Gundam Reconguista in G Bellri Funny
Tomino's Misunderstood Masterpiece
I'm one of the biggest defenders of this series and find it greatly misunderstood. For me, it was like watching something you would find in avant-garde cinema. Not necessarily from an experimentation standpoint, but in the sense of trying to piece the narrative together e.g., something like Inland Empire or Last Year at Marienbad. It was such a perplexing and challenging experience. This only added to my appreciation for it.
The messy politics, confusing human relations, lore, characters, and sprawl of it all was fascinating for me to unpack. Each episode is dense with thematic exploration and plot movement. You cannot watch this with your brain on autopilot mode. This series makes you work to understand it all because you won't get any info bumping from the director.
G Reco is also Tomino at his most auteur, so you're either along for the ride or not. It is uncompromising and refuses to appeal to modern anime storytelling conventions. I see Gundam Reconguista as the Gundam series for the diehard Tomino fans. If his style was never for you, don't rely on this series to make you a fan of his work.
It is also quite postmodern in places because I get impression Tomino is providing meta-commentary on the franchise and fanbase throughout the work. It's not overt commentary or anything which makes it more meaningful when you find it. Turn A Gundam was getting at similar metatextual themes which makes sense when you consider the relationship the two series have together. I also appreciated how this series was like something you would've seen in the 1980s only with modern animation, so that's probably not very appealing to newer Gundam fans. All-in-all, it's not for everyone, but it was certainly for me. I think it's a masterpiece and one of the great Gundam series.
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Terrible, ugliest Gundam series
Remember how cool Gundam 00 in 2007? well Reconguista G is way too bad, too random, and too childish.
The Gundam design is ugly compared to Gundam design in Gundam 00, Gundam wing, or in Gundam Seed.
The story is freakin' confusing. It's hard to follow whats going on.
The character is also so random, Bellri is not like Setsuna or Heero Yui. Belri is childish, have no consistent mindset, and not cool at all.
The graphic is quite unique thou. The drawing is really looks like in the 80s. I don't say its +, but its quite unique. So what's the pro in this reco G? nothing, its just that bad. Gundam 00 is way better in every aspect.
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Convoluted Unengaging Mess
Warning: Spoilers
This show is a mess… With everyone crying that the plot makes no sense and even its creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino, giving it "15 points out of 100," I approached with caution. While some things bugged me at first, I pressed on, telling myself, 'It's not that bad, Turn-A was worse.' Eventually, however, I caved in about 2/3 of the way through. This is the worst Tomino Gundam by a mile. While the animation, music, mechs, etc are all great, this series fails so hard on story and characters that it simply isn't worth watching.
As many have pointed out, this series is simply too complicated. There are so many countries, factions, ships, mechs, and characters that it quickly becomes incoherent. And it's not that the story is impossible to understand, it's actually pretty simple when you boil it down. Rather, it's that nothing has any flow or purpose to it. Reconguista is so obsessed with its own military/sci-fi minutiae that there's generally only a minute or two per episode left over for story and characters. Anyway, the show basically amounts to a dogpile war where 4 separate countries are all at war with each other for control of earth. They're constantly allying and betraying one another, while trying to obtain the most powerful weapons. If the original Gundam was a World War 2 metaphor, then Reconguista would definitely parallel World War 1, with all-out war escalating in the face of rapidly evolving military technology. That's actually a decent premise for a Gundam show, but it's handled so poorly that I never felt invested in anything.
In the middle of this conflict is a typical White-Base-type space ship that houses most of the protagonists. While the different countries have clear motivations, pretty much everyone on this main ship has no motivation for anything they do. They're on a happy-go- lucky space adventure - they go wherever they please and join whatever fights they please. It also steadily pulls characters from all sides of the war onto this ship, with little justification. Our main protagonist, for example, joins this group of pirates and starts FIGHTING HIS OWN PEOPLE because…. He has a crush on one of their pilots? I think? Bell's female friend Noredo also joins the pirates because…? And the pirates let an enemy civilian on their ship because…? What I'm getting at here is that nothing is justified in this show. Things just happen with little purpose or consequence, all the way to the end. The biggest facepalm to me was a trip they take to a space station toward the end of the show. This 3 or 4 episode arc served no purpose other than to introduce one more faction to the already over-complicated dogpile war. One of the protagonists just wanted to go there so they went, and once they got there, they immediately came right back! WHY? There's not even any resolution at the end. There's one final battle and then the main character bails on everyone and climbs Mt. Fuji for no reason at all. I'd say spoiler warning but it was so random and unsatisfying that I don't even care.
Sadly, the characters in this show are about as awful as the story. Tomino seems to have airlifted in the main 3 characters from Turn-A Gundam, his last Gundam series which I also hated… (why do I keep watching these?). Bell, the main protagonist, is relentlessly positive. He keeps smiling and follows the story wherever it takes him, just like Loran in Turn A. It's impossible to get invested in a character like this because he, himself, is not even invested in anything that's going on. Even worse, his female friend Noredo spends the entire series whining and nagging, like Sochie in Turn A. That's her entire character! She just whines and nags, contributing nothing. Because y'know… that's what women do, they whine and nag *EYEROLL* (that was sarcasm if that wasn't clear – this show's portrayal of women is so terrible in many other ways…). The final character, Aida, is stuck up and unappreciative of Bell, but he never stops following her around like a puppy dog… bleh. Aside from those 3 characters, the other 50-or-so characters get hardly any characterization at all thanks to this being an over-stuffed mess.
I could compliment the animation, mech fights, or soundtrack but it would be a waste of both of our time. This show sucks, even if you're a die-hard Tomino fan. Sure, it's technically part of UC Gundam but nothing of importance happens in this show and it generally feels like it was written by a 5 year old. There are many many better Gundam series than this. Do yourself a favor and watch any of them instead of Reconguista in G.
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Give this Gundam a chance
Okay, I'll say that I didn't have high expectations going into this show, but in the end, it actually turned out to be fairly decent. While it's certainly not the BEST gundam, and it doesn't engross you like Gundam X or SEED or much of the original UC titles, it's certainly a lot better than trash like Gundam 00 and SEED Destiny. People above me are saying that the story is confusing to follow, but I honestly don't find that to be the case. I get the feeling that the people who are "confused" by this story are either just not paying attention to begin with or are just not wired to process a complex world like Greco's.
I will say that a major issue I did have with this show is that several characters including the protagonist join the motley crew of pro-Earthnoid pirates very willingly and on a dime, which IS kind of confusing as they essentially are casually deserting their respective forces. I feel like this part of the character development is what people latch onto and and then say that they are "confused by the story", but in reality the story is actually pretty easy to keep up with if you're paying attention.
Overall I'd actually give this one a 7/10 because it's not quite up to my tastes as far as Gundam is concerned. I'm raising the score to 8/10 though because I'm just absolutely appalled that its getting the low ratings its getting from other people, not to mention that there are people who ACTUALLY think Gundam 00 is better than this show.
To people saying that this show is too "childish", I think they are just confused by the good usage of color in this show as they are too deeply in love with the eyesore color schemes of shows like 00 which they somehow deem "more adult". But having seen most of both 00 and Greco by this point (I'm watching them concurrently) I can safely say that 00's dialogue sounds like it's out of a 11-year old's Gundam fanfiction whereas the dialogue in this show is pretty easy to follow without cringing and is fairly good, even by Tomino standards.
In short: Don't listen to 00 sycophants who give this show an absurdly low rating.
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Good visuals but I didn't get the story.
Warning: Spoilers
As a long time Gundam fan, I was expecting a plot with at least 80% (space) battles, and I was not disappointed. The visuals are awesome and I think they nailed the animation. So far so good, but here is the thing: I am lost to the point that I no longer understand what is going on. I mean sure they go to the Venus Globe and got new Tabu technology and stuff, and society degenerates for some reason, and then there is this guy creating some political plot to do something, not sure what, and some family relations and friendship and other war stuff, but it is all so random. I haven't figured out anything beyond Bellri being the main character, and that only because he gets to pilot the G-self. What is with the plot? Is it something more going to happen that explains everything? If you can pull that, dear Tomino-san, some kind of movie that explains the randomness in the series, I will bow down to you. Please tell me, I would like to know. My vote is based purely on the magnificent visuals and characters designs.
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When Tomino made a story with his eyes closed.
Warning: Spoilers
GGNR is a mess. Even I, a Gundam fan that did a Gundamthon due to the 40th anniversary, couldn't believe how messy it is!
The story takes place far into the future, after Universal Century stories, but long before Turn A. And it has many story elements from Turn A. For instance, Ameria wants to take over the space elevator that is under control of the Pope.
The animation and the mecha design are some of the most beautiful ones in the entire franchise. Also the ost is atmospheric & classical. But that's where the good points stop. I struggled through this trainwreck, but once it entered the second "season", all fell apart. The story is a mere "The bad guys from the moon have come to conquer us" (thus the title), while Ameria's president/emperor from New Yark wants to conquer the Pope's holy land, Capital City. Sides go back & forth, more quickly than Wing's mess and you never care for any character. And all this, with the pacifistic approach from Turn A.
It's a beautiful but broken mess that perhaps will do for Miyazaki enthusiasts. But I'm not one. Along with ZZ & AGE are by far the worst Gundam full series until this day and you should avoid them by any means.
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Gundam Reconguista in G Review
After watching and enjoying mobile suit Gundam iron-blooded orphans, I decided to turn back the clock and watch Gundam Reconguista in G in fill the void, and it's a choice a regret.
The first 5 episodes push all of my buttons of annoyance literally throwing us in, 'you want a Gundam? Here it is!' The pacing is like going on a safari but instead of a van you're in a roller-coaster, characters and plot points go by so fast and only mentioned once or twice that a large majority of them are over shadowed by other facts and techno-babble.
Speaking of characters it occurred to me by episode 9 that I said to myself 'I don't know anyone's name'. Every character feels like a cardboard cut-out with a one note personality or no personality at all. No one acts like a real person, they all just do stuff and there's no sense of development from anyone. Bellri is the happy go lucky hero, Noredo is the best friend who happens to by a girl and doesn't like it when Bellri looks at other girls and Aida is the stubborn princess. No one is memorable to stand out to me and it feels like they don't give me any reason to remember them.
But without a shadow of a doubt the major issue I have with Reconguista in G is that it plays it to safe. It doesn't feel like there's any danger or threat to our main cast (and I use that term loosely) that when the battles start I'm not interested because I know the outcome. The worse offender of the is the ending credit theme, 'G no Senkou' by Daisuke Hasegawa for those of you who haven't seen it shows all the cast dancing and having fun, smiling and laughing which ruins any sense of drama or seriousness from what we've just seen (episodes 2, 6 and 16 being the worst offenders)
So why did I watch the whole thing? Because I know there are people who do like it and I wanted to see the light in the forest, but from start to finish I couldn't find it. Even without the Gundam title I still wouldn't enjoy this. I gave it my best shot and tried watching it in multiple ways, but for me, I'll stick with 00, iron-blooded orphans, build fighters and even AGE. yes, I like AGE.
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3996158/reviews
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