Was Char anti imperialist? I never could sort out the factions' motives and desires in Gundam. It had always seemed to be that the off-worlders represented exploited nations, but that was always an assumption because, again, motives and desires were always incomprehensible
There's the whole Day of Dakkar speech, but Char's motives are always pretty fuzzy.
There's definitely an anti-imperialist faction within Zeon, but the Zabi's had Zeon Deikum (Char's father) assassinated before taking over. A lot of this isn't incredibly present in the original show, but it gets explored through the sequels and various side-materials.
motives and desires were always incomprehensible
Tomino stuff in a nutshell lol
char definitely explicitly says that he's anti earth federation because they exploit the colonies at a few points, but it is definitely fuzzier than it could have been
pretty fucked up to generalize a whole country like that!
even if you're just talking about the anime industry i could point to examples of works that don't view things that way. even within gundam there are examples of prominent liberation movements that don't collapse into fascism! or watch dallos!
It was my bad to do generalization for a whole country like that. There are definitely still some anime out there with a good message. The problem is just like every other medium out there from a capitalist country anime is deeply entrapped in neoliberal realism. Majority of works will have liberation movements collapse into fascism, majority of them will have the message that the current system is good actually and we just need to remove a few bad apples.
If you have good example of a show that went otherwise, share it. Cause they are much harder to find than the typical show from Japan. I haven't watched all the Gundam shows nor am I a fan of it so I don't know if they had any prominent example of a functional liberation movement like you said. So if you can provide an example of that then it would be much appreciated.
#1 anime that has a well done liberation movement is dallos, as mentioned. the gundam that i think has the best fleshed out liberation movement is turn a, though they are presented as very flawed they're still very sympathetic in their resistance to the moonrace occupation
i do agree that it's incredibly uncommon but i don't think it's any less common to find than in say, hollywood. most anime with good politics have to cloak them in metaphor because of the commercial reality of anime production. things like utena dealing with the ways systems of power subsume critique into themselves and how you need to leave the ideological framework set by those in power if you want to meaningfully affect change
CCA but Char's plan is "maybe I could become my own mother
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