Bodysuit 23 #556

Uuuuuhhhhhh. Don't have too much to talk about. Guess I'll just type whatever comes to mind.

Haven't been keeping up with any anime airing right now. Anything anime related that I've been watching is older stuff that I've had sitting on my shelf for a while now, such as Tari Tari, the Mobile Suit Gundam trilogy, and Columbo. One thing I did manage to do was watch Spirited Away to its completion. First time I managed to sit through it since like 11-12 years ago. My reaction to it hasn't changed much: it's good, but mid tier studio ghibli stuff. Not Miyazaki's strongest work, but not his worse either *cough* Ponyo *cough*.

Speaking of Gundam: having watched the movie trilogy, I finally have a solid understanding of the myriad of OG Gundam related stuff I've seen over the years, as the most I had watched of it was a few episodes back on Toonami in 2001. Couple of things I learned/noted from watching it:

• A certain character died way earlier than I thought they would've, considering the gay shit I've seen of them, which led me to believe they'd be around longer. That and seeing them in that Toonami bit a bunch of times.
• Char just kinda vanishes while the Ramba Ral stuff goes on?
• Amuro deserved getting slapped by Bright Noa.
• Lalah really does exist just to get the 70s/80s "psychic users" trope that was popular at the time.
• How forced the newtype shit was. I understood that they tried to go back and fix it in the movie trilogy to make it less forced, but you can really tell it was made because Tomino was looking at what trends were becoming popular and wanted it in his cartoon that wasn't doing well in ratings.
• That final shot wasn't as epic as I was led to believe.
• I knew Zeon were space nazis, but holy cow did it become overt near the end.
• Char getting that head shot with a rocket is pure gold.

Overall I enjoyed it. There was plenty of camp and stuff that made me roll my eyes, going "This sure did come out in the 70s!". I think it's worth a watch if you're an anime fan. It's like Star Wars. Sure, it's been referenced to death. Everyone knows Darth Vader/Char Anzable, but having the context on who those characters are adds another layer of enjoyment when you see it referenced. Like the first time I saw this bit as a teenager, I didn't know who most of these characters were. But now I know who they all are, so when I come back to it on a rewatch I get an extra kick out of it.