Here are the Wiki entries for
Orguss and
Southern Cross. Dunno how familiar you might be with the stories of either. I am
seriously hoping things don't fall through
again for the Orguss DVD release next year. My video tapes are about dead.
Southern Cross I only really know from its adaptation as the Masters cycle in Robotech, which I gather does the usual Carl Macek chop-job on the source material. That was always my least favorite part of Robotech, if only because it seemed to bear so little resemblance to the Macross material (whereas the Invid/Mospeada cycle generally has the same/right "vibe" to it).
Orguss I know very, very little about, other than some vague familiarity with the mecha due to Takatoku's toy line, and having read some wiki stuff before. I'm curious about it, though.
I personally love Macross II -- OVA version, not movie version. What is it about II that you hesitate on? The fact it doesn't involve Studio Nue? The fact that it's set so far after the SDFM/DYRL/Plus/7 events? And I got mentally garbled. I love Zero as an OVA. The game I was thinking of was either VF-X or VO (Valkyrie Overdrive). That was a period of much mental fog for me...
I only saw it once, and I think I saw the film version? It was on VHS back in the late 90s. I forget which US company handled it. I just remember the story not really jiving with hardly anything that came before or after. I gather fans have taken to treating it, much like DYRL, as a "film" that was actually from the "real" continuity of Zero/SDFM/Plus/7/Frontier. I only have dim memories of it, though.
I love VOTOMS. One of my old, defunct online handles was LastRedShoulder. *heh* I love the dips into the surreal. I'm a longtime fan of things that leave me vaguely unsettled and make me think, like The Wall or A Clockwork Orange or Twin Peaks.
Yeah, VOTOMS is great. My point is just that it's not a straight-up mecha show, with robotic armors beating the lubricant out of each other. I actually picked up a trade paperback a year or two ago, on deep, deep discount at some "We're clearing out our stock" sale at a local comic shop, called "Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Sole Survivor." It tells a very, very little bit of backstory on Chirico, prior to the mission where he first encounters Fianna, and then includes basically the first episode of the anime. It wasn't bad. I think it's better to read after seeing the whole thing, because there are some sequences that will make ZERO sense to someone unfamiliar with the material. Like, how a guy can be literally 1' away from Chirico, with a gun pointed at his head, pull the trigger, and still somehow miss.
Oh, and if you're a Twin Peaks fan and from the Salish region, I'm gonna assume you've been to the various shooting locations like the Salish Lodge, Snoqualmie Falls, the Mar-T Diner, etc. Sadly, the "cherry pie" is more like cherry pie material in a bowl, rather than an actual slice of pie. And the interior is nothing like the set they used. But it's still fun.
Arg! Yeah. God save us from crappy translations/voice-work. I'm looking at whoever translated the primary propulsive and offensive systems from Space Battleship Yamato as "ripple engine" and "ripple cannon". I adore Dougram. The story's decent, but the mecha are first-rate.
Oh, I've seen other translations from Yamato that are equally garbled. The worst I've ever seen, though, was an HK sub version of Gundam 0079 that I picked up on ebay in the early 2000s. It referred to Amuro as "Yabao." The rest of the subs were total gibberish. Worse than the "Backstroke of the West" translation of Revenge of the Sith, which is at least funny. Bad subs are pretty hard to deal with.
And I LOVE the Dougram mecha, along with the old Macross mecha, and the other "unseen" mechs from the original Battletech game. Great designs.
Enh. To each their own?
I like your overview/primer, and agree that's a good viewing order... But it also serves to remind me how much I would love to see someone do to Gundam what was done with Space Battleship Yamato: 2199. New, good, consistent animation. Updated character and mecha animation models. And hammer out the inconsistencies to make it a truly epic and consistent story arc. I've always hated the reboot-after-reboot model of Japanese animation. I
like ongoing, even generational stories.
Yeah, the original animation from 0079 is...not amazing, by comparison with modern anime. But then, neither is the original Yamato. The thing I appreciate, though, is how anime evolved over time. Yamato is kind of a good starting point, and by comparison, Gundam 0079 is actually an improvement. And then Macross is an improvement on that, and Gundam Z is an improvement on
that, and so on and so forth. It isn't really until the mid-90s (when you get into the G and V eras) that I find the animation getting kinda dodgy. But then it picks up again with Gundam Wing and Gundam X.
Personally, though, I think folks should get started with Gundam stuff with the original material, if only because future entries will look that much better, but you'll still be able to appreciate the stories. Kinda like going through all the old Doctor Who stuff. If you can get past the wobbly sets and the storytelling techniques that they had to do for the serial nature of the show, the underlying stories are (usually) pretty good. Some are weak, but taken in context, they're pretty strong, much like the original Star Trek episodes. Solid concepts, "cheesy" execution (but at least "fair to middling" FX/props-wise for their time).
All that aside, I'd love to see a really new, full series take on the early Gundam series. Apparently they re-released Gundam Z (with a different ending, too) as 3 films. I haven't seen 'em but I'd bet the animation is pretty good.
