AnimeSuki Forum - View Single Post - Gundam AGE - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

wingdarkness · 2012-10-01, 15:18

Hehe, it’s me yall…

First off, as “bad” as AGE was or wound up being, it WAS NOT and IS NOT worse thaN GSD…Ok, even I can admit that…AGE was not a production clusterf**k by any stretch in comparison, so lets kill that comparison…

Spoiler for OVERALL:

Animation Quality (7) Urm..Didn’t bother me much…Yeah there was some up and down quality, but nothing that alarmed the hell outta me, but ofcourse those Sonic the Hedgehog//Megaman character designs were quite off-putting so that’s gonna drop the score

Voice Actors(7) : Again I can’t think of anything bad…No there wasn’t that one awesome voice like a Gilbert Dullindal or Char, but that was the least of my concerns…

Script (3): The script wasn’t so much obtusely terrible as it was non-existent…This show exhibited some of the most passive behavior toward simple character exposition that I have ever seen…They dropped so many plot threads it wasn’t even funny, but the one of the biggest head shakers (certainly not the only one) was that in a show called Gundam AGE where the source of the Gundam’s power comes from an AGE System, it might as well had never been mentioned in the show…That’s how meaningless the “Age System” was to just the title of the show, nevermind the show itself…

Soundtrack(4): One of the most forgettable G-sdtks I’ve ever listened to…There are maybe 3 tracks in the entire show that I enjoyed. Victory Gundam had 3 bgms they used all series and those were better than anything I heard in AGE. But like I said I did enjoy a couple of tracks that they used a lot during intense battles, so it wasn’t a complete loss. Additionally other than the Gen2 OP, the rest of the OP/ENDs were pretty awful (Especially the absolutely depressing END theme of women waiting for men who don’t necessarily care for them)…

Editing (7): No big complaints here unless we’re talking about the actual generation breakdown of the show, which was not great. And the final 3 episodes were rushed which was a shame considering the show had picked up before it reminded you that it was still the same show…

Enjoyment(6): After the first 13 episodes I thought it might take guidance from God to like anything about this show…I even stopped watching it on it’s weekly airtime as I no longer cared about discussing it online, but I gotta say the level of battle choreography from the pathetic horror of gen 1 to gen 2 and to gen 3 was so much better and visually gratifying that I did find myself cheering on several occasions, with a high point being when Gundam Legilis appeared. Even the battle tactics had gotten decent in certain eps. I have to say this ONE AREA is what ultimately saves the show from being unwatchable.

Emotional Involvement (4): Honestly other than Asemu in some instances, I didn’t care who lived or died throughout this show…I could careless for characters like Yurin who’s character development was so paperthin I had no reason to be moved…Nevertheless I was impressed and moved by the fact that so many characters got Tomino’d in the final arc which made the final battles very intense…However If pressed I’d probably say the most emotionally invested I took to a character was Girard Spriggan, who had more character development in 2 episodes than basically every character in the show…

While there were many things about this show that I didn’t enjoy I’d have to say the increased attention to fight strategy and fight choreography was so exponentially improved from the middle of gen2 and beyond I couldn’t help but notice. Some of the individual one v. one battles were ridiculously detailed from both an animation standpoint and strategy standpoint (Asemu v. Galette in the asteroid field comes to mind)

Another aspect of the show that was very enjoyable was the evolution of Vegan technology, specifically in the area of beam weaponry…Unlike Flint who whored the Gundam out for his family alone, instead of letting the tech be advanced for the entire army (and no $hitty Custom Clanche’s and those other crap EFF Mass produced suits don’t count), the Vegans Darwanized every class of their suits and tweaked aspects that became vulnerable to the Gundam (They had the REAL AGE SYSTEM)…

The evolution of the beam saber being a claw hand weapon to becoming a reusable dagger shot (as in the case of Galette’s supped up red mech) to the awesomness of the bits, which turned out to be simple bits of light that attacked the living $hit out of you (most genius $hit I’ve seen in a while in-terms of this tech)…

Gundam Legillis was just the cherry on top to a very imaginative catalog of G-suits that I will remember (I will give the Mecha Cicada final boss travesty suit a pass^^). With that said I was equally appalled by the lack of any ingenuity on the EFF side when it came to suits, except for Girard Spriggan’s awesome suit.

So honestly, at the end of the day, what I asked for came to fruition a bit. I was so incredibly critical of this show in the beginning with IMO was good reason (lack of expositions, character development, battle choreography, thematic presence, worldveiw), but I always said if you put diamonds in the dirt you’re shoveling, at least I could deal…And certainly the visual prowess of the fighting had picked up to a level so high at times that I did ignore the terrible storytelling and lack of anything even resembling a worldview…Also stealing basically the Desity Plan for the final stanza was ehhhhh

too, but…

With that said though, I can’t with good conscious give the show a high grade, but I can put certain eps on a green DVD to symbolize that these are some cool eps to “toke up” to xD…

After giving gen1 a D/F, gen2 a C+, and gen3 a C, I’m compelled to give the series a C- with the caveat that it has mostly terrific action in the last 30 episodes…In numerical fashion, I give Mobile Suit Gundam AGE a 4.93 outta 10..With almost all of that going to the improved visual action of the show and Vegan tech…

It’s funny because even in the final epilogue, the show’s most glaring weakness was on display…As you see the statue of Flint (a man who cared about a single girl more than anything or anyone else in the story), a grown up Kio and equally elder Asemu, you realize more than ever this show only cared about AGE…And allowing us to see these characters age was more important than character development, exposition, or the depth that’s needed to actually care that the characters’ aged…I suspect as we age we won’t much remember this title much as it pertains to Gundam, but with age comes wisdom, much like Flint, hopefully…

2012-10-01, 15:18	Link #32
wingdarkness Retweet Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: ニュー・オーリンズ、LA	Hehe, it’s me yall… First off, as “bad” as AGE was or wound up being, it WAS NOT and IS NOT worse thaN GSD…Ok, even I can admit that…AGE was not a production clusterfk by any stretch in comparison, so lets kill that comparison… Spoiler** for OVERALL: Animation Quality (7) Urm..Didn’t bother me much…Yeah there was some up and down quality, but nothing that alarmed the hell outta me, but ofcourse those Sonic the Hedgehog//Megaman character designs were quite off-putting so that’s gonna drop the score Voice Actors(7) : Again I can’t think of anything bad…No there wasn’t that one awesome voice like a Gilbert Dullindal or Char, but that was the least of my concerns… Script (3): The script wasn’t so much obtusely terrible as it was non-existent…This show exhibited some of the most passive behavior toward simple character exposition that I have ever seen…They dropped so many plot threads it wasn’t even funny, but the one of the biggest head shakers (certainly not the only one) was that in a show called Gundam AGE where the source of the Gundam’s power comes from an AGE System, it might as well had never been mentioned in the show…That’s how meaningless the “Age System” was to just the title of the show, nevermind the show itself… Soundtrack(4): One of the most forgettable G-sdtks I’ve ever listened to…There are maybe 3 tracks in the entire show that I enjoyed. Victory Gundam had 3 bgms they used all series and those were better than anything I heard in AGE. But like I said I did enjoy a couple of tracks that they used a lot during intense battles, so it wasn’t a complete loss. Additionally other than the Gen2 OP, the rest of the OP/ENDs were pretty awful (Especially the absolutely depressing END theme of women waiting for men who don’t necessarily care for them)… Editing (7): No big complaints here unless we’re talking about the actual generation breakdown of the show, which was not great. And the final 3 episodes were rushed which was a shame considering the show had picked up before it reminded you that it was still the same show… Enjoyment(6): After the first 13 episodes I thought it might take guidance from God to like anything about this show…I even stopped watching it on it’s weekly airtime as I no longer cared about discussing it online, but I gotta say the level of battle choreography from the pathetic horror of gen 1 to gen 2 and to gen 3 was so much better and visually gratifying that I did find myself cheering on several occasions, with a high point being when Gundam Legilis appeared. Even the battle tactics had gotten decent in certain eps. I have to say this ONE AREA is what ultimately saves the show from being unwatchable. Emotional Involvement (4): Honestly other than Asemu in some instances, I didn’t care who lived or died throughout this show…I could careless for characters like Yurin who’s character development was so paperthin I had no reason to be moved…Nevertheless I was impressed and moved by the fact that so many characters got Tomino’d in the final arc which made the final battles very intense…However If pressed I’d probably say the most emotionally invested I took to a character was Girard Spriggan, who had more character development in 2 episodes than basically every character in the show… While there were many things about this show that I didn’t enjoy I’d have to say the increased attention to fight strategy and fight choreography was so exponentially improved from the middle of gen2 and beyond I couldn’t help but notice. Some of the individual one v. one battles were ridiculously detailed from both an animation standpoint and strategy standpoint (Asemu v. Galette in the asteroid field comes to mind) Another aspect of the show that was very enjoyable was the evolution of Vegan technology, specifically in the area of beam weaponry…Unlike Flint who whored the Gundam out for his family alone, instead of letting the tech be advanced for the entire army (and no $hitty Custom Clanche’s and those other crap EFF Mass produced suits don’t count), the Vegans Darwanized every class of their suits and tweaked aspects that became vulnerable to the Gundam (They had the REAL AGE SYSTEM)… The evolution of the beam saber being a claw hand weapon to becoming a reusable dagger shot (as in the case of Galette’s supped up red mech) to the awesomness of the bits, which turned out to be simple bits of light that attacked the living $hit out of you (most genius $hit I’ve seen in a while in-terms of this tech)… Gundam Legillis was just the cherry on top to a very imaginative catalog of G-suits that I will remember (I will give the Mecha Cicada final boss travesty suit a pass^^). With that said I was equally appalled by the lack of any ingenuity on the EFF side when it came to suits, except for Girard Spriggan’s awesome suit. So honestly, at the end of the day, what I asked for came to fruition a bit. I was so incredibly critical of this show in the beginning with IMO was good reason (lack of expositions, character development, battle choreography, thematic presence, worldveiw), but I always said if you put diamonds in the dirt you’re shoveling, at least I could deal…And certainly the visual prowess of the fighting had picked up to a level so high at times that I did ignore the terrible storytelling and lack of anything even resembling a worldview…Also stealing basically the Desity Plan for the final stanza was ehhhhh too, but… With that said though, I can’t with good conscious give the show a high grade, but I can put certain eps on a green DVD to symbolize that these are some cool eps to “toke up” to xD… After giving gen1 a D/F, gen2 a C+, and gen3 a C, I’m compelled to give the series a C- with the caveat that it has mostly terrific action in the last 30 episodes…In numerical fashion, I give Mobile Suit Gundam AGE a 4.93 outta 10..With almost all of that going to the improved visual action of the show and Vegan tech… It’s funny because even in the final epilogue, the show’s most glaring weakness was on display…As you see the statue of Flint (a man who cared about a single girl more than anything or anyone else in the story), a grown up Kio and equally elder Asemu, you realize more than ever this show only cared about AGE…And allowing us to see these characters age was more important than character development, exposition, or the depth that’s needed to actually care that the characters’ aged…I suspect as we age we won’t much remember this title much as it pertains to Gundam, but with age comes wisdom, much like Flint, hopefully… __________________ Fly since ↔... Last edited by wingdarkness; 2012-10-01 at 17:17.