Gundam AGE General Discussion Thread

[WefiDasst]

Getting beat by G-saviour...Wow.

[SonicSP]

Are each of those the lowest rated episode in the series or an average of some sort?

[brightman]

Yeah, third arc really not catching on at all...

Ep 31 got a 1.7% rating.

[Znozzy]

Oh, wow. That sucks.

Sofar, i'd say Gen 2 had the best episodes(overall), but apparently it didnt catch on more viewers.

Too bad the first impression really matters when it comes to children, they arent going to watch something that didnt catch their attention twice.

I really wonder what the top brass is saying about AGE.

[brightman]

Originally Posted by Znozzy

Oh, wow. That sucks.

Sofar, i'd say Gen 2 had the best episodes(overall), but apparently it didnt catch on more viewers.

Too bad the first impression really matters when it comes to children, they arent going to watch something that didnt catch their attention twice.

I really wonder what the top brass is saying about AGE.

Probably already wrote it off as a loss. DVD/BD sales are abysmal (less than 2,000 copies sold per volume) and ratings are dropping. Not sure about merchandise but they said UC is carrying the Gunpla lines, not AGE. The Level 5 game for PSP will probably fail. Considering how much planning and research went into this series, and the preair expectations for it (ie AGE Gunpla outselling both 00 and SEED), its gotta be by far the biggest commercial failure in Gundam history.

Oh, and it looks like Ep 32 got a 1.7% too. So average ratings for the three arcs so far are 3.22% for Flit, 2.33% for Asemu, and 1.95% for Kio.

[GN0010 Nosferatu]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

AGE just broke X's record of all time low.

This is just pitiful, and I don't mean AGE. I mean people. This show is not that bad, to get these ratings is just, downright unfair.

[brightman]

Originally Posted by GN0010 Nosferatu

This is just pitiful, and I don't mean AGE. I mean people. This show is not that bad, to get these ratings is just, downright unfair.

I agree... Especially since IMO the show has gotten better and better even as ratings got worse and worse. But I think its just a function of Bandai/Sunrise not marketing or executing the show correctly such that it appeals to the appropriate audience. You really can't blame the "people" for that.

[FalsePrime]

Originally Posted by GN0010 Nosferatu

This is just pitiful, and I don't mean AGE. I mean people. This show is not that bad, to get these ratings is just, downright unfair.

I don't like what happened to AGE, and even though I have zero interest in it and wouldn't buy it's stuff I'm still sad to see a Gundam do this badly.

That said, it's not the people's fault if Sunrise and Bandai had super crazy expectations (beating SEED? Really?) and failed to capture the audience.

[justavisitor]

@SonicSP
I think the chart means the average rating...and remember that gundam X did change the time slot (to a not so good time slot I assume)...(I assume the chart says the gundam X had an average rating of 3.51% before the change)...It is actually not an easy task to break that infamous record, but Age still managed to beat it...(well it still has 10+ episodes to turn it around)

[brightman]

Originally Posted by justavisitor

@SonicSP
I think the chart means the average rating...and remember that gundam X did change the time slot (to a not so good time slot I assume)...(I assume the chart says the gundam X had an average rating of 3.51% before the change)...It is actually not an easy task to break that infamous record, but Age still managed to beat it...(well it still has 10+ episodes to turn it around)

At least its still ahead of the SD Gundam shows, I guess...

[casval cehack]

Originally Posted by FalsePrime

I don't like what happened to AGE, and even though I have zero interest in it and wouldn't buy it's stuff I'm still sad to see a Gundam do this badly.

That said, it's not the people's fault if Sunrise and Bandai had super crazy expectations (beating SEED? Really?) and failed to capture the audience.

Curious, why are you not interested in Age, considering that this record breaking rating resulted from Bandai's target audiences NOT watching Age and reportedly not buying its merchandise? I didn't like at first then it got pretty interesting (especially the U.C. homages).

[SonicSP]

I think AGE quality wise "should" do better commercially but if people don't watch it it's not really their fault. These days there are many shows that compete for people's attention and money, and shows have to work hard in terms of advertising or have a good concept or just first impressions.

I mean AGE is a GUNDAM (a good brand) series in a great timeslot. It's got some good things going for it so Sunrise or circumstances must have messed it up somehow and failed to sell it to people either because the concept failed or the first impressions doesn't work well and these can be important to a product's success.

I know there are some western TV Shows that I love that got cancelled. I didn't think they deserve it personally but I'm one guy in a market and if people dont want to watch it because they didn't like it or some other problems, it's not the people's fault. Products and business fail all the time, its a fact of life. Shows serve people and get rewarded if they succeeded in getting people support them, but the people who have to spend their earned money as well as opportunity cost(in terms of time they could use watching something else) don't really owe them anything.

Data gathered from failures can be important for future projects though. Sunrise should do a comprehensive post mortem so they could gather data and find out why things happened the way they did and how their next attempt on tweens (if not any ordinary Gundam series). Was it the show? Advertising? Concept? First impressions? Generation changes? Cyclical problems? I'm pretty sure they will though.

I'm still hoping these won't affect AGE's length but it's hard to ignore record numbers and not be worried about the possibility of a shortened length.

[FalsePrime]

Originally Posted by casval cehack

Curious, why are you not interested in Age, considering that this record breaking rating resulted from Bandai's target audiences NOT watching Age and reportedly not buying its merchandise? I didn't like at first then it got pretty interesting (especially the U.C. homages).

For me it has to do with the man behind this particular series.

Hino and Level 5 have continued to make things that I don't enjoy despite repeated attempts to give them a shot and I hate the character and overall artistic design. Taking it one step further this is the easily the worst Mech Design in Gundam save only Turn A and G Savior for me.

As for story? I haven't watched most of it and I will admit the story could very well be one of the best in Gundam. That said I personally don't believe ANY Gundam is all that good storywise and for me Gundam is largely about presentation and AGE fails at that completely.

As for the UC Homages, that really falls flat for me as I'm one of the people who don't care for UC outside of ZZ and Char's Counter Attack. Overall the UC timeline doesn't do much for me and I stick mainly with in the AU series.

[SonicSP]

Originally Posted by FalsePrime

Taking it one step further this is the easily the worst Mech Design in Gundam save only Turn A and G Savior for me.

I guess I can understand that. For me AGE's mechs design is one of it's best assets as far as my tastes are concerned and contributes a a decent amount to my enjoyment of it. In an opposite manner, mech design for Seed I really hate and is one of the factors that prevent me from enjoying like I did 00 and AGE, which mech designs I love to death. So I guess this is the presentation aspect of it.

As for character designs, I agree with you as far as teenagers and leads are concerned but I am of the opinion that the adult designs have mainly great.

[FalsePrime]

In all honesty I haven't seen many of the adults. Main Grudeck from Gen 1 if I remember right and he was okay. That said the leads are about as horrible as art can get in my eyes and really turn me off the show knowing I'm going to have to deal and look at these characters.

[RX93-2]

The turn A looks amazing and that invalidates half your post.
Turn A Gundam, best gundam.

[FalsePrime]

Got asked a question so I gave an honest answer.

I can't argue about Turn A's power, but it's design is the second worst Gundam ever to me.

[GN0010 Nosferatu]

Originally Posted by FalsePrime

For me it has to do with the man behind this particular series.

Hino and Level 5 have continued to make things that I don't enjoy despite repeated attempts to give them a shot and I hate the character and overall artistic design. Taking it one step further this is the easily the worst Mech Design in Gundam save only Turn A and G Savior for me.

Are....are you being series right now? AGE has the worst mecha designs?

[FalsePrime]

Very much so.

Unless we are going to count the wacky stuff from G, then yeah AGE has the worst Mecha design to me.

AGE-1 plays it far to safe, Titus/Sparrow look terrible and both the AGE 2 Normal and DB look lame to me.

AGE - 3 looked good in line art(Partly because of my love of ZZ which it has a similar feel) but thus far hasn't held up all that well in shots from the show.

Everything from UC/G/W/X/SEED(Minus backpacks)/SEED Destiny (ditto from SEED) and OO look much better to me. They all bring something new to the table that I like and thus far AGE has nothing aside from one suits line art and a bunch of Vegan/UE designs that I think are the worst grunts enemies in Gundam.

[Plant42]

For me AGE has one of best mecha design, both the gundams and the grunts.
They make me back to buy gunplas again after I've stop for more than 6 years.

Originally Posted by FalsePrime

As for story? I haven't watched most of it and I will admit the story could very well be one of the best in Gundam. That said I personally don't believe ANY Gundam is all that good storywise and for me Gundam is largely about presentation and AGE fails at that completely.

For storywise, I've to say the Novel of Gundam AGE is one of the best.
Despise it has the same structure as its anime counterpart for what and where the main events happen, the contents such as characters depth, worldview, technological information and etc are so different that you can call this as a full remake.

To say that it'is "Gundam AGE complete edition" is not an overstatement. It is what happens when AGE can use its potential fully and definitely not a gundam that kids can watch anymore.
I'd like to recommend it to both AGE lovers as well as haters.