Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway's Flash Anime - News & Discussion

[Frontier]

Netflix will be premiering the movie.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Oh good. I don't need to rush to theaters or wait for the BD to come out.

[Infinite Zenith]

This is fantastic news Streamed right into my living room is the best way to do things.

[AHT]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/h1n6kPZhmOc

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Oh good. I don't need to rush to theaters or wait for the BD to come out.

How do you know? They didn't announce a date. It could very well come out at the same time as the BD, if not later.

[ars89]

releasing on July 1

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Kanon

How do you know? They didn't announce a date. It could very well come out at the same time as the BD, if not later.

I mean, the Netflix will release it on July 1st, right? Meanwhile, there's not a word on the BD release yet since this is a brand new movie.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

I mean, the Netflix will release it on July 1st, right? Meanwhile, there's not a word on the BD release yet since this is a brand new movie.

My bad, the trailer I saw just said "coming soon" so I thought they hadn't announced a date.

Good to know it actually is soon, because Netflix tends to use that word pretty liberally.

[LG-MAX 2.o]

Gundam: Hathaway Film Earns 190 Million Yen on 1st Day in Japan: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...-japan/.173870

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Kanon

My bad, the trailer I saw just said "coming soon" so I thought they hadn't announced a date.

Good to know it actually is soon, because Netflix tends to use that word pretty liberally.

Oh wow, looks like you're actually right, Kanon. Based on ANN article above, the Limited Edition BD will go on sale on June 11th. Way earlier than the Netflix release .

I guess that's what you get for delaying a movie this long. The BD already slated to come out barely a month of the movie's release.

Though I gotta say 190 million Yen on first day during pandemic is pretty respectable for a UC Gundam movie that requires a lot of previous 40+ years of Canon knowledge to follow.

[LG-MAX 2.o]

You can follow the performance here in real time: https://mimorin2014.blog.fc2.com/

Gundam is also being the most watched movie on Saturday.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

I just saw the movie without English subtitle so I only understand the conversation a little bit. I gotta say the direction is superb, the voice-acting is top-notch, sound design is impeccable and the battle animation is great and even breathtaking in parts.

We spend so much time on the characters which is not a bad thing at all. In fact, the on-screen chemistry between Hath & Gigi reminds me a lot of Lelouch & CC (especially when Hath is supposed to be the leader of a terrorist organization, like Lelouch) but less over the top and more grounded. Of course, HF was written much much earlier so Code Geass is probably the one that took some inspiration from the HF novels. Other characters like Kenneth & Mafty members are also enjoyable to follow.

As I said earlier, the animation is great, but there is a segment in the middle of the movie when Hath went to the beach and boarded a sailboat where the animation became iffy. You've seen this in the very first teaser of HF where they tried to merge & composite handdrawn characters & sailboat, photorealistic scenery, and CG ocean water that don't blend quite well and can be a bit of an eyesore. Thankfully, that segment was kept short. Speaking of visuals, I'm actually pretty disappointed with Hath's pilot suit. I get that it's supposed to be more practical & comfortable, but I adore the Macross-inspired pilot suit from the novel & really want to see it animated but I guess beggars can't be choosers. It's good enough that Xi's design is closer to the novel than the Katoki design.

The sound FX that they created for the Minovsky Flight is pretty nice although it can be a little bit Bayformers-ish. We also got new beam shot sound which is....fine, I guess. It's not as iconic as Gundam's beam rifle or Unicorn's Beam Magnum sound.

As for the MS battles themselves, most of the MSs are CG, so be prepared for it. Still, it's not necessarily bad. The battle direction is stupendous and every action & explosion matters. We got a lot man-on-the-ground POVs which made the Suits (which are already gigantic for UC standard) look even bigger & scarier. Many of the battles happened at night so the MSs will obviously be obscured but you'll see some beautiful lightshow where sparks, missiles, explosions and even Minovsky Flight particles look awesome on screen. One more thing: do not expect a hype reveal of Xi Gundam like you saw for Unicorn Gundam or Freedom Gundam. Just like Zeta Gundam in its own show, Xi Gundam's reveal is pretty understated & lowkey. It just got out of the containment and started shooting. Could've been better but what we got is not bad at all.

As expected of the first entry in a Trilogy, the ending doesn't feel like an ending but it was a good stopping point. Once I saw the movie again with proper sub, I might add more points. But, at the end of the day, HF movie 1 is a great watch.

[LoweGear]

So I know that this is only the first of three planned movies for Hathaway's Flash, but honestly as far as story this is probably the weakest Gundam movie I've ever seen, even below Narrative. It can pretty much be summed up as a 90 minute Prologue, the kind of stuff you normally see done in the first 30 minutes of a movie. I mean sure, I give props to the movie for being so lavishly detailed, very atmospheric at times which definitely sells the world these characters move in, but it doesn't hide the fact that a lot of the things the movie chooses to focus on could've been compressed or cut out entirely. Basically, I would sum up the movie as "inefficient", with too much padding, and the story that's there is just mostly name drops and mysterious-acting vague intentions that for the most part don't make sense even with knowledge of prior Universal Century series.

Since Char's Counterattack I've never really seen Hathaway as a very sympathetic character, and unfortunately the movie does nothing to change that. Frankly, none of the characters really made me sympathize with them, with the only one being close to me caring for was Kenneth Sleg, who at least has his act together and is easy enough to understand.

As far as the mech battles there are actually only two of them, with the main standout of the movie being the Raid on Davao. They definitely put a lot of effort that entire sequence, with the ground-level view of the action and the darkness interspersed by lighting making it feel like you're watching a modern kaiju disaster movie, and it's probably the most visceral portrayal of what a mobile suit battle looks like from a person's perspective from the ground. On the other hand, the ocean battle between the Xi and the Penelope really did not impress much, namely because most of the battle takes place at night with an attempt at realistic lighting over the ocean. The result is that it's really hard to actually appreciate most of the details due to the darkness, with the only good part being their very first saber clash, when you finally see both Gundams in their glory lit up by their beam sabers. I do give props to how they portrayed the Penelope though, which actually had this alien-like quality to it especially with the glow and distinct noise of its Minovsky Flight System. Just kinda sad though that it's difficult to appreciate the mecha in this show when most of the time you can't even see them properly.

Animation-wise, this is imho the best-looking Gundam movie so far, with a LOT of effort put into environmental detail and character animation. The mobile suit battles are animated well too and make good use of 3D CGI with some scenes even seamlessly integrating both 2D and 3D animation, but sadly the setting of the combat sequences as mentioned does kinda dull the mecha combat.

So overall, as a standalone movie, I rather rank it quite low among the various original Gundam movies in existence, because it's essentially a movie that'll require the sequels to effectively give meaning to its rather odd position as a very long and extended prologue, unlike the other Gundam movies that were able to stand on their own two feet as full-length theatrical features.

Also, Jollibee.

[LG-MAX 2.o]

Gundam: Hathaway Film Earns 524 Million Yen Toward Topping Its 1st Weekend: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...eekend/.173932

[Tactics]

Finally watched Hathaway Flash and ...

I really have to gave applause to everyone involved with the movie, not because the movie is impeccable but because of its precision.
Every part of the movies is like gear(s) working on a machine, aiming to tell everything possible under responsibility as "introduction" part. Very precise to the point there's so little room for error; this is the first time I ever felt like this when watching an anime movies. As if I'll missed a lot of information if I ever bat an eye out of screen for a moment.



The sound department is great, not as iconic as Unicorn but deliver each scenes pretty well.
I'm not familiar with source material (only followed it through SRW and summaries) but is Gigi always like this? To hear Ueda Reina's A-performance is great but its jarring for me when Kensho Ono (Hathaway) and Junichi Suwabe (Kenneth) talking casually. They surely reminds me of Lelouch, C.C. and Suzaku trio from Code Geass but C.C. response is more natural compare to Gigi.



Animation OTOH is superb but clearly on experimental phase.
You can expected "Oh yeah, the animation gotta be nice here" after so many clean shots but Sunrise decided to play it safe because they acknowledged gap between 2D, 3D also photorealistic delivery. Can't say I hate such decision because audience satisfaction matters and it made future of Gundam movies looks promising.

Now the 'negative' aspect. I felt the same with LoweGear about this movie content.

I'm fine accepting whatever delivered by this movie as I got enough understanding about UC but for people expecting action stuffs like SEED or IBO, it sucks.
Who the hell is Char Aznable? What made Mafty often compared to this Char dude? Why Hathaway stealing MS sounds heroic when in SEED Kira get scolded for taking Strike Gundam? What happened to this Quess that name dropped by Hathaway several times? Who is that rainbow guy telling Hathaway to not die yet? Minovsky Particle, what's that? The list goes on ...

First 15 minutes of movie, I'm amazed by how you can easily notice Mafty already make appearances on screen just by paying attention to everyone body language (which Kenneth and Gigi noticed as well), so I thought maybe we'll get less technical stuff that requires you to have knowledge about UC through show, not tell for everything not related to Char. Turned out nope, can be said no brake to such details. Good for you, UC fans, consider it warning for casuals. LOL.

The fight also disappointing for an understandable reason. The realistic take of MS is amazing, reminds me of SEED Stargazers (no tanks involved though), but fact that the fight is happened at night made it underwhelming as realistic take of overall animation made it like you're expected to see two vehicle crashed in middle of dark night; how do you know what happened without good lighting to provide enough closure? Too bad because Penelope and Xi redesign is pretty cool but Attack on Davao is where the light is up.

It was a nice ride but I agree that Narrative is better movie in delivery of its content compare to this.
I personally expected next movie to upped the narrative and solve that MS fight "issue", or someone maybe can watched it in 4K? To see if it became more visible?

Outside that is minor nitpicking, like, before the music is up maybe some little touch like the pilot turned on MP3 player to make it more enjoyable.
Kinda funny when I noticed Gigi is like using latest iPad but someone in Earth Federation use PC that looks like from Windows 98 era? Damn, corruption is running deep.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

After watching it with subs, I don't feel that much different from my first review of the movie above. It's a great watch and I still like the movie a great deal. The dialogues are actually pretty natural for Tomino's standard. It reminds me of the dialogues in the first MSG back when Tomino's writing was still pretty "modest".

Some people who came in expecting balls-to-the-wall giant robot action will most likely be disappointed. But I really like this kind of "SoL & espionage"-approach of this movie. The last time we saw a proper SoL within the animated UC anime was Gundam 0080 which was decades ago at this point. So I'm glad that we actually get to "breathe" within the world of UC in this movie (albeit from the POV of the jet-set people instead of the blue-collar family like Alfred in 0080) and get to see what a city in UC truly looks like (we only got glimpses of Neo Hongkong in Zeta & Narrative). I really appreciate the "stop to smell the roses"-approach of this first HF movie in a trilogy. I also like the little espionage element. Watching Hath (try) being all cautious in his every step is nice. Especially when he try to find a way to deal with Gigi. Looks like he really has a knack for detecting problematic girls that he just can't leave alone.

Maybe the reason I like this movie is because I came in not expecting my "ideal Gundam movie". Instead, I gave the movie a chance to showcase its story & its action however it wanted to do. And the story was presented really well and the action was greatly directed & on-point given the intention of showcasing more realism than ever before attempted by any other Gundam anime medium.

Speaking of action, this is probably the first time the Sulawesi & Maluku parts of my country are used as backdrops for the climactic action scenes considering how "obscure" those parts of Indonesia archipelago are to the cinematic world. They even mentioned some specific cities & islands like Manado, Halmahera & Tidore. That's a deep cut right there. Those who don't know might think all of them as mere fictional regions .

Originally Posted by LoweGear

So overall, as a standalone movie, I rather rank it quite low among the various original Gundam movies in existence, because it's essentially a movie that'll require the sequels to effectively give meaning to its rather odd position as a very long and extended prologue, unlike the other Gundam movies that were able to stand on their own two feet as full-length theatrical features.

I'd still put Gundam F91 at the bottom of the list. Unlike NT & HF, that movie has no clear goal whatsoever. The story is all over the place and many of the characters are just bland and some of them have the most random motivation. Watching Gundam F91 movie is akin to watching random stuffs happening just for the hell of it. Screw Seabook. I'd rather have Hathaway as an MC. At least Hath has more personality, more motivation, more inner conflicts, more swag and more things he planned to do for himself & his organization.

Originally Posted by Tactics

I'm fine accepting whatever delivered by this movie as I got enough understanding about UC but for people expecting action stuffs like SEED or IBO, it sucks.
Who the hell is Char Aznable? What made Mafty often compared to this Char dude? Why Hathaway stealing MS sounds heroic when in SEED Kira get scolded for taking Strike Gundam? What happened to this Quess that name dropped by Hathaway several times? Who is that rainbow guy telling Hathaway to not die yet? Minovsky Particle, what's that? The list goes on ...

First 15 minutes of movie, I'm amazed by how you can easily notice Mafty already make appearances on screen just by paying attention to everyone body language (which Kenneth and Gigi noticed as well), so I thought maybe we'll get less technical stuff that requires you to have knowledge about UC through show, not tell for everything not related to Char. Turned out nope, can be said no brake to such details. Good for you, UC fans, consider it warning for casuals. LOL.

I mean, a simple google search will easily tell you that HF is not a movie for casuals or newcomers (and it has no obligation to pander to newcomers either). Just like how Avengers: Infinity War was not really for MCU newcomers, but those newcomers still came and watched the movie anyway.

Originally Posted by Tactics

I'm not familiar with source material (only followed it through SRW and summaries) but is Gigi always like this?

Gigi is your typical Tomino's eccentric girl character, really. For example, Lalah also liked to tease Char when they weren't in combat situation like what Gigi did to Hath. Then you have Four Murasame who was pretty flirty too when she wasn't off her meds. And of course, you have Quess Paraya, Hath's former crush.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

I mean, a simple google search will easily tell you that HF is not a movie for casuals or newcomers (and it has no obligation to pander to newcomers either). Just like how Avengers: Infinity War was not really for MCU newcomers, but those newcomers still came and watched the movie anyway.

How was the movie advertised? If they said it's a sequel to Char's counterattack, then there's no room for complaints. Even if they didn't do that, it's Gundam, there are tons of entries, so I'd think most people would look it up rather than blindly go to the theater.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Kanon

How was the movie advertised? If they said it's a sequel to Char's counterattack, then there's no room for complaints. Even if they didn't do that, it's Gundam, there are tons of entries, so I'd think most people would look it up rather than blindly go to the theater.

From the trailers alone, they blatantly stated that HF 1 is following the CCA movie. If that's not enough, in one of the trailers, they outright showed us the CCA footage before cutting to the HF parts.

[LG-MAX 2.o]

Gundam: Hathaway Film Sells Over 53,000 Blu-ray Discs Just in Theaters: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...eaters/.174070

With the movie's success, Shochiku/Sunrise probably won't need to rush to find a streaming/licensor for the next movie and the official arrival of the next one could take a while here in the west.

[ars89]

So I liked it but didn't love it. I liked the pov from the ground of the fights, but since both main fights were at dark It didn't really pop. Plus you really can't get a great look at both gundams. Since this is a trilogy i can give them a pass for less fights in this one, but hope the other 2 have more. It did overall looks amazing albeit a few areas.