You're listening to season 10 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 10.36. This is my mother and we're your hosts. I'm Tom and this is my podcast.
And I'm Nina. New to Victory Gundam and spending way too much time wondering if someone on the Victory staff had visited these places. Did they share their vacation photos or perhaps a slideshow with their co workers and unintentionally inspire these locations? Momosuit Breakdown is made possible by our paying subscribers, people whose thirst for knowledge is only exceeded by their exemplary character and rugged good looks. Thank you all and special thanks to our newest patrons, Sophia and Jim D. You keep us, Genki. As we mentioned last week, certain patron rewards had to be rushed out to our EU based patrons ahead of new regulations taking effect. Those are now in the mail and on their way. For the rest of our Lt. Matilda Tier patrons, this also means that all of the merch for this year's merch boxes is here. Head over to our Patreon page to see what we put together for you this year and to make sure that your mailing address is up to date, since I am hoping to send them soon.
Happy holidays from msb. Probably. Maybe. We'll see.
It'd be nice if we could get.
Them out by then, but they'll be going out soon.
TM I chose the word soon very specifically. It's a malleable kind of word.
This week we're covering victory. Episode 36 haha y daichi ni kaede aka mother return to Earth the episode was written by Godou Kazuhiko and storyboarded by Nishimori Akira Sekita Osamu Directed with Taniguchi Moriyasa and Yoshida Toru sharing responsibility as animation director. Now the recap. The tide of the battle is beginning to turn. Exhausted by the League Militaire's relentless guerrilla campaign, and now, facing a pincer movement by the Federation forces, Chronicle Asher's once invincible motorad fleet is beginning to break apart as they enter the tablelands of the American Southwest. One Lycithia class escort takes to the air to escape, leaving Chronicles Atrestia and two more escorts behind. Rumors swirl that a ceasefire is imminent, but Chronicle, his lover Katagina and his senpai turned First Officer Pippiniden are determined to destroy the increasingly famous Gundam while they still have the chance, dealing a catastrophic blow to League military morale in the process. Pippin Eedon has a plan but refuses to explain it. I'm sending you a pilot, a man named Ghazbarl. Please give him free reign to carry out my plan. The League pilots operating from the Lean Horse Junior and White Arc are also exhausted, but determined to rescue Uso's mother before destroying the motorrads, they sortie for another raid, this time supported by Federation bombers. As they close in on Chronicles Squadron, skirmishing with Katagina and the other Zaanskar pilots, Ghazbarl begins to put Bipiniren's plan into action. The reason for the latter's cagedness is soon apparent. His plan is to use Mira Miguel as a human shield. Even with Federation aid, the League still struggles to stop the motorrads. As the running battle moves past the Hoover Dam, still standing after all these years, Odello conceives of his own clever ploy. They blast the dam open, and the surging waters briefly swamp the battleships, but the effect is limited. After pretending at defection to get Meera to go along with him, Ghaz''borl wastes little time revealing his true mission. Once he has her firmly clasped in the hand of his Zolidia. It may be against his morals to use a human shield this way, but orders are orders and victory is victory. Uzo struggles to defend himself against Ghazbarl's attacks without risking the hostage. Soon, everyone on the battlefield realizes what is happening. As more mobile suits from both sides join the fracas, Ghazbarl struggles to maintain his momentum. On the bridge. Chronicle is disgusted as much by Ghazbarl's incompetence as by his perfidy. Then, in a shocking twist, Katagina blocks Ghazbarl's shot, declaring this tactic too dishonorable to use. USO manages to cut the legs off the Zolidia, and it falls back onto the Adrastea. Wedged between the barrels of a heavy turret, Uso races to free his mother. She's still caught in the disabled Mobilsuit's hand, but Katagina drives him off. USO shakes her off and returns. But by now the battle has taken another turn. A Lysithia in front of the Adustea hits a patch of rough terrain and is launched into the air, crashing down again. On the foredeck of the flagship, USO's V2 takes a glancing blow from the cruiser's rear tire and goes flying. Ghaz'bahrl and Meera are less fortunate. Before anyone can respond, the Adrastea raises the white flag of surrender. The Ceasefire between Zanskar and the Federation has just been announced. USO returns to the lean horse bearing the only remains of his mother that he's been able to find. The helmet from her normal suit, severed head still inside, dripping gore. Shaakti weeps, blaming herself for for Meera's death. And USO cannot bring himself to deny it. Nina, did you watch the next episode preview on last week's episode?
I don't believe that I did.
Okay. Because they go as far as to show the back tire of that Lesithia crashing into the mobile suit that was just shown holding USO's mother. So it's like that old joke about old anime previews. Next episode on Intergalactic Defender Linguini, the crew of the Casarola faces their toughest challenge yet, as Dave launches a desperate attack against the Fettuchinites. Will he be able to survive? Tune in next week to find out. But then the next week's episode is titled something like Dave's Last Death of a Hero. They don't leave a lot to the imagination on this one. They call the episode Mother Return to Earth. And in the next episode preview, they show her die. Clearly, that wasn't meant to be a surprise to anybody.
I mean, she is a mom in a Gundam show. And as a good mom, she's in even more danger than usual.
Monica Arno survived.
I said good mom.
She got better. By the end of F91, she was good enough to die.
I was interested to learn that. Well, I assume this is the case, but that the phrase return to Earth or return to the earth has similar connotations in Japanese as it does in English.
It's pretty literal in the Japanese, isn't it?
That I don't know. Haha y daichi ni kaede. I did not look up what daichi is.
Oh, it's a f ing pun. They put a pun in the episode title about USO's mom dying because daichi means earth ground, the solid earth. But it also means plateau. They're in a region with a lot of plateaus, and so it's Mother, Return to the Earth. But it's also Mother, Return to the plateaus. I don't know how I feel about that. I might have found a scenario where I don't think making a pun is appropriate.
Apparently, daichi is also the word used for the Japanese phrase that is generally translated as Mother Earth. Haha naru daichi. But in English, when we talk about returning to Earth, it's very evocative of that phrase. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust and evocative of the act of burial. So, yeah, they pretty much give it away right there in the title.
But USO's mother has been, like, under threat of death since we met her. I think I have. I mean, I knew this was coming. I knew she was going to die. And vaguely I remembered how it happened, but I wasn't sure which episode it happened in. So practically every one since she was first introduced, I've been like, is this gonna be it? Is this the one where Meera gets killed? Is this the one that ends with that horrifying scene of USO clutching his mother's head, the only thing that's left of her?
I was pretty confident this was going to be the episode also, because if they had used this title on the episode in which they arrived at Earth, then it would be like, oh, what exactly do they mean? We don't know, Suspense. But they've been on Earth some time now. The thing with the head felt gratuitous.
Certainly very gruesome in a show that.
In general has not been particularly gory, that even when they've had horrible deaths, it's masked by an explosion or a cutaway or they tend not to depict a lot of blood or people being blown apart. Things that we might have seen in previous Gundam shows. Absolutely, but not in this one.
Her death feels like it exists in the tradition of the Shrike team deaths. This is another older woman, a very strong, competent, devoted fighter who is giving her all to protect uso, both physically and sort of morally, mentally, from the war, and ends up dying in front of him. But it's also connected by that, that extremely gruesome final scene with the head back to the death of Count Oinyoung, all the way back in, like, the first arc of the show. And that was another figure who was kind of like a surrogate parent to uso. He was the closest thing to a surrogate father amongst the old man Polycule. He was beheaded live on TV with USO watching. And now USO's mother has been beheaded, though the methodology is somewhat different. This is further evidence that we should view the wheels, the tires of Zanskar as functionally equivalent to the guillotine.
Well, the guillotine is Zanskar and Zanskar is the Guillotine.
And Zanskar is also tires for some reason. I mean, I. I know the reason, but I have not yet seen fit to reveal it on the podcast. I am waiting for the correct moment to do that. But anyway, yeah, the motorad fleet, the Earthclean operation is just the Zaanskar Guillotine writ large. And it takes another head this week.
Aside from the horror of Meera's death, which affects even the cold blooded Katagina, she is visibly shaking at the thought that USO saw this happen to his mother.
Mm. And even before that, Katajina in this episode reaches her moral limit. She thinks using Mira as a human shield is a bridge too far.
I cannot take Katajina seriously at all. Like it's okay to crush thousands of people beneath the wheels of the motor ad fleet, but holding one woman in a mobile suit's hand while you fight her son is too much.
Yeah, I. Why do you think it is that she feels that way? Cause Chronicle, another person who has made many moral compromises thus far for the glory of Zanskar. For his own advancement, or at least for his own survival within the system, for the sake of protecting his sister, Chronicle has made many moral compromises. But this one is too far. This one is so outside the pale that it destroys his, up until now, very congenial relationship with his Senpai, Pipi Nidan, who by the end of this episode, Chronicle declares, I'll never call him my senpai again.
For Katajina, I think the fact that this feels so personal is honestly why it's a bridge too far for her. If Mira were a combatant, then she wouldn't have a problem with this. But she was already their prisoner. And then to drag her out so as to attempt to have some kind of an advantage over one particular pilot kind of feels like that is what bugs her. I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. It's part of why I'm saying I can't take her seriously.
Uh huh. I suppose part of it might have to do with the fact that USO's a child. I know she denies his right to be a child. He's too strong to be a child.
Ah, see, I read that line a bit differently.
Go on.
My interpretation of that line was that Katagina fundamentally does not think that it is good or even like acceptable in society for children to be able to defend themselves, act themselves against adults. That this is like an unacceptable overthrow of the natural order of things.
So he is a child, but a bad one.
Yeah. And cannot be allowed to continue to do what he's doing. See, I think it might give the other children ideas.
Well, we know he's giving the League militaire morale. They keep bringing up over and over again that this operation, despite Its abhorrent nature to most of the people involved in doing it, including Gasparl, is necessary because the victory is such a morale boost to the League militaire. See, I think it's more that Katagina is saying someone as strong as him can't be treated as a child. Children, you're supposed to protect them and love them, and they're innocent and can do no wrong. And you're supposed to mulch up the adults in order to fertilize the ground for the benefit of the children. But as soon as a child gets, you know, strong, as soon as they can stand up to and resist the commands of their loving and merciful mother figure, Maria Purmonia, well, then, then they're not children anymore and you can kill them. And yet, to use a mother in this way feels like a betrayal of Zanskar's nominally matriarchal aspirations.
This is giving the show credit that it hasn't earned. But it is also possible that, having seen the lengths Meera is willing to go to protect USO and help him. And protect Shakti. And help Shakti. Katagina is struck by the fact that Mira is a good mother. Katagina had strongly negative feelings about her own mother and so might have this sense of, we don't do this to good mothers.
The fact that Mira is a woman may be a big part of it. No one has ever accused Katagina of being fair. None of this is helped by the fact that the translation in this episode is, ooh, rough. There are a lot of lines that don't sound like things that a human person would say, at least not in the English translation. And unfortunately, we didn't have enough time this week for me to really dig into most of them and figure out what they're supposed to be saying. But there is one bit that just caught me immediately as flat out wrong. It's right after Odello and Tomash have blown up the damage and the motorrad fleet is about to be swamped by the water. One of the officers on the bridge says that they are about to be hit by water from ahead. And then you watch the animation and it's really clearly hitting them from behind. And then you go back and listen to the Japanese and find that in fact, in the Japanese, he did say from behind. It's just strictly wrong. And I suspect there are some other moments in this episode that might be clarified by a better translation.
That may well be true, but I want to go back to Bespun Sanskar because you brought up Chronicle.
Oh, I have so much to say about Chronicle.
Chronicle is either extremely naive or considerably more devious than he has seemed previously. And I strongly believe it's the former.
The naive one.
Yes. There is something especially evil about Pippi Needen telling Chronicle. Well, I know they're going to announce a ceasefire soon, but before they do that, I really want to get that. That Victory Gundam. I really want to take out that mobile suit and pilot. He tells Chronicle, oh, I'm gonna send you a guy. He's gonna do a thing. Don't worry about it. He'll handle it. The only reason to be cagey is because Gazborl is going to do something about which Chronicle might want plausible deniability.
Uh huh.
Or if he thinks Chronicle would would say no. If he thinks Chronicle would say, oh no, we're not doing that.
Sure.
But once it's happening, Chronicle shifts very quickly from how could they do this? To if they were gonna do this, couldn't they at least be good at it?
Uh huh.
As in it's one line right after the other.
Sure, but that, I mean, that makes sense. You make a big moral compromise and then it doesn't even work out for you.
And then the captain of the Adrastea mentions Ghasbarl will have to be penalized. Like you can't let someone do something like that without orders and get away with it. Or you look like an extremely weak commander.
I think Ghazbarl has been under the guillotine this whole time. Ghazborl's repeated failures and actually shout out to Ghazbarl for managing to survive as long as he has. I think this is his sixth episode as an antagonist, which is pretty impressive for Zanskar. I ran the numbers, I went back and looked at some of the other major Zanskar antagonists and this means that Ghazboral is tied for episode appearances with Machete, who was Pharah's adjutant and has managed to survive more episodes than such memorable Zanskar enemies as Gary Lyle, Kris Watery Trump, Trans. I remember Watari Broch and of course Jim. Who could forget Jim? But sorry, I got distracted as I was actually answering your comment from the beginning. I think Gazbarl has been threatened probably with death by Pippinidan to do this because he says this is against my morals, but they've chosen me for the job, so I have to do it. He makes a reference to Meera about the failures of this fleet, putting them all at risk, and I think he's probably being serious about that. I don't think that's just a lie to get her on his side. And at one point, I believe later in the episode, he makes a comment about getting guillotined if he fails here.
And maybe if he succeeded, that would have been enough to save him. But part of it must be about maintenance of order, right? Pippi Needen gave an order he knew Chronicle wouldn't approve of, and then he didn't even succeed at it. Like Chronicle has more or less given Pippinidan free reign up until this point to manage things. But if he doesn't want to be just a figurehead, just the Queen's brother who they let, you know, sit at the head of the fleet, but nobody actually listens to and doesn't wield any actual power, he has to demonstrate some ability to control his subordinates. And Pippi Needen and Carl Barros plan undermines that significantly. But the other thing that the captain of the Adrasiya points out, and perhaps one of the big differences between how Chronicle looks at the war and how Pippi Nidan looks at the war is Chronicle and his captain would have preferred to keep Mira alive. Because killing USO and destroying this One Victory Gundam does not stop the mass production of Gundams. There'll just be more Gundams and there will be some other pilot in the future. And Meera, as one of the engineers, if they could ever convince her to talk or even just keep her off the project and keep her from making better Gundams, is an asset to them. And they view that, and also, I suppose her function as a shield for the ship rather than just one mobile suit as more valuable than the possibility of maybe managing to take out uso.
See, the problem is that they think that they are fighting a war. They don't realize that they are characters in a Mecha series. Because this goes to that question of, like, how important is uso actually, how decisive is the role of USO and his victory? Like, are they going to settle the Zanskar War themselves? Are they essential to its resolution? Or is he just one pilot, one particularly skilled pilot, but just one pilot in one mobile suit, fighting on one theater of a larger conflict.
I thought about this a lot as well. When Meera is sitting alone in her cell and thinking to herself that USO is no longer just her son and her husband's son, and she focuses on his ability, that he is so skilled and so talented that, you know, good causes and the world deserve a share of that skill and ability that he has. That they can't keep it all for themselves. But in a way, what she's describing is what any parent or caregiver experiences as a person grows up. Because the story is you grow up in the bosom of your family. They are your main connections, your main ties, your main sources of responsibilities. But the older you get, the more your world expands, the more you build relationships outside your family, the more you develop connections to and responsibilities to people and groups outside of the family sphere. And that person is still your child. But they're not just that. Their identity becomes increasingly complex as they get older.
We're talking about Chronicle, right?
We're talking about Mira and uso.
Oh, because that actually aligns really closely with something I wanted to say about Chronicle.
Let me finish the Mira and USO thought, and then you are welcome to talk about Chronicle.
I'll wait.
Pamira reminds USO of this as the battle is happening. Because as a soldier, he shouldn't hesitate to protect himself. As a soldier, he should keep his eye on the mission, keep his eye on the bigger picture. That in that moment, she doesn't want him to be her son, uso, because it is both much more painful for him, but also more physically dangerous. It's much more likely to get him killed. And so she hearkens back to that. You need to be a different self right now. I'm not your mother. You are not my son. You are a soldier, and I am a random captive. And that's upsetting, but it's not the same. It doesn't really work, for obvious reasons, but she is trying to protect him, both physically and from the obvious emotional fallout. All right, now you can talk about Chronicle.
When he's first introduced, he's very isolated. In fact, when he's first introduced, it's just him. He's in the cockpit of the Shako alone when USO paraglides in and kicks him out. And then he spends some time lost in the forest until he meets up with Gary. Is Gary the guy he meets in the forest?
I don't remember.
Anyway, he meets somebody in the forest, but then over the course of the show, he keeps picking up additional attachments, or we are shown attachments that already exist. But this is especially significant for him because he is shown to be an outsider, alone and lonely. There's a craving for connection there. I think in those early episodes, he is very isolated in Bespa. He doesn't really belong there. He's not really in the chain of command. He's not really respected. They sort of Just treat him as a nuisance or a fragile glass figurine of a prince. But then he starts acquiring these connections. Pippinidan, he meets Shakti in the woods, he meets Katagina, he picks up Katagina and then she becomes his like. Even to say that she becomes his lover is not strong enough.
Well, she seems to be his main emotional support. Possibly one of the only people he can confide in and trust because she's not already embedded in Zanskar politics and has one of his most straightforward and uncomplicated relationships with her. Because part of the tension with Pippi Nidan is that Pippi Nidan used to be, I mean, still is technically his senpai, right? But in theory, socially chronicles higher ranking. And so navigating this change of position, this change of social rank, can be very difficult in a lot of relationships and does seem to be difficult here. Pippi Needen thinks of Chronicle as this, like, naive young guy who doesn't know what he's doing and needs his senpai to manage things for him. And Chronicle, for his part, resents Pippinidan's attempts to do that and the obvious lack of respect. Whereas Katagina has only known Chronicle as what he is now and does not seem to struggle in terms of navigating being both his lover and his subordinate. That just, like, works for her and for him too, apparently.
There is perhaps even a Freudian element to it in the sense of, like, the id, the ego and the superego of Katagina. I think representing the ID in this scenario, the sort of base emotional part of the equation Katajina does. Katagina acts. I was gonna say Katajina does what Chronicle sort of wants to do. But really Katagina just does in a way that nobody else in the series can be said to and can give.
The impression of being much more driven by her emotions than many of the people around her.
And it's part of why the various, like, rationalizations she spouts at different times don't make any sense, or at least don't make any sense when compared with the other things she's previously said, because she's just justifying and rationalizing her own emotional feelings in the moment. Then Chronicle is like, Chronicle is kind of high minded. Chronicle is at times a bit of a philosopher about it.
So he's the ego. He's the.
I think this would make him the super ego.
I never remember the difference between the ego.
Yeah, the super ego, like moralizes and thinks the high thoughts. And then the ego mediates between the two of them, the Ego makes plans and figures out how to do things practically. I think Pippiniden is. Maybe the Ego. Chronicle does some of that moralizing early on in this episode when he says, we need to teach them Pippiniden and Duke Arek that you can't conquer the Earth with brute force alone.
But he's never at any point indicated any other aspect of this plan. It's not like they're trying to win hearts and minds. What even is he talking about?
Maybe he's suggesting that they, like, if they hope to actually be victorious here. They cannot use lowdown, nasty tactics like human shields. They need to be stalwart, upright crusaders of Marianism.
Again, naive.
Super naive. Yeah.
Because the one does not follow the other. Behaving in a moral way, however you define that, does not guarantee you success.
You're so cynical.
I've lived, Tom.
But certainly there are philosophies that do believe that the secret to good outcomes is good behavior. That there's a kind of moralistic arc to the universe, that you can do these seemingly impossible things simply by being sufficiently good.
But there's a cynical read on that, too. And that's that the only reason to behave good is because the universe will reward you. That if you want to be successful, if you want the things that you want to come true to come to you, then you just behave by XYZ rules, and then it'll happen. But what is moral behavior if it always has a reward at the end of it? What is that even still morality? Or just some sort of like, conditioning?
Oh, now you're turning philosopher. I looked at who wrote this episode. It was written by Godou Kazuhiko, who only wrote six episodes for Victory. This is number five of the six that he wrote. So I went back and looked. It was a small enough number that I could actually do this. I went back and looked at the other episodes he wrote. He wrote episode four, which is the one where they find the secret bunker under USO's house, and in which Chronicle meets Shakti for the first time. It is also, and this really stuck in my head, the episode in which he objects to the BESPA policy of classifying the civilian resistance forces as enemy soldiers. And he clearly doesn't like fighting civilians. Godo next wrote Space Dust, which was episode 15, and that's the one where Pharah gets launched into space and Chronicle makes a real big moral compromise, but also seems pretty upset about it.
And he makes one brief attempt to prevent her execution.
Yes.
And then it is made very clear to him that he should not do that and he does not try again.
He then wrote episode 19, which is the one where Chronicle learns about Shakti's true identity and seems pretty conflicted about it, seems pretty sad about what this means for Shaak Ti. And then he wrote episode 32, which was the Dogorla episode with Broch, in which I don't think Chronicle did too much, but there was that kind of like gesturing towards a storyline about Chronicle having to make the tough decision to depart the dock before the Adrastea was entirely repaired and maybe leaving behind some of his pilots in the process. So I'm not sure if that fits into the overall pattern that I'm identifying here. But you could make the argument. Anyway. The point is.
No, you could make the argument.
I am making the argument.
Sorry, I had to. That's a funny phrase. You could make the argument. Why would I? You're doing it.
I don't know. Maybe you want to do it together as a couple?
Yeah, it's more fun when we argue.
Is that true, listeners? Is it more fun when we argue? Anyway, all of these, I think, fit into a pattern of depicting Chronicle as conflicted about the moral consequences of the.
Choices he's making, but also increasingly willing to compromise.
Yes, definitely. But none of these show him as an uncomplicated true believer, fully committed to the Zansgar ideology. And there are episodes like that. There are episodes where Chronicle is more in that vein. So I do think this is a case of different writers having fundamentally different takes on the character. And this one is one of the more nuanced and interesting ones. This shows a character who is pretty weak and willing to make a lot of compromises in order to maintain his position, in order to do what he thinks is his duty. This is a guy who increasingly is put in positions of command that force him to do things he does not want to do.
I have one last point I want to make about Chronicle and about Bespa Zanskar generally. But first, a little background. In keeping with many of the previous episodes of Victory Gundam, we have some extremely striking settings. The Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam and Monument Valley are, I believe, what's kind of being all jammed together. These are places that are pretty far apart in reality. Yeah, they're all in Arizona, Nevada, and yeah, that.
That general region.
But the two farthest apart features are at least 200 miles apart as the crow flies. The episode opens with this very uplifting gentle music sunrise in the desert. You can still see some stars Twinkling in the sky, the stark beauty of the landscape. Some of the Bespa Zanskar soldiers are even camping out. I don't know if the creators of the episode were conscious of this, but adds some special irony to what Chronicle goes on to say. But this is an area where, with a whole lot of Native American tribal reservations, there is a really strong tribal presence in the region. Stronger than almost any other part of the United States, I think.
And Monument Valley is literally sacred to.
The Navajo, I believe, and is in the Navajo Nation.
This is perhaps another example of victory blowing up sacred landmarks.
And then for Chronicle to say, immediately after this beautiful scene, we won't be able to remake this land into someplace habitable so long as we haven't crushed the resistance of the League Militaire and Federation forces.
I wrote this down and underlined it, like, three times.
It's already habitable. It's habited.
This is a gosh dang natural miracle. This is one of Earth's most beautiful locations. And he is so blind. All of Zanskar is so arrogant that they cannot perceive of the Earth as having any kind of value that is apart from its utility to humanity as a place to live. And they cannot imagine a way to live other than the way they live out in the space colonies because they live in an artificial created environment that doesn't have any utility except as a place for humans to live.
Yeah, I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with it, but one of my next time ons last week was a quote by a Russian director who saw Monument Valley and described it as a place where people should talk to God. He was horrified that they film Westerns there. And in its own way, the Hoover Dam is like a secular religious monument. Like, it was such a massive undertaking, like the bridges I talked about in Mexico. Such an incredible feat of engineering and of human modification of the environment. And we'll sidestep the whole issue of whether or not dams are good, bad or indifferent, whether they hurt or help more. That's a much bigger topic than we can talk about here.
Are we canceling beavers?
But it is a marvel and is another marvel destroyed by this war. I realized as I was taking my notes, part of my thinking of the Hoover Dam in this way is because growing up, I got the impression of the Hoover Dam as like, a boomer dad obsession that, like, families going on road trips, the dad would be like, oh, we have to go see the Hoover Dam. And then thought about it some more and realized I definitely got this impression from a single episode of a single TV show. And then my child brain just extrapolated it out to be about like all dads.
Okay, what episode of what TV show?
So it was an episode of the Nickelodeon show Pete and Pete.
Okay.
And they go on a big family road trip. And I don't remember all the details, mostly just that their dad was obsessed with the Hoover Dam.
I have never in my life seen an episode of Pete and Pete. And yet when you were describing the Hoover Dam as a boomer dad obsession, I was like, that rings a bell. I have encountered this idea before. I couldn't tell you where. I couldn't point to a specific show or something, but I've definitely seen it before.
It may have cropped up in other shows. For whatever reason, I strongly associate it with road trips. And so maybe from an era when road trips were much more common as a way for families to go on vacation. It's not a thing people do as often now, but it used to be a quite popular way to vacation. And then towards the end of the episode when they are discussing the ceasefire, I find myself wondering, still wondering, whether or not the League Militaire is bound by the Federation's agreement to a ceasefire. Because Jinjanaham Jahanam haven't said his name in long enough that I know which the which syllable goes where, but he says that it was decided by the Federation and Zanskar. It sounds as though the League Militaire was not part of those negotiations in any way. Whether or not they consider themselves bound to the agreement, the others consider them bound to the agreement, we don't know yet. It's up in the air.
Feels like that's a plot point for next week.
But one of the men on the bridge says that it was decided by the government on the moon and troops stationed on Earth had no say. And just the phrase Earth had no say just like, smacked me upside the head.
The Earth Federation isn't really based on Earth anymore and doesn't really care that much about it. Earth retains its spiritual significance, but it's an industrial economic demographic backwater.
One final nod to the environment that I found rather a cute addition, although it felt odd to have it show up in the scene that it did is right at the end when USO has brought his mother's head in her helmet back to the ship and they're all sort of standing on this upper deck. They've given baby Carl Mann a little hat. And the sisters, you were just asking where they were. I'm surprised both of them are here, but apparently, yeah, they both have parasols. So I remember seeing them in the background while USO has collapsed to the ground and being like, why are those girls carrying umbrellas? And it's like, oh, it's for sunshade.
What do you make of the fact that it's only the girls who stay with uso, all the adults and all the boys leave and USO is left alone with Shakti, Susie and the Clansky sisters. Carmen is there too, but he doesn't have a choice. He would leave if he could. He would abandon uso. The vibes are bad, man. Sorry. I'll come back when you're more ganky.
My gut response for the adults, it is that it might smack too much of trying to replace his mother or replace a parent. It might feel too much like they are mothering him for them to comfort him in this moment. It's too raw, it's too weird. And while I strongly disagree, it might be that the boys, in the view of the show, don't know how to comfort each other or that USO might feel embarrassment or shame about his emotional state in front of the boys, but doesn't with the girls, that there's a sense of, oh, we don't want him to be embarrassed, so we're going to leave him alone while he's like this.
And it's Vaclav, it's Tomas's father, who leads the boys away. He grabs both Odello and Tomash and says, like, leave uso. And so maybe that's his idea that it would shame USO to be seen to weep like this. Because USO has been sort of holding it together up until this, this last moment where he breaks down.
And we have frequently seen USO keep his tears private, generally that in times that he has been upset in this way, he has done so privately, not in front of everyone else. There's some sort of gross gendered stereotypes under that about, like, ah, women are emotionally comforting, men don't know how to do that or can't do it, or men don't want emotional comfort from other men.
Or men. Men cannot be seen to show weakness in front of other men because amongst men, it is all a competition of manliness.
Right. It's only safe to be vulnerable in front of women and babies. Yeah. Who knows what the justification for that might have been?
Sure.
The other thing this scene brings up for me, and maybe I'm being too harsh, but I found myself feeling very frustrated with Shakti. Like I was losing patience with her at the beginning of the episode again, oh, it's all my fault. They have her as a prisoner. By expressing her sense of guilt to Uso, she's putting him in a position where he feels like he needs to comfort her. And it's his mom who's captured, like, girl, go complain to someone else. Anyone else.
And then they do that to him again at the end.
Yeah.
And Marbette tries to be like, oh, Uso, don't you agree that it's not really Shaak ti's fault? And poor Uso, this was just devastating, partly because he was so out of character for him.
She says, it's not anyone's fault. Which is not quite the same as saying, don't you agree it's not Shakti's fault?
Yeah, but Shakti had just been like, oh, it's all my fault. And then Marbit says, no, no, it's not anyone's fault. Don't you agree, Uso? And uso. And this was so devastating is just like, yeah, I don't know about anything. Here's my mom. I'm gonna cry now. Like, such a breakdown of the endlessly resilient child. We've gotten to know if Chronicle and Katajina found their moral limit in this episode. USO has finally gone beyond what he can absorb.
And I could have just pulled Susie into a hug if Susie had been a real person, that Susie is just grieving with him. Her friend is hurting and sad, and she feels that, and she's gonna stay with him and be hurt and sad with him, and she's not gonna make him talk about it or comfort her or she's just there with him.
Susie, who probably lost her parents to the guillotine and may well have had to watch just like Uso, she perhaps.
Understands better than anyone else who is there with him what's just happened to him in that earlier scene. The first time. Shakti is like, it's all my fault. Anusa's like, no, this is what my mom wanted. This is what she wanted. I thought that gesture where he sort of touches the side of her face was like a weirdly mature, totally out of character for someone his age gesture to make.
Hmm.
I cannot imagine myself at that age or anyone I knew at that age doing a, like, gentle face touch. It's not your fault. Don't worry.
Like, well, he's too strong.
And perhaps it's meant as another reminder of how he's been forced to grow up quicker and how he is growing up quicker and in some ways is Mature beyond his years. I've got one last bone to pick with this episode.
Is it that Katagina switches mobile suits in the middle of the episode with no explanation?
No, don't care about that. I cannot believe they would break with Gundam tradition like this. Displacing the Noble burger as the food to eat aboard ship, replacing it with some sort of sandwich. Decades of tradition thrown out the window. If I wore pearls, I would clutch them.
Nina, the 90s were a weird time. The old world of burgers is dying. The the new world of subway sandwiches struggles to be born. Now is the time of hoagies. Now, in lieu of research and in honor of victory Gundam's wildly swinging tone between tragedy and comedy, we're going to cleanse the palette a little bit with a discussion about mobile suits that we've encountered so far in the series. And for the purposes of this, I have put together a little slideshow for Nina. This shows, I believe, all of the Zaanskar mobile suits that we've encountered thus far. Nina, do you have the slideshow in front of you?
Just a moment. Yes.
Great. Now we'll post this in the show notes so you can follow along if you like. The version of the slideshow that Nina is looking at does not have the mobile suits names on them. So I am going to be a bad husband and a good co host and bully her a little bit for your entertainment. Nina, are you prepared to guess at the names of these mobile suits?
I am prepared to guess and or make up funny names for them as we go and am fully prepared for your bullying because frankly, our longtime listeners know that I am constitutionally unable to remember the names of mobile suits unless they're my very most favorite ones, and sometimes not even then. So no one here is going to be surprised that I don't remember these mobile suit names.
I'm glad you didn't say because our longtime listeners already know you're a bad husband.
I think this might be one of the first times you have said on the podcast that you are my husband. We didn't mention being married on here for a really long time.
One of the Q and A episodes, I think, was the first time we said it.
Somebody asked how we were related to each other.
All right, let's do this. Are you in the slideshow?
I am. Remember, I giggled when I looked at the first slide because it's a picture of a wasp telling us I'm a menace.
That's the Bespa wasp. The Yellowjacket. Alright, number one, this yellow lad this is the first mobile suit that we meet in the course of the series.
Okay. I actually feel a little embarrassed that I don't remember the name of this one.
It sounds like a kind of hat bowler. It sounds like a kind of hat that Napoleonic soldiers would wear.
Chapeau.
So close. You're halfway there. You got one of the syllables. This is the Shocko.
The Shako.
The Shako. It'll shock ya.
I do like this mobile suit.
It's so good.
I like the wasp face.
This is like the only Zaanskar mobile suit that you can get a modern Gunpla of. And it's really cool.
Wasp face, wasp antennae. I quite enjoyed the. This is the first one we see. But there's a whole range of mobile suits that have a helicopter style propeller that they can use to get around. The way the cockpit opens is different. I believe. It's slides open like vertically rather than horizontally. It's a.
Well, the cockpit is like a. It's like a ball inside a more differenter ball. Right. The Shaco is a real favorite around here. Now I've put these mobile suits in an order but not the order in which they appear in the show. So we'll see if you move on to the next one.
Is it development order? Kind of.
These are families. This is a derivation from the Shaco. This is more of like a mass production model. The Shaco was a prototype, a test bed. This is the gym to the Shako's Gundam. If you will.
Does it appear in the show? I don't remember seeing this one.
It appeared in this episode.
What? I disapprove because it doesn't look as much like a wasp, but it doesn't look enough like some new kind of bug. I think the single large horn on the front is very evocative of certain types of beetles. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. Like a rhinoceros beetle.
Yeah. But they left the rest of the body shape and the eyes and everything else. Like the original Shako, which I think is much more suited to the wasp kind of idea. They didn't make the whole thing look like a beetle. And they toned down the yellow color. It's more brownish mustardy color. Yeah. I don't like this one as much as the shackle.
It kind of feels like darker, more hardcore.
Meh.
Like it would be called the X Shocko or Shock X or something. Do you have any guesses about what it's actually called?
It's not just called like Shaco X2 or something.
Pretty close. This is the rig Shako Or Rigu.
What does the rig prefix stand for or mean? I assume, because I remember there being a Rig Az.
Yeah. So it can mean different things. The Rigazi was the refined Gundam Zeta. When it has that prefix, it's usually like Rick. And it means it's a space use version of.
Okay.
I think this is probably meant to evoke the Rick of like a Rick Dom or a Rick Diaz. So I think this is like a space use modified version of the Shako. But it could be, like you said, like the Rigazi. It could be simply a refinement of the original design. But let's move on. This one is also technically supposed to be descended from the Shako. Do you even remember it?
The head looks familiar.
Mm. This appears in like one episode early on in the show.
Yeah. I couldn't tell you where I saw it or why it looks familiar. This one I like very much.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, this is cool. They changed up the shoulders. Sort of more of a rounded appearance. It's got the two antennae. The shape of the head makes me think of alien.
If you move on to the next slide, you can see. See all three of the Shaco family together.
I would not have thought that it was part of the same mobile suit family. The legs are a very different shape and different proportions.
There's some similarity in the chest.
Yeah, I suppose the. The chest is somewhat similar and it still has the. The rotor on one arm.
Yeah. So this is the Godzorla. O.
Well, I'm a fan of the Godzorla. Approve. I like the color scheme too. Blues and greens.
This is. This is a pretty good batting average for Zanska mobile suits so far. Or maybe you just like the Shaco and its descendants.
One of its descendants moving on now.
Into a different family.
Please make me a Shar. I even painted my mobile suit red one time.
Yes, that is Chronicle's custom version of this, which appears in the first couple of episodes. Episodes. This is the Zanskar Empire's mainline mobile suit. Ground use, at least during the early portions of the show. Though it is now quite thoroughly outdated after, I dunno, like two months of war and development. Can you remember what this one is called? We talked about it all the time. Jeopardy. Noise to buzz in any time.
You're really enjoying this opportunity to be mean to me. Guilt free. I do not remember what it is called. I think of it as the helicopter one. The Zoloat. No, close, close, close, close.
It's the Zolo.
If they wanted me to remember the names, they should make the names more memorable and the mobile suits more distinctly identifiable.
What do you think of the Zolo?
Eh, it feels like somebody decided, no, we need to make like a serious mil tech mobile suit. Like enough of these cutesy bugs and bright colors. This one is going to be olive drab and serious. So I find it very boring.
Next slide.
They're like, here, we made it. Magenta. Do you like it now?
Do you?
Is this one.
Do you.
Is this one the Zolawat?
No, you're still. You're getting close. Keep guessing and eventually you'll get it.
Everyone is the Zoloat until he shows it to me.
But this is an evolved form of the Zolo.
Okay, I'm not gonna know the name.
Okay. This is the Tomlyat.
Oh, that's right. One of them was the Tomlyat.
Yup. Now the main difference between these two is that the Zolo needs to split in two parts in order to transform into its helicopter mode. But the Tomlyt is just one machine.
I mostly remember the Tomlyt because the squadron of Tomlyat all taking off at dawn is Katagina's cool robot moment when she's like, oh, actually that's pretty sick.
I love violence.
Should I go to the next one?
Yes, go to the next one. Can you guess which this one is?
I do not remember this. The bright red and yellow is making me think of a Spanish flag, but it's not related. I don't know, man.
This is the Zoloat.
What?
You just had to guess it one more time. Do you remember this one's unique feature?
No.
It shoots those wires out of its shoulders. Yeah, it's the wire shooty one. This is also a little weird because this one is technically supposed to be a predecessor to the Zolo. This one was designed by the Zahn'scar Empire for space combat and then they adapted it for Earth battle to make the Zolo. But we don't meet it until well after we've met the Zolo and its successor. So it's a little. It's a little strange. The feet really feel kind of out of place for victory. The feet look like a Zeta Double Zeta Era kind of thing.
I had noticed them. They're interesting. I like that they're kind of two toed. They're pronged instead of just pointy. The other thing that stands out about it is like a few of the other mobile suits, but it's certainly not as common. It's got the more rounded shoulder, head and chest. It doesn't seem Quite so angular. And unlike basically any other mobile suit I can think of, it's got venting in the shoulders.
I think that might be where the wires come out.
Where the wires come out? Yeah. They're sort of long, narrow, horizontal. They look like vents across the shoulder. Pauldrons.
Unlike a lot of mobile suits. It kind of looks like there's a skinnier mobile suit inside a bunch of armor.
Some of the interior plating is sort of pinkish flesh. Fleshy flesh tone adjacent in a way that I can kind of get what you're saying. But most mobile suits look a little bit like a skinnier body in heavy armor.
Maybe. Let's go to the next slide. This one supposedly is descended from the Zoloat, but not via the Zolo. So it's like a brother cousin of the Zolo. And this one is pretty recent. I said the name in the course of the recap. Can you remember it?
No.
As of where we are in the show, this is the state of the art Zaanskar mobile suit. This is.
Oh, wait, wait, wait. Then is it the Dogorla?
No, sorry.
Isn't that the one most of the Zanskar people are piloting now?
No, that's the dragon one you love.
Oh, wait, no, not the Dogorla. Trying to remember the name of the mobile suit that uses the Ainorad. Because the mobile suit has its own name and it's different.
There's two different mobile suits that use the Ayn Rad.
Okay.
This is the more recent of them.
Okay.
It's the Zolidia.
Yeah. I was never gonna remember that. I don't even remember them saying it in the show.
This one is so busy compared to the other ones. There's so much detail on it.
There's a lot going on with this mobile suit. One arm has a really long pauldron that sort of shields it down its side. The other arm has one of those arm mount. Is it an arm mounted cannon or what is going on with that other arm?
Well, the other arm has the spiked pauldron.
Yes.
And then I think those are maneuvering thrusters on the pauldron. And then that's the shield on its arm with all the beam emitters.
Yeah.
It seems to have taken that pauldron from the Zoloat. This one armored pauldron, one spiked one. That's from the original Zaku. That's old school.
Yeah. This one also has the pronged foot, the two toed foot. But something about the level of detail on this design as well as the color, the color scheme chosen One detail stands out to me and sort of overwhelms every other thing, and that is that the cockpit area looks to me like a blank face wearing a helmet.
Oh. Oh, yeah, I can totally see that.
Do you see that? There's the head, right. Of the mobile suit and its chest, but then below that there's another head and another chest. And then it just goes straight into legs. It's odd.
I mean, I think you might have just ruined this for me.
Good.
I used to like it.
I got some of my own back. I just want everybody to know that I'm multitasking.
Right now.
I am having to snuggle and pet Tigress. I had to pull her up into my lap in the recording studio, otherwise she would have kept meowing annoyedly at us. And if I stop petting her, she starts headbutting my hands like, hey, what are you doing? Whatever it is, it's not as important as petting me is. And she doesn't really have an opinion on mobile suits. Her meows are mostly about wanting attention. So I gotta keep her happy so that we can finish recording this.
On the next slide, you'll see the whole Xolo family laid out. All right, The Zoloat and all of his many children. Well, the ones we've met so far.
Yeah. Well, weird as it is, I think the Zolidia is probably my favorite best color scheme. The design's too busy. It's not a favorite mobile suit. But of this particular family of mobile suits, it's my favorite one.
If I had laid these out in the order they actually appear in the show, I think you would see a gradual increase in the amount of detail on each mobile suit and actually probably reflects changing priorities on the design staff.
And a decrease in angularity in the order they appear on the show. Right. The dark green one was first.
Yes.
So. So it's the most angular, it's the most pointy.
Yep.
Then the purple one. Right. It's a little less pointy. Then the red and yellow one, very rounded, much more rounded. And then the gray and red and teal one.
At that point, I think they thought they went a little too rounded and decided to make it pointier again by adding those spikes.
Right. But it still retains a lot of the rounded features.
Definitely, definitely.
It just adds a little more detail, a little more line work.
The Zolo and Thomleat, who we meet first, feel more distinctive, more like distinctly Victory styled mobile suits, whereas the Zoloat and mostly the Zolidia look like they could easily have Come from a different Gundam show, but if you want a unique identity, move to the next slide for two of your favorites.
This is the Abigor.
Got one?
Yeah.
Bingo. Can you remember what the other one is called? The orange one? No, the Galguyu.
Galgue.
Garuguyu Gyaru.
I love the Abigor. I love its pointy priest hat and third eye and color scheme and weird shape. It's great.
I love the Galgiu's one clawed hand.
Also, the shape of the feet of the Epigorus. So weird.
Oh, yeah.
They're like perfectly symmetrical, front to back.
Well, they. These are both transforming mobile suits, so I bet those, like, snap together. The Abigor is the space use version, and the Galgiyu is the underwater version.
Mmm. Gotcha. The Galgiu is also cool. I think it's a neat design, but I don't like it as much as I like the Abigor.
It has to me a very charming ugliness. I like it a lot. I think the Abigor looks better, but in a way, I like the Galgiu more. I don't know if I can.
I get that sometimes something that is a little bit ugly is more appealing in a way. Or feels more real or.
Or it's just more interesting, more distinctive, more unusual. Not that the Abigor isn't distinctive and unusual, but. But it's closer to other mobile suits we've encountered before. Now for another weird one. Move on to the next slide.
Oh, yeah. I don't remember seeing this at all.
This one enjoys prominence in a couple of episodes in the space arc. I think it's when they're sort of breaking into and out of Zanskar Colony over and over again. This is the Kantio.
Oh, right. Chronicle has that whole Kantio squadron.
Yeah. Whatever happened to those guys?
I think they're all dead. Except for Katsuchina.
Good for them. It's got the pinchers. Those are nice.
The shoulder ones. Are they pinchers or are they guns? Are those the openings of guns?
No, I believe those are pincers. If I remember correctly, it shoots those off and they're on wires.
Okay, but why are they pointing behind it anyway? It's a fool who looks for logic in the design of mobile suits. Those are interesting. The chest is interesting with it's either guns or thrusters. Where is the cockpit on this one? Is it down by the crotch of the mobile suit?
You raise a good question.
Did I stump you? Did I stump Tom?
Yeah. I don't remember where the cockpit is on this one. It might be one of the ones where they have to enter from above.
Mm. Because. Yeah. The chest where the cockpit would normally be appears to be dominated by guns or thrusters. So entirely unclear where exactly the pilot goes here. I don't find it a particularly appealing design. I don't love it.
There's something about this one that feels maybe this is crazy, but there's something about this one that feels a little Disney.
It might be too simple is why you feel that way.
Yeah. And very rounded. And there's something about the face of it that is giving, like, Disney villains lackey energy.
I don't know if it gave the same impression in motion, but in this still, it feels like a very pared down kind of design. Like somebody got an instruction. Like these other designs have too many panels, too much line work. They're too complicated to give us something simple. But that simplicity can also make it feel a little boring because the. The overall shape, the overall design is very like things we've seen before. It's often in the level of detail that you start to pick out the differences.
Theoretically, the gimmick of the wire guided pinchers could be really cool, but I just don't feel it with this one.
And I think it gets more interestingly executed with the bug one whose name I've also forgotten. The one that is very obviously like a wasp or centipede or not a centipede because it only has six or eight arms.
Oh, the sandoge.
Yeah, the sandoge.
Yeah. Okay, so we did forget to put that one on the list, but we remembered it.
So we remembered it. I liked the sandhoge. I think it does the.
Yeah. Listeners, instead of moving on to the next slide, simply imagine the sand hoj.
In your mind, the deploying wires were cool. The fact that different segments of it could be separately piloted I thought was really neat development and neat idea. The fact that it's not a humanoid shape. Longtime listeners will know I'm a big fan of when they diverge from humanoid shapes, it's easier to create something, quote, unquote, interesting. That I would find interesting if it is more different from the standard mobile suit layout. The closer it is to that standard shape, the harder it is to be distinctive. Right. Because we've been looking at dozens of mobile suits for years, so they all kind of blend together after a while. For me, unless there's a real standout favorite to do.
My contractually mandated, hey, this thing we're looking at is like this other thing from other Prior Gundam. The sand hoj's feature of having different segments, having a whole crew who operate it, and then the different segments can split off to attack the enemy from different directions. That's very similar to the brow bro of first Gundam. Kind of running that idea back. And it works. It works really well. Let's move on to another. If this was the Pare everything down. Make it as simple as possible. 1. The next one seems to have gone in a different direction.
Oh my gosh. This one also has a face on the chest.
This one, practically the whole thing is a face. Yeah. And you can't ruin it for me because that one I had already picked up.
Okay.
It's got the giant nipple eyeballs. It's got a nose for its.
A big pointy nose. Yep. Did you notice that the area around the chest. Gun eyeballs and then going into the nose looks like a zipper?
So it does. Yeah, it really does. Huh. That. Mm. Don't like that. This really looks like it should transform into the head of a Voltron kind of thing. Into a combining robot.
And the shoulder spikes almost read like the ends of eyebrows or like horns on a head. Although the spike up top is very like, what, a World War I German helmet?
Yeah. A picklehaub.
And the obvious inspiration from European armor, of course. Makes me think of. Was it McVay's mobile suit from First Gundam that looked like a knight? It's even purple. Purple.
You know what this makes me think of though? Those insects that have patterns on their body that look like giant faces to scare predators off.
Mmm.
So this is.
I don't. Yeah, there's no chance. I remember what this one is.
This is the Shaitan.
The Shaitan. Oh. Hence devil horns and big scary eyeballs. Mmm.
Yes.
And perhaps also part of the inspiration for its feet, which are also pretty different from a lot of other Gundam feet and maybe are meant maybe Tonk and Thruster feet maybe are meant to look more like hooves.
Oh, yeah. You know, I did that whole research piece identifying which, like, Illustrated Tome of Demonology they had gotten a bunch of the names for mobile suits from. This image of the Shaitan is reminding me of one of the illustrations from that book, Belphegor, maybe. I think this. I think this might be based on the old illustration of the demon Belphegor.
Cool.
Though there were some others that have like very large heads and cloven hooves and like, it might be a different illustration, but I bet that's the inspiration.
I like this one. Not as like, oh, I really like Looking at this design, it makes me happy, but I like it as a. That's really interesting and weird. It's different. And I like novelty.
I like its little actual head hiding there in the helmet.
I cannot unsee the zipper.
Nor should you. Moving on. Here's another one you may not remember because I'm pretty sure it appears in only one episode.
It's got a little plume.
It does have a little plume. We love a little plume.
And very weird thruster placement. They're out the front of the leg instead of the back.
They're like turbines.
They're like jet engines and they're pointing upwards.
This is another Earth use mobile suit, if I'm remembering it correctly. Can you guess at the name?
Something about a knight. I don't know. It's got a plume.
This is a Memedorza.
Memedorza. Yeah. I was never going to remember that. It's funny how you keep asking. I love the color scheme.
It has a very insectile, like, head with pincers on either side of the mouth.
I get what you're saying. It actually made me think more of, like, the front grill on an old car. Especially with the eyes above it, almost like headlights. Or like. And then the plume, the single plume at the front, like a.
When a ship has one, it's a.
It's a figurehead. But it's not a figurehead on a car.
Sorry. It's a hood ornament.
There we go.
I was gonna say it might actually be a figurehead. No, cars are not that cool. It's a hood ornament.
Well, anyway, the head makes me think of the front of a car with the plume. A bit like a hood ornament.
I can see that it's a bit.
More symmetrical than a lot of the other mobile suits in this series. I would put this one in the top half.
Not unpleasant to look at, certainly. Now look at this squat little boy on the next one. What odd proportions. Like a kid wearing a jacket that's way too big.
I actually really like this one because mobile suits are almost always sort of much broader on top than they are below. They're very top heavy. They get that superhero V thing happening. But usually, like you mentioned, it's as though there's a body wearing armor. A lot of that comes from Pauldrons. A lot of that comes from sort of exterior shielding. This one changes that in a couple of ways. One, the upper body is broad because the body of the mobile suit is broad. There's no big armor jutting out at the shoulders. It's just the arms themselves being big and beefy and sticking out.
And it looks like it's wearing a vest, right?
It does. With like, a scarf or a neckerchief tucked into the front of it.
It reminds me of when you see, like, peasants in old samurai movies, and they'd be wearing basically just like a tunic vest kind of deal that would go down to around mid thigh, but then they'd have bare legs and bare arms.
I was actually thinking more of, like, military uniforms or like old school pilots with the, like, neckerchief tucked into their coat.
Old school piloting uniform, maybe, because it. And it's got the pipes. It's got the. The hose pipes connecting to the sort of groin zone.
And then the other thing that's unusual about this one is it's quite broad in the hip. And then the legs are relatively short compared to the length of the torso and the upper body. So it does end up having a rather squat look to it. And even with the heavy legs, still looks top heavy. I like it.
I think part of the reason it is so different in terms of its silhouette and proportions is because this was a mobile suit designed for a very specific purpose. Can you remember what that purpose is?
Is this one of the ones that uses the aads?
Yes. This is the first mobile suit we meet to use an Ayn Rad, and I believe was designed specifically to be paired with the Ayn Rad.
Is that what the red boxes on the forearms are for?
Yeah, those form the beam shields that look like the spokes of the tire.
And it's even because you have one on either side.
And it's called the Gedlav.
Gedlav? Mmm.
We're pro Gedlav. Yeah. Let's get some more Gedlav up in this piece.
But what is this?
I couldn't resist putting this one in here. This is not in Victory.
Well, no. I think I would remember if one of them had a cat face.
This is, however, descended from the Gedlav. So they say. This appears in Crossbone Gundam, the manga. This is the Chappie. The Chappie or Chappe.
How many of you listeners have a cat named Chappie because of this mobile suit? Inquiring minds want to know.
It's a good name for a cat. It's especially good because no one would suspect where it actually came from.
It would be a great name for a cat. I don't deny that. I'm just curious.
All right, now, moving on to the next one. What is this, this one is also from Crossbone. Crossbone goes places.
Why are we looking at a bunch of crossbones?
Because this one is also descended from the gedlab and I thought you would enjoy a little whimsy in your life.
I mean, I do.
Geez.
It has a weirdly amphibian face. It makes me think of newts.
Oh, yeah.
Also the roundness in the body feels very organic and the placement of the thrusters and vents and stuff feels organic. Reminds me of like corals and sea creatures. Love a pointy foot.
I mean, clearly the inspiration here is like jester outfit, right?
Sort of. But I don't know, I get almost more of an old school sci fi vibe. Like, doesn't it look as though a clear hemisphere should close over the face and it's a like an undersea or out of space, like space alien outfit. Or this is part of a race of people who live under the ocean or.
I could see that. But it's got the poofy shoulders, the poofy trousers, the pointy shoes, the like.
The extra appendages coming out of the shoulders look like crab legs.
Oh, I see. I think they look like women's legs in like tall boots.
Oh, See, I think they look like a segmented leg of a crab, except for some reason it ends in a rotary cutter.
Or like it's just a wheel. But also like the. I don't know what they're called, but when a. On a jester's hat, you know, it's got those two.
Oh, like two points that flop over. Yeah, perhaps.
And riding around on the big ball. Kind of like a circus clown.
That's true.
And of course the giant codpiece.
Tom, They've all got weird codpieces, every last one of them.
This one especially. This one is called the Lalo. Um, moving on. This one is from the show.
It's Ya Boy.
And do you remember Ya Boy's name?
Da Gorla.
De Gorla. We love a De Gorla. We have gone on at length about our love for the Degorla. So I don't think we necessarily need to revisit that. No, but it's just such a cool design.
They really swung for the fences. They went for it.
And I would say, please give us Dagorla Gunpla, but can you imagine how tedious it would be to build all of those segments?
Yes, with joy.
Alright, give Nina a De Gorla Gunpla. Nina, you can build my segments.
I would love a fiddly, repetitive task. Put On a movie I've seen a dozen times in the background and just build the same segment over and over and over again. Sounds like a lovely way to spend an evening.
I am sure there are people in the audience who can relate to that, but I'm not one of them. Let's move on.
Oh, I remember this was from the early part of the show. The mobile armor.
Yep. It's the one Fire Griffin flies around in.
Right.
They use two different names for it and I will give you credit if you can get either of them.
I can't. No credit for me. Zero credit.
So the official name is the Recarl.
The. The Recarl.
And the unofficial name used by the League military.
Oh, the Frypan.
Hey, there we go.
Yeah, they call it the Frypan.
See, you got credit.
Although in this still I get more of an axe vibe.
I thought that too. Yeah. This still does not really reflect the way it looks in the show when it's moving around and you mostly see it from below.
This one didn't read like a mobile armor to me. Really? It just read like a ship.
Yeah. I was disappointed by this one because I kept expecting it to transform. It's got those little bits on either side under the wings that look like they could be feet, you know?
Yeah. Fundamentally, a mobile suit has a face. Even the ones that aren't humanoid shape. Even when they have strayed from that general form, it always has a face. This one, no face.
Well, you know what this looks like.
An axe, we just said. Or a fried pan.
No, no, like a butterfly. Like a butterfly or a moth with a face on its back.
I don't really see it. I get what you're trying to go for, but I don't really see it. And I think it does not look particularly butterfly or moth like.
Well, the people in the show didn't think so either. They thought it looked like a frying pan. Alright. And the last one, the Gwigzy. You had no trouble figuring out the name of this one.
Well, you put the name all over screenshot. You did.
I kind of went into a fugue state. I don't remember putting this slide together.
There are little hearts all over it and so many cool pictures.
Gwigsy Fancam.
Gwigsi Fancam.
God, we love a Gwigzy. What is there to say about this little hopping flying frog guy that hasn't already been said?
It combines two of our favorite things.
Which is weird little guys and.
Well, I was gonna say the ball and mobile suits that are not humanoid. And it Gets to be both at the same time.
Yeah.
Love the way it moves.
Yeah.
Is there a kit of the Gwigzy?
No, I know. But they have made two kits of other petite mobile suits recently. Ooh, there's a chance. There's reason to hope so. Every time they announce new Gunpla, we can be disappointed anew.
I'm contemplating how one would go about kit bashing a Gwigsy. Because you'd use a ball and then you'd need to get like leg and arm parts from other mobile suits and kind of like.
I have a pet theory that the Gwigzy design inspired at least partially the design for the spherical strikers for from Sakura Wars Spiracle. Don't worry about it. But for the original Mecha from Sakura Wars, I think they might have been at least partially inspired by the Gwigzy. So maybe you could get one of those kits and kitbash it a little bit. But yeah, you would need the gun definitely comes from a ball.
This is all empty bravado, by the way. I am swimming in so many projects, including a Gumpla backlog, that me talking about kitbashing a Quigsy is like it's a pipe dream, but it's a fun one.
Maybe we'll inspire a listener to do what we cannot and finally give the world the Quigsy it needs.
Ending on a high note. Sometimes it walks around on two legs and uses its front legs like arms. Sometimes it's hopping around on all fours. Sometimes it's flying. So versatile.
It can do everything. And it's even got a weird little arm that comes out of its back.
Alright, I have to cut us off or we'll just keep singing the Gwigzy's praises for the next half hour.
Goodbye Gwigzy. Goodbye listeners. We'll see you again next week.
Next time on episode 10.37, live well and Die Naturally. We research and discuss victory gundam episode 37. And funny. Paloma is a pretty ironic name for a soldier. This is getting out of hand. Culture shock. Can an Earth boy and a space girl find love? A new type of Cecily Cecilia Seal. Deadliest Catch. I know I ask this a lot, but where the heck are we? Save the whales. He may use a heat rod, but he's no romberal, listeners. No romberal Scary mouth. Even a boat can be legs and I pinch. 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 Misha 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 you'd like to get in touch with us, you can email hostsundampodcast.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@gundumpodcast.com Patreon you can find links and more ways to help out@gundumpodcast.com support thank you for listening.
I remember imagining that Mountain Dew would taste terrible just because of how it looked like that violent color that it has that makes it look like toxic sludge.
And then it does tastes exactly as bad as you think it will. Sorry Mountain Dew lovers, I'm a hater.
I don't think it tastes quite as bad as it looks like it's going to taste, but it's certainly not a favorite.
The funny thing about it is that it tastes as bad as you think it will, but in a different way.
The taste is surprising.
Maybe this is heresy, but I like the petite mobile suit scale more than full sized mobile suits.
The petite mobile suits feel much more reasonable for the stated initial development of mobile suits as industrial machines. Like they feel more akin to the kinds of industrial machines we use now, obviously with different abilities and different use cases. But that scale feels more similar to a tractor or digging machines or other like industrial construction equipment kind of stuff as opposed to. And they also tend to be less humanoid, I think, which also feels closer to sort of a rational use case for this technology. As opposed to here are a bunch of big humanoid robots for space fighting, which obviously totally cool, but sorry, I'm just.
I'm just imagining you looking at at Gwiggsies hopping through the woods like frogs and going finally a realistic depiction of.
Mecha I o meant petite mobile suits in general.
Sa.