New age: Details about 'Zeta Gundam'
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Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (aired 1985–1986) was a televised anime, one of Gundam series and a sequel to the original Mobile Suit Gundam. The show was written and directed by Tomino Yoshiyuki, with character designs by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, while the series' mechanical designs were split amongst Kunio Okawara, Mamoru Nagano, and Kazumi Fujita. At its first airing, the show was poorly received by many casual TV watchers, Tomino's wife being one of them. These viewers found it depressing and confusing, and as a result, the series never was nearly as popular as the original. Out of all the Gundam shows that he has worked on, Tomino has stated that Zeta along with Victory Gundam were the series that he really hated to work on. Amidst such concerns, Tomino later made the sequel Gundam ZZ into a much lighter affair, to the point that it alienated many of Zeta's fans. Today Zeta Gundam is being considered by many fans as one of the best Gundam installments to date, if not the most representative, as it depicts Tomino's ideas in a harsh and realistic way. In 2004 Bandai released in the US a limited edition Zeta Gundam box set with both dubbed English and original Japanese audio tracks. Due to music rights issues outside the company's control, the opening and closing sequences were altered, and the English subtitles have been critisized as having translation errors. The set included pencil sharpener collectibles and a 48-page booklet and poster.
Distinctive featuresSeveral features in Zeta Gundam depart from the original series:
SynopsisZeta Gundam takes place in UC 0087, seven years after the end of the One-Year War. After the events of Gundam 0083, the Federation military establishes an elite division called the Titans to hunt down the remaining pockets of Zeon resistance, but the Titans use brutal methods to reach their goals. Two resistance groups form, the AEUG (Anti-Earth Union Group/Anti-Earth United Government) and their earthbound counterparts, the Karaba (led by Mobile Suit Gundam's Hayato Kobayashi. Their members consists of renegade soldiers of The Earth Federation Space Forces, former soldiers of Zeon, and militia from space colonies altogether. Behind the frontline, Anaheim Electronics lend their support for AEUG and Karaba as their principal financial and technical backer. The series begins when a thinly-disguised Char Aznable, now a member of AEUG under the alias "Quattro Bajeena", raids a Titan military base in the occupied colony Green Noah in Side 7 to acquire intelligence on the Federation's new Mobile Suit prototype, the black Gundam Mark-II. Kamille Bidan, a hot-headed Newtype dissident, is caught up in the raid and helps AEUG steal the Mark-II. Eventually, he joins the AEUG, initially as the Mark-II pilot, then as the pilot of the new Z-Gundam mobile suit (made by Anaheim Electronics and based on Kamille's own design). Compilation movies: A New TranslationIn celebration of Gundam's 25th anniversary (and also the 20th anniversary of Zeta Gundam), the 50 episode series was compiled into a new movie trilogy. According to Tomino, the movie series was created to fix some of the problems he identified in the Zeta TV series and to bring the twenty-year old series into a twenty-first century context for the new generation that's now experiencing the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED series. The first of these, "Heirs to the Stars," opened on May 28, 2005 with great success, followed by "Lovers" in October 29, 2005 with similar results. The third, "Love is the Pulse of the Stars" will be released March 6, 2006. The compilations had the TV series of Zeta Gundam digitally remastered with new footage of 33% for the first film, and around 70% of the second film. Changes like the Argama never visiting the colony of 30 Bunch and instead having Emma Sheen watch a video of the colony (which conveys the same message as in the TV series), were made for the film to flow more smoothly and not crammed like in Tomino's previous Gundam film compilations for Turn-A Gundam. Like the Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy, the majority of the original cast of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam reprised their roles for these theatrical versions - with the exception of Yukana replacing Saeko Shimazu as Four Murasame, and Satomi Arai replacing Miyuki Matsuoka as Fa Yuiry. According to Tomino, Kamille, who had a sad and tragic ending in the Zeta TV series, will get a happier ending in the third Zeta movie. Its interesting to note as well, that these film's have done exceptionally well in the Japanese box office, far more so than previous efforts by a Gundam series as well as many high profile animated film's such as Steamboy. This success is made even more remarkable by the fact that the film is shown in a more limited amount of theatre's than film's are usually shown in. Heirs to the Stars, the New Translation's first film in particular, came in at 3rd place on the box office on its opening week and Lovers, the second film has recieved similar success. One possibility for this startling success is the recent wave of nostalgia desiring a return to the story-telling style of older anime as well as general nostalgia. However, a good deal of New Translation's viewing demographic are of a younger generation as well ranging from the late teen's to early twenties. Even more surprising is the rather high amount of female viewer's, reaching thirty percent of the overall viewing audience. Although the core demographic is twenty to thirty-two year old males still, many see this as a reminder of just how well crafted the original Gundam series's were. Tomino himself, who had been wrought with a recent string of financially failed series's, has posted a personal thank you to fans and casual movie goer's alike on A New Translation's official website. Figures of the third movie are expected to be quite high. Theme Songs
See alsoPreceded by (in production order): Mobile Suit Gundam Preceded by (in timeline order): Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory Followed by: (in production and timeline): Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ Variation models: Z Gundam Mobile Suit Variations (Z-MSV)
機動戦士Ζガンダム เซต้ากันดั้ม 機動戰士Z GUNDAM
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