MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM Twilight AXIS

Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you there’s only really one thing I truly love. What is it? Mobile Suit Gundam! So it stands to reason that all of my Gundam reviews are generally going to be positive no matter what.

That was true until I watched episode 1 of Mobile Suit Gundam Twilight Axis. I actually saw the episode a few days after it aired, but it left me so drained I had to collect my soul before being able to write anything. Sunrise really screwed the pooch with this “series”.

You can catch the episode below.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zax3LcPvfsA[/embedyt]

What went wrong?

I understand that we were never meant to get our hopes up in regards to Twilight Axis. I get it. The problem lies in how much of an incomplete product we received. The first episode feels as if it was meant to accompany the novel instead of being its own thing.

The video was like watching a trailer because of its length and how confusing it was. Most of the plot can only be glimpsed by looking at the description instead of actually watching it. Even then it makes zero sense because of how many cuts there are. I think it was shown out of order to confuse the viewer to the point of creating a need to watch the whole thing. It worked.

We don’t get to really know our main characters because of how short their appearance is.

The animation was reminiscent of a slideshow instead of something a real company would make.

What went right?

You might’ve assumed this article was just going to list out negatives right? While the cons are bad enough as is, there’s still some good stuff underneath.

The music is amazing and really gets the mood going.

The art style is beautiful and only makes me crave more instead of the short 3 minutes we got.

While earlier I mentioned the lack of character development, we did get nice cameos from Char Aznable and Lalah Sune. I’m a simple man, I see Char, and I get hyped.

The suit designs look good even though they’ve already been used in previous projects in slightly modified forms.

An important note to make is how small the team involved was. One guy was essentially in charge of doing the whole thing alone.

I am disappointed, but I think this could’ve been a hit if it had been developed properly. The source material is interesting and is something that would’ve been great to delve deeper into. I understand I could go and find the book to read it, but where’s the fun in that?