there for this so it is what it is. Nonetheless I thought it was wasn't anything worth complimenting. Art and Animation (8/10) Very Good More Specifically (8.75/10) Very Good+ The art style I felt for this move was very good and so was the animation. Although the mech fights were cool at times it would get so chaotic sometimes, you could easily loose track of what's going on. So it can get high maintenance to keep track of everything when the going gets tough. The CG animation on the Phenex Gundam wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it is a tinsy bit weird to see everything else hand drawn while the Phenex is in full CG and sometimes it'll go handdrawn itself so the consistency between that, I wouldn't be surprise if it bothered people like it did me. Sound (9/10) More Specifically (9.50/10) Great The sound in the movie was the best thing about it, the background music ost of VigilaNTe made every scene it played it two times better to me, I watched it in English dub and I thought every voice actor did a great job, nothing outstanding but definitely nothing big enough to complain about to any degree. Characters (6/10) Good {Minor Spoilers} Like I said in the story section this movie is a tri-protagonist movie, which was a new different take for a Gundam. At first I didn't really have an issue with the three but after a bit of hindsight, Jona Basta didn't really showcase any good characterization to really care commend. He wasn't a bad character but he definitely wasn't anything to compliment, we was just there continuously talking about his mission where you could see his character wasn't right in the head for basically the entire movie (and also his piloting skills weren't all that either). Rita is a bit more interesting as she was positive with hopes and dreams 24/7 but you know where that usually leads you in a Gundam series, nonetheless I thought the little dialogue she did have was interesting enough to say she was a good enough character. Michele is the one that surprisingly gets the most characterization and character development of the three as her actions causes her to go down many different paths through the movie one of jealously one, one of self discovery for both herself and humanity and lastly one of redemption, she may be the least likable but from a character standpoint I would definitely say she's got the most depth to her. That antagonist of this movie I felt could have been handled a bit better as his backstory and reasoning behind doing what he does wasn't really explained as well as it should have been in my opinion, it was hard for me to care for anything he did. Enjoyment (8/10) Very Good As I watched the movie, all I wanted to see was some good ole Gundam action, but I also did get a decent enough story and characters. The many call backs I appreciated and the return of "you know who" at the end of the movie. Overall (7/10) Good More Specifically (7.60/10) Good+ Overall the movie wasn't very good but I wouldn't say it's bad either. I thought it was enjoyable for the most part and that's mostly probably because i watched it on the big screen. Can't wait for Hathaway's Flash!

One could say this had a messy.... narrative. To wit: STORY/CHARACTER: The story is extremely messy and not well told. None of the characters are particularly interesting or fleshed out. Especially the ultimate villain. He's literally nothing and his mecha are just retreads of stuff from the Unicorn series. There's interesting nuggets in the overall story but nothing to actually give this movie a reason to exist. ART: Also messy. The designs are good, but the actual implementation and animation are not great all the time. Some returning characters look really derpy. SOUND: Sawano score so if you've heard one of his OSTs you know what you're in for. Dubwas fine. Not amazing just fine. Good overall sound design for the foley. It's a fine ride (in theatre) but outside of the theatre its not worth it imo. It doubles down on the most controversial part of UC Gundam (newtypes) so if you're a 0083/08th MS/Thunderbolt kinda fan, don't bother. If you like the weird stuff in UC, you'll be more inclined to give it a shot. Final rating: super OK/10

“In my next life, I hope I get to be a bird!” The Universal Century, the main timeline of Gundam. For years it’s always been a huge point of love for Gundam fans. Since it’s creation, the Universal Century has been revived with the likes of Gundam Unicorn and it’s somewhat confusing Laplace Box shenanigans. However even with Unicorn’s problems, it showed that the heart of original UC remains in the creators of Sunrise, and this film represents that well once again. I’ll begin this review with a few questions. First off, do you love the original 4 Universal Century entries? Ignore the side stories, OVAs,everything. Focus on the original shows and film. Do you love the original Mobile Suit Gundam? Do you love Zeta Gundam? Do you love ZZ Gundam and Char’s Counterattack? If you do, if you really do, then you should probably watch this movie. Did you think Unicorn was “neat but not amazing” but still enjoyed all the callbacks to UC? If you do, watch this movie. Are you curious on what the potential of newtypes are, and what things they offer? If you do, watch this movie. Narrative is similar to an Avengers: Endgame of UC, and I’ll explain why in the review. Story: 7 Before the colony drop in Australia, 3 children go to a beach and see a vision of a colony drop. They warn their town and convince them to evacuate, this leads to a town surviving the colony drop. Their premonition was recognised as a stronger version of Newtype power, and became known as the “miracle children”. Years later, they’re taken in by the Federations in order to study newtypes, and they would eventually be experimented on for further newtype research. In truth however, there was only one miracle child, the Rita Bernal. Her abilities are found and she’s modified in order to become the pilot for the third Unicorn Gundam unit, Phenex. However during joint evaluation tests with the Banshee, the Phenex loses control, turning into destroy mode, destroying the bridge of the “Shallot”, and escaping the federation in an event known as the “Shallot Incident”. Since then, the Phenex was lost and never seen again. However, due to the events of Unicorn and it’s usage of psycoframe, the Phenex reappears, once again showing mystical powers like dismantling machinery and communication of souls, something that we saw during the ending of Unicorn. Since then, both the Zeon and Federation want to recapture the Phenex, and harness the power that it has obtained since then. The story follows Jona Basta, one of the false “Miracle Children”, and a very, very close friend of Rita. During The Shallot Incident, Rita went missing along with the Phenex, and her disappearance has haunted him since. He joins the operation with the intention of one goal, to see Rita again. There’s a lot more to the story of course, but I’ll leave that to the actual movie to showcase. This film is very focused on newtypes and their potential, far more so than any other UC entry. If you’re a fan of realistic war stories of UC like 08th MS Team or War in the Pocket and only those, you aren’t going to find a lot of that here. Of course, the theme of “war sucks and people in power are awful” still holds true, that’s a Gundam staple, but in comparison, Narrative delves far more into the mysterious side of UC. Gonna be honest, the actual story can be considered a problem, simply because not everything is explored enough. Not everything gets an explanation, it also expects you to piece together parts of the story through your prior UC knowledge. The newtype potential is never actually given any solid answer of explanation, and you can take this one of three ways. The first one is lazy writing and leaving plot holes. The second one is seeing it as messages left to interpretation or theorise about. The third, and what I believe, is that the writers want to keep newtypes a mystery, as the theme of newtypes being impossible for humans to truly understand is an underlying theme. The story could’ve also been longer in order to focus more on the actual lore of certain characters but if you ask me, it’s not a requirement. This is why you watch this as a fan of UC. It generalises a lot of origins of characters and events because it’s assuming you’re familiar with UC, however that’s also the merit. There are an insane amount of links and callbacks to the entirety of UC. Characters remember events that happened in earlier UC series, that or they were literally directly affected by them. This is why I compare this to Avengers: Endgame, there are so many things in Narrative that mean nothing if you’re not familiar with UC, but if you are, they become some of the best scenes and callbacks to it, and you like the characters because of it. The story is not perfect, but it’s serviceable and if you ask me, heavily enjoyable, and if you’re a UC fan, you’re going to get a lot out of every little reference. Art: 8 The art style is very similar to Unicorn before it, with a style that relies heavily on color usage and scene palette that while looks nice, isn’t too cleanly “refined”. It’s got little streaks in the lines and movements, like it was less “digitally made” and more “physically made” even if it’s obvious this is mostly digital animation. It’s a style that makes Narrative feel like a modern UC work like Unicorn, but also has the “imperfect” tone of the much older Gundam series, obviously to give the best of both worlds. What I love about the art style is that, it captures the tone of classic UC series perfectly while also taking the advancements in anime animation. There are a lot of cues and imagery used from classic UC, like the Newtype flash and the purple scene pallet for newtype mind immersion, but reimagined and refined in a more modern light. It’s main charm is how well it captures UC rather than the quality itself, not saying that the animation is bad by any stretch though. Things like the Phenex’s psycoframe is beautiful, and the mech animations are on point. But the usage of homages and such is what really stands out. Sound: 10 Easily the best part of the film from a quality standpoint. The sound design is top notch in every category. Starting with the foley and SFX, everything is amazing, from the power of the beams, the force of the thrusters, and the mystic powers of psycoframe, the sound is top notch. Everything sounds so good, I cannot exemplify it enough. The sound design is godlike and everything sounds super well down. Not painfully realistic, but if you’re into high tech sounding stuff and huge force, you’re gonna love it. Score-wise, it’s perfect. Hiroyuki Sawano is always known for his fantastic use of techno beats and drops to make some truly epic scenes feel that much more impactful. Some of the tracks are remixed tracks of Unicorn, but that doesn’t change the fact that those tracks to begin with was top Sawano. The hype doesn’t just come from the drops, throughout the movie there’s a constant thrill created by Sawano’s fast techno tracks that just convey the rush of the power of these machines and the speed of the chase. It’s an absolute ride and Sawano’s score completes every combat scene. Even when it’s not combat, the tracks can be peaceful and have a beating heart that fits the scene it needs to. The ending has this accepting open sounding song and I can’t say enough, the sound design is perfect. Character: 7 This is probably the weakest part of the film overall due to one thing: movie runtime. The characters simply are not fully delved into or properly developed due to it. A lot of the characters’ motives and origins are left for the watcher to assume and piece together as they watch the film, and it never explicitly states enough of the backstory for the film to truly make these characters realised. Despite this, I can say this, the characters are very likeable. A lot of the characters are simple but all do their job, although the only ones I can really talk about are the main cast. Jona Basta is a very simple protagonist with the sole goal of being with those he loves. His family was killed at a young age, and he’s only left with his best friends Rita and Michele, they are figuratively his everything, especially Rita, who acted as a guiding light to his early life. When Rita disappears and Michele seemingly betrays his trust, he’s left distraught and full of regret, with his only goal in life being to find the Phenex and reunite with Rita. I like Jona, his goal is simple but believable. It’s only natural for him to want to cling onto the remaining people he loves. Michele is by far the most interesting of the three. She is the only one that isn’t “pure good”, as while every goal she has is well-intentioned, she is also willing to do questionable things in order to reach them. As she was adopted by the Luios through lying that she was the real Miracle Child, she was let out from the newtype training facility. As a result, Rita and Jona were left to be studied as newtypes, which is why Jona felt betrayed by her. However, her intentions were not selfish, and that she merely wanted power to retrieve her friends when she could. By then though, Rita had already disappeared along with the Phenex, and she has to hold that burden. She has the most depth and interesting concepts, however the movie doesn’t focus on her enough to have everything she represents resolved perfectly. The final character, Rita, has the least to say about her actual character. Rita is the definition of a purehearted and kind girl, being the one who kept Jona’s spirits high since childhood and is a guiding light. We aren’t shown much about her, but we are shown that she was very close to the two, and cherished them a lot. Sadly, despite being the miracle child, she was experimented on and made to pilot the Phenex, and she lost herself when the Phenex ran wild and escaped. I won’t say more, as most of the things related to her are spoilers to the actual plot. But I will say, Rita is the most important character in the entire film and continues to be the most kindhearted, and it all relates to the Phenex. The Phenex itself can also be considered a character of it’s own, which you’ll see become very evident once you see the film. The Phenex has a will of it’s own and acts on it’s own. It is a guardian of humanity, but will not allow itself to be restrained by them. It appears for the sole purpose of protecting humanity, and that’s even made evident by the theme “VigilaNTe”. Other than that, there isn’t much to say. Zoltan is very energetic as a villain but is also very barebones and underdeveloped, he could’ve used more depth to him. The Schezarr team are probably the most grounded characters, Iago especially is likeable for his relatability as a pilot and due to something that’s revealed in the film that I’m sure audiences that know their UC can relate to. It’s characters have fantastic concepts, and the biggest problem is that they aren’t looked into enough. Enjoyment: 10 Even with these flaws, I’d be lying if I said I was bothered by them. I’ve seen this movie three times in 24 hours, enjoying it to hell each time and connecting the pieces together, with the story making more and more sense upon each rewatch. It’s thrilling, it has unique concepts that delve into the possibilities of newtypes and humanity’s control on it. The space chances were thrilling, the Phenex was amazing, and seeing it all with beautiful animation and Sawano’s intense score made it such an experience. A lot of people criticise the film for being too short and underdeveloped, and I understand it. However, I think the film doesn’t REQUIRE it either. We know what we need to for the characters, we know their goals, the story, and the intended message. Sure, Zoltan is very basic as an antagonist, and the characters in general feel underdeveloped. Still, I’ve never felt unsatisfied on any of my watches, if anything, I get more impressed by the narrative (heh) of the movie and the story it tried to tell. I love Jona, and I merely want him to be happy with his friends. I love the Phenex, a beautiful machine that humanity cannot understand. The symbolism, the meaning, combined with awesome fights and sounds made it all so enjoyable. Overall: 8 This film is not for every gundam fan, it will never be by nature of focusing on an aspect of gundam that’s always been very wishy washy, that being newtype shenanigans. However those that are able to see the characters and the story as what they are instead of what they could be can potentially really enjoy the movie. Narrative is just a thrilling ride of pure mecha action that’s still combined with the classic Gundam message of humanity’s conflicts, the underlying themes of oldtypes misunderstanding the idea of Newtypes and trying to use it as strengthening power rather than letting people change for the better and be free. There’s so many scenes that mean so much to those that are fans of the UC, and if anything, this movie was clearly made by people who loved the original UC series. It’s for fans of UC, it’s for those who know their lore and want to see a continuation of the early stages of the timeline. People may not love it, and that’s fine, but if you’re a gundam fan, consider giving it a watch, you’ll find something to enjoy.