So the new Gundam on Netflix is out and I got mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it's great seeing a Gundam from the other side: a terrifying WMD that has a pilot inside who manually kills entire armies. The action sequences look good. The mobile suits move similarly to how they did in 8th. MS Team.
The bad news is the dialog and human faces. Really wooden and uncanny valley for both. But the thing that has everyone pissed off is the Zeon whitewashing. The series takes place during the original One Year War. The war that started when a bunch of space fascists dropped an entire colony out of space onto Earth and killed millions of people before invading the surface. This is only mentioned towards the end of the series when a Federation soldier brings it up. There isn't a single "Sieg Zeon!" You know, the main slogan of the Zeeks that's meant to shove it in your face they're the space fascists and they're the bad guys. They're an analogy for Imperial Japan and Japan's excuses for terrorizing their neighbors.
There's even more bullshit at the end about the Zeon Remnants (who are "The South Will Rise Again!" of Gundam), but I'm rambling. The point I'm getting to is Erasmus Brosdau directed the series. He previously worked on Star Citizen. So yeah, Star Citizen is now shitting up other projects with its techbro fuckwads because they leave as money dries up instead of staying in their containment zone.
I haven't watched it yet, but I heard that the director did some Warhammer 40k fan film before this, so my full expectation is "Wow! Cool Space Prussians!"
So many UC spinoffs miss out on the interesting bit about Zeon - that they were a colonized people whose anti-Imperial movement got co-opted by monarchists and fascists. There's space for Zeon to be sympathetic, like the Africa arc in ZZ, but I think the 0080 and 0083 OVAs dialing up the Zeon aesthetics = super German/nazi really pushed the gross military otaku obsession with them.
Also - the new show looks like total ass, and I say this as someone who enjoyed MS IGLOO lol
Lord Inquisitor was good, especially since it leaned into Inquisitors are often no more than crooked cops. So I figured Requiem might have a similar tone. LOL nope.
But yeah. Zeon is so on-the-nose Imperial Japan: a country fighting off European colonizers only to become colonizers themselves that carried out some of the worst atrocities in human history. Like you say, though, this has attracted otaku and wehrbs. Bandai isn't going to chase them away because they buy merch.
So the new Gundam on Netflix is out and I got mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it's great seeing a Gundam from the other side: a terrifying WMD that has a pilot inside who manually kills entire armies. The action sequences look good. The mobile suits move similarly to how they did in 8th. MS Team.
The bad news is the dialog and human faces. Really wooden and uncanny valley for both. But the thing that has everyone pissed off is the Zeon whitewashing. The series takes place during the original One Year War. The war that started when a bunch of space fascists dropped an entire colony out of space onto Earth and killed millions of people before invading the surface. This is only mentioned towards the end of the series when a Federation soldier brings it up. There isn't a single "Sieg Zeon!" You know, the main slogan of the Zeeks that's meant to shove it in your face they're the space fascists and they're the bad guys. They're an analogy for Imperial Japan and Japan's excuses for terrorizing their neighbors.
There's even more bullshit at the end about the Zeon Remnants (who are "The South Will Rise Again!" of Gundam), but I'm rambling. The point I'm getting to is Erasmus Brosdau directed the series. He previously worked on Star Citizen. So yeah, Star Citizen is now shitting up other projects with its techbro fuckwads because they leave as money dries up instead of staying in their containment zone.
I haven't watched it yet, but I heard that the director did some Warhammer 40k fan film before this, so my full expectation is
"Wow! Cool Space Prussians!" 
So many UC spinoffs miss out on the interesting bit about Zeon - that they were a colonized people whose anti-Imperial movement got co-opted by monarchists and fascists. There's space for Zeon to be sympathetic, like the Africa arc in ZZ, but I think the 0080 and 0083 OVAs dialing up the Zeon aesthetics = super German/nazi really pushed the gross military otaku obsession with them.
Also - the new show looks like total ass, and I say this as someone who enjoyed MS IGLOO lol
Lord Inquisitor was good, especially since it leaned into Inquisitors are often no more than crooked cops. So I figured Requiem might have a similar tone. LOL nope.
But yeah. Zeon is so on-the-nose Imperial Japan: a country fighting off European colonizers only to become colonizers themselves that carried out some of the worst atrocities in human history. Like you say, though, this has attracted otaku and wehrbs. Bandai isn't going to chase them away because they buy merch.