There have been a few times where my personal opinion on some piece of popular culture has gone completely opposite to that of the mainstream opinion, perhaps because I just don’t see in something what other people see.  However, none of thoes have been more obvious than my reaction to Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, the original sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam, which many people say is better than its predecessor.  A few years after the One Year War, the Earth Federation’s elite task force, the Titans, basically controls everything with an iron grip.  They resort to utilizing poison and other dirty methods to control the population and keep down dissent.  In opposition, multiple groups, most notably Karaba on Earth and the A.E.U.G. in space, have formed.  When the A.E.U.G. attacks a colony to find out about the Gundam Mk. II that is being developed there, a local boy named Kamille Bidan, whose parents worked on developing said Gundam, gets caught up in the fighting.  He ends up joining the group, whose most notable member is Quattro Bajeena, who is really Char Aznable in disguise.  He becomes the pilot of one of the Mk. IIs that the A.E.U.G., and he slowly develops Newtype powers.  He, Char, his childhood friend Fa Yuiry, Titans defector Emma Sheen, former White Base captain Bright Noa, and many others rally together to try and wrest control of the Federation away from the Titans.  Meanwhile, Paptimus Scirocco, a powerful Newtype and member of the Titans, tries to wrest control of the organization away from its founders, and Haman Khan, regent to Mineva Leo Zabi, the sole survivor of the Zabi family, tries to bring Zeon back to power.

     Most people who love this series say that it’s much darker than the previous one, which is true, since a lot more people die.  And it’s clearly more political, with all the scheming of Scirocco, Haman, Jamitov Hymem, the leader of the Titans, and everyone else.  They also say that the characters are more complicated and therefore more interesting.  However, the vast majority of the characters are really very flat.  Kamille Bidan, for example, is a whiny teenager whose emotional whims and inconsistency make him extremely difficult to like.  It makes me long for a more likable Gundam protagonist, like Amuro Ray or Kira Yamato.  Speaking of Amuro, poor Amuro is crippled with a fear of the battlefield, so for most of the show, he does nothing.  There are a ton of female characters and pilots, a fact which is remarked upon by one of the cast members.  However, very few of them are actually likable or interesting.  Most of them are simple attachments to the men they care about most, rather than robust characters on their own.  The worst is Reccoa Londe, who allows her need for a man in her life to override her morals and reason, leading to her defection to the Titans.  Other people like this are Moaur Pharaoh, Rosamia Badam, and Sarah Zabiarov.  Four Murasame is a bit better, since you really feel for her when she comes back the second time in the Psyco Gundam.  Emma Sheen is just bland, Beltorchika Irma is a bitch who does nothing but complain and take Sayla Mass’ rightful place at Amuro’s side, and Fa is so whiny and fights with Kamille so often that you just want to kill her.  I never want to hear her shout, “Kamiyu!” again.

     The only woman who escapes this problem is Haman Khan, whose brilliance, Newtype powers, and manipulative nature make her extremely compelling as a villain.  As for the other characters, Jerid Messa is a pathetic failure who only manages to succeed at failing and dying.  Henken Bekkener isn’t shown enough to really develop, and the same can be said for Jamitov.  Scirocco is a compelling villain, but his motives are never really clear, and Haman quickly overshadows him when she steps on the stage.  Wong Lee is just abusive to the point that he’s just cruel.  As for the returning characters, Bright Noa loses a ton of his charisma from the last show, and he, just like Lee, resorts to physical punishment for no apparent reason.  Katz Kobayashi grows up into a brat of a child who never listens to orders.  You would think that Bright would have enough brains to throw him off the Argama, but he never does.  Char is the only old character who gets to shine as the secondary protagonist, especially when he has to confront his past as a part of Zeon.

     So, you have a bunch of fairly unlikable characters, with only Char, Paptimus, and Haman really being worthwhile.  The plot is highly confusing, as there is little explanation as to why the Argama, the ship upon which much of the show takes place, moves to counter the Titans in the ways that it does.  Basically, when you start an episode, you have no idea where the Argama is going or why it’s going there.  A lot of times, the new strategic situation is never outright explained, and you just have to pick up on what’s going on.  Like that the A.E.U.G. took over Gryps 2, or that the Axis asteroid is plummeting towards Granada.  The animation looks barely better than that of Mobile Suit Gundam, with the only change being that mobile suit designs are a lot more complicated.  The mobile suits themselves are the single coolest parts of the show, and it would have been much better if the old characters piloted them.  My personal favorites include the Gabthley, the Pallas Athene, the Rick Dias, and the titular Zeta Gundam.  The Japanese seiyuus are often unremarkable, and the one who plays Mirai Yashima sounds downright shrill.  Most of them just kind of whine and complain, and the best ones are the characters who were already interesting.  Except, of course, the superb Inoue Kazuhiko, whose performance as Jerid is the only thing that character has going for him.  But do NOT watch the English dub, because that is far more painful.  The soundtrack is as boring as the original series’ soundtrack, so that’s not really a big deal.  All in all, if you want a show with giant robots, a plot that jumps all over the place, and dislikable characters, Zeta Gundam is your show.  Maybe someday I’ll understand why this series is so popular.  But somehow, I doubt it.

Story: 2.3      Artwork: 5.6      Soundtrack: 5.2      Acting: 6.3      Overall: 3.7

Still crafting away for the Gathering Festival. Here are some pieces I finished before going away camping. Two more lwa candles for Baron Samedi and his wife Maman Brigitte. And also two sets of prayer beads – labradorite and blackstone for the Fates and smokey quartz, 1,000 year old black glass Roman beads strung with blackstone for Athena. I’ll be posting pictures of my latest carved wooden charms and festishes as well soon. Slainte!

Dit is een foto van Pallas Athene. Ik heb er een ansichtkaart van, die ik nooit ga versturen. Wil haar voor altijd in mijn buurt hebben. Zó zag ik het beeld (eindelijk) toen ik voor het eerst in het Museum Kurhaus in Kleve kwam. Aan het eind van de “Midsummer Flint Line”  van Richard Long. Ik vond het toen adembenemend mooi en nu nog steeds.

Ik wist dat ze er stond, want een paar jaar eerder had ik de prachtige catalogus van de restauratie en verbouwing gezien (uitgegeven bij Uitgeverij SUN), waarop al een stukje van haar te zien was:

Als je op de foto van de catalogus klikt, kom je op de site van de Open Library, die weer zijn eigen wereldcatalogus wil maken. Misschien moet er toch wat meer samenwerking daarin komen, hoe mooi het initiatief ook is. Ondertussen heb ik natuurlijk wel mijn foto aan hun beschrijving toegevoegd.

En… het was even zoeken, dan nog een andere dierbare afbeelding van Athena. Zó stond ze op de draagtassen van de boekhandel waar ik jarenlang werkte:

NB. deze post is geschreven na het zien van de andere prachtige Pallas Athene bij Festina Lente

]]> http://joulupukki.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/heute-in-wien-140808/ Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:07:10 +0000 joulupukki http://joulupukki.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/heute-in-wien-140808/

Nachdem ich langsam angefangen hatte, meinem Truman-Capote-Avatar ähnlich zu sehen, war es nach fünf Monaten doch mal an der Zeit, den zu wechseln. Und weil das Wichtigste an Blogs ja nicht der Inhalt, sondern die Corporate Identity ist, hab ich auch gleich das WordPress-Thema gewechselt. Das alte war halt doch etwas lose und ungeordnet. Kommentare erscheinen jetzt auch nicht mehr intuitionswidrig erst einen gefühlten halben Meter unter dem Ende des Blogeintrags.

Für beide habe ich das folgende, etwas nachbearbeitete Foto benutzt; im Hintergrund thront der Berliner Dom (lange vor den derzeitigen Renovierungsarbeiten); im Vordergrund ermuntert die mythische, also wohl nicht wirklich existente Göttin Pallas Athene den jungen Krieger zum Kampf [1,2]. Das Herstellen eines thematischen Zusammenhangs zwischen den beiden Motiven oder zu diesem Blog im Allgemeinen ist nicht beabsichtigt.

Die Gerüchte über das gleichzeitig eingeführte Corporate Clothing sind zudem weit übertrieben.

m.arschflugkörpers Mark hat, natürlich, wie immer, noch bessere Bilder gefunden, die durchaus einen netten Desktop-Hintergrund abgeben. Wen solche Aufnahmen von französischen Wasserstoffbomben-Tests nicht aus dem postmodernistischen Schlummer wecken, der kann gerne weiter bestreiten, dass die Wissenschaft etwas über die objektive Wirklichkeit aussagt.

[1] der genaue Titel der Figurengruppe, die im Übrigen auf der Schlossbrücke an Unter den Linden zu finden ist, ist auf die Schnelle nicht ganz einfach aufzuklären, da Wikipedia unterschiedliche Angaben (1,2) macht und mehrere andere offenbar daraus abgeschrieben die eine oder andere Version übernommen haben. Ich verlasse mich mal auf berlingeschichte.de: Athene ermuntert den Krieger im Kampf. Ausgeführt 1853 von Albert Wolff.

[2] Pallas Athene heißt die Göttin übrigens, weil sie für eine griechische Göttin ungewöhnlich vollständig angezogen erscheint. Tja. Der junge Krieger war offensichtlich auch überrascht.

Mr Klimpt is one of my fave’s… his work and world were inhabited by pollen, pistils, semen, and ovules and this naturalism is so breathtakingly beautiful- more on this later perhaps. 

The renewed frenzy seems to be circulating around the questionable acquistion of pieces in Mr Ronald Lauder’s private stash by those involved with the Holocaust Art Rehabilitation Project, and keeping records open and honest in provenance research and propriety.

There is irony all over the place here-  $135 million anyone?

ciao-

“Whoever wants to know something about me, must observe my paintings carefully and try to see in them what I am.”
-Gustav Klimpt