Melee in Gundam 00
 

Is it me or is the entire design of the Exia rather stupid, given the functions of the GG particles? If those things jam communications and wipe out radar signals, then why the hell would you want to charge into visual range like a complete moron? If you have full stealth capabilities, why the hell do you have a bright red white and blue gundam charging into visual range rather than abusing the living crap out of its stealth capabilities and obliterating enemies ala Dynames or Virtue? The other MSes don't have GG particles, so they're easily detectable on radar, so why the hell would you need to melee enemy MSes rather than blast them BVR style as Dynames or Kyrios do or wipe everything out before people know what hit them Virtue style?

Is it me, or is the design of the Exia just a blatant attempt at preserving the "original" gundam design, when there is absolutely no reason to keep that design around, since the enemies' MSes DON'T have the radar-jamming capabilities that minovsky particles granted, or even the high-performance to really be able to force a melee showdown, as Virtue and Dynames demonstrate time after time?

Well MS aren't exactly the most practical war machines anyways.

meh, it wouldn't be a good clean shonen robot action then. :\

The idea of making giant suits of robotic armor in bright colors for military applications is a bad one to begin with. nothing to do but suspend your disbelief. :eyespin:

Because Exia looks silly standing there firing its pee-shooter all the time.:uhoh:

And seeing how all of Setsuna's 3-faction nemesis (Graham, Sergei, Ali) all try to melee seems like to me their best way to take down a Gundam.

We haven't seen what the other Gundams are capable in melee combat, but I see the reason Exia held those guys off were because of its immense arsenal of melee weaponry.

My theory is that that's exactly what the Exia is made for; charge into full visual range and distract all enemies on the field with the high visibility of its colour scheme, and keeping them preoccupied with its high-showmanship-value melee capability so that they'll be too busy to scope out Dyname's position from the trajectory of its sniper shots. If you've noticed, Exia and Dynames always take on complex missions as a pair; to a lesser extent, it's the same pairwork with Kyrios and Virtue.

Meh. *shrug*
When it comes to Gundam, one typically switches off the logic circuits in the brain while viewing. :heh:

Well they do often pair up, but they split up and engage in their own fights anyways, and are all attacked by the enemy, except in the first episode where Dynames didn't even seem to be part of the mission....but helped anyways.

Because melee is cool? Or the sight of Gundam charging at you can be a very good psychological tactic?

Yes, we totally need more Kira auto-aim spamming.......... :rolleyes:

Melee moves just look cooler in general compared to most ranged attacks. One sniper is enough! :p

It's funny that Dynames has more armor than Exia. There's a lot of weird stuff going on in this show. Any reason you find for something is probably just coincidence. I really doubt there's any rationale behind Exia's melee pwnage other than "lol melee".

On another note, why is CB the only side that arms their MS with missiles? D:

This whole idea of melee+stealth reminds me of deathscythe's stealth capabilities, like how the enemy pilots didn't know what hit them and just got slashed. lol Oh yeah blitz too. =o

Well, they had visual cloaking.

The only stealth here is radar/communications... which, I guess isn't bad, if Exia runs around in an enemy group causing confusion while Dynames snipes away.

Are you talking about the thing that named Infinity Justice?

Why must people care so much about trivial thing like that? =/

The terrorists' Hellions carried missiles to bomb HRL's elevator back in episode 1

Those weren't anti-MS missiles though. I find it pretty silly that no side is using missiles, especially when you look at how slow all the terrestrial MS move. It's not like missiles can't break their armor either... just look at episode 1, when a ground-based rocket launcher blows off the Anf's arm.

While not exactly shown yet, the Union Flag's profile does state that it can use missiles, which means we are likely to see more Union or AEU MS use missiles in the near future.

That would be true to Blitz, but I dont remember Deathscythe ever visually disappearing it just had the color black and was capable of not being detected in radar.

Don't remember if Deathscythe vanilla ever had visual cloak, but Hell did. Cheesemania.

I wouldn't call it trivial, because achieving suspension of disbelief is something a 'serious' show should strive to achieve. If it fails at that, the whole thing will come across as 'dumb' or "just because the plot requires it that way", like the durability of armor in Gundam Wing, which basically changes the way plot requires of it.

There is no real reason why anyone would want to get in to melee range if you can snipe your opponents from afar and have a much better technology than them to do so. The show has not established any in-universe reason for it to change (aside from the fact that, apparently, bullets, lasers and what not seem to move slower than an arm of a 50 feet metallic monster, making them easy to dodge ... yea ...).

Though this is a flaw of most Mecha shows (aside from presenting mecha as actually workable war machines)- for some reason melee always is superior for taking down enemies (Minus grunts - those die to ranged fire just fine), for the sole reason of it looking more cool than firing from afar.

Alternatively we can conclude that Setsuna is too emo to be capable of standing still sniping at enemies anyway, so they didn't bother to outfit Exia with decent ranged capabilities. Why bother if you know the pilot will rush in like a headless chicken anyway :p

Because this is a mecha/super robot show where the suit is just the extension of its wearer and thus it is appropriate and heroic to see Gundam charge in melee trying to cut each others (whereas in more SF show they'll just shoot each others to death) ?

Deathscythe strawberry definitely had it.

On another note I think Setsuna just prefers to go upfront with his enemies instead of just attacking them from behind. x.x;;

lol only complete morons would build giant humanoid mecha for battle anyway :eyespin:

And why would any real world law of combat apply in a mecha anime, and in this case arguably a super robot anime? :p

I'm not talking real world. I'm talking in-universe here. In all other universes, melee action was viable due to the fact that the enemy MSes jammed homing weapons or couldn't be locked onto due to some particle or another.

In terms of Infinite Justice (and Gundam Epyon for that matter), those suits while they were melee-oriented, weren't these little glass gundams. If they got into close range on any target, it was pretty much over for them. Not to mention that Epyon more or less had armies of mobile dolls to provide ranged backup, and infinite justice has meteor, but I digress.

In terms of Gundam 00's universe, meleeing makes no sense. The gundams have stealth, comm jamming, and a whole bunch of other properties by virtue of their GG particles, whereas the OTHER MSes do NOT. This is why I'm not surprised to see Kyrios missile-spamming (when the hell did a gundam do that the last time?) or why Dynames is such ownage.

It seems Exia is simply the token red white and blue melee gundam, but given the circumstances, why do we need melee?

Because 00, while a bit different, is still Gundam. No ace pilots fall to cumbersome beam cannons, let alone crappy missiles.

Missile spamming is common in Gundam. Duel and Buster could both do it (not even going to mention METEOR). Didn't do jack against anything more powerful than a GINN though.

Technically, it's GN particles that block radar, and since Exia would spew these particles, it wouldn't be able to see anything on radar either. Then again, restricting combat to visible range doesn't make melee combat viable to begin with, but that's a problem common to all Gundam shows.

Strangely enough, the only Mecha franchise where I don't see much melee combat is Macross - for a show that was originally conceived as a parody of Mobile Suit Gundam, it can feel awfully authentic.

Well first theyll start off with cyborgs, later cyborgs getting bigger and bigger.

It came down to 2 things: plot and mecha designers.

Plot: The token white and blue Gundam. Pretty much the most traditional thing in most of the Gundam series, it has been put into place since 1979. It's like, the thing that makes a Gundam anime, a Gundam anime.

Mecha designers: If you notice carefully, some of the mecha designers pretty much designed some giant robots (that are not Gundams) for SRW or something - something which mecha design can take a backsest in terms of logic. There are some mecha designers that pretty much kill logic, while some tries to give their mecha designs some sense (if I remembered correctly, melee are the last choice of fighting a battle in 08th MS Team (which we know) and probably Sentinel (because they have the advanced weaponry...although the FAZZes were took out due to the lack of them)).

Pretty much.


However, I don't think Exia, or atleast its pilot, fight in the intended way. Setsuna was paired up with Lockon for a reason. My guess is that Exia was designed to support Dynames at close range, for whenever any enemies slipped on through while Dynames was sniping, so that the Dynames can keep on sniping uninterupted(kinda hard to dodge and shoot miles away at the same time, y'know) and not get totally destroyed in the process. Simply put, I'd imagine Exia as Dynames close range protection unit.

The only reason it's not doing that(storywise, not direction wise, because we all know that direction wise it's to sell model kits) is probably because Setsuna doesn't like to do things the effective way.

Exia is melee coz swords are a pride of japan and japan doesnt believe in god, so hero musnt believe in one too, all japan main characteristics. I cant argue even if i wanted to.

Exia in all the combat situation should have used its gun more often in battle, rather than charging the enemy and following up with secondary slice or stab. In the battle situation, Setsuna would have dispose enemys far quicker by shooting, sure he can go back to finish them. Exia could support the other units, but it is pointless with Kyrios flying and bombing all the ground opponents with burst attacks. Exia is that important to Dynames evasive strategy, Haro pilots the main controls so Lockon can be trigger happy against the enemies.

If they are the pride of Japan, sure maybe as a belief, but when you consider warefare. It looks like a butter knife against buster rifles, particle cannons, gatling guns, and other weapons adopted through each series.

You should stop watching Gundam 00, it's eating your sanity.

You shouldn't click on the button "Post Quick Reply" or "Submit Reply", because it'll make you looks smarter.

well they'll grow wings and tentacles first. It's okay to be big, but big humanoid? a big octopus wielding eight light sabers will crush a big human anytime :p

I think the reason is that Haro can do a better job to protect Lockon than Setsuna... or so far no weapon can effectively damage the Gundam anyway...:heh:

No weapon as of yet at least!

I've killed a bit too many cat-girls lately, so instead...

Maybe Exia+Setsuna's "true" mission is... to catch the attention of the expert MS pilots among the opposition! This allows the true Gundam Meisters to do their work unimpeded. Any enemy kills Setsuna achieves is just a bonus.

Weak... young... vulnerable (relatively)... pretty dress... he's already "trapped" Union's ace pilot Graham (melomelo over young pilots) and "I've got a shouta harem assassin squad" Ali. While Sergei has resisted so far, he's currently being tempted by a certain artificial loli...

As soon as he looked like being "taken", Exia's self-destruct will be engaged.

I don't think Setsuna the type to pull off a Heero tactic though, look how rashly he fights. So far, experince soldiers sould beat him, that means the melee tactic he uses must be a novice, except for a better unit.

Yeah, Setsuna don't mature yet... Well, it's only 6 episodes till now.

Well, Setsuna is just a bad pilot in general. And as for Haro doing all the dirty work when Lockon does the shooting, it's still kinda hard to take aim while moving. He doesn't have to multitask, but that still doesn't mean it's not harder to shoot while moving then while standing still.

Well see, that's just the problem there. The Anfs in episode 1 apparently can't even tank a ground-based rocket battery.

I believe that Exia isn't fully armored because it would defeat the purpose of it being THE melee Gundam of the 4. If anybody wants to be fast, or wants to be fast to actually end the mission within the specified time range Sumeragi predicted, then hell yeah, do off with the cumbersome armor and just fight the enemies already. :heh: Additional armor puts on extra weight on the Gundam and would make it slower, and would definitely put the Exia under fire a lot then trying to achieve the mission objective at that, too. Exia sacrificed a lot of additional protection/armor in place for speed, and speed is what a melee Gundam is all about. the GN particles and its job - jamming radar and such - make it useful so that the MS under attack would not be able to alert other reinforcements, thereby ending the mission quickly. So I do not see why the in-universe explanation of the GN particles does not work.