[Anjelus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb9L94WRP20&feature=youtube_gdata_player


Clip from MS Igloo 2 The Gravity Front, epic One Year War is epic

If only MS IGLOO was available in the States. It seems like it had a limited release, but all vendors seem to be sold out. Malaysia still sells some English-subbed copies but I have a strong suspicion that they're bootlegs.

Why the **** is it called "IGLOO", anyway? 

Almost through Gundam ZZ and I'm not seeing why people hate it. It is FANTASTIC! Why, Bandai, why won't you release this over here?

Char's Counterattack is up next, followed maybe by Unicorn. And then my copy of Awakening of the Trailblazer should arrive within two weeks.
The Blu-rays for Unicorn seem to cost like triple the price of the normal DVD's, is it at all worth it, you think?

Hmm... I haven't seen Gundam Unicorn. Hadn't even heard of it before. But it's UC Gundam and that makes me interested. Not sure why in heaven's name it's so expensive but it's not on Netflix so... meh! I'm sure it looks nice ;-)

As far as MS Igloo... yea, basically impossible to find a copy here. Sad because it's really a cool series. I'd check Ebay. Failing that you're pretty much out of non-torrent options for finding it sorry to say.

[Flaser]

Here, have some advice from /m/:

[JGZinv]

Other than the entry about Gundam Wing's suits being "bland and uninspiring", Miller's Report not being required watching, and 00's being influenced by 9/11 a good thing,
I can agree with all of that. It does not account for Gundam Unicorn or SD though. Also realize there's more side story filler than you can shake a Gundam at in manga, novels,
and other reading or radio material that's been put out over the years.

Not sure you can say 00 really has highly innovative suit designs as most of the features of class based Gundams were done in Seed and Wing before it. Sword, Sniper, Flight, etc...
were done in Seed.  00 just tied things together better as a combat team using the abilities effectively.

[Pred the Penguin]

Thanks a ton for the guide. Might get watching some series if I get bored enough.

[Flaser]

Other than the entry about Gundam Wing's suits being "bland and uninspiring", Miller's Report not being required watching, and 00's being influenced by 9/11 a good thing,
I can agree with all of that. It does not account for Gundam Unicorn or SD though. Also realize there's more side story filler than you can shake a Gundam at in manga, novels,
and other reading or radio material that's been put out over the years.

Not sure you can say 00 really has highly innovative suit designs as most of the features of class based Gundams were done in Seed and Wing before it. Sword, Sniper, Flight, etc...
were done in Seed.  00 just tied things together better as a combat team using the abilities effectively.

It refers to the grunt suit designs. Both 00 and Wing suffer from having very interesting grunt suit designs that can't even scratch the paint on the Gundams.

[NGTM-1R]

It refers to the grunt suit designs. Both 00 and Wing suffer from having very interesting grunt suit designs that can't even scratch the paint on the Gundams.

Second the hell out of this. The Mercurius and Vayate are more or less the epitome of it, but the whole modular-gear-Leo thing and we spend our time watching them get blown the hell out of. People have built entire series using something like that. (Flag comes to mind.)

[JGZinv]

Well I mean the same could be said of the Zaku... how many billion times over the UC timeline do we see the same
suit used, or big chunks of it rehashed into another body? The head alone was used on just about everything... might as well
stamp a sticker on it's eye saying "Hi, I'm from the Zeon."

Sure there were some variations, or a upgraded version here and there. You could just about say GW did the same by swapping
Leo's for the Aries, the Taurus, then Cancer and Pisces, then the Virgo. The Leo's were nothing more than the same fodder as the Zaku.

[NGTM-1R]

The Zaku looked ridiculous and was armed ridiculous. (A freaking tomahawk?) It never posed a threat to a main character unless heavily upgraded.

The Leo looked like someone might have actually designed it and even, in theory, could have hurt a Gundam. It had the option for beam sabers and the same ranged weapons as Tallgeese.

[StarSlayer]

The Zaku looked ridiculous and was armed ridiculous. (A freaking tomahawk?) It never posed a threat to a main character unless heavily upgraded.

I'd argue the Zaku wasn't really designed to fight Gundams or RGMs for that matter, at the time it was initially rolled out Zeon was the only force with mobile suits.  Basically it was meant to pound on enemy capital ships and conventional ground forces, which it excelled at.  Similar to the BF-109 by the time it was obviously outclassed Zeon simply didn't have the time, resources and wherewithal to roll out modern suits like the Dom and Gelgoog, or trained pilots for that matter, in meaningful numbers so it stayed in service beyond its time.  In the hands of an experiences pilot unless it was facing a plot mobile suit or a NewType I don't think it was incapable of fighting a more modern suit.

As for aesthetics considering its a design from the 70s I think it still holds up pretty well, especially the more updated interpretations that show up in 08th or 0083.  It's certainly better then some of the goofball designs that show up in the alternate universes.

[NGTM-1R]

I argue that misses the point, since the Leo wasn't designed to fight other Leos. (Also rolling out the classic argument about Nazi Germany is Zeon that even the series writers use doesn't help the analogy at all; the point was that the Leo, despite being essentially a Zaku clone, had the means to pose a credible threat to much newer and more powerful designs if it could take them by surprise or otherwise be used intelligently, like a proper BF-109 vs. late-model FW190. Indeed, the discussion more or less goes off the rails when you realize the Bf-109 equivalent in Wing is in theory capable of killing the local Me262 equivalents. Whereas the Zaku could do little more than have its face stomped in by a Rick Dom, much less a Gelgoog or Z'Gok, no matter how smart the pilot was or what the setup.)

[Anjelus]

The Zaku did fairly well in 0080 but the pilot was much more experienced than the Gundam pilot was. It did quite a bit of damage as I recall. In general though it's just cannon fodder for a Gundam but I would argue it does fairly well against mainstay Federation suits. The Zakus caused pretty high casualties at the battles of Solomon and A Baoa Qu, even when they were badly outnumbered and piloted mostly by trainees.

[Dark Hunter]

A good pilot in a weaker mobile suit is still capable of wreaking absolute havoc.

Crowning example: Norris Packard, 08th MS Team. Dude took on three Gundams and three Guntanks in a single Gouf and utterly wiped the floor with them. Not to mention the earlier moment when a trio of tanks (those ridiculous Zeon tanks with fighters for cockpits) managed to take down a Gundam using clever tactics.

[Scotty]

Captain Norris was a ****ing BOSS.  Full stop.