What the hell did Harumoshi Fukui write?
I can't even find any excuse to hide my dislike for Mobile Suit Gundam NT.
As the first Gundam theatrical anime to be officially released in mainland China, it is believed that Sunrise has high hopes for Mobile Suit Gundam NT. Of course, they do have this reason.
NT is a sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam UC, and the scripts are all written by Harutoshi Fukui, and UC has become the cash cow of Sunrise Animation and parent company Bandai Namco for nearly 10 years. There are dozens of models of the protagonist Unicorn Gundam, and many model players have even called it a "money cheater", so you can imagine how much Bandai has earned from it.
Because of the problem of deformation structure, the mobility of the money cheater is not high, and some parts are also easy to be damaged, but when the machine is set up, it has been sold like crazy for more than ten years. I've also received several versions.
There is no doubt that UC has been a great success. Perhaps for this reason, Sunrise hopes to replicate UC's success in NT and even pave the way for Mobile Suit Gundam UC 2 in the more distant future.
But they made a serious mistake.
The success of UC does not mean that it is an excellent work. Yes, UC has beautiful machine design, successful character images, delicate drawings, and beautiful music. But it is precisely this merit that hides what should have been fatal. And this flaw was finally completely exposed in NT.
The story of UC and NT, based on the worldview of the "cosmic century". This is the oldest, most prolific, and most orthodox view of the Gundam anime series. The 1979 animation "Mobile Suit Gundam" directed by Yuki Tomino laid the foundation for the cosmic century, and many subsequent anime and OVAs, including "Z Gundam", "Char of the Counterattack", and "Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket", brought the world to life in a more complete way.
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's "Gundam THE ORIGIN" tells the origin of the story of the universe century, which is more in line with Tomino's setting.
In Tomino's setting, the cosmic century is entirely an extension of real history. At that time, human beings had just entered space and established settlements in several Lagrangian points and the lunar surface of the solar system.
In such a cosmic century, the relationship between people, between organizations and organizations, and between regimes is very realistic. The belligerents of the One Year War, the Earth Federation and the Duchy of Zeon, are by no means monolithic internally. During the Battle of Gripps, the relationship between Ogu, Titans and Axis was even more complicated, far from being "enemies" or "friends" that could be described simply. The house arrest of a hero who has won many battles, and the PTSD of a genius boy are all real things that happen in this world.
The little brother lying on the hospital bed is named Camus, one of the strongest new humans, but he is mentally traumatized during the war and almost collapses.
Interestingly, Tomino, who constructs such a realistic worldview, is a romantic at heart. In his cosmic epoch, a very small number of human beings have changed and become "New Humans". They have a strong ability to recognize space, and they are natural experts in cosmic warfare, but more importantly, they can carry out telepathy under special conditions, and even burst out with power that is difficult for ordinary people to achieve. And when this happens, it can only be called a "miracle".
In the year 0093 of the cosmic century, Gundam pilot Amuro Rai gathered the will of mankind to push away the asteroid that fell to the earth, avoiding the ecological destruction of the earth, which is undoubtedly the greatest miracle. And UC and NT written by Harumoshi Fukui, the story takes place a few years later in 0096 and 0097. Whether it is this small time span or the same "miracle" as the key to the story, it can be seen that Fukui is trying to take over Tomino's class and continue to write the myth of Gundam.
The asteroid Axis that was pushed away. This miracle created by the new humans is one of the most classic scenes in Gundam history, and it has also unfortunately opened up the abuse of UC and NT.
The problem is that, not to mention the clumsy imitation, the things that Fukui wrote are simply a departure from the classics.
As mentioned before, Tomino constructs a worldview based entirely on reality. People in this world have a reasonable and clear motivation for whatever they do. The miracles of the new humans are also accidental events under extreme conditions, and it is difficult to replicate. We can fully say that it is precisely because of the cold and ruthless reality that the greatness of miracles can be highlighted and people's hearts can be moved.
Original text of the Charter of the Universal Century.
But Harutoshi Fukui seems to intend to subvert this basic setting. In Gundam UC, the "Laplace's Box", the key to determining the direction of human politics, and the original text of the "Universal Century Charter" a hundred years ago, actually reads on Article 15:
"In the future, if it is determined that a new human being will be born that is adapted to the living environment of the universe, it should be given priority to participate in the operation of the government. "
Big brother, when this constitution was born, the concept of "new humanity" was simply nothing. To be able to write this kind of into the Constitution, I can only think of the following situations:
One, the constitutionalists were kicked in the brains of donkeys.
Second, he is a superpowered person with prophetic powers.
Three, he is a person from the future, traveling back to the past.
- Either way, it doesn't seem to be particularly common sense. It's a Mobile Suit Gundam, not Haruhi Suzumiya's Gundam.
What's even more fucked up is that Fukui also said that the far right wing in the government, in order to prevent the provisions from taking effect, secretly plotted the destruction of the original constitutional code and the assassination of the prime minister. It was these events that directly gave birth to the separatist tendencies of the inhabitants of the universe in the future, the One Year War and the rise of the Titans, and so on.
This article itself is inexplicable enough, and looking at Fukui's meaning, there are still people who are willing to take huge risks and plan a series of bloodshed in order to prevent its implementation?
From this point of view, it is an indisputable fact that the script of "Mobile Suit Gundam UC" failed. But as I said before, its design, painting, and music are all excellent, and it has also contributed several extremely wonderful fight scenes. As a result, UC not only maintained its appearance, but even became a huge cash cow.
Ironically, Sunrise probably thought that Haratoshi Fukui played a major role in the success of UC, so he asked him to continue writing NT scripts, and even asked Shunichi Yoshizawa, who had only been in charge of acting and had never picked a major beam, to replace the experienced veteran animation supervisor Kazuhiro Furuhashi. We can feel the quality of NT deteriorating from the picture, and Sawano's music is not as amazing as before. And when the beautiful skin is no longer beautiful, the clumsy core script of the story is finally naked in front of the audience.
Mr. Kazuhiro Furuhashi has done three OVAs for "Rogue Kenshin", and he went to shoot "Dororo" this year.
NT's script can be summed up in one word: the magic stick. In the second half of UC, this problem has actually been criticized by many old Gundam fans, such as the floating flying shield and the crystallized satellite cannon. But compared to NT, they are really insignificant.
In the NT, both the Federation and New Zeon are tracking the Unicorn III "Phoenix". It moves alone, without a trace, without a trace, and in an uncertain track. If this were a normal Gundam work, then you would think that its pilot was on some covert mission, that there were organizations and forces secretly supplying it, and then slowly revealing the truth as the plot progressed. Even if you take 10,000 steps back, this machine is really a lone ranger, and it probably depends on some autonomous AI, or someone remotely controlling it, to be able to be haunted for so long. After all, the Gundam is just a manned robot, essentially no different from an airplane tank.
But Fukui's explanation in NT is that the body is possessed by the ghost of a new human. Therefore, all the actions of this body are controlled by ghosts.
Forcing the true female ghost of the universe.
I wouldn't ask Fukui to have any respect for the Universal Century, but he should at least know that he wrote a science fiction script, not a fantasy novel, right? If it weren't for the fact that the phoenix had grown into a robot, I would have thought it was the ghost ship in Pirates of the Caribbean. There is no political conspiracy, there is no brilliance of humanity, and some are just golden robots haunted by female ghosts and have an unbearable appearance, such a broken thing is also worthy of being called Mobile Suit Gundam?
The setting of the new human ghost possessing the mech also directly reduces the meaning of "new human" in Gundam. It is difficult to define exactly what the new humanity is for Tomino's cosmic century. According to the founder of the Republic of Jean, it is "a cosmic settler who lives in the universe and will have a new life and a new mind."
These humans who have adapted to the universe are often labeled as ace pilots because of their outstanding spatial perception. But the new humans will also be confused, and will also go down the wrong path because of the desire for power or revenge. By nature, the new humans are not perfect, they are just mortals with some superhuman qualities. And the times, between the entanglements of these mortals, are moving forward step by step.
Tomino's new humans fight, no different from mortals.
But in Fukui's NT, what has become of the new human? It is a person who can see through time, a person who creates black technology, a person whose soul is immortal, and if you become a new human, you will not grow old and die. In order to prove this, he simply arranged for one of the protagonists to demonstrate the transformation of ashes into ghosts on the spot, as a way to prove his theory.
When the scene of the new human Michel committing suicide and becoming a ghost appeared on the screen, my friend sitting next to me saw this scene on the screen and laughed angrily. I totally understand his feelings. War and casualties were originally very heavy topics, but Fukui completely lost its seriousness and turned into a circus antics performance.
Yes, in NT, new humans can go back in time, summon from the heavens, fight cattle across mountains, and live forever. How to say it, such a character, who appeared in the online article, is probably a ruthless character who has been robbed several times, and it actually happened so the battlefield in the universe century that should be based on realism. The original cruel war turned into a magic trick in a few minutes. As if waving his hand was not enough, Fukui even let Gundam feather out of wings in the end?
The "new human" in Fukui's hands is similar to "quantum", and any mess can be set up.
I don't know what the hell he's writing about.
Fukui forgot a truth, that is, when watching the movie, the audience has an expectation of Gundam in their hearts. The reason why Tomino's "Mobile Suit Gundam" stood out from the crowd of robot animations was that it was different from the hot-blooded super anime of the time, and the world view and story tended to be realistic. Over the past 40 years, most viewers have actually come to see Gundam as a representation of real-life mecha animation. In other words, when the audience walks into the theater, what they want to see must be the mecha pilots' battle of wits and courage, not the magic master's tricks.
To take the best example, UC has just begun, which is a battle between the general-purpose mass-produced MS Jiegang and the enhanced human/new human MS Kshatriya. In terms of performance, cost, and armament, Jiegang is not an opponent of Kshatriya, but its pilot has gone from a long-distance attack, to decisively abandoning a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher with depleted ammunition, holding a bazooka, and then to maneuvering with enemy aircraft, and finally letting the sunlight interfere with the camera of enemy aircraft, and at the same time launching a sacrificial assault.
Plot-wise, what's the point of this battle? Actually, no. It has very little to do with the main line of the story. But this battle immediately presented the concept of a real robot, and the audience also enjoyed watching it.
And the battle of Gundam NT, unfortunately, has become blurry in my memory from the moment I walked out of the theater. The only thing that impresses me is the scene where the protagonist chases the Phoenix Gundam in the Narrative Gundam in the early part of the story, but this is just because the protagonist's power as a new Fukui-style human has not yet had time to burst out, and the fight scene has not yet had time to become a ridiculous joke.
Of course, one might say that the point of my attack on NT is that it does not conform to tradition. But that's not the case, Mobile Combat Gundam G goes further than UC and NT on the path of apostasy, but I don't hate this hot-blooded super robot anime. You see, its worldview is self-contained, and the story is told with ups and downs.
Mobile Fighter G Gundam
But Fukui didn't even have the ability to tell a normal story.
Putting aside the deviation from the worldview of the universe century, the characters of the movie itself are pale, none of them can really stand up, and the villain simply resorts to the setting of "a psychotic girl", which makes people very speechless. But at this point, we can barely shirk the length of the movie. If it's as OVA as Unicorn and can be filmed for six hours, then the credibility of the character may be higher. However, movies with average duration and outstanding image are still grabbed one by one, so this at least shows that Fukui's ability is not enough to take on the heavy responsibility of writing the script for the film.
What's worse is the way he advances the plot. If you're unlucky enough to watch NT, you'll know that the reason why the protagonist drove the Gundam and Rita turned into a female ghost was because they were caught in the laboratory for human experiments when they were children, and they overheard the conversation of the researchers in the observation room. In other words, the whole story begins with an eavesdropping. However, it is quite strange that the observation room for human experiments does not have any sound insulation effect.
The villain Zoltan is crazy.
And in the climax of the story, the reason why the reinforcement Zoltan went on a rampage and drove the New Zeon 2 out to attack indiscriminately was also because he overheard the conversation between Lieutenant Eric and his superiors, and realized that he had become an outcast. So we can say that the whole story is finally overheard. The problem is that the cabins in the space battleship - or the cabins of the special service commissioners - are they not soundproofed at all?
If there is only one clumsy eavesdropping scene in the film, I can understand it, but it appears twice and in a crucial position, which makes me deeply doubt whether Fukui has completely lost his ability to control the character and the plot, and can only borrow this extremely simple and crude means.
The new human magical ability is strong to grab MA.
At the Gundam press conference last year, Sunrise said that Gundam UC was going to release a sequel, and NT could only be regarded as one of the episodes. The story of UC2 will take place in the year 104 of the Universal Century, which is seven years after the NT.
The news is worrying. After all, NT is only a work of a side story, and even if it is strongly opposed by Gundam's core fans, the impact on Harutoshi Fukui's status may be limited. If Sunrise doesn't realize where UC's success is and NT's failure is, and continues to let Fukui take the lead, then UC2 will only fail even more miserably.