Anyway, here’s my round up of what I think is some of the best artwork to have graced the covers of albums over the past twenty years. Enjoy!

15. Deerhoof – Friend Opportunity
As well as being an absolutely cracking album, the simplicity of the cover of the band’s 2004 album is reminiscent of the work of Jean-Michael Basquiat; rough, sloppily painted characters adorn the front in brave and bold colours – tasteful, if a little unsettling.

14. Drummer – Feel Good Together

There’s always something nice about an album that reminds you, both through its music and its cover, of something positive. To me, there’s nothing more positive than seeing a delicious ice cream dessert. Being a greedy man, this is why this album made the list.

13. Tortoise – Millions Now Living Will Never Die
One of the greatest instrumental post-rock albums ever conceived, Tortoise’s sophomore release from 1996 also has a pretty awesome cover. Nice understated blues and greys, minimal text, and fish. Could you ask for more?

12. Primal Scream – Screamadelica
Primal Scream changed the landscape of British indie in the early nineties, fusing guitar rock with acid house and rave in an unforgettable clash of styles. The cover of this, their third album, has become iconic and was even made into a stamp by the Royal Mail earlier this year. Not that people are willing to admit it, but that my friends, is rock and roll.

11. A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory
In my opinion the greatest hip-hop group of all time, followed closely by Public Enemy and NWA, A.T.C.Q. created some of the most interesting and intelligent jazz rap out there. The cover for this album, especially in its colours, relates to African, almost tribal imagery that reflects the raw, dry sounds the group used. Interesting to note is the appearance of Ron Carter, the legendary jazz bassist, as a performer.

10. Slint – Spiderland
Sometimes but not always, simplicity is King. In the case of Slint’s landmark 1991 album Spiderland, this is very much the case, with its stark black and white photograph of the band neck-deep in water, taken interestingly enough by Will ‘Bonnie “Prince” Billy’ Oldham.

9. Phosphorescent – Aw Come Aw Wry
I love the use of medieval imagery, perhaps due to my deep interest in the history of that period of time, but maybe because quite frankly, the stylistic possibilities of such simple imagery are many. I could’ve easily made this Fleet Foxes’ debut instead for that reason, but I as much as I love that record, this one is, to me, even better.

8. Foxhole – Push/Pull EP
The Kentucky-based mostly instrumental band Foxhole produced this EP for Burnt Toast Vinyl in 2006. The music within is interesting, multi-textural and the band are extremely proficient, but one of the things that stood out for me was their cover, an extremely simple balloon-shaped bubble rising upward, an interesting cover that reflects their music rather well – uplifting.

7. Papercuts – You Can Have What You Want
The delicate and hazy sound of the songs of Papercuts is one which is not timeless – it belongs rooted firmly in the late 60s, but exists in the present. The cover of You Can Have What You Want certainly looks like it belongs on a poster for a low-budget b-movie from that era; naked, featureless bodies floating, suggesting a kind of tranquillity. Interesting, very interesting. And creepy.

6.  Refused – The Shape of Punk to Come
Although the whole Blue Note Records-esque cover has been done and redone many times over, none work nearly as well as Refused’s effort, not only because it looks great but because of what the album stands for. Blue Note released some of the best, most influential artists ever to work in music, and with The Shape… Refused created something truly pioneering, original and revolutionary.

5. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – I See A Darkness
Will Oldham is, in a word, eclectic. How is it that he can follow up on a bright, folky and breathy album like Joya with something as dark, brooding and shadowy record as I See A Darkness. He’s an artist talented enough to make it work, and he does so with gusto – it turned out, and still is regarded to be his most defining work to date, a wonderful black cloud majesty looms over gorgeous songs throughout. And the cover couldn’t have been more appropriate.

4. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Déjà Vu (1994 CD Edition)
Their first, and arguably greatest album, Déjà Vu marked a turning point in American folk rock music (not least because only half of them were American) but also because of the meticulous attention to detail in the production that was rarely seen in the genre until then. For the hours put into recording it, however, the result is superb. It is a landmark classic album, and its artwork simple and instantly recognisable.

3. The Meters – Fire on the Bayou (2000 CD Edition)
The New Orleans scene has always piqued my interest, but it was The Meters who truly turned me on to the scene, especially with their later work with Allen Toussaint. From beginning to end, Fire on the Bayou represents the cream of Louisiana funk; melodic and grooving, the band firing on all cylinders at all times. The cover is simple, and doesn’t detract from the music in the slightest.

2. Sugarman Three & Co. – Pure Cane Sugar
With an album title and artwork like this, Pure Cane Sugar looks like something that should really only be from the mid-seventies. Gimmicky, to say the least. But it’s just so fun, damn it. The band presents an album full of bombastic, raw and dirty R&B-tinged funk. I was torn between this and Soul Donkey, the bands’ previous release, which is simply ridiculous.

1. Larry Young – Unity (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition)
You’ve got to hand it to Reid Miles; he made a name for himself creating some of the most well-regarded jazz album covers of the last sixty years, despite not actually liking jazz all that much. It seems amazing how well he was able to tap into the moods of the artists so well as to be able to create incredibly simple, Bauhaus-esque covers that conveyed so well the music that lay within. In this case, Larry Young’s innovative and experimental organ-led jazz, breaking into fascinating new territories within the post-bop genre. A true classic, both musically and visually.

Well, that just about rounds up the list. Feel cheated that some of the classics weren’t listed? Comment! And no, I wasn’t even tempted to put Dark Side of the Moon on this.

In the first part of this article, I explored the history of the Transformers franchise in it’s various animated  incarnations. I showed you the different cartoons, and explained a little about the history and story of each, and gave a brief introduction.

Of course, the cartoons are only one part of the fictional exploits of the robots in disguise from another world. Way before the first episode of the series debuted, there were Transformers comics – and they’ve been going as long as there’ve been toys.

Things started way back in the 80′s when everything awful great nostalgic was made, with a 4-issue limited series by a little comic book company called Marvel Comics

Giant Optimus Prime crushes Earth's Motorways

To begin with, the series was pitched as a limited series, as a tie-in with the toyline – as was common back in those days. Everything had comics released to promote it, and Transformers was no different.
The story was simple, and the art and writing was, quite frankly, terrible in the first 4 issues – but it was good enough to keep that 4-issue limited series going into a monthly series.

The art got better, the stories got more exciting, and the series took off – big time.

As things moved onward, the plots grew in complexity and depth, introducing new characters, making stars and fan-favourites of obscure ones, and diverging completely and forging it’s own world and continuity completely separate from that of the cartoon.

Double-crosses and alliances were made, rivalries forged, and epic legends, mythologies and histories came to be over the years of the comics’ publication.
So successful was the US Marvel series that a UK one was published seperate,

As if you need to guess who that is in the shadows.

extending to a stunning 331 issues in length -although that’s kind of cheating, since some of the page count was filled up with reprints of the US stories. The US Comic, as a monthly, also lasted for a long while, stretching to issue 80.
Many writers cut their teeth doing transformers comics, and many of the UK comics’ artists were regulars from 2000AD. Of particular note is Simon Furman, who has now become the lifeblood of Transformers fiction, and has written for episodes of Beast Wars, and to this date is still writing transformers comics.
He’s also become known for his Furmanisms, which are hilarious.

While the stories were, overall and for the most part, weaving an amazing tapestry that ends in a most magnificent and spectacular ending, there are still some things that are, without a doubt fucking stupid. Some of the stories veer into outright rediculousness, that even the writers must have realised – such stories as ‘Buster Witwicky and The Carwash of Doom’, which is exactly what it sounds like, and things like Micromaster transformer wrestling

Best. Cover. Ever.

leagues  – a result of the popularity of WWF wrestling in the late 80′s.

Many of the stories were also subject to the whims of Hasbro, as the toys were of course still being produced at the time of the comic being published – so frequently the cast would change wildly, and some characters would be forgotten about or killed off, often in rediculous ways. Such as gigantic powerhouse behemoth Omega Supreme being knocked out in one shot from tape-transformer Buzzsaw.
This aside, the comic lasted a long, long time, and is still fondly remembered today by old farts like me, and reprints and collections have been made and fly off the bookshelves with alarming regularity. Modern day publishers of the Transformers comics have also begun reprints of the individual issues, which have steady sales, and many of the original artists and writers still enjoy success in the industry  – and there’s still yet to be a single publisher of Transformers comics that lasts as long as Marvel managed.

OM NOM NOM

Things moved on, of course, and the regular series came to an end, going out on a titanic battle with – who else – but the planet-eating Orson Welles voiced robotic-god-of-evil, Unicron, for the fate of their entire race and the universe.
Awesomely illustrated by top artist Andrew Wildman, the series came to a breathless close, and it was over — Finished!

Of course – it never ends, and only a few short years later, as the toyline was released in brighter coloured, newly molded versions as the 90′s neon-and-gimmick inspired ‘Generation 2′, so too the comics burst back into being, vomited forth with ugly artwork, but a decent story penned, again, but Simon Furman, for another trip around the universe, and another chance to save it.

Once again, all was at stake, and it had to do with the history of their own race. New ideas were revealed, and the dark (and pulled out from Furman’s arse) history of the Transformers, completely different, yet still related, to their other dark history chomping on Cybertron in the picture above, has come back to haunt them, and everyone else.

New enemies have arrived also – the Decepticon Empire, a ruthless race of highly advanced transformers from somewhere at the edge of the Galaxy, and they make the Decepticons of the comics look like the Decepticons of the animated series – incompetent jackass losers, and comedy relief at the worst.

In keeping with the 90′s trend of comic psychopaths Anti-heroes, the Autobots were ‘grittier’ and more ‘edgy’ which just ended up being a bit dumb and didn’t really work, since Furman hadn’t really got that pinned down at the time. The art was also sadly missing Andrew Wildman, Geoff Senior, or anyone who was actually good, and all the transformers looked horrifyingly bad, until the last few issues, where someone managed to surreptitiously sneak a few pages of Andrew Wildman’s art in.

No really – a few random pages. Not a whole issue. Then the art went back to someone elses’ style.

Anyhow, the series ended on a setup for a sequel that was never published in any official capacity, and was instead continued in a fan-related publication written by Furman years later. And so, Generation 2 was surplus to requirements, and faded away for years to come.

But like some vast predatory bird, the spectre of Transformers comics continued to hover, as the franchise did itself. All remained quiet for years, until, with no warning, in 2001, a new company exploded to life from

It sadly, didn't look like this.

nowhere.

There was a tremendous buzz as the preview issues of the comics were released. The art was sophisticated and bright, with glorious colours. The comics themselves were of high quality printing, and the writing had a slightly sinister edge to it, which was welcome – after all, Dreamwave knew that their audience would now be twenty-something young adults who grew up with transformers, and wanted stories with complex ideas and conflicts.

Everything was welcome, exciting, and glorious for the new comic series. Fans bought up the comics like the proverbial hot-cakes, so much so that reprints were needed just to keep the comics on the shelves. No one could get enough of their stuff – but then the bad news came.

Issues started being published late, deadlines came and went with no sign of comics – which was due to the books not being correctly licenced for distribution outside of the US. More trouble followed as soon as this was sorted out, as news of creators not getting paid came to the fore, and of a forced ‘house style’ or artwork also came to light.

KILL IT WITH FIRE

Artists were, quite obviously, not happy about this, as it made some of their art look like Pat Lee’s, which was far from the best art in use at Dreamwave.

Dreamwave were forced to reap the whirlwind when their bankruptcy was declared, their debts in excess of 1 million dollars at the time of the company’s collapse. Pat Lee had been ‘forgetting’ to pay the creators, artists, writers, and probably the cleaning lady, and as such nobody wanted to work for him. He secretly moved all the companies’ assets – including his company car, which was a fucking porsche. Proving there is some justice in the world, this company also went bust, but sadly Pat Lee is still at large.

Dreamwave, and especially Pat ‘Superstar artist’ Lee, as he was termed in the companies’ literature, and not Pat ‘I’m a dickhole’ Lee, as he should have been, were put out of mind by Transformers fans with a bitterness and slight taste of excrement, before something new happened – this time, a lot quicker than the six year gap between Marvel and Dreamwave.

New company, no marshmallow-robots

All across the world, new comic covers began appearing with art so good it made grown men (and a few geeky women) cry in joy. No marshmallow-bulgy-rounded robots were on show. Clean artwork, with rigid lines, updated and more complex robot designs, and familar, old-school characters were on display. But who was this mysterious company? What were they going to do?

All was soon revealed as a new Generation 1 transformers comic arrived on shelves, published by a company called IDW, known only before for their range of horror comics and tie-ins, before they made a stand, and saved the transformers licence from Dreamwave’s festering clutches.

The new company had salvaged most of the creative talent from Dreamwave too, employing artists such as Don Figueroa, and writer Simon Furman (who by this point, might as well have an Autobot symbol stamped on his forehead), and struck out with new artists as well, making a huge impact from moment one.

Rather than follow any existing or accepted story, they started from scratch, keeping only the basics of the transformers continuity, and starting a new, more complex and more shadowy interstellar cold-war between the Autobots and Decepticons, with more ambiguous motives for both sides, and a much more complex and steady backstory that evolves over the whole run of the series, presenting an escalation in the ongoing conflict between ideologies.

IDW originally published mini-series, despite the fans relentlessly clamouring for an ongoing series of comics. Rigidly they stuck to the idea, releasing a generation 1 mini-series every spring/summer and a mini-series dealing with Beast Wars, or one of the other transformers lines/continuities in the other part of the year. They also backed up the much more popular G1 series with a number of ‘Spotlights’ on individual characters, to allow some of the lesser-known, but still fan popular characters a chance to do something cool, and for writers to tell some other stories. Each of these also filled in some of the back story of the main series.

The format was clever, and the stories themselves were slick, smooth and clever, all folding together like some kind of sexy robot origami to become a tight, tense and thrilling story that reached a explosive finale.

IDW are still publishing transformers comics, and it’s through them that original Generation 1 fiction, featuring the original characters, as well as fiction tied into the (sigh) Live-action movies is also published, as well as all other licenced transformers comics. Hopefully, their licence will continued for a long, long time, and maybe they can best the record set by marvel’s 331-issue ‘limited series’.

Of course, there are other transformers comics – numerous unofficial fan-published comics exist and have been created, some which are sometimes of quality enough that they could be official, or even superior to the official ones, often created through the fan clubs and conventions based around transformers. There are also numerous Japanese-exclusive mangas that have never been translated, and tie in with exclusive Japanese toys or storylines, some of which are more notorious than others, and very, very distinctly Japanese – most notorious of which, is a series called Transformers: Kiss-players, where the Japanese definition of ‘Teenage’ girls, i.e., barely-sixteen-but-looking-twelve girls work for Earth Defence Command, and have transformer partners they must kiss in order to unlock their special powers and abilities.

No, I am not making this shit up.

The idea of the series and trying to choke it down gives me the worst case of indigestion I’ve ever had, but at least IDW are preventing transformers fans all over the world from turning to alcoholism at the existence of Kiss-Players, and can we do less than salute them, by maybe taking a peek at their comics sometime.

Transformers in comics will go on presumably for a long, long time, as there are always new series coming and going, and the toyline is a flagship brand for Hasbro. One day it might end – but as Simon Furman likes to say – It never ends.

Time I wasn’t here!

Transformers

Other than the well-remembered cartoon of that time, there have been many, many more incarnations of the ‘robots in disguise’ that have contributed to the franchise and pop-culture,  stretching from the original series, right up until the current day, and varying wildly in their storylines, continuity, quality, and style.
All of them are regarded differently by the legions of Transformers fans that exist, both casual and hardcore. But to the more relaxed and less transformers-orientated geek, I’ve decided to undertake a voyage into the realms of transforming robot animation to give the rest of you a guide to the galaxy and generation spanning adventures of the warriors from Cybertron, and hope that you can find some fun, adventure and appreciation for them.

The long, confusing, and twisty legacy of Transformers in animation began way back when, years ago, when I was young, and you were even younger. When business suits with shoulder pads, perms for men and women, and leg-warmers ruled the world of high fashion, when the synth was the only instrument pop needed, and when Mobile phones were big enough to bludgeon sea mammals to death with.

The year was 1984, and the original transformers cartoon had arrived.

This is the animated series that most transformers fans, and non-fans be they around when it first aired or after, are familiar with, and will think of when someone says ‘transformers’ to them. This has the classic line up of recognized characters – the Autobots, lead by Optimus Prime (“the truck guy”), and Decepticons, lead by Megatron (“that dude who turned into a gun”), and their friends and underlings, such as Starscream (“wasn’t he, like, red?”), Soundwave (“what use is a tape deck?”), Jazz (“Wasn’t there one who was like, a sports car?”), Bumblebee (“I always thought Bumblebee was awesome!”) and the rest.

The original transformers cartoon established a lot of precedents in the shows that follow it – the Autobots mostly turn into cars, the Decepticons into flying craft and weapons (although later episodes changed those things). There was a war between both factions that had raged for millions of years, and that the robots were from outer space. And both sides were in competition for energy and resources.
These ideas have been repeated over and over again in later incarnations, and these versions of the characters returned to many, many times to continue their adventures. Most fans remember this series strongly, and many of them have grown up to work on later incarnations of transformers. The characters, continuity, and familiar aspects of this show later came be to be known, unofficially, and later officially, as Generation 1, a term that has become widely-known by both fans, and even some-non fans and non-geeks to represent these stories and characters, and their associated works.

However, watching it again nowadays, it’s very much fair to say that it hasn’t aged well.
The show is rife with terrible animation errors, with limbs, heads, and even whole characters disappearing from frame to frame, characters being the wrong colour entirely, inconsistencies in plot, animation, character, and abilities for the tranformers shown, and all sorts of other terrible problems.

Much of this is due to animation being ‘farmed out’ for production to other houses and studios than the main one, for lower costs and quicker working times, which meant mistakes in the finished episodes were inevitable.
The plots of the individual episodes are often rediculous and silly – none more so than the infamously bad episode ‘B.O.T.’ – but there are some that are entertaining, and even excitingwhen viewed now, and as an older fan.
And if you can place yourself back in a child’s mind-set, it’s easy to see why you were entertained, and enthralled at the time.

The characters are kind of simple too, but nonetheless – this is a children’s cartoon, that was designed to sell toys – and it did so very well, as well as capturing the imaginations of a generation of kids so much that the show went on to have three seasons.
Likely the best of which was the second, which introduced new characters alongside the originals, and also had more adventurous plots involving the background of the transformers and Cybertron.

The series also spawned a movie, which was of much higher quality in both story and animation that the series it came from

The movie was a big thing for transformers, and another that all fans remember well. Not least for the fact it killed off almost eighty percent of the characters from the first two seasons of the cartoon!
A daring departure… in which many small children could observe the contents of their toy shelf being systematically elminated. However, it was poorly received at the box office, but went on to become a cult classic.

The third season of the cartoon followed the movie, and took place after it’s events, with the same cast of characters. However, by this point, toy sales were falling, as was the budget for the series, and many of the stories were outright rediculous comedies and many characters – such as the loved by fans, and previously powerhouse Dinobots – were changed into comedy caricatures of themselves.
Eventually, with a final, and pretty awful, 5-part story named ‘Rebirth’, and acting as the most toy-commerical-like episodes yet, the original Transformers Generation 1 series came to an end.

In the USA and UK, that is.
In Japan, things continued…

The transformers toyline had continued after the end of  ”Season 4′ with many new toys and new gimmicks to go with them. Japanese audiences were thus treated to a new storyline to go with their shiny new toys that featured many, if not all, of these new characters and the continuing adventures of the classic characters alongside them in ‘Headmasters’ the new series of transformers.
Uniquely Japanese, it featured many traits of anime aimed at younger audiences, with simplified motivations and plots for the good and bad guys and their personalities, as well as plots involving characters romping all around the galaxy to fight the Decepticons.

This series was not available to western audiences for a very, very long time, but was finally released in a terrifyingly bad, bad, bad, bad! dub by a company named Omni Productions, and most fans wish they hadn’t bothered.
While the dub is widely available, and easy to get hold of on DVD, it is best enjoyed after having consumed most of your body weight in strong alcohol, or possibly window cleaner. There are a multitude of reasons for it’s sheer awfulness, not least of which is the fact that the voice actors all sound like they’re not interested in what they’re doing or saying, having no expressive qualities in their voices at all, even when their friends are dying.
Part of this is probably due to the fact that they’re faced with a terribly translated script that has no relation to what’s really going on onscreen, or any idea what came before it in terms of the previous series and it’s events, who the characters are, or even their names! Several of the characters names are in fact hilariously changed – such as Blaster becoming ‘Billy’ and Blurr choosing the more conventional name of ‘Wally’…
Fortunately, you can find the subtitled (by fans) versions elsewhere. While occasionally a bit silly and simple, they are nonetheless fun, and most often of a decent quality of animation.

Things didn’t stop there for Japan – Headmasters was a big success, and so it was followed up by another series, following the toyline along with new changes, and introducing a new cast of characters.

Masterforce took on a whole new angle, with new characters and a new background than the previous series, and standing away from them to make it’s own story.
Humans were the central focus of the plot, and the theme of ‘personal transformation’ was paramount, as the characters could ‘become’ transformers by donning special suits to ‘combine’ with transformer bodies.

More light-hearted and comical in tone than the previous series, Masterforce was a Big Damn Adventure, though set almost entirely on Earth, as humans were central to the plot and it’s events. While a radical departure, it was well-received and remembered, and had many spin-offs and nods in later fiction.
Unlike Headmasters, Masterforce was available in the UK (because the world loves us), subtitled instead of being awfully dubbed, and continues to be available.
Japan wasn’t done with transformers yet either, and they had one more Generation 1 show in their arsenal to be deployed.

Victory was a return to the roots of the franchise, and followed two small groups of Autobots and Decepticons (or, rather, in Japanese, Cybertrons and Destrons) as they fought across the Galaxy, defending peaceful civilizations from attacks by the Destrons.

New characters, such as the heroic Cybertron commander ‘Star Saber’ and the evil Destron leader ‘Deathsaurus’ (yes, really) were introduced, alongside returning cameos and appearances from Masterforce characters.
The show spanned a short run only, which is surprising due to it’s high quality of story and especially high-quality animation – but perhaps that’s why, as the budget must have been a lot higher.

Victory continued to introduce new characters based on new toys, such as the micromasters, based on the smaller pocket-sized toys (which were a trend at the time), and other combining-type robots, most of which were Japanese exclusives – especially the unintentionally hilariously named ‘breastforce’, with their combining breastplates.

As with Masterforce, Victory was thankfully made available in a subtitled format many years after it’s original release, rather than the crackhead dub by Omni, and is still available.
But this was the last series based on Generation 1 (or G1) concepts produced in Japan, and it was many years before anything new came along.

Back in the west, things had been extremely quiet too. The remainder of the 1980′s had been devoid of any new animated, televised or otherwise tranformers content, despite the toylines continuing strength and presence, and the only blip had occurred from 1993-95 when a cartoon named ‘Generation 2′ had aired.
Consisting simply of the original 1980′s Generation 1 cartoon, and even select episodes at that, with added grating and annoying primitive CGI borders, opening and closing credits, and scene changes all in badly-done, noisy and intrusive effects. The series was a flop as much as the ‘Generation 2′ toyline was, and the only impact it had was allowing the original fans to see many of the original episodes over again – something that, at the time, was unique, as the internet was a nascent idea, DVDs were a few years off, and the only other copies of the show were on very rare VHS releases, that had often been passed around by many hands, and were aging quickly.

A few years later however, things changed as a wholly-new (at least to begin with) show came to the airwaves in 1996, with a new style of animation, and a brand-new setting and cast of characters.
Reviled by original fans upon it’s beginning, Beast Wars soon and very quickly, with the slick plotting and characterisation, became a superb example of Transformers-related storytelling, and amassed a legion of fans.

Most of this was due to the fact it had excellent characters and ideas behind it, and moved swiftly, with individual episodes that contributed to overall arc-plots (something never seen in a transformers show before!) and while aimed at kids, also had many elements that appealed to older viewers.
While the first season stood on it’s own, and made only very passing and casual references to the ‘Great War’ between Autobots and Decepticons, and a few casual name-drops that were mostly for the sake of humour, by the second season, the writers and show staff had realised that the majority of their viewers were transformers fans – and many of those writers were also fans. Synchronicity was achieved, and the references began to gather pace and the show was now explicitly tied to the original G1 series – and no more so than in the third and final series, where the original characters were featured (after a fashion), along with a slew of other elements.
Beast Wars was an unexpected success of it’s time, and is still well-loved and celebrated today by transformers fans. And it was followed up by it’s own sequel show – another first, at the time.

Beast Machines continued the adventures of the Beast Wars cast after the end of their original storyline, transplanting the action back to the Transformers home planet of Cybertron.
However, in the voyage home, their enemy Megatron had escaped, and has taken over – resulting in a much darker, dystopian and bleaker story than the earlier show. the CGI was much more refined, and the theme tune much more rockin’, leading to a smoother and more slick show.

Characters motivations changed from their roles in Beast Wars, many of them growing in different ways and becoming different to what they were, as the world around them is a dangerous, dark, and scary place. Often battles are a result of simply having to survive or flee, and getting caught, and the Maximals (the good guys) are often on the back foot against superior numbers, and more ruthless and warlike foes.

Beast Machines was mature in it’s approach and story-telling style, and didn’t talk down to it’s audience. It wasn’t without moments of levity and humour, or even hope, but was certainly on a different level than earlier shows – but in the end, that may have been part of it’s downfall, as it lasted only two seasons, and came to a somewhat abrupt and non-triumphant ending. It’s still a hotly contested and debated show in the transformers fandom, but for my opinion, makes a perfect cap on the Beast Wars storylines.

Things hadn’t been quiet in the land of the rising sun however. Japan had loved Beast Wars too, despite their dubbing and rewrites turning it into a bizarre and madcap comedy with almost no relation to the original show. However, it had been popular, and as a result, two sequels followed

Like the re-dubbed Beast Wars, Beast Wars II was a comical and zany take on the battle between Maximal and Predacon, though it followed it’s own story and direction than the American series – and, noticably, made a transition to 2D cell animation instead of CGI.
The series received, and has received so far, no release outside of Japan, but is notable because it included many characters who appeared in the toys, but did not appear in the CGI TV series – Likely due to the cost and time involved in creating new models for the characters.

Beast Wars: Neo followed up Beast Wars: II in Japan, and was as equally goofy and odd as it’s predecessor, carrying on the same storyline with the majority of the same cast.

Things were happening in the USA though – the planned follow up toyline and series to Beast Machines, named Transtech, for which only a few designs were produced, never appeared, and instead, a new series was imported from Japan – a first for the franchise, and later to become a common practice – and was renamed, and the story rewritten. This was called Robots in Disguise

This new show was a complete reboot of the franchise, as it featured no connections to the timeline established by the original cartoon, and expanded on by Beast Wars and Beast Machines. It also featured a much more humour-orientated and kid-friendly approach than the other shows had taken, including comedy characters and dubs as standard, and new voice-acting talents (essentially, the entire cast of Digimon) and was broadcast only on cable-exclusive channels.
Robots in Disguise was not well-known even at the time, and has remained something of an obscure curio. It was the first time though that many of the anime ‘stock’ traditions were presented to familiar Transformers audiences, including things like the ‘anime sweatdrop’ to indicate confusion or embarassment, the ‘speedlines’ of a background in a character moving fast, and other notable stock-in-trades, such as stock footage and shouting the names of attacks in battle.
RiD survived for only one season from 2001 to 2002, and has never received much in the way of followups or popularity, but was the first to pave the way for imports of Japanese shows.

Transformers: Armada followed hot on the heels of RiD, and was heavily promoted, with a new toyline to accompany it. Featuring a new host of voice talent (who were not from Digimon), it follows the adventures of the Autobots and Decepticons of another new continuity as they struggle against each other to find missing smaller robots called ‘minicons’ who can unlock special abilities in all of their larger brethren to allow them to battle their enemies and achieve victory in the ongoing war, as the fleshbag annoyance human sidekick ‘Rad’ explains in the clip above.

With the theme of collecting smaller robots with special abilities that don’t speak and instead spout nonsensical sounds, and having to travel around the world to do so, Armada received many less-than-complimentary comparisons to Pokemon, which was also very popular at the time of it’s release.
Pokeformers was however, fairly well animated, and had a good-length run. However, it was boring, repetitive, and had a tedious plotline that managed to encompass several shifting allegiances throughout it’s run.
Somehow, it included several references to G1 characters in name, but was not well-received by many fans of the original shows, though it gained an audience of new and younger fans during it’s time.
Armada became the first part of a trilogy.

Energon was the second part of the so-called Unicron Trilogy, and was a direct sequel to Armada, taking place 10 years after the end of the previous series.

It featured a returning cast of characters embarking on a new plot, and used a brand-new cel-shaded CGI style that seemed to have been deliberately designed to make the transformer characters look as absolutely awful as possible.
All of the characters lacked in any range of movement and expression, and were covered in overly thick details and panel lines, often resulting from the models being bad-scaled in far-off shots or closeups.
They lacked any weight of movement, and had embarassingly bad body language, walk and run cycles, and sheer depth or range of movement in any way, and had faces that could not even move to perform expressions. It’s especially sad and depressing when one remembers that Beast Wars and Beast Machines were made made literally years earlier, and in those two shows the characters – even the ones with nonhuman faces – made facial expressions and displayed body language perfectly!

Combined with bad writing and even worse voice acting, the show was a dismal failure with fans, yet somehow managed to run for a brain-tumour inducing 51 episodes.

Ironhide in four completely different situations. Honest.

Most of the problem comes with the fact that the series ignored any and all character development and sub-plots, ignoring any ideas about personalities and motivations simply to include more scenes of stock-footage – which given the animation quality, have little-to-no visual impact or grand feeling to them.

The plot itself ends up being repetitive and pointless, as the characters constantly attempt to perform the same goals over and over again, ending up in a show padded out with – yet again – more stock footage, and far too many scenes of exposition and characters telling the audience what they know already, or dubbed in non-sequitors, caused by the lack of a proper translation, or sheer confusion in what is an already confusing and badly-drafted script, resulting in the voice acting being stilted and jarring, and often not matching what is happening on screen, or the characters speaking nonsense!

Supplemental comics and spin-offs were produced for some reason, and the series had a small following of fans, most of whom were presumably too young to care about the horrible visual design, or were lobotomised.
Even more sad to realise, was that Energon marked the 20th anniversary of Transformers on TV, which is quite a sad state of affairs.
Worse still, was that this abortion had a sequel.

Cybertron carried on the story of Armada and Energon, as the Autobots raced into space to find the ‘cyber-planet keys’ to stop their homeworld and many others, from being destroyed – at least in the west. In Japan, it was a stand-alone series, with a new continuity and premise, and didn’t feature the same characters.

Fortunately, considering it’s predecessor, Cybertron actually had some work put into it (someone must have told the producers about the reaction to Energon), and as a result the dub ended up with a much better script and much better performances, along with much more work being done to explain things that were otherwise lost in the translation from Japanese to English, and the rewriting performed to make the show part of the Unicron Trilogy.

Nonetheless, the show does suffer from the horrible flaw of endless stock animation sequences for transformation, and the plot often feels laboured in some places, and compressed in others, lacking any real balance. However, it is overall a much better effort than previous attempts.

Following the debut of the Live-Action transformers movie in 2006, a new all-american produced animated Transformers series was produced. It iddn’t tie into the movie itself, but featured a lot of common elements – and it also didn’t tie into G1, but was heaped with references to the series – many of them tongue in cheek, and for fans only.
The new series was called, quite simply, Transformers: Animated

With an animation style that was more reminiscent of Cartoon Networks’ home-grown shows, such as Teen Titans, and Ben 10, the initial reaction to Animated (as in, the few in-production pictures that surfaced before the show even aired) was extremely negative – although that was nothing new, as Transformers fans are routinely extremely hard to please, and considering that the franchise revolves around changing from one form to another, remarkably opposed to change.

Nonetheless, many of their opinions transformed when they finally viewed the new show. It was witty, intelligent, and smart, and had a very clever and well-paced arc story that linked the individual episodes.
The continuity also received a fresh reboot, placing the characters on an Earth in a near-future, in which the Autobots and Decpticons are unknown, and the war is long over.  Similar to Beast Wars, they are also not warriors, unlike the Decepticons, and must learn to fight their enemies as they go, often needing to team up to take out even a single Decepticon.

The series went from strength to strength, and featured masses of cameos and nods to G1 characters, or Animated versions of those characters or movie characters, to draw in more fans. There were many things featured that would draw in older fans – for example, Wreck-Gar being voiced by Weird Al Yankovic, who had written and performed a song on the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack. Or the cameo appearances of Daniel, Spike and Carly from the original G1 series, or the mention of Metroplex and Fortress Maximus, characters from the earlier shows.

The series was massively popular with Transformers fans everywhere, and news of any new episodes was widely awaited. The production staff also apparently widely enjoyed working on the show, and interacting with the fans, as well as producing and writing the show itself.

As such, it was a resounding shame that Cartoon Network confirmed that Season 3 was the last season of the show, and there would be no more episodes forthcoming, for some unspeakably stupid reason.

So far, Animated marks the last series to be um, animated, for the screen, but 2010 will mark the debut of a new series, Transformers: Prime, which has, as yet, little information released about it.

So, transformers continues to go from strength to strength on-screen, and has many, many different incarnations that offer something to everyone.
But the story doesn’t end with the cartoons, as there are other avenues down which the background and universe of the robot warriors from another world have been explored – that of the printed page, and it’s in the next part of my article that I’ll discuss the transformers comics, and their storylines and histories – and how they altered the transformers as they were portrayed on screen.

Until all are one!

In my previous article, I introduced you to the Gundam universe, and how unspeakably awesome it is. I took you on a magical mystery tour of how the franchise got started, and what’s behind it, and also gave you a brief overview of it’s core continuity and background – the so-called ‘Universal Century’.

As Gundam grew, so too did the aspirations of it’s directors. Tastes were changing around it, and newer ideas were coming to pass, and in the late 1990’s, the franchise took a bold step.

Generations of Gundam

Gundam had grown bigger and bigger, and had a core base of loyal fans. But, as always, there was the need for more. The franchise hadn’t stagnated – but instead, it needed something new, and something different.

At this time, the Super Robot genre, as discussed earlier, was going through a renaissance. The reasons behind that are many fold (and will be discussed in a later article from me, woohoo!), and the popularity of such shows was on the increase. And so, Sunrise and Bandai took a bold step. In 1994, the show expanded out of the Universal Century, and in a radical departure from the Real Robot genre it had established, and the core continuity of the Universal Century, with it’s now over 100 years of continuity, along came a new universe, and a new series – ‘Mobile Fighter G-Gundam’.

A real departure from the ideas and concepts Gundam had established so far, G-Gundam went back to the Super Robot roots, and took a departure from the serious, though-provoking world of the UC, and into a crazy, brightly coloured world, where wars were decided on a barren, blasted Earth by the use of staged ‘Gundam Fights’, between all countries.

The plot was relatively simplistic, and the characters far larger than life – like the machines they piloted, they represented their countries…

Yes. It turns into a fish. No, I'm not joking.

…Yeah.

Or as the ‘Mermaid Gundam’ shows – a crude and mildly offensive stereotype of them, at least. The series was full of martial-arts posturing and homages, and while not popular on it’s first run, received praise and a dedicated fanbase in later incarnations for it’s over-the-top action sequences and outlandish appeal.

Following this first successful experiment with an alternate setting, further series were released in different timelines. This time though, the idea taken was much more serious. The next series would become a runaway success, and is still well known to this day – Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

Pretty boys, pretty robots.

Gundam Wing told the story of another alternate world, but this one was a strange future, where an enigmatic ‘Organization of the Zodiac’ – Oz – rules the Earth, and the Space Colonies in an uneasy peace, enforcing the rules with it’s powerful mobile weapons.

Into the midst of this, four teenage pilots (who are all very handsome boys), are sent in their outrageously powerful Gundam Mobile Suits to wreak havoc and eventually destroy Oz, to allow the people to govern themselves again.

Gundam Wing was the first Gundam series to be dubbed fully and professionally into English, and was designed as a more action-oriented show with less political manoeuvring and focus than earlier shows – but not ignoring it completely, of course.

Partly, this was a savvy move on Bandai – the well-known parent company of Sunrise Studios – to ease Gundam into a more western market.

Focusing on four teenage pilots, with extremely powerful mobile suits, each following a different motif and with a distinctive design and flair, the four pilots each came from a different background. Unlike the military characters of other shows, they were ‘freedom fighters’ against Oz. The designs of the characters, especially the Gundam Pilots themselves, and many other elements of the show, were also notably designed to attract a female audience as well as a male one – something that apparently succeeded, if the number of fan websites for the individual pilots are anything to go by.

Despite being an alternate universe show, Wing still filled in all the key ideas for a Gundam series – the masked villain, troubled heroes, and exciting mecha battles, as well as a morally complex story.

The hugely powerful mobile suits, with their distinctive themes and designs were also very popular with fans, and the model of multiple ‘heroic’ Gundams would be repeated in later series, to the point of becoming a staple element.

Wing received a warm response in the US, debuting on Cartoon Network, and was the first show for the channel to be aired in an ‘edited’ daytime version, and a late-night ‘unedited’ version, that left the dialogue (such as using the word ‘kill’ instead of the clumsy and unintentionally hilarious-sounding word ‘destroy’) intact.

The reception to this idea was so great, that it later influenced the creation of the now-famous ‘Adult Swim’ block, which bought more anime to Cartoon Network.

Wing was followed by more alternate universe shows, such as Gundam X, which was less successful – so much so, that it was cancelled halfway through it’s run.

Many reasons have been cited for the death of the series, but it is believed that too many Gundam suits, a nonsensical plot about newtypes, and a generally fonsuing and repetitive story, coupled with a poor choice of slot by the channels that showed it, lead to the series’ downfall.

It wasn't that bad!

Gundam took a years break from TV schedules after this, finally deciding the time was right for a rest – but then it exploded back into life in spectacular style.

The Alternate Universes and the Universal Century had a meeting of sorts with the return of the original creator of Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino, to his creation. For the 20^th Anniversary of Gundam, Tomino wanted to do something special and spectacular, so he had decided to direct the new TV show.

Tomino had also recovered from the deep depression that had plagued him during the creation of Victory Gundam¸ the last Gundam Series he had directed, that had lead to it’s ultimately dark and hopeless tone – and as such, the new series, dubbed Turn-A Gundam, is ultimately a much more hopefully and optimistic show.

Turn-A’s story takes place in what is at first glance a parallel universe – but later is discovered to be a potential future of the Universal Century, where all previous incarnations of the series take place at various points in history.

Distinctively animated, and full of romantic imagery, Turn-A stands tall

The show tells a complex and moving story, replete with beautifully designed characters and gorgeous backgrounds, rich music by Japanese music supreme Yoko Kanno, and futuristic, radical mecha designs by famous futurist Syd Mead.

The series markedly divided fans, most notably over the design of the Turn-A Gundam itself. But overall, it was marked up as a success, and certainly a worthy tribute to the series as a 20^th Anniversary. The Turn-A itself has also established a following and notoriety – both as one of, if not the most, powerful mecha in the Gundam meta-continuity, and as a recognisable feature, as it has turned up in many subsequent video games, and was chosen as the 100^th Master Grade Gundam model (more about those later).

Turn-A’s success revitalised the franchise, though there was a gap in the schedule for a year or so – a gap that lead to the later alternate universe show, Gundam SEED.

SEED was a runaway success in both it’s homeland and the US. Retelling and re-imagining the original Gundam, it gave a new cast of characters, a new

Gundam Seed introduced Gundam to a new generation

universe, and a plethora of new mobile suits. Becoming a big success, it was dubbed into English, and again shown on Cartoon Network, giving the franchise the boost it needed in the USA to become a big name.

So successful was Gundam SEED, that it became the first Gundam Alternate Universe saga to get it’s own sequels, as well as spinoffs – Gundam SEED Destiny, Stargazer and Astray. Rumours persist of a movie forthcoming as well, expanding the continuity of the ‘C.E.’ universe even further.

The Alternate universes continued too, with the release of Gundam 00, which was set in the wildest and most unusually named alternate setting of all – the AD calendar!

Yep – 00 apparently takes place in the 22^nd century of our world, and frequently references past events, named countries, and more. Edgier than some series before it, the characters are like dark shadows of the ‘G-boys’

More pretty pilots, and more pretty mecha

from Gundam Wing, and their mobile suits similarly are like alternate versions of those units. The story is similar also – but different enough that it doesn’t feel like a re-telling. 00 has now finished it’s run – but again, the fanbase is strong, and audiences in the West are being given the chance to enjoy this series now too.

The UC continued strong alongside these alternate universes, however. OAVs, manga, animated ‘shorts’ and other material supplemented the ‘Alternate’ sagas, and supported it’s older fanbase, some of whom still remained loyal to the ‘original’ setting, and shunned the ‘new’ generations – much like there are Star Trek fans who shun the Next Generation and it’s ilk for the Original Series, and so on and so forth.

With the release of Gundam Wing, and other dubbed follow-ups, Gundams’ popularity grew in the West as well as Japan, as (through the medium of the internet), fans got hold of the series they wanted, and this eventually lead to official releases in later years too, for many of the other series, including UC continuity titles. However – things were confused for a long time, as Bandai didn’t release the original Gundam 0079 in it’s movie format until years after several of it’s sequels had been available! For fans in the UK, things were worse – we didn’t get Gundam series – universal century, especially – until only a few short years ago!

But things were changing. With the popularity of first Wing, and then SEED, fans clamoured to throw their money at Bandai, who gave in, and Gundams’ other supporting pillar planted itself in the fertile earth of the West – Merchandising.

Gundam takes over the world

Mecha shows are driven by the inclusion of the robots. And while it can be effectively argued that they are science fiction shows, the uncomfortable truth is that they also exist because it’s very easy to make lots of plastic models and toys of robots, which then sell to children and collectors alike.

As I mentioned earlier, Gundams original debut was heavily influenced by the toymakers during its initial airing. Action figures were produced to begin with, but it was something unexpected that really kicked off the merchandise craze.

In the early 1980s, following the release of the Gundam Movies in cinemas, Bandai produced the first early series of model kits.

Crude, and lacking in detail, they were also inexpensive by today’s standard. However, they were revolutionary at the time, and begun a craze for the kits.

Many of this first wave sold out in record time. Bandai knew they were onto a winner, and so the phenomenon was born. More and more kits were created and produced, covering all sorts of mobile suits and their variations, and growing in complexity and detail. In the 1990’s the model line really took off, with the inclusion of parts that allowed the kits to be moved and made posable. The Gundam Plastic – or ‘GunPla’ model craze boomed, and became a phenomenon in it’s own right.

What you can do with the models is impressive

Bandai did something else different too – they introduced different ‘grades’ for their kits, based on complexity and size of the models, giving modellers a range of different options to suit both their budget and their skills, and each line also included different mecha and vehicles from the other, allowing builders to hunt down their favourite suit and build it.

Newer and newer parts were introduced, along with clever modelling and building techniques that allowed for hyper-detailed kits – eventually culiminating in the release of the massive 1:60 scale ‘Perfect Grade’ kits.

Standing a good two feet tall, and with thousands of pieces each, and details such as opening inspection hatches, and fully detailed internal workings, light up eyes, and all manner of other widgets, the Perfect Grade series are for the serious modeller – yet they are still clip together kits!

Bandai have made only a few Gundam kits...

‘Gunpla’ is such a phenomenon in it’s own right, that it has been recognised outside Gundam shows – both the anime series ‘Sergeant Frog (aka Sgt. Kerororo)’ and ‘Genshiken’ feature Gunpla, or gunplay builders quite heavily.

It is no wonder then, that Gundam action figures and models dominate over ninety Percent of all character based models in Japan, and there are Gunpla modelling contests held in Japan, and even internationally!

As well as models though, there are products for everything, from video games, to snack foods, key chains, posters, calendars, CDs of music from the shows, and even more unusual things – theme park rides, commemorative stamps, and more.

The influence of Gundam is so much so, that in Japan a 1:1 scale statue of the original Gundam Mobile suit was erected this year to commemorate the 35^th anniversary of the series’ debut, and Gundam has been recognised as a ‘culturally important artefact’ by the Japanese government.

Japan prepares for Godzilla attacks

So, all in all Gundam is much, much more than any other giant robot animated series. It is a cultural trend-setter, originating a whole genre of imitators, parodies, and respectful homages to it’s themes and ideas. It has spawned thirteen TV series, six original movies, ten OAV series, one amusement park ride, a less than successful live-action movie, and more than fifty different manga spinoffs, which could warrant an article themselves.

Again to compare it to Star Trek, it’s a franchise that shows no sign of stopping, despite being mature in age. There are still new stories, new fans, and new ideas to come. The animated products are finally making their way across the globe and expanding out of Japan and off of the back-market dealings of internet sharing-sites and Bit Torrent into legitimate releases – Gundam isn’t going to go away, and the big granddaddy of mecha is still ready to inspire and father many more armour-plated children, and many more legions of fans.

Apparently Square-Enix are very excited about releasing their new game. <Cough-inAmericaandEurope – Cough>.

I’m sure we’re all jumping up and down in our seats with joy induced seizures, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s take a look at what the video actually tells us about the new game!

1. You won’t hate the characters any more than that presenter.

This guy:

I call him Señor Tossbag.

And what he does best is reading his pretentious script with his best impression of a smug bastard while staring at the camera with the dead-eyed expression of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing and just wants it to be over. Smoothly talking about how these games are the greatest thing since the invention of sex back in 1785. Every word that spews out of this guys’ mouth will make you want to punch the screen.

2. The characters will have even more stupid names than ever before.

Lightning, Snow, Vanille, Hope… I just don’t understand why they have a character named after the most boring flavour of Ice-Cream. My first thought was ‘At least they’re not as bad as the ones in Eternal Sonata.’ Then I remembered that having gangrene in my genitals would be better than Eternal Sonata.

.

3. The developers have designed the battle system with ‘Paradigm shift’…

I don’t think even they know what that means.

4. The theme tune will be sung by…

Leona Lewis.

In the most out-of-left-field thing to say about the game, Leona Lewis will be singing the theme songs for the game. So our turn based fighty angst will be accompanied with ‘bleeding love’… This could actually work depending on how the song is and how the game uses it. But it still seems a bit weird to me.

5. In-Game footage:

‘An exclusive never before seen look at Final fantasy XIII’ which consists of about seven seconds of incomprehensible footage of androgynous protagonists hitting monsters and numbers floating in the air… This makes just as much sense whether you’ve played the games before or not. We learn that a) There is fighting and b) You get to ride a chicken… whoop de do!

6. Yes, but when’s it out?

In an infuriatingly condescending twist, Señor Tossbag pretends not to know the release date, the one real announcement of the video and the only reason you’ve watched the last five minutes of this dross… As the camera pulls out and you start to reach for your favourite hitting stick to deliver retribution for this deception, the scenery becomes the release date. So this way you get to feel like you’ve been lied to and insulted without having anything to actually be angry about!

Am I looking forward to this game? I would be if I had any indication that the game wasn’t going to be anywhere near as conceited as this video.

The problem is that this video perfectly encapsulates how many people actually feel about these games. But the developers shouldn’t believe their own bullshit, there’s something about hearing ludicrous claims and hype around a product that makes you immediately hate the finished article when it inevitably fails to live up to it.

Just look at the upcoming ‘Ferngully with Aliens’ movie that the Titanic guy won’t stop banging on about!

"The greatest movie of the Decade..." with extra blue Cat-People!

]]> http://unbored.co.uk/articles/2009/12/07/the-most-pretentious-announcement-in-the-universe/feed/ 8 http://unbored.co.uk/articles/2009/10/26/all-that-gundam-and-a-lot-more-besides-2/ http://unbored.co.uk/articles/2009/10/26/all-that-gundam-and-a-lot-more-besides-2/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:43:14 +0000 Steve Doyle http://unbored.co.uk/?p=343

Not pictured: comic relief children and mascot robot.

Why Gundam? A lot of anime fans dismiss Gundam easily – I’ve heard plenty of people say it’s ‘boring’ or that ‘it’s all the same’ or, as an actual legitimate excuse, that it’s very confusing and they don’t know where to start. With 20+ years of series, manga and video games, and much longer of established continuity, it’s a pretty fair argument to say it’s confusing.

But there’s one hell of a rich and varied wealth of series to be exploited and enjoyed in the multitude of Gundam productions, and it’s certainly something that shouldn’t be ignored. So, in order to ease your confusion, and pay tribute to an Anime phenomenon, allow me to take you on a tour of the anime franchise that’s been termed the ‘Japanese Star Trek’, and give you a bit of an education about the first family of Giant Robot anime.

The Origins of Gundam – Super Robots and Real Robots

Thats... that's a lot of robots.

In the 1970’s, anime featuring giant robots was far from unknown. Many shows had been produced, but they had all followed a template – a protagonist, usually a young boy or teenager, receives a giant robot from an older patron or relative, and then uses it to fight the monster of the week – the stereotypical, run of the mill, predictable and samey ‘Super Robot’ show.

Such copy-pasted, cloned series rarely featured any meaningful character development, or any real continuity between episodes. They rarely showed any consequences of the fighting, mass destruction, and property damage they caused in their battles on a weekly basis, (let alone the bills to the construction companies) and the working gubbins of the heroes or villains robots featured were not mentioned or thought about.

Their weapons as well as the robots themselves were fanciful, flashy, and virtually magical in nature (sometimes out-rightly so), rather than being realistic machines, and often the names of their attacks or weapons were called out prior to use – all familiar and common elements of the Super Robot genre. And it didn’t hurt that all of this of course made it all much, much easier to sell lots of shiny toys.

The original Gundam TV series took a bold and different direction in order to stand out from the crowd of its predecessors and do something completely different to the legion of carbon-copies before it.

Military mecha, doing military things = awesome

The creator of Mobile Suit Gundam, took a leaf out of Starship Troopers’ playbook (the novel, as the shitty movie hadn’t even been made at this time), and a look at real life, and considered a revolutionary idea – what if the giant robots featured were weapons like any other?

Mass produced and part of the military, like any other, rather than flashy superhero–like devices.

And, what if they were in the hands of real pilots, rather than kids? (Had I been there, I would have applauded). And, what if the war was humans, against humans, for political reasons, rather than monsters of the week? (again, applause).

Yoshiyuki Tomino’s ideas were pretty far out there at the time, to his colleagues at Sunrise animation studios, not to mention their financial backers.

To you and I, it probably sounds pretty straightforward, but with the revolutionary ideas, they were worried that it wouldn’t take off, that it wouldn’t sell and would be too ‘different’ from what had come before.

Oh, and the one or two of you out there who think it’s boring? Get your coats.

I’ll wait.

Gone? Good.

Anyway, such a revolutionary idea wasn’t allowed to sail through unchecked. Some changes had to be made to let the show go into production. At the demands of the toymakers, the titular robot, the ‘Gundam’ was changed to utilitarian and practical grey in colour to brightly coloured and eye-catching (and very toy like…) white, red and blue, and numerous additional ‘support vehicles’ were added, to make more toys available and draw in younger viewers. Extra weapons were also added for the same reason – and to draw in existing super-robot viewers. With that, the show went into production.

Themes and Concepts – War is Hell

The Gundam robot – or mobile suit – in the show was very different to its heroic predecessors. While it was very powerful and effective, it was not infallible, and was frequently damaged, or broke down, or suffered other mechanical problems – like a real machine would. And it required a lot of skill and practice to operate effectively, unlike just dropping into the cockpit and off you go. In fact, in the first instance, Amuro Ray, the hero of the show, piloted the Gundam with the manual open on his lap. And he almost lost too – very unlike a Super Robot show.

He also didn’t call out the names of every attack – instead, he piloted like a fighter pilot, or other military vehicle. Very unlike its predecessors to say the least…

the Zaki 'enemy' suit - mass produced icon

The enemy robots were also just as different – mass produced, and mostly effective machines (with one or two strays into very odd machines, which once again showed the influence of the interfering toymakers and studio bigwigs), they were not giant robot-beasts, and were instead troops-of-the-line for the most part.

The cast of the show were also another diversion from the norm. While they were teenagers, they showed human sides and failings, and acted like teenagers would.

They lost their tempers, were moody and unlovable sometimes, were spiteful, argumentative, didn’t get along, and often, through the terrors and horrors of way they faced, suffered psychological and emotional shocks. A bit more in-depth than your average robot show, to say the least.

One of the most shocking developments, and one which Tomino would later become famous for (leading to his cheery nickname of ‘Kill ‘em all Tomino’), was the death of main characters throughout the course of the show – driving home the fact that yes, this was a WAR, and not everyone survives a war. And wars are horrible, taxing, and deadly, and not clean and sanitised events.

The multitude of sequel series to Gundam followed the same template for the most part anyway – There were never any aliens, or monsters – at least, not bug eyed, non-human ones, humans always fought humans on or around the Earth, usually over possession and desire for the right to live on the Earth or to become separatist nations

Only Char can make this look cool.

in orbiting habitats called space colonies. These political and philosophical ideas form the background for the various series’ wars and conflicts, and are often the driving forces for the individual characters too, or leading to a rivalry between the lead character and an enemy ace, and showing their parallel or wildly divergent points of view.

One recurring aspect of these enemy aces is that they often wear a mask, hiding their identity both from their allies, as well as their enemies, in a complex plot to gain revenge or regain their original standing, or for other personal reasons.

Char, the original template for these characters, was actually better liked than his counterpart by fans. However, this wasn’t surprising, since Amuro Ray was kind of a dick in the first Gundam show – but his changing personality and nature are something that are shown in great detail through the multitudes of Gundam sequels and productions. Likewise to Char’s equally changing personality, due to his holding onto his ideas.

But following in Char’s footsteps, the Enemy Ace is a noble and likable character, often coming to the heroes’ aid, and respecting more than hating them, and proving a face to the enemies’ ideals and goals.

There was also some, at least vague, basis in real science and concepts for the Gundam series as well. Things like Space Colonies were based on real ideas and concepts, rather than ‘just because’ and there was no ‘warp drive’ to power the space-craft. Only a few fictional ‘sci-fi’ elements were introduced to make things work, and even then, they were religiously stuck to in order to maintain some level of reality within the show – at least within the original timeline of the ‘Universal Century’, which was the ‘home’ universe of the Gundam shows.

Gundam also explored, in most of its incarnations, the powerful theme that one cannot live through a war, much less fight in it, without coming out a changed person on the other side. Almost every character experiences loss and death, either first hand or through a close friend or relative, or their own relatives end up changed. Even the most optimistic of series or characters are often dealt a huge blow for the worse, and not left unaffected (aside from in Gundam Wing, anyway).

Making a Name

So Gundam had become a breakthrough for the genre, a template for the Real Robots that followed it, and a trend-setter. But it wasn’t always the genre-master, trend-setting original it’s become now.

It flopped on its first showing.

Of course – so did the original Star Trek TV series, but look how that’s done. And it eventually became popular in the same way – through re-runs, where it drew a huge audience. This underground popularity soon exploded into the mainstream, and Gundam became a household name, as well as establishing what has become known as the ‘Real Robot’ genre, and spawned a legacy of imitators.

The popularity of the re-runs lead to Sunrise commissioning three movies to be made by re-cutting the original Gundam series. Much of the toy-inspired sillier

Sometimes the animation was... lacking.

content was removed, and instead new animated sequences were added, also clearing up some of the worse-animated sections. The movies were a run away success, and from then on Gundam was king of the robot genre.

With its name established, sequels were only a matter of time in coming, and there was no lack of them, to say the least. The original conflict of 0079, the ‘one year war’ where the original show took place, was revisited from many angles in later years by spin-off and sequel OAV series, even as late as 2009 with the CGI series ‘MS IGLOO’ (No, I have no idea why it’s called that).

The developing plotline of the Universal Century eventually spanned into hundreds of years of conflicts, all following on from events and precedents set down in previous series as it follows a developing society through the years.

The plethora original TV series are followed by movies, OAV series, manga, and more, all of which serve to expand and embellish and develop the fictional world – realising it as fully as an non-animated series has ever done – again, something that has never really been replicated or followed by any other anime franchise since in such detail, and again, very much comparable to Star Trek, with it’s different cast from series to series, and different mobile suits every time as well. And without all the bumpy-headed aliens, but unfortunately with just as many embarrassing fans.

Yes Star Trek fans. You have someone to look down on.

Of course, there’s not just the Universal Century – as the time rolled on, new ideas were wanted and floated, and new directors came and went – with the desire to do new things. And one timeline wasn’t enough to contain all of them, so new and different things had to happen.

New ideas were needed and wanted, and the Universal Century could not contain them all – so join me in part two, where I’ll delve into the myriad of parallel worlds and series, and also look at the other powerhouse of Gundam – merchandising, and especially Modelling!

Until then. I leave you with this.

And yet you continually see these ‘internet celebrities’ throwing tantrums and screaming fits that would put Kanye West to shame. Surely the fact they aren’t being showered with millions of dollars and stalked by the paparazzi would mean they’d be a little bit more humble than that specimen.

What is it that makes them take criticism like a Vampire takes a holy water enema?

To illustrate my point, let me set a little scene for you…

A blind man takes to the street corner every day to busk for spare change. At first he just does it for the fresh air and the fun of performing in the company of his guide dog, and at first people are content to pass by on their way to more important things. But one day a young boy is walking by and he hears the music… and he is inspired. He has never heard music like that before and it touches his heart and soul in ways he has never experienced before.

He has to talk to him!

The boy goes up to the blind man and asks him how he learned to play that well. At first the man is surprised to be interrupted with such praise but he soon becomes accustomed to it, playing his music becomes a little more gratifying to him now he knows that someone is enjoying it. The boy tells his friends of the amazing music he has found and the blind man hears several voices telling him his music is great and he should totally get a record detail.

One day, the boys invite one of their friends over to hear the blind man play. The friend is mildly impressed, but asks if the man knows how to play any songs that aren’t covers of Led Zeppelin.

But before the boy can even finish his sentence, the blind man screams over him and tells him to piss off because he’s an ungrateful little fucktard and how can he dare question a genius such as he!

It’s deeply offensive and needlessly rude, but look at the blind mans perspective. He has played in anonymity for years and suddenly is told that he is brilliant by increasing numbers of people whose faces he has never seen. Completely unaware of the thousands of people who pass by every day and find him merely mediocre. They develop such a blinkered, rose-tinted view of the world where all they hear is how amazing they are that criticism becomes alien to them. This only gets worse when you’re in an environment where you can wipe someone’s opinion off of the face of the earth, effectively punching them in the face before they can get a word in edgewise.

Tim Buckely, the creator of ‘Ctrl-Alt-Delete’ is famous for instantly banning anyone who asks whether he should try another art style apart from the slack-jawed buffoonery he has shilled for the last five years.

And he’s also responsible for this gem:

Tim Buckley: In a single hour I get more email than you get in a week, so if you want to bitch and moan about me somewhere else, by all means, knock yourself out.

This is because we all measure our success by the size of our Inbox.

You think I was just being extreme when I said they were worse than Kanye West? Take a look at what he did, it’s exactly the same!

Tim Buckley, Randall Munroe, Jason Pargin, big names on the internet, and even bigger ego’s. Don’t agree with me? Go on their fora and disagree with them over something, anything, and watch their reaction.

As much as I would love to watch people like this tarred and feathered, you cannot blame them or their fans. It’s not their fault. I’ve seen this effect in action as it’s starting up.

A little known web comic by the name of ‘Daisy Owl’ started up about a year and a bit ago. The art is quirky and well drawn; the humour is whimsical and very well observed in a rather silly yet genuinely sweet way, and Ben Driscoll, the author, has been nothing but humble and kind towards everyone around him. I think it’s very good, but I’ve never felt the desire to go on to his forum thread where he discusses his work and wax lyrical about his talent. But there are hundreds who do, and they’re not idiots, they just love his work enough to want to post on the forum. All Driscoll see’s right now is a palimpsest of adoration, and when his work was criticised on another site, his fans tore into the poor fellow, claiming he hadn’t got the jokes or had no taste or was just plain stupid…

There’s only so long you can go before you start to believe that that’s all there is. That the whole world thinks like your fans and anyone else is wrong.

As much as it hurts, a writer thrives on constructive criticism. If someone likes your work, that’s it. If someone doesn’t really like it, they can tell you how to improve it. But why listen to them when you can just ban their account and listen to your fans instead.

If any of the people I mentioned happen to see this… Spam my comments; complain about me on your forums all you want. It won’t make me any less right, quite the opposite in fact. Just try to remember that there is a whole world out there, and cherry picking the bits you like from the others may be more comfortable, but it won’t make you a better person.

If you’re a fan of anyone like this, be aware that to them, you’re just another voice in the dark, a faceless entity of no use to them but for stroking their throbbing, tumescent ego, and the more you tell them they are the greatest invention since porn the more likely they’ll start to believe it.

The show itself is not that bad. The part that’s bad is the fact most of its target audience are treated as if they are mentally challenged!

My proof, Marcus Akin and Charlie Drummond, two housemates on either side of the interesting/stupid debate.

Marcus described himself as “The Irrepressible Darkhorse”, and he lived up to the first part at least. Frequently swearing at Big Brother, delivering verbal smackdowns to any housemate that got in his way and performing acts of mutiny against Big Brother itself, up to and including breaking everyone out of the house and running amuck in the camera rooms. He gave the whole concept of big brother the big “Fuck you” that it’s deserved for so many years.

Charlie Drummond on the other hand… Where to begin? Stupid, bitchy, conceited, self absorbed and as boring as a… really boring thing! And everybody fucking loved him! Or at least the show did its absolute level best convince you they did and that you should as well. Deliberately editing out his nastier moments and having Davina and George Lamb practically worship the ground he walked on in what I can only assume was an attempt to deliberately manipulate the public into making him win.

Thankfully, Charlie ended up coming fourth, but only because if the show edited out all his nastiness there wouldn’t be anything left. But they still tried to justify his actions by claiming he had “gone on a journey from boy to man.” finally finishing Big Brothers degredation of duplicitous manipulation to outright lying. And the worst part is, if they had had picked someone easier to sell than this scumbag, the public would have fallen for it!

If there is any reason you should have seen it, it’s because you got to watch something die. Big Brother has gone as low as it possibly can, visibly scraping the barrel with its extreme personalities that they can’t possibly have a hope of containing. Pretentious, visibly smug presenters like Davina and Lamb who seem to think they are the show, to their overt clutching at straws trying to nab ratings from the gormless public. It’s atrocious, and yet I couldn’t look away, it’s like watching a car crash.

If we’re lucky, they won’t even bother with next years series. But if it manages to be even worse than this one I’ll be seriously surprised!