Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ ("ZZ" pronounced "Double Zeta"), the anime that follows... the apparently horrific Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam series. Now, this little experience, I'm sure, is vastly superior to that one experience of watching the entire Mobile Suit Gundam SEED series... It was terrible. So terrible, I couldn't move on to the sequel.

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ follows the plot of yet another to-be-child-soldier. His name? Judau Ashta. He's 14 years old, younger than the previous two Mobile Suit Gundam protagonists when they picked up their unnecessarily large suits of armor (Amuro Ray was 16 when he first piloted the Gundam; Kamille Bidan was 16 when he piloted the Gundam Mk-II), and... apparently collected scrap metal to sell for cash. He comes across an escape pod (in really good condition too apparently) belonging to none other than Yazan Gable. If not for Yazan's appearance, Zeta Gundam never would have been activated again by Judau... even if the result of the activation resulted in utter hilarity.

Well, if you've seen the link at the beginning of the post, you can tell that Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is full of angsty little teenage kids, right? This anime? It's a whole lot cheerier. In fact, unnecessarily cheery compared to its prequel. I mean, sure, it's not "Oh my god, my sides!" funny; it's more like ha-ha funny. Also, the main message of this anime is the same message that appears in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: ADULTS SUCK. Only... that message is taken to a new level by making all the ace pilots of the anime... children.

If you so desire, you can argue that Mobile Suit Gundam is the first series in which the "adults suck" message appeared.

Once Episode 11 "Activate, Double Zeta" happens, it's no longer a Mobile Suit Gundam anime. Instead, it becomes a generic Japanese mecha anime in which smaller fighter jets combine to form the invincible super-robot that kills everything with its super lasers. In this case, the ZZ (again, pronounced Double Zeta) Gundam. Seriously, it's like the Gurren Lagann of, well, Gurren Lagann. If you think about it too, this anime's pretty stupid. I mean, once they form the ZZ the first time, you'd think they'd keep it that way. NO. INSTEAD, THEY JUST TAKE IT APART AND FORCE THE PILOTS TO COMBINE THE THREE CORE PARTS TO-GUCKING-FETHER. Seriously, it's not much bigger than the Zeta. And much of this anime takes place IN SPACE. WHY EVEN BOTHER TAKING IT APART WHEN YOU'RE IN SPACE. Fortunately, they learn quickly and put the ZZ together before launch.

This anime, it has absolutely no real plot. And if it did, well, it's probably really stupid. I mean, the first 10 episodes are just "LOL LOOK AT ME, I'M JUDAU AND I'M STEALIN' UR GUNDAMS THAT DONT HAVE KEYS", 11 and 12 are just Voltron references... and the rest is basically "ME JUDAU, GOD OF WAAAAAAAR, LOOK FOR SISTER AND EVIL RED HAIRED PERSON RAAAAAAW."

A clip from "Activate, Double Zeta!"

Many characters from the Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam series make appearances, especially those working on the AEUG battleship Argama. These include Kamille Bidan, Bright Noa, Fa Yuily, and Yazan Gable. However, many of these characters were reduced to nothing but minor characters. Seriously, that only serves to make that Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam series even more pointless than it was already. Really, the only important characters from the previous series are Bright Noa and Haman Karn.

The Mobile Suit Gundam pattern. What, haven't you heard of it? I only just figured it out. It goes like so:

Main character comes across a new Mobile Suit (usually some new model of Gundam), stops some sort of invading force with the Gundam, joins the army, travels to earth, fights some, learns from killing enemies and losing friends, goes into some sort of trance or spiraling depression, snaps out of trance (eventually), heads back into space, stops the war. Along the way, the main character and a certain rival clash a number of times, with the main character's skills as a pilot growing better––little by little, of course–– with each battle.

Note: this pattern doesn't apply (I think) to "sidestory" series like "The 08th MS Team" or "0083 Stardust Memory". This, I believe, is all that happens in Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam. And Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, but no one cares about that series.

Basically, the story gets a 2/5 for genericness.

Episode 37 is where everything makes even less sense than it already does. Captain Bright Noa, captain of the Argama and the recently introduced Nahel Argama, leaves the Nahel Argama to rescue crew members. Once finished, he pilots the launch over to the La Vie en Rose… and gets ditched by all the kids on the ship. And so, Beecha Oleg becomes the captain of the Nahel Argama. Now, this is just PUSHING the "ADULTS SUCK" message first introduced in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.

Again, you can argue that the "adults suck" message first appeared in Mobile Suit Gundam if you so desire.

Toward the end of the anime, a section of Axis/Neo Zeon just turns against itself, and Judau Ashta becomes Simon right before his first Giga Drill Break. Judau then makes like Kittan, flies off into space in the ZZ Gundam, fights Haman Karn, and destroys the Death Spiral Machine. Only he doesn't do the last part. Oh well. The anime had a poor start and it ended decently.

All in all, this anime was... decent. If I had to summarize it in one word, I'd have to say "children."

Note: The number of times Judau Ashta hijacks the Zeta Gundam before he becomes its official pilot: 4.

The number of times Judau punches old people in the face to get his point across: 3

The number of times Elpeo Ple says "Puru": … a lot.