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Geek Therapy's anime and manga podcast.
Josué Cardona (00:01.654)
Welcome to Otaku Ryoho on the Geek Therapy Network. Here at Geek Therapy, we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. And here in Otaku Ryoho, we're all about that manga and anime. My name is Josué Cardona and I am joined by Rae Hoover.
Rae (00:16.151)
Hello. Hallo, I'm German today. I know how to speak.
Josué Cardona (00:17.838)
Hallo? Hello?
Josué Cardona (00:23.63)
All right, last time we spoke about Toonami and a bunch of shows on there Gundam came up a couple times and you know, big thing about Toonami and kind of the shows that we talked about last week that whole thing like these are shows that Defined a generation of Americans primarily right those blocks and that combination of shows One of those Gundam, you know your typical
Rae (00:46.135)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (00:53.006)
Saturday morning Japanese cartoon made to sell you toys, primarily robots, right? And so, makes sense that the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which came out in 1979, every episode, or at least the first few episodes, start like this.
It's the year 0079 of the Universal Century. A half century has passed since Earth began moving its burgeoning population into gigantic orbiting space colonies. A new home for mankind, where people are born and raised and die. Nine months ago, the cluster of colonies furthest from the Earth called Side 3 proclaimed itself the Principality of Zeon and launched a war of independence against the Earth Federation.
Initial fighting lasted over one month and saw both sides lose half their respective populations. People were horrified by the indescribable atrocities that had been committed in the name of independence. Eight months had passed since the rebellion began. They were at a stalemate. And then there's this really cute, you know,
showing of a giant space station crashing into the earth, into a city. So it's your typical Saturday morning cartoon fair to sell you toys.
Rae (02:18.763)
Yep.
Rae (02:25.003)
Yeah, definitely.
Josué Cardona (02:27.224)
half their respective populations. That means half the people on earth and half the people in at least side three, which is a colony. There's multiple sides. There's side one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I forget how many there are in the original Mobile Suit Gundam. But that, does that sound to you like a Saturday morning cartoon for kids to buy? Yeah. Yeah.
Rae (02:42.913)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (02:53.335)
No, no, no. The OG especially is like pretty brutal.
Josué Cardona (03:00.93)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I gave you some homework, right? And I asked you to watch the first two episodes of the show. So I want to get your reaction to it. And before we get into that, right? Like this was an introduction into Gundam. If you are unfamiliar with Moves of Gundam, it is a very popular franchise. I've heard many people say that it is like Japan's Star Wars, right? It's it's that popular in Japan.
Rae (03:03.595)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (03:10.764)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (03:28.599)
Mmm.
Josué Cardona (03:31.128)
But at a global level, it is more profitable than One Piece.
Rae (03:39.403)
Wow, calling me out, okay.
Josué Cardona (03:41.518)
I just wanted to make it relevant. I wanted to speak a language you understand. I think of One Piece as this huge IP. It is just so, so important. And we'll talk a little bit about One Piece in a bit as well, because it's relevant to the themes in Gundam. But Gundam branches off into so many...
Rae (03:45.559)
You
Rae (04:03.671)
You
It really is.
Josué Cardona (04:12.244)
stories and media. And so it is, it just overpassed One Piece. I mean, it took it like a long time to get to that point. One Piece is a lot newer than Gundam. But yeah, so this is like an introduction to Gundam and also how it can be used to talk about some of these really heavy themes.
Rae (04:22.507)
Yeah. Yeah.
Josué Cardona (04:40.01)
especially now when we're in the middle of at least one war. And I say that knowing very well that there are many, many armed conflicts happening right now in the world, but we're just in the middle of, I don't know if it'll become World War III, right? As of May, 2026, when recording this, it is still not referred to as World War III, but I believe World War I was not referred to
Rae (04:55.041)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (05:06.721)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (05:09.002)
as a world war until after the fact. So, now, I would like to hear your reactions to the first two episodes of the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979.
Rae (05:12.801)
Yeah.
Rae (05:25.175)
Before we get into that, I have to know, did you have that opening monologue memorized or did you read that?
Josué Cardona (05:32.012)
no, I just read it. It's in our Slack, actually. Yeah, I've had it in our Slack all day. I rewatched an episode and I practiced it earlier, because I didn't want to get hung up on atrocities, burgeoning. I had to practice burgeoning a few times because I've never said burgeoning out loud until today.
Rae (05:34.589)
Okay. He came so prepared.
Rae (05:44.555)
Yeah.
Rae (05:50.967)
You've said it more times. Yeah, you said it more times today than you have in your entire life. Incredible.
Josué Cardona (05:56.172)
Yep, yep, yep, and I mean, and it is every episode. Eventually the shows, the episodes don't start that way because it starts updating you on kind of where we are. But the show starts in the middle of this thing called the one year war. And I will, I will explain more about that later, please. If you want, we keep going back and forth and not letting you. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, it's a, it's there.
Rae (06:04.215)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rae (06:10.881)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (06:18.839)
I just had to know. had to know. You nailed that so perfectly. It was beautiful.
Josué Cardona (06:26.326)
I even have in parentheses the part, giant space station falls onto a city. I posted it in the Slack, it was in the draft. Yep. In case you ever want to bring it out at a party or something, then you have it.
Rae (06:34.419)
Incredible. Incredible.
That's that's a good party trick right there. Just rattle that off. So, yeah, my reactions to the first two episodes and I had seen, according to my Crunchyroll, previously watched, I had seen at least the first four episodes of Mobile Suit before.
Yeah, it's something I started watching at one point and then wandered off as I do. So watching it again was, I actually appreciated it more the second time around. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And as I do with most things, I watched it with my partner. And so he was completely new to all Gundam and...
Josué Cardona (07:14.806)
It was assigned homework this time also.
Rae (07:28.875)
Yeah, seeing his reactions to things was really interesting too. He was able to give a little bit of additional context with... I forget if this was in... I think it was in both Mobile Suit and GQuuuuuuX It was when the Gundams launched out of the hangar or whatever, like with the rockets, and he's like, there's a Star Fox boss.
In Star Fox 64 that does the exact same thing. That's where that inspiration clearly came from. I was like, I wouldn't have realized that. But that's very much his brand and his where he lives. you you're talking about Gundam being everywhere and very pervasive and super influential. It's also in video games too. But yeah, my reactions to it. The English dub's rough. The English dub is the
Josué Cardona (08:18.542)
Sure it is.
Rae (08:27.105)
probably the worst part about it.
Josué Cardona (08:29.134)
So it is a 1979 show and I don't remember what year it was dubbed. I don't know if it was dubbed in the 90s or not, but just like we spoke last time, like early 90s dubs are rough, like, yeah, like looking past, I don't think that stuff is super relevant. mean, feel free to comment on it, but like, don't think that that's like super important. It's an old show for sure.
Rae (08:31.967)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rae (08:44.353)
They're little rough.
Rae (08:50.679)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (08:58.197)
Yeah, yeah, you can definitely tell it's all just by the animation style. But the animation holds up like honestly, the animation for like OG Mobile Suit Gundam. Even like at its worst, it looks better than the worst episodes of One Piece that were animated and like the like the really shitty like B-roll stuff that they do or did back then.
Josué Cardona (09:20.526)
Part of that is the design, because the design of the ships, the planets, the robots, look like they still use those types of designs today. they haven't, they've made them a little more complicated, right? But it's like the characters look like humans, right? Not taking digs at One Piece. I like One Piece.
Rae (09:39.713)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (09:44.088)
Yeah. One Piece definitely does have a certain brand of you have to be in the ecosystem or else it's going to look freaking bizarre. Everyone looks weird. And then you just kind of get desensitized to it over time. But yeah, so like those those little things aside. Yeah, like I said, the OG is brutal. It's really brutal compared to like because we also watch a little bit of GQuuuuuuX for this and
Josué Cardona (09:53.71)
Yeah.
Rae (10:14.241)
Yeah, original, I was surprised at how it showed dead bodies. It showed like the immediate trauma and aftermath of... Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (10:25.806)
So many dead bodies. Fraw Bow's parents, she comes down to see Amuro and she runs away from the crowd and then a bomb falls on the crowd and then all their bodies and her family is there dead. Saturday morning cartoons, baby.
Rae (10:36.245)
Mm-hmm.
Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. But like, you know, Amuro was talking to those soldiers and then like they go into like that hangar and they drive into the hangar and then like a rocket comes in and fucking blows them up and he's just like, like it's it's it's really brutal. It is not fuck around with. Hey, like war is war is bad. War is hell. They are not afraid to show that and.
Like they don't show a ton of like blood or gore or anything. They don't need to. They don't need to. They're like the characters are clearly shell shocked. They're clearly traumatized like so, so quickly of just like, my God, these are there's dead people all over the place. My home is destroyed. Yeah, it's I was a little surprised by that at first of like I had, like I said, I'd seen it, but I didn't remember how like they don't pull any punches with the OG.
Josué Cardona (11:36.322)
Yeah. And so, yeah, keep reacting. I have specific questions, but I want to see what else. Thank you.
Rae (11:45.676)
what else was there? What else was there? I'm trying to remember.
Josué Cardona (11:51.758)
Well, I'll set something up then, is like, absolutely right. It's like, this is a war, right? This is, it's telling again, the narration of the beginning, we're in the middle of this war. We're eight months in, right? Half our populations have died. It's pretty bad. And when it starts, right, what happens is the colony is attacked and a warship appears, right? Like a, earth federation warship. And then.
Rae (11:53.366)
Yeah, please.
Rae (11:58.38)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (12:03.284)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (12:13.42)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (12:20.522)
There's this attack, this attack. By the end of the first, second episode, all of the military personnel, except for 10 people, are dead. A 19-year-old officer, or I don't know how the ranks work in Gundam actually now. I forgot what his rank is. But Noah, Bright Noah.
he becomes the captain of the ship. He's only 19 years old. Amuro, who is the protagonist that we first see as like the first pilot of the Gundam mobile suit, giant robot, new technology, right? He's 15. And so the first two episodes, I wanted you to watch the first two episodes because the setup is that in order to escape and survive all of these civilians,
Rae (12:49.821)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rae (13:01.739)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (13:19.414)
have to take on a role, right? And so by the end of the second episode, a civilian is piloting it, a 19 year old service person is now the captain of the ship, and they're depending on a 15 year old kid who literally read the instruction manual for the robot, and that's why he's able to pilot it, right? Like they show him as like this nerd,
Rae (13:21.695)
Mmm.
Rae (13:36.033)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (13:46.785)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (13:49.23)
but he sees the robot and he's like, oh, and he pulls out the instruction booklet and it was basically like, well, before he's reading the instruction booklet, finds it, jumps into it, and then tries to use it to protect the colony, right? And so they have no other military personnel and Noah tells him at the end, it's like, well, the captain is like, that kid is now the new pilot of our super secret military weapon. And right, right, it's like,
Rae (14:03.329)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (14:06.881)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (14:15.319)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (14:18.904)
Hey, tough shit, it's you. You have to go defend the ship now so that we can escape. So you can save all these people. And there are children on the ship, right? mean, smaller children, right? Like Frau and Hayabashi and Amuro. I think they're all around 15 or 16. Again, Brighton was 19. A lot of young people, but there are like kids.
Rae (14:21.738)
Yeah.
Rae (14:25.121)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rae (14:34.902)
Yeah.
Rae (14:42.635)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (14:47.212)
like three, four, five year old kids who are just like playing around and people are trying to take care of them. There's older people on the ship. There's a lot of injured people, but it's showing all of this and it's saying for us to survive, we need to work together and basically man this, control this worship and get out of here. The only reason why they have like an advantage or like any likelihood of survival is that it's a super top like
Rae (14:55.831)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (15:00.567)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (15:07.327)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (15:16.706)
top of the line secret weapon that the Earth Federation had. So it's like, it's the newest mobile suit. So Amuro is getting shot and the bad guys are like, or the Zeon is like, what is happening? Like this should have destroyed this mobile suit, but no, like, it's the new one. It's the best one. And the ship, right? The white base is like, so that is end of the second episode. That is what it presents. And as you continue to watch the show, that
Rae (15:27.615)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (15:32.971)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (15:40.065)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (15:44.94)
it just continues the story of the war. You got to meet like Char Aznable who's on the other side, right? And that is a super complex thing, which I probably won't get into you now, but the war continues, right? The show kind of ends at the end of the one year war. The sequel series is called Mobile Suit Gundam Zeta. It continues the story of this
Rae (15:51.279)
yeah.
Rae (15:55.435)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (16:13.162)
I forgot how many years afterwards. It may take maybe seven years after the first show. And the Earth Federation is actually presented as the antagonist. Like they've become so corrupt, right? That Char actually ends up being more of a hero character in the second show. The third show we don't talk about it because it's like, it went into like comedic territory.
Rae (16:18.935)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (16:27.991)
Hmm?
Rae (16:35.659)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (16:41.738)
and they had greenlit a movie. so like, Char and Amuro don't appear in the third show, but they appear in this final movie called Char's Counterattack, which is like maybe 13 years after the original show. I'm not sure exactly, but it is the culmination of these two characters, but the ongoing conflict, right? And part of the reason for this conflict, like the Char's motivation is that
Rae (16:54.162)
yes, okay.
Josué Cardona (17:12.044)
the earth is being destroyed by humans. And he's like, humans don't deserve the earth. We don't take care of it. We need to leave. Then there's a whole bunch of other stuff, right? But he's like, his thing is like, you need to leave the earth alone or I'm gonna wipe out everybody on there because the earth needs a break, right? And he's like, man, depending on what day of the week you ask me, I kind of agree with him.
Rae (17:30.609)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rae (17:39.735)
Yeah, yeah, the way you're saying that it's just like, can't say I disagree with him.
Josué Cardona (17:45.71)
And so it takes all those three series and then finally in the movie and there are events that happen with a giant space station coming towards the earth and something happens and other things happen. I'm not going to go into detail, but you are familiar with everything that I just kind of glaze over because you watched Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX an anime that came out in 2025.
Rae (18:05.899)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (18:10.327)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (18:14.318)
Okay, so from 1979 to 2025, there have been somewhere around 86, 85 or 86 different series and movies in the Gundam franchise. But not all of them are connected. There are many alternate timelines. And this is the first alternate timeline that is almost identical to the original, where you got to see in the first two episodes of Gundam GQuuuuuuX,
Rae (18:27.465)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (18:44.054)
an alternate version of the events where if one thing had happened differently, right? If the person who first jumped into the mobile, into the Gundam had not been Amuro, things would have gone very differently. And so you got to see all of the events, like they summarize everything in those first two, in the first, in the second episode really. Yeah.
Rae (18:47.389)
Mm-hmm. That was fun to see.
Rae (19:02.391)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (19:10.081)
in the second episode and like literally recreated frame by frame, line by line. It's magnificent. Yeah, it looks so cool.
Josué Cardona (19:14.968)
Uh-huh.
Josué Cardona (19:19.63)
40 years later, right? So 40 years later, and this one is made by, and you can tell by the designs by the people who made Neon Genesis Evangelion. And now there's a new EVA series that's being created and the team behind it is the team that made GQuuuuuuX. So there's like, yeah, yeah. So there's like a circle happening there. But again, it's like 40 years, more than 40 years later.
Rae (19:31.574)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (19:38.975)
that's gonna be sick.
Rae (19:45.495)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (19:49.282)
new series, it's revisiting the same story, but many of the shows revisit the same story because really it's the same themes. In the first episode of GQuuuuuuX you see a different colony and they are oppressed by the Zeon's where in the original show people were oppressed by the Earth government and they wanted to be independent. And here like, there's a few things that I think listeners should know. One.
Rae (19:53.185)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (20:02.807)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (20:19.374)
We once did a pilot episode for what eventually became season two of Otaku Ryoho. And I talked about Gundam for a long time. You grilled me on Gundam. We talked about it a lot. That was a lot of fun. That was a while back.
Rae (20:25.451)
Yeah.
really sorry.
Mm.
Josué Cardona (20:35.042)
So if I reference things, like remind me if it's like, hey, we haven't actually talked about that on the show because it was in like the episode.
Rae (20:42.167)
Honestly, I'm not even sure anymore. the episode bleed is real.
Josué Cardona (20:46.734)
Two, we had a discussion at one point about a hopeful vision of the future. And we couldn't find stories that clearly showed a utopia, like, we got into space and it's all great. No, everything ended up exactly the same way. It's a capitalist nightmare. They're all dystopian.
Rae (20:55.595)
Yeah, that didn't go well.
Rae (21:10.838)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (21:15.554)
companies are in charge. And like Gundam just shows the realities of that. It's like, we go out into space and we have social classes and we have jobs and we have suburbs and cities and we have inequality and we have corporate greed and we have all of the terrible things that we have on earth. We just take them forward, right? And only Star Trek could we think of as like a positive future.
Rae (21:16.897)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (21:39.605)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (21:44.92)
There's no Star Trek anime that I'm aware of.
Rae (21:47.541)
Yeah. Yeah.
Josué Cardona (21:49.378)
And so GQuuuuuuX shows that at the beginning, right? And so I wanted you to see the first ever Mobile Suit Gundam and the newest, which is literally the newest show is GQuuuuuuX. It's not the newest thing to come out, but it's the newest show and how connected they are. Now in between, did you watch SD Gundam, the G Gundam Force?
Rae (21:57.537)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (22:07.254)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (22:14.039)
I did. That was a fever dream.
Josué Cardona (22:19.182)
Please describe to people what you watched.
Rae (22:22.485)
the most Saturday morning cartoonified Gundam series like actually seemed like something it was straight out of like 4 kids animation. It was zany and well, SD, which I remember you referred to as super deformed, which it kind of is because all the robots are like sentient and chibi fight and everything like that.
And they're just running around and coexisting. the humor is very, it's very Saturday morning cartoon. It's very much aimed for kids. And it's like, this is, this is Gundam? Okay. It's Gundam and kind of aesthetic only.
Josué Cardona (23:10.926)
I don't think I established before that mobile suit Gundam, the Gundams are mobile suits, which means that they are things that are piloted by humans. In SD Gundam Force, Captain Gundam is an anthropomorphic, tiny Gundam with real eyes. It's like a creature.
Rae (23:19.029)
Yeah.
Rae (23:22.624)
Yeah.
Rae (23:35.233)
Yeah.
Yeah, it reminds me of that that meme that's like staring at you with like most intense blue eyes ever. And it's like that's got Captain Gundam. It's just like.
Josué Cardona (23:50.392)
Yeah, yeah. And so I wanted you to see like the range, right? Because you can see from Gundam, most of Gundam to GQuuuuuuX that there are, obviously animation has improved a lot over the years. Every show has its own style, right? Like GQuuuuuuX has a lot of style, right? It's very different. Female protagonists, like the last two shows have had female protagonists. It's been really great. The action is amazing. Even though they're touching on the same themes.
Rae (24:02.423)
Gorgeous.
Rae (24:16.991)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (24:19.426)
But in between, are things like SD Gundam Force, there's G Fighter, which we talked about. I always mention the horse Gundam with the horse pilot and things like that.
Rae (24:28.907)
Yeah, yeah, I do want to watch that. That sounds silly.
Josué Cardona (24:34.808)
But for the most part, there's a lot of, they all cover the atrocities of war. And as cool as I think that Gundams are and the different mobile suits, there's actually, there's a show on Netflix called, I believe, Requiem for Revenge. And it is from the perspective of Zeon soldiers on Earth being hunted by a
Rae (24:41.345)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (25:04.576)
a Gundam, right? And it's like, imagine how terrifying, like the Gundam has like Fisher price colors, right? It's like white, blue and yellow and red. But imagine if that thing existed, there's live action movie that they're, that they've announced like the cast for and everything that's coming. I don't know how that will be, but it just imagined we've talked to a like Pacific rim and stuff like that, right? But like, imagine it's, but it's a war. like you're, you're coming after people. They're tiny people, right? In a city.
Rae (25:07.049)
Yeah.
Of Yeah.
Rae (25:26.123)
Mm-hmm. My favorite movie.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (25:34.612)
and you're a soldier and suddenly this thing pops out in the middle of the night with a giant beam saber, right? And that'd be, it's hunting you and it's killing everybody, right, on your side because this is a war. It's a war machine. I don't like that show very much, but I do think it presents that idea of, there's a few shows where they call the Gundam the White Devil, right? Because it's like,
Rae (25:43.895)
It's coming for ya.
Rae (25:49.897)
Yeah.
Rae (25:54.711)
Yeah.
Rae (26:00.96)
Mmm.
Josué Cardona (26:02.754)
like it's coming for us, right? Because it is like this new machine of war that is just like nothing that anybody has ever seen before. And so sure, if you're on the side of the Gundam, it's cool.
Rae (26:10.283)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (26:14.817)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (26:17.362)
Actually, another thing I mentioned all the corporate grade stuff. the show Mobile Suit Gundam takes place and it says, I said it in my narration at the beginning, takes place in the universal century. And that is the timeline. There are multiple timelines. Every show happens possibly in a different timeline, except for the show that happens in all the timelines. We don't have to get into that now. Right.
Rae (26:19.649)
Yeah.
Rae (26:41.495)
We just don't talk, we're not gonna talk about that one.
Josué Cardona (26:46.702)
That one's beautiful. yeah, the Universal Century is like the original story and it continues. And there have been stories that happen, take place a thousand years after and a hundred years after and they continue through. And right now on Netflix and actually in two weeks, it'll come out in theaters in the States and it'll be on Netflix shortly after. There's this trilogy of movies called Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway and Hathaway is Hathaway Noah, the son of Bright Noah.
Rae (26:59.415)
Hmm.
Rae (27:17.567)
Right, okay.
Josué Cardona (27:17.698)
and it takes place 30 years after the events of Mobile Suit Gundam. Hathaway isn't born in the show that you saw. He is born by the second show and he plays a role, like the stories continue. But one thing that happens throughout is that there is a company, a private corporation that made the Gundam.
Rae (27:21.953)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (27:27.19)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (27:40.726)
Hmm.
Josué Cardona (27:43.948)
you think it only made the Gundam?
Rae (27:45.623)
No, they probably also made the the the oh my god. What are they called? That's at Zaku.
Josué Cardona (27:50.328)
Well, they don't make the Zaku's, but they do make Gundams for both sides. They make Gundams for everybody.
Rae (27:54.784)
Of course. Hmm, this feels familiar for some reason. I wonder why.
Josué Cardona (28:00.824)
The Anaheim Corporation makes, it's just a business, know? Like we gotta eat, what are we gonna do? And so, like, I think it's in the Hathaway movie, the Earth Federation has this new machine, but so does this other group, and they buy one, and they're like, that looks like an Anaheim machine. It's like, damn it, those bastards sold to both of us at the same time. We both have the latest models.
Rae (28:05.472)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (28:17.985)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (28:26.304)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (28:30.062)
It's like, man, of course they did. And so even the company plays a role. Again, Saturday morning cartoon stuff. You know what I mean?
Rae (28:33.579)
Of course.
Mm-hmm.
Rae (28:40.385)
Clearly, no mirroring of real world politics or current events anywhere. Definitely not. Just silly ha ha's.
Josué Cardona (28:47.02)
Not at all, not at all. So I think Yoshiyuki Tomino, who is the creator of Gundam, I don't know the specifics. There's actually a manga called The Man Who Created Gundam. I bought it and I never read it. I don't have it with me because I moved and I had to leave it behind and I've never actually read it, but I bought it that's what matters, right? But he was obviously like, he was tasked with making a Saturday morning cartoon to sell toys. He was like, yeah, but...
Rae (29:01.086)
no.
Rae (29:04.834)
no. Yeah.
Josué Cardona (29:16.366)
I'm gonna say a few things here, you know? And so obviously, and just recently, he was making comments about the state of the world and the state of war. And I mean, he's made such a huge contribution to media that addresses war directly. There are...
Rae (29:19.319)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (29:33.431)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (29:37.55)
I don't think the show, the original show does touch on the idea of like child soldiers, which is something that in the United States and Europe, we don't deal with that anymore. But other countries do a hundred percent. And iron blooded orphans is one where it very specifically shows child soldiers. So does Mobile Suit Gundam 00 shows like the history of some of the kids and really
Rae (29:43.206)
yeah.
Rae (29:58.305)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (30:05.856)
A lot of these shows are like trying to stop war, unfortunately you gotta use giant robots to stop them, you know? it is, depending on the show, the machine represents hope for an oppressed group. But other times it does represent corporate greed and overreach of government. And ultimately they all show violence, right?
Rae (30:12.481)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (30:28.225)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (30:34.71)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (30:35.826)
none of this, there's always, there are always casualties, there are always consequences. I don't think with the exception of like Gundam Force and some of the, there's actually, we'll get to build fighters in a second. For the most part, they all address the real consequences of war and they don't take it lightly. They don't glorify war at all.
Rae (30:42.743)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (31:02.391)
Mm-hmm. No.
Josué Cardona (31:05.397)
Some of them glorify fighting.
Rae (31:07.487)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (31:08.782)
but no more than a shonen, right? It's like, still like, oh, that fight was really cool. That battle was cool. But the reason why they're fighting is not because fighting is cool. It is war, independence, freeing groups from oppression, trying to just survive. So again, think it touches on those topics.
Rae (31:10.721)
Yeah.
Rae (31:19.723)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (31:24.491)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (31:29.409)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (31:37.716)
very well and it does it there's 86 different versions not counting like not counting manga and novels these are just animated feature films and series whether ova's or or longer series because like sharps counter-attack has there's like three different text adaptations
Rae (31:42.529)
It's true.
Rae (31:49.783)
Mmm.
Rae (32:06.071)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (32:07.054)
There are right now there's a really cool manga called I believe it's Gundam 8 and it's set on earth that's attacked by Kaiju and there's a Gundam that they find a Gundam to fight the Kaiju. I really hope they animate this one but usually Gundam like comes out as an anime first but there are manga versions and there's like there's so much there's so many stories but there are many different versions of this that you could use to touch on a lot of these topics.
Rae (32:22.241)
the ground.
Rae (32:26.068)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (32:35.89)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (32:36.534)
And within the hundreds, thousands of episodes that exist or hours of content, they touch everything in between that you can imagine. So I mean, it's a franchise that's full of potential conversation starters, which I think is really cool. And it still has that like cool factor to it as well. it is not, I think it's not as overwhelming as other shows.
Rae (32:46.783)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (32:52.631)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (32:59.799)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (33:04.758)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (33:04.846)
as other media properties because you can jump in at different times. Like the shows are mostly independent of one another. Even the Universal Century, even though it spans a thousand years, of, the events that happen in one show are so far removed from another one that they don't really connect.
Rae (33:10.145)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (33:31.926)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (33:32.13)
and where you don't need to know, it's kind of a cool thing to be like, this is like the latest, the furthest we've been into the timeline, but it's very far removed from a lot of the events. So.
Rae (33:39.671)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, like you don't necessarily need to see the other things in order to appreciate what it is, but your enjoyment is added to if you have seen the others.
Josué Cardona (33:54.67)
Yeah, at most I'd say like Gundam Seed, I believe is the one that has two 50 episode seasons and a movie. I think that's the biggest because even the original Gundam show, it's like 40 episodes, 40, 40. So maybe 120 between the three shows plus the movie. But like Zeta Zeta isn't important really in terms of like it's kind of its own thing that's happening even though it's like.
Rae (34:05.099)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (34:24.306)
sequel series. So, but again, even at that, at most 150, right? It's not as overwhelming. Like when people, again, I have these conversations all the time. I'm never going to watch one piece. It's a thousand episodes. I'm like, like, it's not as bad as you think, but like, I get it. It's overwhelming. I was that person. Yeah. For a long time, but Gundam, whenever somebody's like, there's so much. I'm like, yes, but what do you like? I will pick and choose one for you.
Rae (34:25.345)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (34:39.797)
Yeah, yeah, same.
Rae (34:46.869)
Yeah.
Rae (34:50.197)
Yeah, with Gundam and I had this conversation with people before because I was like, I don't know where to start. It's a massive franchise. None of the naming conventions make sense to an outsider. Where do you start with this? And someone had to kind of do exactly that breakdown of, OK, there is a universal century timeline. They're all relatively independent of each other. But like some of them, if they happen in the UC timeline, then they're like happening in the same world. But that's about it.
but you can pick and choose and like, you know, gave an order and stuff like that. But like you need someone to break it down for you. It's not something that you can just intuitively see from like from an outside perspective, because, yeah, like the naming conventions make zero sense for like continuity sake, because, there's not true continuity. But like if you're going in there, it's like, yeah, I remember Gundam Wing from Toonami. If you start there, you have no context for where that is anywhere else.
Josué Cardona (35:37.954)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (35:47.96)
So let's say you've listened this far and you are interested, you want to start Gundam. I think there are a few places that are good to start. Friend and listener of this show, Zack, recently, someone suggested to him, it wasn't me, but someone suggested to start with Mobile Suit Gundam War in the Pocket. It's 0080 War in the Pocket. It takes place around the time of the original show.
Rae (35:49.857)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rae (36:16.961)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (36:18.196)
And I believe it's only six episodes and it is, it really is a great introduction and it shows this really young kid. think he's like 10 years old and he's on a colony and things are happening around him. Do you not like people die? There are robots. He doesn't get to pilot anything. It's really just all of these events happening around this 10 year old kid and him kind of like getting involved. It's only six episodes, but again, shows the reality of war and
Rae (36:41.719)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (36:48.046)
And I think it's a good introduction to that world. If you like something great here, I would go with Mobile Suit Gundam 00, no, MS team. This is like 12 episodes. I think it's one of the best Gundam shows, but it is the most serious. is like watching...
Rae (36:50.071)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (37:13.25)
I don't remember Band of Brothers that much, but I'm gonna say Band of Brothers. It's like that kind of thing where it's like, this team, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. It's like, this team, they're going through and there's some stuff and it's cool, but also it's like, this is a war show. It's short, it's like 12 episodes also happening around that time. I think those are great introductions if you just want something short. And of the newer stuff.
Rae (37:18.571)
Saving Private Ryan of Gundam.
Rae (37:29.739)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (37:40.059)
I Witch from Mercury? It's called Mobile Suit Gundam Witch from Mercury? Have you watched it? Have you watched Witch from Mercury?
Rae (37:45.387)
haven't but like I really I'm probably going too soon because of I love GQuuuuuuX now so
Josué Cardona (37:51.918)
So GQuuuuuuX is really special and it's like 12 episodes. It's a great introduction. I think it's really cool, but I think I would recommend if somebody's interested in watching other Gundam stuff first, would wait to watch some Universal Century stuff and then watch GQuuuuuuX because you would appreciate a few things more. And that happens more and more as you watch it. But it's also like, again, it's not.
Rae (38:04.566)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (38:09.024)
Yeah.
Rae (38:13.333)
Absolutely.
Josué Cardona (38:19.214)
You don't have to see it, but the references make it better.
Rae (38:20.905)
Mm-hmm. It really does. It really does.
Josué Cardona (38:25.678)
But which for Mercury, my only hesitation, I think it's one of the best shows and it's one of my favorite ones. And it's the gayest one also, which is really good, which is very important. Yes. The only thing is that it is sort of at the beginning kind of set up like a high school drama.
Rae (38:34.935)
Yay! We're always about that. Women, women.
Josué Cardona (38:54.606)
It's not really a high school drama, It's like, just imagine a school on a colony, an academy where like rich kids go and they're so rich that like, instead of having a rugby team or I don't know, a golf team or something like that, they have mobile suit, like battles, okay?
Rae (39:00.119)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (39:03.873)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (39:21.079)
That's amazing.
Josué Cardona (39:23.97)
The drama is good though. Like it's good. It's good school drama. It's just that this is the context around the show and it's not what the show is about. It is very much about all the same themes that we're talking about. And it touches a lot on medical technology and like the role of corporations in healthcare. like you wouldn't know that from watching the first couple of episodes, but trust me, all of that is there and it is fantastic.
Rae (39:25.399)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Rae (39:33.226)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (39:52.12)
but again, goes to show the range of a Gundam. so, and then there's a bunch of stuff in between, but like, I would start with some of those that are shorter. And if you really like, and then, then what was the Gundam? I still think the original show, like the original 43 episode show is, it is incredible because of what it does. Like that's set up at the beginning of these civilians having to survive. They eventually get to earth.
Rae (39:53.91)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (40:01.879)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (40:13.932)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (40:18.23)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (40:22.418)
and the military gets more involved and then they have to decide what they're going to do. And they're like on the run and like the Zeon group, like they have infighting and like the politics in the show and in all the shows really, there's a lot of politics in them that you need to pay attention. Who's who and who's saying what and who's in charge and all of that is a big part of it. But I'd still think that the original Gundam show is,
Rae (40:25.813)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (40:41.655)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (40:51.618)
really really good.
Rae (40:52.535)
It holds up.
Josué Cardona (40:54.434)
Yeah, I think again, because of the themes and then again, in a world like now, right? I think I love, don't know if you've seen a lot of the Star Wars memes that go around of like, remember when we used to be upset about the opening scene in episode one, the Phantom Menace, was like, all of this got kicked off because of a trade dispute, right? It's like, that aged.
Rae (41:16.843)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (41:23.34)
really well actually. Right. And so seeing a lot of this stuff, right. It's like, there's a body of water that people have to pass through. There's a shipping lane, right. And that is causing all this conflict. Like, yeah, we have a gotcha. We've got examples. a war of independence. Like, the colonies, like they've had enough of earth's shit. Like earth is so far away. Why are you still telling us what to do?
Rae (41:41.387)
Yeah.
Rae (41:48.343)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (41:51.95)
We just want to do our own thing. Oh, we can't. You're not going to let us be free and make our own decisions. So we're going to do this now. We're going to kill each other. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Oh yeah. And the level of devastation that shows up in some of these Gundam shows.
Rae (41:59.562)
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Josué Cardona (42:12.11)
Remember, these are Japanese people making these shows post World War II, post Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right? So they understand a level of devastation that American media, one, did not portray. I'll say now, like, we have a lot more dystopian stuff.
Rae (42:23.639)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (42:40.065)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (42:40.702)
And we're much more open to calling out America directly, right? Where like Star Wars didn't call the empire, the United States of space, you know? Like they were, they just call them the empire and you fill in the blanks. Now we have media where it's like, America is the oppressor, is the antagonist, is the bad guy. But.
Rae (42:44.257)
Yeah.
Rae (42:56.395)
Yeah, yeah.
Rae (43:04.801)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (43:08.302)
For a long time we didn't. So 1979, right? You've got the show that just like clearly shows it's not a nuke, but it is a huge impact from like, it is a devastating attack. And again, they said half the population of the earth is gone and half the population of of at least side three is gone. So there is something about that where American
Rae (43:22.807)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (43:30.753)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (43:36.322)
media and I'm sure there are examples of it, but you weren't going to see that in an animated form, right? And you wouldn't see America as the oppressor and you wouldn't see, you wouldn't see actual like that level of devastation. Where in Japan, that was part of their normal life. So there were stories, not only about that time period, but other, other stories that were fictitious, but obviously
Rae (43:50.027)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (44:03.596)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (44:05.688)
they would talk about that much more freely.
Rae (44:07.591)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, those were that was their their land their culture their society their families like Yeah, it's everywhere as a generational trauma
Josué Cardona (44:18.926)
where the United States wouldn't about what they did, American audiences especially could not relate to what was done to them the way that Japan could. I'm not a historian about this stuff. I'm just giving you like surface level, my very general understanding. Again, I did not read the book that I bought on the creators of Gundam. But I think it's really important to point that out, that these are serious topics coming from...
Rae (44:23.414)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (44:29.281)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (44:34.805)
Yeah. Yeah.
Josué Cardona (44:48.246)
a group of people who Japan did terrible, terrible things, right? But after they got bombed, nukes dropped on them, right? They, when they're telling stories of giant, this level of, cataclysm, it's coming from an experience of like, I know people who survive that. I saw that out my window, right? Like I felt it when it happened or my grandparents, my parents, right? It's like, it's here. So
Rae (45:04.918)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (45:10.23)
Yeah.
Rae (45:17.025)
they can walk down the street and see the shadows still baked into the sidewalks and stuff.
Josué Cardona (45:20.429)
Yeah.
Yeah, and even though again, we're a couple of generations removed now, it's a part of the history of Japan. yeah, all of that stuff is really special. And also as I was preparing for this, I could not think of another media franchise that is like Gundam.
Rae (45:26.508)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (45:30.401)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (45:45.547)
Yeah. Hmm.
Josué Cardona (45:45.71)
Like Star Wars, everything is connected. In Gundam? Yeah, like, yeah. Where it's like, why is it called Gundam? Right? Like it doesn't have to be called Gundam, but it is, they're all Gundam shows. It's all considered one part of one franchise, even though some of them are only connected thematically, kind of.
Rae (45:49.215)
Yeah. Where it's all like separated.
Rae (46:02.796)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (46:12.779)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (46:13.006)
It's not a requirement for a Gundam show to be about war.
Rae (46:16.279)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (46:18.432)
C S D Gundam Force.
Rae (46:19.912)
Yeah, SD Gundam is an outlier and should not have been counted.
Josué Cardona (46:25.9)
And a big, so one of the reasons why it makes so much money is because of course all the different media, but it is also the toys. And so since 1980, there are Gunpla, which stands for Gundam plastic models, right? They used to call them Plamo, but now we call them Gunpla. In Japan, they used to call it Plamo, plastic model.
Rae (46:33.98)
Mm-hmm, gunpla.
Josué Cardona (46:55.32)
kits and for 40 years they have been making not only action figures and statues but these model kits and in the states like I used to like build model kits for cars planes some war vehicles no no but like you can build all sorts of Gundams at different sizes different scales and so there's even a couple anime I believe there's at least three that are about building model kits
Rae (47:05.655)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (47:16.811)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (47:25.084)
that's fun.
Josué Cardona (47:25.462)
and like battling them. there's one called build fighters and it's like a way to like bring in figures from other, from different shows and like make them fight each other because, but it recognizes that culture. And a couple of years ago, I did a presentation at TAGGS called making miniatures mindfully. And it was me and two psychologists and we each talked about building models, quote unquote,
Rae (47:34.757)
Mm-hmm. It's so meta.
Rae (47:45.42)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Rae (47:54.967)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (47:55.264)
at different scales. One was like miniatures, so like D &D miniatures, stuff like that. Buying Warhammer ones, 3D printing them, making custom ones for D &D, whatever. I talked about building model kits, like Gundam, the building, like how you can use them as a meditative process.
Rae (48:00.012)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (48:14.806)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (48:21.226)
as a creative expression because you can paint them, you can do all sorts of stuff with them. Cool. And then the third level, we talked about cosplay, like model making again. So in quotes, right? But like at different levels, like how you're taking these franchises that you love, or you can make custom stuff, right? But a lot of like, how do we recreate it? How do we bring this into a different part of our lives? How do we bring this again?
Rae (48:31.093)
Mmm.
Josué Cardona (48:50.294)
meditative awareness building activities into it. And Gundam is just perfect for that because it has all the pieces. And when I did that a couple of years ago, there wasn't a minute of Gundam miniatures game, but there is now because of course there is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of it. So it is again, it is special. I think there's a lot to choose from there. You could you could specialize in in Gundam.
Rae (48:57.865)
It, yeah, it really is.
Rae (49:04.375)
Of course there is.
Rae (49:13.173)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (49:19.287)
Yeah, Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (49:19.886)
and not have to touch any other anime and you would have content forever. I think there's, I think I've said at least a couple things that I think are worthy of considering to put into the GT library. I don't remember myself putting any in, but.
Rae (49:41.185)
I mean, if anyone's gonna do it, it's probably you.
Josué Cardona (49:43.483)
If anybody's gonna do it, it's probably me, yeah.
Rae (49:46.359)
Just like I'm the one who puts all the one piece entries in, like, let's...
Josué Cardona (49:50.572)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. man. Yeah.
Rae (49:53.9)
We could literally just turn this podcast into alternating weeks of talking about Gundam and One Piece and we would never run out of content between the two of them.
Josué Cardona (50:03.308)
Yeah, mean, yeah, season two of One Piece is coming soon.
Rae (50:10.071)
Season two?
Josué Cardona (50:11.672)
Season two. There's a joke about this, about.
when they talked about how they're One Piece into a seasonal format of production, right? Which means they're producing, I believe it's 26 episodes and then taking a break and then 26 episodes and take a break. So technically this is the first time they've ever finished a season is around episode one. So the joke is like season two coming in 2027 or 2026. Season one is only 1160 something episodes.
Rae (50:21.202)
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rae (50:33.215)
yes.
Rae (50:39.233)
Yeah, season one is a monster. Season two.
Rae (50:45.952)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (50:47.81)
forward to season two. And Gundam, Gundam, it's, it's wild where you kind of hope that there's a new Gundam coming soon, but you don't know. Like Witch from Mercury and GQuuuuuuX, they just came with announcements out of nowhere. They didn't shadow drop them, but it was like, guess what? There's a new Gundam show coming in two months. And you're like, what?
Rae (50:49.044)
Hahaha
Rae (50:58.291)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rae (51:05.277)
they just shadow dropped them.
Rae (51:13.043)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (51:16.536)
That's it? Like it wasn't like, you know, for years you're hearing about the next show. It was like, no, it's coming, coming soon. Yeah.
Rae (51:22.519)
Hmm, I didn't realize that Gundam like wasn't based off of like manga or light novels or something like that, that it was anime first and then anything from there kind of is a spinoff. Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (51:29.71)
No, not all of it. It depends. Gundam is a depends show.
Rae (51:36.695)
Yeah, you can't paint anything with Gundam in absolutes. That's what I'm learning more than anything.
Josué Cardona (51:41.944)
So the original Mobile Suit Gundam was an anime first. It got adapted into a manga. The manga, and then I think it got adapted a second time.
Rae (51:45.783)
Mm.
Josué Cardona (51:55.542)
into what's called The Origin. And then they adapted the first part of Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin into an anime, which then acts as a prequel to the original show and is mostly about like, Char and his sister. And then like right now, the Hathaway movies are based on novels. And...
Rae (52:08.441)
geez, okay.
Rae (52:12.343)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (52:20.129)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (52:22.936)
There's a series, I believe they're light novels. I forgot. What is it called? Anyway, they're pirate Gundams. It's like Gundam One Piece. so look up the Crossbone Gundam. It looks so cool, but it is like Gundam Pirates. And I believe there's never been a manga either, but there are model kits of them.
Rae (52:34.635)
Heavy breathing.
Rae (52:38.347)
Okay.
Josué Cardona (52:48.654)
because of the light novels, like they've illustrated what they look like. And so there's models and they've appeared in video games and I've always hoped that they would animate the, I think it's Crossbone Gundam. I think that's what it's called, the series. It's like the pirate one. is, there's, I forgot about Crossbone Gundam.
Rae (52:53.088)
Hmm.
Rae (53:03.767)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (53:08.405)
Adding this to my list. I have now like four, five Gundam series on my list to watch now.
Josué Cardona (53:15.682)
But this is, but again, this is a, yeah, it's called Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam, a six volume manga series. Okay, so this one is a manga, illustrated by Yuichi, da da da da da, notes based on serialized. Yeah, I thought it was a light novel first, but there's a lot of that. And like I said, Char's Counter Attack, I believe has three light novel adaptations, because like he didn't like the first one, so he rewrote, like, and then he wrote a version for the movie and then like,
Rae (53:20.951)
You
Rae (53:25.249)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (53:37.472)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (53:45.79)
And then, course, the third one, there's two versions. And then he ended up making the movie based on one of the two versions, but it's different enough that then they adapted the movie into another light novel. So there's three versions of it.
Rae (53:57.339)
my God.
Rae (54:02.719)
I got to wonder if this is like a thing that was normal for like authors in Japan at the time, because like we were talking about that last time with with Tenchi having like they're all retelling to the same story and then he like finished it and then just like, let's just start it again because because why not? I feel like that's not a thing as much anymore, but.
Josué Cardona (54:21.518)
Slayers is the only other anime that I can remember where it just like they just did another version there are some
Rae (54:24.375)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (54:29.823)
Mm-hmm. Oh, wait, the wit adaption of One Piece is happening, so like, maybe that's still a thing.
Josué Cardona (54:34.604)
So, but not really, right? Like that is more, they're just like, they're adapting the same comic again, right? It's not a new version of the story. Cause like Slayers and so there are some of these really popular anime like Evangelion and Attack on Titan that have like the high school chibi versions. Have you seen this? Right? So like if they're popular enough, they'll do like silly retellings. So I think that's a thing. I don't know.
Rae (54:44.652)
Yeah.
Rae (54:56.192)
Yeah, yeah.
Rae (55:01.087)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, One Piece has one of those too. One Piece Party, I think. And then there's a... There is a school one, but I just don't remember the name of it right now.
Josué Cardona (55:06.368)
perfect. Yeah.
Josué Cardona (55:10.958)
So that is a thing, but just retelling, I'm going to do a different version of it. Yeah.
Rae (55:15.031)
I don't know if it's retelling the same story or if it's just like kind of like a silly AU that they just put everyone in and it's kind of a joke comic thing. I'm not 100 % sure because I've never read it because it's not adapted in English yet.
Josué Cardona (55:20.568)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (55:26.008)
with you.
Josué Cardona (55:30.183)
I bringing up slayers. You've never heard of this, right? Every time I look, I say it, you look at me like, what?
Rae (55:37.751)
I recognized it from like the Toonami episode. It came up there. Yeah, that's the first time I heard of it.
Josué Cardona (55:43.477)
it did come up there. Did it?
Josué Cardona (55:50.41)
So yeah, I think there are three anime. Yeah, don't know. I'm not gonna look it up now, but it is for sure, I think.
Rae (55:58.005)
Yeah, fair enough.
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (56:02.488)
But yes, not very common. don't know. Also, I don't know how... I'm very open to this. I would much rather have... Actually, this is very... They're very much like what if, like the Marvel what if stories, I think, is probably the best comparison. Or like the ultimate... In Marvel comics, there's like the alternate... mean, all the comic stories do this, but right now there's the absolute universe in DC.
Rae (56:17.365)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rae (56:27.617)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (56:32.205)
really popular, it is like, it is its own continuity, right? So it is a kind of like a retelling. So I think, I think American comic books do play with that. It doesn't feel the same though, because it'll take 30 years for them to do that. Whereas these manga it's like, okay, yep, I finished it. I'm going to just retell the same story again right now.
Rae (56:37.985)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (56:42.071)
Comic? Yeah, it's-
Rae (56:54.643)
Mm-hmm. If if anything, American comics are similar enough to just Gundam as a concept in that there's constantly like timeline changes and like new parallel universes and stuff like that happening. Like I knew there was something that reminded me of how the Gundam franchise was structured. And I think it's American comics like DC and Marvel, because they're all like loosely connected, kind of sometimes.
but they're also really out there sometimes too.
Josué Cardona (57:26.21)
I agree in the sense that at any given time, and I used to talk about this all the time, one time I was doing GT radio and I looked up and there were 14 current ongoing different continuities of Batman. At the same time, there were children's shows, there were animated shows, there were like different shows that each had a different version of him. Like literally, I mean, we just had that as well.
Rae (57:32.107)
Yeah.
Rae (57:42.667)
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Rae (57:56.001)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (57:56.066)
We had like Ben Affleck playing one Batman in the world where Robert Pattinson playing another and like Robert Pattinson is still gonna make another movie while they're casting for another version in the live action movies. But you're right, like Batman and Gundam, two of my favorite franchises. Look at that. You just made a connection for me that I had not realized.
Rae (58:01.356)
Robert Pattinson.
Battinson
Rae (58:09.727)
It's so confusing.
Rae (58:16.567)
This is not surprising by any means.
Rae (58:22.487)
Excellent. Calling you out.
Josué Cardona (58:25.998)
Yeah. Well, I think that covers everything as an introduction into not only the franchise of Gundam, but also the themes of Gundam and kind of what you could, different ways you could use it in work, like just to bring up some of the conversations to help talk about, again, some of the things that are happening now, I think would be, it's a good series for that.
Rae (58:37.515)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (58:54.798)
because you could touch on the issue of war and war machines from a number of different perspectives at different levels of maturity, different levels of violence, different levels of complexity too. Where some are a little lighthearted, but it's still like, no, there's still a war. We're still fighting for independence. Anyway, yeah, I think.
Rae (59:04.022)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (59:14.347)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (59:23.692)
I don't think Gundam has, I don't know for sure. I don't think it has reached the level of symbolism that maybe One Piece has in terms of like having the straw hats, Jolly Roger as a symbol for revolution movements. I think that is because in Gundam, it is not that black and white. There are...
Rae (59:42.273)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (59:50.219)
Yeah.
Josué Cardona (59:53.034)
I at one point I said the bad guys and I immediately took it back because good guys and bad guys in Gundam shows, especially in the Universal Century, that's not so clear. That's not so clear. And sometimes you don't know what side, like where you were born and how you were raised and what you were told defines your perspective on the events that are happening. And that is something that happened that comes up a lot in Gundam too, which I think is.
Rae (59:57.163)
Mm-hmm.
Rae (01:00:05.439)
Yeah.
Rae (01:00:16.609)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (01:00:23.124)
is part of the reason why it is so well regarded across all of its iterations. Yeah.
Rae (01:00:31.969)
Mm-hmm. Big agree.
Josué Cardona (01:00:37.74)
So what's next?
Rae (01:00:40.087)
I've been sitting here thinking about that going shit. Yeah, I have a very expressive face to be fair. My poker face is just laughing at everything. So I feel like branching off into one piece here is just natural. Like talking about kind of the same things, the same themes. I guess we're going to just do an episode on my TAGGS presentation, like abridged a little bit.
Josué Cardona (01:00:44.206)
I can see it on your face.
Rae (01:01:08.907)
which I mean, you had your tag presentation on Gundam a couple of years ago. So we're kind of mirroring this with one piece, I guess.
Josué Cardona (01:01:14.722)
making models, making miniatures mindfully. That one, yeah.
Rae (01:01:20.255)
Yeah, yeah. My workshop for anyone who was not there was on the straw hat Jolly Roger and how it's a symbol of empowerment in the One Piece timeline and also our timeline with the crossover. And then we, in the workshop, made our own Jolly Rogers to kind of symbolize like our identity and, you know, what values we want to bring into our lives. So it was a lot of fun. was a lot of fun. I'm really glad I did it.
It was a huge hit. This is not just me self-promoing, but subtle self-promo, I guess. So yeah, think talking about One Piece from here makes sense since we're throwing the counters out at this point.
Josué Cardona (01:02:06.254)
Cool. So I set you up perfectly. then for that, yeah, got it, got it. Wasn't my intention, but I did want to make sure I addressed that. Because I think it was very relevant to, regardless of how impactful I believe Gundam is, it doesn't play that kind of role. Because it's more of a think about what's happening more than...
Rae (01:02:08.983)
Yeah, a little bit.
Yeah.
Rae (01:02:33.035)
Mm-hmm.
Josué Cardona (01:02:36.364)
what we're gonna talk about next week.
Rae (01:02:37.951)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd be different if Luffy, like instead of having a ship, he had a giant Gundam and like.
Josué Cardona (01:02:46.222)
Also, Luffy is like, I think is the good guy. That's pretty clear.
Rae (01:02:53.279)
Well, I mean, it's not that it's not even that clear in how Oda kind of treats them, but we'll get into that next week for sure.
Josué Cardona (01:03:01.678)
Cool, cool, cool, cool. All right. Well, that's it for this episode of Otaku Ryoho. For more of our show, go to otaku.geektherapy.org or check out network.geektherapy.org or just geektherapy.org. It's all there. Yeah. More podcasts, more information. You can learn more about TAGGS and Rae's presentation, GT certification program, education stuff. It's all there. It's all there.
Thank you for joining us. Remember to geek out at the good and we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Bye.
Rae (01:03:40.12)
Toodles.