The Weekly Stuff #429 – Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt & Twilight Axis Reviews & Discussions

The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman

Jonathan shares his rankings of all 13 Star Trek films following an inexplicable completist run through all of them, which Sean mocks him roundly for, and then it’s time to settle all Gundam business by reviewing two ONA (original net animation) series that are the last mainline Gundam titles we’ve yet left un-reviewed. Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt, based on the manga by Yasuo Ohtagaki, aired from 2015 to 2017 and was collected into 2 films, December Sky and Bandit Flower, and it’s a fascinating, frequently rousing production, if also one that’s messy and incomplete. With detailed over-the-top action scored to incredible jazz music by Naruyoshi Kikuchi and a series of faux-pop oldies representing rival protagonists Io Fleming and Daryl Lorenz, Thunderbolt is a synesthetic marvel – but it’s also barreling through 7 volumes of manga in a scant 2.5 hours, and with no new episodes in 5 years, it’s an entirely unfinished project. Twilight Axis, on the other hand, is finished – but it’s very slight, a series of short ONA episodes collected into a 26-minute movie, loosely adapting a series of light novels into an impressionistic-at-best, confusing-and-vestigial-at-worst short film.

Enjoy!

Time Chart:

Intro & Stuff: 0:00:00 – 0:38:39

Gundam Thunderbolt: 0:38:39 – 2:00:26

Gundam Twilight Axis: 2:00:26 – 2:21:51

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The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. Visit www.weeklystuffpodcast.com for a complete archive of streaming and downloadable episodes.