"BUT THE FUTURE REFUSED TO CHANGE" -Gundam in a nutshell

Always kind of saw unicorn as an optimistic what if for the UC where the events of Char’s Counter Attack inspired hope whereas hathaways flash onwards is the more pessimistic course of events after that movie where nothing changed.

Fun fact. The flag held by the unicorn and the lion has the coat of arms of Jean Le Viste IV, a noble during the time of King Charles VII of France. The tapestry was historically owned by a real-life Viste family.

"The logical consequence of scientific technology and newtype mysticism taken to the extreme, for better or worse." this line alone right here confirms that you have quite the understanding and better than most people that comment on the media from me. Kudos to you, here's a comment to help the video's algorithm too.

Unicorn Gundam was a love letter to the UC Gundam universe.

The only relevant thing is watching how the federation's negligence plays in their favor once more, letting a Char clone drag out of hidding all Zeon remanents, specially on eart, to finally wipe them all out. Still it has great dialogue, like the chat at the desert, Char's economic plan, or marida explaing the necesity of faith in a harsh enviroment.

It saddens me the fact that the possibility of a better future after unicorn never came true, Mineva and Banagher had the necessary to end the corruption of the federation and give the spacenoids the opportunity to become newtypes, leading humanity to end conflicts and wars but then we got Hathaway's Flash where everything remains the same (or even worse)

This is one of the best attempts at reconciling the weaknesses of Unicorn Gundam. The author’s background is quite useful for explaining why this series feels quite different from most of the franchise, including even the alternative timeline series. Since you obviously have the appetite for long series, I can recommend Armored Trooper Votoms, an 80s cult series also from Sunrise. Though also from the mecha genre, it has a hard sci-fi bent that makes it more like an Asimov or Herbert.

Was going to watch this last night but saw it got flagged for copyright. Glad to see it back up so quickly!

It makes sense that neither side would remain in peace despite lost secret laws or whatever being reinstated. But the UC has no where else to go without treading the same ground over and over with newer characters. (Which already happens via many separate series).

I love Gundam UC, for the meaning of never losing hope, even if is useless. The problem is how the "miracle" that was Unicorn, now has been everexploded and is reaching ridiculous levels to say the least (WTF is that NT thing). However, I still love unicorn.

To sum up Unicorn as somebody who saw all of the UC shows before it came out, without spoilers: The strong points of the show are some of the strongest in the entire franchise (animation, design, cinematography, music, concepts). Problem being that the parts that stand out for being so great really put the spotlight on the shows weak spots. TL;Dr What it does well is incredible, but it's really obvious when the show is sagging.

from my perspective, the story help me to explain the federation post f91. they didn't interfere on space indepedent movement (even calling back their army from colony)as seen in post f91 era till Victory even if they are involve it usually in response to direct threat toward earth itself. their monopoly on the spacenoid are gone or are not significant like before. The Box probably help in dwindling Federation political power over the year

Ghostlightning said is best. Unicorn was like an eulogy to the original trilogy and char's counterattack movie. A love letter and homage. It also painted a clearer light to the spacenoids. It made it understandable why the original space "colonizers" embraced the concept of zeonism. Something gundam seed failed so hard regarding the coordinators.

I really enjoyed Unicorn… up until the last 30 minutes (in terms of the original OVA series). I feel the stigma I’ve seen against it all stems from that part of Unicorn magic, and like you said it is indeed too much, especially for a Unicorn fan like me. Its like what Ive seen with other shows like Game of Thrones or Promised Neverland, although the ending of Unicorn isn’t necessarily as bad as those, its all that anyone seems to remember and I can definitely understand why. Which is a shame, since the series all the way through, in my opinion, is pretty great. Animation, visuals, story, mobile suit designs, and most especially that banger soundtrack by Sawano Hiroyuki. It is truly a love letter to everything Gundam.

I don't see how nothing's changed. Narrative showed that Zeon is on the absolute last leg. The Principality and their warmongering ideology are doomed to fail no matter what. Zanscare, the first Crossbone Vanguard, and Jupiter Empire are entirely different groups of people with different excuses to wage wars. It's downright naive to think that opening the Laplace's Box will solve everything and there will be no war again forever and ever. The legacy of Gundam, on the other hand, will stay the same and live on forever. No matter what kind of conflict happens, there will always be youths who fall into Gundams' cockpit and learn to fight for what's right. And yes, this includes Turn A and G-Reco. By Correct Century, Zaku II was reduced to a random prize machine. Absolutely nobody remembers Zeon or Earth Federation, but everybody still embraces Gundam as a symbol and a tool to unlock humanity's willpower and potential to reach mutual understanding and save the universe from senseless warfares.

I can see how Unicorn does contribute to the world of the Universal Century in F91 that was already written before it existed. This series is where the collapse of the Zeon movement begins, the Newtype "Myth" is buried, how almost nobody recognizes a "Gundam" type, and how the Earth Federation has taken a more lax approach to their presence in the Colonies. When the Crossbone Vanguard appear, they retreated back to the Earth with little resistance, leaving the spacenoids to protect and govern themselves, even if it means joining the opposing side.

It's so weird hearing that somebody started with unicorn Gundam and now there are Gundam expert. Like my first exposure to Gundam was the journey to Jaburo game when I was 7. And I've been a fan since and that's almost two decades XD

This was so worth it, no matter how long it was, this reviews of the UC Gundam and all of Universal Century hope get more people on board for Gundam, since here in America is not that much its impact, thanks for this videos.

I'll never be on the side of those who seem to have found the "space magic" of Unicorn "too much." The Newtype being way more than just some psychic abilities was being laid out from the get-go. That final act in Char's Counter Attack way back then showed that much. Naturally they would progress the psychoframe tech to where it wont insta-murder its pilot and actually do what it was shown to be capable of and more (I suppose if we listent to the argument between Amuro and Char, one could interpret it as, that being his will at the time, but I suppose it's a mystery left to everyones imaginations)

I wonder if Tomino not writing Thunderbolt and Origin are why people insist they're both non-canon to the UC.

Unicorn was what the UC wanted to achieve and after all the sorrow and pain that the UC built up to that point having hope hits in all the right ways.

Never had a problem with Unicorn, wasn't my first Gundam, tho i started it and paused before i finished the original trilogy and series, but i did feel it carried that idea of never learning from the mistakes of the past, UC history and the Federation history is a failed one after all, even when the Unicorns and the chart give humanity a better future this still chooses to negate it and continue into theirs slow ruin seen in Hathaway, F91, Victory and eventually Turn A. Plus i think it perfectly fills the narrative of Tomino basically ignoring or downplaying Newtypes and Psycotechnology on his later series, now we now why they didn't continued with it (no side wanting to accidentally destroy humanity) and why newtypes became even more of a myth and mystery (which they added in Hathaway with how they now teach that in schools)

I haven't finished the video but I wanted to point out, while you're trying to make parallels to the real world: the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was an actual thing, a colonial expansionist movement by the Empire of Japan to break free from western colonialism and create economic independence. Your friend studying Japanese history will certainly observe the connection there.

Unicorn is my favourite of the series, it basically there to tell the next generation to take the story to a new future. "Its in your hands now".

Ah yes, I've got my coffee in hand, and some quality Gundam content to enjoy this morning to relax to. Thank you sincerely from Kentucky USA

I really like Gundam unicorn, marida Cruz and the intense story. The hand waving New type power was indeed wack.... I like long videos, a good way to pass the time during work Thanks for the informative video!

Unicorn And Bennager lose against Full Frontal when he use "show the future." But the relic of 1 year war say: "This is my end, I hoppe you change this furure, but now, run you need save your friends". Full Frontal are a pinacle of Char, Lala and Amuro.

hey, i found your channel pretty recently and I've really been enjoying your content, i'm personally a fan of longform content that i can put on in the background and listen to. Keep it up! :)

The Force, The Chaos Warp, Newtypes. I love how big sci-fi franchises just can’t seem to shake witch-science.

About Minerva/Audrey "We haven't seen her since _ZZ Gundam."_ I'm not sure we even saw her there, as Haman subbed-in a body double for at least part (if not all) of the series. Was this question ever resolved? I remember my friends and I arguing about it as we watched ZZ fansubs during that broadcast year.

I absolutely loved this video!!! Very balanced point of view!

16:15, correction, Zeta Gundam, as a child on the throne with Hamman.

I really loved this video and It helped me figure out some stuff about the ending of Unicorn. I think that the final apotheosis of the Unicorn in wich it disables the MS from the General Revil with a wave of the hand it foreshadows the power of the Turn ∀ Gundam. I have a major degree in Japanese History and also I'm a Fan of Gundam, I'm looking foward to the podcast you'll do with your friend!

I personally loved everything about Gundam Unicorn, even the newtype magic. It's literally my favorite work of fiction ever. I do love all of UC, but Unicorn is still my favorite. Also, I see Laplace's Box as a kind of turning point of UC. As it was opened (as explained in NT), there were factions that were rising up to challenge the Federation's authority.

Yasuyuki Muto is the true hero of Gundam Unicorn. He managed to reign in Harutoshi Fukui's stupidity and create a masterpiece. When left on his own with no one to challenge him Fukui crapped out the lore-breaking abomination Gundam Narrative.

Good for you, that you have started in gundam series, me and a lot of others, started with gundam wing! 😁👍

There's nothing silly about Laplace's box. 'MacGuffins' are plot devices with a long and illustrious history, but Gundam Unicorn's symbol actually lives up to its promise. You should read 'The Sublime Object of Ideology' by Slavoj Zizek if you want to understand what I'm getting at as an explanation here would take too long. Suffice it to say human's in the real world do fight over symbols, especially when they take on religious overtones.

I can't wait for that video about narrative. It's one of my favorites and its one of if not the only piece of animation that explains newtypes. Besides that this is an amazing video and I hope for more gundam related content in the future.

I love your videos!! You put so much energy and work into them, and your enthusiasm is catching! Thanks for all you do :)

I wish they gave full frontal a different hair cut

Nice editing!

I love the newtype concept, especially the metaphysical aspects of it but the way it's shown on Gundam sometimes, I just can't take it seriously when it's magic

The reason why the Gundam unicorn pilots aren’t emphasized is because the war doesn’t care about that, and that instead people mostly care for only the battles and what happens on a more macro scale in history

Good video, the author's views are pretty tame when viewed without being automatically assuming extremist intent. I do find it ironic the "militarist" author creation provides hope while the "anti-war" creator pushes despair.

Also Unicorn took place after the second Neo Zeon war in 0096, not 0093. Also the LaPlace box concealed the UC constitution which pretty much said spacenoids should be able to govern themselves. Also I’m sorry but Banahger was nowhere as bad as most mecha children pilots.

I've watched a good amount of your videos and it's great content the way you say Titans drives me insane

In my opinion, all the violence and death is just to be there either to show you turning away or being bothered by them dying. Whenever you see a new type they always sense a death on the battle field whereas everyone else somewhat closes their hearts to it. Idk to me, almost every death feels like a mini greek tragedy. I’m still trying to convince myself that mother and her baby survived at the end of 4.

I loved Gundam unicorn. Masterpiece.

And NT just jumps off Unicorns back and absolutely nails it 👌🏻

Was watching the original compilatuon movies recently and a comment by Amuro (iirc) caught my attention. Something about wondering if newtypes could eventually control timw.

I like that you make these Gundam videos.

Awesome synopsis. I'm a New Type magic fan. And Unicorn was freaking amazing. Cheers. Keep up the good work

Do you upload your content as a podcast? If not, i suggest you do! Your video essays are awesome!

Unicorn is what got me into Gundam

Tomino didn’t write 0080, 08th MS Team, Thunderbolt, 0083, The Origin, Unicorn, or Narrative. And with the exception of Narrative, they were OVAs, and Unicorn was adapted to a series so it can be shown on Toonami.

possibility that humans already left the universe during the time travel scene thats why frontal only saw pitch black

The rolling R for R-r-r-r-ricardo was legendary

Gundam unicorn is the prequel to Gurren Lagann confirmed

just finished watching gundam unicorn. it was absolutely beautiful

Just giving kudos to you for your videos 🤝

I love your analysis brother 😎

I love Unicorn. My second favourite Gundam OVA series behind 0083.

Great vídeo. Would love too hear your take on Hathaway

18:26 that "puppy dog" represents the Cyber-Newtype characters, especially Angelo who is the most clingy of all Cyber-Newtype presented. The Lion is Riddhe Marcenus as the Unicorn is banana boi.

Looks like you and i were in similar boats. Gundam unicorn was my first intro to the UC timeline, and I was just as confused.

One of Gundam Unicorn's greatest strength is that it's set in Universal Century. And so they can use the nostalgia from 79 to CCA and the newtype shinanigans. But at the same time, it's also it's greatest weakness. Because they can't change the course of universal century. It being made by a different author and that the timeline is already set. Like Hathaway's flash, F91, Victory etc. It's still a great watch though. I love Banagher and Mineva's story.

A new UC sequel would be nice, it still messes with me that if I truly wanted a UC sequel there's Turn A right around the corner.

More of this please :D

First saw the first Unicorn episode after my first series 00. It was a huge disappointment since the gundam appeared for like 3 mins after a huge chunk of setup. Then, 10 or so years of watching Gundam series including the original series, I revisited and MSG Unicorn became a top 3 on my list.

Unicorn, Hathaway, and ZZ are my favorites in the UC timeline. glad i watch the og Gundam all the way to hathaway

Gundam Unicorn is a masterpiece

I love unicorn’s score so much, the characters for the most part are interesting, and the animation and fight sequences are absolutely amazing. Sadly the plot is a major letdown for me: it began as a kind of cover band performance for UC79, playing its hits in slightly different ways, and then towards the end, when the Laplace box thing became the focus, the series devolved into a convoluted conflict for the sake of conflict, filled with the awkward “long exposition and conversation interspersed with fight scenes” trope… In the end the story felt rather inconsequential, and the series seems more a well-funded fan fiction than a real deal. It’s such a shame really, because I like almost all the other aspects of it

In some of my shallow research, SNRI's F91 in MS Gundam F91 is psychoframe equipped which they used as a thought or mind receiver from the pilot for the Biosensor, the main computer, and it was explicitly said that the Psychoframe is just a miniturized psycommu so I think that was the reason for the usage, since everything in MS F91 is miniturized, they have to miniturized the psycommu as well. Sooo in the Psychoframe usage division, not all hope is lost?

Things couldn't realistically change timeline wise F91 and Victory still occurred as they did but the Federation was all but dead in those eras.

In my mind Unicorn takes place after Hathaway's Flash for it to actually make sense. If not its totally pointless.

kinda feels like gundam wants to become gurren laggan with a new spin in with this hole new type magic bullshit in unicorn

As an old politician said: "A power you dont understand and control is a ppwer you must destroy."

Unicorn is a great story on paper, but when watching for the first or second or even third times, it's wildly unbelievable and makes many decisions both visually and story-wise that deviate from the groundedness of the other Gundam series. That's why even though this video helped me understand a lot of what actually happened, I still think after movie 5 is where it starts to go downhill.

I kinda love how the unicorn turned into a super robot

Ahh Unicon, the best UC fan fiction out there.

Unicorn is a Gateway drug into Gundam. I also love the Sequel NT. I just want to know what the hell happened in between this and Hathaway and why they didn't reflect the massive shift the EFF should have gone through.

I really agree with this guy 100%

I can't believe Unicorn didn't end with formation of second AEUG. I mean come on Feddies higher-ups do all this fucked up shit for such weak reasons and no one from army rebels?? Laaaaame

I gotta disagree with what you said about Laplace's box being a silly plot point. The box was kept a secret for so long because the Vist Foundation was rich and powerful enough to seal it away. Great video otherwise!

The only thing I don’t get is why full frontal still had the scar that Char got from Amuro from their duel back on a boa qu. Frontal is a clone but any scars shouldn’t be there since he was genetically made. Unless they intentionally scared frontal just to keep up the guise. The only way to justify the scar imo.

For me Unicorn series is another multiverse event so it happened/not really happened in UC Timelines

Speaking as a lifelong Zeon we will never stop.

This totally explained why I liked unicorn more than the other UC series lol

Petitioning an asmr video of you just saying Ricardo for 15 minutes straight

Terbaiklah ❤❤❤❤❤

I like the comic version more. The anime movie has cut quite a lot of content from the original story.

I really liked the Unicorn OVA but I felt like the first 3 were the best. I dunno I think I get tired of the Newtype angle in Gundam even though I KNOW it is one of its core elements but I like the mecha, history and politics more than 'we're Newtypes and perfectly in love now!' The writer of the Unicorn novels sounds like an um interesting choice. Sounds like the novels was trying too hard to make Zeon look all noble and the Federation all evil. This is a problem with making Zeon look a bit too cool. I liked that Unicorn toned down the 'Zeon was right!' angle and showed both sides were plenty terrible and Mineva out-right says Zeon's bloodshed was equally wrong.

Iron blooded orphans is probably the best entry level

Y el Review de Hathaway Flash, pa cuando?

18:04 This make me laugh more than it should. Help.....

On the topic of "hypertime" and how canon deals with apparent contradictions … at this point we have > 40 years of lore for UC alone. It's simply not possible to expect that it's realistically possible for their not to be inconsistencies and variations between properties because the people who worked on them are not all 100% the same people, and even if they are, they can't possibly be expected to have planned out 40 years of lore back in 1978/79 when then where writing the original. It's just not realistically possible. Two possibilities exist: Either you accept that this is a fictional universe made up of the ideas and imaginations of a large group of people with different goals and opinions about literally everything and that a show cannot even be consistent within its own episodes, or allow for things to have happened in broad strokes with the minor details being perhaps slightly different than depicted. Star Wars. Vader duels Obi-Wan and kills him. The fight was really kind of lame. These two men were clearly not trained soldiers using the gentleman's weapon-a sword with a pure energy blade that has no mass-to fight with skill, precision, and The Force. They were a couple of guys lamely swinging metal movie props which most certainly did have mass to their clumsy blades without a whole lot of modern fight choreography to make them look particularly good at it. That's the out-of-universe reality of the duel. In universe? Well there's a couple of options: Obi-Wan is a tired old man battling a seriously maimed old man on life support. Their fight looked lame by today's standards because it was lame. And maybe there's some lesson in the fact that Vader and Obi-Wan should not have been dueling in the first place. Or, the one I prefer: Look at Vader in Rogue One. Whether or not you liked Rogue One or thought the movie was "necessary" or even welcome, look at Vader in combat. He's *terrifying*. A Lord of the Sith whose power and mastery of the force are second only to those of the Emperor himself. Can he fight as well as any common soldier on the battlefield? With ease! And through the Force, his ability should be effectively super-human! Which means what we saw in the original Star Wars … is simply wrong. The fight between Vader and Obi-Wan must have been crazy epic. Two Force masters giving it their all… It's just the realities of making a movie in the 70s that they couldn't show us how epic it really was at the time. (Arguably they still can't.)

unicorn is my favorite gundam series. i thought i liked gundam wing but am rewatching the show up to episode 10 and am surprised how bad it is lol. gundam wing definitely has a lot of good things but the story is told in a really rushed way. endless waltz was the best thing to happen to gundam wing

recently i watched a video talking about newtypes and gundam unicorn and it made me realize the ending to unicorn is EXTREMELY frustrating and why i hated it..... with U.C. there is a theme with the new types that there powers are indeed limited to communication amongst newtypes and feeling the souls of those who died on the battlefield typically though there are a few other tricks they can do..... however when these powers are pushed the newtype suffers for doing it.... first we see it with kamille... he forced his powers past his limits just enough to give him the edge to kill paptimus but this caused him to fall into a vegetative ..state and damn near killed him.... then with amuro with chars counter attack using his psycho frames to REALLY push far past his limits and as a result it does just out right kill him... it damn well absorbed char and amuro as punishment... even with unicorn... and through out many other stories and books this theme continued. but then when banager links uses psycho frames and literally travels through time and space is some artsy bullshit... this theme is ignored because the writers ethere didnt notice this theme through out U.C. or chose to ignore it to have banager survive while pulling off their rather... bizare ending to the show which is followed up by (for me) the most frustrating movie NT and how the writers used NT to try and rewrite the laws of newtypes to have "no limit to their powers" as that was the theme to that movie...

Gundam's overall theme is that corporations (AE), old money, and liniages keep exploiting the young who just want to live in peace and treated with dignity without exploiting somebody else or the earth/ nature to get it. Some young people are used as arbiters for the old, or experience so many horrors, they become monsters. I like Hathaway more than ever because I feel like it's reflecting the climate here in the United States. Somebody in this generation is going to become a real lift Mafty, if nothing changes the USA soon, I'm kind of afraid and simultaneously going to welcome it not for nothing.