God, I royally suck at giving this series the pimping it deserves. Let me try to take this one step at a time...
wow you've realy got to be streaching it to tell me that a show with giant robots who's primary mode of locomotion is to surf through the sky, doesn't have a gimmic. I'm sorry but that is a huge hurtle to overcome in the suspention of disbelife department, this whole thing sounds like a bad gundam wing fanfic. and the fact that you dismiss this as some triviality makes me distrust you jugement.
If this was just my judgment alone to go on, then you might have reason to doubt me, but it goes a lot farther than that. I know several enormous anime fans (we're talking people who've seen what probably amounts to a few hundred series here) who picked this up subbed, fell in love with it, and eventually wound up ranking it in their top 5 series they'd ever seen, right up there with things like Cowboy Bebop, Paranoia Agent, and Monster. I know the "I know a guy" line might not do much for you, but these are people whose anime fandom I respect immensely, and they're ones who got me into the series in the first place.
As for what you're actually asking about, you might not believe it, but what I said is true. Yes, the mechs in this series use what are essentially giant surfboards to fly. Yes, the aircraft on this planet use the same technology, which essentially consists of reflective films that use specific subatomic particles in the atmosphere to generate lift. But that's it. There's no "stretching" here. You find out that that's the way things are, and then we move on with the plot. It's honestly not too hard to get past. Like I said, the whole mecha aspect isn't even remotely what the series focuses on at all. This is just about as far from Gundam as you can get, and it's sure as hell no "fanfic." We're twenty episodes in, and we're still mostly in the dark about what's going on in this world. The series takes its time to build an intricate plot, just giving you enough sniffs along the way to keep you hooked.
As for YouTube, what's to stop you yourself from going out there and finding it? Last night's episode was 20, but I will say that it probably won't make much sense, nor have any sort of real impact, if you haven't been watching up until then.
*lotsa stuff*
I barely know where to start here, but I'll give it a shot. First off, regarding Eva, I don't think you can call a main component of the truth to the series a mere "plot device" made to get around the whole time limit issue. That wasn't what it was there for at all. But I'm not here to talk about Eva, so I'll move on...
I don't really get what the heck you're on regarding 08th MS Team. I've never seen any of the Gundam series, and to be perfectly honest, I don't have too much desire to. Even if I had seen this series, why the hell would I care how mechs jump? Maybe I'm just fundamentally different than you with what I'm looking for, but that seems like the most trivial, nit-picky thing to focus on. You seem to be forgetting one thing: this is science
fiction. Last time I checked, giant robots are pretty much the most unfeasible weapon of war ever devised in the imagination of writers. Who gives a damn if they're "scientifically" accurate? That's part of the whole "suspension of disbelief" thing. At least to me, the plot, characters, artistry, soundtrack, and general quality of a series are infinitely more important than its adherance to any sort of "realistic" standards.
Still, for the record, I will go ahead and say that this series doesn't treat the LFOs as "giant toys." They, too, have thrusters that they use to enter standing mode and to maneuver in flight. (Once again, I fail to see what makes thrusters so "revolutionary.") They're powered by rechargable batteries; the lack of charge became an issue in this past episode. They have actual physical limitations in flight; it isn't all "let's fly wherever/whenever the hell we want to." They are as vulnerable as the mechs that the enemies of the Gekkostate (the main group of protagonists) pilot. One other little detail I didn't mention before is that the machinery in this world requires devices called Compac Drives to enable their control; we don't exactly have all the details on what they do yet. In short, there's a hell of a lot of thought put into mech design and function here, and dismissing it without ever having seen an episode doesn't make much sense to me.
The funny thing is, though, that none of what I argued in that last paragraph really matters in the grand scheme of things. I assure you, I'm fully "woken up" here. This series isn't a mecha, and classifying it as a mecha is a mistake. It's a human drama that just so happens to have mechs in it. There's nothing at all self-delusional about that. (As for the surfing, there's no "gimmick" here, and it's not even close to prevalent throughout the series; it's an homage by the creator to 50s California culture. There are plenty of references in this series, to things as varied as electronic music synthesizers and Steve Jobs. A whole lot of thought went into all of this.) Again, like I said before, I've never seen Gundam, so comparisons to it mean nothing to me. But I can tell you that this series is at a much higher level than any sort of Zoids drivel. There's excellent story structure, incredible character development, and an underlying care to drawing the viewer deeper and deeper in. I'm not just pulling all of this out of my ass; it's become apparent to me as the series has gone on that I truly love these characters, and I have a hell of an emotional investment in what happens to them. That, to me, is what good anime, and good storytelling in general, is all about, and that comes through loud and clear in this series.
As for dismissing the entire works of BONES so cavalierly, I'm sorry, but I think that's pretty absurd. The series I mentioned contain among them some of the best-loved and most critically acclaimed series to come out of Japan in the past few years. Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex was a ****ing brilliant series; I don't know how many times I've seen the first season, but I'm still gaining new insights into the plot every time I watch. Wolf's Rain was artistry at its best, so sad yet so beautiful. (I shouldn't even have to mention the fact that the incomparable Yoko Kanno did the soundtracks for these two.) Champloo was an amazing blend of anachronism and hip-hop with feudal Japan, with three complex and evolving main characters to boot. Fullmetal Alchemist threw in all kinds of plot twists over its 51 episodes and kept all of us watching it on [as] on the edge of our seats until the very end. Saying these don't have "adequate support" or that their characters are "flopping around" is about the most narrow-minded view I've ever come across. BONES is renowed for their animation quality and the subsequent quality of the series they've produced. You can't just write this up as "garbage" when it's included in "best series" lists everywhere.
...Look, I know this probably didn't do anything at all for you. I normally wouldn't get so worked up about this, but this is a series I've grown to absolutely love, and seeing it get ripped from people who've had not so much as a sniff of it just pisses me off. If my words didn't do anything, then try taking a look at
this. It's a preview that one of the subbies on the [adult swim] forums put together for the second season of the series, which we're in now. At the very least, it'll give you a slight insight into the character and mech designs of the series, even if it can't begin to show you the way the plot and characters have slowly and steadily unfolded from episode 1.
