You're listening to season ten of Mobile.
Suit breakdown, a weekly podcast covering the entirety of Sci-Fi mega franchise mobile suit.
Gundam from 1979 to today.
This is episode 10.11, paying the toll, and we are your hosts. I'm Tom, the iconic podcaster whose personality most resembles a mobile suit having a breakdown.
And I'm Nina, new to Victory Gundam. And I rarely mind living in an.
Apartment building rather than a freestanding house.
But the construction noise this week had.
Me longing for an existence without shared walls and floors and ceilings and boilers.
I don't think I'm longing for an.
Existence without a boiler, actually. Thanks. I enjoy hot water.
Shared boiler.
Well, but anybody's boiler can break down.
But if it were our boiler, we could determine the repair schedule.
I'm pretty sure it's the repair guy who determines the repair schedule.
We could put off the repair until the episode was done. Cold showers. It's a small price to pay for.
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This week we are covering victory episode eleven, schrakutai no Boheki or the Shrike team bulwark. The episode was written by Oka Akira, storyboarded by Kase Mitsuko, the original chief director of 0083, Stardust Memory, and directed by Egami Kiyoshi. The animation director was Osaka Hiroshi, Victorys character designer. And now the recap. Battered but unbroken, the Camion convoy and its shrike team escorts completes the journey to the DD rendezvous point. Shakti seems preoccupied, thinking about everything they left behind at the goat, the chickens. She wants to go back. Uso is determined to stick with the league militaire. Shakti accuses him of only caring about getting to see Miss Katagina again. For a moment, Uso's face betrayed. Praise him, but he assumes an innocent countenance and denies the charge. He just wants to learn more about his parents. Maybe the league militaire people know something. Didi turns out to be an old airfield at Bohenia, some 50 miles due south of Uig, guarded by James guns, federation forces, mobile suits. The gathering is less impressive than they might have hoped. Besides the James guns, there are only a couple of transport planes with their crews and three complete victory gundams. Until now, the Camion team has believed the plan was to consolidate resistance forces here at DD before launching an all out attack on the yellowjacket. Base at Largaine, expelling the invaders and securing Europe. To their dismay, the Federation transport pilot, Lieutenant Gomez, says that his orders are to retrieve the victory units and transport them to Ireland, where they will be loaded onto a federation ship and sent into space. After all, this civilian level resistance is no match for the professional Bespa forces. It is obvious enough that Gomez doesnt want to be here, and as Romero stalks away in a foul temper, the Federation pilot snarls that this is all the fault of that fool hungerg Eben. If he had just stuck to his duties. Ouco whirls around. Excuse me, excuse me. He tugs on Gomezs vest. How do you know that name? But Gomez just shakes him off, leaving Uso to wonder how it is that a Federation soldier would know his fathers name. The tension between Marbet and Oliver hasnt dissipated yet, and its obvious that the source of the trouble is his commitment to the shrike team. The shrikes themselves are amused by the tiff, but they are quick to get to work loading the three victory gundams onto the waiting transport planes, all the while rebuffing unwelcome flirtation from the planes crew. Uso wanders the hangar looking more childish than ever, asking every Federation crewman he can find if they know the name of Hunger Geben. One after another, they brush him off just like Gomez did. Cant he see how busy they are harassing these beautiful and stylish women? Odello interrupts the haphazard interrogation and drags Uso outside for a private conversation. Hes worried about Warren and Susie. If Uso is going to go looking for his parents, he should at least have the good grace to do it when the young orphans arent watching. Besides, its embarrassing seeing him suck up to those federation scumbags. Uso only seems to hear the second part. Im not sucking up to them. Theres just something I want to ask them. But when he tries to walk away, Odello tackles him. The sound of the boys fighting attracts first the shrikes, who place bets on which boy will win, and then Shakti, flanked by Haro and Flanders, who looks with horror and disgust on this violent creature who used to be the sweet boy next door called Uso. Elsewhere, a team of yellowjackets from Pipinidens unit is hunting for the league military convoy, the scars from Dupres final battle point south, and when a loose lipped local in a sleepy bar confirms that he saw a truck carrying mobile suits headed in that direction just half a day ago, the scouts realize the league must have been headed for the old airfield at Bohenia. Lupe puts out the call for reinforcements before casually executing everyone in the bar. Back at the airfield, Leonid chats with Uso as he tends the scrapes and bruises from his scuffle with Odello. It turns out that he and the other old men also knew hangar Geben, but never suspected he had left a son behind in an out of the way place. Like Kasarelia, Leonid remembers him as a careful man who used his connections with the Federation to help establish the league militaire. But no one knows where he's gone now, if he's even alive or dead. A man like him, Sanskar wouldn't hesitate to use the guillotine if they caught him. And they know nothing about Uso's mother, Mira Miguel. The conversation leaves Uso stewing as he wanders around the woods, idly kicking trees. He runs into Odello again. The older boy scowls at him, and at first it seems like hes come to finish their fight away from prying eyes and interfering girls. But then his expression softens. Your dad worked for the public transport corporation, didnt he? At RD Gibraltar? Thats the headquarters for the whole eurozone. I think its worth checking out. USO accepts the olive branch and they are friends again, just in time, because the forest shakes with sudden violence and the sound of not too distant explosions alert everyone to the arrival of Bespa forces. The Katarl team is first to arrive, their light battle bikes now augmented by an enormous galaxy mobile armor. Lupe's thomliots are not far behind. The shrikes race for their gun easy mobile suits, determined to protect the transport plane until it can get away with the three intact victory units. This was their original mission, after all, and no one can muster much confidence in the James guns defending the airfield. Lieutenant Gomez wants to take off immediately. His orders are to get the victories out of there, and he refuses to stick around to fight. Basakti, Flanders, Haro and the baby Karlman are all missing. Without a second thought, Uso hops on his waapa and goes looking for them, followed moments later by Odello and company. Over the ineffectual protests of Romero and Oliver, the agile battle bikes cut the sluggish James guns to pieces, but they are in turn decimated by the shrikes, who seem to be everywhere at once on the battlefield. Odello catches up to Uso and manages to convince the latter to get back to his gundam and join the battle raging all around them. Odello and the others will find Shakti, but none of them are going to escape alive. Unless USO and the other fighters can hold off the yellowjackets, Shakti is deep in the woods, planting fireweed seeds and watering them with tears. Heedless of Carlmans sobbing harrows, entreaties, and flanders insistent, tugging on her sweater. Suzy hears the baby crying, but no amount of pleading or cajoling by the other kids can get Shaktis attention. Theyre nearly caught in a burst of gunfire from a passing Thomleyat, but even that has no effect on her. In the end, Suzy and Warren have to manhandle the distraught girl onto their Waapa Uso, shielding them with the body of his mobile suit, while shrike team officer Junco keeps the enemy at bay. They race back to the airfield just in time to see one of the shrikes, Helen, crushed inside her cockpit by a Thomliat's fist. But Helens sacrifice gives the rest of them Camion crew, Gundam pilots, largaine orphans and shrikes alike, the chance to get away. But they will not be going to Ireland with the planes damaged and more mobile suits on board than they had planned. They will be going south west toward the Alps, then the Pyrenees and beyond Gibraltar. The battle has left its scars on all of them. Oliver tries to comfort Junco, telling her not to cry as tears stream down his face. In the planes cockpit, Romero lays a comforting hand on Lieutenant Gomez's trembling arm. We're fighting a state that rules through terror. That's all there is to it.
I find Romero blissfully easy to understand.
Compared to a lot of old people in anime. Gosh, I feel like I've. Now that I have access to the japanese subtitles, I feel like I've leveled up. It's a secret tool that will help us later.
I'm positive it will, although I always feel a bit bad criticizing translations because it is so hard and translators are often under such tight deadlines or underpaid or both.
I hope that anyone who hears us discussing these translations realizes that we're not criticizing the translator. We are trying to improve our and our listeners understanding of these unclear lines. Yeah, and that we're not translators, and all we can do is, like, talk about what we think these things mean.
And we're not in any way interested in, like, putting this person on blast.
No, no, not in the least.
You do not need to share this with that person. Like, this is an old piece of work of theirs. I assume that most professional translators cannot spend the amount of time per episode that we spend on an episode.
Absolutely. I have heard horror stories about the formats in which things are presented to people. This is more common with video games. Right. But sometimes you'll get just an excel file of all the strings, which is to say, all the text. They have numbers that attach to them, but those numbers don't necessarily indicate they're, like, order in the script. So you may be translating lines with no idea of the context around them.
And I can imagine with anime, they might not provide you with the show. They might only provide you with a script. And so much of the context is visual. Like, no wonder. Sometimes things are confusing to a viewer because we have this whole other layer of information that the translator wasn't even given.
Yep.
With all those caveats, should we talk about a couple of the lines that stood out to us this episode because we both flagged different things that we felt like might be misunderstandings of the text or created additional confusion for us and probably for other viewers about what exactly is happening?
I think that's a good idea. There were a bunch of places in this episode where it seemed to me like the translation confused who or what was being discussed.
Yeah.
In a way that made the story harder to follow. For instance, there's a bit where this is when they've just arrived at the airfield and they've just gotten the news that they're going to be evacuating these victory gundams to Ireland. Marbet and Oliver are having a private conversation. It's pretty clear that there's a lot of tension between the two of them. And Marbet is like, if it were up to you, the shrike team would come first before everything else. But before this, we see the shrike team themselves listening in on this conversation and sort of giggling and elbowing each other like, shut up. You're gonna get us caught.
And one of them says yada, which is like, ew, or, ugh, gross, in the context.
And then the next line, I made.
Sure to write it down are demo pirate o dallo. Like, hey, they're also a pilot. The thing is, are does not specify whether they are talking about Marbet or.
Oliver or USo or Lieutenant Gomez.
We know that they are watching Marbet and Oliver. It's also drawn in such a way. One of the women has her compact out. They all have lipstick on. They all have perfect hair. These are all very, like, pretty, very feminine women who are acting, frankly, really catty and mean girly. And so contextually, I was positive they were talking about Marbet. That because Marbet is more tomboyish is not really trying to be pretty in the way that these women are trying to be pretty. They're like, ugh, about her. And then someone's like, come on, come on. She's still a pilot, right?
She's still one of our comrades. You have to respect her, or at.
Least don't talk like that about her behind her back. But then in the subtitles, they say.
He, another one happens early on, actually at the very beginning when the convoy is just approaching the airfield at Bahinia and Uso and Shakti are talking. Shakti wants to go back to Kasarelia and USO is like, oh, but aren't you curious about. In the subtitles he says, aren't you curious about my mother? In the Japanese he says oka san. But later in the conversation he actually says, and also I think the league militaire might know something about my parents. And when he says, my parents, he says, boku. No, he says like my. But when he says oka san, there's nothing to specify whose mother it is. And normally, if a child was talking to someone outside of their family about their own mother, they would not say oka san, they would say haha. Later, when Uso is talking to Leonid about his mother, he does say haha.
Mm hmm.
So I think when hes talking to Shakti instead of my mother, the way the translation renders it, I think hes talking about her mother. Arent you curious about your mother?
And it occurred to me as well. Again, context, right? And visual context. Previously, when we talked about fireweed, I initially thought because of the subtitling that Uso was talking about his own mother. But all those flowers we saw were in front of Shakti's house. He was probably talking about Shakti's mother, which further explains why the league military having information about Uso's family is not really of any comfort to her. And why when she has this mental break in the episode, she fixates on planting the flowers because it's about her mother rather than Uso's. But that wasn't super explicit in the text and then was further confused a little bit by the translation.
You had one more, didn't you?
I actually have a couple more. Okay. When Romero is talking to Gomez, when they first arrive, and Gomez is like, listen, my job is just to get those victories out of here. I'm just here to transport the mobile suits. Romero then says, and yet you've only managed to transport two of them. What Romero actually says is, but even so, you only have to Usoki. Usoki specifically is a transport plane. Hes not saying youve only managed to transport two victory gundams. But even though your job is to transport our mobile suits, you still only have two transport planes, which then makes Gomezs next line that, oh, the others had to go and collect the James guns that got left behind because of you people. Make more sense because outline doesn't make much sense at all if he's talking about mobile suits, but if he's talking about planes, well, yeah, then it fits perfectly.
I think you looked into this more and pulled it apart.
But I was confused.
In that conversation that USO has with Leonid in the subtitles, it sounds as though USo's father was a member of the federation forces and then helped set up the league militaire through his, like, contacts within the federation. But then later, Odello asks USo, or says to USO, oh, you think your dad's probably at Arty Gibraltar, right? Because that's where this neutral corporate transpo whatever is headquartered. And I was like, wait, how does that follow? How did they reach that conclusion about USo's dad? From the information we have.
I mean, I think this is a case of Odello knows information we don't have, and the Leonid conversation is a little misleading. In the subtitles, Leonid says that Uso's dad, like, put pressure on his colleagues in the federation forces in order to form the league militaire. But in the Japanese, I think it's more like he used his connections to identify like minded comrades within the federation forces, not that he was necessarily one of them, but that he found people who also wanted to resist Zanskar within the federation forces, and that was how he founded the league militaire. There's one more note I want to make about the translation, but this is not in any sense an error. I just thought it was interesting and that you might also find it interesting, which is that at the end, when Romero says in a line that I absolutely love, we're fighting a state ruled through terror. That's all there is to it, which is such a great encapsulation of this ethos. What we're doing is actually ideologically very simple. They're monsters and we are fighting them. That's all there is to it. The word he uses in Japanese when he describes a state ruled by terror is Kyofuseiji. Kyofusei can be a broader term. It can refer to, like, ruling through political terror in general, but it's also the specific term used for the reign of terror during the French Revolution.
Very fitting. I have one last translation consideration, and this is more just kind of, I think an interesting question, an interesting puzzle within the subject of how translation works and what its goals are, what its meant to do. Towards the end of the episode, when the shrike team learn that Helen has died, that shes the one who didnt make it, theres this weird kind of expository dialogue about her that feels to me quite awkward in English. Like, who talks like that? Why would anybody say those things in that way?
However, it is quite true to the japanese text.
It is a pretty literal translation of.
What is said in Japanese.
So my question becomes, does this sound awkward in Japanese as well, or not? I think that's the key issue, because Tomino is known for writing dialogue that is a bit like stilted and strange. It's not natural. That is not his style.
Naturalism, sometimes weird grammar. I think they call it Tomino bushi.
And so a translator could say, well, I want to be true to the feeling of the original text. And the feeling of the original text is that this is kind of odd and a strange way to speak. So I'll capture that.
Did you write down what she says?
I wrote down some of the translation, not the original Japanese, but describes her as the defining member of the shrike team, the one who was most like a shrike. If one were trying to make this sound natural in English, you have to take quite a few liberties. But things like, she was the best of us. She fought like a shrike to the end. You know, things that kind of emphasize that she was important to them, that she exemplified the team. But in a wording that sounds more natural. But I can also see a legitimate argument for saying, well, it sounds stilted.
In Japanese, so I kept it stilted in English.
Sure.
So I do not have the japanese fluency to say whether it sounds stilted in Japanese or not. But those lines bring up a very interesting question about how translation works and when do we adapt a text to better capture the feeling and to avoid sort of distracting from the emotion of the scene? And when don't we?
I don't know what it would mean to have a personality like a shrike. Besides, I don't know, impaling smaller creatures and leaving them scattered around the battlefield.
Like trophies, ruthlessness, aggression, jumping all over the place.
Because shrikes are very small, but they often fight things that are comparatively large compared to what other birds prey on relative to their own size.
Well, and they, as you said, because they impale creatures and then leave them impaled. There is this association with cruelty. Right. Which is us sort of imposing a human way of thinking things on an animal, of course. But then if we're going to invoke that animal as the name for a group of soldiers, that's what we're invoking, right?
You only notice this in retrospect, but Helen gets more characterization than the other shrikes in this episode. But it's subtle. But presumably those were the death flags. We can be on guard for that in future episodes. She's the one who, when everybody is watching USo in Shakti fight, she's the one who comes out a little bit late and is, like, itching all over because of the gross sexual harassment touching from one of these, like, gross federation officers.
Isn't she also the one who proposes she wants a kiss from Junko if she wins the bet?
See, I thought she was offering a kiss along with her lipstick if she lost.
Oh, maybe.
Either way, I think she might also have been the one going yada early on in the episode.
Again, if the vibe is cruel, ruthless, are shrikes one of those creatures that can kind of frenzy and kill more than it eats?
That is one of the folk theories for why they stash the critters. I don't know how accurate it is, but I think the theory is that they kill things whether they are hungry or not, and then stash them for later.
Okay, that's a bit different than what I was thinking of, but it does. That sense of excess combined with that sense of cruelty.
See, I think the shrike from the Redwall books, which is probably where most of us english readers of a certain generation first encounter the bird, that shrike definitely went into a frenzy and just killed whatever.
I was thinking more along the lines of ermine, ferrets, stoats, mustelids.
Many of them have extremely boopable snoots.
Extremely boopable, but also will go into a kind of frenzy and kill much more than they can eat. And they aren't necessarily stashing it and coming back later. It's just a thing that comes upon them once they start killing prey.
Yeah. The only potentially relevant thing I know about shrike behavior in the wild is that I think some species of shrike are polygynous, which is to say, multiple females mate with the same single male. Hmm. Wonder if that means anything.
Couldn't be relevant. I really appreciate that Oliver is also trying to hold back tears when they get the news about Helen. Trying to be tough. He clearly values that stoicism in the face of what it is they do, which is very dangerous, but also cares about all these women, all these pilots who work for him.
I was thinking again about what you said last week about how, for Oliver, the flirtation is actually a sign that his feelings toward the shrikes are not seriously romantic, that that's just like. That's what you do with pretty girls at work, and then you go home and you're serious with your wife. And I do see more of that in this episode, that his relationship with Marbet is much closer to one of equals. Like, they each have their respective spheres and their respective duties that don't necessarily always align, but that he treats her as like a partner in a way that he doesn't.
With the shrikes, she is not his subordinate and does not talk to him as though she is his subordinate. What is really funny and a little jarring to me about the shrikes is this constant back and forth between them acting like consummate professionals and them acting like high school mean girls. The kind of catty interaction that we talked about earlier. But then as soon as that is over, it's them all standing at attention, asking Oliver for orders.
Mm hmm.
For the most part, despite the extremely patronizing and creepy behavior of the men at this facility and the sexual harassment and everything, they all behave very professionally. They are very focused on their work.
Junko does punch that one guy out, and good for her.
Well, he is grabbing at her, and it seems she has already repelled him grabbing at her once before. I don't consider that unprofessional in this context. But then perhaps continuing what I mentioned last week about how exactly are they going to reconcile Uso's position in all of this? How are they going to reconcile him being a kid and him being a soldier? It really feels like them just hanging out. Watching the fight between Uso and Odello is one thing, deciding that it's not their place to intervene. Okay. Placing bets on it is a whole nother level.
Uh huh.
Followed by someone's comment that, oh, that's how boys are. As everything is dissipating, it doesn't feel as though, as a soldier, soldier USo should be allowed to brawl with Odello. And maybe everybody thinks they just need to let off steam. I don't know. But there is this definite tension there, and the fact that Junko always calls Uso boya, which means boy youngen kid, which can be affectionate if you're familiar with someone. It implies familiarity and closeness, or it can be derogatory if used inappropriately. The fact that he doesn't bristle at it seems to indicate he does not have a problem with this level of familiarity from junko.
I'm gonna steal a page from you again. USO is in between the statuses of pilot and child. And those statuses, are each of them wholly sufficient? It's not that either of them takes away from the other, at least in the eyes of the shrikes. And I go back to Junko elbowing Helen in the ribs and saying, hey, she's still a pilot for the shrikes. They are young, fashionable, stylish women, and also wholly separate. They are pilots. They go into pilot mode. I don't know. It makes me think of depictions of elite frontline warriors throughout history and the like, the vivaciousness, the living life turned.
Up to eleven, because you know how likely it is that you're going to die, right?
The doppel soldners. One great example of this is, like, hussars and other cavalry officers in, say, the napoleonic period. There's a famous quote from one of them that any hussar who lives to be 30 is a blackguard.
These are all groups known for being hard partiers, for causing problems. For in many cultures, if there were sumptuary laws, which is to say, laws that said only certain people of certain status could buy particular fabrics or wine or whatever, jewelry, often, if there were elite military units or elite mercenaries, they would be exempt from these laws. They were allowed to do things that usually only very high class people could do, because what they did was very dangerous and they probably weren't gonna live long anyway. And so they were given a lot of leeway, a lot of indulgence.
They dress flashy, they drink heavily, they have affairs, they have duels, they live fast, and they die young, generally. That's, I think, what the shrikes are.
Speaking of, that in betweenness for USO, when he starts trying to question all of these workers about his dad, the first thing that struck me was if some kid comes up to me pulling on my shirt, like, hey, hey, mister, why do you know so and so? I would be curious about why that kid is asking me that question, and I would want to talk to that kid. The lack of curiosity from any of these people is totally alien to me. Like, I do not understand it.
The a part and the b part. The before the eye catch and the after the eye catch parts, they belong to different genres, and they actually closely adhere to the rules of those genres, which are very different. The first half is a comedy. And so, yes, the federation forces officers not being curious at all, shaking so off and refusing to answer his perfectly reasonable questions that would take them 5 seconds to answer. It's extremely contrived, but it's the sort of contrivance you see and accept in a comedy because it's necessary for it to be funny.
Well, yeah. USo interrupting all of their attempts at flirting with the shrikes to be like, do you know, my dad is extremely funny.
The bit that really drove it home for me is when Uso's bothering this one guy, he's bothering one of the shrikes, of course. But as the guy is distracted by USo, the shrike hops onto one of those, like, lift lines and gets pulled up out of the way. And the guy does this very exaggerated, like, ugh, where have you gone? Reaching towards her feels like something Romeo would do in a stage production.
And that Uso is entirely ignorant of.
What he is interrupting.
He does not seem to notice at.
All that these men are bothering these women and that he is in turn bothering these men.
It's actually a very funny sequence.
I had difficulty finding it funny the first time I watched it because I was too busy being angry at all of the sexual harassment. But the second time through, yeah, it was pretty funny. And I say angry about it. I'm sure it was very true to its time. I'm sure that is an experience that a lot of women working in typically male dominated fields had. It's an experience a lot of women in male dominated fields still have, and that makes me so angry.
It's a little bit reminiscent of some scenes from 0083, and I feel like it's happened in other episodes, too. But here the men are portrayed as such pathetic losers.
The ridiculous of one of them telling a fighter pilot, essentially, ooh, be careful with that big, heavy hook.
Or telling Uso, hey, dont you see that? Were busy working here. While theyre all trying to flirt, it sells the comedy better than similar scenes have in the past. For me, at least, I think many.
Of the scenes with Moncho werent meant to be funny, and here they are. But I do think they do a reasonable job of selling it as comedic.
Then it flips hard for the back half of the episode and it becomes pure tragedy. The music, again, is really the core of this. There's this beautiful, very sad music that starts playing long before Helen dies because the tragedy starts with Shakti. Like, this girl is cracked. She has lost it.
She feels different even from the beginning of the episode when she brings up the farm animals and the farm itself. I can't help but wonder whether her concern is sincere or whether she's just trying a different tack because nothing else has worked on USO yet. And so this is the throwing spaghetti at the wall of like, well, if he doesn't care about x, y, and z, maybe he cares about a, b, and c. It's the first time she has openly expressed jealousy about his feelings for Katagina. I did notice Uso says, oh, if we plant. But he hasn't planted anything. He hasn't shown any interest in planting anything. He mentions it as this sort of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, like, oh, we'll always be able to find our way back. Everything will work out fine. Where before he was kind of torn between staying with the league militaire and going home, he no longer seems to feel that ambivalence. Now there's nothing drawing him back. And that scene of Shakti dissociating or going through something because she is not even noticing what's happening around her as she plants these flower seeds in the woods is so heartbreaking and is likely not literally about being able to get home, is not literally about a visual trail of breadcrumbs for her mother to follow, but about trying to create some thread, some connection to everything that she wants to get back to the physical place. But also the past, the time before the war touched their lives. Who she was before the war touched her life, who Uso was before the war touched her life before he turned.
Into such a scary person.
She wants nothing more than to go back to that. And in her head, at least, this small action that she can take feels like a lifeline, an anchor.
Shakti does not have a role in the league militaire. She's not a fighter. She's not a maintenance tech. She doesn't reload the guns or drive the cameon. She's there to take care of Karlman and Harrow and Flanders. And none of them really have roles either. They're just sort of tagging along. So planting the fireweed is something she can do.
It's also revealed that she not only hasn't given Uso the letter from Katagina, she's read it. I kind of love it because Shakti is so good, quote unquote. And this is such a. I mean, small in a way, but also, like, intimate betrayal.
Mm hmm.
I hate characters who are just one thing. It adds this nice little layer of complexity to her that I appreciate.
Speaking of adding a tiny little layer of complexity, did you catch that Uso's parents do not share the same last name?
Yup.
Probably means they're not legally married. Probably just a common law kind of arrangement.
If his father was as careful and cagey as seems to be indicated, he might not have wanted any paper record that he had a wife and child.
Mm hmm. Uso's mother's name is revealed in this episode to be Mira Miguel, and I feel obliged to inform you that there is a long running fan theory that Uso is actually Shar Aznable's grandchild via Nanai Miguel, whose daughter was Mira Miguel, whose child was Uso. Now, Tomino has denied this and has pointed out that Nanai Miguel and Mira Miguel spell their names differently. The Japanese is the same, but the English is different. Other fans have posited that maybe Uso is Nanai's grandchild, but not shars or something like that. But also just the similarity of names does not, to me, seem like enough evidence. Tomino loves to reuse names. He has used, like, six different variations on Cecilia over the years. He has named characters gavelet Gablet in, like, two completely different unrelated shows. As one of our listeners pointed out, after last week's episode, there were two entirely different machines, both called shackles, that the first shackles appeared at the end of Zeta. But then the shackles that Neo Zeon uses in Char's counterattack is completely different.
I would never assume that it had any relation to characters from the different show. There's been no indication whatsoever that any of the same people are involved in what's happening in victory as we're in those earlier Sha Ranamuro UC shows. This is a tendency in some fandoms that I find really funny, but it's like conspiracy theory, right? It's like, oh, every part of this whole thing must be connected in some way. And also, people love dynasties. You can probably tell by my tone of voice how I feel about that. But people love a dynasty. And so connecting our current protagonist to a popular character from previous shows is absolutely something a fandom would do, but is not a connection I jumped to or think is evident in the text.
Everybody of any importance has to be a skywalker or a Palpatine or a Calrissian or whatever, right? With all of your complaints about dynasties and everything being connected, how do you feel about Uso's dad being one of the founding members of the League militaire and that the whole polycule seems to know him?
I'm sure some of you Leo pointed when I brought this up earlier, but you may recall I anticipated Uso's parents and or Shakti's parents being involved in what's happening in some bigger way. So I actually think that's fine. I think that makes sense, given the little hints that we had about Uso's family, the weird bunker that they live on, top of the timing of their disappearance vis a vis the invasion, etcetera. I do find it interesting that he is so important that people are blaming him for what's happening and that this in turn brings up some already hinted at conflict between the league militaire and the federation. The league militaire appears to be primarily Europeans who want to defend Europe. This is about defending their home territory from this specific invasion. However, it seems like the federation would rather take them out into space and have them fight ZANSKar there. It's unclear if this is selfishness on the federation's part, that it's like, oh, if we can get this other force to do our fighting for us, so much the better. And Europe is not our priority. Beating Zanskar is our priority. So here we go. Or if this is a. Well, if we don't defeat Zanskar where they live, so to speak, they will just keep coming and we won't have more information about that until later, I'm sure.
But, I mean, we have no reason to trust the federation.
Oh, no.
And there was a long real world history of irregular forces being used essentially as cannon fodder by the professional army.
And there is bound to be conflict between these two kinds of organizations. One of them has been around for generations at this point, ossified, riven by internal politics, selfishness, etcetera. While one of them is, as you said, an irregular force, there is a nominal leader and there is somebody giving orders. But many of the subunits operate largely independently. They are not going to receive and then enact orders in the same way that a Federation soldier would, which we see with Romero interacting with the transport pilot, who I was frankly shocked to discover is apparently a lieutenant, even though he's like, I'm not taking any orders to fight. I am just here to transport stuff. I am out and is apparently terrified by being anywhere near battle.
It seems like the Federation forces probably hasn't done much fighting. That's been a recurring theme with them since the end of first Gundam, that the Federation army is like, big, but mostly just does garrison duty and doesn't really fight very much. The actual fighting is handled by these extremely small task forces. Like Inshar's counterattack, the fighting is mostly handled by Londo Bell while the rest of the federation just sort of hangs out.
Also somewhat surprising to me that the federation still maintains a facility in Ireland.
Tomino loves Ireland like they keep going back there.
Loves destroying it.
We always hurt what we love.
Two last points about Uso's father and the Federation. Leonid mentions that they don't know whether Uso's father is alive or dead. However, point in favor of him still being alive. It seems like if he is as important as they say, they would have made a spectacle of executing him like they did with Count Oinyung. That they haven't would give me some hope in this situation that he is still alive.
I mean, further points in favor of him being alive. There's very little narrative juice in him already being dead.
I don't know. See, I think if you let USO spend half of the series, or three quarters of the series looking for him only to find out that his father is dead, that would be so heartbreaking and horrible. And my final thing about the Federation, again, making sure we all remember that they cannot be trusted. They are disguising their transport planes, which, sidebar, look an awful lot like us space shuttles. They are disguising them as belonging to a neutral party, which I'm pretty sure is a war crime.
I'm gonna give you every lawyer's favorite thing to say, which is it's complicated and it depends. And it may be an unsettled point.
I mean, particularly because they are not then using that ship to attack someone they're not like attacking under a false flag. I can see how it's questionable, yes.
But the fact of the matter is.
That by doing that, they subsequently endanger every member of that neutral force, because now BesPA is not going to automatically say, ah, that's a neutral. We can't attack them. They're gonna treat every neutral as suspect.
That's definitely the argument in favor of it being a war crime. Part of it will turn, I think, on whether or not the PCST enjoys any special protections under international interside Federation law.
Dupre mentioned episodes ago that he expected that the corporation would refuse to transport Bespa mobile suits. So it's their policy, it would seem, unless they have a different attitude toward federation forces not to transport military material.
Well, they are an NGO, seemingly like, chartered under the federation, since the federation is just like an overgrown version of the unit. So it would make sense for their relationship with the federation forces and Zanskar to be different, especially because Zanskar is currently, like a belligerent and it seems like the federation is not another complicating aspect to the relationship between the federation. And the league militaire is. And then I'm dipping into the novels again for this. But before Zanskar invaded, UIG was already a hotbed of resistance, but of like, antifederation agitation. So to the extent that the league militaire is connected to the UIG resistance forces, the league military is not really pro federation, they're just anti Zanskar. And we're in a like, war makes strange bedfellows kind of situation. The lethargy and incompetence of the federation is somewhat better than the energetic tyranny.
Of Zanskar, though she was introduced previously. Gotta talk about Lupe.
Lupe Chinot.
Lupe Chinot, who is the lead sort of Bespa person who we see the most of in this episode.
I think she's formally Pippiniden's second in command.
I mean, with her shiny dark hair and the little curls, it was giving Betty boop for me. But you pointed out she's supposed to be Spanish. And so, yes, the very dark, glossy, wavy hair is still stereotypically spanish. She is impressively good at her job. We know this because of the reactions of her wingmen. When she's like, ah, you can tell by the trails left by the beam shots which direction they were going. And both wingmen are like, oh, this.
Feels like those early Sherlock Holmes where Holmes would be like, if you simply look at the footprints and compare them to the shoes of the people who are here, you'll see whose footprints they are. And the police are all like, my God, this man is a genius.
She knows how to go about getting local intel. She is ice cold. She doesn't even seem like stern or serious or regretful about killing all those guys in the bar. She almost seems happy to do it. Like, oops, almost forgot. Bang, bang.
She's kind of like soft spoken and almost flirtatious.
Well, she's very gentle. This is sort of what I mean about knowing how to get information. She's like, okay, anybody hanging out at a local bar in the middle of the day might know something. And if I just act friendly and offer them a drink, they may well tell me. She is excited by the prospect of fighting three gundams.
Well, shes a bit like the shrikes, isnt she?
Definitely, and I am frankly, on a story level, very glad that she ejected in time, because it would be a shame to introduce such a great character and kill her off almost immediately.
I'm also glad that Duker is still around and manages to survive this one as well.
And the teal haired gal.
For a show that has churned through its villains, it's nice to see a couple of them having enough staying power to develop real character personalities to be the kind of villains you can almost root for. I just want to see Dukkur, who, I have to admit, I think I got this wrong before. It's not ick, but Ik Dooker Iku, he shows up this week in an even bigger battle bike the galaxy. And it's just, I want to see this guy get bigger and bigger bikes every week. A larger motorcycle until it's a motorcycle.
So big a mobile suit could ride it.
Who could imagine such a ridiculous thing?
There were a few little visual things in this episode that just delighted me. I'm a sucker for the trope of simultaneous killing blows. And so those two pilots killing each other at basically the same moment. I'm like, oh, the tragedy. It's so good.
Which there is the japanese term for this aiuchi that I think Odello says when it happens. I think it's literally like meeting strikes, meeting blows.
That haro bites onto the handrail to hang on to one of the wapas as they're getting away. One of the shrikes, I don't know what it is she throws, but basically javelin throws one of the motorcycles to destroy it.
So the James Gunns were using these giant mobile suit sized shovels to, like, dig lanes or trenches or something.
I think they were flattening out the airfield. I think they were doing something with regards to the airfield, which a nod to mobile suits origins as heavy industry machines, right?
Yeah. So the shrike uses the shovel blade part of the shovel as a shield against the Vulcan fire from one of these bikes. And then when it's been reduced to just the handle, she throws it like a javelin. The way the whole battle in the back half is framed and constructed goes to emphasize that sense of tragedy with Shakti because it is really focused on Shakti. And then you just get these glimpses of the battle happening around. We spent a lot of time this episode talking about Uso's family, by which we mean his biological parents. But I think this episode also establishes Marbet and Oliver as a pseudo family for Uso. This has been building now for a few episodes, actually. When Oliver cracks USO across the jaw, USO calls out how much like a father he is being in that moment. Oh, he looks just like my dad when he's angry. But way back when they were first at the underground manufacturing facility, there's a shot of USO and Marbet sleeping in the same room together. And Uso is not with the other kids, he's specifically with Marbet. That sort of co sleeping family members sleeping in the same room together is, or at least was in the past, a very normal japanese practice. So there's already been a little bit of groundwork laid to establish them as USo's surrogate parents. But now all three of them get victory gundams. They're the victory Gundam family.
And in addition to the various tips and advice that they give him, there is also that scene drawing attention to USO's inexperience relative to the other two. And so his position as child reinforced by not just their advice and their tips, but when they're all launching from the transport on which the mobile suits have already been loaded, he stumbles coming off of it. He is startled by the AHA, it's moving, which we've seen many times before, usually in space, but it's that aircraft carrier style being launched from the deck of something. And he stumbles when he first exits the transport. He was not ready for that amount of speed and force pushing him along. That family angle, though, really hadn't occurred to me. So I'm glad you brought that up. That's interesting.
Uso kid, you spend this whole episode looking for your dad, but don't you see your family is all around you already? And now Nina's research on the Shrike team and the origins of their names.
Names in Gundam are often a fun source of research topics, and victory is no exception. This week, a quick rundown of the inspirations behind the names of the Shrike team pilots. Two of the pilots are Helen Jackson, Rip and Mahalia Merrill. These require a bit of rearranging. Swap the last names and you get Helen Merrill and Mahalia Jackson and you'll understand why we're confident about those names as the pattern emerges. Helen Merrill was born in New York to croatian parents, a jazz vocalist associated with the first generation of bebop music. She started performing in jazz clubs at age 14 in 1944 and released her most recent album in 2003. She toured Japan multiple times and even lived there from 1966 until 1972. She had, while touring, met and married Donald J. Bryden, the Tokyo based Asia bureau chief of United Press International. While in Japan, she continued to record and perform music, worked as a music producer, and co hosted a radio show for the Armed Forces radio and television service. After moving back to the US, she still toured frequently and returned to Japan several times, including in 1990, a performance.
Which you can actually watch on YouTube.
I will include the link in the show notes. As her Wikipedia page put it, Meryl developed a following in Japan that remains strong decades later. Mahalia Jackson was an american gospel singer who was, according to her profile, considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. Active from 1928 until 1971, just before her death in 1972, Jackson was a granddaughter of enslaved people who rose to preeminence in gospel music, remaining committed to the genre even as more lucrative rock and roll and blues opportunities were offered to her. She performed at a democratic national convention, performed at US president JFK's inaugural ball, and was very involved in the civil rights movement. She was the first gospel recording artist to tour Europe, and in 1971 she spent three weeks touring Japan, becoming the first western singer since the end of World War Two to give a private concert to the imperial family. As part of that same tour, she visited India and performed for indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Remarkably, I found an audio recording in an online archive from Jacksons visit to Japan. I havent listened to the whole thing, but the beginning is just candid chatter between Jackson and whoever was with her about their hotel, about the snacks they.
Were eating, about their impressions of Japan that will also be linked in the show notes.
Youre telling me there is a Mahalia Jackson reacts to Japan snacks audio out there and no one has turned it into one of those obnoxious YouTube videos with the thumbnail and everything.
It being audio only, it's rather difficult to know what exact snacks they're talking about. They're not terribly descriptive in the early.
Part of this recording. That's part of why I really don't.
Know what this recording was for. Maybe just a record of their trip or something. But because it's audio only and because they're not necessarily narrating everything that's happening in a way that feels intended for.
Someone who wasn't there to understand, super unclear what purpose this recording served.
I'm just saying it would be a great ad for one of those curated snack crates.
Don't give anybody horrible ideas.
You okay? Okay. But actually if you do it, you have to give me a cut.
Don't listen to him. That was an evil idea.
Next up, the subtitles may render her name as Kite, but if you listen to the japanese audio, you will hear Keito or the japanese pronunciation of Kate and her last name Bush.
Kate Bush is an english singer songwriter.
Record producer and dancer active from 1975 to today. She is an eclectic, award winning record setting and enduringly popular musician and performer. Bush is also credited with a performance innovation we take for granted today. Per her Wikipedia profile, Bush is regarded as the first artist to have had a headset with a wireless microphone built for use in music. For her tour of life in 1979, she had a compact microphone combined with a self made construction of wire clothes hangers so that she did not have to use a hand microphone. Having her hands free allowed Bush to dance her rehearsed choreography of expressionist dance on the concert stage and sing with a microphone at the same time. Kate Bush visited Japan in 1978, performing at the Nippon Budokan for the 7th Tokyo Music Festival and doing some print and tv ads for Seiko watches. That performance is also available on YouTube, and some of the articles I read about Kate Bush in Japan include scans of the print ads that she did.
Bet you anything this was all organized.
By Densoo Peggy Lee was an american jazz and pop singer, songwriter, composer and actress active for almost 70 years from 1936 until 2000. She passed away in 2002, at one point dubbed the Queen of american pop music, she sang with Benny Goodman's band, appeared in the popular 1952 remake of the film the Jazz Singer, and not only voiced multiple characters in the animated Disney film the lady and the Tramp, their speaking and singing voices, she also co wrote with Sonny Burke all the original songs for the film. Lee actually had to sue Disney as they refused to pay her any royalties on the 1978 vhs release of the.
Lady and the Tramp.
The case dragged on for years, but in 1992 Lee was awarded $2.3 million for breach of contract, plus $500,000 for unjust enrichment, $600,000 for illegal use of Lees voice, and $400,000 for the use of her name. One additional fascinating little mystery. Peggy Lee recorded a version of the popular japanese children's folk song Akatombo or Dragonfly.
Why?
I couldn't find any additional information about.
This recording, but I did find a.
Video of her singing the song live. Many of Lees albums received japanese releases. Her jazz recordings were especially popular, and there were also laser discs made of some of her live concert performances, again for the japanese market. Connie Francis, born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, is an american pop singer and actress active from 1943 until 2018. In 1960, Frances was recognized as the most successful female artist in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy, Italy, and Australia, and in every other country where records.
Were purchased, presumably where they could get the data.
She was the first woman in history to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The next story about her is a touch long, but I want to quote the whole thing. It is from an archived version of her official website. In the beginning of 1960, Connie had the good fortune of meeting legendary movie producer Joe Pasternak. Pasternak was responsible for discovering Deanna Durbin, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Powell, Judy Garland, and Katherine Grayson. He asked Connie to be in his forthcoming movie, where the boys are based on a then considered risque novel by Glendon Swarthout. Her father was opposed to it. He thought it was a dirty movie. But Connie defied him and indeed appeared in the movie and sang the title song. At first, Connie was skeptical about Fort Lauderdale. This place is a morgue, she told Pasterneck. I thought there'd be boys growing on palm trees.
I'd rather go to the Jersey shore.
That little movie opened on January 21, 1960, at the Gateway Theater in Fort Lauderdale and simultaneously at Radio City Music hall in New York City, and was the biggest grossing MGM picture to that date at Radio City and the most successful low budget film in MGM history. Within a few months of the films release, it was Bedlam as thousands of kids headed to Fort Lauderdale and the city became the spring break capital of the world. Side note to this day, Fort Lauderdale.
Is a popular spring break destination for us college students.
So popular was the tidal song that Connie ultimately recorded it in five other Italian, Spanish, French, German and Japanese. The song climbed to number one in 15 countries before the movie was ever released. This also marked the first time an american singer had ever sung a title song in Japanese in an american film. In fact, Frances was one of the first american artists to record regularly in other languages, including Italian, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Romanian, and by the end of her career had recorded in 15 languages. Most of these she didn't speak. She hired translators and language coaches and learned the songs phonetically. She recorded her 1978 album, who's happy now? In its entirety in multiple different languages, including Japanese. In fact, if you search Connie Frances Japanese, you'll get plenty of links to japanese versions of her songs sung by her. And her greatest hits in japanese album, released in 1990, is available on Spotify in the US. Finally, we get to Junko Jenko. We couldnt find any person by that name, and it seems to follow a different tomino naming convention, rhyming names like Anahanna complicating things still further, the given name Junko is quite popular and even limiting my search to vocalists active at the time leaves me with multiple possible inspirations. These include, for instance, ohashijunko, a japanese pop, folk and soul singer active from 1974 until her death from cancer in 2023. She was known for her overwhelming singing ability and her popularity peaked in the late seventies and early eighties. Another option is Sakurada Junko, a japanese pop idol and actress who made her professional debut in 1973. She was a mega star and one of the most popular idols of the seventies. She ended her singing career fairly early in 1983 and moved on to acting. Interesting anecdote about her. She became a member of the Unification church in 1977 and in 1992 was part of that famous mass wedding ceremony held in Seoul which involved 10,000 couples from 131 countries. Whether she chose to step back from public life after her marriage, or whether opportunities dried up because of her involvement in the unification church, she basically disappeared.
From public after that.
The last possible inspiration I found was Yagami Junko, a japanese singer songwriter in the new wave j pop and city pop genres. Active from 1974 to today, Yagami is described as a notable figure in japanese music of the seventies and eighties. She actually lives in the United States now. She moved here after marrying a british music producer, but has since immigrating, gone back to Japan frequently to perform. It wouldnt have been relevant at the time, but in 2022, Yagami became the first japanese woman to be inducted into the Women Songwriters hall of Fame.
Im going to throw one additional possibility out there for Junko Junko. There was a violinist, so I know this breaks the pattern. Its not quite right, but there was a violinist who debuted in the early nineties. And I highlight her in particular because while her first name is Junko, her surname is Mozume. It's not spelled the same way, but Mozu is also the japanese word for shrike.
Mmm, interesting.
And it's possible none of these are.
Correct, but always fun to speculate.
And with that, the Shrike team names are covered unless and until they add.
Any new pilots, I guess. As always, if you think you know which Junko is the likeliest inspiration for.
Junko Junko, please let us know. Now, if youll excuse me, Im going.
To go make some playlists inspired by the Shrike teams namesakes.
Next time on episode 10.12, more pilot than child. We research and discuss episode twelve of Victory Gundam and makeshift, a totally neutral company.
Clever, clever.
Mistaken identity.
A beach episode.
Always something there to remind me. Fraternizing.
Fish against fascism.
You done good, kid. And I guess theyll finish the Sagrada.
Familia one of these centuries. Please listen to it.
Mobile suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced by us, Tom and Nina in scenic New York City within the ancestral and unceded land of the lenape people and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is wasp by Mischa Dioxin. The closing music is long way home by spinning ratio. The recap music is slow by Lloyd Rogers. You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the lenape people, and more in the show notes on our website, gundampodcast.com. If youd like to get in touch with us, you can email hostsundompodcast.com or look for links to our social media accounts on our website. And if you would like to support the show, please share us with your friends. Leave a nice review wherever you listen to podcasts or support us financially@gundampodcast.com. Patreon. You can find links and more ways to help out@gundampodcast.com. Support thank you for listening.
Uh, wrong Gundam opinion.
I don't have one this week.
Okay.
The problem, of course, is that all of my opinions are correct, so I can't come up with them myself, except.
When my opinions are correct and conflict with your opinions.
It's like the spelling of names when they appear on screen and in the subtitles. Sometimes two different things can directly conflict with each other and still both be true. And now let me intone the ritual chant. I think it's going to be a short episode this week.
A japanese pop folk soul.
And folks, wait, I say folk twice. That's what was throwing me off. I don't know if you saw in the chat, but one of the truest things I've ever said about you. I was like, Tom has never let an anticipated large amount of work get in the way of a good idea.
No.
Connie Francis. It should have been Italian. I just slip into Spanish because it's close enough. Familia really ought to be Catalan, so I'm sure they hate how I say it.
Hey, I'm speaking Nyong'o over here.
Oh God. This was like, shared second or third hand from somebody in my study abroad program. But I remember them saying that if you want to sound like a native speaker, don't open your mouth so much when you talk. Basically, like, mumble a little more.