Gundam 00: Space Battlewagon

We can come away from a good action sequence saying more than ‘wow’ or alternatively ‘it left me cold’. So, for example, in one of Legend of the Galactic Heroes‘s side-stories it’s extremely fitting that a certain character dies with the loss of his right arm just before the revelation that he was less of a dangerous Machiavel than he had seemed. That revelation would have felt different if he had lost his left arm instead, or for that matter if he had died with all his limbs attached.

Fate/stay notes

Personally I'm all for priests who serve God first, but 'whatever'.

I was tempted to use a Slowpoke as my initial image, but given how late I am to this party it wouldn’t fit – not even a Slowking would fit. Slow-God-Emperor-of-a-Million-Worlds, perhaps? Anyway, Sir Lancelot, the Wife of Bath and Anne Hyde have combined in a dastardly conspiracy to take away any free time I might have had to produce something thought-out, so I offer you this succession of impressions, followed by some musings about violence, instead. (Just in case there’re any readers out there who don’t already know that Servant Archer is Soylent Green, I think I’ve avoided giving away any significant spoilers.)

Mecha Obscura

Gasaraki is the unacceptable face of large robot action. If Gundam 00 is mecha pornography, it’s standard middle-of-the-road product, whereas Gasaraki is the equivalent of something only legally available from one shop in Amsterdam, catering to a bizarre paraphilia involving several species of animal and copious amounts of various bodily fluids.

Epitomising 0080

The climactic battle of Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket deserves detailed attention.

I’m a little ambivalent about doing this, however. On the one hand, I love 0080 and I’m aware that not everyone who reads this will have seen it – so it’s a chance for me to recommend it. On the other hand, I’m going to write a commentary on the final battle of the series, and so by its very nature, it will be spoileriffic.

I really wish I was able to write good reviews, because then I could encourage you to watch this without giving away the ending. But I can’t. All I can do is say ‘This is great, and I can’t tell you why without ruining some of it for you’. It’s your choice whether to read on or not.

If you’d rather read a review, here are three. [The first comes from ANN, but the other two are from unvetted blogs. You Have Been Warned.]

136 Words per Second

Sometimes I like to pay (ridiculously) close attention to short stretches of animation, an activity I call, half in jest, ‘close reading’. This is one of those times.

This particular slice of animation is the second fight scene from the third episode of Seirei no Moribito (also known as Guardian of the Sacred Spirit), though I’ve attempted to ensure that this will be of some interest regardless of whether you’ve seen the show or not: the entry is lavishly illustrated and contains no major spoilers. It just so happens that this is, in my opinion, one of the greatest pieces of animated action ever to have crossed my laptop’s screen, for reasons which will hopefully become clear shortly.