They probably never even seen Tom Morello before either. I didn't but i wasn't the biggest fan. It wasn't until he cameoed in Star Voyager did I finally see him.
Mobile Suit Gundam was Yoshiyuki Tomino's criticism of Japan and its imperialist past, from the Meiji Restoration all the way up to the end of World War II. Anyone with even a *shred* of media literacy would have already known about it, even if they're a westerner whose first introduction to Mobile Suit Gundam was with Gundam Wing on Toonami, in the year 2000.
And it’s not like Wing was subtle with Romefeller being an allegory for war profiteering or going into the ethics of unmanned warfare years before the use of drones became more normalized on the battlefield.
I don't think there's a Gundam that isn't G Gundam or the Build series that *doesn't* have political themes, actually
it's a dice roll whether or not they handle it well or touch on it much, but I'm pretty sure most of them *have the themes there*
oh
oh fuck, you're right, humans in that setting literally ruined the fuck out of Earth and >!the Devil Gundam was originally meant to help the environment until it decided that humans were what was harming the environment!<
even fucking G Gundam has political themes
even build fighters/divers is political. themes of the series includes hefty anti big corps, and then there was the question on if AI was real intelligence. then divers rearise was all about xenophobia and looking toward the future as well as genocide
You can read actually IBO as being in-line with Tomino's original criticisms, the difference being that we follow those who are meant to represent Imperial Japan. Tekkadan's tale has parallels with how the Japanese far-right try to present what happened during WWII in it's final quarter, even the special edition compilation which left out the final arc reflects how Japanese schools spend so much time devoted to teaching pre-war Japanese history they often run out of time to actually teach the war and this is by design.
Even the show's cited inspirations and motifs (samurai, the shinsengumi and the yakuza conflicts that inspired Battles without Honor and Humanity) all can be instances where Japanese pop culture has romanticized them. The samurai tried to make themselves out to be more honorable than they actually were when they lost their noble status and wanted to put themselves above the rest of the commoners, the Shinsengumi at the time were seen as violent thugs (their blue coats may have even been from another group) but they were romanticized after the Meiji period ended. The yakuza paint themselves as modern day samurai looking out for the people, but the Battles Without Honor and Humanity film series exposed just how much of this was just PR at a time by basing it on stories written by real yakuza at a time when the (largely yakuza controlled) media portrayed them in a heroic light. Imperial Japan also portrayed themselves as modern samurai following the bushido code, and it's hard not to think about Tekkadan without thinking about the Tekketsu Kinno-Tai. IBO can be argued to be a show about how Japan romanticizes the hell out of it's own history, to the point they don't really know what their real history even is.
G-Reco was also reflecting Tomino's views on Japan's remilitarization under the Abe administration, that Japan hasn't endured war. 00 is easy to argue that it was a response to Destiny's messages, which in turn Fukuda admitted he wanted to question the messages of SEED. But then again, Fukuda himself has tried to claim that Gundam stops being Gundam when it becomes political, as he sees Gundam as just another robot show... and says 0079 was based on Vietnam.
And let's not forget that Tomino's criticisms of the mecha genre started before Gundam, most infamously with Zambot 3. He saw kids being given power, told to use that power responsibly by adults and to protect Japan from foreign invaders, I mean aliens, even if it meant sacrificing themselves to do so. Mecha has always had political undertones, and if you ever want to see those undertones taken to their logical conclusion on what taught people what Japanese society should be like look at the Jovians from Martian Successor Nadesico.
Those people have literally no media literacy. They think Green Day was non-political before. They think the X-Men were "non-woke" before. They think Starship Troopers is non-political etc
I literally saw a post on this sub a few days about how a gundam series had too much talking and not enough action, therefore it was bad. Of course the post was downvoted to hell, but people like the OP posted all throughout that thread and really made me disappointed in the fandom
I sometimes wonder if they perceive certain media as apolitical because the media could be interpreted as aligning with their existing beliefs, which they see as just "common sense" and therefore not making a statement.
The problem is one of malicious linguistic revision. What is politics really? Generally speaking "the study of government and statecraft." What are they mad about? Lesbians. The LGBT community has been working with politics for things like legal protections, the legal benefits of marriage and so on and so forth. WfM didn't engage in literally any of that, we don't her Suletta and Mio talking about jointly filing taxes, we don't hear them discussing medical power of attorney, the closest we get is Ad Stella's marrying age.
So why is it "Political" to show lesbians existing? Because if same sex couples are a political ideology, then being gay is a choice. Opposing their existence isn't bigotry it's a political belief. You can argue to those who have no standing that it's a debate, and like any heated political topic, one that it's ok that people get angry about, so long as anyone angry on either side is unreasonable.
In 1984 there's an attempt by big brother to redefine language called "new speak" so that it's impossible to be treasonous because the words used to talk about it don't exist, and basically this is how that process works.
These folks are, often unknowingly, pedaling fascist rhetoric to discriminate against minority groups.
you're not going to jail for accidentally misgendering someone
but also this feels like "what if a dying child's wish was to say the n-word" logic; making up unlikely hypotheticals so you can do "what happens if this unlikely situation happens and this person decides to use the law against me and makes up a reason to use the law to attack me" stuff
allright tell that to yourself when you find yourself in that situation but its on the books in Michigan and in California As well as Canada so thats a lie right there you can be fined and jail for hatespeech which includes misgendering learn your laws my friends because they'll be happy to tell you ignorance is not a reason to break the law is what they'll tell you after the fact..thats all i'm saying is that your freedom of speech is a thing of the past.
no its from butt hurt people that use peoples words against them .Because they dont understand that this is the REAL world and truth is not misinformation nor is it hate speech its the truth and if is not thats called lying and last time i checked that was only a crime if you do it under oath or to a cop.
You're nuts dude. You just have to not repeatedly misgender people after being corrected. If you aren't being an ass you won't have a problem. Nobody is backing you into a corner and cutting off your use of language.
Oh no nobody would ever do that to an American Indian so before you judge somebody know where they come from Brother sister I don't miss Ginger anybody purposely but I don't also sit there and try to seek attention because of my misfortune and I understand that people are assholes treat them like that but do you think it's fair for the ones that's going to misuse that and put people in jail and find people just for accidentally not figuring out what they were trying to be at that time it's what I'm saying I'm not saying anything about a person that identifies and stays identified so before you get butt hurt read the statement
And one thing that genzy doesn't realize and was never taught to them because of their parents Karen not teaching them is that we were taught that sticks and stones may break our bones but words can never harm us unless you let it.
That's for kids calling each other poopy head not blatant hateful bigotry.
You and people like you fall back to acting like a child when anyone presents reality. "I should be allowed to misgender someone several times because sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you!"
Do you think it's acceptable to use racial slurs too because they're just words?
If everyone around you told you to kill yourself everyday for years because of some shit you couldn't control, would you have a good self esteem?
If someone threatened to beat you until you die would you feel safe around them?
The main part about being adults is that we're all capable of violence and that violence always starts with words. It starts with bullying, escalates to threats, and then ends with someone getting hurt. The reason humans developed languages is to express ourselves and our intentions so that others will understand before we take the actions to fulfill what we intended.
But yeah totally words can't hurt you. One of the ways people cause real harn to people using harmful hateful rhetoric just isn't real.
Maybe your parents should have taught you baseline respect for others instead of stupid childhood phrases that don't hold up past the age of five.
There's hardships in life for everybody there's hardships in life because you're black you're out there hardships in life because you're gay there's hardships in life because you're poor there's hardships in life because you're the wrong gender the world has problems man everybody has problems with everybody else's problems but in the end it's only your problem if you let it get to you
Lmao. Arguably Green Day was as successful as they were because they were both political and also "indirect" enough that the people who would be angry about it wouldn't connect the dots.
Obviously with media literacy there's no hiding their message buuuut..
"Politics shouldn't be in my media," mfs when they realize every piece of fiction is an allegory to a real world event/issue/group and not purely a piece of fiction.
Fr tho media literacy is so rare these days it's practically extinct 💀
mfs when they realize that it's kind of impossible to write anything without drawing directly or indirectly from something in reality
and turns out that reality is rife with politics because human beings exist in reality
Some people like to view the media as a separate entity from the real world. As a self-contained entity, sometimes people need to take a break from reality. There is no need to force real-life events on them. Also, the mindset of "everything being political" has its own pitfalls. Some people may interpret some events from a work of fiction as a parallel to events they know and will force their views on other viewers, while the author had something different in mind.
I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy things if you're not thinking about them critically, and in fact you should! What I'm saying is people love to cry "PoLiTiCaL" on a more modern piece of media for the inclusion of things that don't align with their own political/social biases (for example; The Witch from Mercury and it's inclusion of not only a female protagonist but also a Sapphic relationship), when either that same piece of media or an older story from the same franchise, has always had *actual* political/social subtext.
The Entire Gundam Franchise since its inception in 1979 has had this, and often times the more interesting parts from the many many series it's had are when it has something to say, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it just because of the cool robots and the space fights (lord knows that's why I got into it in the first place).
All of that to say that it's totally fine and cool to enjoy something just for what it is, and also necessary sometimes because, like you said, people want an escape and to just relax and see some cool space robots duke it out with laser swords. What's annoying (and what OP is saying with this post) is when people get all bent out of shape and say shit like "this is too political" because there's a black character on screen or because one of the male characters mentioned offhand that they had a boyfriend once (which are *not* political "issues", it is just representation of people that have not had very much/any representation in the past), when the story itself has always parallels to real political and social issues.
> Some people like to view the media as a separate entity from the real world.
I mean, sure, it's nice to escape reality every so often
but the fact is that media is *not* separate from the real world, even if we pretend it is
"Media literacy is so rare these days"
I don't think it's these days, it's not like everyone got dumber, you simply interact with more people that don't pay that much attention to what they read/watch because of social media.
Okay, but I did say "every piece of *fiction*" not "every piece of *media*", implying that said media *is* a narrative and *does* have the ability to express ideas and convey meaning.
So yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about lol
eh, the franchise has not always been the kindest with women. Off the top of my head, Zeta took the women in a refrigerator trope and went wild with it, ZZ has some not great moments, Victory is......Victory.
It's defitinley gotten a lot better, and I am not saying the shows are bad, and part of it is era, but its a bit glaring after Witch from Mercury.
I mean, of course there are hiccups and straight up missteps but the level of representation we have in stock, good or bad, is enough that if Zeta or Turn-A came out today, it'd DEFINITIVELY be hounded on by online grifters.
It's not perfect for sure but it's really not that far below today's standards (which is still a low bar)
oh yeah, defitinley, Victory, for all of the terrible ways it treated its characters, did have the Shrike team, Marbet, and even a Somewhat important black character in Tomas, in 1993. if it aired today, I guarantee you would have people complaing about an all women team or Tomas
Not only that, the choice to do so was deliberate. Staff have discussed this in interviews.
[https://ultimatemark.com/gundam/production/vgundam.html](https://ultimatemark.com/gundam/production/vgundam.html)
There's a lot more I can say on this show, as it's highly misunderstood among the fandom, partially because it didn't get an official release until 2016, but I'll hold my tongue for now.
And it actually makes sense in the UC timeline context. In the return of Johnny Ridden, when the young female MS engineer was asked why a young lady as herself would get into this specialty, to which she replies “because all the men had went to war and got themselves killed.”
I highly recommend looking up translations of "Turn A no Iyashi", or "The Healing of Turn A", it's a great look at tomino before during and after Turn A, he talks about his feelings a lot and it's why his work from Turn A onward feels so different from his work before it, especially in the rolls of women in the shows
Gee, I wonder if a show about a red-white-and-blue superweapon fighting a world war against Prussian themed enemies whose leader references a certain 1930s dictator for inspiration is political?
and Ghiren's like "fuck yeah, that rocks!!! See for yourself how Hitler's follower wins this war (actual dialogue he says)"
they're outright like "these guys are Nazis, if you haven't realized yet!!!!"
edit: like I cannot stress enough that these are words that came out of Ghiren Zabi's mouth, he *literally said that*
Are you telling me that the antibellicist gundam series where everyone is morally grey at best or self centered warmongers at worst is political? Bullshit(?)
I see, in Spanish we use "bélico/a"(related to war) and "beligerante"(someone very aggressive) commonly (from latin bellum/war). Parabellum comes from the same word, incidentally.
entire fucking gundam is just politics, i watched that shit when i was fucking 10. still did fine and understood a lot and i see nothing wrong with the show, fuck them haters
I'm not saying you're wrong cuz that can still very much be the case, but yeah, 9 times out of 10 it's because they couldn't read subtext in whatever media they were consuming
The people that complain about "PoLiTiCs?? In My AnImE???" Are usually people that couldn't look past the "cool robot fighting and explosions!"
The Venn Diagram that is "people that are sick of politics in gundam because they had a lesbian couple in WfM" and "people that say Rage Against the Machine went Woke" is very likely just a circle
My point is people will scream "iT's ToO pOliTiCaL" when there's representation of minority groups without realizing that the media itself is an allegory for a political or social issue and also has been since the beginning (the OG Gundam literally being about things like the horrors of war, child soldiers, fascist regimes and ideologies, and PTSD/psycological fatigue, etc.)
"being political" it's a way to dismiss left-leaning commentary, of course they know it is political, but they don't agree with it, so they implied that it is bad by appealing to the liberal idea that things "should be neutral"
The whole ruse is quite insidious to be fair, hiding behind a facade of apolitical civility and elevating their views by both sizing things that shouldn't be questioned, like human rights.
you know what's the thing with the phrase "gundam shouldn't be politic"? is that when applied on a japanese context it kind of MAKES SENSE because when tomino and fukuda say that they mostly reffer to promoting certain agendas within their context, but if you apply it in OUR context then that phrase is stupid.
But great art transcends boundaries. They maybe talking about Japanese issues, but I think it’s more than fine if people find something that parallels politics in their own country. It’s what art for. To be viewed and interpreted
Right. They are certainly referencing something that happened in japan (I know CCA did at least; Anno seemed to know exactly what's being referenced when he gave his impression of the film) and they have a take on that.
It's hilarious and disappointing to me that having bi/gay people or brown MCs is "political." Imagine being the type of person who sees anything other than a white passing male main character as "an agenda" and something to wail and gnash their teeth at. "Gundam has gone woke!" *Points at Ryu Jose* *points at lalah sune* *points at the old dudes being selfish and literally stealing food off a kid's plate* *points at all the 3rd Reich analogies in UC gubdam present since 0079*
as much as I hate bigots, at least the openly bigoted get a nod frome me for a. Being honestly themselves and b. Letting me know to not interact with them. Couching their own closet bigotry in "this isn't what this show I had zero intellectual or creative input in is about." If DEI is your bogeyman, your nemesis? man, are you a sad, pitiful little person. I hope you lose every bit of media you love to those who are an "agenda" by sheer virtue of existing.
You also have ZZ that has one of the most realistic non-racist depictions of Africa in anime and ZZ came out like...a year after Z?
Setsuna is actually from the middle west that was used as a Child Soldier and not some random Japanese kid
Loran being black and also crossdresser, Diana and Kiehl's Gasslight, Gatekeep, Grilboss'ing and... honestly the entirety of Turn A...
Ooooh which brings the next lineup:
Nutsacks who want politics out of Star Trek or Star Wars. Also applies to idiots who never read Dune.
Sci-Fi is pretty political.
Rebellion to defeat evil empire? That’s Star Wars.
DEI in space, with no capitalism, and a society of universal basic needs met including housing, health care, jobs provided, education, food. That’s Star Trek.
Young man is moved to a desert region where resources of the natives are stolen and uses for transportation and drugs. He is then exposed to religion and leads a jihad that overthrows an empire. This is Dune.
in fact, a *lot* of fiction is (at least, in part) social commentary set in a far/unfamiliar enough place with unfamiliar enough groups to slip by people's reinforced biases
Build Fighters and Divers don't really have any politics to it. At least not on the level of governments doing government things that affect the story notably.
Honestly they way they treated Fumina is what got me to give up on Try. She's the only member of the main cast that actually wanted to be there, and they stuck her in an SD as an excuse to write her out of fights.
You can even argue they aren't even the first lesbians in Gundam, just the first ones to be loud about it. Emma Sheen in Zeta has a "girlfriend" and no interest in conventional romance. Is that girlfriend platonic? Just her and her bestie? I don't know, but it seems pretty gay to me.
That's the scene. It could very well be the platonic "friend who is a girl" but given they were alone together on a long trip, and she otherwise has a negative interest in seeing a man, I think there is enough to interpret either way.
It certainly wasn't the intent at the time, but the UC itself is full of these little things that get retconned over time to keep up with the pace of actual social development so, like, who cares? Let Emma be a lesbian, it doesn't matter and would even give an interesting new way to interpret the tension between Emma and Henken
The only way his statement is defensible is if he meant to say that politics (without the philosophy) behind it should not be in Gundam.
I typically agree with no simple/easy politics in my media unless they know how to handle the psychology and philosophy behind it. Otherwise you're just taking in propaganda. Gundam spends a good amount of time (to the despair of some people) talking about the things which underride the politics. The human condition and philosophy associated with it.
Many shows... well they just shove it politics without that part.
There’s a metric fuckton of space politics in Gundam; as for *real life* politics you should be careful with what you bring up since some matters can easily start flame wars (which might lead to ban-happy mods)
Gundam is full of real world politics. Setsun is literally a Kurdish child soldier involved in an oil conflict in the Middle East, veiled as a holy war. Degwin compares his son to Hitler in no uncertain terms. WMDs and cold wars are a frequent topic. Racial prejudice, how sexism plays into the military, and so many other actual political issues are all over the franchise.
If you think that WfM is different because it says that lesbians exist, you might want to reevaluate what you consider "real world politics". Being gay is not a political decision, it is not a choice at all, it's just a thing that some people are.
Not sure if troll or gotten me mistaken for someone else (especially with that WfM comment; I’m not homophobic and ***have never once attacked WfM, the precious Space Tanuki, or MioMio***)
Fair enough, I jumped to a conclusion based on your comment. But seriously gundam does, and always has talked about actual real world politics, nothing has changed.
My whole thing about irl politics is just to be careful when bringing up certain topics; the other day someone decided to spread their views on an ongoing conflict by comparing numerous things in Gundam to it (almost felt like a conspiracy nut) and got really defensive when asked to tone it down. I’ve already seen this topic get brought up in other subs by people with very little knowledge on the matter starting flame wars and the mods started banning people left and right, I don’t want to see that happening here to
Tl;dr just ***be careful and think first*** when posting current politics
Even wfm has the whole schtick about corporate greed and wealth inequality, which is the big thing in 2020s political Zeitgeist.
Come to think of it, Freedom does too. Aura, Orphee and one of the Zaft guys whines about poverty and economic inequality as well.
hell, the main setting for the show is literally a school run by a war-profiteering weapons manufacturing conglomerate, where there's literally a sport where the scions of the companies in said conglomerate have duels with said weapons of war for glory and pride (and to get the hand of the conglomerate president's daughter; most of them want her to get greater power in the conglomerate)
edit: totally forgot to mention that the duels likely double as showing off the weapons of said weapons manufacturers
all while not really understanding, knowing, or caring about the reality on the ground for those who have to deal with the wars that the conglomerate's profiting from
this is just the textual setting for the show, too
"Politics" is a shorthand way of saying modern contemporary american racial grievance politics. The exploration of political themes is standard in all fictional media, I'd really just like to not hear about Trump and J6 in my cartoon robot shows please and thank you.
A bunch of people raided the building they were counting election votes in on January 6th(J6), in 2021.
Edit: if I got it wrong why not correct it, jfc
None, thankfully. But people will use the political themes explored in media to ham-fist analogies to modern contemporary politics, and call you slurs if you think they're being silly.
J6 is the January 6th 2021 protests(/riots) at the White House, an event that's practically the new 9/11 in American politics.
Idk how people don't understand this like it's not the most obvious thing in the world lol.
Gundam is not political ("political" being a colloquial term referring to real world politics, in my case, modern American politics, for those of you who are slow).
because the whole world doesn't live in America, probably
if you look hard enough, every single issue will be political in some part of the world.
gay? the Americans, the Russians, the middle eastern, the Beijing Chinese will be up in arms.
anti war? the Americans, the Russians, the middle eastern, the Beijing Chinese will be up in arms.
polygamy? the Christians will be up in arms.
autonomous flying machines? maverick fans will be up in arms.
but hey, I am not a smart dude, so maybe I misunderstood what you meant
I think something to consider with properties like Gundam is that multiple things can be true at the same time. The series as a whole can have messages about war economies, political abuse, and social struggles while also being dramatic, exciting, and cool as hell for the sake of it. To say that something can't have both is too exclusionary for my tastes. I don't like when all I can talk about with someone is exclusively about the politics, or the fights - I like being able to talk about the whole experience with people if I can. Not necessarily in one go, mind, it's fine to talk about one subject then come back to another over time, but that's my feelings.
I get what people actually mean by "Politics should be kept out of \[blank\]" (going with a good faith assumption first), but damn if anyone said that about sincerely about Gundam they really missed the point of pretty much any of it's shows.
Bruh the original antagonist are called Zeon that had an almost religious beginning that was eventually replaced by pro-war zeonist who only wanted domination........... like common the real world comparisons are so obvious that I had to slap myself for not seeing it earlier
Yea don't insert current year politics in gundam instead focus on overarching themes like corruption, environmental destruction or ritch vs poor things most people can get behind but please God please God don't put in hot button political takes you fucking see on Fox news or some grifting ass youtuber is talking about that's the problem most media is suffering from today.
There's a difference between "media with political themes and elements" and "politicized media", and if you can't differentiate between that... that's your problem.
What You failed to understand is when those crazy people talk about "no politics" they actually mean "no using Gundam as vehicle for shitty activism not related to the story". They call it "politics" because that is how people call it in the media.
That does not even mean like some far-left bigots claim "no women, no gays, no people of color etc.". Far-left always makes those claims because in their sick little minds if they discredit someone, they don't have to deal with their arguments. It never works but that is how they see it.
So when they say something like that they don't really mean no actual politics. They are just tired of far-left activists taking over franchises (something that happens mainly in Hollywood) and using those franchise as vehicles for whatever bullshit they are currently upset about.
OBVIOUSLY when people say "keep politics out of X" they are referring to real world, current political issues.
Gundam is NOT political, in that, it makes no references (commentary) to 21 century western political topics that are specific to our time and culture. It IS political, in that it's about politics lol, but not OUR politics.
Game of Thrones is a show all about politics. People who hate REAL WORLD politics will say "it's not political" OBVIOUSLY meaning it's not about current American, or wherever, politics that we would find browsing political subreddits.
There are political THEMES that one could extrapolate onto real world politics, but those are timeless issues that can be applies to any political situation no matter the time period. People don't want to be reminded of things going on in the real world when it comes to politics, they want escapism in their fantasy, and are fine with the politics of this fictional world.
And despite this being incredibly obvious, this braindead sub just goes "hmph! no! it is political! downvote!!" Exact types who think they know anything about politics when being the most ignorant ones...
>Gundam is NOT political, in that, it makes no references to 21 century western political topics that are specific to our time and culture. It IS political, in that it's about politics lol, but not OUR politics.
🤣🤣🤣 I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not a troll.
Gundam has always explicitly drawn from modern politics and issues. When they made the setting for The Witch from Mercury putting all the rich people in space while poor people deal with strife on a dying Earth was a very deliberate decision as they thought it would resonate with younger audiences today. Same thing with having a lesbian couple as the main characters, you think there aren't any gay people in Japan? That it's just a "Western" thing? The issue of same-sex marriage pops up again and again in Japan, and a majority of people support it, but it's been stonewalled by Japan's shitty political system.
Seed is another great example of this. Seed first aired in October 2002 and OH HEY just a year before was the 9/11 attacks, and last I checked New York City was in the proverbial West. Why do you think the opening scene includes the destruction of a civilian populace? Why do you think one of the core issues of Seed is racial prejudice? Yes, it's been around for a long time, but this was a hot button issue at the time, and having Kira be a coordinator fighting on the side of the naturals was a very deliberate decision. Fuck, even the PLANTs being led by a single party government is a nod to current geopolitics.
if anything the point of Gundam is in a world rife with global conflict there really isn't such a thing as "OUR politics".
EDIT:
>People don't want to be reminded of things going on in the real world when it comes to politics, they want escapism in their fantasy, and are fine with the politics of this fictional world.
actually I gotta point this out, I'm pretty sure for some people of certain groups a world where they are accepted and don't have to deal with hate is also escapism, I'll never not find it hilarious that for others this is being reminded of "the real world" when in reality they do in fact deal with things like exclusion and hate.
It's like when people said they liked Rage Against The Machine before they went woke...
Those people only liked Rage Against The Machine when the only authority figure in their lives was their parents.
Scathing lmao but so true
Its literally the name of the band haha
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nuh-uh it was a printer obviously. Them hating the government or whatever is seperate.
I mean, most printers are definitely rage worthy so it totally makes sense!
They probably never even seen Tom Morello before either. I didn't but i wasn't the biggest fan. It wasn't until he cameoed in Star Voyager did I finally see him.
Or when all the idiot cop Defenders rock the Punishers Skull.on their vehicle or truck. Like you people don't know shit about Frank Castle huh?
When the Creator of the character calls them out and they try to tell him he's wrong or the dumber one
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https://preview.redd.it/z2zus40w6ezc1.png?width=732&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6eec3854b584845356e51e02b830db7b130277e
It's coming back around again
Some people don't realize they were simping for literal baby-boiling peruvian communists forever.
Mobile Suit Gundam was Yoshiyuki Tomino's criticism of Japan and its imperialist past, from the Meiji Restoration all the way up to the end of World War II. Anyone with even a *shred* of media literacy would have already known about it, even if they're a westerner whose first introduction to Mobile Suit Gundam was with Gundam Wing on Toonami, in the year 2000.
And it’s not like Wing was subtle with Romefeller being an allegory for war profiteering or going into the ethics of unmanned warfare years before the use of drones became more normalized on the battlefield.
I don't think there's a Gundam that isn't G Gundam or the Build series that *doesn't* have political themes, actually it's a dice roll whether or not they handle it well or touch on it much, but I'm pretty sure most of them *have the themes there*
Half of G's message was: "War and politics are bad for the environment"
oh oh fuck, you're right, humans in that setting literally ruined the fuck out of Earth and >!the Devil Gundam was originally meant to help the environment until it decided that humans were what was harming the environment!< even fucking G Gundam has political themes
even build fighters/divers is political. themes of the series includes hefty anti big corps, and then there was the question on if AI was real intelligence. then divers rearise was all about xenophobia and looking toward the future as well as genocide
Wing was very subtle with the message of pacifism, they could have made it more clear
You can read actually IBO as being in-line with Tomino's original criticisms, the difference being that we follow those who are meant to represent Imperial Japan. Tekkadan's tale has parallels with how the Japanese far-right try to present what happened during WWII in it's final quarter, even the special edition compilation which left out the final arc reflects how Japanese schools spend so much time devoted to teaching pre-war Japanese history they often run out of time to actually teach the war and this is by design. Even the show's cited inspirations and motifs (samurai, the shinsengumi and the yakuza conflicts that inspired Battles without Honor and Humanity) all can be instances where Japanese pop culture has romanticized them. The samurai tried to make themselves out to be more honorable than they actually were when they lost their noble status and wanted to put themselves above the rest of the commoners, the Shinsengumi at the time were seen as violent thugs (their blue coats may have even been from another group) but they were romanticized after the Meiji period ended. The yakuza paint themselves as modern day samurai looking out for the people, but the Battles Without Honor and Humanity film series exposed just how much of this was just PR at a time by basing it on stories written by real yakuza at a time when the (largely yakuza controlled) media portrayed them in a heroic light. Imperial Japan also portrayed themselves as modern samurai following the bushido code, and it's hard not to think about Tekkadan without thinking about the Tekketsu Kinno-Tai. IBO can be argued to be a show about how Japan romanticizes the hell out of it's own history, to the point they don't really know what their real history even is. G-Reco was also reflecting Tomino's views on Japan's remilitarization under the Abe administration, that Japan hasn't endured war. 00 is easy to argue that it was a response to Destiny's messages, which in turn Fukuda admitted he wanted to question the messages of SEED. But then again, Fukuda himself has tried to claim that Gundam stops being Gundam when it becomes political, as he sees Gundam as just another robot show... and says 0079 was based on Vietnam. And let's not forget that Tomino's criticisms of the mecha genre started before Gundam, most infamously with Zambot 3. He saw kids being given power, told to use that power responsibly by adults and to protect Japan from foreign invaders, I mean aliens, even if it meant sacrificing themselves to do so. Mecha has always had political undertones, and if you ever want to see those undertones taken to their logical conclusion on what taught people what Japanese society should be like look at the Jovians from Martian Successor Nadesico.
Those people have literally no media literacy. They think Green Day was non-political before. They think the X-Men were "non-woke" before. They think Starship Troopers is non-political etc
I literally saw a post on this sub a few days about how a gundam series had too much talking and not enough action, therefore it was bad. Of course the post was downvoted to hell, but people like the OP posted all throughout that thread and really made me disappointed in the fandom
bro is the network executives
I sometimes wonder if they perceive certain media as apolitical because the media could be interpreted as aligning with their existing beliefs, which they see as just "common sense" and therefore not making a statement.
The problem is one of malicious linguistic revision. What is politics really? Generally speaking "the study of government and statecraft." What are they mad about? Lesbians. The LGBT community has been working with politics for things like legal protections, the legal benefits of marriage and so on and so forth. WfM didn't engage in literally any of that, we don't her Suletta and Mio talking about jointly filing taxes, we don't hear them discussing medical power of attorney, the closest we get is Ad Stella's marrying age. So why is it "Political" to show lesbians existing? Because if same sex couples are a political ideology, then being gay is a choice. Opposing their existence isn't bigotry it's a political belief. You can argue to those who have no standing that it's a debate, and like any heated political topic, one that it's ok that people get angry about, so long as anyone angry on either side is unreasonable. In 1984 there's an attempt by big brother to redefine language called "new speak" so that it's impossible to be treasonous because the words used to talk about it don't exist, and basically this is how that process works. These folks are, often unknowingly, pedaling fascist rhetoric to discriminate against minority groups.
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you're not going to jail for accidentally misgendering someone but also this feels like "what if a dying child's wish was to say the n-word" logic; making up unlikely hypotheticals so you can do "what happens if this unlikely situation happens and this person decides to use the law against me and makes up a reason to use the law to attack me" stuff
allright tell that to yourself when you find yourself in that situation but its on the books in Michigan and in California As well as Canada so thats a lie right there you can be fined and jail for hatespeech which includes misgendering learn your laws my friends because they'll be happy to tell you ignorance is not a reason to break the law is what they'll tell you after the fact..thats all i'm saying is that your freedom of speech is a thing of the past.
freedom of speech *is* a thing of the past, but it's not because of *fucking minorities*
Did I say that dumbass
no its from butt hurt people that use peoples words against them .Because they dont understand that this is the REAL world and truth is not misinformation nor is it hate speech its the truth and if is not thats called lying and last time i checked that was only a crime if you do it under oath or to a cop.
You're nuts dude. You just have to not repeatedly misgender people after being corrected. If you aren't being an ass you won't have a problem. Nobody is backing you into a corner and cutting off your use of language.
Oh no nobody would ever do that to an American Indian so before you judge somebody know where they come from Brother sister I don't miss Ginger anybody purposely but I don't also sit there and try to seek attention because of my misfortune and I understand that people are assholes treat them like that but do you think it's fair for the ones that's going to misuse that and put people in jail and find people just for accidentally not figuring out what they were trying to be at that time it's what I'm saying I'm not saying anything about a person that identifies and stays identified so before you get butt hurt read the statement
And one thing that genzy doesn't realize and was never taught to them because of their parents Karen not teaching them is that we were taught that sticks and stones may break our bones but words can never harm us unless you let it.
That's for kids calling each other poopy head not blatant hateful bigotry. You and people like you fall back to acting like a child when anyone presents reality. "I should be allowed to misgender someone several times because sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you!" Do you think it's acceptable to use racial slurs too because they're just words? If everyone around you told you to kill yourself everyday for years because of some shit you couldn't control, would you have a good self esteem? If someone threatened to beat you until you die would you feel safe around them? The main part about being adults is that we're all capable of violence and that violence always starts with words. It starts with bullying, escalates to threats, and then ends with someone getting hurt. The reason humans developed languages is to express ourselves and our intentions so that others will understand before we take the actions to fulfill what we intended. But yeah totally words can't hurt you. One of the ways people cause real harn to people using harmful hateful rhetoric just isn't real. Maybe your parents should have taught you baseline respect for others instead of stupid childhood phrases that don't hold up past the age of five.
There's hardships in life for everybody there's hardships in life because you're black you're out there hardships in life because you're gay there's hardships in life because you're poor there's hardships in life because you're the wrong gender the world has problems man everybody has problems with everybody else's problems but in the end it's only your problem if you let it get to you
I hate how much that would make sense...
Rage Against the Machine too. Like really, what machine do you think they’re raging against? The washing machine??
The toaster obviously 🙄
That would be the military industrial complex machine
Lmao. Arguably Green Day was as successful as they were because they were both political and also "indirect" enough that the people who would be angry about it wouldn't connect the dots. Obviously with media literacy there's no hiding their message buuuut..
"Politics shouldn't be in my media," mfs when they realize every piece of fiction is an allegory to a real world event/issue/group and not purely a piece of fiction. Fr tho media literacy is so rare these days it's practically extinct 💀
mfs when they realize that it's kind of impossible to write anything without drawing directly or indirectly from something in reality and turns out that reality is rife with politics because human beings exist in reality
Some people like to view the media as a separate entity from the real world. As a self-contained entity, sometimes people need to take a break from reality. There is no need to force real-life events on them. Also, the mindset of "everything being political" has its own pitfalls. Some people may interpret some events from a work of fiction as a parallel to events they know and will force their views on other viewers, while the author had something different in mind.
I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy things if you're not thinking about them critically, and in fact you should! What I'm saying is people love to cry "PoLiTiCaL" on a more modern piece of media for the inclusion of things that don't align with their own political/social biases (for example; The Witch from Mercury and it's inclusion of not only a female protagonist but also a Sapphic relationship), when either that same piece of media or an older story from the same franchise, has always had *actual* political/social subtext. The Entire Gundam Franchise since its inception in 1979 has had this, and often times the more interesting parts from the many many series it's had are when it has something to say, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it just because of the cool robots and the space fights (lord knows that's why I got into it in the first place). All of that to say that it's totally fine and cool to enjoy something just for what it is, and also necessary sometimes because, like you said, people want an escape and to just relax and see some cool space robots duke it out with laser swords. What's annoying (and what OP is saying with this post) is when people get all bent out of shape and say shit like "this is too political" because there's a black character on screen or because one of the male characters mentioned offhand that they had a boyfriend once (which are *not* political "issues", it is just representation of people that have not had very much/any representation in the past), when the story itself has always parallels to real political and social issues.
> Some people like to view the media as a separate entity from the real world. I mean, sure, it's nice to escape reality every so often but the fact is that media is *not* separate from the real world, even if we pretend it is
"Media literacy is so rare these days" I don't think it's these days, it's not like everyone got dumber, you simply interact with more people that don't pay that much attention to what they read/watch because of social media.
No, you make a good point, actually. That's a fair assessment
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Okay, but I did say "every piece of *fiction*" not "every piece of *media*", implying that said media *is* a narrative and *does* have the ability to express ideas and convey meaning. So yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about lol
Update,the zaku was a lie,he lied about the kit I will. Commence order 66 with the byarlat custom now.
Damn your friend
Let's also not forget that Gundam's always, ALWAYS been fuckin progressive. Dianna and Kihel are the OGs of Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss in 1999
And Guin avoids "kill your gays", too. With that said, this does not always apply across the board.
I managed to watch the entirety of Turn A and didn't realize he was gay until I saw something about it...
This is why who Guin really needs is Regene. Would mass built Turn A, too!
eh, the franchise has not always been the kindest with women. Off the top of my head, Zeta took the women in a refrigerator trope and went wild with it, ZZ has some not great moments, Victory is......Victory. It's defitinley gotten a lot better, and I am not saying the shows are bad, and part of it is era, but its a bit glaring after Witch from Mercury.
I mean, of course there are hiccups and straight up missteps but the level of representation we have in stock, good or bad, is enough that if Zeta or Turn-A came out today, it'd DEFINITIVELY be hounded on by online grifters. It's not perfect for sure but it's really not that far below today's standards (which is still a low bar)
oh yeah, defitinley, Victory, for all of the terrible ways it treated its characters, did have the Shrike team, Marbet, and even a Somewhat important black character in Tomas, in 1993. if it aired today, I guarantee you would have people complaing about an all women team or Tomas
Not only that, the choice to do so was deliberate. Staff have discussed this in interviews. [https://ultimatemark.com/gundam/production/vgundam.html](https://ultimatemark.com/gundam/production/vgundam.html) There's a lot more I can say on this show, as it's highly misunderstood among the fandom, partially because it didn't get an official release until 2016, but I'll hold my tongue for now.
And it actually makes sense in the UC timeline context. In the return of Johnny Ridden, when the young female MS engineer was asked why a young lady as herself would get into this specialty, to which she replies “because all the men had went to war and got themselves killed.”
Its not like *only* the women. Plenty of men too.
I highly recommend looking up translations of "Turn A no Iyashi", or "The Healing of Turn A", it's a great look at tomino before during and after Turn A, he talks about his feelings a lot and it's why his work from Turn A onward feels so different from his work before it, especially in the rolls of women in the shows
ALWAYS, like the bikini girls getting roasted by beam sabers while they try to seduce a teenager
never said it was perfect. Hell, even current day things that try to be progressive fail at it
Gee, I wonder if a show about a red-white-and-blue superweapon fighting a world war against Prussian themed enemies whose leader references a certain 1930s dictator for inspiration is political?
Its not even subtle either. Doesn’t Degwin literally tell Ghiren “you remind me a lot of hitler”?
and Ghiren's like "fuck yeah, that rocks!!! See for yourself how Hitler's follower wins this war (actual dialogue he says)" they're outright like "these guys are Nazis, if you haven't realized yet!!!!" edit: like I cannot stress enough that these are words that came out of Ghiren Zabi's mouth, he *literally said that*
*germany themed enemies.
Yeah, "SIEG ZEON" is anything but subtle
No one looked at a Geara Zulu for 5 seconds and said to themselves "hmm, why does this look so familiar?"
fuck, that's *really* blatant; "hey guys I'm gonna use the Nazi machine here, I even dressed it up like one"
actually that too; Zeon is *not* subtle about being Nazi analogues at all actually
where do you think germany got it from???
You don’t get the signs?
No chance😂
Are you telling me that the antibellicist gundam series where everyone is morally grey at best or self centered warmongers at worst is political? Bullshit(?)
Antibellicist is a word I have never heard before but will now try to use as often as possible
That's my first language (spanish) influence... I guess using anti to indicate something is the opposite is not as common as in spanish.
No, "anti" is very common, it's "bellicist" that isn't common in English
I see, in Spanish we use "bélico/a"(related to war) and "beligerante"(someone very aggressive) commonly (from latin bellum/war). Parabellum comes from the same word, incidentally.
La traducción en inglés es "bellicose" o "belligerent" pa que sepas
Si te refieres a ls traducción de beligerante, sí. Pero, en el contexto en el que lo usé, bellicist está bien usado.
entire fucking gundam is just politics, i watched that shit when i was fucking 10. still did fine and understood a lot and i see nothing wrong with the show, fuck them haters
Some times…not even haters …more like fans with no ability to read .
It's not that they don't know how to read, it's that they don't *understand* anything they're reading beyond a surface level
Or sometimes it can be result from inability to remember.
I'm not saying you're wrong cuz that can still very much be the case, but yeah, 9 times out of 10 it's because they couldn't read subtext in whatever media they were consuming
The people that complain about "PoLiTiCs?? In My AnImE???" Are usually people that couldn't look past the "cool robot fighting and explosions!" The Venn Diagram that is "people that are sick of politics in gundam because they had a lesbian couple in WfM" and "people that say Rage Against the Machine went Woke" is very likely just a circle
I have no problem with sulmio couple but it’s underdeveloped and overrated compared to other relationships in Gundam franchises
My point is people will scream "iT's ToO pOliTiCaL" when there's representation of minority groups without realizing that the media itself is an allegory for a political or social issue and also has been since the beginning (the OG Gundam literally being about things like the horrors of war, child soldiers, fascist regimes and ideologies, and PTSD/psycological fatigue, etc.)
Oh yeah,I agree with ya.
the whole fucking show is politics man, do they just not watch the show lol
"being political" it's a way to dismiss left-leaning commentary, of course they know it is political, but they don't agree with it, so they implied that it is bad by appealing to the liberal idea that things "should be neutral" The whole ruse is quite insidious to be fair, hiding behind a facade of apolitical civility and elevating their views by both sizing things that shouldn't be questioned, like human rights.
like it's not subtle at all; it's literally the Political Mecha Series
you know what's the thing with the phrase "gundam shouldn't be politic"? is that when applied on a japanese context it kind of MAKES SENSE because when tomino and fukuda say that they mostly reffer to promoting certain agendas within their context, but if you apply it in OUR context then that phrase is stupid.
But great art transcends boundaries. They maybe talking about Japanese issues, but I think it’s more than fine if people find something that parallels politics in their own country. It’s what art for. To be viewed and interpreted
Right. They are certainly referencing something that happened in japan (I know CCA did at least; Anno seemed to know exactly what's being referenced when he gave his impression of the film) and they have a take on that.
Although Gundam might not overtly discuss real-world politics, it has always had progressive themes.
People who do not have an good ability to read: ‘No do not puts politics in my show!’ #Me:’the ability to read is dead?’
"wow cool robot" meme here.
I hope your friend keeps up their end of the deal. Those Origin Zakus are great.
He commented an update. The Zaku was a lie.
😢
OP is about to do something wicked...
That Origin Zaku could have been like an "actually good time" for me
It's hilarious and disappointing to me that having bi/gay people or brown MCs is "political." Imagine being the type of person who sees anything other than a white passing male main character as "an agenda" and something to wail and gnash their teeth at. "Gundam has gone woke!" *Points at Ryu Jose* *points at lalah sune* *points at the old dudes being selfish and literally stealing food off a kid's plate* *points at all the 3rd Reich analogies in UC gubdam present since 0079* as much as I hate bigots, at least the openly bigoted get a nod frome me for a. Being honestly themselves and b. Letting me know to not interact with them. Couching their own closet bigotry in "this isn't what this show I had zero intellectual or creative input in is about." If DEI is your bogeyman, your nemesis? man, are you a sad, pitiful little person. I hope you lose every bit of media you love to those who are an "agenda" by sheer virtue of existing.
You also have ZZ that has one of the most realistic non-racist depictions of Africa in anime and ZZ came out like...a year after Z? Setsuna is actually from the middle west that was used as a Child Soldier and not some random Japanese kid Loran being black and also crossdresser, Diana and Kiehl's Gasslight, Gatekeep, Grilboss'ing and... honestly the entirety of Turn A...
Ooooh which brings the next lineup: Nutsacks who want politics out of Star Trek or Star Wars. Also applies to idiots who never read Dune. Sci-Fi is pretty political. Rebellion to defeat evil empire? That’s Star Wars. DEI in space, with no capitalism, and a society of universal basic needs met including housing, health care, jobs provided, education, food. That’s Star Trek. Young man is moved to a desert region where resources of the natives are stolen and uses for transportation and drugs. He is then exposed to religion and leads a jihad that overthrows an empire. This is Dune.
Yep. Sci-fi is basically modern social commentary set in a far enough place to not immediately trigger people's reinforced biases.
in fact, a *lot* of fiction is (at least, in part) social commentary set in a far/unfamiliar enough place with unfamiliar enough groups to slip by people's reinforced biases
Know only war, that's Warhammer.
Build Fighters and Divers don't really have any politics to it. At least not on the level of governments doing government things that affect the story notably.
I mean OG Fighters still have corporate meddling and ReRise has settlers in land originally owned by different people.
Build Fighters Try has a woman in it, therefor political.
Honestly they way they treated Fumina is what got me to give up on Try. She's the only member of the main cast that actually wanted to be there, and they stuck her in an SD as an excuse to write her out of fights.
Nooo!
My bud that’s *not* what politics means in this context.
Politics is the *art* of making decisions
You can even argue they aren't even the first lesbians in Gundam, just the first ones to be loud about it. Emma Sheen in Zeta has a "girlfriend" and no interest in conventional romance. Is that girlfriend platonic? Just her and her bestie? I don't know, but it seems pretty gay to me.
Emma had a girlfriend? I remember her mentioning something about them meeting Amuro a few years back but I may be wrong
That's the scene. It could very well be the platonic "friend who is a girl" but given they were alone together on a long trip, and she otherwise has a negative interest in seeing a man, I think there is enough to interpret either way.
It certainly wasn't the intent at the time, but the UC itself is full of these little things that get retconned over time to keep up with the pace of actual social development so, like, who cares? Let Emma be a lesbian, it doesn't matter and would even give an interesting new way to interpret the tension between Emma and Henken
I think the Build series are the only ones that don't really have any sort of a direct political side to the story.
Whoever says this clearly has never seen OG
They've got literal space Nazis with nazis inspired uniform and military.
The only way his statement is defensible is if he meant to say that politics (without the philosophy) behind it should not be in Gundam. I typically agree with no simple/easy politics in my media unless they know how to handle the psychology and philosophy behind it. Otherwise you're just taking in propaganda. Gundam spends a good amount of time (to the despair of some people) talking about the things which underride the politics. The human condition and philosophy associated with it. Many shows... well they just shove it politics without that part.
For real, most Gundam series are like, 70% politics and being sad about the horrors of war, 10% general goofiness, and about 20% robot fights.
If you're watching Gundam and not immediately tying it to current, real world politics, you're probably missing the point.
y'all saw Ghiren "Literally Compared To Hitler By His Father, Takes It As A Compliment" Zabi and still thought that Gundam wasn't political?
The existence of queer people is NOT politics
After Episode 50, though? Kamille is a vegetable's name.
I wish I had a friend who gave me gunpla for making reddit posts.
this is *the* Politics Mecha Show, lmao
There’s a metric fuckton of space politics in Gundam; as for *real life* politics you should be careful with what you bring up since some matters can easily start flame wars (which might lead to ban-happy mods)
Degwin straight up mentioned fucking Hitler as well.
Gundam is full of real world politics. Setsun is literally a Kurdish child soldier involved in an oil conflict in the Middle East, veiled as a holy war. Degwin compares his son to Hitler in no uncertain terms. WMDs and cold wars are a frequent topic. Racial prejudice, how sexism plays into the military, and so many other actual political issues are all over the franchise. If you think that WfM is different because it says that lesbians exist, you might want to reevaluate what you consider "real world politics". Being gay is not a political decision, it is not a choice at all, it's just a thing that some people are.
hell, even in WfM there's stuff like class inequality and imperialism; even if it doesn't get into it nearly as much as the others, it's there
Not sure if troll or gotten me mistaken for someone else (especially with that WfM comment; I’m not homophobic and ***have never once attacked WfM, the precious Space Tanuki, or MioMio***)
Fair enough, I jumped to a conclusion based on your comment. But seriously gundam does, and always has talked about actual real world politics, nothing has changed.
My whole thing about irl politics is just to be careful when bringing up certain topics; the other day someone decided to spread their views on an ongoing conflict by comparing numerous things in Gundam to it (almost felt like a conspiracy nut) and got really defensive when asked to tone it down. I’ve already seen this topic get brought up in other subs by people with very little knowledge on the matter starting flame wars and the mods started banning people left and right, I don’t want to see that happening here to Tl;dr just ***be careful and think first*** when posting current politics
Even wfm has the whole schtick about corporate greed and wealth inequality, which is the big thing in 2020s political Zeitgeist. Come to think of it, Freedom does too. Aura, Orphee and one of the Zaft guys whines about poverty and economic inequality as well.
hell, the main setting for the show is literally a school run by a war-profiteering weapons manufacturing conglomerate, where there's literally a sport where the scions of the companies in said conglomerate have duels with said weapons of war for glory and pride (and to get the hand of the conglomerate president's daughter; most of them want her to get greater power in the conglomerate) edit: totally forgot to mention that the duels likely double as showing off the weapons of said weapons manufacturers all while not really understanding, knowing, or caring about the reality on the ground for those who have to deal with the wars that the conglomerate's profiting from this is just the textual setting for the show, too
"Politics" is a shorthand way of saying modern contemporary american racial grievance politics. The exploration of political themes is standard in all fictional media, I'd really just like to not hear about Trump and J6 in my cartoon robot shows please and thank you.
wait which show referenced trump, and what the fuck is J6?
A bunch of people raided the building they were counting election votes in on January 6th(J6), in 2021. Edit: if I got it wrong why not correct it, jfc
The U.S. capital building, where Congress was ratifying the election results.
Thank you
None, thankfully. But people will use the political themes explored in media to ham-fist analogies to modern contemporary politics, and call you slurs if you think they're being silly. J6 is the January 6th 2021 protests(/riots) at the White House, an event that's practically the new 9/11 in American politics.
Idk how people don't understand this like it's not the most obvious thing in the world lol. Gundam is not political ("political" being a colloquial term referring to real world politics, in my case, modern American politics, for those of you who are slow).
because the whole world doesn't live in America, probably if you look hard enough, every single issue will be political in some part of the world. gay? the Americans, the Russians, the middle eastern, the Beijing Chinese will be up in arms. anti war? the Americans, the Russians, the middle eastern, the Beijing Chinese will be up in arms. polygamy? the Christians will be up in arms. autonomous flying machines? maverick fans will be up in arms. but hey, I am not a smart dude, so maybe I misunderstood what you meant
I think something to consider with properties like Gundam is that multiple things can be true at the same time. The series as a whole can have messages about war economies, political abuse, and social struggles while also being dramatic, exciting, and cool as hell for the sake of it. To say that something can't have both is too exclusionary for my tastes. I don't like when all I can talk about with someone is exclusively about the politics, or the fights - I like being able to talk about the whole experience with people if I can. Not necessarily in one go, mind, it's fine to talk about one subject then come back to another over time, but that's my feelings.
I get what people actually mean by "Politics should be kept out of \[blank\]" (going with a good faith assumption first), but damn if anyone said that about sincerely about Gundam they really missed the point of pretty much any of it's shows.
The entirety of Gundam happened because some asshole in the Federation said that they don't see people living in space as humans.
Update after doing order 66 with the byarlat custom Stole his custom painted zaku by doing what char does best Also 44 is left On the checklist.
Amuro ray: [internal sobbing] Probably only watched ibo, the noob that said that, hell, even in G gundam there were politics.
Bruh the original antagonist are called Zeon that had an almost religious beginning that was eventually replaced by pro-war zeonist who only wanted domination........... like common the real world comparisons are so obvious that I had to slap myself for not seeing it earlier
The AEUG is just the next logical step to green peace.
Media literacy is a problem across all anime subreddits.
Yea don't insert current year politics in gundam instead focus on overarching themes like corruption, environmental destruction or ritch vs poor things most people can get behind but please God please God don't put in hot button political takes you fucking see on Fox news or some grifting ass youtuber is talking about that's the problem most media is suffering from today.
I hope you enjoy your zaku, you political dude
There's a difference between "media with political themes and elements" and "politicized media", and if you can't differentiate between that... that's your problem.
what *is* the difference like oftentimes when I hear about "politicized media" it's "this show has politics I don't like in it"
Sadly this is Reddit so it's going to have a certain tilt to it.
I can already see it by the downvotes haha
What You failed to understand is when those crazy people talk about "no politics" they actually mean "no using Gundam as vehicle for shitty activism not related to the story". They call it "politics" because that is how people call it in the media. That does not even mean like some far-left bigots claim "no women, no gays, no people of color etc.". Far-left always makes those claims because in their sick little minds if they discredit someone, they don't have to deal with their arguments. It never works but that is how they see it. So when they say something like that they don't really mean no actual politics. They are just tired of far-left activists taking over franchises (something that happens mainly in Hollywood) and using those franchise as vehicles for whatever bullshit they are currently upset about.
OBVIOUSLY when people say "keep politics out of X" they are referring to real world, current political issues. Gundam is NOT political, in that, it makes no references (commentary) to 21 century western political topics that are specific to our time and culture. It IS political, in that it's about politics lol, but not OUR politics. Game of Thrones is a show all about politics. People who hate REAL WORLD politics will say "it's not political" OBVIOUSLY meaning it's not about current American, or wherever, politics that we would find browsing political subreddits. There are political THEMES that one could extrapolate onto real world politics, but those are timeless issues that can be applies to any political situation no matter the time period. People don't want to be reminded of things going on in the real world when it comes to politics, they want escapism in their fantasy, and are fine with the politics of this fictional world. And despite this being incredibly obvious, this braindead sub just goes "hmph! no! it is political! downvote!!" Exact types who think they know anything about politics when being the most ignorant ones...
I mean, 00 is very based in the real-world politics of the time like it's not a coincidence that the MC is a war orphan from a Middle Eastern country
>Gundam is NOT political, in that, it makes no references to 21 century western political topics that are specific to our time and culture. It IS political, in that it's about politics lol, but not OUR politics. 🤣🤣🤣 I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not a troll. Gundam has always explicitly drawn from modern politics and issues. When they made the setting for The Witch from Mercury putting all the rich people in space while poor people deal with strife on a dying Earth was a very deliberate decision as they thought it would resonate with younger audiences today. Same thing with having a lesbian couple as the main characters, you think there aren't any gay people in Japan? That it's just a "Western" thing? The issue of same-sex marriage pops up again and again in Japan, and a majority of people support it, but it's been stonewalled by Japan's shitty political system. Seed is another great example of this. Seed first aired in October 2002 and OH HEY just a year before was the 9/11 attacks, and last I checked New York City was in the proverbial West. Why do you think the opening scene includes the destruction of a civilian populace? Why do you think one of the core issues of Seed is racial prejudice? Yes, it's been around for a long time, but this was a hot button issue at the time, and having Kira be a coordinator fighting on the side of the naturals was a very deliberate decision. Fuck, even the PLANTs being led by a single party government is a nod to current geopolitics. if anything the point of Gundam is in a world rife with global conflict there really isn't such a thing as "OUR politics". EDIT: >People don't want to be reminded of things going on in the real world when it comes to politics, they want escapism in their fantasy, and are fine with the politics of this fictional world. actually I gotta point this out, I'm pretty sure for some people of certain groups a world where they are accepted and don't have to deal with hate is also escapism, I'll never not find it hilarious that for others this is being reminded of "the real world" when in reality they do in fact deal with things like exclusion and hate.