I finally got around to watching Gundam Thunderbolt and was fairly underwhelmed. It's definitely one of the darker entries in the franchise and animation quality is superb, but the story, as is the case with virtually every spinoff, just isn't sufficiently compelling or original. Two guys, one who fights to protect his comrades, the other to feel alive, duke it out in a giant dick measuring contest to determine who has the most overpowered mech: the Psycho Zaku or the unfortunately abbreviated Full Armor Gundam. This hackneyed dynamic has already played out several times even within the franchise (Loran vs. Gym Ginghanam, Celestial Being vs. Ali Al Saachez), the only change up is which respective side the pilots belong to. The freestyle jazz soundtrack at least is a break from convention and paired surprisingly well with the visuals.
And somebody, please, tell Sunrise that weightlessness in microgravity doesn't cancel inertia! The Origin suffers from this problem too, I'm tired of watching robots zip around like a kid scribbling lines on a piece of paper.
07-Feb-2017 01:54:30