I can't believe we went through all that build up just to off Gihren the same way Tarantino offed Hitler in Inglorious Bastards lmao.
One of the recurring themes in Gundam, as a franchise, has been about how the new world keeps getting strangled stillborn by those clinging to the old world, by the Oldtypes who keep forcing Newtypes into the pre-existing power structures and status quo, who insist on weaponising their abilities. That's kinda here in full force, complete with Chekov's guns and all. Kycillia's the usual fascist nonsense, but the show did a pretty good job of explaining it's allure through Nyaan's story- though it does make me sad to see home girl fall for it and pull the trigger on the Space WMD. Challia's perspective, at least, is grounded in his own personal trauma from having stared into the cold, unfeeling void of space- the closest to heroic we're going to get, he bequeaths on to Machu the freedom to act to prevent mass death. Beard Man is getting up there in favourite UC characters now.
(Khara you're not slick making the most queer coded guy in the show say that line. Subtext is for cowards, y'all better gimme sloppy Char x Challia make-out sesh by the finale)
Next week:
People will try and tell you Zeon isn't a stand-in for Imperial Japan as they launch yet another surprise attack lmao
Is it really Pearl Harbour if you’re attacking yourself tho?
OG Zeon definitely was an interrogation of Imperial Japan mixed with a larger critique of fascism, that said in GQX it’s become this stand-in for Cold War era American hegemony (complete with doomsday weapons) that’s sadly still relevant, while Side 6 represents Japan’s place as a defacto colony, imo
It's more that it's presented as a crime to attack things without declarations of war. Japan only declared war on a few countries, yet launched attacks all over the place. It was pretty much just France when they invaded Indochina/Vietnam and Britain the day after Pearl Harbor when they invaded Singapore and Malaya. China and Korea had been at war for years without Japan actually declaring war ("Why is your country in the way of our army?"). Places like the Philippines were attacked as part of the operation at Pearl Harbor.
I don't think the US or Soviets ever launched direct attacks at each other during the Cold War, did they? There were proxy attacks, but never anything direct?
Oh yeah that’s fair, Zeon definitely has that war criminal vibe to them.
I think in this case it’s more a what-if scenario of if the Cold War went hot. Iirc The Man in the High Castle (which this show is kinda blatantly cribbing off)
spoiler
ends with Nazi Germany planning on launching a nuclear first strike on Imperial Japan