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THIS REVIEW MAY HAVE SOME SPOILERS:
"In my opinion, Zeta gundam is the definitive gundam series, and it one of the best anime ever created. (Caution!!! Contain Spoilers, and lots of it, read it at your own risk. I absolutely love Zeta, so I think I really gone over the board in this review as it really really does contain a lot of spoilers, this review is probably more for people who had watched the show than for someone who is new to it! So please beaware of this fact)

Animation:

The animation is top notch. Even though this series was made in the mid 80’s, and from time to time, the footage does shows its age, but the overall animation quality is still excellent. The picture frames were all just right, not too fast, not too slow. The overall colour is quite dark, and especially watching it now, the colouring definitely cannot compare to modern day gundam series, but nevertheless, it actually suited this series very well as gundam zeta is a very dark, emotional and depressing show. Moving to the mobile suits, all the mobile suits were well designed, especially the AEUG’s unit. The Zeta and Mark II gundam (two of my absolute favourite gundam) were very sleek, and when the Zeta transformed into the waverider mode, the animation was often smooth and detailed. I think the idea of the transformable mobile suits was based on the Macross series (which was a big hit in the early 80’s), but adopting this idea in here was very clever and actually serve a purpose here (unlike in Macross, where it just look cool). Also, some of the best battleships can be found in this series, the Argama (which is a former white base “redesign”) is, in my opinion, the best ship design ever. The overall design is so simple, yet its angular command bridge, overall sleek body and simple colours makes it so stand out and good to look at.

Sound:

The second opening theme song... just... can't put it to word other than excellent. The changes from the first dynamic OP to this second, more emotional OP as the battles are getting more intense actually added to the value of the story. (The OPs I am talking about is the original one, anyone who purchased the American version DVD is of another OP because Bandai cannot get through the licensing agreement of the first Ops, plus you have to search the English meaning of the lyrics before you can fully appreciate the theme songs) The overall background music was well made. Again, due to the fact that this is a dark story, the OST is quite dark and heavy. Characters' voice were well planned and well picked. There is no annoying over the top hysterical voices in here (probably because this is not much of a chick flick). My favourite voice over performance in the show was the guy who did Kamille’s voice. Kamille voice performance was very dynamic, yet emotional and naive. It has a very young rebel kind of feel to it, so it suited the character very well.

Story:

As mention before, the story is quite dark, deep and involve. You really need to watch it from the begining and it attracted you to watch it till the end. The story involved a 3 way battles (well, you can also it a 4 ways if you count the Federation Forces) Titans, AEUG, and Axis Zeon. The legendary characters from the original gundam series such as Chars, Bright Noa and Amuro had made a comeback, although Amuro's character was overshadowed by Kamille. I actually hope that they will have more scene with Amuro, instead of only about 5 episodes, but I guess Kamille is the main guy here this time, so it will be kind of odd to try to made Amuro's character standout too much. Also instead of Chars fighting for Zeon, he has sided with the AEUG and following a different way to achieve his father's dream of getting all human migrate into space. The story really shine in the second half as Axis Zeon comes in, where Char's conflicting relationship with Zeon and AEUG add a twist to the plot, and finally another twist in the later Gundam movie: Char's Counter-attack, but thats another story.

Other than the obvious battle-like storyboard, I think gundam zeta has touched on many social problems of its time as well (I might be thinking too deep about this, but I think they are relevant as when Tomino directed this series, he was in a bad state of depression, so I think these social issues were included in here for a purpose because they had affected him emotionally). These social issues like environmental pollutions and how governments continue to disregard its impact even though the damages are right in front of them, and others issues such as the rise of mercenary army and how unaccountable they are, dysfunctional modern day family where parents are so work oriented that they ignore their kids, so when things goes wrong they just blame each other, etc are all showed here, and with excellent character development, it even let us experience them so we really do feel the suffering of all the characters.

However, the story is not without problems. Even though the story flows very well, but many things were left without explanations. Also, you really need to have watched the original gundam series and maybe gundam 0083 to fully appreciate the show as it draw on many references from the previous series. Lastly, the ending is unfinished, it left a gap for the sequel, gundam ZZ. Personally, I think gundam ZZ is a piece of crap, even though gundam Z is somewhat unfinished, I found the ending to be well suited for the show as it gives a feeling that the tragedy hasn’t ended. Without ZZ, it will match quite well with the final titanic battle in Char’s counterattack.(But just in case you are intrested in what happend to Kamille then you beter watch)

Character:

The overall characters were again excellent. The development between Char and Kamille was very good as Char has become a mentor to Kamille throughout the show, and Char cares a great deal on the well being of Kamille, so Char is almost like a father figure here. Even during the last episode, Char constantly remind him not to waste his life as the younger generation is the one that can makes a different in the future. Another development that was particularly interesting was between Emma Sheen and Kamille. I think deep down Kamille like Emma a lot. Even though Emma is older than Kamille (about 7 years older to be exact), Kamille has always loved her, at first in a lover kind of way, but later to a more motherly figure kind of affection. Also, there were suprisingly a lot of female characters here joining the fight with different factions, and their relationships with Kamille were fully explored. These relationships further complicated the series and make his character even more bitter and heart breaking. The relationship with Four was in my opinion, never that real as I think Four represent a perfect yet unattainable match for him, and Kamille knows that very well, so when Four dies, he is no doubt upset, but he manage to regain his zeal and made him even more determinate to finish off the Titans, and at the end, this has made him to become even more tragic, and made the show even more depressing at the end.

Enjoyment and value:

I truly enjoyed this show, and I truly think that this is one of the best animation series ever made. Even though the show is quite old, but the design works are excellent and still stand up to any mecha show today. The story and character developments are of epical proportion. The story is depressing yet extremely exciting to watch. The relationships between various characters are fully developed to the point you understand and feel for all of them. The tragic ending of Kamille is unexpected, yet it is still extremely satisfying (to a certain extend). Seriously, word cannot describe this show, I had never watched an animation that I liked so much, I had purchased the Hongkie DVD version set (I know, the subbing is crap, but it is good enough to fully appreciate the show) in 2004, and I had constantly re-watched Gundam Zeta over and over and over again, to this day, I had definitely watched the entire show about 20 times already, and I am still not sick of it. Too bad they didn’t show this on TV in America, Gundam Zeta is simply the best Gundam series ever (unless if Tomino is not going to make more gundam), and it is trillion times better than gundam wing, gundam seed, or its zeta imitate gundam seed destiny (which is THE worst gundam series ever, it is so bad that I cannot even write anything good about it)!"

Well to be honest i didnt write this review i just did some copy and paste and did some modifacations. i really agree with this guy(the writer) on many things and it was his writing that got me intrested in the show in the 1st place ,and finlly sorry for such a long review.

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------Z-A Ecchi Group member---------

Lol first thing when I read this review was wonder if you had written it or not xD. Well it looks like an awesome anime, i'll watch it when I get some free time.. Lol could be a while, I spend most of my time watching ongoing now and that's hard enough to keep up to date.

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thanks beefjurky ;p
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LOL so it was that obvious eh?well i find it hard to spell some words right and i could'nt find the correct words or the time to write a good review for this great anime so i remmeberd this review which was the reason i watched the anime and so i copied it and there u have it well if i had a good net connction i might upload it but then again i need a programme that convert MKV to RM/RMVB because all the episodes that i have are in MKV format and that's about 222MB ...so .... if i get my hands on that mkv to rmvb converter i may upload it so for now here's the link if u wish to download it via BIT TORRENT [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] .

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------Z-A Ecchi Group member---------

I liked Zeta gundam but I'm a SEED fan and I liked the orginal and wing better than Zeta.

But I'll agree, It was a really good anime.

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