After watching and enjoying mobile suit Gundam iron-blooded orphans, I decided to turn back the clock and watch Gundam Reconguista in G in fill the void, and it's a choice a regret.
The first 5 episodes push all of my buttons of annoyance literally throwing us in, 'you want a Gundam? Here it is!' The pacing is like going on a safari but instead of a van you're in a roller-coaster, characters and plot points go by so fast and only mentioned once or twice that a large majority of them are over shadowed by other facts and techno-babble.
Speaking of characters it occurred to me by episode 9 that I said to myself 'I don't know anyone's name'. Every character feels like a cardboard cut-out with a one note personality or no personality at all. No one acts like a real person, they all just do stuff and there's no sense of development from anyone. Bellri is the happy go lucky hero, Noredo is the best friend who happens to by a girl and doesn't like it when Bellri looks at other girls and Aida is the stubborn princess. No one is memorable to stand out to me and it feels like they don't give me any reason to remember them.
But without a shadow of a doubt the major issue I have with Reconguista in G is that it plays it to safe. It doesn't feel like there's any danger or threat to our main cast (and I use that term loosely) that when the battles start I'm not interested because I know the outcome. The worse offender of the is the ending credit theme, 'G no Senkou' by Daisuke Hasegawa for those of you who haven't seen it shows all the cast dancing and having fun, smiling and laughing which ruins any sense of drama or seriousness from what we've just seen (episodes 2, 6 and 16 being the worst offenders)
So why did I watch the whole thing? Because I know there are people who do like it and I wanted to see the light in the forest, but from start to finish I couldn't find it. Even without the Gundam title I still wouldn't enjoy this. I gave it my best shot and tried watching it in multiple ways, but for me, I'll stick with 00, iron-blooded orphans, build fighters and even AGE. yes, I like AGE.
