Spoiler Preface!!!

This post contains extreme spoilers. You have been warned

Gundam Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower is the sequel to December Sky, but they don’t have much in common beyond a few returning characters. It takes place in a new location, with a new enemy faction, and leads to a cliffhanger that goes in a completely different direction.

Suffice to say that this cliffhanger both does and doesn’t feel like it comes out of left field. I guess I’m not really sure what to think about it because the film is too short to really delve into the consequences of what this story is trying to do. Which means I don’t really have anything else to say! Once again, there are lots of well animated action scenes, and really that’s about all it is good for.

Remaining Observations

• We’re introduced to yet another previously unknown Gundam prototype that may or may not be too advanced for its time. It ends up being damaged so badly by a squadron of amphibious Zeon suits that it is out of commission for the back half of the story. Again, Zeon forces are depicted as being far more capable than they should be (especially considering these are supposed to be remnants).
• On a related note, this film depicts Zeon Remnant forces as being far more active than in any other post-One Year War story. Another reason why I think it’s better to consider it an Alternate Universe thing.
• A bunch of Feddie mobile suits are destroyed underwater after being crushed by arctic ice. You’d think they’d have prepared and trained for such a hazard, but I guess that can’t happen in a story that wants to see as many Feddies die as possible.

A (Good) Alternate Take On Thunderbolt

Since this post is so short, I feel compelled to add in this extra little bit:

My tastes and opinions regarding modern fiction and entertainment are often … contrary to the critical consensus. I often like the things everyone else hates, or hate what everyone else loves. And sometimes, when I do line up with them, it is for entirely different reasons.

I’m never intentionally contrarian, though there are times where I wish I were. If I were doing it intentionally, then I would feel good for disagreeing with everyone. But since that isn’t the case, it instead makes me feel weird and isolated, and maybe even a little bit crazy.

Which is why it feels so good to find strangers online whose own opinions are not only similar to my own, but whom can express those opinions far better than I ever could. This recently happened when I went searching for opinions on Gundam Thunderbolt. I came across a particular reddit user who made some excellent observations not only about Thunderbolt, but about Gundam Unicorn as well. I’ll link to the actual reddit discussion here, but I’m also going to be pasting most of their remarks directly into this post, partly so I can elaborate and comment on them, and partly for the sake of preservation.

(For the record, I’ve cut out some bits and pieces of the user’s commentary. They self-admit that it gets long winded, and there are some instances of broken English)

First, the redditor begins by setting the table, by stating their storytelling preferences:

The big thing is character-writing. I probably come across as a bit of a broken record in that regard with Gundam, because it’s the aspect of the series that is most important to me, and the aspect that seems to get the least effort in more recent parts of the franchise.

I never thought about this, but they’re right. Good character writing has not been a strong suit in a lot recent Gundam stories, especially anything set in the Universal Century.

This, primarily, is where Thunderbolt fails to grab me. I don’t care about any of its characters. The primary culprit as to why this happens is because it is so truncated from its source material.

I have not read the Thunderbolt manga, but I am willing to believe the animated adaptations have to cut a lot of content for time.

When you condense a story as much as this one does, it has to eschew most of the characterization, and unfortunately what you’re left with is a kind of characterization shorthand that feels more manipulative than it feels like genuine character-writing. Stuff like Daryl’s dreams of running on the beach just feel like the director yelling at you “Look! He remembers what it’s like to have legs! Sympathize now!” Almost all of the characterization is handled this way, with that kind short-hand that’s designed to tell the audience how to feel about the characters rather than actually giving them a reason to feel that way. Even side characters. And to be sure, some degree of character shorthand is commonplace in movies and TV, but it goes to an absolutely crazy degree here.

This is it. This right here is the thing I’ve noticed, but could never describe. The use of shorthand as a full replacement for characterization. It’s not just a thing within Thunderbolt. It’s something that happens a lot in modern Gundam, if not all of modern anime. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen a discussion about anime boil down to something like this:

Anime fans seem to be content as long as they can point to a bulleted list of “things the writer tried to do”, without going that one step further to determine whether the execution is sound. They’re far too willing to give any story an “A for effort”.

What’s especially troubling about this for me is that it seems to be a winning formula for Bandai/Sunrise, from a money-making standpoint … The fact that it’s doing so well among the fanbase is a pretty strong indication that what I want from Gundam and what the average fan wants don’t really align anymore. That’s always a disappointing situation to be in.

This is how I feel as well. Bandai knows what most of their fans want, and while I can understand that it misaligns with my own wants, I can still feel down about it.

I guess it is important to remember a few things:

1. Most anime is by and large targeted to teenagers and children
2. A lot of older fans still have the maturity of teenagers
3. Teenagers are kind of dumb about what makes for good or bad fiction, because they’ve only experienced so much of it. Their standards can only be so high (which sounds way more like a dig at them than it is intended)

That doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t watch any more Gundam stuff. It simply means that, the more of it I watch, the more likely it is that the series’ batting average goes down. As long as I’m okay with that (or I set my standards lower), then no harm and no foul.