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Are you finding the commercial push too heavy handed?
Topic Started: Dec 4 2011, 07:23 PM (531 Views)
HellCat
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Regene Regetta
Back when AGE was first announced, no secret was made of the fact it would be aiming for a slightly younger audience and that it would have a significant merchandise push. A new arcade game, a new card game, various models including some with special chips, etc. We all knew this going in.
Thing is, do you think AGE's actual story has done a good job at pushing this stuff whilst respecting the needs of a good story or is it falling short?

I have to be honest and say 9 episodes in I'm leaning towards the latter. Titus and the G-Exes debut, the show is less then subtle about how awesome we should find them and even has Woolf deliver a barely meta advert for his unit. The episode straight after, we basically get shown that the Titus is useless and already the next variant is forming. I don't feel that we're seeing a naturally evolving tech development, more the show rushing 2 new Gundam forms quite close to one another and the second one selling short the one before it. The previous series was 00, which I felt handled this element near perfectly. AGE just seems to have no clear path for making these transitions effective. For one thing, I'm amazed none of the characters seemed to grasp that making the Gundam big and bulky would reduce speed and that this was an obvious handicap against the UE. The forms seem to push merchandise uniqueness, not logical combat use.
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Magos Clarke
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It doesn't bug me that much. Sure, it feels a bit stilted - but I'll take the bad with the good. While technological progression was smoother in 00, the simple 'this is how it is' is working for me. I don't need UC level technological expression to just go 'hey, cool robot'. I can understand and sympathize with your concern, but it's made for a fast paced, entertaining show. In comparison, even including Fardain, Age has blown 00 S1 outta the water for me as far as the first ten episodes go.

Granted, 75% of all Age dialog wasn't "Those people, Unknown Enemy..." like 00 S1's...
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Thrawnma
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Funny, from what I've seen the only thing the Titus is lacking against is the Zedas, which has been shown to be above and beyond a normal UE unit in all ways.

Do you think it's odd that for once the titular Gundam is not just outmatched but desperately attempting to meet the demands of its foes? 00 certainly showed us the Gundams being incredibly powerful off the bat and it took the allied forces being given Gundam technology in order for them to compete on even slightly even terms. It seems almost refreshing to see a Gundam struggle, it sort of emphasizes the fact that beneath the cartoon veneer there is an element of desperation being promoted here.

Hasn't the whole thematic element been that this is a last, desperate attempt to fight an altogether superior force? 00 never had that element, even when the Gundams were getting hard-pressed it was usually due to pilot incompetence at which point a new upgrade, weapon, or system was introduced to re-establish them as top dogs.
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HomelessOne
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Veda Terminal
So far I'm finding I prefer the incredibly half-hearted introduction of alternate forms for the lead Gundam over the story having to divvy up "look how cool this is, buy it" time every episode to an entire team of Gundams. To an extent it also seems an issue of format, with such a limited number of episodes to introduce and show off AGE-1's forms before passing the mantle on. Of course, they could've introduced Titus earlier...

I think some of the merchandise advertising in AGE has actually been kind of clever, like Haro and the Diva catapults.
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HellCat
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Regene Regetta
I'm not complaining about the Gundam being significantly challenged, I welcome that. What bugs me is we got a big deal made over the Titus last week and already there's a need for a third form. We couldn't let the Titus have a few episodes before Flit, Vargas and the System realised it was lacking? For that matter, I'm wondering why the system doesn't just give Flit a heavily armoured melee capable unit with powerful thrusters to compensate and the ability to wield the DODS.
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raxtenko
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Probably because Flit needs that for the final battle and the writers aren't writing from an "in universe perspective" =o
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EXE
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Heroic Peon
I don't think things being so toyetic is good for the story in any show, but I think AGE is handling it a lot better than Kamen Rider, for a quick example. It's been around since the very first Gundam and it'll always be around as long as the series is made in Japan, so I don't really get why it would suddenly be a problem now.
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HellCat
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Regene Regetta
EXE
Dec 4 2011, 08:06 PM
I don't think things being so toyetic is good for the story in any show, but I think AGE is handling it a lot better than Kamen Rider, for a quick example. It's been around since the very first Gundam and it'll always be around as long as the series is made in Japan, so I don't really get why it would suddenly be a problem now.
The point I'm raising is if people feel it's getting in the way of a consistent story or not. I'm fully aware it's been part of the Gundam cocktail since the beginning but each production team is different in how well they manage to juggle the needs of the sponsors against the needs of a good story.
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SonicSP
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For me it would depend on which examples. I'm not bothered a lot by Spallow and Titus for some reason, because I feel like its making the AGE System doing what it was supposed to do which was create reactive specialized design solutions to enemies and it hasn't being doing that till now. I would even say that the AGE System not doing this often enough, or has an unfairly skewed distribution troubles me more than it happening at all. In other words, it seems to not be timed well.

Yet, G-Exes is one example than doesnt gel with me simply because its performance prowess isnt explained very well. It appeared (with a short development time) and beat the Baqto mainly because the engineer took a good look at the Gundam through a pic and "was very good". Not that a unit like the G-Exes is not needed, it is to have an effective sidekick beside the main Gundam, but as Hellcat said I think its an example of it just not being done really well. It also made the Genoace Custom, a unit that we thought was going to improve of the very useless Genoace seem more of a commercial opportunity than anything.
Edited by SonicSP, Dec 4 2011, 09:17 PM.
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HellCat
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Regene Regetta
Funnily enough, for a show that wants to have a single Gundam unit (and even the G-Exes has kinda broken that) AGE is making a better argument for a team. Obviously Dessil is fixated on Flit especially but think how much smoother things would be if each AGE form was its own dedicated machine.

I think as Homeless said it probably would have helped if they had introduced Titus sooner. Heck, you could have brought it in for episode 6 and say the System built it off of Dessil's close combat techniques with the Gafran. That would have given it some time to shine in Fardain before needing to upgrade to Spallow for space combat. Would have been a heck of alot less wonky then having spent near an entire episode telling the audience how amazing Titus is and then in the next needing yet another upgrade.

As for G-Exes- I'm still waiting to see what they do with MS Smith concept, which is fairly unique to AGE. The fact that the backstory has several famous families who are considered the experts in this field and that supposedly AGE is set at a point where humanity had turned its back on weapons means I'm willing to just about accept a guy with decades more experience then Flit could pull such a thing off. Long time fans are very much taught to expect powerful MS come only from super powers, so this is a bit like if Lowe Guile built the Justice Gundam. We'll see what happens next.
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