VIII: Shambling Monstrosity

The Shamblo owned much of the latest episode of Gundam Unicorn.

I like good mobile armours, I think because they’re usually bestial, and it does the soul good to see a small humanoid figure (the Gundam) squaring off against something like that. And it’s a salutary reminder that Gundam is at least as much unstable psychics riding monsters as it is hard-bitten soldiers piloting war machines—you will note that the painting stuck in Banagher’s memory is not titled The Lady and the Ordnance QF 17-Pounder.

Robotic Vomit

When Banagher threw up in the second episode of Unicorn, I thought it was natural. Marida just punched him in the belly, after all.

But that’s ridiculous. The Kshatriya, not Marida, punched the Unicorn, not Banagher, in the belly. He succumbs, I suppose, to the amount of force applied to the cockpit as a whole (and the NT-D’s demands?), rather than to any particular part of his body. And yet part of my mind still thinks these are human-scale bodies or suits of armour.

(Compare that scene in Votoms where Chirico’s wounded in the leg, and his blood, escaping from a bullet-hole, runs down his Scopedog’s leg. Though, re-reading what I just wrote, we could probably do other things with that.)

III: Three Times Faster

‘Technology takes precedence over characterization, and thematically, the material is retrograde.’