Sunrise is Serious
The GIrl Who Leapt Through Space © Sunrise
The Girl Who Leapt Through Space is Sunrise’s parody of pretty much everything: Gundam, Tenchi Muyo!, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Nanoha, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Gunbuster, even Code Geass. One of the main characters is a talking, neurotic colony laser.
As such, it should be goofy, sugary fun. But Sunrise didn’t do that, for two reasons:
1) To accurately parody franchises like Gundam and Code Geass, you have to parody their sprawling plots. The Girl Who Leapt quickly introduces a large cast, a big back story, and an oft-confusing plot.
2) Sunrise is almost incapable of making a sugary, plot-less show. The only ones I can think of are Gintama and Sgt. Frog, which (from what I’ve seen) spends most of its time on parody. Even their version of Idolm@ster introduced giant robots and a big back story.
Look at Sunrise’s output: Gundam, Votoms, Aura Battler Dunbine, Cowboy Bebop, City Hunter, Heavy Metal L-Gaim, Infinite Ryvius, Ronin Warriors, Escaflowne; all serious shows. Even Cowboy Bebop, Tiger & Bunny, and My-HiME have their serious story sides.
What is it about Sunrise’s staff that pushes them to tell a serious story in almost every one of their works? I’m not complaining; I’m just wondering if this is intentional.
I know this is an old post but Gundam AGE got me thinking about this. I don’t know if this applies to the topic, but I wanted to mention it.
In Gundam series, AU series in particular, people complain about fights being just Gundams shooting their beam rifle and an enemy blows up. Gundam AGE in my opinion steps up on the “Gore” I guess you could say.
Since The cockpit of enemy MS has been relocated to the head enemies have been killed off in some pretty graphic ways, from being disintegrated to being impaled with lances, and even the protagonists’ friends and mentors die in pretty graphic ways(SPOILER: Remi Ruth’s was pretty unsettling).
All of this helps me appreciate what Kira Yamato tries to do in the second half of SEED.
iCards
8 Jun 12 at 12:10 pm