KIDOU SENSHI GUNDAM NT

DESCRIPTION

CAST

OVA ActionKidou Senshi Gundam UC
MANGA ActionKidou Senshi Gundam NT
MOVIE ActionKidou Senshi Gundam: Senkou no Hathaway
ANIME ActionKidou Senshi Gundam Unicorn RE: 0096

REVIEWS

• 

  Pockeyramune919

  74/100
  While still suffering from the constraints of a film, the latest Gundam installment creates an effective narrative.

  

  Gundam movies are hit-or-miss, and from my experience hearing people talk about them, and from quickly looking a the average scores of some of them, they’re generally pretty “miss” in the audience's eyes. A large component of making Gundam as memorable as it is are its strong, likable characters and their development throughout the shows they appear in. Movies, due to their shorter runtimes, cannot achieve the same level of characterization as shows with ~50 episodes - the plot and characters seem either rushed or bare-bones in comparison.

  Gundam NT or Gundam Narrative however, seemed aware of this, and it would appear that the story, as the title (good name for a movie, stupid name for a Gundam) suggests would place a focus on...well, narrative. Narrative’s story would apparently span the known universal century thus far, following the Miracle Children, a trio of apparent Newtypes who foresaw and warned a town about the colony drop in Australia in UC 0079. In the present day, two of the miracle children, Michele Luio and Jona Basta work with the organization Luio and Co. (of which Michele is the current leader) in order to apprehend the recently reappeared Phenex Gundam. According to Michele, the company wishes to use the Gundam in order to try and unlock the powers of immortality (thus finally addressing the newtype spirits that have appeared throughout Gundam), while Jona Basta is only interested in reuniting with his friend and third Miracle Child, Rita Bernal.

  

  So, with this in mind, how is Narrative Gundam? Does it break the curse of Gundam movies?

  It...good. I enjoyed it, but it was nothing phenomenal. I think it did well enough given the circumstances, but perhaps you’re inclined to take my opinion with a grain of salt given that I liked Char’s Counterattack. I don’t see this movie as anything spectacular, but it’s not awful either. It’s just good.

  The animation is beautiful, but this is to be expected with a movie budget. The suits are beautiful and slick in their movements and both characters and mobile suits alike are never off-model. The battles aren’t too grand in scale, but they're still an entertaining spectacle, so if mecha action or simply the mecha themselves are what you came for, Narrative won’t leave you hanging. The only gripe I have in the animation/art department is that there are brief flashback scenes of events from from Zeta and Char’s Counterattack which use the original animation from those works. Given the huge budget, I’m unsure what was stopping Sunrise from simply reanimating them. As is, these parts come across as jarring.

  The music is also top-notch. The techno-inspired music fits in with the mecha action, though the bombastic score similar to what was heard in Unicorn returns as well, with returning letimotifs, to boot.

  

  As for the story, it’s okay. I appreciated seeing snippets of the trios lives throughout the UC. I also enjoyed seeing how Luio and Co. reacted to the Psyco Gundam’s rampage through Neo Hong Kong in Zeta Gundam. It was a way to see the events of the shows I’ve experienced from a new perspective (granted, it helps that Zeta is one of my favorite anime, period). I wish the anime did a better job of blending these two aspects, however. We do see how events effect the kids directly, but I’d like to see more of it. And we only really see three or so flashbacks of the three kids together, we just see more and more of the flashbacks each time. I would prefer it if instead of their story being built by showing more of the same scenes, we see more scenes of them growing up, spanning more events in Gundam than simply the first two shows. However, this brings us back to the problem of movies, their relatively short run time. I’m sure a similar idea was tossed around during the script writing phase, but it had to be tossed out since moreso than a show, a movie is a precarious balancing act.

  And unfortunately, Narrative’s main villain, Zoltan Akkanen plummets from the rope. If him being a failed Char Clone isn’t bad enough for it being a bit of retread from the previous UC antagonist, his backstory isn’t given the same amount of care as the protagonists. We mainly are told snippets of his backstory instead of shown it, and as a result, he comes off as uncompelling. His motivations are murky at best. He wants to kill people because...he’s insane because...he’s a cyber newtype. It’s really a damn shame because the story would be elevated if his backstory was shown in the same manner as the protagonists’, since I’d be a lot more sympathetic towards him. Not to mention, his role as a lab rat parallels nicely with the The Miracle Children’s stories, but without this being delved into, it’s such a lost opportunity.

  There’s of course newtype shenanigans, which, quite frankly, I’m tired of. It’s getting more and more ridiculous and the ridiculous being used in an interesting way (the implications of newtype souls being explored) is ultimately brushed off. Not helping is I just find the “evolution of humanity by going to space” somewhat alienating as a theme. At this point, given the continued poor characterization of “old types” (i.e. normal humans) as well as the fact that early every Gundam protagonist is a newtype, I’m getting kind of tired of the whole thing.

  

  For what it’s worth, however, while the way the story is presented isn’t perfect, it was still quite powerful. This was one of the saddest Gundam entries I’ve seen and seeing how dismal the characters’ lives have been through the years really contributes to this. The ending is bittersweet and it says something that something only an hour and a half long could be this moving.

  Overall, while NT leaves something to be desired, it was effective enough in action, mecha design (the Phenex and Silver Bullet Suppressor are so awesome!), and story, that I can’t be too mad at it. This is a decent-enough sequel to my first Gundam. Thanks to Narrative, I’m excited to see Sunrise’s UC NexT 0100 Project, because it’s high time late UC material gets some more love.

  7.4/10

  C

  
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• 

  ChillLaChill

  65/100
  Gundam Narrative undermines the very essence of what the Universal Century was meant to represent.

  Not much needs to be said about Gundam Narrative's relevance, in short, it's the next Novel adaption of a Universal Century Gundam medium. It's an ok follow up after binging Unicorn because, in a way, it acts as an epilogue to that. However, underneath Narrative is a contrived mess of meandering potential, and a hollow entry as a Gundam film.

  There are some good parts, mainly the action which was always top-tier. The style is good, and I'm glad that it is another distinctly Gundam show. Narrative has killer songs by Hiroyuki Sawano, much like Unicorn did. Vigilante is another one of Sawano's songs that is a headbanger, so much so that it's yet another Sawano song that's ended up on my workout playlists. It's a given that the music has been exceptionally good lately, especially with Sawano collaborating with LiSa for the end credits song narrative.

  With all that said, this film is filled with space magic. I don't mind it in small doses, but if you just want to see Gundam and not Evangelion, then you're gonna be annoyed. In Evangelion, all this metaphysical stuff made sense because it relied on religious symbolism, spirituality, and just being a complete mindfuck to get its point across. Except for Gundam, focusing solely on mysticism ruins the core message, especially when the original focus of the series was its commentary on a human-conflict in a post-WW2 era. The original UC Gundams worked because they were relevant messages applicable to any time. I could not give two shits about Gundam where the focus is on super robots piloted by superhumans that can quickly resolve the plot, partly because there's no deeper meaning to it. There are also instances where you actually need to have watched Gundam Unicorn to understand background context and their character significance. Narrative is not a good starting point for Gundam newcomers, and arguably an even worse starting point than Unicorn.

  A majority of Narrative feels kind of dull, especially after watching other Universal Century films like Gundam Thunderbolt that does everything better. It kind of reminds me of those mech shows from the 2010s that were all trying to compete or dethrone Gundam. Many of their stories ended up being generic as they chased trends instead of establishing them (see Aldnoah Zero for wasted potential), and Gundam Narrative is no different. It's trying so damn hard to be a unique mech show that it stumbles into cliche most of the time, especially when it tries to use space magic as an excuse for storytelling. It's super annoying that the Newtype trope has devolved into nothing more than a huge McGuffin for the writers. For something that's titled Gundam Narrative, there's not much of a cohesive plot, and the literal narrative fails as a result.

  The story itself moves at such a piss-poor pace, and so much of the film treads water at parts. There were some flashbacks that occur right in the middle of a battle, which completely ruined the pacing of the current scene and film as a whole. It's not to say that I wasn't entertained, the action held my attention, but the whole reason I love Gundam so much is its complex themes that are rooted in hard sci-fi. Narrative makes action its main focus, which really drags the film away from its commentary on war (if at all), and it becomes ever more convoluted when Newtypes are thrown into the mix. What's even worse is that even the action is far and few between, often appearing at unconventional times. The main cast is uninteresting and unrelatable because they're Newtypes with god-like superpowers. The next Char successor barely even gets much of a character introduction too, and he just shows up with no real backstory as if you're supposed to know who he is already. Even the inclusion of Unicorn seems sort of half-assed, in what I can only assume is a way to promote new Gunpla.

  I don't know if the novel was any better, but this movie does an atrocious job of convincing me to read it. I say again, this over-reliance on Newtype BS needs to stop. I don't want to keep repeating myself over and over again. Space magic has just gone off the rails and serves only for plot conveniences. Narrative isn't garbage, but it's only redeeming traits are its soundtrack and animation. If you actually eat up the Newtype plotline you'll probably love this one, the entire movie revolves around that, but it won't save the contrived plot and generic characters. The plot could have been good, but making Narrative a singular movie clearly didn't do justice for the more fleshed out novels. As someone who doesn't care about the metaphysical aspect of Gundam, Narrative was a very forgettable film. Really my only reason for watching this was it's because it's more Gundam. If you're expecting fulfilling storytelling, look elsewhere, or you'll be sorely disappointed. To quote Jeremy Jahns, "You won't remember this in T-minus 1 day.

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• 

  SpiritChaser

  35/100
  Gundam written by Chris Angel. Newtypes are magicians now. Might as well have one Gundam saw another in half in a box.

  To be fair, Newtypes have been strange since the beginning. After Unicorn, NT follows and expands dramatically on the Newtype. On the other hand, there's much too much focus on Newtypes that it drowned all the other parts of the story. This film feels weak, though it starts to develop in an interesting way with the ever evolving Newtypes, and mankind's new mission to become immortal among some of the characters. Hardly any of the new characters are likeable. Jona is the only decent one though an hour and a half movie and the weak story didn't do enough for his character.

  He's friends with Rita, a Newtype who really wants to be a bird. The more she said that, the funnier it got. They debate whether or not there is a heaven or hell, or reincarnation. Rita, however, is devoid of any real character, or a face for half the film. She spends the movie flying around saying the same things and talking like a child. I don't blame her since she was sliced up and experimented into oblivion. Michele is the third friend of the group, and has a plan the rest don't necessarily agree with. Compared to the other two, her interest lies with immortality and her interest in how Newtypes can still live on and communicate after death. At least, one thing this film does is show what happens to Newtypes and how harsh the experimentation is on them to the point one child busts her head open on thick glass from being so unstable.

  Zoltan is by far the worst part of the film. He annoyed me more than Katz. He's a Char reject that failed to become the new Frontal. As a result, he has this extremely annoying over the edge personality and horrible facial expressions. He is a bastardized version of Char without intelligence. Even so, he's so comical I couldn't take him seriously. I can't take several parts of this film seriously, in fact. There's the Dragon Ball tier detections the characters get, and I laughed at "It psycommu-jacked it!" The Newtype powers are even more out of control this time, and along with Rita and Jona's meaningless like bond, it felt like the climax of a kids film. Jona isn't even that good of a pilot, he just happens to have the ridiculous powers of the glittery rainbow. Then there's the poster for this that looks just awful. Mineva doesn't do much besides sitting in the dark which is a waste of her character after her build up in Unicorn.

  I can't be too harsh at least. The best parts of this definitely were the original Gundam, Zeta, and ZZ flashbacks. Unicorn characters do return, though the poor production values made many look unrecognizable or bland. Some of the new minor characters are drawn so odd they feel out of place.

  

  This convenient picture from the film accurately portrays how I felt watching this as I fought with the pause button for better things to spend my time on. The production values dropped so much on this film that it feels depressing. It could have tried to be better as a theatrical release, and yet the downgrade is so painfully obvious. Besides the "attempt" at expanding the Newtype lore and making their powers even more ridiculous than they already were, Sawano returns with another decent score to redeem whatever this was supposed to be. A shame that the arrow of the original timeline entries has started to dip with this for me. At the very least, the film felt more enjoyable towards the end.

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